A Poet of the 'Nineties
in the midst of enthusiasms one thinks perhaps that, if Gautier had not written, Johnson's work might even take its place in Weltliteratur, that it might stand for clearness and neatness. In English literature it has some such place, with the writings of Arnold and of Christina Rossetti. His attitude toward the past was pragmatical. He seemed to regard what had been as good, or as, at least, bearable. His taste was catholic. There is no use regretting this fault—he had its virtues. The Post Liminium is a complete world of culture; his own, wrought out of worthy things. His mind was openly receptive. This gentleness sets him apart from our decade. But if he was traditionalist, he was so in the finest sense of that term. He really knew the tradition, the narrow tradition that is, of English, Latin, and Greek. This intelligent acquaintance with the past differentiates him from the traditionalists of his time, and of ours.
He would, for instance, have welcomed good vers libre; he would have known how the Greeks had used it. You could have discussed with him any and every serious problem of technique, and this is certainly a distinction among "the poets of England." He might have differed from your views of good writing, but he would have believed in good writing. His hatred of slovenliness would have equalled your own.
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