PREFACE. THE following work had its origin in an address upon poets and poetry, which I gave to a private society, without any thought of publication. Complying with the wish expressed by some of my hearers, that my address should be amplified and published, I now bring it, with great diffidence, before the public, in its expanded form. To the learned I have nothing to offer, but am in hopes that to students my work, as presenting a brief historical survey of an important department of literature, may not prove altogether unacceptable. With the bay-wreathed company of the world's great poets, I would fain have associated those of the United States of America, among whom there are several who are loved and appreciated on this side of the Atlantic, and who have been taken to the heart of England together with her native bards. In corroboration of this statement, I have only, among the departed, to recall the honoured names of William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Walt Whitman, and among the living, to name the two venerable patriarchs of song, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. These poets require, for their full appreciation, to be studied in connection with Transatlantic life, during the greater part of the century, when, for a considerable time, the burning evil of slavery formed a prolific source of inspiration to the American Muse; then came its deathblow, in the momentous struggle, rich in tragical and pathetic episodes, and in heroic deeds; these, with various phases of speculative thought, together with aspirations, prompted by the enthusiasm of humanity, have impressed a distinctive character upon many utterances of American genius, entitling their authors to be regarded emphatically as the interpreters of their age. From the above considerations, it will appear that to endeavour to compress within the narrow limits suited to my work the wide range of American poetry, would be a difficult and an ungracious task; I must therefore content myself with giving expression to my sense of its high and noble qualities, and to my grateful recognition of the delight and edification which I, together with multitudes on either side of the Atlantic, have thence derived. It would also be beyond the scope of my work, to dwell upon the galaxy of living English poets, who, to the gratification of all lovers of the Muse, have exercised their high functions during the later decades of the century. The only exception which I have made is Lord Tennyson, who, from his venerable age, belongs to the past as well as to the present, and without whose honoured name no historical survey of poetry would be complete. Among the numerous writers to whom I am under obligation I desire to include Mrs. Oliphant, to whose "Makers of Venice " I am indebted for the extracts from Petrarch's Letters, quoted in my Essay on that poet. REGENT'S PARK. INTRODUCTION ROME. Plautus; Q. Ennius; Lucilius; Lucretius; Virgil; Horace; Lucan; Persius 7 15 34 64 80 89 219 232 FRANCE. The French Dramatists of the Seventeenth Cen- tury: Corneille; Racine; Molière The Successors of Pope: James Thompson; William b |