neral, shows what poetry
is, how its various forms move us, and how it differs from its next of
kin, such as eloquence and romance. He then takes up the poetry of
Homer, the Bible, Dante, and Ossian, and sets forth the characteristics
of each. In his chapter on our first two great poets, Chaucer and
Spenser, he points out the great and contrasted merits of these two
writers who have so little in common except a superficial resemblance in
language. Hazlitt is fond of presenting his authors to us in pairs or
groups. His next chapter is devoted to Shakespeare and Milton; and we
may remark that, while the student is in no danger of forgetting the
existence of Shakespeare, he is likely to need just such a tribute to
the greatness of Milton as the critic here presents. The volume contains
later chapters of great interest on Milton's "Lycidas" and "Eve." It is
not necessary for us to mention here all the subjects treated; Dryden
and Pope, Thomson and Cowper, Burns and the Old English Ballads are
among them. In every case we are not tantalized with mere estimates and
characterizations, but are furnished with illustrative specimens of the
poems discussed. But the initiation into English literature which we
receive from Hazlitt does not end with the authors of whom he treats
directly. Resuming our figure of a landscape, we may say that he takes
us through a thousand bypaths into charming nooks and upon delightful
prospects of which he has made no announcement beforehand.

I spoke of reading and pondering his book in a single college term. But,
while this may easily be done, it will be far more profitable for the
student, as soon as he feels drawn away from the volume to some author
whom it presents, to lay it aside and make an excursion of his own into
literature. Then let him take up the volume again and go on with it
until the critic's praise of the "Faerie Queene," or the "Rape of the
Lock," or the "Castle of Indolence" again draws his attention off the
essay to the poem itself. And as one poem and one author will lead to
another, the volume with which the student set out will thus gradually
fulfill its highest mission by inspiring and training its reader to do
without it. If the student has access to the shelves of a large library,
the very handling of the books in their groups will bring him into
contact with other books which he will be attracted to and will dip into
and read. In fact it should not be long before he finds hi