things that at first sight may seem unmarriageable, the Wordsworthian
enthusiasm and the Byronic despair. But of this[4] more when we have
had more of its examples before us. The second piece in the volume
must, or should, have struck--for there is very little evidence that
it did strike--readers of the volume as something at once considerable
and, in no small measure, new. _Mycerinus_, a piece of some 120
lines or so, in thirteen six-line stanzas and a blank-verse
_coda_, is one of those characteristic poems of this century,
which are neither mere "copies of verses," mere occasional pieces, nor
substantive compositions of the old kind, with at least an attempt at
a beginning, middle, and end. They attempt rather situations than
stories, rather facets than complete bodies of thought, or
description, or character. They supply an obvious way of escape for
the Romantic tendency which does not wish to break wholly with
classical tradition; and above all, they admit of indulgence in that
immense _variety_ which seems to have become one of the chief
devices of modern art, attempting the compliances necessary to gratify
modern taste.

The Herodotean anecdote of the Egyptian King Mycerinus, his
indignation at the sentence of death in six years as a recompense for
his just rule, and his device of lengthening his days by revelling all
night, is neither an unpromising nor a wholly promising subject. The
foolish good sense of Mr Toots would probably observe--and
justly--that before six years, or six months, or even six days were
over, King Mycerinus must have got very sleepy; and the philosophic
mind would certainly recall the parallel of Cleobis and Biton as to
the best gift for man. Mr Arnold, however, draws no direct moral. The
stanza-part of the poem, the king's expostulation, contains very fine
poetry, and "the note" rings again throughout it, especially in the