Mr. Dobson has produced work that is absolutely classical in its exquisite beauty of form. Nothing more artistically perfect in its way than the Lines to a Greek Girl has been written in our time. This little poem will be remembered in literature as long as Thyrsis is remembered, and Thyrsis will never be forgotten. Both have that note of distinction that is so rare in these days of violence, exaggeration and
rhetoric. Of course, to suggest, as Mr. Matthews does, that Mr. Dobson’s poems belong to ‘the literature of power’ is ridiculous. Power is not their aim, nor is it their effect. They have other qualities, and in their own delicately limited sphere they have no contemporary rivals; they have none even second to them.
The heroine is a sort of well-worn Becky Sharp, only much more beautiful than Becky, or at least than Thackeray’s portraits of her, which, however, have always seemed to me rather ill-natured. I feel sure that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was extremely pretty, and I have never understood how it was that Thackeray could caricature with his pencil so fascinating a creation of his pen.
A critic recently remarked of Adam Lindsay Gordon that through him Australia had found her first fine utterance in song. This, however, is an amiable error. There is very little of Australia in Gordon’s poetry. His heart and mind and fancy were always preoccupied with memories and dreams of England and such culture as England gave him. He owed nothing to the land of his adoption. Had he stayed at home he would have done much better work.
That Australia, however, will some day make amends by producing a poet of her own we cannot doubt, and for him there will be new notes to sound and new wonders to tell of.
The best that we can say of him is that he wrote imperfectly in Australia those poems that in England he might have made perfect.
Judges, like the criminal classes, have their lighter moments.
There seems to be some curious connection between piety and poor rhymes.
The South African poets, as a class, are rather behind the age. They seem to think that ‘Aurora’ is a very novel and delightful epithet for the dawn. On the whole they depress us.
The only original thing in the volume is the description of Mr. Robert Buchanan’s ‘grandeur of mind.’ This is decidedly new.