great
works. My choice falls on Elizabeth Browning's _Aurora Leigh_. If you
once work yourself "into" this poem, interesting yourself primarily
(as with Wordsworth) in the events of the story, and not allowing
yourself to be obsessed by the fact that what you are reading is
"poetry"--if you do this, you are not likely to leave it unfinished.
And before you reach the end you will have encountered _en route_
pretty nearly all the moods of poetry that exist: tragic, humorous,
ironic, elegiac, lyric--everything. You will have a comprehensive
acquaintance with a poet's mind. I guarantee that you will come safely
through if you treat the work as a novel. For a novel it effectively
is, and a better one than any written by Charlotte Bronte or George
Eliot. In reading, it would be well to mark, or take note of, the
passages which give you the most pleasure, and then to compare these
passages with the passages selected for praise by some authoritative
critic. _Aurora Leigh_ can be got in the "Temple Classics" (1s. 6d.),
or in the "Canterbury Poets" (1s.). The indispensable biographical
information about Mrs. Browning can be obtained from Mr. J.H. Ingram's
short Life of her in the "Eminent Women" Series (1s. 6d.), or from
_Robert Browning_, by William Sharp ("Great Writers" Series, 1s.).

This accomplished, you may begin to choose your poets. Going back
to Hazlitt, you will see that he deals with, among others, Chaucer,
Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Chatterton, Burns, and
the Lake School. You might select one of these, and read under his
guidance. Said Wordsworth: "I was impressed by the conviction that
there were four English poets whom I must have continually before me
as examples--Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton." (A word to
the wise!) Wordsworth makes a fifth to these four. Concurrently with
the careful, enthusiastic study of one of the undisputed classics,
modern verse should be read. (I beg you to accept the following
statement: that if the study of classical poetry inspires you with a
distaste for modern poetry, then there is something seriously wrong
in the method of your development.) You may at this stage (and not
before) commence an inquiry into questions of rhythm, verse-structure,
and rhyme. There is, I believe, no good, concise, cheap handbook to
English prosody; yet such a manual is greatly needed. The only one
with which I am acquainted is Tom Hood the younger's _Rules of Rhyme:
A Guide to