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003 - Chapter I The Poets Part 2 · Victorian Literature

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, Part two of Victorian Literature. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Kathleen Victorian Literature by Clement Shorter. The catalog
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  Speaker 1: of Great English poets of the period is completed with
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  Speaker 1: the names of Rosetti and Morris. Perhaps there is no
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  Speaker 1: more romantic figure in modern literature than Dante. Gabriel Rossetti
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  Speaker 1: eighteen twenty eight to eighteen eighty two, although he has
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  Speaker 1: suffered cruelly from the biographer. His father, Gabriel was an
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  Speaker 1: Italian exile, a critic of Dante, a teacher of Italian
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  Speaker 1: in London. His mother was a sister of the notorious Polidori,
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  Speaker 1: whose charlingtonry is remembered wherever an interest in Lord Brybron prevails.
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  Speaker 1: The younger Rosetti had relatives, a brother, William Michael, who
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  Speaker 1: has written verses, criticisms, and a ponderous biography of Gabriel,
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  Speaker 1: and a sister, Maria Francesca Rosetti eighteen twenty seven to
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  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six, whose shadow of Dante makes good reading
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  Speaker 1: for admirers of the great Florentine, and indeed may be
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  Speaker 1: recommended to every English student of Dante. Another sister, Christina
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  Speaker 1: Georgina Rosetti eighteen thirty to eighteen ninety four, wrote many books.
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  Speaker 1: She Will Live by her Goblin Market eighteen sixty two,
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  Speaker 1: and by numerous short poems. Books of the type of
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  Speaker 1: Called to Be Saints and The Face of the Deep,
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  Speaker 1: a commentary on the Revelation, have also won her much
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  Speaker 1: affection and admiration from religious sympathizers. She was not responsible
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  Speaker 1: for Maud and New Poems, inadequate works which her brother
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  Speaker 1: thought fit to publish after her death. They are practically worthless.
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  Speaker 1: Dante Rosetti was a considerable painter as well as a poet.
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  Speaker 1: His name is written large in that pre Raphaelite movement
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  Speaker 1: which gave him four associates, mister Holman Hunt and Sir
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  Speaker 1: John Malays. The movement which had mister John Ruskin for
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  Speaker 1: its literary champion, when reduced to simple statement, meant a
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  Speaker 1: HARKing back to early medieval art. Sir John Malaise and
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  Speaker 1: mister Holman Hunt speedily abandoned this position, and Rosette himself
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  Speaker 1: was never a pre Raphaelite in any real sense. The
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  Speaker 1: pre Raphaelites issued in eighteen fifty a journal under the
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  Speaker 1: editorship of Rosetti's brother, and to the Germ as it
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  Speaker 1: was called. Rosette contributed his poem The Blessed Damosel and
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  Speaker 1: a Story Hand and Soul to the Germ also Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Wilner eighteen twenty five to eighteen ninety two, the sculptor
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  Speaker 1: contributed the poems of My Beautiful Lady. One epoch in
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  Speaker 1: the life of Rosette was his introduction to mister Ruskin,
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  Speaker 1: and another was his first acquaintance with William Morris. Ruskin
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  Speaker 1: bought his pictures with characteristic generosity and further assisted Rosetti
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  Speaker 1: to publish the early Tellian Poets eighteen sixty one, afterwards
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  Speaker 1: reprinted as Dante in his Circle eighteen seventy four. William
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  Speaker 1: Morris introduced Rosette to his Oxford friends, including mister Swinburne,
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  Speaker 1: and to the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, in which many
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  Speaker 1: of his finest poems were published. After his wife's death
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  Speaker 1: from an overdose of laudanum in eighteen sixty two, Rosetti
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  Speaker 1: moved to Queen's House, Cheney Walk, where for a time
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  Speaker 1: he had for associates in payment of rent mister Swinburne
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  Speaker 1: and mister George Meredith, though the latter never actually lived
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  Speaker 1: in the house. From that time to his death he
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  Speaker 1: published many important poems, ballads of singular powerlike The White Ship,
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  Speaker 1: The King's Tragedy and Sister Helen, and the many splendid
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  Speaker 1: sonnets of the House of Life. The two volumes of
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  Speaker 1: Rosette's collected works must always command readers. Rosetti died at
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  Speaker 1: Birchington on Sea, and a simple tomb in the churchyard
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  Speaker 1: marks his grave. The name of William Morris eighteen thirty
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  Speaker 1: four to eighteen ninety six closes the list of Victorian
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  Speaker 1: poets of the first rank. Morris was as versatile as Rossetti.
