New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-01-15

IL the British youth of the nineteenth century
have not as fully acquainted themselves a. dd lhe
British youth of the sixteenth century with the arr
of poetry it is their own fault and not the ianie vi
the British poets and critics, who anonSthem nave
constrncted n large library of poetical criticism.
Wordsworth began his share of this library IN tue
second volume of his Lyrical Ballads t1S02), and
what with prefaces, essays. appendices ana sup
plenents. he continued to instruct his readers Tor
thirty three wears longer He was followed by
Southey. in lis Specimens of Later English Poe's
usO7l, by Lamb in his Specimens of Eng
Hsh Dramatic Poets 1s0sj by Colerdge, IN
his Lectures at the ROYAL Institution ana
elsew here in 1903, 1871 and 1878 and IN MS
Biocraphia Literaria uSl7); by HazHtt IN
his Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth Characters Oh
Shakespeare's Plays, English Comic Wrters' ana
English Poets (circd 1919; and by Camobeil Ill MS
Specirnens of the British Poets USED Inc hoso
remarkable examples of poetical criticism by these
writer's within the dates specified, are to DO tonhh
In Coleridae and Lamb,-in the Shakespeareah
Lectures Of the first, every wort therein Delhg
weighty and in his Geographic Literaria. OF which
eleven of it's twenty two chapters are devoten 10
purely literary criticism, and In the specimens" vi
the last which as surely revived the taste for Eng
fish dramatic writing III this century as Iercy
Reoues revived the taste for early English poetry
notes and comments which taken together make
less than twenty of the four hundred and eighty
four pages of the original edition.
we have now reached the only criticism when Is
worthy TO rank with Sidneys ApOlOgy-Shelley =
Defence of Poetry. Like that noble production, IL
was reply to attack upon poetry by rohtem-
porary pOet and lko that, 1t is the one prose WORK
bv which it, writer remembered best, ana Is
likely to he remembered longest if 1t shall be trne,
"a Mr. Matthew Arnold thinks, that SheneyS prose
will resist the wear and tear of time better ana
finally come to stand higher than his poetry. 1t
was to reply to a paper by Thomas Love Peacock on
The Four Ages of Poetry, that Shelley, two hundred
and forty years later than Sidney sat down 10 Wrte
his Defence of Poetry. 1t was at PISA ~ The winter
Of 1921. the year in which his genius was loosen
ing its hold upGn great things CorusCatlng III Tyres
instead of flaming out in tragedies-aEd in which
he was carried away by the inspiration of the mo-
ment His mind at its brightest, but not It's
stroniest there was sense of strain in its efforts,
as of n string too tensely drawn, an OverpOwering
sense of WEAKNESS in its trumphs. lie wrote with
the heat that was consuming him-icrvldlY, elo-
oucntly ntuitlvely but with a breathlessness that
compelled him to abandon his task before 1t was
ended. 1t is but the beginning that we pos
sess in the Defence of Poetry, but what beginning
tho outline of a statue that finished wonld nave
been worthy of the hottest place in tie temple OF
poetry,-purc, perfect, divine
OF the later writer's OF poetical criticism, whose
name is Legion need mention only MIR. Matthew
Arnold, who installed himself rs n critic IN the
preface to his collected Poems IN 1893 and has
since exercised his functions in Wards Englth
Poets and IN his selections from Wordsworth and
Byron Mr. Francis Turner PalgIaye; Mr.. Agernon
Charles Swnbnrne; Mr.. Stopford Brooke; Mr. Al
| aft prOf
We have led ND to Professor Sharp's Aspects Of
Poetry through this long walk OF pOetical criticism
in order that the reader may how well beaten 1T
is-how poet after poet and critic after critic has
tracked his fellows in what Dryden calls the snow
of their thoughts, and may know whittier the foot
steps Of all have tended. Is it such book about
poetry rs should bo written at the beginning of
the fourth century after the writing of Sid
news Apology for Poetry We think not II
consists of twelve lectures, selected from
those which Professor Sharp has delivered
during the last four years from the Chair
of Poetry at OxfOrd-lectures designed to be
read before audiences which changed from
time TO time graduates undergraduates and others,
and calculated TO produce n popular and Immediate
effect. That they may have been effective we can
readily believe. but we cannot perceive a necessity
for their publication in the present form. The
average student of Oxford may be saticfcd
with aspects Of poetry, but the man of letters will
not be. and ought not to be- satisfied with any such
shallow makoshifts. We do not wish 70 be
understood as declaring that Professor Sharp is
not an able man, that he is not apr" ciative
and does not occasionally say things well, but
we wish 10 be understood as declaring that he
lacks breadth of vision, and catholicty Of
taste that he warped by his predictions and that
he fails to define poetry in its entirety One has
not 10 read far to discover that he Is a Scochman
II goes without saying. after one has read, a.
In his fourth lecture that Scott, more than any
other person since Shakespeare, had IN him that
touch of nature which makes the whole world
kin. and after ono reads as in his seventh lecture
that no such verse a. Iiurns1s, since Shakcspeares
time. has so much the appearance ofcoming sweetly
from nature. Nor has to read far before he dis
covers that he is a thorough-goins Worlsworthipn
The overshadowmg influence of Wordsworth is vis
bile evervwhere--visible in his aversion from Byron,
who never attempted to master hi1 art OF go take
the measure of himself who did not seem to have any
Seicacv Of ear for the refinement of metre who was
never quite at ease in the Spenserian stanza, and
who hal no great mastery over blank vcrSe-and
visible also in the standard 10y which he essays toe
measure nortrv of which he writes in the manner
of an old CoyenautaT -" The true end il 10 awaken
men to the dvne side Of things, to bear witness to
the beauty that clothes the outer world, the nObl-
itvthat lies hid often Obscurcd in human souls 70 call
forth sympathy for neglected truths, for noble
but oppressed persons, for downtrodden causes, aud
to make men feel that, through all outward beauty
and all pure inward affection, God Himself is adj
dressing them And in his thlrd lecture he writes
lie, rs then take courage and pit for the time,
as settled the old conviction that the moral
substance of human nature is the soil which true
poetry grows that the poetry of life must he moral,
since life itself is spiritually moral 10 IL with a
tape-line like this that he would measure poetry
which in itself is limited neither by morality, nor
immortality, but is as limltless as the
Universe II NAV be said that the greatest