MODERN ENGLISH POETS. * TENNYSON.-BROWNING.-CLOUGH.-ARNold.- [Quarterly Review, April, 1869.] IN coming from the poets of the beginning of this century to those of the last thirty or forty years, it cannot but strike every one how much the atmosphere of hope and of enthusiasm has cooled down. The years which were measured by the life of Shelley, were years in which Europe was agitated by the most fiery energies; nor was it merely the crash of unexampled wars, the tumult of rising or falling kingdoms, that stirred the minds of men. A new spirit was in the world: the equality of men was, for the first time, not indeed taught or believed, but practically urged by powers that in their first outburst destroyed all, or nearly all, that presumed to bar their way. There could be no indifference to such a spectacle. Some recoiled from it * 1. Poems. The Princess. Maud, and other Poems. In Memoriam. Idylls of the King. Enoch Arden, &c., by Alfred Tennyson. London, 1868. 2. Poetical Works. The Ring and the Book, by Robert 3. Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London, 1866. English Essays. 1 |