of so noble a genius; thus perverse Nature has decided that it shall be,
Nature which makes no ruby without a flaw.

The name of Mr. Robert Bridges is probably strange to many lovers of
poetry who would like nothing better than to make acquaintance with his
verse. But his verse is not so easily found. This poet never writes in
magazines; his books have not appealed to the public by any sort of
advertisement, only two or three of them have come forth in the regular
way. The first was "Poems, by Robert Bridges, Batchelor of Arts in the
University of Oxford. _Parva seges satis est_. London: Pickering,
1873."

This volume was presently, I fancy, withdrawn, and the author has
distributed some portions of it in succeeding pamphlets, or in books
printed at Mr. Daniel's private press in Oxford. In these, as in all Mr.
Bridges's poems, there is a certain austere and indifferent beauty of
diction and a memory of the old English poets, Milton and the earlier
lyrists. I remember being greatly pleased with the "Elegy on a Lady whom
Grief for the Death of Her Betrothed Killed."

"Let the priests go before, arrayed in white,
And let the dark-stoled minstrels follow slow
Next they that bear her, honoured on this night,
And then the maidens in a double row,
Each singing soft and low,
And each on high a torch upstaying:
Unto her lover lead her forth with light,
With music and with singing, and with praying."

This is a stately stanza.