ness which is not passion, in the solid and sublime philosophy which underlies his utterance. But the Muse is imperious, and will not brook too close restraint. A little rigidity, a suspicion of coldness, a lack of that glorious spontaneity which brings the world down to a poet's feet—such is the penalty for reining in the bright spirit! May it not be, after all, that de Vere put too much conscience into his poetry; or that he put it too patently and insistently? For there is a wisdom of fools—and alas! a folly of the wise—not solely in the spiritual life.
It has frequently been proclaimed that the writing of even inferior verse is the best possible recipe for such a good prose style as may be acquired. We find in the poet's use of prose not only the habitual delicacy and picturesqueness we should have foreseen, but also a notable precision and sense of proportion—as though the use of wings had taught all the possible graces of walking. It was thus with Aubrey de Vere—in the many essays he contributed to the Reviews, in his memories of friends like Tennyson, in his voluminous correspondence, in his Reminiscences, and the other prose volumes that make prouder, as Landor said his verse did, "his proud name." We do not claim for him the distinction, and music, and vitality of unforgettable prose; but at least this—that his intellectual breadth and seriousness, his poetic sensibility and critical acumen, coupled with his good English and that gracious versatility which one thinks of as Irish (when one knows it is not French) render Aubrey de Vere worthy of a throne among the scribes of the island Israel.
During the same years of the nineteenth century, English-speaking Catholics possessed three vastly different apologists. They were all converts: John Henry Newman, Isaac Hecker and Aubrey de
