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FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

_By_ HAMILTON W. MABIE, _Author and Critic_.

[Illustration: JOHN KEATS]

[Illustration: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY]

THE MENTOR

SERIAL No. 44

DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE

MENTOR GRAVURES

    BYRON

    SHELLEY

    KEATS

    WORDSWORTH

    TENNYSON

    BROWNING


Modern English poetry is rich not only in its quality, but in its
variety, both of theme and of manner. The exuberant imagination and
splendid profusion of Swinburne are in striking contrast with the
restraint and clearness of style of Matthew Arnold; the fluency and
narrative faculty of William Morris, with the strongly etched and
powerfully phrased work of Francis Thompson and Henley. The classical
dignity of Landor, the humor of Hood, the seriousness of mood of
Clough (kluff), the pictorial genius of Rossetti, the fresh invention
of Stevenson and Kipling, suggest the range of poetic production of
an age not matched in wealth of genius since the age of Shakespeare.
Among the throng of poets who made lasting contributions to English
literature during the nineteenth century, six may be regarded as most
representative.

Byron died ninety-one years ago; but, although there has been a great
change in the way poets look at life and in their way of writing verse,
he holds his place as one of the greater poets, not only in reputation,
but in popular regard; and for two reasons,--he was one of the born
singers to whom men will always stop to listen, and he was also a poet
of revolt. He is not read in this country as Browning and Kipling are
read; nor, on the other hand, is he neglected as Milton and Landor are
neglected. His stormy nature and his tempestuous career add an element
of personal interest to the claims of his poetry upon the attention
of reading people today, and he is one of those men of genius about
whom it is difficult to be judicial: those who like his work become
his partizans, those who dislike him charge him with insincerity and
immorality.

It must be frankly confessed that Byron had moments of insincerity, and
that he often posed; but he was largely the victim of his temperament.
Mr. Symonds has said of him that he was well born and ill bred. He
had noble impulses, and he had the strong passions that give energy of
feeling and vitality of imagination to many of the greatest men and
women; but he had neither clearness of moral vision nor steadiness of
purpose. He had great genius; but he was neither intellectually nor
morally great. And yet he had such force of mind and eloquence that
Goethe, (gay´-te) who was the greatest critic of his time, if not of
all time, declared that the English could show no poet to be compared
with him.


BYRON’S PLACE AMONG POETS

[Illustration: NEWSTEAD ABBEY

Byron’s Home.]

[Illustration: BYRON’S MOTHER

From the painting by Thomas Stewardson in possession of John Murray.]

What ground was there for an estimate which gave Byron a place by
himself among English poets? “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” was
a telling satire written by a confident boy of genius, effective in
“hits” which the time understood, but defective in critical insight;
“Childe Harold,” the early stanzas of which appeared after travel had
inspired him, was a splendid piece of rhetoric which often attains a
very noble eloquence. “The Giaour” (jow´-er), “Manfred,” the “Corsair,”
“Lara” (lah´-rah), stirred an age which was in revolt against rigid
and often artificial conventions. “Don Juan” (hoo-ahn´), like “Childe
Harold,” is a poetic journal which lacks dramatic unity, but contains
descriptions of compelling beauty. Some of the shorter pieces, like the
“Prisoner of Chillon,” “When We Two Parted,” “She Walks in Beauty,”
have the power of deep feeling when it becomes eloquent; while such
stanzas as “The Isles of Greece,” scattered through “Childe Harold,”
make history as moving as poetry.

[Illustration: LADY BYRON

The wife of the poet.]

[Illustration: LORD BYRON

From the engraving by Lupton after the painting by Thomas Phillips.]

Byron had richness of imagination rather than wealth of thought; he
had a full-throated, operatic voice rather than purity of tone; he had
splendor rather than clarity of mind; he had great natural force of
genius rather than command of the resources of art. He was generous
in impulse, enthusiastic in temper, and he loved liberty. It was the
presence of these qualities in his nature, and his spirit of revolt,
that led Mazzini (maght-see´-nee), to predict, “The day will come when
Democracy will remember all that it owes to Byron.”


SHELLEY

[Illustration: SHELLEY’S BIRTHPLACE

Here the poet was born August 4, 1792.]

[Illustration: SHELLEY AS A CHILD

From a copy by Reginald Easton of the Duc de Montpensier’s miniature of
Shelley, in the Bodleian Library.]

