I am capable of writing any book on the drama of human life, save what I say in sermons. I have no invention.'

In his critical studies of poetry, of which more will be said, he went far beyond this in achievement; but even in these his aim is not so much to explore profound and universally significant principles of the poet's mind and art, as to discover for himself, through the most delightful of channels, some further expression of his vivid appreciation of the world in which he lived. Of his book on Browning he writes: You only . . . have recognised how much there is of myself in the book; and its interest to me is there, and less in that which I have said about Browning.' It may be true, in a sense, that all good criticism reveals the writer as much as it does his subject, but there is a special meaning in the claim that Brooke makes for his own work. It indicates n governing temper, the consideration of which should bring us near to the solution of our problem.

It is not as a representative poet or man of letters that Brooke has engaged, and justly engaged, the attention of his biographer on this large scale. Nor is it as a representative churchman or preacher or leader of religious thought. It was of these activities that his daily work was made up, it is true; and yet, while they contribute to the impression that we receive from Mr Jacks' volumes, they by no means dominate it. Nor is it, finally, wholly a question of character. The robust, affectionate, wise and often sparkling personality that comes before us is, indeed, striking and finely worthy of homage. Of such are the salt of the earth, and we are grateful to Mr Jacks for enabling us to share in no small measure a companionship that must have been so precious and delightful to Brooke's family and friends. But these admirable characteristics are not in any very rare way remarkable, and in themselves do not account for the deeper interest that we find the book successfully holding throughout its considerable length. It is, rather, that there was always in Brooke a really first-rate power of intuition that in itself may be said to have amounted to genius, though it was but fitful in its exercise. This power never wholly came into its own.

There were in the habitual operation of Brooke's temperament two principal qualities-his uncompromising common sense, and his instant responsiveness to everything and everybody with whom he came into contact, or, to use the word he himself would have chosen, his love. To a first analysis these two qualities can seem to be nothing but 'well and fair,' and yet the whole truth is by no means so easily set down. Common sense, the gift of being able in nine cases out of ten to answer yes or no to a question, and swiftly to disentangle sophistry from truth in dealing with the problems of daily affairs, is a valuable part of character; and few if any of even the most visionary of great minds have been wholly without it on occasion. But there is always the chance, the danger perhaps, that it will breed a habit of saying yes or no when in truth neither is possible, and of confusing sophistry with honest subtlety. With no man is this more likely to happen than one whose mind, endowed with great natural force and activity, moves freely in the bustle of the world's business. Such a one is at once invested with an authority which he will almost certainly find himself often forced to maintain at the sacrifice of careful and exact deliberation. There are times when his very responsibility makes impossible that loneliness to which the mind must always be able to move if it is to achieve memorable judgment. And in the same way the unquestioning response of a man's spirit to every demand that the world makes upon it, nobly generous in intention as it is, may end by impairing in some measure his realisation of himself. The one thing that is often lacking in what passes for common sense is sense; and it is not the least of love's mysteries that until a man truly and proudly loves himself he cannot love the world.

The profounder side of Brooke's nature, the genius in him, was never in doubt about these things. Against the evidence of so long and fruitful a life it may seem temerity to question Mr Jacks' conclusion that Brooke's career was rightly chosen and directed; but it is of real psychological interest to explain, if it may be done, how it came about that a man with so much of the finest quality in him left so little of the finest achievement for the quickening of posterity. And we seem to divine, as

we read the record of his life, that the genius that was always in the background prompting him to a rarer imaginative mood, was in lifelong conflict with a hardy instinct for a rough and ready intellectual state, where rapid decisions had to be made and immediate answers given in the busy atmosphere of affairs. This is not to say that the poet (and Brooke was potentially a poet of rare divination) should be remote from affairs; it is merely to say that he cannot complete himself if he is intellectually bound to affairs by circumstance.

This instinct of Brooke's was a circumstance beyond control as much as any other; and in that respect Mr Jacks is right in saying that it is useless to discuss it. But the phenomenon before us is not a common one. Brooke's intuitive power, of which examples will be given, was of a very rare order, and throughout his life it was never wholly quiescent. For its complete realisation it needed a condition of intellectual quietness and deliberation that was impossible to a popular preacher and worldly counsellor patiently accessible to every enquirer who came along. Brooke often refers to this need of his imagination in his letters and diaries; and, with the faculty itself as powerful as it was, there was the strongest probability that it would assert itself to the point of gaining his undivided allegiance. But it did not do so; and the more obvious and work-a-day though amiable quality in his mind that so successfully disputed precedence with the rarer strain must clearly have been of altogether unusual force. We have, therefore, the curious spectacle of a man who, seeking devotedly to serve the whole world, nourished one side of his nature at the expense of another side that was, in truth, potentially his finest instrument for the very service that he so earnestly sought to do.

