Professor Courthope, the Professor of Poetry at Oxford, delivered an
interesting lecture this day week in the Taylor Institution, on "Life in Poetry," the first of a series of three, of which the first was on "Poetical Conception," while the second is to be on " Poetical Expression," and the third on " Poetical Decadence." In relation to poetical conception, Professor Coarthope laid it down that to make a concep- tion poetical, it must have a universal element in it which will take a strong grasp of all thinking and feeling minds, and next, must be elaborated by the individual genius of a unique imagination. In Homer's Iliad, for instance, the sub- ject was of universal interest, and the treatment of the sub- ject by the poet showed that his whole mind and genius was absorbed in the illustration of his subject. In Virgil's /Eneid, on the other hand, the poet was very much less identified with his subject, but by his great command of pathos, and by "the sweetness, gravity, and piety of his own nature," he impregnated a more or less alien subject with an incomparable charm. In modern poetry Professor Courthope took Robert Browning as the example of too much in- dividualism and too little regard for the universal interest which appeals to all hearts.
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