Shelley, too, was a lover of freedom; but of a freedom that was the
breath of the soul rather than social or political liberty. He lacked
humor, he bore no yoke in his youth, his father was a matter-of-fact
and eccentric tyrant, and the boy of genius lost his way in a world
which nobody helped him to understand. When one reads the story of his
brief and confused career, of the shabby and immoral things he did, it
must be remembered that he discovered how to fly, but nobody taught him
how to walk. He was always a splendid, wayward child, to whom visions
were more real than facts. He died at thirty, and his life was only
beginning.

But what a splendid prelude it was! “Alastor,” the “Stanzas Written in
Dejection,” the “Ode to the West Wind,” “The Cloud,” the immortal lines
“To a Skylark,” are flights of poetry which reflect the splendor of the
sky under which they seem to move as if impelled by wings. “Prometheus
Unbound,” “The Revolt of Islam,” and other long poems show his hatred
of tyranny, whether human or divine, his ardent passion for humanity.
He was only at times a great artist: his verse often lacks substance
and reality, and has the beauty and remoteness of cloud pictures. His
critical faculty was obscured by the spontaneity and facility of his
creative moods; but he had the power of growth. His best work was at
the end of his career, and he died at the moment the signs of maturity
were showing themselves. He had no creed save that of resistance to
tyranny, and he defined nothing; but he had noble visions, a beautiful
voice, a splendid faith. With all the faults of his youth, and they
were of tragic seriousness, there was something angelic about him, and
he made life richer and more splendid.

[Illustration: THE SHELLEY MEMORIAL

Designed by E. Onslow Ford.]


KEATS’ LOVE OF BEAUTY

[Illustration: KEATS AT HOME]

[Illustration: THE GRAVE OF KEATS

Keats died in Rome on February 23, 1821, and was buried in the
Protestant cemetery. His last request was that on his tombstone there
be carved, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”]

The poets of the first quarter of the last century died young: Byron
at thirty-six, Shelley at thirty, Keats at twenty-six. What Byron’s
future would have been no one will venture to predict; but Shelley and
Keats were rapidly gaining in power when the end came. The first was
the fiery leader of revolt, the second was the idealist, concerned, not
with present oppressive traditions, but with untrammeled freedom of
thought and of life.

Keats cared for none of these things: he was in love with beauty. One
must go back to Spenser to find an Englishman of his sensitiveness to
beauty, and he was much simpler than Spenser, whose moral idealism
expressed itself in a refined symbolism. Keats was the son of a stable
keeper, went to school for a few years, and was conspicuous chiefly
for his pugnacious disposition. The impression that he was a weak,
sentimental boy and man is without foundation. He became the victim of
a heart-breaking disease; but his was essentially a brave and manly
nature.

[Illustration: THE LIFE MASK OF KEATS

Attributed to Haydon by the artist Joseph Severn. From a cast made in
New York, presumably from a cast of the original. An electrotype of the
mask is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.]

His later work is notable not only for its beauty, but for its
solidity of texture. He became an apprentice to a surgeon. Through
his acquaintance with a family of cultivated people he became a
reader of good books, and discovered his vocation when he opened the
“Faerie Queene.” That poem did not make him a poet: it opened his eyes
to the fact that he was a poet. “Endymion,” published when he was
twenty-three years old, was immature in construction and diction; but
it was the first bloom of a beautiful genius. “Hyperion,” which came
near the end, is a fragment, for he was still very young in knowledge
of life and the practice of art; but it has nobility and a certain
largeness of handling that predict strength as well as art. The first
line of “Endymion” showed where he stood as a poet, “A thing of beauty
is a joy forever,” and on his deathbed he said, “I have loved the
principle of beauty in all things.” He not only loved it, but gave it
illustration in short poems of unsurpassed perfection. “The Eve of St.
Agnes,” the “Ode to a Nightingale,” the “Ode to Autumn,” the “Ode on
a Grecian Urn,” have a deathless loveliness and are stamped by that
finality of shape which marks the best pieces of Greek sculpture.
Matthew Arnold said of these shorter poems that they had “that rounded
perfection and felicity of loveliness of which Shakespeare is the great
master.”


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

[Illustration: WORDSWORTH’S BIRTHPLACE IN THE LAKE REGION]

[Illustration: WORDSWORTH’S MOTHER

By Margaret Gillies.]

