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<h1>THE MENTOR, No. 44,<br/> Famous English Poets</h1>
<hr class="chap" />
<h2>FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS</h2>
<p class="center"><i>By</i> HAMILTON W. MABIE, <i>Author and Critic</i>.</p>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus01a.jpg" width-obs="212" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">JOHN KEATS</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus01b.jpg" width-obs="212" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY</p>
</div>
<div style="margin-top: 3em;">
<p class="center">THE MENTOR</p>
<p class="center smaller">SERIAL No. 44</p>
<p class="center">DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE</p>
<p class="center">MENTOR GRAVURES</p>
<p class="center smaller">BYRON</p>
<p class="center smaller">SHELLEY</p>
<p class="center smaller">KEATS</p>
<p class="center smaller">WORDSWORTH</p>
<p class="center smaller">TENNYSON</p>
<p class="center smaller">BROWNING</p>
</div>
<p style="clear: both;">Modern English poetry is rich not only in its quality, but in its
variety, both of theme and of manner. The exuberant imagination
and splendid profusion of Swinburne are in striking contrast with
the restraint and clearness of style of Matthew Arnold; the fluency and
narrative faculty of William Morris, with the strongly etched and powerfully
phrased work of Francis Thompson and Henley. The classical
dignity of Landor, the humor of Hood, the seriousness of mood of Clough
(kluff), the pictorial genius of Rossetti, the fresh invention of Stevenson
and Kipling, suggest the range of poetic production of an age not
matched in wealth of genius since the age of Shakespeare. Among the
throng of poets who made lasting contributions to English literature
during the nineteenth century, six may be regarded as most representative.</p>
<p>Byron died ninety-one years ago; but, although there has been a
great change in the way poets look at life and in their way of writing
verse, he holds his place as one of the greater poets, not only in reputation,
but in popular regard; and for two reasons,—he was one of the born
singers to whom men will always stop to listen, and he was also a poet of
revolt. He is not read in this country as Browning and Kipling are read;
nor, on the other hand, is he neglected as Milton and Landor are neglected.
His stormy nature and his tempestuous career add an element
of personal interest to the claims of his poetry upon the attention of
reading people today, and he is one of those men of genius about whom
it is difficult to be judicial: those who like his work become his partizans,
those who dislike him charge him with insincerity and immorality.</p>
<p>It must be frankly confessed that Byron had moments of insincerity,
and that he often posed; but he was largely the victim of his temperament.
Mr. Symonds has said of him that he was well born and ill bred.
He had noble impulses, and he had the strong passions that give energy
of feeling and vitality of imagination to many of the greatest men and
women; but he had neither clearness of moral vision nor steadiness of
purpose. He had great genius; but he was neither intellectually nor
morally great. And yet he had such force of mind and eloquence that
Goethe, (gay´-te) who was the greatest critic of his time, if not of all time,
declared that the English could show no poet to be compared with him.</p>
<h3>BYRON’S PLACE AMONG POETS</h3>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus02a.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="201" alt="" /> <p class="caption">NEWSTEAD ABBEY</p>
<p class="caption">Byron’s Home.</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus02b.jpg" width-obs="256" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">BYRON’S MOTHER</p>
<p class="caption">From the painting by Thomas Stewardson
in possession of John Murray.</p>
</div>
<p>What ground was there for an estimate which gave Byron a place by
himself among English poets? “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” was
a telling satire written by a confident boy of genius, effective in “hits” which
the time understood, but
defective in critical insight;
“Childe Harold,”
the early stanzas of which
appeared after travel had
inspired him, was a splendid
piece of rhetoric which
often attains a very noble
eloquence. “The Giaour”
(jow´-er), “Manfred,” the
“Corsair,” “Lara” (lah´-rah),
stirred an age which
was in revolt against rigid
and often artificial conventions.
“Don Juan”
(hoo-ahn´), like “Childe
Harold,” is a poetic journal
which lacks dramatic unity, but
contains descriptions of compelling beauty.
Some of the shorter pieces, like the “Prisoner
of Chillon,” “When We Two Parted,”
“She Walks in Beauty,” have the power
of deep feeling when it becomes eloquent;
while such stanzas as “The Isles of Greece,”
scattered through “Childe Harold,” make
history as moving as poetry.</p>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus03a.jpg" width-obs="259" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">LADY BYRON</p>
<p class="caption">The wife of the poet.</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus03b.jpg" width-obs="193" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">LORD BYRON</p>
<p class="caption">From the engraving by Lupton after the
painting by Thomas Phillips.</p>
</div>
<p>Byron had richness of imagination
rather than wealth of thought; he had a
full-throated, operatic voice rather than
purity of tone; he had splendor rather than
clarity of mind; he had great natural force
of genius rather
than command of
the resources of
art. He was generous
in impulse,
enthusiastic in
temper, and he
loved liberty. It
was the presence
of these qualities
in his nature, and
his spirit of revolt,
that led Mazzini
(maght-see´-nee),
to predict, “The day will come when Democracy
will remember all that it owes to Byron.”</p>
<h3>SHELLEY</h3>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus04a.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="188" alt="" /> <p class="caption">SHELLEY’S BIRTHPLACE</p>
<p class="caption">Here the poet was born
August 4, 1792.</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus04b.jpg" width-obs="244" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">SHELLEY AS A CHILD</p>
<p class="caption">From a copy by Reginald Easton of
the Duc de Montpensier’s miniature
of Shelley, in the Bodleian Library.</p>
</div>
<p>Shelley, too, was a lover of freedom;
but of a freedom that was the breath of
the soul rather than social or political liberty.
