his exquisite appreciation of child life. His
_Atalanta in Calydon_ (1864), a beautiful lyric drama modeled on the Greek
tragedy, is generally regarded as his masterpiece. In all his work
Swinburne carries Tennyson's love of melody to an extreme, and often
sacrifices sense to sound. His poetry is always musical, and, like music,
appeals almost exclusively to the emotions.

* * * * *

We have chosen, somewhat arbitrarily, these four writers--Mrs. Browning, D.
G. Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne--as representative of the minor poets of
the age; but there are many others who are worthy of study,--Arthur Hugh
Clough and Matthew Arnold,[239] who are often called the poets of
skepticism, but who in reality represent a reverent seeking for truth
through reason and human experience; Frederick William Faber, the Catholic
mystic, author of some exquisite hymns; and the scholarly John Keble,
author of _The Christian Year_, our best known book of devotional verse;
and among the women poets, Adelaide Procter, Jean Ingelow, and Christina
Rossetti, each of whom had a large, admiring circle of readers. It would be
a hopeless task at the present time to inquire into the relative merits of
all these minor poets. We note only their careful workmanship and exquisite
melody, their wide range of thought and feeling, their eager search for
truth, each in his own way, and especially the note of freshness and
vitality which they have given to English poetry.

II. THE NOVELISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)

When we consider Dickens's life and work, in comparison with that of the
two great poets we have been studying, the contrast is startling. While
Tennyson and Browning were being educated for the life of literature, and
shielded most tenderly from the hardships of the world, Dickens, a poor,
obscure, and suffering child, was helping to support a shiftless family by
pasting labels on blacking bottles, sleeping under a counter like a
homeless cat, and once a week timidly approaching the big prison where his
father was confined for debt. In 1836 his _Pickwick_ was published, and
life was changed as if a magician had waved his wand over him. While the
two great poets were slowly struggling for recognition, Dickens, with
plenty of money and too much fame, was the acknowledged literary hero of
England, the idol of immense audiences which gathered to applaud him
wherever he appeared. And there