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There is only one sense in which it is valid to talk about Hardy's development: he did develop toward a more consistent and more effective control of that tone which we recognize as uniquely his.

There is only one Hardy style, but in the earlier poems that style is only intermittently evident, and when it is not, the style is the style of another poet, or of the fashion of the time.

In the later poems, however, the personal tone predominates.

The bad early poems are bad Shakespeare or bad Swinburne ; ;

the bad late poems are bad Hardy.