becoming morbid, strained, unnatural. And in the hands of smaller men, it would rapidly show traces of this. But here, in the Lyra, it is still fresh and clean; and the men themselves who are under its austere fascination are so abounding in vitality, and so rich in personal distinction, and so abhorrent of anything pedantic or conventional, that the record of it cannot but brace us into wholesome alarm.’
[II. From the Rev. H. C. Beeching’s Critical Note.]
‘Of the one hundred and seventy-nine pieces in the collected volume [Lyra Apostolica] (and all but two of those published in The British Magazine were reprinted), Newman wrote one hundred and nine, Keble forty-six, Isaac Williams nine, Hurrell Froude eight, J. W. Bowden six, and R. I. Wilberforce one. To speak of the lesser contributions first. Robert Wilberforce’s single contribution is not particularly happy…. Mr. Bowden’s poems are not so infelicitous in substance, but they leave much to desire in other ways…. The contributions of Isaac Williams consist of a few translations and critical sonnets. Altogether of a higher stamp are the poems by Hurrell Froude. No one could accuse that fiery spirit of being commonplace; and perhaps because verse composition in English was not a constant exercise with him, the few poems he wrote for the Lyra have a free grace, as well as a lyric intensity that removes them from the rank of the ordinary imitations of Keble. In XXXVI. [“Weakness of Nature”] he strikes a note that recalls Blake:
‘“Sackcloth is a girdle good:
O bind it round thee still!
Fasting, it is Angels’ food;
And Jesus loved the night-air chill.”
‘In the “Dialogue between the Old and New Self” (LXXIX.), he is an apt pupil of Andrew Marvell.
‘“New Self.
Why sittest thou on that sea-girt rock,