The Poets : Geoffrey Chaucer to Alfred Tennyson. By William
Stebbing. 2 vols. (H. Frowde. 8s. net.)—In his first volume Mr. Stebbing deals with forty-two poets (Chaucer to Burns), whose literary activity covered nearly five centuries, if Chaucer began to write in 1360 and Samuel Rogers died in 1865; in his second are included thirty, who take in a little more than a hundred years from Wordsworth's first effort in 1786 to Tenny- son's last in 1891. One obvious reflection as we scan the two lists of names is that admission to the first was more easily gained than to the second. Suckling, Denham, Prior, and Akenside have got their place, and are not likely to be dispossessed. They are in permanence among the "British Poets." We do not quarrel with Mr. Stabbing for including them. He speaks quite freely when he comes to appreciate them. In Beattie, for instance, he finds little but "respectable, bald platitudes " ; still, he sees that this versifier expressed the thoughts of a great class and did a certain work very well. Mr. Stebbing may, indeed, be trusted, whatever his theme, to say the right thing about it. Whether it is to the Di maierum or minorum gentium that he pays his homage, it is always a reasonable worship. He can say something well worth hearing about Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and he shows an admirably balanced judgment in dealing with the men of the second or the third class, for such there are in this comprehen- sive catalogue. The chapter " Unclassed" is particularly good. His selection could hardly have a better justification. If we say far less about his two volumes than would seem to be suitable to their great intrinsic merit, it is because of the feeling, expressed more than once in these columns, that it is unprofitable to criticise a critic. One thing we may say without hesitation, that a student of this portion of English literature could not find a better guide.—Part of the same ground traversed in Mr. Stebbing's volume is gone over in Hours with the hnmortals, by Robert P. Downes, LL.D. (R. Caney, 35. 6d.) Dr. Downes has already published under this title a volume on French poets ; he gives us here an account of British poets. His limits are Cowper and Tennyson, though be reserves his last two chapters for the Brownings (E. B. Brcwning was three years older than Tennyson, while R. Browning was three years younger, but the longer life of Tennyson makes him a more fitting terminus ad quern). It will be seen, therefore, that it is only the greater names with which Dr. Downes has occupied himself. Ile has something to say that is worth reading, but we cannot help wishing that he had expressed it in less ornate language.
Previous page
