] But it is hardly fair to draw in the
great names of the latter part of the century. The parallel would be
more illuminating--and the final award passed on Mrs. Shelley's
attempt more favourable--if we were to think of a contemporary
production like 'Barry Cornwall's' _Rape of Proserpine_, which, being
published in 1820, it is just possible that the Shelleys should have
known. B. W. Procter's poem is also a dramatic 'scene', written 'in
imitation of the mode originated by the Greek Tragic Writers'. In fact
those hallowed models seem to have left far fewer traces in Barry
Cornwall's verse than the Alexandrian--or pseudo-Alexandrian--
tradition of meretricious graces and coquettish fancies, which the
eighteenth century had already run to death. [Footnote: To adduce an
example--in what is probably not an easily accessible book to-day:
Proserpine, distributing her flowers, thus addresses one of her
nymphs:
For this lily,
Where can it hang but at Cyane's breast!
And yet 'twill wither on so white a bed,
If flowers have sense for envy.]
And, more damnable still, the poetical essence of the legend, the
identification of Proserpine's twofold existence with the grand
alternation of nature's seasons, has been entirely neglected by the
author. Surely his work, though published, is quite as deservedly
obscure as Mrs.
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