imitation of the mode originated by the Greek Tragic Writers'. In fact
those hallowed models seem to have left far fewer traces in Barry
Cornwall's verse than the Alexandrian--or pseudo-Alexandrian--
tradition of meretricious graces and coquettish fancies, which the
eighteenth century had already run to death. [Footnote: To adduce an
example--in what is probably not an easily accessible book to-day:
Proserpine, distributing her flowers, thus addresses one of her
nymphs:

For this lily,
Where can it hang but at Cyane's breast!
And yet 'twill wither on so white a bed,
If flowers have sense for envy.]

And, more damnable still, the poetical essence of the legend, the
identification of Proserpine's twofold existence with the grand
alternation of nature's seasons, has been entirely neglected by the
author. Surely his work, though published, is quite as deservedly
obscure as Mrs. Shelley's derelict manuscript. _Midas_ has the
privilege, if it be one, of not challenging any obvious comparison.
The subject, since Lyly's and Dryden's days, has hardly attracted the
attention of the poets. It was so eminently fit for the lighter kinds
of presentation that the agile bibliographer who aimed at completeness
would have to go through a fairly long list of masques, [Footnote:
There is one by poor Christopher Smart.] comic operas, or 'burlettas',
all dealing with the ludicrous misfortunes of the Phrygian king. But
an examination of these would be sheer pedantry in this place. Here
again Mrs. Shelley has stuck to her Latin source as closely as she
could. [Footnote: Perhaps her somewhat wearying second act, on the
effects of the gold-transmuting gift, would have been shorter, if Ovid