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  Speaker 1: He touched many branches of art with remarkable success. Now
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  Speaker 1: he was designing wallpapers and became a successful manufacturer in
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  Speaker 1: this branch of commerce. Now he was indefatigable in printing
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  Speaker 1: notable books in English literature from a type which he
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  Speaker 1: had himself selected. The wallpaper has given a new direction
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  Speaker 1: to the decoration of English houses, and the Kelmscott Press
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  Speaker 1: has added many beautiful books to our libraries. And given
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  Speaker 1: an impetus to a revival of taste in printing. This
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  Speaker 1: was but a part of Morris's life. Although a rich man,
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  Speaker 1: he was a vigorous lecturer on behalf of socialism, and
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  Speaker 1: wrote many books such as, for example, The Dream of
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  Speaker 1: John Ball eighteen eighty eight and News from Nowhere eighteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety one, in support of his ideals From the Appearance
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  Speaker 1: of Defense of Guinevere eighteen fifty eight and Life and
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  Speaker 1: Death of Jason eighteen sixty seven. He was always publishing,
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  Speaker 1: and his translations from Homer, Virgil and Scandinavian literature make
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  Speaker 1: a small library by themselves, but a practical handbook to
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  Speaker 1: Victorian literature needs but to mention one of his books,
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  Speaker 1: The Earthly Paradise eighteen sixty eight to seventy, will live
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  Speaker 1: as long as the love of good story telling remains
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  Speaker 1: to us. The tales are told by twenty four travelers
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  Speaker 1: who desire to find the Earthly Paradise, and the book opens,
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  Speaker 1: as do the Canterbury Tales, with a prologue. The lyrical
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  Speaker 1: introduction is one of the most quotable things in our
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  Speaker 1: later literature of heaven or Hell. I have no power
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  Speaker 1: to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
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  Speaker 1: or make quick coming death a little thing, or bring
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  Speaker 1: again the pleasure of past years. Nor for my words
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  Speaker 1: shall ye forget your tears, or hope again for aught
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  Speaker 1: that I can say, the idle singer of an empty day,
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  Speaker 1: dreamer of dreams born out of my due time? Why
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  Speaker 1: should I strive to set the crooked straight? Let it
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  Speaker 1: suffice me that my murmuring rhyme beats with a light
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  Speaker 1: wing against the ivory gate, telling a tale not too
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  Speaker 1: importunate to those who in the sleepy region's day, lulled
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  Speaker 1: by the singer of an empty day. Folk say a
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  Speaker 1: wizard to a northern king at Christmas tide. Such wondrous
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  Speaker 1: things did show that through one window man beheld the spring,
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  Speaker 1: and through another saw the summer glow, and through a
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  Speaker 1: third the fruited vines a row, while still unheard, but
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  Speaker 1: in its wonted way pipe the drear wind of that
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  Speaker 1: December day. William Morris has not seldom been confused with
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  Speaker 1: a writer with whom he had nothing in common but
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  Speaker 1: the name. Sir Louis Morris eighteen thirty three, a Welsh
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  Speaker 1: squire and candidate for Parliament has stood for convention as
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  Speaker 1: decisively as William Morris has tod against it. His Songs
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  Speaker 1: of Two Worlds eighteen seventy one to five and Epic
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  Speaker 1: of Hades eighteen seventy six brought him a considerable popularity
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  Speaker 1: which a Vision of Saints and later books have not
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  Speaker 1: been able to maintain. Another literary knight of our time
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  Speaker 1: who has secured a large share of public attention through
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  Speaker 1: his verse is Sir Edwin Arnold eighteen thirty two, whose
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  Speaker 1: Light of Asia interpreted to many the story of Buddha's
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  Speaker 1: career a poem upon Christ and Christianity. The Light of
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  Speaker 1: the World owed to the fact of its smaller success
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  Speaker 1: to the greater familiarity of the public with its main incidents,
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  Speaker 1: Sir Edwin Arnold has won other Laurels as a traveler
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  Speaker 1: and as a journalist. Some of the best poetry of
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  Speaker 1: the era has been produced by writers whose principal achievements
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  Speaker 1: are in the realm of rose. The Brontes, Charles Kingsley,
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  Speaker 1: George Meredith, and George Elliott, to name but a few,
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  Speaker 1: all wrote verse which must ultimately have secured attention had
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  Speaker 1: they not made great reputations as novelists assuredly. The three
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  Speaker 1: most successful poems in Victorian literature, of that portion of
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  Speaker 1: it which is already passing into oblivion, are proverbial Philosophy,
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  Speaker 1: Festus and Philip van Artfeld. The Proverbial Philosophy of Martin
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  Speaker 1: Farker Tupper eighteen ten to eighteen eighty nine created an
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  Speaker 1: excitement in literary and non literary circles which it is