While these poets died before maturity, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and
Browning had ample time in which to harvest all the fruits of their
genius. Wordsworth’s life was in striking contrast to the lives of his
brilliant contemporaries. Born before them, he lived twenty-seven years
after the oldest of them died. Byron was an extensive traveler, Shelley
lived five years in Italy, and Keats’ last months were spent in the
same country. Byron died in Greece, Shelley was drowned in the Gulf of
Spezia (spet´-see-eh), and Keats came to the end of his sufferings in
the little room that looks out on the Spanish steps which are gay with
flowers in the Roman spring.

[Illustration: DOVE COTTAGE

At Town End, Grasmere.]

[Illustration: GRASMERE CHURCH]

With the exception of a brief residence in France and Germany,
Wordsworth spent eighty years on English soil, and mainly in the Lake
Country. He was born in the North, went to school in a little village
near Lake Windermere, and spent his life at Grasmere and at Rydal Mount
only three or four miles distant. His life was free from struggles,
either mental or material, and was one of meditation and quiet growth.
In contrast with Byron, he was a poet of reflection; unlike Shelley,
he saw Nature as the intimate companion of the spirit; and he sought
beauty in the simplicity of obscure lives and daily experience rather
than in the richness of imagination or in that fairy land of mythology
which laid its spell on Keats. He was deeply religious, and saw Nature
as a revelation of the divine mind; a visible and material creation,
penetrated and filled by the divine spirit. His years of inspiration
were few; but his conscientious industry was untiring. In his creative
moods he wrote some of the noblest and most perfect poetry in English;
in his moods of faithful industry he wrote much thoughtful but unpoetic
verse. In the latter class fall his long poems; in the former class
fall many of his shorter pieces, in which lofty thought and deep
feeling are fused in an art of exquisite simplicity and purity. “The
Prelude” and “The Excursion” contain passages of great beauty; but
they are valuable chiefly to students. In the ten years which followed
the publication of the “Lyrical Ballads” in 1798 he wrote many poems
which are for all people and for all time. Such poetry as “Lucy,” “To
a Highland Girl,” “The Solitary Reaper,” “To a Cuckoo,” “I Wandered
Lonely,” “She Was a Phantom of Delight,” “Three Years She Grew in Sun
and Shade,” ought to be planted in the minds of children as refuges
from the commonplace, and as a protection from all that is cheap and
inferior in life and art. In the “Ode to Duty,” that on “Intimations
of Immortality,” in many stanzas from the long poems, and in a group
of sonnets, Nature and Life are interpreted in an art which is both
commanding and beautiful. At his best, in depth of thought, loyalty to
truth, spiritual insight, purity of feeling, and that simplicity which
is the last achievement of art, Wordsworth belongs among the half-dozen
great poets of England.

[Illustration: RYDAL MOUNT

Wordsworth’s home.]

[Illustration: ALFOXDEN HOUSE

Wordsworth’s temporary home as it is now.]

[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH]

[Illustration: ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

From the etching by Rajon.]

[Illustration: ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Photographed by Mrs. H. H. Cameron.]

[Illustration: LADY TENNYSON

From a painting by G. F. Watts.]

[Illustration: HALLAM, LORD TENNYSON

The son of the poet.]

[Illustration: TENNYSON’S BEAUTIFUL HOME

Aldworth, at Haslemere, Surrey, England.]

It is too soon to assign their permanent places to Tennyson and
Browning; but there is little doubt of their survival among the singers
whom the world will not forget. Both were fortunately born and well
educated, though in different ways; both were happily situated in life;
both had ample time in which to give full and rounded expression to
their genius. Fame did not come early to either; but it discovered
Tennyson in middle life, and for three or four decades it invested
him with immense authority. Both were thinkers and students as well as
singers, and both had ample intellectual resources. Tennyson was the
finer artist; he was, indeed, one of the most perfect artists in the
history of poetry. He had command of both harmony and melody; in other
words, he could build a poem on strong constructive lines, and he could
make it exquisitely musical. He mastered the resources of words; he
knew how to use consonants and vowels so as to make his lines sing in
the ear; he understood what can be done with assonance (resemblance in
sound), repetition, alliteration. He was an expert workman; but never a
mechanic alone. The stream of thought was not locked in poetic forms: it
flowed freely through them. His art is so perfect that it conceals itself.
He was not only a poet of exquisite skill, but he was a vigorous and
independent thinker. The future historian of the intellectual and
spiritual history of the nineteenth century will find “In Memoriam”
what is called “an original authority” of far greater value than
the formal records of the time. Some of the early short poems which
captivated young readers in the ’30’s and ’40’s of the last century
seem somewhat thin and artificial today; but the great mass of
Tennyson’s poetry has substance as well as quality, and such poems
as “Ulysses,” “Sir Galahad,” the “Two Voices,” have a noble reach of
thought as well as a compelling music; while the magic which lives in
“Break, Break, Break,” the songs from “The Princess,” “Crossing the
Bar,” does not lose its spell. In power of thought, in deep religious
feeling unbound by dogmatism, in faith in ordered liberty, in love of
home, and in passion for beauty, Tennyson is the central figure of the
Victorian Age.

