of protection of the fisheries, as it could be withdrawn in the case of any violation of the laws laid down for their regulation. One pound per head per annum from each fishermani in the kingdom would form a fund sufficient to provide a Board for the regulation of all matters pertaining to the economy and administration of the fisheries, pay for an efficient body of Inspectors, and a corps of statisticians to keep such a record of the Harvest of the Sea as would place the question of decreasing supplies beyond dispute. Since writing the above remarks, an Act of Parliament has been passed, to Amend the law relating to the Fisheries of Oysters, Crabs, and Lobsters, and other Sea Fisheries.' chiefly founded on the lines laid down by the Commissioners: it decrees a close time for oyster-beds, extending, in the case of 'deep-sea oysters,' from the fifteenth day of June to the fourth day of August, and for any description of oysters other than these, no sales shall be allowed between the fourteenth of May and the fourth of August. Stated briefly and without the accompanying technicalities, the above information comprises the Act so far as oysters are concerned, except that the Board of Trade is given power to prohibit, entirely or partially, the dredging or taking of oysters for a period of one year, which period may be extended or restricted, at the will of the Board. As regards the lobster fisheries, it is ordained that none of these crustaceans shall in future be sold under a certain size: the Act says, 'A person shall not take, have in his possession, sell, expose for sale, or buy for sale, any lobster which measures less than eight inches from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail when spread as far as possible flat.' The sale of crabs is likewise to be regulated by size, as none are to be sold which measure less than four inches and a quarter across the broadest part of the back, but what is of still greater importance than the restriction as to size, no crabs will be permitted to be sold which are in the process of spawning or which have recently cast their shells. It will be seen, however, that the obnoxious 'concession to the cooks' in the case of spawning lobsters, which is deprecated in the foregoing pages, has been made, and that no gauge of size has been enacted in the case of the oyster. It is not desirable to extend or repeat the arguments we have already advanced, but it is to be regretted that these two cardinal points of shell-fish fishery economy should have been ignored by those who framed the Act just referred to, and that Parliament should not have repaired the omission. ART. ART. VII.-1. The Season. A Satire. By Alfred Austin. Third edition. London, 1869. 2. The Golden Age. A Satire. By the Same. London, 1869. 3. Interludes. By the Same. London, 1870. 4. The Tower of Babel. A Drama. By the Same. London, 1874. 5. The Human Tragedy. By the Same. London, 1876. IN a passage of his 'Prælectiones,' remarkable for the refine the following distinction between the genius of the orator and the poet. 'Ecquis orator M. Tullio aut numerosior unquam fuit aut verbis ornatior, aut affectibus vehementior, aut imaginibus aptior et facundior? cui tamen nemo, me quidem judice, etiamsi per numeros id licuerit, facile esse poetæ dederit. At vero si Platonem nominamus, omnes uno ore clamabunt recte eum dici vel Ομηροῦ ποιητικωτέρον. Quid ita? Quoniam, credo, Cicero quæ agit oratorie agit; semper sibi fingit theatrum, subsellia, auditores; instat, urget, effundit omnia, quibus animi commoveri possint. Plato contra suis in deliciis nunquam non versari videtur: sibi indulgere, non aliis persuadere : majora ferme significare quam eloqui: ita pulcherrimis cogitationibus abundare, ut plura tamen indicta maneant.* More tersely and epigrammatically, the same theory is expressed by John Stuart Mill: Eloquence is heard, poetry is overheard.'t And the doctrine held in common by these two critics may be traced back still higher to Wordsworth's principle, that 'poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion.' On this supposed radical difference between the orator and the poet, the whole modern system of poetry, originated by Wordsworth and developed by his successors, may be said to depend. Does the difference really exist in the degree that is pretended? We are strongly of opinion that it does not. It is no doubt true that the immediate objects of the poet and the orator are not the same; the one speaks to persuade, the other simply to please; the latter addresses himself directly to the passions, the former moves the passions through the imagination. The purpose, for instance, of the tragic poet is, in the words of Milton's paraphrase of Aristotle, 'by raising pity and fear or terror, to purge the mind of those and such-like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind * Keble's 'Prælectiones,' iii. † Mill's 'Dissertations and Discussions,' vol. i. 