it ought to be rhyme, but if it be, did you ever see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before?

know no more than you what kind of a market my book has found; but this I believe, that had not Henderson died, and had it been worth my while to have given

from several different quarters, but never any (for obvious reasons) that has gratified me more than yours. I have a relish for I have writ Charity, not for popularity, moderate praise, because it bids fair to be but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; 5 judicious; but praise excessive, such as our and if the Reviewer should say 'to be sure poor friend's, (I have an uncle also who the gentleman's Muse wears Methodist celebrates me exactly in the same language,) shoes, you may know by her pace and talk such praise is rather too big for an orabout grace, that she and her bard have dinary swallow. I set down nine-tenths of little regard for the taste and fashions, and 10 it to the account of family partiality. I ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan to catch, if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that 15 him a hundred pounds to have read it in way, by a production on a new construction: she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap all that may come with a sugar-plum.' - His opinion in this will not be amiss; 'tis what I intend, my principal end, and, if I succeed, 20 and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have said and all I have done, though I have run many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence to the end of my 25 sense, and by hook or crook, write another book, if I live and am here, another year.

I have heard before, of a room with a floor laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much art in every part, that when 30 you went in you was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe, or string, or any such thing; and now 35 I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned, which that you may 40 do, ere Madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble me

W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON

Dec. 10, 1785 My dear Friend, - What you say of my last volume gives me the sincerest pleasure. I have heard a like favourable report of it

public, it would have been more popular than it is. I am at least very unwilling to esteem John Gilpin as better worth than all the rest that I have written, and he has been popular enough.

Your sentiments of Pope's Homer agree perfectly with those of every competent judge with whom I have at any time conversed about it. I never saw a copy so unlike the original. There is not I believe in all the world to be found an uninspired poem so simple as those of Homer, nor in all the world a poem more bedizened with ornaments than Pope's translation of them. Accordingly, the sublime of Homer in the hands of Pope becomes bloated and tumid, and his description tawdry. Neither had Pope the faintest conception of those exquisite discriminations of character for which Homer is so remarkable. All his persons, and equally upon all occasions, speak in an inflated and strutting phraseology, as Pope has managed them; although in the original the dignity of their utterance, even when they are most majestic, consists principally in the simplicity of their sentiments and their language. Another censure I must needs pass upon our Anglo-Grecian, out of many that obtrude themselves upon me, but for which I have 45 neither time to spare, nor room, which is, that with all his great abilities he was defective in his feelings to a degree that some passages in his own poems make it difficult to account for. No writer more 50 pathetic than Homer, because none more natural; and because none less natural than Pope in his version of Homer, therefore than he none less pathetic. But I shall tire

you with a theme with which I would not wish to cloy you beforehand.

must be satisfied, I believe, as indeed I have great reason to be, if she does not alter for the worse. She uses the orchard-walk daily, but always supported between two, 5 and is still unable to employ herself as formerly. But she is cheerful, seldom in much pain, and has always strong confidence in the mercy and faithfulness of God. As to myself, I have always the same

If the great change in my experience, of which you express so lively an expectation, should take place, and whenever it shall take place, you may securely depend upon receiving the first notice of it. But, whether you come with congratulations, or whether without them, I need not say that you and yours will always be most welcome here. 10 song to sing - Well in body, but sick in Mrs. Unwin's love both to yourself and to Mrs. Newton joins itself as usual, and as warmly as usual, to that of

Yours, my dear friend,

Affectionately and faithfully,
Wm. Cowper

15

spirit; sick, nigh unto death.

Seasons return, but not to me returns God, or the sweet approach of heavenly day,

Or sight of cheering truth, or pardon

sealed,

Or joy, or hope, or Jesus' face divine;
But cloud, &c.

20 I could easily set my complaint to Milton's
tone, and accompany him through the whole
passage, on the subject of a blindness more
deplorable than his; but time fails me.

