guage, in which obvious rhythms are more easily appreciated than subtler melodies; but even so, such a judgement shakes one's confidence in a critic. "Sabrina fair," for example, has "skill and virtuosity" far beyond the compass of Swinburne—not to mention thousands of other instances which swarm into one's mind. There is, however, one interesting fact in the essay on Swinburne, namely that, in the house of Karl Blind:
"Swinburne, soon after the publication of 'Poems and Ballads,' met for the first time Giuseppe Mazzini, who exacted from him a promise not to write any more erotic verse, but to dedicate his muse to the cause of liberty."
As long as he was allowed to drink to excess, he kept this promise; but when Watts-Dunton had made him sober, he took to praising British imperialism and attacking the Boers. Moralists have much to answer for.
The first essay in the volume was written in 1869, the last in 1915. This period is so long that little unity can be expected. The last essay is on Napoleon, and is written under the influence of the war. There is nothing in it that throws any new light on the subject, and one cannot help wondering why it was written. There are interesting facts about Napoleon: that Josephine's poodle bit him in the calf on their wedding-night as he was getting into bed; that he lost Genoa because the funds for its relief had been diverted by the War Minister to the payment of Josephine's milliner; that after the divorce he wrote to Josephine demanding that she should sympathize with his loneliness—and so on and so on. But the full-dress historical facts have lost their power to interest us, through familiarity; moreover the trail of rhetoric is over them all, in spite of the accident that they really happened. Psychologically, Napoleon is worthy of study because of the contrast between his amazing intelligence and his commonplace and vulgar temperament. Alexander and Caesar could say things worthy of great conquerors; Napoleon could never rise above bombast. But Brandes, for some reason, admires him, and attempts to defend him against the usual charges.
The most interesting essay in the book is the one on Ibsen. We are given to understand that from the Reformation till 1870 Scan-