[Illustration: ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

From a mezzotint by T. A. Barlow, after the painting by Sir John E.
Millais, made in 1881.]

[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING

From a portrait painted at Rome in 1859 by Field Talfourd.]

[Illustration: BROWNING’S HOME, 1887-9

De Vere Gardens, Kensington, London, England.]

Browning is not so broadly representative of the movement of the
age. He gave dramatic expression to one aspect of its experience;
but that aspect was of thrilling interest. Tennyson did not miss the
significance of individual impulse; but he saw men in ordered ranks,
in social relations. He felt and expressed the collective experience
of his age. Browning felt and expressed the experience of individual
souls, of “Paracelsus,” “Luria.” He is the interpreter of exceptional
experiences and natures, of “Abt Vogler,” Andrea del Sarto, the
Renaissance Bishop.

He knew secrets of great and mean souls, of Pompilia and the Pope, of
“Half Rome” and Caponsacchi (kah´´-pahn-sock´-kee), in “The Ring and
the Book,” of “The Patriot,” and of the husband of “The Last Duchess.”
He was a psychologist of penetrating intelligence, and his passion for
analysis and dealing with problems sometimes ran away with him, to use
a colloquialism; hence the perplexities which beset the student of some
of his work and the organization of clubs to interpret him.

[Illustration: THE PALACE IN VENICE WHERE BROWNING DIED

It was in this house, surrounded by all the beauties of Venice, that
the poet breathed his last on December 12, 1889.]

[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

From a portrait painted at Rome in 1859 by Field Talfourd.]

Browning was often a very effective artist; but he was often very
indifferent to form, and there are long productions of his which are
intensely interesting but are not in any proper sense poetry. Time will
separate the experiments in psychology from the achievements in art,
and there will remain a body of poetry which appeals powerfully to men
and women of intellectual interests and habits; a poetry notable for
its reading of the secrets of individuality, its splendid optimism
based on faith in the individual soul and in the purpose and power
behind the universe, in the sense of freedom to take and use life
daringly, in the impulse to action and spiritual venture, for its bold
imagery and strong phrasing. Such poems as “Prospice,” “Rabbi Ben
Ezra,” “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” are not only impressive
poetry, but have the note of the bugle in them.

[Illustration: MRS. BROWNING’S TOMB IN FLORENCE, ITALY

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was herself a poet of exceptional genius;
she was born in 1806, married to Robert Browning in 1846, and died in
1861.]

    SUPPLEMENTARY READING.--“Life of Wordsworth,” Professor Knight;
    “Wordsworth,” F. W. H. Myers (English Men of Letters Series);
    “Life of Shelley,” Medwin; “Shelley,” J. Addington Symonds
    (English Men of Letters Series); “Life, Letters and Literary
    Remains of John Keats,” Richard Monckton Milnes; “The Works of
    Lord Byron, with His Letters and Journals and His Life,” Thomas
    Moore (17 volumes); “The Real Lord Byron,” J. C. Jeafferson (2
    volumes); “The Life and Letters of Browning,” Mrs. Sutherland
    Orr; “Browning,” G. K. Chesterton (English Men of Letters
    Series); “Alfred, Lord Tennyson: a Memoir,” Hallam, Second
    Baron Tennyson; “The Life of Lord Tennyson,” G. C. Benson.




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_Editorial_

Some of the numbers of The Mentor have been used as the subject matter
for reading clubs. That is a use of The Mentor that we most heartily
welcome. We have information from one reader that the number of The
Mentor on “Spain and Gibraltar” is to be used at the next meeting of a
literary club in the home of the writer. This number is to be read in
conjunction with a study of Washington Irving’s books on Spain--“The
Alhambra” and “The Conquest of Granada.” Another club has used the
article on “Dutch Masterpieces” as the core of its evening’s study,
and we have it from a reader that he knows that number of The Mentor
“almost by heart.” No better thing could be said of The Mentor than
that it is worth knowing by heart. It means that The Mentor has become
to some readers at least a fund of important information--a fund that
they can literally absorb and make their own.

