I will make to the writers of literary, metrical and textual criticism and to collectors of old literature, merely such references as directly concern the English Romantic poetry of the period.

This period ends at the "Lyrical Ballads", which have consistently and rightly been taken to mark the beginning of the Nineteenth Century Romantic poetry; I will handle very briefly the pre-1798 poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Landor, Joanna Baillie, and Lamb.

Now, on Eighteenth Century Romanticism two excellent books appeared at the close of the last century; Professor Phelps' "The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement” in 1893, Professor Beers' "History of English Romanticism in the XVIIIth Century" in 1899. Both works were written by Americans, who owed each other a considerable debt and so have treated the subject in a somewhat similar manner; but Professor Beers failed to render to the younger man his rightful dues.

Professor Phelps dealt with the years 1700-1765, treating the poetry in some detail and making very able references to the criticism and anthologies of the period; Professor Beers considered the complete century and handled not only poetry, criticism, and "Collections" but also the Gothic novel, to which he gave close attention. Both books contained much that is stimulating and valuable (some of Professor Phelps' researches proved most fruitful), but both critics admitted that their work was not so thorough as it might have been (both handling very capably, however, and often fully what they touched): Professor Phelps was unfortunately bound, by the terms of his thesis, to stop at about 1765, and thus he omitted the culminating achievements of Eighteenth-century Romanticism, while Professor Beers passed over Blake for reasons that scarcely compensate for the omission, and ignored the work of Sir William Jones, Jago, John Scott, Logan, and Russell.

It will, then, fill a gap to present in an ordered fashion these last humble workers of the Romantic corps, who have received summary consideration in their "new movement" aspect even in the Cambridge History of Literature. I have endeavoured to criticise in an independent manner all the poets included in the following sketch, and, the better to secure that independence, I have studiously avoided any recent reading of

the afore-mentioned works by Professors Phelps and Beers (with whom I have no intentions of competing); it is worth noting that since those books appeared, several interesting and valuable pieces of editorial work have been done, as for example a complete edition of the Countess of Winchelsea's poems, and the inclusion of "Midnight" in Crabbe's early verse.

Even in so cursory a treatment of Eighteenth-Century Romantic poetry as this, one should not, I suppose, entirely burk the question, "What is Romanticism?" But, though one cannot nail il down, as Herr Deutschbein has tried to do, with a hard-and-fast definition, one has come to recognise a certain wide interpretation of the term; that, surely, is sufficient. We know what poetry is for all practical purposes, yet few are so fool-hardy as to attempt a rigid definition of it: the same applies to Romanticism, which becomes clear when one sets an extreme instance of "Classicism" over against it. So I won't enter into an aesthetic disquisition nor worry to death an already well-worn enquiry, but, assuming (however rashly !) that my conception of the subject is normal, will go straight ahead. (For those who wish to examine various opinions on "Romanticism", Professors Phelps and Beers' work will provide much that will interest them, while the Introduction to Professor Herford's "Age of Wordsworth" is valuable).

As the most important writers, Thomson, Collins, Gray, Macpherson, Percy, Chatterton, Burns, Crabbe and Blake, have been discussed thoroughly by others for their Romantic elements, I shall to these give a space adequate (I believe) to an appreciation of their significance, but not so full as would be wholly consonant with a rigidly logical treatment, for I wish to bring out the essential importance of such writers as Allan Ramsay (who has been strangely neglected), a writer far superior to Hamilton of Bangour, Mickle, Jago, Parnell, Bowles, and several others that I intend to stress. I have tried to illustrate the minor poets, whose works do not abound in modern editions. What is the use of postulating the importance of a man whose publications are found only in the best libraries (or are at least hard to procure) or have been consistently slighted to the extent of being no longer read, if one doesn't support such a statement with extracts, however brief, from his writings? To all poets, great or small, to the former because one takes them so much for granted or tends to talk about

them "in the air", and to the latter because they are little known save to experts -one must, when following out some special aspect or movement, apply conscientiously the dictum of David Hume: "No criticism can be instructive which descends not to particulars, and is not full of illustrations". This method has been little used in much late nineteenth, and in twentieth contury eriticism, and Signor Benedetto Croce has acted most praiseworthily in his book on Dante, where he insists on the realities and sets aside the philosophical or symbolical significance superimposed by many admirers on the "Divina Commedia”.

