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The consciously aristocratic, sniffing attitude toward the public, which
ran its course during Victoria's reign, is ushered in by Landor, who
confesses,
I know not whether I am proud,
But this I know, I hate the crowd,
Therefore pray let me disengage
My verses from the motley page,
Where others, far more sure to please
Pour forth their choral song with ease.
The same gentlemanly indifference to his plebeian readers is diffused
all through Matthew Arnold's writing, of course. He casually disposes of
popularity:
Some secrets may the poet tell
For the world loves new ways;
To tell too deep ones is not well,--
It knows not what he says.
[Footnote: See _In Memory of Obermann._]
Mrs. Browning probably has her own success in mind when she makes the
young poetess, Aurora Leigh, recoil from the fulsome praise of her
readers. Browning takes the same attitude in _Sordello,_ contrasting
Eglamor, the versifier who servilely conformed to the taste of the mob,
with Sordello, the true poet, who despised it.


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