It was, indeed, the dawn of a new day for the peoples of Europe. The ideas of freedom and equality-- of respect for man as man-- were thrown into popular form by France; they became living powers in Europe; and in England they animated and inspired the best minds of the time-- Burns, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron. Along with this high tide of hope and emotion, there was such an outburst of talent and genius in every kind of human endeavour in England, as was never seen before except in the Elizabethan period. Great events produced great powers; and great powers in their turn brought about great events. The war with America, the long struggle with Napoleon, the new political ideas, great victories by sea and land,-- all these were to be found in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The English race produced great men in numbers-- almost, it might be said, in groups. We had great leaders, like Nelson and Wellington; brilliant generals, like Sir Charles Napier and Sir John Moore; great statesmen, like Fox and Pitt, like Washington and Franklin; great engineers, like Stephenson and Brunel; and great poets, like Wordsworth and Byron. And as regards literature, an able critic remarks: “We have recovered in this century the Elizabethan magic and passion, a more than Elizabethan sense of the beauty and complexity of nature, the Elizabethan music of language.” 2. +Great Poets.+-- The greatest poets of the first half of the nineteenth century may be best arranged in groups. There were +Wordsworth+, +Coleridge+, and +Southey+-- commonly, but unnecessarily, described as the Lake Poets. In their poetic thought and expression they had little in common; and the fact that two of them lived most of their lives in the Lake country, is not a sufficient justification for the use of the term. There were +Scott+ and +Campbell+-- both of them Scotchmen. There were +Byron+ and +Shelley+-- both Englishmen, both brought up at the great public schools and the universities, but both carried away by the influence of the new revolutionary ideas. Lastly, there were +Moore+, an Irishman, and young +Keats+, the splendid promise of whose youth went out in an early death. Let us learn a little more about each, and in the order of the dates of their birth.