'Poetry and its Varieties.' of of delight, stirred up by reading, or seeing those passions well imitated.' But could Keble have pointed to any single order of poetry that has its root and origin in mere soliloquy, or in which the poet speaks simply to please himself'? Is it not the case that the drama directly demands 'stage, seats, and audience? That the first and greatest of epic poems, the model of all that have succeeded it, was composed for recitation? That the Greek ode was as much a public performance as the modern opera or oratorio? That satire implies a personal object of ridicule, as well as spectators to enjoy the laugh? And as for the instance on which Keble relies, we should have thought it would have been impossible, both as regards the form of his dialogue and the method of his reasoning, to adduce a more striking example, if not of an orator, of a rhetorician than Plato. At any rate, as far as relates to the old masters of verse, we may safely affirm that in their understanding of the common passions by which mankind are moved, and of the common language in which these are expressed, it was their purpose to treat poetry as a refined and elevated species of oratory. Still we have to face the fact that the modern idea of poetry, defended as it has been by writers of varied and original genius, takes as its basis and starting-point the principle of soliloquy. When Wordsworth, for instance, in his dislike of the artificiality of modern life, declared that poetry could only find its true expression in the rural idiom, it is plain that, in theory at least, he severed himself as an orator from an audience accustomed to find utterance for its more generous emotions in the forms and traditions of a historical language. When Wordsworth's successors seek to express their own private experience in remote, and often obsolete, literary styles, it is equally obvious that they can hope to make themselves intelligible only to those who have an intimate acquaintance with the authors whose manner they affect. Hence poetry, which of all the arts appeals to the widest sympathies, has become, as we have more than once had occasion to show, the property of sects and schools. The question once addressed by St. Paul to those speaking with tongues might be put with propriety to the modern poet: 'If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.' The theory of soliloquy has now prevailed in our poetry for nearly half a century. There are, however, indications that the tide of taste is at last beginning to turn in the contrary direction, and among these we place the works of a poet who seems to us keenly alive to the truth that, in the the composition of poetry, account must be taken of the audience. Quæ agit oratorie agit.' Mr. Austin's name is, perhaps, better known to the public as that of a vigorous and successful pamphleteer than as that of a poet. His pamphlets, entitled 'Tory Horrors' (a letter addressed to Mr. Gladstone on the publication of his 'Bulgarian Horrors,' which it almost rivalled in point of circulation), and 'Russia before Europe,' are in their kind admirable specimens of composition, and give the writer good title to take high rank among the prose writers of the day. But he has also been a considerable time before the world as a composer in verse. His first poetical work, 'The Season,' was published as long ago as 1861, and since that time he has produced various poems, the titles of which stand at the head of our article. In all of these compositions he shows a marked desire to find his themes in the objects that commonly interest men's imagination, and to return to the more familiar and traditional types of poetical diction. We shall endeavour to show how far he has succeeded by briefly sketching the outlines of his various works, and giving specimens of his poetical style. "The Season,' though the earliest of his poems, and the most marked, as might be expected, by faults of taste and manner, is, perhaps, both in respect of subject and execution, the most genuinely oratorical. Its design is ingenious and happy. The poet imagines a young man, full of ardour and generosity, making his entrance into society, and passing his judgment, with all the frankness of his age, on the various phases of social manners to which he is introduced. An instinctive lover of solitude, he comes to the conclusion, after an experience of all the amusements of the town, that to solitude it is best to return. Meantime he goes from the 'Row' to dinner, to the opera, the stage, or the ball-room, and finds something true and lively to say about each. Here, for instance, following some strictures on the ballet, is a criticism on the dramatic taste of the time, which, though written sixteen years ago, is not without a present application: 'Whilst we, surveying this decorous stage, Whither the drama, England's boast, retires. Somewhere! But where? In Wych Street or the Strand? Is Is it where Robson, servile to the town, Seek where you will you still will fail to find And yet, too slothful to arise and scan "Oh! give me back my youth!" unblushing, cries.' The poet, however, is not uniformly censorious, as may be seen from the more Horatian vein of the following: 'Why, Life itself a dinner is indeed, Where each contributes so that all may feed. I hate your churls who strut, and sulk, and swear Your true cosmopolite, Life's well-bred guest, Mends the misfortune or the want with mirth.' Other passages of equal merit might be quoted from 'The Season.' The tone and feeling which prevail in the poem are reproduced in The Golden Age,' a satire on the excessive rage for money-making, which, however, though more carefully composed, has, we are inclined to think, less fire and movement. Nevertheless, it contains many passages of spirited declamation, of which the following is perhaps the most striking: 'Shade of Lucretius! if thy lyre waxed wild How |