however, has a great deal of merit, and may be read with some true pleasure. He had a capacity for poetry, as

scriptions of scenes are not always as good as in Hereward's ride round the Fens, or when the tall, Spanish galleon staggers from

been imperfect. His ear was correct, and he

rest in the sea. Perhaps only a poet could have written that prose; it is certain no

p. 156.

spirations that catch the ear and linger long about the memory:-as witness the notes that are audible in the opening verses of "The Sands of Dee," the "pleasant Isle of Avès" of "The Last Buccaneer," and the whole first stanza of the song of the Old Schoolmistress in "The Water-Babies.” But as it is with his music, so is it with his craftmanship as well. He would begin brilliantly and suggestively and end feebly and ill, so that of perfect work he has left little or none. It is also to be noted of him that

his originality was decidedly eclectic-an originality informed with many memories and showing sign of many influences; and that his work, even when its purpose is most dramatic, is always very personal, and has always a strong dash in it of the sentimental manliness, the combination of muscularity and morality, peculiar to its author. For the rest, Kingsley had imagination, feeling, some insight, a great affection for man and nature, a true interest in things as they were and are and ought to be above all, as they ought to be! --and a genuine vein of lyric song.-HENLEY, WILLIAM ERNEST, 1880, The English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. IV, p. 608.

Simple, brave, resolute, manly, a little given to "robustiousness," Kingsley transfigured all these qualities by possessing the soul and the heart of a poet. He was not a very great poet indeed, but a true poetone of the very small band who are cut off, by a gulf that can never be passed, from mere writers of verse, however clever, educated, melodious, ingenious, amiable, and refined. He had the real spark of fire, the true note; though the spark might seldom break into flame, and the note was not always clear. Never let us confuse true poets with writers of verse, still less with writers of "poetic prose." Kingsley wrote a great deal of that perhaps too much: his de

His

Kingsley was, above all things, a worker, a worker with a keen moral consciousness, and a worker who sang at his work. could never have been a life of mere æsthetic production. His best poems are those that he put forth, rhymeless and metreless, as stories; and these are instinct with the desire to promote nobility of conduct and character.-GROSER, HORACE G., 1892, The Poets and the Poetry of the Century, Kingsley to Thomson, ed. Miles, p. 2.

If Kingsley, with all his literary gifts, was never quite in the first rank in anything, he came nearest to being a poet of

mark. Some of his ballads almost touch the high-water mark of true ballad poetry, with its abrupt fierce blows of tragedy and pathos, its simple touches of primitive rude speech, its reserve of force, its unspoken mysteries. mysteries. At any rate, Kingsley's best ballads have no superior in the ballads of the Victorian era in lilt, in massiveness of stroke, in strange unexpected turns. "The Weird Lady" is an astonishing piece for a lad of twenty-one.-HARRISON, FREDERIC, 1895, Studies in Early Victorian Literature, p. 166.

Kingsley was one of those darlings-perhaps the rarest-of the Muses to whom they grant the gift not only of doing a little poetry exquisitely, but the further gift of abstaining from doing anything ill; and he seems to have recognised almost at once that "the other harmony," that of prose, was the one meant for him to do his day's work in.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1896, A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 326.

GENERAL

The intensity of Mr. Kingsley's genius always secures to his productions a certain singleness of impression. The most heterogeneous materials, put into the crucible of his thoughts and brought to its white heat, flow down in the forms perfectly characteristic and distinct. The unity,

however, is simply that of his own personality, meeting us again and again;-a phenomenon, let us say, ever delightful to us, and rich in whatever it is best to love and admire; but needing for its full power more elaboration of matter and harmony of plan than he exacts from himself.-MARTINEAU, JAMES, 1854, Alexandria and her Schools, Essays Philosophical and Theological, vol. II, p. 293.

In Mr. Kingsley's volumes the emotions play, we suspect, rather too important a part; yet their prevalence, attuned, as they always are, to nobleness and valor, spreads a general healthfulness around. To read his works, is like travelling in a pleasant hilly country, where the fresh hearty breeze brings you the strength of the mountains, and the clear atmosphere shows you every line, and curve, and streamer, of the clouds that race the wind. You may be compelled to remark that the cornfields are not so heavy as in the rich plain, that perhaps the poppy and the corn-flower, beautiful to the eye, but light on the granaryfloor, are somewhat too abundant, and that there is an ample allowance of gay copse, and heath, and fern. But you feel that, at least, there is no miasma, that there is no haze, such as floats suspiciously over the rich, moist meadow, that you are in a land of freshness, freedom, health.-BAYNE, PETER, 1858, Essays in Biography and Criticism, Second Series, p. 11.

Whatever objections may be taken to his method, and whatever may be thought of his success, there can be no mistake as to his intention. His very rhetoric is surcharged, to the extent of a vehement mannerism, with the phrases of his Theology; and there is not one of his novels that has not the power of Christianity for its theme. MASSON, DAVID, 1859, British Novelists and Their Styles, p. 280.

He reminds of nothing so much as of a war-horse panting for the battle; his usual style is marvellously like a neigh,-a "ha! ha! among the trumpets!" the dust of the combat is to him the breath of life; and when once, in the plenitude of grace and faith, fairly let loose upon his prey-human, moral, or material-all the Red Indian within him comes to the surface, and he wields his tomahawk with an unbaptized heartiness, slightly heathenish, no doubt, but withal unspeakably refreshing.

It is

amazing how hard one who is a gladiator by nature strikes when convinced that he is doing God service.-GREG, WILLIAM RATHBONE, 1860–73, Kingsley and Carlyle, Literary and Social Judgments, p. 117.

