seems to us rather a scholar than a poet, and we should like
to see him giving his unusual talent more to direct
translation from the Provencal.

and Mr. J. C. Squire (now the literary editor of the _New
Statesman_), in an appreciative review in the _New Age_, had
counselled the poet that he would

gain and not lose if he could forget all about the poets of
Dante's day, their roses and their flames, their gold and
their falcons, and their literary amorousness, and walk out
of the library into the fresh air.

In "Ripostes" there are traces of a different idiom.
Superficially, the work may appear less important. The diction
is more restrained, the flights shorter, the dexterity of
technique is less arresting. By romantic readers the book would
be considered less "passionate." But there is a much more solid
substratum to this book; there is more thought; greater depth,
if less agitation on the surface. The effect of London is
apparent; the author has become a critic of men, surveying them
from a consistent and developed point of view; he is more
formidable and disconcerting; in short, much more mature.
That he abandons nothing of his technical skill is evident from
the translation from the Anglo-Saxon, the "Seafarer." It is
not a slight achievement to have brought to life alliterative
verse: perhaps the "Seafarer" is the only successful piece of
alliterative verse ever written in modern English; alliterative
verse which is not merely a clever tour de force, but which
suggests the possibility of a new development of this form. Mr.