1767. The last three lines were written by Gray. See Mitford's Correspondence of Gray and Mason, p. 380.

CC

From the Elegy on the Earl of Cadogan. Few poets so nearly forgotten have so narrowly missed eminence as Tickell. His Elegy on Addison, too well known for inclusion in this volume, is one of the most eloquent and pathetic poems in our language. His Colin and Lucy is among the best of our ballads, and his Thersites, in condensed energy of invective, is equal to anything of the same kind in Swift, to whom it might seem to belong.

CCI

John Collins was the author of this truly charming poem. He was born at Bath, but the date of his birth is not known. He went on the stage, became famous as a reciter and composer of humorous songs, some of which appeared in a Miscellany entitled The Brush, others in a volume called Scripscrapologia: or Collins' Doggerel Dish of All Sorts, and some in The Birmingham Chronicle, of which he became one of the proprietors. He died in May 1808. The play on the word "everlasting" in the last line should not be missed; "everlasting" was a stout strong cloth generally worn by sergeants. See Hallwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words.

CCII

From Thomson's Poems on Several Occasions, where they are entitled Verses occasioned by the Death of Mrs. Aikman, a particular friend of the author's. A poet so well known as Thomson scarcely comes within the scope of this volume, but as these verses seem never quoted or noticed I have ventured to give them. They are a pathetic commentary on the curse in the old Roman epitaph ultimus suorum moriatur. The common reading in the second line is "string after string."

This famous and beautiful epigram is from the Arabic of Ali-ibn-Ahmed-ibn Mansour, a famous satirist, who died at Bagdad in A.D. 914. The original is given in specimens of Arabian Poetry by A. D. Carlyle 1796. For the following literal version of the original I am indebted to my friend Mr. C. E. Wilson: "You are he whom your mother bore weeping whilst the people around you were smiling with joy. Strive for yourself that you may be, when they are weeping in the day of your death, smiling joyously." Carlyle's version is very inferior to that of Sir William Jones.

CCV

From Watt's Poetical Album, second series, p. 94. These touching verses were written by Henry, second Viscount Palmerston, father of the famous statesman, on the death of his first wife, Frances, who died in June 1769.

CCVI

I have ventured to detach these two stanzas from their context. They form part of a poem on Bishop Ken's Grave.

CCVII

How Anna Letitia Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld (1743-1825), could have deviated into lines so exquisite as these must be inexplicable to all who are acquainted with her poetry. They form the concluding verses of a poem entitled Life. Wordsworth said of this poem that though he was not in the habit of envying authors their good things, he would like to have written these lines.

BOOK IV

(1798-1880)

CCX

From poems published in a memorial volume printed, without date, for private circulation by Messrs. R. and M. J. Livingstone after Darley's death. I have taken the liberty to modernise the spelling of this poem.

From Fugitive Verses.

CCXI

CCXII

From The Phantom: a Drama; Act I. sc. 4. Miss Baillie's purely lyrical genius was ill employed in dramatic composition. Her plays, which make up nearly two-thirds of her works, though they found a great admirer in J. S. Mill, are now deservedly all but forgotten; but some of the songs, such as "The bride she is winsome and bonny," "My Nanny, O," "The gowan glitters on the sward," "The Weary Pund o' Tow," and one or two of her humorous poems, will keep her memory alive.

CCXIII

From The City of Dreadful Night. How nearly this hapless poet sometimes approached Heine!

CCXIV

Thomas Ashe (1836-1889). From the series of poems entitled At Altenahr in the later poems. When will some

competent critic do justice to poor Ashe? His lyrics are full of beauty and charm.

CCXV

William Motherwell (1797-1835) is one of those poets to whom full justice has never been done; he stands in the first rank of Scotch lyric poets. Essentially original, he was a man of rare and fine genius. I have omitted three stanzas from the middle of the poem.

CCXVI

P. B. Marston (1850-1887) was a son of the well-known dramatic poet Dr. Westland Marston. His poetry is the reflection of his life, and his life was one of the saddest recorded in the history of poets. His lyrics have occasionally great merit. His poems were collected in 1892 with a biographical sketch of the author by Miss Louise Chandler Moulton.

CCXVII

Romanzo's song in Sylvia. George Darley is one of those poets who have received hard measure from fame. The late Lord Houghton, who, like Tennyson, Sir Henry Taylor, and others, had a very high opinion of Darley's merits, intended to reprint his poems with a biographical introduction. Surely his poems should be collected and made popularly accessible.

CCXVIII

William Thom (1798-1848) was one of the many minor poets whom Burns and the school of Burns inspired, but he was no servile imitator. He was self-taught, and the greater part of his life was spent in drudging in the cotton mills, "a serf," as he once described himself, who had "to weave fourteen hours out of the four and twenty." Nature and genius speak in this and in others of his lyrics.

CCXIX

From Among the Flowers and other Poems, a volume of poems published at Belfast in 1878. Of the author I know nothing, but I know these stanzas are worthy of a place beside Plato's two exquisite epigrams. In the original the last verse runs "when love is done." I have taken the liberty to substitute "gone" for "done," feeling sure that “done” must be a misprint.

CCXXI

The Hon. W. R. Spencer, born in 1770, was long a familiar figure in fashionable circles at the beginning of this century and during the Regency. He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott. He realised his own vision (see ccxcv.), and died in distress at Paris in 1834. He is perhaps best known by his ballad Beth-Gêlert; he is certainly one of the most graceful of modern lyrical poets.

CCXXII

From Pericles and Aspasia.

CCXXIV

From Sonnets from the Portuguese. The reference is to Theocritus, Idyll xv. 103-105.

CCXXVI

Grace, fluency, and a fine sensibility mark every poem which has been preserved from Wolfe's papers. The Burial of Sir John Moore and the exquisite threnody, "If I had thought thou could'st have died," both of which, as stock pieces in every collection, are not included in the present volume, are the poems on which his fame rests; but I venture to think that the lyric here given is not unworthy to stand, at whatever interval, beside them. His poems were collected and his life written by his friend the Rev. John A. Russell.