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  Speaker 1: difficult for the present generation to comprehend. It is true
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  Speaker 1: that when it was first published in eighteen thirty eight,
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  Speaker 1: it was greeted by the Athenaeum as a book not
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  Speaker 1: likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds,
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  Speaker 1: as eccentric as the authors. In spite of this, it
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  Speaker 1: sold in thousands and hundreds of thousands. It went through
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  Speaker 1: over nine hundred editions in England, and five hundred thousand
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  Speaker 1: copies at least were sold in America. It was translated
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  Speaker 1: into French, German, and many other tongues. Its author was
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  Speaker 1: a popular hero, although of his later books, including Ballads
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  Speaker 1: for the Times, Rawleigh, His Life and Death and Cythera,
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  Speaker 1: the very names are by this time forgotten. Of proverbial
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  Speaker 1: philosophy itself, there are few enough copies in demand today,
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  Speaker 1: and it is difficult for us to place ourselves in
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  Speaker 1: the position of those who felt its charm. What to
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  Speaker 1: the early Victorian era was counted for wisdom and piety,
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  Speaker 1: and even for beauty, counts to the present age for
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  Speaker 1: mere commonplace burbage. Tupper's name has taken a place in
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  Speaker 1: our language is the contemptuous synonym for a poetester. Festus,
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, although not read today, has always
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  Speaker 1: commanded respectful attention. Its author, Philip James Bailey eighteen sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: wrote Festus in its first form at the age of twenty,
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  Speaker 1: and it was published in eighteen thirty nine. The book
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  Speaker 1: was enlarged again and again till it reached to three
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  Speaker 1: times its original length. It may be that this enlargement
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  Speaker 1: has had something to do with its fate. Bastis was
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  Speaker 1: frequently compared to the best work of Guerta and mister Browning.
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  Speaker 1: Even a more pronounced recognition accrued to the dramatic poems
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  Speaker 1: of Sir Henry Taylor eighteen hundred to eighteen eighty six,
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  Speaker 1: and more particularly to Philip van Artfeld eighteen thirty four,
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  Speaker 1: which was described by the Quarterly Review as the noblest
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  Speaker 1: effort in the true old taste of our English historical
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  Speaker 1: drama that has been made for more than a century,
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  Speaker 1: and which attracted the keenest attention of all Sir Henry
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  Speaker 1: Taylor's contemporaries. His entertaining autobiography has told us that Taylor,
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  Speaker 1: who was an important official at the Colonial Office, knew
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  Speaker 1: all the famous men of his time. Women have occupied
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  Speaker 1: no small share in the literary history of the past
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  Speaker 1: sixty years, although it is in fiction that their most
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  Speaker 1: enduring triumphs have been secured. The most popular women poets
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  Speaker 1: next in order to Missus Browning, have been Eliza Cook
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  Speaker 1: and gene Ingelow. Eliza Cook eighteen eighteen two eighteen eighty
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  Speaker 1: nine wrote, for the most part the kind of verses
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  Speaker 1: which would now be rejected by the editor of the
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  Speaker 1: poet's corner of a provincial newspaper. She would be little
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  Speaker 1: more than a vague memory were it not for the
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  Speaker 1: old armchair, but she has other claims to consideration. In
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  Speaker 1: the forties and the fifties, Eliza Cook's journal was one
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  Speaker 1: of the most prominent publications of the day, and it
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  Speaker 1: did much for the cause of literature and philanthropy. Jean
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  Speaker 1: Ingelow eighteen twenty to eighteen ninety seven survived, as did
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  Speaker 1: Eliza Cook, to see her verse well nigh forgotten, and
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  Speaker 1: yet it is stated that two hundred thousand copies of
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  Speaker 1: her poems have been sold in America alone. Miss Inglow,
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  Speaker 1: who was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, and died in London,
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  Speaker 1: will live in anthologies by her ballad High Tide on
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  Speaker 1: the Coast of Lincolnshire, by a Song in at the Mill,
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  Speaker 1: and by sundry short poems. A certain brighter and more
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  Speaker 1: humorous kind of verse had its beginnings with Thomas Hood
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  Speaker 1: and the author of the n goldsby Legends. Thomas Hood
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  Speaker 1: seventeen ninety eight eighteen forty five has endeared himself to
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  Speaker 1: the whole reading world by his Song of the Shirt
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  Speaker 1: eighteen forty four, and his Dream of Eugene Aram eighteen
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  Speaker 1: twenty nine is not less familiar. But in addition to
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  Speaker 1: this he had an abundance of wit and drollery side
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  Speaker 1: by side with pathos and tenderness, which will always make
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  Speaker 1: a splendid tradition and a great inspiration. Hood was a journalist.
