Browning, or to the deep-thoughted and
splendid, but often perplexing and ruggedly phrased, dramatic and
lyric utterances of her husband. All three have honoured themselves
and their country by a majestic purity of moral and religious
teaching--an excellence shared by many of their contemporaries, whose
powers would have won them a first place in an age and country less
fruitful of genius; but not so conspicuous in some younger poets,
later heirs of fame, whose lot it may be to carry on the traditions
of Victorian greatness into another reign.
There are not a few writers of our day whose excellent prose work has
won more of popular favour than their verse, which notwithstanding is
of high quality. Such was the "unsubduable old Roman," Walter Savage
Landor, a contemporary of Byron and Wordsworth, who long outlived
them, dying in 1864. Such--to bring two extremes together--are the
critic and poet Matthew Arnold, the poet and theologian John Henry
Newman. Intimately associated in our thought with the latter, who has
enriched our devotional poetry with one touching hymn, is Keble, the
singer _par excellence_ of the "Catholic revival," and the most
widely successful religious poet of the age, though only very few of
his hymns have reached the heart of the people like the far more
direct and fervent work of the Wesleys and their compeers.
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