He lacked humor, he bore no yoke
in his youth, his father was a matter-of-fact and eccentric tyrant, and the
boy of genius lost his way in a world which nobody helped him to understand.
When one reads the story of his brief and confused career, of
the shabby and immoral things he did, it must be remembered that
he discovered how to fly, but nobody taught him how to walk. He
was always a splendid, wayward child, to whom visions were more
real than facts. He died at thirty, and his life was only beginning.</p>
<p>But what a splendid prelude it was! “Alastor,” the “Stanzas
Written in Dejection,” the “Ode to the West Wind,” “The Cloud,” the
immortal lines “To a Skylark,” are flights of poetry which reflect the
splendor of the sky under which they seem to move as if impelled by
wings. “Prometheus Unbound,” “The Revolt of Islam,” and other long
poems show his hatred of tyranny, whether human or divine, his ardent
passion for humanity. He was only at times a great artist: his verse
often lacks substance and reality, and has the beauty and remoteness of
cloud pictures. His critical faculty was obscured by the spontaneity and
facility of his creative moods; but he had the power of growth. His best
work was at the end of his career, and he died at the moment the signs of
maturity were showing themselves. He had no creed save that of resistance
to tyranny, and he defined nothing; but he had noble visions, a
beautiful voice, a splendid faith. With all the faults of his youth, and
they were of tragic seriousness, there was
something angelic about him, and he made
life richer and more splendid.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus04c.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="287" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THE SHELLEY MEMORIAL</p>
<p class="caption">Designed by E. Onslow Ford.</p>
</div>
<h3>KEATS’ LOVE OF BEAUTY</h3>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus05a.jpg" width-obs="183" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">KEATS AT HOME</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus05b.jpg" width-obs="200" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THE GRAVE OF KEATS</p>
<p class="caption">Keats died in Rome on February 23,
1821, and was buried in the Protestant
cemetery. His last request was that
on his tombstone there be carved,
“Here lies one whose name was writ
in water.”</p>
</div>
<p>The poets of the first quarter of the last
century died young: Byron at thirty-six,
Shelley at thirty, Keats at twenty-six. What
Byron’s future would have been no one will
venture to predict; but Shelley and Keats
were rapidly gaining in power when the
end came. The first was the fiery leader of revolt, the second was
the idealist, concerned, not with present oppressive traditions, but with
untrammeled freedom of thought and of life.</p>
<p>Keats cared for none of these things: he was in love with beauty.
One must go back to Spenser to find an Englishman of his sensitiveness
to beauty, and he was much simpler than Spenser, whose moral idealism
expressed itself in a refined symbolism. Keats was the son of a stable
keeper, went to school for a few years, and was conspicuous chiefly for his
pugnacious disposition. The impression that he was a weak, sentimental
boy and man is without foundation. He became the victim of a heart-breaking
disease; but his was essentially a brave and manly nature.</p>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus05c.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="191" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THE LIFE MASK OF KEATS</p>
<p class="caption">Attributed to Haydon by the artist
Joseph Severn. From a cast made in
New York, presumably from a cast of
the original. An electrotype of the
mask is in the National Portrait Gallery,
London.</p>
</div>
<p>His later work is notable not only for its beauty, but for its solidity
of texture. He became an apprentice to a surgeon. Through his acquaintance
with a family of cultivated people he became a reader of good books,
and discovered his vocation when he opened the “Faerie Queene.” That
poem did not make him a poet: it opened his eyes to the fact that he was
a poet. “Endymion,” published when he was
twenty-three years old, was immature in construction
and diction; but it was the first
bloom of a beautiful genius. “Hyperion,”
which came near the end, is a fragment, for
he was still very young in knowledge of life
and the practice of art; but it has nobility
and a certain largeness of handling that predict
strength as
well as art. The
first line of “Endymion”
showed
where he stood as
a poet, “A thing
of beauty is a joy
forever,” and on
his deathbed he
said, “I have
loved the principle
of beauty in
all things.” He not only loved it, but gave
it illustration in short poems of unsurpassed
perfection. “The Eve of St. Agnes,” the
“Ode to a Nightingale,” the “Ode to Autumn,”
the “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” have
a deathless loveliness and are stamped by that
finality of shape which marks the best pieces
of Greek sculpture. Matthew Arnold said
of these shorter poems that they had “that
rounded perfection and felicity of loveliness
of which Shakespeare is the great master.”</p>
<h3>WILLIAM WORDSWORTH</h3>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus06a.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="219" alt="" /> <p class="caption">WORDSWORTH’S BIRTHPLACE IN THE
LAKE REGION</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus06b.jpg" width-obs="246" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">WORDSWORTH’S MOTHER</p>
<p class="caption">By Margaret Gillies.</p>
</div>
<p>While these poets died before maturity,
Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning had
ample time in which to harvest all the
fruits of their genius. Wordsworth’s life
was in striking contrast to the lives of
his brilliant contemporaries. Born before
them, he lived twenty-seven years after the
oldest of them died. Byron was an extensive
traveler, Shelley lived five years in
Italy, and Keats’ last months were spent in
the same country. Byron died in
Greece, Shelley was drowned in the
Gulf of Spezia (spet´-see-eh), and
Keats came to the end of his sufferings
in the little room that looks out
on the Spanish steps which are gay
with flowers in the Roman spring.</p>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus06c.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="226" alt="" /> <p class="caption">DOVE COTTAGE</p>
<p class="caption">At Town End, Grasmere.</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus06d.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="229" alt="" /> <p class="caption">GRASMERE CHURCH</p>
</div>
<p>With the exception of a brief
residence in France and Germany,
Wordsworth spent eighty years on
English soil, and mainly in the
Lake Country. He was born in the
North, went to school in a little
village near Lake Windermere, and
spent his life at Grasmere and at Rydal
Mount only three or four miles distant.