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  Speaker 1: His prototype Richard Harris Barham seventeen eighty eight two eighteen
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  Speaker 1: forty five was an Anglican clergyman. His pseudonym of Thomas N.
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  Speaker 1: Goldsby calls up memories of some of the quaintest and
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  Speaker 1: rollis verse ever written. The Goldsby legends were first contributed
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  Speaker 1: to Bentley's Miscellany, and after words collected in volumes. The
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  Speaker 1: Jack Daw of Rheims is the most popular. Barnham's once
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  Speaker 1: successful novel My Cousin Nicholas, is now all but forgotten.
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  Speaker 1: The most famous successors of Hood and Barnham have been
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  Speaker 1: Calverly and mister Austin Dobson. Charles Stewart Calverley eighteen thirty
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  Speaker 1: one to eighteen eighty four wrote fly Leaves and Verses
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  Speaker 1: and translations. Mister Dobson has published an addition to many
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  Speaker 1: valuable prose works, the Exquisite Vignettes and Rhyme and Proverbs
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  Speaker 1: in Porcelain, which with mister Andrew Lang's Ballads in Blue China,
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  Speaker 1: form a dainty contribution to the lighter literature of the epic.
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  Speaker 1: A determination to say as little as possible concerning writers
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  Speaker 1: still young in years, though already famous, will make it
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  Speaker 1: may be my summary of Victorian poetry seem inadequate to many.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Trail, a discerning critic, has specified some hundred or
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  Speaker 1: more minor poets who flourished today. But it cannot be
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  Speaker 1: doubted that the minor poet of our era, with his
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  Speaker 1: excellent technique, his deep feeling, and his high minded impulsiveness,
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  Speaker 1: is separated by an immense gulf from the minor poet
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  Speaker 1: of an earlier period. The Pyes and the Hayleys, who
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  Speaker 1: were famous in an age when criticism was less of
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  Speaker 1: an art, had little enough of the real poetical faculty.
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  Speaker 1: That faculty can scarcely be denied to the hundred or
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  Speaker 1: more of living bards who now claim the suffrages of
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  Speaker 1: the poetry loving reader. It cannot be denied also to
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  Speaker 1: many men who have passed away during the present era,
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  Speaker 1: to Alexander Smith and Sidney Dubell in one period, and
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  Speaker 1: two Coventry, Patmore and James Thompson in another. Alexander Smith
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty to eighteen sixty seven was an industrious essayist
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  Speaker 1: as well as a poet. Tennyson and Missus Browning concurred
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  Speaker 1: in their esteem of Smith as a poet whose works
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  Speaker 1: shall fancy and not imagination and this might, with truth
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  Speaker 1: be said of too many of the minor bards, and
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  Speaker 1: indeed constitutes the dividing line. Sydney Guindy's under which pseudonym
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  Speaker 1: Sidney du Bell eighteen twenty four to eighteen seventy four
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  Speaker 1: cooperated with Smith and sonnets on the War eighteen fifty five,
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  Speaker 1: was a poet of similar temperament. Coventry Patmore eighteen twenty
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  Speaker 1: three to eighteen ninety six is known to the many
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  Speaker 1: through his Angel in the House, a poem upon domestic bliss,
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  Speaker 1: which breathed a note not allays sincere, but to which
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  Speaker 1: mister Ruskin assured a certain popularity through effective quotation in
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  Speaker 1: his Sesame and Lilies. A certain estatic band of admirers
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  Speaker 1: attach more importance to Patmore's unknown eros. These admirers boiled
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  Speaker 1: him by adulation. He probably looked forward with the same
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  Speaker 1: keen assurance to the verdict of posterity as did Southey.