       *       *       *       *       *

The New York Sun called attention editorially, a short time ago, to
the yearly report of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia
University, in which he deplores “too much slovenly reading matter” as
an obstacle to education, “the substitution of quantity for quality,”
and recalls the fact that the great lawyers of the Colonial period and
the makers of the Constitution had few, but the fittest, books; knew
well a few first rate books.

“One reason, aside from insufficient or incompetent instruction in
the schools, for the so often complained of illiteracy, so to speak,
of students, is probably to be found in the mass of stories which
the Carnegie and other libraries feed to them, and which they skim
through at the double quick, getting no permanent impression. Their
great-grandfathers read over and over and assimilated a handful of
books. The little dingy or tattered home collection was often their
school, college and university.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Let us read over again Nicolay and Hay’s description of Abraham
Lincoln’s boyhood studies: ‘His reading was naturally limited by his
opportunities, for books were among the rarest of luxuries in that
region and time. But he read everything he could lay his hands upon,
and he was certainly fortunate in the few books of which he became
the possessor. It would hardly be possible to select a better handful
of classics for a youth in his circumstances than the few volumes he
turned with a nightly and daily hand--the Bible, “Æsop’s Fables,”
“Robinson Crusoe,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” a history of the United
States, and Weems’ “Life of Washington.” These were the best, and these
he read over and over till he knew them almost by heart.’”

       *       *       *       *       *

“Almost by heart!” Fortunate is he who has lived with a few books. In a
world of volumes swollen to intolerable dimensions there are still but
a few real books. They are those we make our own; that shape the mind,
store the memory, are the foundation and discipline of our intellectual
life.

       *       *       *       *       *

The purpose of The Mentor is to give the gist of knowledge to be found
in the world’s best books, and to give that knowledge in a form that is
easy to retain. A number of Mentors thoroughly absorbed--as we might
say, “learned by heart”--what a mental equipment it would mean! And the
practical side, too, should be considered. Most people haven’t time
to read even the world’s best books. The Mentor can be read in a few
minutes.




[Illustration: GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON]




FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

LORD BYRON

Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course


“I awoke one morning and found myself famous,” said the great poet
Byron. This was almost the very truth. A single poem, a long one
indeed, “Childe Harold,” made him the most talked of man of his time.
His fame grew in a night. And yet he is said to have been prouder of
being a descendant of those Byrons who came into England with William
the Conqueror than of having been the author of “Childe Harold.”

The Byrons were an ancient and honorable family, numbering among them
many famous soldiers and landowners. George Noel Gordon Byron, the
poet, was born on January 22, 1788. His father was Captain John Byron,
a profligate and spendthrift. His mother was Catherine Gordon, the
second wife of “Mad Jack Byron,” as the poet’s father was called. His
parents soon separated, Mrs. Byron taking her son with her.

In 1798 the poet’s great-uncle died, and George became Lord Byron at
the age of ten. He and his mother were now assured of a comfortable
income, and he was sent to Harrow School, where, in spite of his
lameness, which he had suffered from birth, he became a good athlete.

At the age of sixteen Byron fell desperately in love with Mary
Chaworth, a distant relative, two years older than himself. Her
indifference broke the poet’s heart--for the time being.

He entered Cambridge in 1805, and while there wasted most of his time.
He left college with the degree of Master of Arts at the age of twenty.
In 1807 he published his first volume of poetry, “Hours of Idleness.”
The Edinburgh Review ridiculed these in a satirical criticism. This
provoked from Byron a brilliant retort in the form of a poem called
“English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.”

In 1809 he was off for Europe. In “Childe Harold” he has told his
thoughts and experiences during these wanderings. The first two cantos
of this poem appeared in 1812, and their success was instantaneous.

The life of a personality like Byron is so full of incident, so colored
with romance and adventure, that to tell it in detail requires a great
deal of space. Everything that he did was interesting; everywhere
he went he left the impress of his genius. Women loved him, and men
imitated him. Byron was the fashion, and the poet was renowned the
world over.

He married Anne Isabella Milbanke in 1815. A daughter, Augusta Ada,
afterward Countess of Lovelace, was born to them. In 1816 Lady Byron
left her husband, giving as the reason her belief that he was insane.

The following spring Byron left England, and after traveling about
for sometime met the poet Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in
Switzerland. From there he went to Italy, where he lived for a number
of years. When there he wrote many of his greatest poems.

