The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1866-12-22

Il DR. DRDADJSS LEtiuhb ON lHthSDA1
EvESTNG.-Not large but highly intelli-
gent audience heard DR.. Broadus's lecture
on Thursday evening. (The extremely
cold weather made it more comfortable to
remain at homc.) Those who were pre-
sent listened to q charming production.
The subject announced was Mrs. Brown.
ing's Poems," but the lecture took Q much
wider range than the announcement indi-
Gated. He discoursed upon many side is
sues, as the lawyers say, and expressed
many fine ideas in quiet and easy man.
ner. We cannot recall these ideas-the
more's the pity-but we can give some no.
tion as to the string upon which they were
hung.
Mrs. Browning (the lecturer thinks) is
the foremost female poet of the world, and
one of the two or three great poets Of our
own day-the others being Wordsworth,
Tennyson, and perhaps Mr.. Browning. In
her works are deep thoughts, hidden
beauties, which cursory perusal Of them
will not detect or appreciate. She bad
first written "over" (Sic) the signature of
a male, as did "George Eliot" !" and others
named. Some would-be practical people
would say that there was no advantage to
be derived from reading poetry; that it
appealed only to the sentiments, the ina
gination, Sc. The lecturer here dis
cussed the nature and office of the
imagination, maintaining that our peo-
Pile, many of them. had not imagi-
nation enough. He had once ad-
vised young minister of the Gospel to
read poetry and novels-advice which the
lecturer now thought half right and half
wrong-to improve his imagination. Not
the poetry of Tom Moore, Scott, or Byron,
but that of Wordsworth, Tennyson, and
Browning. He would not pretend to class
Mrs. Browning among the first or even the
Second-cla poets of the world. Any clas-
Sifcaton of poets would be arbitrary. He
had himself once made up an arbitrary
classification which was almost identical
with one that subsequently appeared in
The Galary. According to this, poets were
divided into three classes: In the first
class were Homer, Shakespeare, and perhaps
Dante; in the second, Sophocles, Virgil,
Milton, Calderon, and Goethe in the third,
many poets-among them Eschylus, Euri-
pides, Horace, Lucretius, Schiller, Racine,
Corneille, Spenser [1he GALAXY COM
menced its English list with Chaucer we
may sayl, Pope, Burns, Byron, Words
worth, Tennyson, the Brownings. 1.-THE
lecturer named others, and indicated
doubts as to some of these.] Was there
no American? Not one. The only one of
whom it might be said, as had been said of
Coleridge, that he "might have been "
classed among these great poets, was Ed
gar A. Poe. But among female poets Mrs.
Browning was faci!e prinCepS. Why was it
that there had been so few female poets OF
merit Some eccentric clergyman in
London had collected some five or six
thousand volumes Of poems written by
women. Women were equal to men in
powers of perception, passion, sentiment,
&c. Why could they not become poets
He offered q suggestion with dilfidence.
1t was, he thought perhaps, owing partly
to q want of necessary training, and partly
to a want of opportunities but there was
something else. Woman lacked the power
of sustaining intense and continued appli-
cation, &c.
We had intended to follow the lecturer to
the end, but find that we are taking up
too much space. We will add that he
quoted, with appreciation, the Earl of Der
by's dictum that Homer could never be
properly rendered Finto English except in
blank verse" unrhymed heroics"; that
be said there were many good speakers
and singers for every single good reader
that he mentioned Ruskin as a writer, who,
with all his wildness, was worth reading
that's not the expression; it was stronger
| and it couldn't be too strong for u.s. that he
alluded to the infdels of Europe as Radi-
Gals, and the Christian writer's as Conser-
vatives, for good reason given and did
not forget to mention Theodore Tilton.
He also quoted specimens OF Mrs. Brown
| ing'S style.