His life was free from struggles, either
mental or material, and was one of meditation
and quiet growth. In contrast with
Byron, he was a poet of reflection; unlike
Shelley, he saw Nature as the intimate
companion of
the spirit;
and he sought
beauty in the
simplicity of
obscure lives
and daily experience
rather
than in the
richness of
imagination
or in that fairy land of mythology which
laid its spell on Keats. He was deeply religious,
and saw Nature as a revelation of
the divine mind; a visible and material
creation, penetrated and filled by the divine
spirit. His years of inspiration were few;
but his conscientious industry was untiring.
In his creative moods he wrote some of the
noblest and most perfect poetry in English;
in his moods of faithful industry he wrote
much thoughtful but unpoetic verse. In
the latter class fall his long poems; in the
former class fall many of his shorter pieces, in which lofty thought and
deep feeling are fused in an art of exquisite simplicity and purity. “The
Prelude” and “The Excursion” contain passages of great beauty; but
they are valuable chiefly to students.
In the ten years which
followed the publication of the
“Lyrical Ballads” in 1798 he
wrote many poems which are
for all people and for all time.
Such poetry as “Lucy,” “To a
Highland Girl,” “The Solitary
Reaper,” “To a Cuckoo,” “I
Wandered Lonely,” “She Was a
Phantom of Delight,” “Three
Years She Grew in Sun and
Shade,” ought to be planted in
the minds of children as refuges
from the commonplace, and as
a protection from all that is
cheap and inferior in life and art.
In the “Ode to Duty,” that on
“Intimations of Immortality,”
in many stanzas from the long
poems, and in a group of sonnets,
Nature and Life are interpreted
in an art which is
both commanding and beautiful.
At his
best, in
depth
of thought, loyalty to truth, spiritual insight,
purity of feeling, and that simplicity which is
the last achievement of art, Wordsworth belongs
among the half-dozen great poets of England.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <div class="figmulti" style="width: 300px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus07a.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="193" alt="" />
<p class="caption">RYDAL MOUNT</p>
<p class="caption">Wordsworth’s home.</p>
</div>
<div class="figmulti" style="width: 300px;">
<ANTIMG src="images/illus07b.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="191" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ALFOXDEN HOUSE</p>
<p class="caption">Wordsworth’s temporary home as it is now.</p>
</div>
<div class="figmulti" style="width: 200px;">
<ANTIMG src="images/illus07c.jpg" width-obs="200" height-obs="300" alt="" />
<p class="caption">WILLIAM WORDSWORTH</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="figcenter"> <div class="figmulti" style="width: 221px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus08a.jpg" width-obs="221" height-obs="300" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON</p>
<p class="caption">From the etching by Rajon.</p>
</div>
<div class="figmulti" style="width: 225px;">
<ANTIMG src="images/illus08c.jpg" width-obs="225" height-obs="300" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON</p>
<p class="caption">Photographed by Mrs. H. H. Cameron.</p>
</div>
<div class="figmulti" style="width: 234px;">
<ANTIMG src="images/illus08d.jpg" width-obs="234" height-obs="300" alt="" />
<p class="caption">LADY TENNYSON</p>
<p class="caption">From a painting by G. F. Watts.</p>
</div>
<div class="figmulti" style="width: 184px;">
<ANTIMG src="images/illus08e.jpg" width-obs="184" height-obs="300" alt="" />
<p class="caption">HALLAM, LORD TENNYSON</p>
<p class="caption">The son of the poet.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus08b.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="203" alt="" /> <p class="caption">TENNYSON’S BEAUTIFUL HOME</p>
<p class="caption">Aldworth, at Haslemere, Surrey, England.</p>
</div>
<p>It is too soon to assign their permanent
places to Tennyson and Browning; but there
is little doubt of their survival among the
singers whom the world will not forget. Both
were fortunately born and well educated, though
in different ways; both were happily situated
in life; both had ample time in which to give
full and rounded expression to their genius.
Fame did not come early to either; but it discovered
Tennyson in middle life, and for three
or four decades it invested him with
immense authority. Both were thinkers
and students as well as singers,
and both had ample intellectual resources.
Tennyson was the finer
artist; he was, indeed, one of the
most perfect artists in the history of
poetry. He had command of both
harmony and melody; in other words,
he could build a poem on strong constructive
lines, and he could make it exquisitely musical. He mastered
the resources of words; he knew how to use consonants and vowels
so as to make his lines sing in the ear; he understood what can be done
with assonance (resemblance in sound), repetition, alliteration. He
was an expert workman; but never a mechanic
alone. The stream of thought was not locked
in poetic forms: it flowed freely through them.