About this time Greece was struggling to throw off the rule of Turkey.
Byron, a great believer in liberty of every sort, gave freely of his
sympathy and money to the cause. In 1823 he fitted up an expedition and
sailed to the aid of the Greeks; but before he could get into active
service he was taken fatally ill, and died at Missolonghi on April 19,
1824. His last words were of Greece, the country he had come to help to
freedom: “I have given her my time, my means, my health--and now I give
her my life! What could I do more?”

Byron’s body was carried back to England; but the British authorities
would not allow him to be buried in Westminster Abbey. There is neither
bust nor statue of him in Poets’ Corner. His remains were finally laid
beneath the chancel of the village church of Hucknall Torkard.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44
    COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: JOHN KEATS]




FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

JOHN KEATS

Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course


No one man ever published a worse first volume nor a better last volume
of poetry than did John Keats. And no poet was so severely criticized
at the beginning nor more highly praised at the end of his life. Yet
between the appearance of his first work and the publication of his
last volume there was a space of but three years.

Keats’ origin was humble; but not so vulgar as most people think. He
was born on October 29, 1795, and was the eldest son of Thomas Keats,
head hostler at the Swan and Hoop livery stables in London. But in
spite of these commonplace early associations his parents were able to
send John to a private school at Enfield. Thomas Keats was killed by
a fall from his horse in 1804, and Mrs. Keats married another stable
keeper. This marriage was an unhappy one, and the couple soon separated.

At school Keats was distinguished for his quick temper, a love of
fighting, and a great appetite for reading. In 1810, when his mother
died, he left school with the intention of becoming a doctor. He was
apprenticed to Thomas Hammond, a surgeon in Edmonton; but he had a
quarrel with him, and went to London in 1814 to study at Guy’s and St.
Thomas’s hospitals.

Even in London, Keats could not concentrate his whole attention on the
study of medicine. He read a great deal of poetry, especially Spenser.
In 1816 he met Leigh Hunt, who introduced him to the poet Shelley.
Already he had begun to write verse, and these friends stimulated his
poetic gift, until in the winter of 1816-17 he definitely decided to
give up the study of medicine and write for a living.

His first volume of “Poems by John Keats” appeared in the spring of
1817. This book was dedicated to Leigh Hunt. The next year he published
“Endymion: A Poetic Romance.” This volume was harshly treated by the
famous critic Gifford in the Quarterly Review. Whether or not the
poem deserved such severity, the language of the reviewer cut Keats
to the quick. He also bitterly resented the attacks made upon him in
Blackwood’s Magazine.

With his friend Armitage Brown he next started on a walking tour of
Scotland; but on account of the bad state of his health was forced
to give this up. His brother Thomas Keats died of consumption at the
beginning of December, 1818, and the poet went to live with Brown.
When there he fell passionately in love with Fanny Brawne, a girl of
seventeen, who lived nearby. It was at this time that he wrote his
greatest poems; although his health was very poor.

Early in 1820 Keats realized that he had consumption; but he did not
give up. In July he published his third and last volume of poetry,
“Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.” In September,
1820, he started for Naples in an attempt to cure himself; but it was
in vain, for on the following February 23 he died in Rome. He was
buried in the old Protestant cemetery near the pyramid of Cestius. He
requested that on his gravestone should be carved this inscription,
“Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”

It was formerly believed that the attacks of hostile reviewers were the
cause of Keats’ death; but this theory has long since been disproved.
Although the sensitive poet felt these bitter attacks keenly, his was
not a spirit to sink beneath them.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44
    COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY]




FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Monograph Number Three in The Mentor Reading Course


Percy Bysshe Shelley was born near Horsham, in the county of Sussex,
England, on August 4, 1792. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy
Shelley.

At the age of eleven he was sent to school at Eton. There he had a hard
time. He resisted the “fagging” system,--a system under which the young
boys must act as servants to the older ones,--and he would not work at
his lessons. He was gentle natured and retiring; but when provoked he
showed a very violent temper. So he was known as “Mad Shelley” by his
schoolmates.

In 1810 Shelley entered Oxford. But he did not stay there long; for he
and a friend, named Thomas Jefferson Hogg, became atheists, and Shelley
wrote a little pamphlet on atheism, which he sent to the different
heads of the colleges, asking them to notify him at once of their
conversion to atheism. This they declined to do; but instead summoned
both Shelley and Hogg and expelled them. Shelley and his friends
complained at what they termed the injustice of the expulsion; but his
father would have nothing to do with him. So Shelley went to London,
where he wrote the poem “Queen Mab.” This was not published until later.

