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OF

ENGLISH POETRY

BY

W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B.

M.A., D.LITT., LL.D.

LATE PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE universITY OF OXFORD
HON. FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, oxford

VOL. V

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMPROMISE OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

EFFECTS OF THE CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE;
ITS ZENITH AND DECLINE; THE EARLY
ROMANTIC RENAISSANCE

London

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

All rights reserved

821 C86

V. 5

PREFATORY NOTE

IN view of comments which have been made on previous volumes of this history, I would again remind the reader that my design from the first has been, not to furnish an exhaustive list of the English poets as individuals, but rather to describe the general movements of English Poetry, as an Art illustrating the evolution of national taste.1 The poets whose works are here considered are treated as having contributed something characteristic towards these movements; but I have not thought it necessary to dwell on the lives and writings of versifiers such as Ambrose Philips, Beattie, Aaron Hill, and others, whose names appear in collections like those of Anderson and Chalmers; their poetry having too little distinctive character for my purpose.

1 Vol. i. p. 8.

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