A study of the minor living poets of England discourages the hope that any among them is likely to become great, or perhaps even to be permanently a second-rate favorite. Matthew Arnold for example, or Edmund Gosse in the younger generation, and all of them, seem to have little of the poet's inspiration though much of the poet's art; and we read them only to be gratified by a certain titillation of the senses rather than to have our sympathies roused at the discovery that their souls and sufferings are at all like our own. And if we investigate general tendencies instead of individual promise, we fail to find any near prospect of a return of the lost spirit of creativeness and spontaneity. In America, on the other hand, though to be sure no one singer seems ready to catch the mantle of Tennyson when it falls, yet the national character seems likely to favor the growth of a new school of poetry that may in the near future take rank with the best of England's. We are not giving our best attention to the details of rhythm; we have earnest convictions backed by a strong desire to do our best in maintaining them; we are sufficiently intimate with England to absorb some of her sweetness and light without necessarily losing our own innate fire and strength; so thus far we seem likely to advance in poetical achievement as fast as the other country is giving way. The danger is that the work of our first century of national life will be undone by Anglomania and dilletantism; but, so far as we now can see, that danger threatens only those feebler singers whose voice could under no circumstances be heard very far. - Yale Lit.