Imperfect Critics by T.S. Eliot

Swinburne as Critic

Three conclusions at least issue from the perusal of Swinburne's / critical essays: Swinburne had mastered his material, was more inward / with the Tudor-Stuart dramatists than any man of pure letters before or / since; he is a more reliable guide to them than Hazlitt, Coleridge, or / Lamb; and his perception of relative values is almost always correct. / Against these merits we may oppose two objections: the style is the / prose style of Swinburne, and the content is not, in an exact sense, / criticism. The faults of style are, of course, personal; the tumultuous / outcry of adjectives, the headstrong rush of undisciplined sentences, / are the index to the impatience and perhaps laziness of a disorderly / mind. But the style has one positive merit: it allows us to know that / Swinburne was writing not to establish a critical reputation, not to / instruct a docile public, but as a poet his notes upon poets whom he / admired. And whatever our opinion of Swinburne's verse, the notes upon / poets by a poet of Swinburne's dimensions must be read with attention / and respect.