I feel great desire to see your intended

have happened to find between the con- 25 publication; a desire which the manner in

clusion of my morning task and breakfast. Study has this good effect, at least: it makes me an early riser, who might otherwise, perhaps, be as much given to dozing as my readers.

which Mr. Bull speaks of it, who called here lately, has no tendency to allay. I believe I forgot to thank you for your last poetical present; not because I was not much pleased 30 with it, but I write always in a hurry, and in a hurry must now conclude myself, with our united love,

The scanty opportunity I have, I shall employ in telling you what you principally wish to be told the present state of mine and Mrs. Unwin's health. In her I cannot perceive any alteration for the better; and 35

Yours, my dear friend,
Most sincerely,
Wm. Cowper

NINETEENTH CENTURY

THE NEWER POETRY AND CRITICISM AND THE NOVEL

Reaction against conventionality, emphasis upon spontaneity and emotion, interest in the past, in Nature, in solitude, in the remote or exotic, in unspoiled humanity, and in children and childlike simplicity were, as indicated above (p. 404ƒ), characteristics of eighteenth-century English opinion which foreshadow a new order. Stimulated by the transformation of English industrial life, the rise of Methodism, and the French Revolution, this body of thought grew more and more influential as the century progressed, and resulted in what is known as the Romantic Movement. Though too complex for exact definition, Romanticism has as its chief characteristics emphasis upon the emotional life and an enthusiastic idealism.

In literature Romanticism finds its fullest expression in the Lyrical Ballads, published by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798. In literary theory the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads has been called the Declaration of Independence of the Romantic Movement.

Under the influence of the Romantic spirit all literary types showed a renewed vigor, but the chief glory of the movement was poetry. No other period of English literature can boast a greater wealth of distinguished names than this, which produced almost simultaneously Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, along with a multitude of minor though nevertheless inspired writers. In prose fiction the preeminent figure is Scott, whose novels form the culmination of a long line of historical and Gothic romances. Jane Austen painted with realistic fidelity the country society of her own day. The familiar essay attained a high degree of perfection in the delicately humorous personal revelations of Lamb. Longer prose exposition was admirably represented in the imaginative compositions of De Quincey and the stirring appeals of Carlyle. In the drama alone is there a dearth of significant productions. The best plays of the Romantic era are significant for their poetry or their philosophy of life rather than for their acting qualities. As the nineteenth century progressed the emotionalism and the intensely personal attitude of the romanticist yielded gradually to a more detached and disciplined view of the world. Though the Romantic spirit by no means disappeared, the Victorian Era, covering roughly the last threequarters of the nineteenth century, tended to become conservative in its attitude toward society and art. Coupled with the development of the new scientific spirit, prose fiction, especially the novel, became dominated by Realism, which may be defined as the attempt to present truth objectively, even scientifically, without suppression or sentimental bias. The mild Realism of Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot is gradually replaced by the more profound and mordant criticism of life in Meredith and Hardy. During the late nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth century, Naturalism (“an acute form of Realism") and "psychological analysis" become increasingly common as methods of literary treatment. Socialism and other remedies for the ills of society also appear in the work of late nineteenth and early twentieth century writers, notably Shaw and Wells. Among the shorter prose forms, the most significant are the short-story, with its highly developed special technique, and the critical essay, which latter reached a high degree of perfection in the hands of Arnold, Ruskin, Swinburne, and other writers. A crowning achievement of the age was the perfection of the modern prose sentence by Macaulay, Arnold, Newman, and Pater. That poetry was not stultified by the prevailing scientific spirit of the Victorian period is evinced by the presence of two of the greatest English poets, Browning and Tennyson, along with a number of slightly less gifted writers. During the latter part of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century a new romantic reaction against conventionality and materialism manifested itself in a multitude of ways in the splendid optimism and high spirit of adventure of Stevenson, in the "religion of beauty" of Pater, in the decadent æstheticism of Oscar Wilde, in the mystical search for the Celtic spirit by the poets of the Irish Renaissance.

In its combination of tradition with contemporary interests, the Victorian era, when the present unjust prejudice has passed, will stand out as one of the richest and greatest in the history of English literature. The beginning of the twentieth century reveals little new or significant in any branch of literature; even Free Verse is largely a recombination of old features. Hence we feel justified in concluding that another great literary era closed with the beginning of the World War.

AGE OF ROMANTICISM

POETRY