(I have given numerous dates, for dates have great significance in such a subject as early Romanticism).

To leave these matters. I must thank Professor J. J. Stable, of the University of Queensland, for some valuable criticism on this study.

Oxford, 1922..

The Romantic poetry of the Eighteenth Century, beginning with that of the Countess of Winchelsea in 1713, kept on its course fairly continuously and with increasing strength. Am examination of its chronology, however, shows that there were several lulls in the movement; during these lulls, the "classical" poetry either dominated or shared the field.

We may, without artificiality, divide the Eighteenth-Century Romantic Movement in poetry into three periods or significant activity: 1713-1730, 1742-1751, and 1771-1798; the years 1752-1770 represent a period of suspense.

During the opening years of the century, "Classicism" flourished almost unopposed: Swift, Addison, Steele, and Pope produced much of their work; Dryden's influence remained powerful Swift acted potently on the age; Addison and Steele made for culture and the increasing dignity of periodical literature; Pope set a standard of deft artistry and witty phrases. But the beginnings of a new spirit in poetry became noticeable during the years 1713-1730. Then came a lull in Romantic activities the fourth decade of the century saw the classical tradition, with Pope as its acknowledged representative, in at least nominal possession of the field; nevertheless, the seeds sown by Ramsay and Thomson were fast sending up shoots and yielded during the next ten years a rich crop of poetic fruit that had some of it a genuine, some a partial Romantic flavour.

The years 1752-1770 constituted not so much a lull as a breathing space. After Gray's "Elegy" little significant poetry was published until Macpherson, Smart, and Percy gave out

their intrinsically notable works. "Ossian", "The Song of David", and the "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" would have sufficed, in similar circumstances, to herald a poetic revolution in any part of the world; the revolt in England owed little, as a matter of fact, to Smart, but Macpherson and Percy were famous and popular pioneers in discovering to the public two fertile regions of romance. So that the period from Gray's "Elegy" to Macpherson's "Ossian" stood for a stoppage in Romantic movement, while that from "Ossian" to "The Deserted Village" represented a renewed interest in fresh themes and the appearance of Mediaevalism, but did not produce enough purely original published work to be considered a period of special Romantic activity.

The lulls, however, form only a negative aspect of the subject.

The Romantic poetry of the Century began (so far as we can ascribe a precise date to such things!) with the Countess of Winchelsea's "Miscellany Poems" published in 1713. Not that all or many of these poems were Romantic; far from it. But several breathed a new spirit-a charming lyricism and a deep love for nature. Then in 1717 came two contributions from that out-and-out "Classic", Pope, who in the "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady" and the "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard" unbent himself in pathos and passion. Soon after, Allan Ramsay published some of his poetry in several collections of old songs and ballads, and in 1725 he brought out his delightful "Gentle Shepherd". Between Pope's "Epistle" and Ramsay's pastoral, several of Parnell's poems had shown a distinctly Romantic tendency. 1726 is a date that even the most cursory historians of English literature have felt bound to emphasise, because during that year appeared Thomson's "Winter" and Dyer's "Grongar Hill" these writers established the poetry descriptive of Nature, the former in a grand and imposing manner, the latter in light and lyrical fashion. By 1730 Thomson had published all the "Seasons"; overshadowed by them, but quietly significant, came Glover's poem "On Sir Isaac Newton" in 1728. "The Seasons", indeed, form the most solid yet not the only important manifestation of the ferment working in Early Eighteenth-century poetry.

The years 1731-1741, rich in "classical" literature, offered nothing of importance to Romanticism except "The Complete