THE BOOK OF ENGLISH POETRY. . PART I.-MODERN ENGLISH POETS. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. The peculiar characteristics of the modern school of British Poets may be concisely stated to originate in the abandonment of classical imagery, and the artificial ideas adapted from Greek and Roman mythology, for the more direct subserviency of the muse to truth and nature. All poetry is, indeed, necessarily inspired by the truthful appreciation of nature ; but the choice of subject, and the mode of treatment, are equally affected by the fashions and tendencies of the age, and thus the works of the true poet become the mirror in which the characteristics of his era are reflected and faithfully depicted for other times. During the latter part of the eighteenth century, names belonging to the modern school of poets began to appear among those singularly fantastic writers, such as Darwin, Hayley, and Weston, who so fitly represented the character of that most formal and artificial period. CONTENTS ... Report of an Adjuged Case, not My Native Vale, to be found in any of the The Ruins of Pæstum, Hope Beyond the Grave, 48 Scottish Sabbath Evening, 52 On the Extinction of the Vene- 54 Confirmation, From "The Cottar's Saturday The Beacon Fire, Night," 55 Time, Toa Mountain Daisy, on turning Love of Country, one down with the Plough, 58 Our Country and our Home, To Mary in Heaven, 60 Friends, 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 ... ... To a Friend, proposing to do- The Dream of Eugene Aram, 149 156 Kilmeny's return from Fairy The Future, 160 A Mountain Landscape, 88 Sabbath Evening, 161 Hope triumphant in Death, 96 The Statesman, from "In Me- 100 A Child's First Impression of a The Glory of God in Nature, 106 | The Lady's Yes, 174 To the Bramble Flower, 108 To a Dying Infant, 177 110 The Pauper's Death-Bed, 182 111 | The Huguenot's Battle-Hymn, 184 Instability of Human Glory, 112 Moncontour, 113 A Butterfly at a Child's Grave, 192 119 | The Reaper and the Flowers, 198 The Martyr's Funeral Hymn, 126 Our Countrymen in Chains, 204 127 Lines on reading an account 133 | The Covenanter's Dream, 210 The Burial of Sir John Moore, 138 Hymn of Nature, 139 Excommunication of the Cid, 217 ... ... ... ... ... ... |