(seeking Byron or Longfellow) is generally ‘the wife of a tradesman;’ and that an offer of verse to man or woman who comes simply for ‘a book’ is invariably rejected; ‘they won’t even look at it.’”

(3) “It was needless folly to pretend that, because one or two of Tennyson’s poems became largely known through popular recitation, therefore Tennyson was dear to the heart of the people, a subject of their pride whilst he lived, of their mourning when he died.  My point is that no poet holds this place in the esteem of the English lower orders.”

(4) “Some days before (the funeral) I was sitting in a public room, where two men, retired shopkeepers, exchanged an occasional word as they read the morning’s news.  ’A great deal here about Lord Tennyson’ said one.  The ‘Lord’ was significant.  I listened anxiously for his companion’s reply.  ‘Ah, yes.’  The man moved uneasily, and added at once:  ’What do you think about this long-distance ride?’ In that room (I frequented it on successive days with this object) not a syllable did I hear regarding Tennyson save the sentence faithfully recorded.”

Poetry not beloved by any one Class.

Mr. Gissing, be it observed, speaks only of the class which he has studied:  but in talking of “demos,” or, more loosely, of “democracy,” we must be careful not to limit these terms to the “lower” and “lower-middle” classes.  For Poetry, who draws her priests and warders from all classes of society, is generally beloved of none.  The average country magnate, the average church dignitary, the average professional man, the average commercial traveller—­to all these she is alike unknown:  at least, the insensibility of each is differentiated by shades so fine that we need not trouble ourselves to make distinctions.  A public school and university education does as little for the Squire Westerns one meets at country dinner-tables as a three-guinea subscription to a circulating library for the kind of matron one comes upon at a table d’hote.  Five minutes after hearing the news of Browning’s death I stopped an acquaintance in the street, a professional man of charming manner, and repeated it to him.  He stared for a moment, and then murmured that he was sorry to hear it.  Clearly he did not wish to hurt my feelings by confessing that he hadn’t the vaguest idea who Browning might be.  And if anybody think this an extreme case, let him turn to the daily papers and read the names of those who were at Newmarket on that same afternoon when our great poet was laid in the Abbey with every pretence of national grief.  The pursuit of one horse by another is doubtless a more elevating spectacle than “the pursuit of a flea by a ‘lady,’” but on that afternoon even a tepid lover of letters must have found an equal incongruity in both entertainments.