We know that they never drove a-field and had no flocks to batten; and
though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the
true meaning is so uncertain and remote that it is never sought, because
it cannot be known when it is found.

"Among the flocks and copses and flowers appear the heathen deities:
Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and Aeolus, with a long train of mythological
imagery such as a college easily supplies. Nothing can less display
knowledge or less exercise invention than to tell how a shepherd has
lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone, without any
judge of his skill in piping; how one god asks another god what has
become of Lycidas, and neither god can tell. He who thus grieves will
excite no sympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour."

This is of course utterly outrageous, and yet much of it is undeniably
true. To explain why, in spite of truth, _Lycidas_ is a wonderful poem,
would be to go pretty deeply into the theory of poetic expression. Most
critics prefer simply to shriek, being at any rate safe from the errors
of independent judgment.

The general effect of the book, however, is not to be inferred from this
or some other passages of antiquated and eccentric criticism. It is the
shrewd sense everywhere cropping up which is really delightful. The keen
remarks upon life and character, though, perhaps, rather too severe in
tone, are worthy of a vigorous mind, stored with much experience of many
classes, and braced by constant exercise in the conversational arena.
Passages everywhere abound which, though a little more formal in
expression, have the forcible touch of his best conversational sallies.
Some of the prejudices, which are expressed more pithily in _Boswell_,
are defended by a reasoned exposition in the _Lives_. Sentence is passed