Produced by David Starner, Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net EARLY REVIEWS OF ENGLISH POETS EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN LOUIS HANEY, PH.D. _Assistant Professor of English and History, Central High School, Philadelphia; Research Fellow in English, University of Pennsylvania_ PHILADELPHIA THE EGERTON PRESS 1904 COPYRIGHT, 1904 BY JOHN LOUIS HANEY PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY, LANCASTER, PA. TO MY FRIEND AND TEACHER PROFESSOR FELIX E. SCHELLING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PREFACE "Among the amusing and instructive books that remain to be written, one of the most piquant would be a history of the criticism with which the most celebrated literary productions have been greeted on their first appearance before the world." It is quite possible that when Dr. William Matthews began his essay on _Curiosities of Criticism_ with these words, he failed to grasp the full significance of that future undertaking. Mr. Churton Collins recently declared that "a very amusing and edifying record might be compiled partly out of a selection of the various verdicts passed contemporaneously by reviews on particular works, and partly out of comparisons of the subsequent fortunes of works with their fortunes while submitted to this censorship." Both critics recognize the fact that such a volume would be entertaining and instructive; but, from another point of view, it would also be a somewhat doleful book. Even a reader of meagre imagination and rude sensibilities could not peruse such a volume without picturing in his mind the anguish and the heart-ache which those bitter and often vicious attacks inflicted upon the unfortunate victims whose works were being assailed.