Algernon Charles Swinburne

With Bothwell (1874) he returned to drama and the story of Mary Stuart. The play has fine scenes and is burning with poetry, but its length transcends all possibilities of harmonious unity. Erechtheus (1876) was a return to the Greek inspiration of Atalanta; and then in the second series of Poems and Ballads (1878) the French influence is seen to be at work, and Victor Hugo begins to hold alone the place possessed, at different times, by Baudelaire and Mazzini. At this time Swinburne's energy was at fever height ; in 1879 he published his eloquent Study of Shakespeare and Poems and Ballads (second series) and in 188o no fewer than three volumes, The Modern Heptalogia, a brilliant anonymous essay in parody, Songs of the Springtides, and Studies in Song. It was shortly after this date that Swinburne's friendship for Theodore Watts-Dunton (then Theodore Watts) grew into one of brotherly intimacy. After 188o Swinburne's life remained without disturbing event, devoted entirely to the pursuit of litera ture in peace and leisure.

The conclusion of the Elizabethan trilogy, Mary Stuart, was published in 1881, and in the following year Tristram of Lyonesse, a wonderfully individual contribution to the modern treatment of the Arthurian legend, in which the heroic couplet is made to assume opulent, romantic cadences of which it had hitherto seemed incapable. Among the publications of the next few years must be mentioned A Century of Roundells, 1883 ; A Midsummer Holiday, 1884; and Miscellanies, 1886. The current of his poetry, indeed, continued unchecked; and though it would be vain to pretend that he added greatly either to the range of his subjects or to the fecundity of his versification, it is at least true that his melody was unbroken, and his resplendent torrent of words in exhaustible. His Marino Faliero (1885) and Locrine (1887) have passages of power and intensity unsurpassed in any of his earlier work, and the rich metrical effects of Astrophel (1894) and The Tale of Balin (1896) are inferior in music and range to none but his own masterpieces. In 1899 appeared his Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards; in 1908 his Duke of Gandia; and in 1904 was be gun the publication of a collected edition of his poems and dramas in 11 volumes.

Later Years.

Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1879 the state of his health seriously alarmed his friends, and, with the consent of Lady Jane Swinburne, Watts-Dunton took him to live at his house, The Pines, Putney, where the last 3o years of his life were spent in complete retirement. He very rarely made the short journey into London, although his health was gradually restored. The friends visited Paris in 1882. In 1888 a flash of his old ex citability involved him in a quarrel with Whistler.

Besides this wealth of poetry, Swinburne was active as a critic, and several volumes of fine impassioned prose testify to the variety and fluctuation of his literary allegiances. His Note on Charlotte Bronte (1877) must be read by every student of its subject; the Study of Shakespeare (i88o)—followed in 19o9 by The Age of Shakespeare—is full of vigorous and arresting thought, and many of his scattered essays are rich in suggestion and ap preciation. His studies of Elizabethan literature are, indeed, full

of "the noble tribute of praise," and no contemporary critic did so much to revive an interest in that wonderful period of dramatic recrudescence, the side-issues of which have been generally some what obscured by the pervading and dominating genius of Shake speare. His prose work also includes an early novel in the form of letters, Love's Cross-currents, which had appeared serially in the Tatler and was revised for publication in 1905.

Place in Literature.

The service which Swinburne rendered to the English language as a vehicle for lyrical effect is simply incalculable. He revolutionized the entire scheme of English prosody. Nor was his singular vogue due only to this extraordi nary metrical ingenuity. The effect of his artistic personality was in itself intoxicating, even delirious. He was the poet of youth insurgent against all the restraints of conventionality and custom. The young lover of poetry, when first he encounters Swinburne's influence, is almost bound to be swept away by it ; the wild, extrav agant license, the apparent sincerity, the vigour and the verve, cry directly to the aspirations of youth like a clarion in the wilder ness. But, while this is inevitable, it is also true that the critical lover of poetry outgrows an unquestioning allegiance to the Swinburnian mood more quickly than any other of the diverse emotions aroused by the study of the great poets. It is impossible to acquit his poetry entirely of the charge of an animalism which wars against the higher issues of the spirit—an animalism some times of love, sometimes of hatred, but, in both extremes, out of centre and harmony.

Yet, when everything has been said that can be said against the unaesthetic violences of the poet's excesses, his service to con temporary poetry outweighed all disadvantages. No one did more to free English literature from the shackles of formalism ; no one, among his contemporaries, pursued the poetic calling with so sin cere and resplendent an allegiance to the claims of absolute and un adulterated poetry. Some English poets have turned preachers; others have been seduced by the attractions of philosophy; but Swinburne always remained an artist absorbed in a lyrical ecstasy, a singer and not a seer. His personality was among the most potent of his time, and his artistic influence was both inspiring and beneficent. He died at Putney on April io, 1909.

See R. H. Shepherd, The Bibliography of Swinburne (1889) ; Theo dore Wratislaw, Algernon Charles Swinburne, a Study (19oo) ; G. E.

Woodberry, Swinburne (19°5) ; Edmund Gosse, article in Diet. Nat.

Biog., 2nd supp., 1901-11; Edward Thomas, Algernon Charles Swin burne, a Critical Study (1912) ; John Drinkwater, Swinburne, an Estimate (1913) ; Clara J. Watts-Dunton, The Home Life of Swin burne (1922) ; J. V. Nash, The Religious Life of Swinburne (1923) ; Paul Dottin, Swinburne et les dieux (1925) ; J. W. Mackail, Studies of English Poets (1926) ; H. Nicolson, Swinburne (English Men of Letters Series, 1926) ; G. Lafourcade, La jeunesse de Swinburne, 1837-67 (1928) ; S. C. Chew, Swinburne (1929). (E. G. ; X.)