Lines prefixed to the White Doe of Rylstone...... 456 A Portrait............................................................. PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF EARLY ENGLISH POETRY. THERE is little in the history of English poetry, previous to the age of CHAUCER, which can either interest the general reader, or gratify a liberal curiosity. His genius rose at once on his native land, like the morning-star after a long night of obscurity; and on his death the splendour of this illustrious dawn suffered an eclipse of nearly two centuries, when the Reformation ushered in the most poetical period of the English annals, the reign of Elizabeth. Even on the true fountain-head of our national poetry, antiquaries, in a question which is interesting to themselves alone, are widely divided. Some would trace it to a Celtic origin-to the bards of Armorica or Brittany; others to a Gothic source, or A |