The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-12-11

nineteenth century poets. These before
nam are not given, but l suppose from
opinions given i'll other connections
that he ranked Wordsworth and Coler-
use foremost, or it IN gnt have beer
ftcbeft Browning. Tor IN writing OF
him he said:
Since Chaucer was alive and hale.
No man hat walked along our roads
with step
50 active. so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse"
OF Milton, the sublimest poet. as |
have steadfastly insisted, through the
decades. that great many others LORD
Macaulay, said. THAT. though in las,
eight books of Paradise Lost contain
Incompatible beauties Mistons fame
would have stood higher if only the
first four had been preserved. He
woulG have been placed above
Homer That may be true for
have never read anything from the
great. Greek poet that equals the first
tour books referred to. But how can
the eight books alter his reputation or
diminishIhis splend 4 genius SO long
las the four books are witlfus? Are not
the eight books filed with ''incompar-
able beauties ~ Talking one day With
Macaulay and the celebrated Dean
Milman. Lord Carlisle. "a capital liter
atuS and man of superior abilities. re-
cords in his journal that Macaulay
gave his estimate Of the very greatest
Of all poets Of the world in the order
of their greatness. as follows: Shakes
peare, Homer, Dante, Aeschytus, MIL
ton, Sophocles. To this opinion the
Dean assented ION the WHOLE Lord
Carlisle put in plea for
Virgil as superior to Sophocles, but
Macaulay said What did Virgil ever
write like the 'Philoctetes ?" In the
same conversation. MaCaulay said that
he thought THE first part of Henry the
Fourth shakespeare best comic
play, then the second part; then
probably wisely. that shakespeare
plays are not to be elassed into
Tragedy and Comedy" | very mod
estly say, and | would not put the
AeschytuS above Milton, although that
would relegate me TO the limbo of
fools in the Judgment of the Worship
pers of the Greeks. Millions minor
poems in, beauty and perfection of
poetic art have never of their kind
been surpassed, if equalled. So at
least | think, in my ignorance it may
be. No man possibly ever lived who
was better qualified for sound judg-
ment as to historical writer's than
Macaulay. He held with infiexibe
conviction that the greatest historian
of all the world is Thucydides. the
Grecian. He held that he was never
to be matched. He said that what
is good in him is better than any
thing that can be found elsewhere.
But his dry parts are dreadfully dry,
and his arrangement is bad He
said that the Seventh book of
Thucydides is simply the me plus
ultra of human art" He records that
he likes Piurarch prodiglously. He
-
mancer; but he tells Il story delight
fully and his illustrations and sketch
es of character are as good as anything
in ancient eloquence." Lord Byron,
very strange to say, and most absurd
Nv, thou@ht Clifford and Rogers hardly
third rate poets, greater poets than
Wordsworth and Coleridge. Absurd
ity could not go much farther. Let
me copy what Macaulay in his Journ-
al, says of Byron: Poor fellow! Yet
he was a bad fellow. and horribly at
fected.' OF his famous long poem
Don juan" he wrote: THE first two
cantos are his masterpieces The next
two may pass as not below his aver
age. Then begins the descent. and at
last he sinks to the level of his own
imitators in the Magagories." This
was written in 1S49. These excerpts
will interest some of my readers. By
ron was indeed Il great poet, and in
1904, he is still read by many who
appreciate his genius and rank him
high. In thirty or forty years he has
been deprecated and spurned, but lar-
terly there is a revival of interest in
one of the foremost of English poets.
and the most eloquent Of all in the
last century.
1t is very noticeable of the slow but
Ova oh mr.
ticians and writer's asNto the character
of the war of the South and the rea.
sons therefor. Mr.. Charles Francis
Adams, son of the eminent statesman
of the same name, who was minister
plenipotentiary to Great Britain, is a
gentleman of note, of ability and with
higher sense of moderation and
justice than most of his fellow citi-
zens in Massachusetts. l have not by
me his patriotic and proper statement
in regard to the right of secession. l
give , few sentences from q Judge of
the United States District Court Judge
John III. Rogers, of Arkansas. He said:
II affirm. if odium is to attach to the
South for the act of secession, it must
attach also to the great North and
East where it was for political eco
nomic and industrial reasons SedulouS-
" agtated and inculcated up to the
time of the Mexican War. and the
rights distinctly recognized by it's lead
ing statesmen up TO 1860. History
ought not TO allow them to slip this
odium. if odium it be. from their
shoulders to the shoulders of the
South"
For the North's guilt and RESPONSE
bility see Sullivan's Men of the Rev
olution," a Massachusetts, author. and
Bledsoe'S Incompatible work. by a
Southern writer. rs JEFF Davis a Trai-
or. or Was Secession a Constitutional
Right Before, the War" Judge Rogers
says:
1.-THE Southern States had the pow
~, Notwithstanding the Constitution,
% Withdraw from the Union in 1903.
n 1912 and in 1S45, as New England
statesmen then affirmed they had the
same power in 1861. No change of
the Constitution had been made and
the relations of the States to each
other were unaltered."
/ n.tsat take space to make one more
extract from this highly interesting ad-
dress:
II must not be misunderstood. This
whole question of secession and dis
union has been forever settled so far
far as the domain of constitutional law
s concerned The decree was render
ed at Appom6ttox. and was written in
he best blood of all sections of this