poetaster when he wrote "poet," or to that of a poet when he wrote
"poetaster," is of no matter.

Rather than justify the things I have ventured to affirm as to
Swinburne's little intellect, and paltry degree of sincerity, and
rachitic passion, and tumid fancy--judgement-confounding things to
predicate of a poet--I turn to the happier task of praise. A vivid
writer of English was he, and would have been one of the recurring
renewers of our often-renewed and incomparable language, had his words
not become habitual to himself, so that they quickly lost the light, the
breeze, the breath; one whose fondness for beauty deserved the serious
name of love; one whom beauty at times favoured and filled so visibly, by
such obvious visits and possessions, favours so manifest, that inevitably
we forget we are speaking fictions and allegories, and imagine her a
visiting power exterior to her poet; a man, moreover, of a less, not
more, than manly receptiveness and appreciation, so that he was entirely
and easily possessed by admirations. Less than manly we must call his
extraordinary recklessness of appreciation; it is, as it were, ideally
feminine; it is possible, however, that no woman has yet been capable of
so entire an emotional impulse and impetus; more than manly it might have
been but for the lack of a responsible intellect in that impulse; had it
possessed such an intellectual sanction, Swinburne's admiration of Victor
Hugo, Mazzini, Dickens, Baudelaire, and Theophile Gautier might have
added one to the great generosities of the world.

We are inclined to complain of such an objection to Swinburne's poetry as
was prevalent at his earlier appearance and may be found in criticisms of
the time, before the later fashion of praise set in--the obvious
objection that it was as indigent in thought as affluent in words; for,
though a truth, it is an inadequate truth. It might be affirmed of many