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  Speaker 1: And posterity, it is all but certain, will be as
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  Speaker 1: ruthless in the one case as in the other. Patmore's
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  Speaker 1: life one of luxury and independence. Quite the reverse was
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  Speaker 1: the fate of James Thompson eighteen thirty four to eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty two, whose great poem, The City of Dreadful Night,
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  Speaker 1: was published in mister Charles Bradlaugh's National Reformer in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy four and not republished as a book until eighteen eighty.
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  Speaker 1: Thomson had a melancholy career which ended in drink and disaster.
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  Speaker 1: He died in University Hospital, London. His City of Dreadful
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  Speaker 1: Night is peculiarly a reflection of the age that is passing.
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  Speaker 1: It secured even during the poet's life the commendation of
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  Speaker 1: George Eliott, of George Meredith, and of other critics, and
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  Speaker 1: it may yet command a large audience who breathe the
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  Speaker 1: note of pessimism which was always characteristic of the writer,
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  Speaker 1: the sense that every struggle brings defeat because fate holds
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  Speaker 1: no prize to crown success, that all the oracles are
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  Speaker 1: dumb or cheat, because they have no secret to express,
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  Speaker 1: that none can pierce the vast black vow, uncertain because
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  Speaker 1: there is no light beyond the curtain, that all is
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  Speaker 1: vanity and nothingness. A poet whom one names with peculiar
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  Speaker 1: reverence is Thomas Audbury de Vere eighteen fourteen, the son
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  Speaker 1: of Sir Audbury de Vere, who was also a poet.
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  Speaker 1: Audbury Devere the younger, new and loved Wordsworth, to whom
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen forty two he dedicated The Waldenses, a lyrical tale,
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  Speaker 1: and yet retains, sixty years later, the most sympathetic interest
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  Speaker 1: in modern literary effort. Mister Devere is an Irishman and
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He has written many
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  Speaker 1: volumes of poetry in prose, is dramatic poems, Alexander the
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  Speaker 1: Great and Saint Thomas of Canterbury, having no doubt been
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  Speaker 1: largely inspired by the successes of his friend and relative,
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  Speaker 1: Sir Henry Taylor, and by his father's brilliant drama Mary Tudor.
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  Speaker 1: One of his most recent books was a volume of
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  Speaker 1: critical Essays containing a notable study of Wordsworth. Irishmen have
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  Speaker 1: been fairly conspicuous in the poetry of the Epic, and
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the term Celtic Renaissance has begun to be used hopefully
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: by lovers of Ireland who desire that country to have
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: a literature as distinctly Irish as Scotland has literature definitely Scottish.
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Moore seventeen seventy nine to eighteen fifty two was
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the pioneer of this movement. He had, it is true,
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  Speaker 1: then all his work before the Queen came to the throne,
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  Speaker 1: although he lived yet another fifteen years. His Irish melodies
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  Speaker 1: began to appear in eighteen o seven. La Labrouke was
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  Speaker 1: published in eighteen seventeen in the Life of Byron in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty. Moore was as much an inspiration to modern
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  Speaker 1: Ireland as Burns to modern Scotland, and the one country
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  Speaker 1: holds the name of its poet as reverentially in memory
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  Speaker 1: as does the other. More, however, lack the note of
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  Speaker 1: passionate sincerity which pertained to Burns, although we may fairly
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: ask what would have been the career of Burns had
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: he been thrown early into the letter rary In social
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  Speaker 1: life of London, the London of Byron's time, The influence
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  Speaker 1: of Moore was strong in Thomas Davis eighteen fourteen to
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  Speaker 1: eighteen forty five, whose national and historical ballads, songs and
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  Speaker 1: poems caused so great affirment in the heart of young Ireland.
