form of expression,
and an added sense for the appreciation of the beauties of nature and
their spiritual significance.

Swinburne says that the new poetic school, "usually registered as
Wordsworthian," was "actually founded at midnight by William Blake
(1757-1827) and fortified at sunrise by William Wordsworth." These
lines from Blake's _To the Evening Star_ (1783) may be given to
support this statement:--

"Thou fair-haired Angel of the Evening,
* * * * *
Smile on our loves; and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy West Wind sleep on
The lake."

We may note in these lines the absence of the classical couplet, the
fact that the end of the lines necessitates no halt in thought, and a
unique sympathetic touch in the lines referring to the flower and the
wind.

Blake's _Songs of Innocence_ (1789) and _Songs of Experience_ (1793)
show not only the new feeling toward nature, but also a broader
sympathy with children and with all suffering creatures. The chimney
sweeper, the lost child, and even the sick rose are remembered in his
verse. In his poem, _The Schoolboy_, he enters as sympathetically as
Shakespeare into the heart of the boy on his way to school, when he
hears the call of the uncaged birds and the fields.

These two lines express an oft-recurring idea in Blake's mystical
romantic verse:--

"The land of dreams is better far,
Above the light of the morning star."

The volume of _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798), the joint work of Wordsworth
and Coleridge, marks the complete victory of the romantic movement.

The Position of Prose.--The eighteenth century, until near its end,
was, broadly speaking, an age of prose. In excellence and variety the
prose surpassed the poetry; but in this age (1780-1837) their position
was reversed and poetry regained almost an Elizabethan ascendancy.
Much good prose was written, but it ranks decidedly below the
enchanting romantic poetry.

Prose writers were laying the foundations for the new science of
political economy and endeavoring to ascertain how the condition of
the masses could be improved. While investigating this subject,
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), an Episcopal clergyman, announced
his famous proposition, since known as the Malthusian theorem, that
population tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence.