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Title: Early Reviews of English Poets

Author: John Louis Haney

Release Date: July 6, 2006 [EBook #18766]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY REVIEWS OF ENGLISH POETS ***

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EARLY REVIEWS

OF

ENGLISH POETS

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

JOHN LOUIS HANEY, PH.D.

_Assistant Professor of English and History, Central High School,
Philadelphia; Research Fellow in English, University of Pennsylvania_

PHILADELPHIA
THE EGERTON PRESS
1904

COPYRIGHT, 1904
BY JOHN LOUIS HANEY

PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY,
LANCASTER, PA.

TO

MY FRIEND AND TEACHER

PROFESSOR FELIX E. SCHELLING

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

PREFACE

"Among the amusing and instructive books that remain to be written, one
of the most piquant would be a history of the criticism with which the
most celebrated literary productions have been greeted on their first
appearance before the world." It is quite possible that when Dr. William
Matthews began his essay on _Curiosities of Criticism_ with these words,
he failed to grasp the full significance of that future undertaking. Mr.
Churton Collins recently declared that "a very amusing and edifying
record might be compiled partly out of a selection of the various
verdicts passed contemporaneously by reviews on particular works, and
partly out of comparisons of the subsequent fortunes of works with their
fortunes while submitted to this censorship." Both critics recognize the
fact that such a volume would be entertaining and instructive; but, from
another point of view, it would also be a somewhat doleful book. Even a
reader of meagre imagination and rude sensibilities could not peruse
such a volume without picturing in his mind the anguish and the
heart-ache which those bitter and often vicious attacks inflicted upon
the unfortunate victims whose works were being assailed.

Authors (particularly sensitive poets) have been at all times t