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That is the Grasshopper's - he takes the lead

In summer luxury, - he has never done

With his delights; for, when tired out with fun,
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

4. THE VICTORIAN POETS

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It is practically impossible to condense into the limits of a brief sketch any detailed account of this last period of the history of English poetry. It is also doubtful whether an age so near us, indeed in most respects our own, so complex in its interests and so multiform in its achievements, can be made the subject of any general criticism which will stand the test of time. The Victorian era is characterized by social change and intellectual activity. Education has been vastly extended, and the power and importance of literature correspondingly increased. New problems have been constantly arising; and much of the poetry of the age has consciously or unconsciously been concerned with a solution of these problems: with fresh adjustments in society, wiser ideals in politics, a wider outlook in religion, the successive revelations of science. Hence, an earnestness of tone, a deliberative manner, a rapt seriousness, in our later poetry, rather in excess of that which has characterized other ages. Still the Romantic tendency of poetry continues, as one critic well expresses it, "in the novelty and variety of its form, in its search after undiscovered springs of beauty and truth, in its emotional and imaginative intensity."

As regards poetical importance, the age takes rank as little inferior to that of Shakespeare; perhaps equal to that of Wordsworth. It has been especially distinguished by the names of TENNYSON and BROWNING, and by the lesser glory of such poets as ARNOLD and MORRIS, SWINBURNE, MRS. BROWNING, and the ROSSETTIS; but we shall first turn to one who, by his encyclopædic culture, his genial optimism and bluff acceptance of the spirit of his age, well represents the earlier and less poetical portion of this period: one who, writing in the martial style of Scott, endowed his heroes not merely with manly courage, but with manly character, with noble devotion to a righteous cause; one who may safely be

There are poets'

called the most brilliant ballad-writer of his age. poets and poets of the learned; but the poets of the people deserve no less to be remembered than they. For the poets of the people are also the poets of the boys — of those who are to be the fathers of the succeeding race. "If the boys of England," says Mr. Miles, and we may add "of America," "could be polled as to their favorite poet, Sir Walter Scott and Lord Macaulay would doubtless divide the honors; and if the favorite poem were in question, Horatius would probably be voted first."

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-1859)

Macaulay, unlike most of the other authors with whom we have been dealing, was principally a writer of prose. His work as essayist and historian so overshadows his other activities that he is ordinarily not thought of as a poet at all. It has, in fact, been the practice of many critics to follow the lead of Matthew Arnold in treating Macaulay's verse with something very much like contempt. However, as Saintsbury and others have justly replied, those who fail to see the true poetic quality in this vigorous and eloquent verse only prove the limitations in the range of their own poetic sympathies. Macaulay's poems are not addressed to the ear of the critic, although their vivid pictures and stirring metrical form ought to place them above even the critic's censure. They do not aim to expound the deeper significance of life, nor its subtler emotions; but to express in language bravely unadorned but wondrously effective the nobler passions of the simple soul. They are gloriously popular, and have moved the hearts and fired the imaginations of many readers for whom Keats or Browning or even Milton would have little message. The volume of Macaulay's poetry was very slight: a few early pieces, for the most part little known; several martial poems such as Ivry, The Battle of Naseby, and The Armada, also of this early period; and, finally, the famous ballads of 1842, — Horatius, The Battle of Lake Regillus, Virginia, and The Prophecy of Capys, together known as the Lays of Ancient Rome. Macaulay's life is not intimately associated with the history of poetry, but it is nevertheless one of the most interesting and inspiring in the roll of English men of letters.

1800-1825. — Born in Leicestershire, October, 1800, Macaulay was the eldest of nine children. His parents were people of education and refinement: the mother of Quaker descent, the father a rigid Scotch Presbyterian and prominent abolitionist. The stories of the boy's precocity are something marvellous. It is said that at the age of three he was "an incessant reader." Before he was eight "he was a historian and a poet." By the time he was fifteen he could read in at least six languages. His memory was no less wonderful than his capacity for

learning. His earlier education was received at home and in schools near home. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of eighteen, and in 1824 he was made a Fellow of his college. During the earlier years of his college course he wrote two prize poems, and, in the later, a number of critical essays.

1825-1838. — In 1825 appeared Macaulay's famous essay on Milton, the first of a long series which he wrote for the Edinburgh Review. His abilities as a writer, recognized from the first, soon brought him to the attention of the Whigs; and in 1830 he was given a seat in Parlia ment, where we soon hear of him as an active and successful advocate of the famous "Reform Bill" of 1832. In 1834 he was sent to India as a member of the Supreme Council. Here he remained nearly five years, achieving several important governmental reforms, and amassing a considerable fortune.

1838-1859. Back in England again, he was at once elected to Parliament from Edinburgh -a position which he held, first for nine, and again later for four, years. All this time he was a contributor of critical and biographical essays to the Edinburgh Review; during the latter portion of it he was also employed in writing his celebrated History of England. In 1842 his Lays of Ancient Rome appeared; the next year, a volume of his collected essays; in 1848, the first two volumes of his History. When he was fifty-seven years of age, he was made a peer, and chose as his title "Baron Macaulay of Rothley." Two years later he died and was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. In his later life he had been the recipient of many distinguished honors, both at home and abroad - honors well merited by the energetic, generous, brilliant man of letters.

The general reader may be sure of finding pleasure in almost any of Macaulay's poems, for all are simple, manly, chivalrous; the poetry of the clarion-call. Among the earlier pieces, Ivry is probably the best; while of the Lays the choice would seem to lie between Virginia and Horatius. The latter is included in this volume, as undoubtedly the best known and most typical of the four.

HORATIUS

A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLX

I

LARS Porsena of Clusium

By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more,

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