His art is so perfect that it conceals itself.
He was not only a poet of exquisite skill, but
he was a vigorous and independent thinker.
The future historian of the intellectual and
spiritual history of the nineteenth century will
find “In Memoriam” what is called “an original
authority” of far greater value than the
formal records of the time. Some of the early
short poems which captivated young readers
in the ’30’s and ’40’s of the last century seem
somewhat thin and artificial today; but the
great mass of Tennyson’s poetry has substance
as well as quality, and such poems as
“Ulysses,” “Sir Galahad,”
the “Two Voices,” have a
noble reach of thought as
well as a compelling music;
while the magic which lives in “Break, Break, Break,”
the songs from “The Princess,” “Crossing the Bar,”
does not lose its spell. In power of thought, in deep religious
feeling unbound by dogmatism, in faith in ordered
liberty, in love of home, and in passion for beauty,
Tennyson is the central figure of the Victorian Age.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus09.jpg" width-obs="358" height-obs="500" alt="" /> <p class="caption">ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON</p>
<p class="caption">From a mezzotint by T. A. Barlow, after the painting by Sir John E. Millais, made in 1881.</p>
</div>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus10a.jpg" width-obs="203" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">ROBERT BROWNING</p>
<p class="caption">From a portrait painted at Rome in
1859 by Field Talfourd.</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus10b.jpg" width-obs="129" height-obs="400" alt="" /> <p class="caption">BROWNING’S HOME,
1887-9</p>
<p class="caption">De Vere Gardens, Kensington,
London, England.</p>
</div>
<p>Browning is not so broadly representative of the
movement of the age.
He gave dramatic expression
to one aspect of
its experience; but that
aspect was of thrilling
interest. Tennyson did
not miss the significance
of individual impulse; but
he saw men in ordered
ranks, in social relations.
He felt and expressed the
collective experience of
his age. Browning felt
and expressed the experience
of individual
souls, of “Paracelsus,”
“Luria.” He is the interpreter of exceptional
experiences and natures, of “Abt Vogler,”
Andrea del Sarto, the Renaissance Bishop.</p>
<p>He knew secrets of great and mean souls,
of Pompilia and the Pope, of “Half Rome”
and Caponsacchi (kah´´-pahn-sock´-kee),
in “The Ring and the Book,” of “The Patriot,”
and of the husband of “The Last Duchess.” He
was a psychologist of penetrating intelligence,
and his passion for analysis and dealing with
problems sometimes ran away with him, to use
a colloquialism; hence the perplexities which
beset the student of some of his work and
the organization of clubs to interpret him.</p>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus10c.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="287" alt="" /> <p class="caption">THE PALACE IN VENICE WHERE
BROWNING DIED</p>
<p class="caption">It was in this house, surrounded by all the
beauties of Venice, that the poet breathed
his last on December 12, 1889.</p>
</div>
<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus11a.jpg" width-obs="216" height-obs="300" alt="" /> <p class="caption">ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING</p>
<p class="caption">From a portrait painted at Rome in
1859 by Field Talfourd.</p>
</div>
<p>Browning was often a very effective
artist; but he was often very indifferent to
form, and there are long productions of his
which are intensely interesting but are not
in any proper sense poetry. Time will separate
the experiments in psychology from the achievements in art, and
there will remain a body of poetry which appeals powerfully to men and
women of intellectual interests and habits; a poetry notable for its reading
of the secrets of individuality, its splendid optimism based on faith in the
individual soul and in the purpose and power behind the universe, in the
sense of freedom to take and use life daringly, in the impulse to action and
spiritual venture, for its bold imagery and strong phrasing. Such poems as
“Prospice,” “Rabbi Ben Ezra,” “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
Came,” are not only impressive poetry,
but have the note of the bugle in them.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus11b.jpg" width-obs="300" height-obs="237" alt="" /> <p class="caption">MRS. BROWNING’S TOMB
IN FLORENCE, ITALY</p>
<p class="caption">Elizabeth Barrett Browning was herself a poet
of exceptional genius; she was born in 1806,
married to Robert Browning in 1846, and
died in 1861.</p>
</div>
<div class="blockquote">
<p>SUPPLEMENTARY READING.—“Life of
Wordsworth,” Professor Knight; “Wordsworth,”
F. W. H. Myers (English Men of
Letters Series); “Life of Shelley,” Medwin;
“Shelley,” J. Addington Symonds (English Men
of Letters Series); “Life, Letters and Literary
Remains of John Keats,” Richard Monckton
Milnes; “The Works of Lord Byron, with His
Letters and Journals and His Life,” Thomas
Moore (17 volumes); “The Real Lord Byron,”
J. C. Jeafferson (2 volumes); “The Life and
Letters of Browning,” Mrs. Sutherland Orr;
“Browning,” G. K. Chesterton (English Men
of Letters Series); “Alfred, Lord Tennyson: a
Memoir,” Hallam, Second Baron Tennyson;
“The Life of Lord Tennyson,” G. C. Benson.</p>
</div>
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<h2><i>Editorial</i></h2>
<p>Some of the numbers of The Mentor
have been used as the subject matter for
reading clubs. That is a use of The Mentor
that we most heartily welcome. We
have information from one reader that the
number of The Mentor on “Spain and
Gibraltar” is to be used at the next
meeting of a literary club in the home of
the writer. This number is to be read
in conjunction with a study of Washington
Irving’s books on Spain—“The Alhambra”
and “The Conquest of Granada.”
