In another letter he again mentions the _Edinburgh_ reviewer:--
"The writer shows not only taste, but what is nowadays as rare, that acquaintance with the range of English poetry, which ought to be a natural essential in the equipment of any poetical critic. Even where he is mistaken, he is intelligently mistaken. One remark goes curiously home--that on the higher poetic rank of metaphor as compared to simile. It has always been a principle of my own; so much so, that I never use a simile if I can use a metaphor. The observation on the burden of the poem to Sylvia shows a metrical sense unfortunately very unusual in our day."
[28] His work having appeared in a Catholic magazine, it was known to the Catholic papers. Apart from the _Weekly Register_, where notices of his periodical writings were printed, priority belongs to _The Tablet_, which printed, September, 1889, and 19th July, 1890, serious notices of the issues of _Merry England_ containing the "Ode to the Setting Sun" and "The Hound of Heaven"; and to Miss Katharine Tynan, who quoted the whole of "The Making of Viola" from _Merry England_, May, 1892, in the _Irish Independent_ in the course of the same month. The Catholic papers made no particular sign of welcome when the books themselves were published, but it may be noted that the _Ave Maria_, Notre Dame, Indiana, had praise for the much-abused extravagance of the opening of the "Corymbus for Autumn." To the _Catholic World_, February, 1895, Mr. Walter Lecky contributed many compliments and several biographical inaccuracies. In the secular press of America F. T. fared less well. _The New York Post_, 19th of January, 1898, found his work ". . . not altogether hopeful, since his impulses are wayward, like his life." _The Critic_, July, 1894, would by no means allow Browning's phrase, "conspicuous abilities," to pass unchallenged.
[29] The _Anti-Jacobin_, edited by Mr. Frederick Greenwood.
[30] Of _Sister Songs_ Mr. Le Gallienne wrote:--
"Critics are continually asking a writer to be someone else than himself, but happily Mr. Thompson seems to be one of those poets who go their own way, oblivious of the cackle of Grub Street. . . . Passion, in its ideal sense, has seldom found such an ecstatic, such a magnificently prodigal expression. For the love that Mr. Thompson sings is that love which never finds, nor can hope to find, 'its earthly close.' It is the poet's love of love in the abstract, revealed to him symbolically in the tender youth of two little girls, and taking the form of a splendid fantastic gallantry of the spirit."