“And how are these armies brought into line? By officers of squadrons or battalions? No! but by other, supernatural agents—
‘By torch and trumpet, fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade.’
By the drum, by torch, and by trumpet, the deadly conflict is invoked, and the fires of death light up the vivid scenery.”
His admiration of Wordsworth was very great. In a letter written some years ago, he says, “I am delighted to agree with you in your estimation of Wordsworth’s poetry. His line,
‘High in the breathless hall the minstrel sate,’
is the perfection of art, or rather of the attribute.”
Of Jane Ingelow he says, in another letter, “She has the faculty divine, and when she ceases to imitate Tennyson, will be worth her weight in gold. At present her lines are beautiful perplexities, and her philosophy is like the Irishman’s pony, hard to catch, and worth little when you have caught him.” Of Sydney Smith he said, “His style is so perfect that you cannot substitute a word in place of one of his own, without damaging the force of the sentence.” His admiration of Bryant was not less sincere. At the time when he was prostrated by sickness at Bixby’s Hotel, in 1860, he repeated some lines of Bryant’s, just published in Putnam’s Magazine, with tears in his eyes, and said, “There, now, there is nothing better in the whole range of poetry than that!” At another time, upon mentioning Stratford-upon-Avon to him, he threw up his hands in admiration. “Stratford!” he