Another club has used the article on
“Dutch Masterpieces” as the core of its
evening’s study, and we have it from a
reader that he knows that number of
The Mentor “almost by heart.” No
better thing could be said of The Mentor
than that it is worth knowing by heart.
It means that The Mentor has become to
some readers at least a fund of important
information—a fund that they can literally
absorb and make their own.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/stars.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="19" alt="(decorative)" /></div>
<p>The New York Sun called attention
editorially, a short time ago, to the yearly
report of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler,
president of Columbia University, in
which he deplores “too much slovenly
reading matter” as an obstacle to education,
“the substitution of quantity for
quality,” and recalls the fact that the
great lawyers of the Colonial period and
the makers of the Constitution had few,
but the fittest, books; knew well a few
first rate books.</p>
<p>“One reason, aside from insufficient or
incompetent instruction in the schools, for
the so often complained of illiteracy, so
to speak, of students, is probably to be
found in the mass of stories which the
Carnegie and other libraries feed to them,
and which they skim through at the
double quick, getting no permanent impression.
Their great-grandfathers read
over and over and assimilated a handful
of books. The little dingy or tattered
home collection was often their school,
college and university.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/stars.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="19" alt="(decorative)" /></div>
<p>“Let us read over again Nicolay and
Hay’s description of Abraham Lincoln’s
boyhood studies: ‘His reading was naturally
limited by his opportunities, for
books were among the rarest of luxuries
in that region and time. But he read
everything he could lay his hands upon,
and he was certainly fortunate in the few
books of which he became the possessor.
It would hardly be possible to select a
better handful of classics for a youth in
his circumstances than the few volumes
he turned with a nightly and daily hand—the
Bible, “Æsop’s Fables,” “Robinson
Crusoe,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” a history
of the United States, and Weems’
“Life of Washington.” These were the
best, and these he read over and over till
he knew them almost by heart.’”</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/stars.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="19" alt="(decorative)" /></div>
<p>“Almost by heart!” Fortunate is he who
has lived with a few books. In a world of
volumes swollen to intolerable dimensions
there are still but a few real books. They
are those we make our own; that shape
the mind, store the memory, are the foundation
and discipline of our intellectual
life.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/stars.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="19" alt="(decorative)" /></div>
<p>The purpose of The Mentor is to give
the gist of knowledge to be found in the
world’s best books, and to give that knowledge
in a form that is easy to retain. A
number of Mentors thoroughly absorbed—as
we might say, “learned by heart”—what
a mental equipment it would mean!
And the practical side, too, should be
considered. Most people haven’t time to
read even the world’s best books. The
Mentor can be read in a few minutes.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/plate1.jpg" width-obs="460" height-obs="650" alt="" /> <p class="caption">GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON</p>
</div>
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<p class="center larger">FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS</p>
</div>
<h2>LORD BYRON</h2>
<p class="center smaller">Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-fancy-i.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="" /></div>
<p class="dropcap">“I awoke one morning and found myself famous,” said the
great poet Byron. This was almost the very truth. A single
poem, a long one indeed, “Childe Harold,” made him the
most talked of man of his time. His fame grew in a night.
And yet he is said to have been prouder of being a descendant
of those Byrons who came into England with William the Conqueror than
of having been the author of “Childe Harold.”</p>
<p>The Byrons were an ancient and honorable family, numbering among
them many famous soldiers and landowners. George Noel Gordon
Byron, the poet, was born on January 22, 1788. His father was Captain
John Byron, a profligate and spendthrift. His mother was Catherine
Gordon, the second wife of “Mad Jack Byron,” as the poet’s father was
called. His parents soon separated, Mrs. Byron taking her son with her.</p>
<p>In 1798 the poet’s great-uncle died, and George became Lord Byron
at the age of ten. He and his mother were now assured of a comfortable
income, and he was sent to Harrow School, where, in spite of his
lameness, which he had suffered from birth, he became a good athlete.</p>
<p>At the age of sixteen Byron fell desperately in love with Mary Chaworth,
a distant relative, two years older than himself. Her indifference
broke the poet’s heart—for the time being.</p>
<p>He entered Cambridge in 1805, and while there wasted most of his
time. He left college with the degree of Master of Arts at the age of
twenty. In 1807 he published his first volume of poetry, “Hours of
Idleness.” The Edinburgh Review ridiculed these in a satirical criticism.
This provoked from Byron a brilliant retort in the form of a poem called
“English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.”</p>
<p>In 1809 he was off for Europe. In “Childe Harold” he has told his
thoughts and experiences during these wanderings. The first two cantos
of this poem appeared in 1812, and their success was instantaneous.</p>
<p>The life of a personality like Byron is so full of incident, so colored
with romance and adventure, that to tell it in detail requires a great deal
of space. Everything that he did was interesting; everywhere he went
he left the impress of his genius. Women loved him, and men imitated
him. Byron was the fashion, and the poet was renowned the world over.</p>
<p>He married Anne Isabella Milbanke in 1815. A daughter, Augusta
Ada, afterward Countess of Lovelace <!-- refer to 2dgoggles.com and thank me later -->, was born to them. In 1816 Lady
Byron left her husband, giving as the reason her belief that he was insane.</p>
<p>The following spring Byron left England, and after traveling about
for sometime met the poet Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
in Switzerland. From there he went to Italy, where he lived for a number
of years. When there he wrote many of his greatest poems.</p>
<p>About this time Greece was struggling to throw off the rule of Turkey.
