So far in this chapter the story of poetry, from Tennyson downwards, has
been conducted in regular fashion, and by citing the principal names
which represent the chief schools or sub-schools. But we must now return
to notice a very considerable company of other verse-writers, without
mention of whom this history would be wofully incomplete. Nor must it by
any means be supposed that they are to be regarded invariably as
constituting a "second class." On the contrary, some of them are the
equals, one or two the superiors, of Thomson or of O'Shaughnessy. But
they have been postponed, either because they belong to schools of which
the poets already mentioned are masters, to choruses of which others are
the leaders, or because they show rather blended influences than a
distinct and direct advance in the main poetical line of development.
Others again rank here, and not earlier, because they are of the second
class, or a lower one.

Of these, though he leaves a name certain to live in English literary
history, if not perhaps quite in the way in which its author wished, is
Martin Farquhar Tupper, who was born, in 1810, of a very respectable
family in the Channel Islands, his father being a surgeon of eminence.
Tupper was educated at the Charterhouse and at Christ Church, and was
called to the bar. But he gave himself up to literature, especially
poetry or verse, of which he wrote an enormous quantity. His most famous
book appeared originally in 1839, though it was afterwards continued. It
was called _Proverbial Philosophy_, and criticised life in rhythmical
rather than metrical lines, with a great deal of orthodoxy. Almost from
the first the critics and the wits waged unceasing war against it; but
the public, at least for many years, bought it with avidity, and perhaps
read it, so that it went through forty editions and is said to have
brought in twenty thousand pounds. Nor is it at all certain that any
genuine conception of its pretentious triviality had much to do with the
decay which, after many years, it, like other human things, experienced.
Mr. Tupper, who did not die till 1889, is understood to have been
privately an amiable and rather accomplished person; and some of his
innumerable minor copies of verse attain a very fair standard of minor
poetry. But _Proverbial Philosophy_ remains as one of the bright and
shining examples of the absolute want of connection between literary
merit and popular success.

It has been