were those glorious rescripts, full of the fiery ease which is the life of such poetry, which Surtees of Mainsforth passed off even upon Scott as genuine; and yet it is so far a copy that it seems hardly well to have gone so far and no further. On this ground Mr. Morris has a firmer tread than the great artist by the light of whose genius and kindly guidance he put forth the firstfruits of his work, as I did afterwards. In his first book the ballad of "Welland River," the Christmas carol in "The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon," and that other, his most beautiful carol, printed with music in a volume of sacred verse, are examples of flawless work in the pure early manner. Any less absolute and decisive revival of mediæval form by inspiration of returning lifeblood and measured breath of life into the exact type and mould of ancient art rouses some sense of failure by excess or default of resemblance. This positive note of the past is not quite caught here, and the note struck is too like it to take its place without discord.
There is a singular force and weight of impression in the "Card-Dealer" which give it a distinct and eminent place among these lesser poems. The sharpness of symbol and solidity of incarnation with which the idea is invested bring it so close to us that the mere type itself assumes as it were a bodily interest over and above its spirit and significance; and the tragic colour and mystic movement of the poem are fitted to the dim splendour and vague ardour of life in it; whether the dealer be fortune or passion or ambition, pleasure or fame or any desire of man's, we see her mistress of the game in that world of shadows and echoes which is hers if ours.
