AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY A HUNDRED years ago, when the greatest of the Romantics had already written most of their works for a public as yet small, substantial collections of the British Poets were the vogue. No gentlemans library was complete without a set, and neither editors, publishers, nor readers thought it strange that such sets should be mainly composed of verses written during the eighteenth century. A respectable critic of that time might or might not have troubled to inspect closely the obscure volumes of one Keats and one Shelley, but he would certainly be acquainted with the best compositions of Mr. Yalden, Mr. Duke and Mr. King, the elegant Dr. Langhorne and the unfortunate Richard Savage. When Wordsworth attacked his predecessors, nothing was seen in his disquisition but his ingratitude to a century which had taught him much, and his fortunate failure to conform to his own inade- quate theories nobody saw an omen. The eighteenth-century tradition was established Lord Byron, with all his eccentricities, was avowedly indebted to it and Mr. Rogers and Mr. Campbell, who would outlive all the young fantastics, were its worthy heirs. Keats dismissed the whole Georgian race in Sleep and Poetry Ah, dismal-sould The winds of heaven blew, the ocean rolTd Its gathering waves ye felt it not. The blue Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew Of summer night collected still to make The morning precious Beauty was awake Why were ye not awake But ye were dead To things ye knew not of were closely wed To musty laws lined out whh wretched rule And compass vile so that ye taught a school Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit, Till, like the certain wands of Jacobs wit, Their verses tallied. Easy was the task A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask Of Poesy. Ill-fated, impious race That blasphemed the bright Lyrist to his face, And did not know it, no, they went about, Holding a poor, decrepit standard out, Markd with most flimsy mottoes, and in large The name of one Boileau They did not know that this opinion would become so general as to be regarded as a common- place. Yet it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that for generations past our critics and our cultivated public, looking backwards on our poetry, have been content to leap the eighteenth century and concentrate almost exclusively on the work of the Elizabethan and Caroline eras. Pope and Dryden, who could not be overlooked, have been underrated lip-service has been paid to Prior and Gay for the others, only such as Gray, Collins, Cowper a few and Goldsmith have received consideration, and even those have been regarded as chiefly interesting by virtue of their position as precursors of the Romantic Movement or heralds of the return to Nature. As a fact they were the fine flower of the century and the merits found in them were present in very many of their lesser contemporaries. In any event, those who lacked the qualities which appealed to the nineteenth century had virtues of their own. Occasionally a critic like Mr. Saintsbury, Mr. Gosse, Mr. Seccombe or Mr. Austin Dobson has called attention to this The Hermit and The Choice, The to Hymn the Naiads, The Nocturnal Reverie, Grongar Hill and The Rosciad have all had their modern admirers...