no law: the perception and love of beauty constitute the whole outfit;
and what is herein set forth is to be taken merely as enlarging that
perception and exalting that love. In all cases, the appeal is to the
ear; but the ear should, for that purpose, be educated up to the highest
possible plane of culture."

A second series of lectures, composed and delivered when the anguish of
mortal illness was upon him, was subsequently published under the title,
_The English Novel_. Its aim was to trace the development of
personality in literature. It contains much suggestive and sound
criticism. He did not share the fear entertained by some of his
contemporaries, that science would gradually abolish poetry. Many of the
finest poems in our language, as he pointed out, have been written while
the wonderful discoveries of recent science were being made. "Now," he
continues, "if we examine the course and progress of this poetry, born
thus within the very grasp and maw of this terrible science, it seems to
me that we find--as to the _substance_ of poetry--a steadily
increasing confidence and joy in the mission of the poet, in the
sacredness of faith and love and duty and friendship and marriage, and
the sovereign fact of man's personality, while as to the _form_ of
the poetry, we find that just as science has pruned our faith (to make it
more faithful), so it has pruned our poetic form and technic, cutting
away much unproductive wood and effloresence, and creating finer reserves
and richer yields." Among novelists he assigns the highest place to
George Eliot, who "shows man what he maybe in terms of what he is."

There are two poems of this closing period that exhibit Lanier's
characteristic manner at its best. They are the high-water mark of his
poetic achievement. They exemplify his musical theories of meter. They
show the trend forced upon him by his innate love of music; and though he