The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of the Right Honourable Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (Volume 2); Essay on the Poetry of Lord Brooke. Treatie of H

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870. Excerpt: ... Critiml anb ON THE of ordinary circumstances I never should dream of coming between the Reader and his own immediate perusal of the Poetry now after so long a time collected and presented worthily to such as share my own love for our early Literature. But the circumstances are not ordinary. For absolute as was the genius, wide and deep the reach of thought and speculation, wise and potential the opinions worked out and the counsels given, weighty and fruitful--not without touch of insight that looks like prescience--his verdicts on the Past and anticipations of the Future, rich and vivid the grayer and intense and keen in passion the gayer love-sonnets (so-called), arresting and memorable in many lines--so as they answer the Laureate's definition of the memorabilia of Poetry: H.--a five words long That sparkle on the stretcht fore-finger of Time: ' and, summarily, massive and yet radiant, braincharged, and yet o'times simple and quiet as blood coming and going in the heart, having the flower's beauty and the bird's notes in the most unexpected places, it nevertheless must be conceded that our illustrious Singer, as a rule, was more mindful of substance than form, of material than workmanship, of saying the thing than the manner of saying it--as Milton for Philipps, in Theatnun Poetarum (1675) long since observed in the well known verdict, There is observable in all of it, the Poetry a close, mysterious, aud sententious way of writing, without much regard to elegancy of style or smoothness of verse. So too, Mrs. Cooper in the Muses Library (1737j-- Perhaps few men that dealt in Poetry had more learning or real wisdom than this nobleman; and yet his style is sometimes so dark and mysterious, I mean it appears so to me, that one would imagine that he c...