LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS IN THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH By R. C.
Bald
This book (Cambridge University Press, 7s. 6d.) is not an anthology, for its standard of inclusion is not that of literary excellence ; the excerpts have been chosen for the light that they shed upon the intimate relationships of the literary men of the Romantic period. It covers a period from 1782, when Coleridge was a schoolboy, to 1838, when Coleridge was dead but when Wordsworth was still living, the last survival of the Romantic dawn. The writers represented are Coleridge, Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, Southey, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, be Quincey, Charles Lamb, Haydon, Landor, Crabb Robinson, Scott, Shelley, Keats, Byron and Peacock. The period is conspicuous in literary history for its unaffected friendships, and for the records of their informal gatherings. The writers' habits, their judgements of literature ancient and modern, their affections and their lives, are all revealed ; and the atmosphere of the age comes out more conveniently and clearly in this collection than it does in a library of separate books. The book is not intended for scholars and specialists, for they Will know these extracts already ; but even they may be glad to find so many treasures and so many associations -gathered together. For students of _ the period it is invaluable. It shows De Quincey complaining that Wordsworth will cut books -with a buttery knife rather than-wait -for's clean one ; it shows Lamb, complaining that his friends will never let him eat alone; it shows Lamb also ' his tragic mood after his sister's first madness - it shows a of them commenting upon each other's lectures; and brings out very plainly the effect upon a generation of t death of Keats and of Shelley. Byron's death is not noted and that omission is to be regretted, since Byron probab meant more to his generation than either of the others, Another sad omission is Trelawny ; he Was -riot primarily literary man, but he wrote Adventures of a Younger Son and Recollections of Byron and Shelley, and his notes about Brea and Shelley are at least as valuable as Haydon's about 'tie
Older generation of romanticists. - '-
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