EXTRACT. Let Fate do her worst, there are relics of joy, KEATS. 1795-1821. John Keats, a young poet of the highest promise, died in 1821, in his twenty-sixth year. His principal poems are Endymion, Hyperion, The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to a Nightingale. They are characterized by a profusion of beautiful imagery, and great wealth of classical learning and allusion. Thomas Campbell was distinguished as a poet and a prosist. His principal poems are— -Pleasures of Hope, Gertrude of Wyoming, Lochiel's Warning, O'Connor's Child, and Hohenlinden. His principal prose work is his Lectures on Poetry. EXTRACTS. The world was sad, the garden was a wild, And man, II. 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, Pleasures of Hope. WORDSWORTH. 1770-1850. William Wordsworth, the principal of the "Lake Poets," was born in 1770, was educated at Cambridge, passed a tranquil and uneventful life, and died at Rydal Mount in 1850,--the PoetLaureate of England, and loved and admired by all the world. In him poetry reached its completest emancipation from the artificiality of the age of Queen Anne. The love of nature expressed in the lines, "To me the meanest flower that blows can give pervades all his works, and forms their leading characteristic. For this reason he may appropriately be called “the English Bryant,” just as Bryant may be called "the American Wordsworth." He is now, by common consent, placed next to Milton on the roll of great poets. Wordsworth's principal work is The Excursion, a long philosophical poem in blank verse; but most readers prefer his shorter poems, such as Ode on Immortality, Ode to Duty, Tintern Abbey Lucy, We are Seven, etc. EXTRACTS. I. The child is father of the man, And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. The Rainbow. BRYAN WALLER PROCTER, "Barry Cornwall" (1790-1874), a fine lyric and dramatic poet, author of Dramatic Scenes, Mirandola (a tragedy), English Songs, Memoir of Charles Lamb, etc. REV. WM. LISLE BOWLES (1762-1850), author of some exquisite sonnets, etc. JOHN KEBLE (1792-1866), a fine sacred poet, author of The Christian Year, Lyra Innocentium, several Tracts for the Times, etc. Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), author of Pleasures of Memory, and Italy. JOANNA BAILLIE (1762-1851), author of Plays on the Passions, Family Le.. gend, and other dramas; also some religious and miscellaneous works. MRS. FELICIA Hemans (1794-1835), author of Vespers of Palermo, a tragedy; and of Graves of the Household, Casabianca, Landing of the Pilgrims, and other popular poems. LETITIA E. LANDON, afterwards Mrs. McLean (1802-1838), author of The Lost Pleiad, The Improvisatrice, Crescentius, and many other poems; also Romance and Reality, and other novels. REV. GEORGE Crabee (1754-1832), a vigorous and graphic narrative poet, author of The Library, The Village, The Parish Register, Sir Eustace Gray, etc. He is almost painfully realistic and truthful. BISHOP HEBER (1783-1826), author of "From Greenland's icy mountains," and other beautiful hymns. Robert POLLOK (1799-1827), author of The Course of Time, once very popular. THOMAS HOOD (1798-1845), a great wit and humorist, also author of some very touching serious poems, among them The Death-bed, The Bridge of Sighs, Song of the Shirt, etc. JAMES MONTGOMERY (1771-1854), author of Greenland, Pelican Island, Hymns, etc. JAS. SHERIDAN KNOWLES (1784-1862), a distinguished dramatist, author of Virginius, The Wife, The Hunchback, William Tell, etc. SCOTT and several others who are sometimes classed as poets, will be consi lered under the head of prose writers. AMERICAN CONTEMPORARIES. Kovert Treat Paine, Joseph Rodman Drake, and Fitz-Greene Halleck. II. PROSE WRITERS OF THE AGE OF SCOTT. SCOTT. 1771-1832. Sir Walter Scott, the great Scotch poet and novelist, was born in Edinburgh, in 1771. He was not a profound scholar, but being a great reader and having a wonderful memory, he acquired a vast amount of historical and legendary lore, which he poured forth in boundless profusion in his works. Scott was truly a great man. Great in poetry, great in prose, great in character, he was great also in misfortune. Having accumulated a large fortune, and built himself a fine mansion known as Abbotsford, he lost everything by the failure of a publishing house, and was plunged in debt to the amount of over half a million dollars. Undismayed, he applied himself, though nearly sixty years old, to the payment of this immense sum, and succeeded, though at the expense of his life. In 1832, broken in mind and body, he died, amid the lamentations of all Scotland, and was buried in Dryburgh Abbey. Scott's works are of three classes: 1. Poems, 2. Novels, 3. Miscellaneous. His principal poems are The Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Lady of the Lake, and Marmion. His novels, known as the Waverley Novels, twenty-nine in number, are among the greatest creations of human genius. Among the best of them are-Waverley, Guy Mannering, Old Mortality, Heart of Mid-Lothian, Legend of Montrose, Ivanhoe, and Kenilworth. The most celebrated of his miscellaneous works are Tales of a Grandfather, Life of Napoleon, and History of Scotland. EXTRACTS. Tears are the softening showers which cause the seed of heaven to spring up in the human heart. II. When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone. III. Oh, many a shaft at random sent, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken. IV. Lord of the Isles. In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and gods above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love. Lay of the Last Minstrel. SOUTHEY. 1774-1843. Robert Southey is sometimes classed among the poets, but his best writings are in prose. He was one of the most industrious and prolific authors of the age. His best prose works are his Life of Nelson, Life of Cowper, and Life of Wesley. His best poems are Thalaba and Curse of Kehama. EXTRACTS. I. Call not that man wretched who, whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love. |