ARLOWE stands in the shadow of Shakespeare: this is surely sufficient reason for his enrolment with our glorious few. For his gifts we value him-for what he possessed rather than for what he achieved. Too often he is held up to us as merely an impulse-giver, a pathfinder, a sort of poetic engineer, who wildly, vehemently broke up ground which finer spirits should hereafter make rich and fair. We are taught to remember him as the real inventor of our noblest poetic instrument, blank verse, as the creator of English tragedy, as a master whose manner Shakespeare strove to copy and surpass. These |