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the literature text-books as one of the secondary poets of the nineteenth century; but his work is too diffuse and not distinctive enough to become the ensample of a modern school of writers. No other has at once the reputation and the preeminence (several have one or the other only) to be an authoritative guide to the footsteps of his fellows.

There is one possible exception to the foregoing. Produced in nowise by literary or social agencies, the result of natural influences only, New Zealand landscape-writing is surely a class of poetry by itself, and if there is a “school” of poetry here it is certainly a school of landscape. Such a thing might be expected. New Zealand is perhaps unequalled among the countries of the earth for the combination in its natural scenery of variety with grandeur and beauty. There be the Sounds that rival Norway’s, the Alps that are comparable with Switzerland’s, a lone volcano as shapely as Fuzi Yama, geysers the greatest in the world, great rivers and mighty gorges, hot lakes in the north, chains of cold lakes in the south—and over and through them all the changing glory of the Bush. There is a range of climate up from Southland, which after Tierra del Fuego is the most southerly settled country in the world, through districts of mountain and plain, sun and rain and wind, to the