Of Stopford Brooke's chivalrous generosity and his indulgence of every trespasser upon his attention, I had a small but very treasurable experience. When I was floundering without any kind of guidance in the difficulties of commencing author, I sent to him, in the way of bewildered novices, a small book of the greenest immaturity. Thereafter he met every approach with the most charming patience and geniality, writing no perfunctory notes, but long and considered letters that Vol. 229.—No. 455,

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seemed, with perfect gravity, to say that at last he had found a congenial occupation in life. Soon I was bidden to Manchester Square, and, climbing many flights of stairs to the study in the roof, I made my first trembling appearance before authority. The room was stacked with treasures, but my whole attention was absorbed at once by this man of heroic stature and bearing, who smoked cheroots in unbroken succession and made me feel in ten minutes that he considered my visit to be a very important occasion indeed. Tennyson, it appeared, had sat in that chair, Browning too, I believe; many good poets had begun by writing badly, and a failure was much excused if it was well tried'; beyond that there was one poem that he liked, and nothing was said of the twenty that nobody could possibly like. Everything that is good in nature flourishes under such a touch. His letters, when he was about eighty, to a junior clerk with a perplexed turn for literature, have the note of youth addressing youth. The homage that was so eagerly paid and so charmingly taken was never by the smallest hint claimed as a right. It is difficult to quote from letters that are so unwarrantably kind, lest admiration for their generosity should be mistaken for belief in their justice, but a phrase or two may be given without danger of this. I like it, but then I am of the 19th century, and do not mind being delayed and quietly brought to the point.' How salutary that is in its implication, but how gentle and considerate! Then this, of an editorial introduction that I had written, 'You rate him as a poet somewhat higher than I should feel inclined to rate him-but how natural that is to an editor! and it does good rather than harm to have it done.' These are words slight in occasion, but they are characteristic. Here was a very precious fragrance of spirit; and, in leaving us conscious of that above everything, Mr Jacks has fulfilled his subtlest obligation.

It was just this extraordinary and all-pervading instinct of sympathy-and that not only emotional but intellectual, the far rarer sort-which perpetually distracted him, so long as he lived in the great world, and hindered, as I have said, the free exercise of other powers. To cavil, even with the deepest reverence, at so fine an achievement as Brooke's life was in itself, may seem a

poor thing to do; and yet the plain truth is that, in coming to it, he left unfulfilled what might have been a yet greater service. He preached and counselled and inspired and consoled well, bestowing radiance and fragrance upon all with whom he came in contact. This was good, but it is not the whole story; and, if it had been, while there would have been splendid justification of his life, there would have been but little for so ample a record of it. For many people may and do achieve these things nobly in every generation, but to very few is given that intuitive power of which we have spoken, a power making for the most inspiriting revelation in all its exercise. It must be repeated that in Brooke this power was of no minor, but of an extremely rare quality. There are men who come, with credit and even distinction, to the consummation of a gift that is essentially not of the highest kind; but Brooke's latent gift was of altogether finer stuff. She dwelt in the doing of right and made it,' he said of his mother; and the saying asserts itself as the word of genius. Here is a picture, taken from his diary, conceived beyond any necessity of the moment, to the maker of which very little, short of the greatest creative felicity, was impossible:

'John Pounds was an interesting creature-a man who, lamed for life, took up shoe-mending in a little shop, open to the air in a bye-street of Portsmouth. He made a shoe for his lame foot, and then he thought he would make his living by mending for the poor. And then, being full of affection for children, he took a wild little boy, and while he cooked taught him to read and spell. He soon had a class of 20 or 30 in his shop, and fed them with potatoes cooked in his little stove, and in this way, during his life, he taught hundreds for love. He was the real founder of the Ragged School movement. Blessley bought the shop, and kept it as it was. I visited it with great interest and pleasure. The Unitarians are very proud of him. His tomb is in the churchyard of their chapel. "May I die," he said, "as a bird dies" (he kept a number of them and a cat and rabbits) "when he drops off his perch." And so he did. He fainted one day in the Town Hall, and died on the spot. He never took money. All he did was for Love's sake; and he always worked while he taught. He seems to me the nearest of all I have known to the heart of the Kingdom of God.'