all its admirable qualities, the Elegy is a little, not a great, masterpiece, and Gray only a little master, not in the class of Shakespeare and Chaucer and Burns. He was too much lacking in temperament, in vital energy, to give that high degree of intensity needed for really great poetry; and this Arnold himself unconsciously recognizes when he uses, as the refrain of his sympathetic essay on Gray, the words, "He never spoke out."

This consideration of Gray suggests a clue to some other puzzling judgments in current criticism. When one returns to the poetry of Landor, and notes the exquisite truth of his observation, the charm of his imagination, the classical beauty of his form, one is often tempted to claim for him a place almost with the greatest masters. Yet he remains in the background, more ignored by the general reader, except for a few pieces in the anthologies, than any man near him in rank. And reflection shows that this is not without cause. In spite of the fieriness of Landor's temper in social relations, of the almost tremendous intensity of his pride, his scorn, his courage, and his sensitiveness as a man, he somehow fails to project this intensity into his writings. It is there at times in a high degree, as in Rose Aylmer; it is there usually in some degree; but in the great mass of his work it appears in only a comparatively low degree, with a resultant weakness in the hold which it takes upon the reader. He is often coldly beautiful; he forces us to admire his clear images, his noble and delicate cadences; only occasionally does he kindle us to exhilaration, almost never does he reach the white heat of ecstasy. Even his beautiful Hellenics have the limitation that leads Symons to compare them to exquisite reliefs, not to statues in the round.

VI

In conclusion, we may note shortly the connection between intensity and rhythm. The tendency of human speech under the influence of high emotion to fall into rhythmical cadence has been often remarked, and students of the origin of metre have not failed to take account of this tendency as bearing on their problem. On the other side, every reader can bear witness to the effect of rhythm in reinforcing the moving effect of the content of literature. Here, as in the earlier part of the present discussion, then, it seems unnecessary to treat separately the two points of view of writer and reader, since in the matter of feeling in poetry the difference is usually in degree rather than in kind. Certainly it seems true of both, that, in the expression of poetic ideas, metre is an intensifying medium of the highest importance.

Its effect is most obvious in the cases where it is simply imitative of the sound or the action described by the words; and here it may almost equal the words in its share in producing the impression. In such a poem as that of Browning's beginning,

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three

we come close to the actual reproduction of the sound, and really reach the reproduction of the tempo. The degree to which we enter into the spirit of this wild ride is clearly due in great measure to this all but actual hearing of the clatter of hoofs. Only slightly less selfevident are the cases where the effect of the rhythm is suggestive rather than imitative; and there are many cases where the line between these is hard to draw. This is so in Tennyson's Bugle Song:

The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory;
Blow bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

The imitative element here is, of course, not confined to the metre; the choice and arrangement of the sounds, both vowels and consonants, coöperate powerfully: but in addition to the imitative value, the rhythm suggests a variety of sensuous impressions besides those of sound and motion. The power of rhythm extends, too, beyond the evoking of sensuous imagery and has the capacity of suggesting moods. The extraordinary placidity of Crossing the Bar is to a large extent due to the fine agreement of rhythm and idea, though there is little direct imitation; and Tennyson's work everywhere abounds with illustrations of the same device.

But the function of metre as a means of raising the pitch of intensity in a poem is not limited to these well-recognized methods of imitation and suggestion. It has a further power, exercised at times in almost complete detachment from the particular ideas of the poem, by which it prepares the way for the effect to be produced by the substance of the poem and by the other elements of form, through inducing a general excitement that results in a high state of receptiveness to emotional suggestion. It performs psychologically a function comparable to the exhilarating effect of marching in concert with others, quickening the circulation, and increasing the responsiveness of the sensitive centres.

Of all the elements and devices of poetry, rhythm is that which appeals most forcibly and immediately to the crowd, for the same reason that, of all kinds of music, melody with well-marked rhythm is surest of popularity. There is a point, indeed, where it is difficult to distinguish the pleasures derived from verse and music respectively. Listen to the sound here:

Go button your boots with a tiger's tail,
Comb down your golden hair;
And live for a week upon bubble-and-squeak
On the steps of a winding stair.

This is sheer nonsense, but it is not without emotional effect: as art, I suppose it is on about the same level as the rhythmical beating of a drum. The emotional condition produced by sheer rhythm like this is vague, and in a real poem receives direction from the substance.