When he was in London his sisters sent him money by means of Harriet
Westbrook, one of their friends. Shelley converted her to atheism, and
married her in August, 1811, because she did not wish to go back to
school. This marriage turned out to be very unhappy, and they separated
by mutual consent in 1813.

The next year Shelley, accompanied by Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the
daughter of William Godwin, the speculative philosopher, and Claire
Clairmont, a friend of the poet Lord Byron, visited Europe. In 1815
Shelley’s grandfather died, and the poet was assured of a regular
income of $5,000 a year. In 1816 he visited Europe again, and in
November of the same year his wife Harriet drowned herself. Shelley’s
two children were committed to the care of their grandfather Westbrook.

Shelley married Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and in 1818 they left
England, never to return, going to Italy, where he wrote many of his
greatest poems.

His second wife was a talented woman and a writer of ability. Under
the name of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley she wrote that famous grewsome
tale, “Frankenstein.”

In July, 1822, Shelley set sail in a small boat to return to his
summer home at Spezia. The boat was overtaken by a sudden squall and
disappeared. Two weeks later Shelley’s body was washed ashore with a
copy of Keats’ poems open in one of his pockets. The Tuscan quarantine
regulations at that time required that whatever came ashore from the
sea should be burned. Accordingly Shelley’s body was placed on a pyre
and reduced to ashes in the presence of Leigh Hunt, E. J. Trelawney,
and Lord Byron. His ashes were collected and buried in the Protestant
cemetery at Rome, near the grave of his friend Keats.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44
    COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH]




FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Monograph Number Four in The Mentor Reading Course


At the age of twenty-one William Wordsworth was so undecided as to what
he wanted to do for a living that his relatives believed he would turn
out to be a good-for-nothing. At the age of thirty-five he had finished
a tremendous poem in fourteen books, which he had begun because he was
not ready at the time to take up anything more difficult!

Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, England, on April 7,
1770, the son of John Wordsworth, a lawyer. When he was only fifteen he
wrote as a school task an account in poetry of his summer vacation. He
entered Cambridge at the age of seventeen; but did not get along well
there because he did not like his studies nor the discipline of the
college.

In those days, when there was no railroads or trolley lines, it was the
custom for young Englishmen who could afford it to take walking trips
through Europe during their vacations from college. In the summer of
1790 Wordsworth made a tour through France and among the Alps, and was
much affected by the beauties of nature he saw, particularly at Lake
Como. He graduated from St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1791, with
the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

The French Revolution came along about this time, and, together with
most of the progressive young men of the day, Wordsworth hailed it with
enthusiasm. But later the horrors of the Revolution disgusted him;
although he always remained a Republican in principle.

Wordsworth’s friends urged him to enter the ministry, and he himself
thought a little of becoming a lawyer; but he finally decided to
write for a living. And a poor living it was at first! Sometimes he
had hardly enough to eat. He published his first poems in 1793,--“An
Evening Walk, Addressed to a Young Lady,” and “Descriptive Sketches
Taken During a Pedestrian Tour Among the Alps.”

Two years later his poverty was lightened by a legacy of $4,500 left
him by a friend, and his sister Dorothy went to keep house for him. She
helped him in many ways, and cheered his spirits. In 1802 he married
Mary Hutchinson, and about the same time inherited $9,000 from his
father. Three years later he finished that long poem in fourteen books,
“The Prelude,” containing an account of the cultivation and development
of his own mind. This was not published until after the poet’s death.

Wordsworth continued to write many poems, most of which had to do with
the beauties of nature. Nature in all her forms was his delight. He
liked to walk by himself in the fields, and to talk with the poorer
people, those nearest to the soil. He was simple, kindly, and much
loved by those who knew him.

In 1843 Wordsworth succeeded Robert Southey as poet laureate of
England, and was recognized as the greatest living English poet. He
held this honor only seven years, as he died at Rydal Mount, his home
in England, on April 23, 1850.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44
    COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON]




FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

ALFRED TENNYSON

Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course


Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby in Lincolnshire, England, on
August 6, 1809. His father was a rector, and the poet’s boyhood was
passed in an atmosphere of poetry and music. Even as a child he wrote
verses, and some of these were published in 1827 in a volume, “Poems by
Two Brothers,” written by himself and his elder brother Charles.

He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1829, and in the same year
won the chancellor’s medal with a blank-verse poem called “Timbuctoo.”
His closest friend at college was Arthur Henry Hallam, a brilliant
young man who belonged to The Apostles, a society of which Tennyson was
also a member.