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  Speaker 1: Many other Irish writers deserved to be named, such as
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  Speaker 1: James Clarence Mangan eighteen o three to eighteen forty nine,
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  Speaker 1: Sir Samuel Ferguson eighteen ten to eighteen eighty six, Lady
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  Speaker 1: Dufferin eighteen oh seven to eighteen sixty seven, and John
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  Speaker 1: Banham seventeen ninety eight to eighteen forty two, who wrote,
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  Speaker 1: in conjunction with his brother Michael, some twenty four volumes
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  Speaker 1: of Irish stories and verses. Samuel Lover seventeen ninety seven
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  Speaker 1: to eighteen sixty eight is best known in England by
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: his romance Rory O'More and is ever popular Handy Andy,
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  Speaker 1: but in Ireland he is remembered as a writer of
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  Speaker 1: lyrics and ballads of heart's stirring character. An Irishman by descent,
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  Speaker 1: although not by birth, was Edward Fitzgerald eighteen o nine
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  Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty three, who was born in Suffolk and
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  Speaker 1: lived all his life in the neighborhood of Woodbridge in
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  Speaker 1: that county. Fitzgerald's letters and literary remains filled three substantial volumes,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: but he lives for us by his translation, or rather paraphrase,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam of Nashapoor, which first
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: appeared in eighteen fifty nine. It is generally agreed that Fitzgerald,
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  Speaker 1: a nineteenth century pagan, always reverently questioning the mystery of existence,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: super added his own personal thoughts and feelings to the
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  Speaker 1: verses of the old Persian singer. In doing this, he
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: touched deeply a certain aspect of the second half of
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, and founded a cult. Fitzgerald's verses, however,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: have been ardently admired by many who are far from
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: accepting their pessimist view of life. Hartley Coleridge seventeen ninety
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: six to eighteen forty nine wrote and published his Admoble
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Sygnates before eighteen thirty seven. He was a son of
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Samuel Taylor Coleridge seventeen seventy two to eighteen thirty four,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: whose literary remains were edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge, a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: nephew and son in law. H N. Coleridge married the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: great poet's only daughter, Sarah Coleridge eighteen o three to
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two, who wrote one poem, Phantasmion, and whose
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: letters throw much light on an important chapter of literary history.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Brian Waller Proctor seventeen eighty seven to eighteen seventy four,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: better known as Barry Cornwall, was at school with Lord
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Ryron at Harrow. His dramatic scenes Marcian Colonna and Mirandola
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: were much talked of in their day. Proctor was admired
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: as a poet by Byron Moore and other famous contemporaries,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: but no one reads him now. A happier fate has
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: befallen his daughter Adelaide Anne Proctor eighteen twenty five to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four, whose legends and lyrics are still widely popular.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Winthrop Mackworth Praid, who wrote much admirable, humorous and satirical verse,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: is not a Victorian author, although his present popularity makes
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that rather hard to realize. He died in eighteen thirty nine.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Richard Hengis Horne eighteen o three to eighteen eighty four,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, although he lived into our time,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: is now remembered only by his friendship with Missus Browning
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and by the humorous freak of publishing his epic O'Rion
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: at a farthing. He was the author of a miracle
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: play entitled Judas Scariot, a tragedy entitled The Death of Marlowe,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and many other works. Another writer of well nigh forgotten
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: tragedies was Thomas Lovell Beddow's eighteen o three to eighteen
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: forty nine, who wrote The Bride's Tragedy and Death's Jest.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Book A like extinction, it is to be feared, has
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: befallen Ebenezer Jones and Ebenezer Eliot, the former of whom
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: belonged to that spasmodic school of poets of which Alexander
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Smith and Philip James Bailey were supposed to be the leaders.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Ebenezer Jones eighteen twenty to eighteen sixty wrote Studies in
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Sensation and Event, to which in eighteen seventy nine is
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: brother some Ner Jones attached and interesting biography. There is
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: very genuine poetry in the volume, but it is not
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: likely to be republished. Ebenezer Elliot seventeen eighty one two
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine had a very different fate. He enjoyed
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: for many years the suffrages of the multitude. His coign
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: law Rhymes laid a considerable part in the political agitation
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: of the period. James Montgomery called him the poet of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the poor. Another writer with a fine democratic impulse was
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Gerald Massey eighteen twenty eight, who was associated with the
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Chartist movement, and wrote poems and charms and voices of
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: freedom and lyrics of love. Another chartist was Thomas Cooper
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: eighteen o five to eighteen ninety two, who wrote The
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Purgatory of Suicides and many other poems and an entertaining autobiography.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Cooper was an active political agitator and was imprisoned for