Byron, a great believer in liberty of every sort, gave freely of his sympathy
and money to the cause. In 1823 he fitted up an expedition and sailed
to the aid of the Greeks; but before he could get into active service he
was taken fatally ill, and died at Missolonghi on April 19, 1824. His last
words were of Greece, the country he had come to help to freedom: “I
have given her my time, my means, my health—and now I give her my
life! What could I do more?”</p>
<p>Byron’s body was carried back to England; but the British authorities
would not allow him to be buried in Westminster Abbey. There is neither
bust nor statue of him in Poets’ Corner. His remains were finally laid
beneath the chancel of the village church of Hucknall Torkard.</p>
<p class="center smaller">PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION<br/>
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44<br/>
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/plate2.jpg" width-obs="460" height-obs="650" alt="" /> <p class="caption">JOHN KEATS</p>
</div>
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<p class="center larger">FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS</p>
</div>
<h2>JOHN KEATS</h2>
<p class="center smaller">Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-fancy-n.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="" /></div>
<p class="dropcap">No one man ever published a worse first volume nor a better
last volume of poetry than did John Keats. And no poet was
so severely criticized at the beginning nor more highly
praised at the end of his life. Yet between the appearance of
his first work and the publication of his last volume there
was a space of but three years.</p>
<p>Keats’ origin was humble; but not so vulgar as most people think.
He was born on October 29, 1795, and was the eldest son of Thomas
Keats, head hostler at the Swan and Hoop livery stables in London. But
in spite of these commonplace early associations his parents were able to
send John to a private school at Enfield. Thomas Keats was killed by a
fall from his horse in 1804, and Mrs. Keats married another stable keeper.
This marriage was an unhappy one, and the couple soon separated.</p>
<p>At school Keats was distinguished for his quick temper, a love of fighting,
and a great appetite for reading. In 1810, when his mother died, he
left school with the intention of becoming a doctor. He was apprenticed
to Thomas Hammond, a surgeon in Edmonton; but he had a quarrel
with him, and went to London in 1814 to study at Guy’s and St. Thomas’s
hospitals.</p>
<p>Even in London, Keats could not concentrate his whole attention on
the study of medicine. He read a great deal of poetry, especially Spenser.
In 1816 he met Leigh Hunt, who introduced him to the poet Shelley. Already
he had begun to write verse, and these friends stimulated his poetic
gift, until in the winter of 1816-17 he definitely decided to give up the
study of medicine and write for a living.</p>
<p>His first volume of “Poems by John Keats” appeared in the spring of
1817. This book was dedicated to Leigh Hunt. The next year he published
“Endymion: A Poetic Romance.” This volume was harshly
treated by the famous critic Gifford in the Quarterly Review. Whether
or not the poem deserved such severity, the language of the reviewer cut
Keats to the quick. He also bitterly resented the attacks made upon him
in Blackwood’s Magazine.</p>
<p>With his friend Armitage Brown he next started on a walking tour of
Scotland; but on account of the bad state of his health was forced to
give this up. His brother Thomas Keats died of consumption at the beginning
of December, 1818, and the poet went to live with Brown. When
there he fell passionately in love with Fanny Brawne, a girl of seventeen,
who lived nearby. It was at this time that he wrote his greatest poems;
although his health was very poor.</p>
<p>Early in 1820 Keats realized that he had consumption; but he did not
give up. In July he published his third and last volume of poetry,
“Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.” In September,
1820, he started for Naples in an attempt to cure himself; but it
was in vain, for on the following February 23 he died in Rome. He was
buried in the old Protestant cemetery near the pyramid of Cestius. He
requested that on his gravestone should be carved this inscription,
“Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”</p>
<p>It was formerly believed that the attacks of hostile reviewers were the
cause of Keats’ death; but this theory has long since been disproved.
