The thing is a fact, and told by one of the first physicians of the present day, as having happened in the south of England, 'and which has, a short time since', been turned by a lyric poet into that excellent ballad.

Milton was the third epic poet.'

But we may disregard Ion as a mere dramatic poet who always sees in great men something upon which to exercise his satiric vein; whereas Zeno used to invite those who called the haughtiness of Pericles a mere courting of popularity and affectation of grandeur, to court popularity themselves in the same fashion, since the acting of such a part might insensibly mould their dispositions until they resembled that of their model.

Mourn, mourn, pettifoggers, ye venal crew, And you, minor poets, woe, woe is to you!

As thus:'He appears to us to have no one quality which we should require in a tragic poet....

In general, three schools of writers are noticeable: first, the classicists, who, under Johnson's lead, insisted upon elegance and regularity of style; second, the romantic poets, like Collins, Gray, Thomson, and Burns, who revolted from Pope's artificial couplets and wrote of nature and the human heart; third, the early novelists, like Defoe and Fielding, who introduced a new type of literature.

I might speak of other celebrated poets,of Lucan, of Martial, of Petronius; but I only wish to show that the great poets of antiquity, both Greek and Roman, have never been surpassed in genius, in taste, and in art, and that few were ever more honored in their lifetime by appreciating admirers,showing the advanced state of civilization which was reached in those classic countries in everything pertaining to the realm of thought and art.

Infinitely more ingenuity did the great comic poet of antiquity display, when he selected the Scarabaeus; as the food which had already served the purposes of digestion with the Rider, was still capable of affording nutrition to the animal: [Greek: nun d'att'an autos kataphagoo ta sitia.

Jokai, who is still living (1886) and enjoys a world-wide fame as a novelist, and Petofi, the eminent poet, who was destined to become the Tyrtaeus of his nation, were then both young men, full of enthusiasm and intrepid energy, and teeming with great ideas.

Mediaeval standards of chivalry, the impossible loves and romances of which Spenser furnished the types, perished no less surely than the ideal of a national church; and in the absence of any fixed standard of literary criticism there was nothing to prevent the exaggeration of the "metaphysical" poets, who are the literary parallels to religious sects like the Anabaptists.

It is an elegy on the death of a youthful poet of considerable promise, Mr. Keats, and was printed at Pisa.

Antiquity, however, as mentioned above, relates that Thaletas, a famous lyric poet, contemporary with Solon, was gifted with this power; but it is impossible to render the fact credible, without qualifying it by several circumstances omitted in the relation.

They may not have the deep religious sentiment and unity of imagination and passion which belong to the Greek lyrical poets, but as works of art, of exquisite felicity of expression, of agreeable images, they are unrivalled.

In the state archives, kept in the library of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of unpublished verse,some by well-known hands, and others, quite as good, by the last people you would think of as versifiers,men who could pension off all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten acres of Boston common, if it was for sale, with what they had left.

We must, however, turn to another and a later poet than Chaucer for any description of that tremendous spectacle.

The sentimental side of his nature, fed by the productions of his favourite poets and fanned by the romantic temperament of his tutor, soon found an object to kindle the spark into a blaze, and a most unfortunate blaze for Pen.

Through his poems are scattered many fine passages; but not even his large influence on the better poets who followed is sufficient to justify our listening to him longer now.

" The poppy, from its somniferous effects, has been made symbolic of sleep and oblivion; hence Virgil calls it the Lethean poppy, whilst our old pastoral poet, William Browne, speaks of it as "sleep-bringing poppy.

Miss Caroline herself had refrained from abusing himhad seemed to have forgotten him, indeed; but, as she read Byron to them, their hearts opened to herrushed out, indeed, with a friendly wholeness that demanded something more than mere cordial applause of her favorite poet.

Great pulpit orators, renowned theologians, profound philosophers, immortal poets, successful reformers, and enlightened monarchs have never disputed his intellectual ascendency; to all alike he has been a model and a marvel.

Such a look on the absent, tender face as the great masters, the divinest poets cannot often summon, but which comes at the call of some foolish old nursery jingle, some fragment of half-forgotten folk-lore, heard when the world was youngwhen all hearing was music, when all sight was "pictures," when every sense brought marvels that seemed the everyday way of the wonderful, wonderful world.

Rather he seemeth to keep aloof from any source of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant of what mighty poets have done in this kind before him; for being asked if his father had ever been on Westminster Bridge, he answered that he did not know!

(This metaphor has been leased for a term of years to a distinguished hydropathic poet.)

This was the truest warrior That ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet That ever breathed a word.

It has been my aim and my achievement to deduce moral thunder from buttercups, daisies, celandines, and (as a poet scarcely inferior to myself hath it) 'such small deer,'" etc.