CHURCHILL—HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS. In Churchill we find a signal specimen of a considerable class of writers, concerning whom Goldsmith's words are true—   "Who, born for the universe, narrow'd their mind,  And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." Possessed of powers and natural endowments which might have made him, under favourable circumstances, a poet, a hero, a man,... more...

THE LIFE OF AKENSIDE. Mark Akenside was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the 9th of November 1721. His family were Presbyterian Dissenters, and on the 30th of that month he was baptized in the meeting, then held in Hanover Square, by a Mr. Benjamin Bennet. His father, Mark, was a butcher in respectable circumstances—his mother's name was Mary Lumsden. There may seem something grotesque in finding... more...

THE LIFE OF EDMUND WALLER. It is too true, after all, that the lives of poets are not, in general, very interesting. Could we, indeed, trace the private workings of their souls, and read the pages of their mental and moral development, no biographies could be richer in instruction, and even entertainment, than those of our greater bards. The inner life of every true poet must be poetical. But in... more...

THE POETICAL WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. We feel considerable trepidation in beginning a life of Johnson, not so much on account of the magnitude of the man—for in Milton, and one or two others, we have already met his match—but on account of the fact that the field has been so thoroughly exhausted by former writers. It is in the shadow of Boswell, the best of all... more...

QUIET WORKOne lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,One lesson which in every wind is blown,One lesson of two duties kept at oneThough the loud world proclaim their enmity—Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity!Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrowsFar noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,Too great for haste, too high for rivalry!Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,Man's... more...

The ancestry of William Cullen Bryant might have been inferred from the character of his writings, which reflect whatever is best and noblest in the life and thought of New England. It was a tradition that the first Bryant of whom there is any account in the annals of the New World came over in the Mayflower, but the tradition is not authenticated. What is known of this gentleman, Mr. Stephen Bryant,... more...

POETRY By Arthur Quiller-Couch "Trust in good verses then: They only shall aspire, When pyramids, as men Are lost i'the funeral fire." As the tale is told by Plato, in the tenth book of his Republic, one Er the son of Arminius, a Pamphylian, was slain in battle; and ten days afterwards, when they collected the bodies for burial, his body alone showed no taint of corruption. His relatives,... more...

POETRY FOR POETRY'S SAKE One who, after twenty years, is restored to the University where he was taught and first tried to teach, and who has received at the hands of his Alma Mater an honour of which he never dreamed, is tempted to speak both of himself and of her. But I remember that you have come to listen to my thoughts about a great subject, and not to my feelings about myself; and, of... more...

RAFTERY I. One winter afternoon as I sat by the fire in a ward of Gort Workhouse, I listened to two old women arguing about the merits of two rival poets they had seen and heard in their childhood. One old woman, who was from Kilchreest, said: 'Raftery hadn't a stim of sight; and he travelled the whole nation; and he was the best poet that ever was, and the best fiddler. It was always at my... more...

CHAPTER I MINOR POETS OF THE SOUTH The first poetic writer of this country had his home at Jamestown. He was GEORGE SANDYS who came to Virginia in 1621, and succeeded his brother as treasurer of the newly established colony. Amid the hardships of pioneer colonial life, in which he proved himself a leading spirit, he had the literary zeal to complete his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which... more...