Although the sensitive poet felt these bitter attacks keenly, his was not a
spirit to sink beneath them.</p>
<p class="center smaller">PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION<br/>
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44<br/>
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/plate3.jpg" width-obs="460" height-obs="650" alt="" /> <p class="caption">PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY</p>
</div>
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<p class="center larger">FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS</p>
</div>
<h2>PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY</h2>
<p class="center smaller">Monograph Number Three in The Mentor Reading Course</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-fancy-p.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="" /></div>
<p class="dropcap">Percy Bysshe Shelley was born near Horsham, in the
county of Sussex, England, on August 4, 1792. He was the
eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley.</p>
<p>At the age of eleven he was sent to school at Eton. There
he had a hard time. He resisted the “fagging” system,—a
system under which the young boys must act as servants to the older
ones,—and he would not work at his lessons. He was gentle natured and
retiring; but when provoked he showed a very violent temper. So he
was known as “Mad Shelley” by his schoolmates.</p>
<p>In 1810 Shelley entered Oxford. But he did not stay there long; for
he and a friend, named Thomas Jefferson Hogg, became atheists, and
Shelley wrote a little pamphlet on atheism, which he sent to the different
heads of the colleges, asking them to notify him at once of their conversion
to atheism. This they declined to do; but instead summoned both
Shelley and Hogg and expelled them. Shelley and his friends complained
at what they termed the injustice of the expulsion; but his father would
have nothing to do with him. So Shelley went to London, where he wrote
the poem “Queen Mab.” This was not published until later.</p>
<p>When he was in London his sisters sent him money by means of
Harriet Westbrook, one of their friends. Shelley converted her to atheism,
and married her in August, 1811, because she did not wish to go back
to school. This marriage turned out to be very unhappy, and they separated
by mutual consent in 1813.</p>
<p>The next year Shelley, accompanied by Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin,
the daughter of William Godwin, the speculative philosopher, and Claire
Clairmont, a friend of the poet Lord Byron, visited Europe. In 1815
Shelley’s grandfather died, and the poet was assured of a regular income
of $5,000 a year. In 1816 he visited Europe again, and in November of
the same year his wife Harriet drowned herself. Shelley’s two children
were committed to the care of their grandfather Westbrook.</p>
<p>Shelley married Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and in 1818 they left
England, never to return, going to Italy, where he wrote many of his
greatest poems.</p>
<p>His second wife was a talented woman and a writer of ability. Under
the name of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley she wrote that famous grewsome
tale, “Frankenstein.”</p>
<p>In July, 1822, Shelley set sail in a small boat to return to his summer
home at Spezia. The boat was overtaken by a sudden squall and disappeared.
Two weeks later Shelley’s body was washed ashore with a copy
of Keats’ poems open in one of his pockets. The Tuscan quarantine regulations
at that time required that whatever came ashore from the sea
should be burned. Accordingly Shelley’s body was placed on a pyre and
reduced to ashes in the presence of Leigh Hunt, E. J. Trelawney, and
Lord Byron. His ashes were collected and buried in the Protestant cemetery
at Rome, near the grave of his friend Keats.</p>
<p class="center smaller">PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION<br/>
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44<br/>
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/plate4.jpg" width-obs="460" height-obs="650" alt="" /> <p class="caption">WILLIAM WORDSWORTH</p>
</div>
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<p class="center larger">FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS</p>
</div>
<h2>WILLIAM WORDSWORTH</h2>
<p class="center smaller">Monograph Number Four in The Mentor Reading Course</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-fancy-a.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="" /></div>
<p class="dropcap">At the age of twenty-one William Wordsworth was so undecided
as to what he wanted to do for a living that his relatives
believed he would turn out to be a good-for-nothing.
At the age of thirty-five he had finished a tremendous poem
in fourteen books, which he had begun because he was not
ready at the time to take up anything more difficult!</p>
<p>Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, England, on
April 7, 1770, the son of John Wordsworth, a lawyer. When he was only
fifteen he wrote as a school task an account in poetry of his summer vacation.
He entered Cambridge at the age of seventeen; but did not get
along well there because he did not like his studies nor the discipline of
the college.</p>
<p>In those days, when there was no railroads or trolley lines, it was the
custom for young Englishmen who could afford it to take walking trips
through Europe during their vacations from college. In the summer of
1790 Wordsworth made a tour through France and among the Alps, and
was much affected by the beauties of nature he saw, particularly at Lake
Como. He graduated from St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1791, with
the degree of Bachelor of Arts.</p>
<p>The French Revolution came along about this time, and, together
with most of the progressive young men of the day, Wordsworth hailed it
with enthusiasm. But later the horrors of the Revolution disgusted him;
although he always remained a Republican in principle.</p>
<p>Wordsworth’s friends urged him to enter the ministry, and he himself
thought a little of becoming a lawyer; but he finally decided to write
for a living. And a poor living it was at first! Sometimes he had hardly
enough to eat. He published his first poems in 1793,—“An Evening
Walk, Addressed to a Young Lady,” and “Descriptive Sketches Taken
During a Pedestrian Tour Among the Alps.”</p>
<p>Two years later his poverty was lightened by a legacy of $4,500 left
him by a friend, and his sister Dorothy went to keep house for him. She
helped him in many ways, and cheered his spirits. In 1802 he married
Mary Hutchinson, and about the same time inherited $9,000 from his
father. Three years later he finished that long poem in fourteen books,
“The Prelude,” containing an account of the cultivation and development
of his own mind. This was not published until after the poet’s
death.</p>
<p>Wordsworth continued to write many poems, most of which had to
do with the beauties of nature. Nature in all her forms was his delight.
He liked to walk by himself in the fields, and to talk with the poorer
people, those nearest to the soil. He was simple, kindly, and much loved
by those who knew him.</p>
<p>In 1843 Wordsworth succeeded Robert Southey as poet laureate of
England, and was recognized as the greatest living English poet. He
held this honor only seven years, as he died at Rydal Mount, his home in
England, on April 23, 1850.</p>
<p class="center smaller">PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION<br/>
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44<br/>
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/plate5.jpg" width-obs="460" height-obs="650" alt="" /> <p class="caption">ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON</p>
</div>
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<p class="center larger">FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS</p>
</div>
<h2>ALFRED TENNYSON</h2>
<p class="center smaller">Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-fancy-a.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="" /></div>
<p class="dropcap">Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby in Lincolnshire,
England, on August 6, 1809. His father was a rector, and
the poet’s boyhood was passed in an atmosphere of poetry
and music. Even as a child he wrote verses, and some of
these were published in 1827 in a volume, “Poems by Two
Brothers,” written by himself and his elder brother Charles.</p>
<p>He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1829, and in the same year
won the chancellor’s medal with a blank-verse poem called “Timbuctoo.”