Men of far greater intellect have made their presence less strongly felt, and imprinted their image much less clearly on the minds of their contemporaries. He is an example of how much may be done by energetic temper, fearless faith in self, an absence of all sense of the ridiculous, a passionate sympathy, and a wealth of halfpoetic descriptive power. If ever we have a woman's parliament in England, Charles Kingsley ought to be its chaplain; for I know of no clever man whose mind and temper more aptly illustrate the illogical impulsiveness, the rapid emotional changes, the generous, often wrong-headed vehemence, the copious flow of fervid words, the vivid freshness of description without analysis, and the various other peculiarities which, justly or unjustly, the world has generally agreed to regard as the special characteristics of woman. MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1872, The Reverend Charles Kingsley, Modern Leaders, p. 221.

We cannot help regarding these letters and speeches of 1848-56 as a manly effort for order at a time when so many influences threatened instability and revolution in our country. There is much in them that may even now be found useful in reference to the question of bringing working-men into churches, and making them sober and loyal. Kingsley's words must have frequently acted as a corrective to the wild and feverish tirades of trades' leaders. In not a few respects, indeed, the direction which sanitary improvement, as well as wise philanthropical and political effort is taking now, may be regarded as a confirmation of much that Charles Kingsley said in these Reform Speeches and Letters. It is because we owe him such a deep debt of gratitude for pleasure, and for many wise and cheerful words, that we have taken it upon us to try to show that his "Chartism," which was the outcome of practical sympathy, rather than a reasoned political scheme, in any respect, was not of quite such a mad and dangerous sort as has often been asserted.-JAPP, ALEXANDER H., (H. A. PAGE), 1876, Charles Kingsley's Chartism, Good Words, vol. 17, p. 416.

Enthusiasm for Kingsley as a novelist is hardly ever found uncombined with enthusiasm for him as a theologian, a politician, and a social reformer; nor would Kingsley have valued even the most ardent appreciation of the body of his work unaccompanied by sympathy with its indwelling soul.-NOBLE, JAMES ASHCROFT, 1886. Morality in English Fiction, p. 44.

The minor prophets were many, but Charles Kingsley was the foremost among them.-BESANT, SIR WALTER, 1887, Books which Have Influenced Me, p. 23.

Of Kingsley more than of any other contemporary writer, it may be said that his works, in one way or another, are always the reflection of himself. He writes invariably from within, outwards. In what Goethe defines as true dramatic power-the power which is possessed by some men of putting themselves in the place of characters with whom they have nothing in common-"Wilhelm Meister" himself was not more deficient. Such of his creations, as are anything but painted, though often vividly painted, shadows, owe their life to the fact that they enshrine some portion of their creator's varied personality. . . . The "Wizard of the North" never makes himself visible amongst the scenes and persons he has conjured up; but the presence of Charles Kingsley, whether under the guise of philosopher, Viking, muscular Christian, gentleman adventurer, or at least as himself acting the part of chorus, can never for a moment be forgotten.-MALLOCK, MISS M. M., 1890, Charles Kingsley, Dublin Review, vol. 107, p. 13.

In the beginning of 1864 Kingsley had an unfortunate controversy with John Henry Newman. He had asserted in a review of Mr. Froude's "History" in "Macmillan's Magazine" for January 1860 that "Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman catholic clergy, and attributed this opinon to Newman in particular. Upon Newman's protest, a correspondence followed, which was published by Newman (dated 31 Jan. 1864), with a brief, but cutting, comment. Kingsley replied in a pamphlet called “What, then, does Dr. Newman mean?" which produced Newman's famous "Apologia." Kingsley was clearly both rash in his first statement and unsatisfactory in the apology which he published in "Macmillan's Maga

zine" (this is given in the correspondence). That Newman triumphantly vindicated his personal character is also beyond doubt. The best that can be said for Kingsley is that he was aiming at a real blot on the philosophical system of his opponent; but, if so, it must also be allowed that he contrived to confuse the issue, and by obvious misunderstandings to give a complete victory to a powerful antagonist. With all his merits as an imaginative writer, Kingsley never showed any genuine dialectical ability --STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1892, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXXI, p. 178.

To put it plainly, I cannot like Charles Kingsley. Those who have had opportunity to study the deportment of a certain class of Anglican divines at a foreign table d'hôte may perhaps understand the antipathy. There was almost always a certain sleek offensiveness about Charles Kingsley when he sat down to write. He had knack of using the most insolent language, and attributing the vilest motives to all poor foreigners and Roman Catholics and other extra-parochial folk, and would exhibit a pained and completely ludicrous surprise on finding that he had hurt the feelings of these unhappy inferiors-a kind of indignant wonder that Providence should have given them any feelings to hurt. At length, encouraged by popular applause, this very second-rate man attacked a very first-rate man. He attacked with every advantage and with utter unscrupulousness; and the first-rate man handled him; handled him gently, scrupulously, decisively; returned him to his parish; and left him there, a trifle dazed, feeling his muscles. QUILLER-COUCH, A. T., 1895, Adventures in Criticism, p. 139.

The merits of Kingsley as a writer, and especially as a writer of fiction, are so vivid, so various, and so unquestionable by any sound and dispassionate criticism, that while cynics may almost wonder at his immediate and lasting popularity with readers, serious judges may feel real surprise at his occasional disrepute with critics. The reasons of this latter, however, are not really very hard to find. He was himself a passionate partisan, and exceedingly heedless as to the when, where, and how of obtruding his partisanship. He had that unlucky foible of inaccuracy in fact which sometimes, though by no means always,