difference in kind. This, in the sublime language of the 'Phædrus,' is that 'possession and ecstasy with which the Muses seize on a plastic and pure soul, awakening it and hurrying it forth like a Bacchanal in the ways of song.' A sensitiveness unexperienced by lesser men exalts every feeling to a range beyond ordinary sympathies. Friendship blazes into passion. The furnace of love is seven times heated. An imperious instinct demands that Beauty and the adoration of Beauty shall, somehow, spite of human faults and faithlessness, and the grave itself, secure the 'eternity promised by our ever-living poet.'"
No critical estimate of Mr. Thomson's place in English literature can be attempted here: for I have neither the right nor the ability to make such an estimate. A poet should be judged by his peers: and I have often felt no small degree of indignation when I have read a review by some anonymous or obscure scribbler, who, all unconscious of his own intellectual deficiencies, has presumed to lecture Mr. Browning or Mr. Swinburne in the style adopted by a pedagogue towards a dull scholar. But I will not deny myself the pleasure of quoting some words relating to Thomson from the pen of the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth, a gentleman whose knowledge of our old poetical literature is certainly unsurpassed, even if it is not unequalled: and who, if he had not devoted himself to the labour of bringing to light the works of others, must have made a reputation as a poet for himself. He says:—"Of his genius, true and strong, there can be no question whatever among competent judges. If we except Browning, there is no poet living who can be considered as his
