No More Learning

Henry VI. founded Eton.


Poem 161.

The Editor knows no Sonnet more remarkable than this, which, with 162,
records Cowper's gratitude to the Lady whose affectionate care for many
years gave what sweetness he could enjoy to a life radically wretched.
Petrarch's sonnets have a more ethereal grace and a more perfect finish;
Shakespeare's more passion; Milton's stand supreme in stateliness,
Wordsworth's in depth and delicacy. But Cowper's unites with an
exquisiteness in the turn of thought which the ancients would have
called Irony, an intensity of pathetic tenderness peculiar to his loving
and ingenuous nature. There is much mannerism, much that is unimportant
or of now exhausted interest in his poems: but where he is great, it is
with that elementary greatness which rests on the most universal human
feelings. Cowper is our highest master in simple pathos.


Poem 163.

_fancied green_: cherished garden.


Poem 164.

Nothing except his surname appears recoverable with regard to the author
of this truly noble poem: It should be noted as exhibiting a rare
excellence,--the climax of simple sublimity.

It is a lesson of high instructiveness to examine the essential
qualities which give first-rate poetical rank to lyrics such as
"To-morrow" or "Sally in our Alley," when compared with poems written
(if the phrase may be allowed) in keys so different as the subtle
sweetness of Shelley, the grandeur of Gray and Milton, or the delightful
Pastoralism of the Elizabethan verse. Intelligent readers will gain
hence a clear understanding of the vast imaginative, range of
Poetry;--through what wide oscillations the mind and the taste of a
nation may pass;--how many are the roads which Truth and Nature open to
Excellence.


Poem 166.
_stout Cortez_: History requires here Balboa: (A. T. ) It may be noticed,
that to find in Chapman's Homer the "pure serene" of the original, the
reader must bring with him the imagination of the youthful poet;--he
must be "a Greek himself," as Shelley finely said of Keats.


Poem 169.

The most tender and true of Byron's smaller poems.


Poem 170.

This poem, with 236, exemplifies the peculiar skill with which Scott
employs proper names: nor is there a surer sign of high poetical genius.


Poem 191.

The Editor in this and in other instances has risked the addition (or
the change) of a Title, that the aim of the verses following may be
grasped more clearly and immediately.


Poem 198.

_Nature's Eremite_: refers to the fable of the Wandering Jew. --This
beautiful sonnet was the last word of a poet deserving the title
"marvellous boy" in a much higher sense than Chatterton. If the
fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied from the promise, England
appears to have lost in Keats one whose gifts in Poetry have rarely been
surpassed. Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, had their lives been
closed at twenty-five, would (so far as we know) have left poems of less
excellence and hope than the youth who, from the petty school and the
London surgery, passed at once to a place with them of "high collateral
glory. "


Poem 201.

It is impossible not to regret that Moore has written so little in this
sweet and genuinely national style.