“Poems, Chiefly Lyrical,” was published in 1830; but the following
year, soon after the death of his father, the poet left Cambridge
without taking his degree. He then decided to devote his life to
writing poetry. A small volume of poems published in 1832 proved that
he had chosen well; for it contained some of his best work.

But now for ten years the poet kept silence. He did not publish another
line of poetry until 1842. The reason for this was the death of his
friend Arthur Hallam. Hallam was the closest intimate of Tennyson, and
when he died suddenly at Vienna in 1833 the poet received a blow from
which he never fully recovered. But this great loss was poetically the
making of Tennyson. The volume of 1842 contained some of his greatest
poems, among them being “Ulysses,” “Locksley Hall,” and “Break, Break,
Break.”

Five years after this appeared “The Princess,” a long poem treating
of the “woman question” in a half-humorous way. It is a poem of great
beauty.

Then in 1850 came the elegy on the death of Hallam, “In Memoriam.” This
had been long expected, and it proved to be one of the greatest poems
of the century.

In the same year Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, and was appointed
poet laureate to succeed Wordsworth. His first official poem in this
position was the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” in 1852.
Two years later “The Charge of the Light Brigade” electrified the
world. “Maud” appeared in 1855, and then four years later began the
publication of the famous “Idylls of the King,” poems in blank verse
telling of King Arthur and his court. From that time on Tennyson wrote
many poems and dramas.

In 1884 he was made Lord Tennyson, first Baron of Aldworth and
Farringford. He took the title from his two country houses in Sussex
and on the Isle of Wight. On October 6, 1892, Tennyson died at Aldworth
“with the moonlight falling on closed eyes and voiceless lips.”

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44
    COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING]




FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

ROBERT BROWNING

Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course


    “God’s in his heaven:
    All’s right with the world.”

So Pippa sings in “Pippa Passes.” And that was the philosophy of the
great poet who wrote the lines. Robert Browning was an optimist. He
believed that the world would come out all right in the end, that good
would win.

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, at Camberwell, near London.
His father, who worked in the Bank of England, was also named Robert
Browning. The Brownings were of sturdy stock; but the poet’s mother was
delicate. At the age of twelve he had written a volume of poems called
“Incondita”; but his parents could find no one who would publish it.

Browning’s early education was rather scant; but he made up for this by
a great deal of miscellaneous reading in his father’s library. He had
a chance to become a clerk in the Bank of England; but he refused it,
and decided to write poetry for a living. Strange to say, his parents
encouraged him in this. He published his first poem, “Pauline,” in
1833. Then followed “Paracelsus” in 1835, and “Sordello” in 1840.

Browning was by this time becoming well known, and his poetry was
admired. He had always liked the theater, and now he began to write
drama. In May, 1837, his first play, “Strafford,” was produced in
Covent Garden. He followed this with several others, none of which had
great financial success.

In 1844 Elizabeth Barrett, a poetess whose genius was then being
recognized, published a volume of poems containing “Lady Geraldine’s
Courtship,” with a striking phrase about Browning’s poems. This pleased
the poet greatly, and he was encouraged by her cousin, John Kenyon, to
write to her. Finally she permitted him to visit her, and they fell
in love with each other. Elizabeth Barrett was six years older than
Browning, and was a chronic nervous invalid; but in September, 1846,
was secretly married to him in spite of the opposition of her father,
who objected on principle to the marriage of his children. Theirs was
one of the greatest love stories in all history. They were both poets
of the highest genius, and they loved each other devotedly. When his
wife died at Florence, Italy, on June 30, 1861, Browning was crushed by
the blow.

But he bore it like the great man that he was. He decided to return
to England to superintend the education of his son, Robert Wiedeman
Browning. There he resumed his writing, and published many poems,
including “The Ring and the Book,” which is regarded by some as his
masterpiece. It is an immense poem in twelve books, in which the
story of a murder is told many times over by the various characters
concerned. It is a unique and powerful poem.

In his later years Browning returned to Italy; but he never revisited
Florence after his wife’s death there. He continued writing almost to
the very end of his long life. He composed very slowly, considering
twenty-five or thirty lines a good day’s work.

The real greatness of the poet was appreciated toward the end of his
life, and many honors were showered upon him. In 1889 he went to Venice
with his son. Here he caught a heavy cold, and this, combined with the
poor state of his health, was too much for the old poet. He died on
December 12, 1889, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on December 31.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44
    COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mentor: Famous English Poets, Vol.
1, Num. 44, Serial No. 44, by Hamilton Wright Mabie

*** 