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: two years in Stafford Jail, first edition. A poet who
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: holds a great place in the minds of many is
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: William Barnes eighteen twenty to eighteen eighty six, who kept
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a school for a time in mister Thomas Hardy's town
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of Dorchester. He afterwards became a clergyman and rector of
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Winterborne came He was a philologist as well as a poet,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and published many works on language. His interests for us
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: here is in his poems of real Life in the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Dorset Dialect eighteen forty four. Another poet clourgyman of great
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: learning was Robert Stephen Hawker eighteen o three to eighteen
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: seventy five, whose work Devonshire and Cornwall, as Barnes, reflects
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Dorset Shire. He wrote The Song of the Western Men,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: which he deceived Macley into believing to be an old
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Cornish ballad, and the great historian introduced it into his
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: History of England as an example of the excitement caused
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: by the arrest of the seven Bishops. Its stirring refrain,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and shall Trelawney die, And shall Trelawney die? Then thirty
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why, will always
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: keep Hawker in remembrance. He was vicar of morn Stell
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and wrote several volumes of poems and some prose, including
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: footprints of former men in far Cornwall. Two poets, father
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and son, made the name of Marston honored in their days.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: John Westland Marston eighteen nineteen two eighteen ninety was born
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: at Boston, Lincolnshire. He wrote two dramas, Strathmore and Marie
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: de Merni, which had much success of years ago. Another work,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: A Hard Struggle, obtained the enthusiastic praise of Dickens's Doctor.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Garnett claims for Marston that he was long the chief
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: upholder of the poetical drama on the English Siege. Philip
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Burke Marston eighteen fifty to eighteen eighty seven, a son
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: of Westland Marston, should not have failed of literary success,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: as he had for Godfather Philip James Bailey, the author
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of Festus, and for Godmother Miss Mullock, author of John
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Halifax Gentleman. He, however, became blind at three years of age.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: He published three volumes of Verse, Song, Tide and Other
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Poems eighteen seventy one all in all eighteen seventy five,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and Wind Voices eighteen eighty three. They were never popular,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: although his poetry gained him the esteem of many eminent men,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Rosettie and mister Swinburne, among others. Missus Chandler Moulton, an
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: American lady who wrote Swallow Flights, gave us a memoir
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: of Philip Burke Marston. In this she was assisted by
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: mister William Sharp, who was also one of Rosetti's biographers.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Missus Malton did a like good office to the memory
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: of Arthur O'Shaughnessy eighteen forty four to eighteen eighty one,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a poet of considerable distinction in his day. O'Shaughnessy married
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the younger Marston's sister. His Epoch of Women and Other Poems,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: published in eighteen seventy, was a volume of great promise.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: He wrote other verses which never attained quite the same
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: measure of success. It only remains for me to name
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Alfred Austin eighteen thirty five the poet Laureate. After Lord
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Tennyson's death in eighteen ninety two, the office remained vacant
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: for four years. The two poets who might have been
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: considered to have had some claim, William Morris and mister Swinburne,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: were supposed to be impossible on account of demisocratic sympathy,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: although it is doubtful if either would have accepted the office.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Almost every living poet, however small the bulk of his achievement,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and however inconsiderable his ears, was nominated by the press
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in turn. Finally, in eighteen ninety six, by a pleasant
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: irony of circumstances, the laureate ship was given to a journalist.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Mister Austen had been a leader writer on the staff
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: of the Standard newspaper for many years. He has written
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: The Golden Age, a satire eighteen seventy one, Savonarola eighteen
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: eighty one, English Lyrics eighteen ninety one, and many prose works.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: His English Lyrics contained an appreciative introduction by William Watson,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the author of Wordsworth's Grave Lachremee Musarum, and other poems
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: which have been received with abundant cordiality by the press
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: and public. Another living poet who has been well and
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: justly praised is Rudyard Kipling eighteen sixty four. He made
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: his earliest fame as a writer of short stories of
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Indian military life. Soldiers three and we Willie Winkie have
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: entirely captivated the imagination of mister Kipling's contemporaries. It is
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: as a poet, however, that he will perhaps longest retain
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: his hold upon them. His barak Room Vallads eighteen ninety
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: two are finally touched with that martial spirit which so
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: strongly appeals to the heart of our nation. End of
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Chapter one, Part two