head of his Lazarus. He had no fault of theory: what fault of theory can
a man commit who stands, as he did, by "Nature and the Greeks"? In
theory he soon outgrew the Italians then most admired; he had an honest
mind.

But nothing was able to gain for him the pardon that is never to be
gained, the impossible pardon--pardon for that first and last mistake--the
mistake as to his own powers. If to pardon means to dispense from
consequence, how should this be pardoned? Art would cease to be itself,
by such an amnesty.




A NORTHERN FANCY


"I remember," said Dryden, writing to Dennis, "I remember poor Nat Lee,
who was then upon the verge of madness, yet made a sober and witty answer
to a bad poet who told him, 'It was an easy thing to write like a
madman.' 'No,' said he, ''tis a very difficult thing to write like a
madman, but 'tis a very easy thing to write like a fool.'" Nevertheless,
the difficult song of distraction is to be heard, a light high note, in
English poetry throughout two centuries at least, and one English poet
lately set that untethered lyric, the mad maid's song, flying again.

A revolt against the oppression of the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries--the age of the re-discovery of death; against the
crime of tragedies; against the tyranny of Italian example that had made
the poets walk in one way of love, scorn, constancy, inconstancy--may