dreams were innocent and agitating, occupied with supernatural terrors,
weighed upon by the imminence of shadowy presentments. He trembled at he
knew not what; in this he was related to the earliest poets of the
world, and in his perpetual recurrence to symbol he recalls the action
of their alarms.

The cardinal importance, then, of Poe as a poet is that he restored to
poetry a primitive faculty of which civilisation seemed successfully to
have deprived her. He rejected the doctrinal expression of positive
things, and he insisted upon mystery and symbol. He endeavoured to
clothe unfathomable thoughts and shadowy images in melody that was like
the wind wandering over the strings of an æolian harp. In other words,
he was the pioneer of a school which has spread its influence to the
confines of the civilised world, and is now revolutionising literature.
He was the discoverer and the founder of Symbolism.

1909.

[Footnote 6: A shocking false quantity; but how little that would matter
to Poe]




THE AUTHOR OF "PELHAM"


One hundred and twenty years have nearly passed since the birth of
Bulwer-Lytton, and he continues to be suspended in a dim and ambiguous
position in the history of our literature. He combined extraordinary