His closest friend at college was Arthur Henry Hallam, a brilliant young
man who belonged to The Apostles, a society of which Tennyson was also
a member.</p>
<p>“Poems, Chiefly Lyrical,” was published in 1830; but the following
year, soon after the death of his father, the poet left Cambridge without
taking his degree. He then decided to devote his life to writing poetry.
A small volume of poems published in 1832 proved that he had chosen
well; for it contained some of his best work.</p>
<p>But now for ten years the poet kept silence. He did not publish another
line of poetry until 1842. The reason for this was the death of his
friend Arthur Hallam. Hallam was the closest intimate of Tennyson,
and when he died suddenly at Vienna in 1833 the poet received a blow
from which he never fully recovered. But this great loss was poetically
the making of Tennyson. The volume of 1842 contained some of his
greatest poems, among them being “Ulysses,” “Locksley Hall,” and
“Break, Break, Break.”</p>
<p>Five years after this appeared “The Princess,” a long poem treating
of the “woman question” in a half-humorous way. It is a poem of great
beauty.</p>
<p>Then in 1850 came the elegy on the death of Hallam, “In Memoriam.”
This had been long expected, and it proved to be one of the greatest
poems of the century.</p>
<p>In the same year Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, and was appointed
poet laureate to succeed Wordsworth. His first official poem in
this position was the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” in
1852. Two years later “The Charge of the Light Brigade” electrified the
world. “Maud” appeared in 1855, and then four years later began the
publication of the famous “Idylls of the King,” poems in blank verse
telling of King Arthur and his court. From that time on Tennyson wrote
many poems and dramas.</p>
<p>In 1884 he was made Lord Tennyson, first Baron of Aldworth and
Farringford. He took the title from his two country houses in Sussex
and on the Isle of Wight. On October 6, 1892, Tennyson died at Aldworth
“with the moonlight falling on closed eyes and voiceless lips.”</p>
<p class="center smaller">PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION<br/>
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44<br/>
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/plate6.jpg" width-obs="460" height-obs="650" alt="" /> <p class="caption">ROBERT BROWNING</p>
</div>
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<p class="center larger">FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS</p>
</div>
<h2>ROBERT BROWNING</h2>
<p class="center smaller">Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“God’s in his heaven:</div>
<div class="verse">All’s right with the world.”</div>
</div></div>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-fancy-s.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="" /></div>
<p class="dropcap">So Pippa sings in “Pippa Passes.” And that was the philosophy
of the great poet who wrote the lines. Robert Browning
was an optimist. He believed that the world would come
out all right in the end, that good would win.</p>
<p>Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, at Camberwell,
near London. His father, who worked in the Bank of England,
was also named Robert Browning. The Brownings were of sturdy stock;
but the poet’s mother was delicate. At the age of twelve he had written
a volume of poems called “Incondita”; but his parents could find no
one who would publish it.</p>
<p>Browning’s early education was rather scant; but he made up for
this by a great deal of miscellaneous reading in his father’s library. He
had a chance to become a clerk in the Bank of England; but he refused
it, and decided to write poetry for a living. Strange to say, his parents
encouraged him in this. He published his first poem, “Pauline,” in 1833.
Then followed “Paracelsus” in 1835, and “Sordello” in 1840.</p>
<p>Browning was by this time becoming well known, and his poetry
was admired. He had always liked the theater, and now he began to
write drama. In May, 1837, his first play, “Strafford,” was produced in
Covent Garden. He followed this with several others, none of which
had great financial success.</p>
<p>In 1844 Elizabeth Barrett, a poetess whose genius was then being recognized,
published a volume of poems containing “Lady Geraldine’s
Courtship,” with a striking phrase about Browning’s poems. This pleased
the poet greatly, and he was encouraged by her cousin, John Kenyon, to
write to her. Finally she permitted him to visit her, and they fell in love
with each other. Elizabeth Barrett was six years older than Browning,
and was a chronic nervous invalid; but in September, 1846, was secretly
married to him in spite of the opposition of her father, who objected on
principle to the marriage of his children. Theirs was one of the greatest
love stories in all history. They were both poets of the highest genius,
and they loved each other devotedly. When his wife died at Florence,
Italy, on June 30, 1861, Browning was crushed by the blow.</p>
<p>But he bore it like the great man that he was. He decided to return
to England to superintend the education of his son, Robert Wiedeman
Browning. There he resumed his writing, and published many poems,
including “The Ring and the Book,” which is regarded by some as his
masterpiece. It is an immense poem in twelve books, in which the story
of a murder is told many times over by the various characters concerned.
It is a unique and powerful poem.</p>
<p>In his later years Browning returned to Italy; but he never revisited
Florence after his wife’s death there. He continued writing almost to
the very end of his long life. He composed very slowly, considering
twenty-five or thirty lines a good day’s work.</p>
<p>The real greatness of the poet was appreciated toward the end of his
life, and many honors were showered upon him. In 1889 he went to
Venice with his son. Here he caught a heavy cold, and this, combined
with the poor state of his health, was too much for the old poet. He died
on December 12, 1889, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on December
31.</p>
<p class="center smaller">PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION<br/>
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44<br/>
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.</p>
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