In art, in literature, it is the periods of republicanism that have left their mark on the world: the periods that have been very conscious of, and very deferential to authority, have been invariably retrograde. What a dreary period in English literature was the reign of Dr. Johnson. The chief legacies of that era to literature are the letters of Gray and Horace Walpole, and the life of the Dictator himself. But these are not creative literature at all. Gray, as a poet, was comparatively sterile. Imagination, the jewel of the soul, had fallen from its elaborate setting. But the more that literature declined, the more sententious grew the critics. Nowadays, when literature is very active, and not very profound--impressionist, journalistic, supremely content if it can produce lively and superficial sensations--the bludgeoning of the early part of the century has gone out: no longer does the critic feel it a duty, as the oracle said to Oenomaus, to "draw the bow and slaughter the innumerable geese that graze upon the green." Indeed would not some have us believe that criticism of contemporaries is all a matter of private interest, apart from any just or earnest conviction? But there is still a class of readers, not very large or important perhaps, haunted by a native instinct for literature, a relish for fine phrases, a hankering for style--to whom the manner of saying a thing is as important, or more important than the matter, readers, who are not satisfied with fiction, unless it be combined, as by Robert Louis Stevenson, with a wealth, a curiousness, a preciosity of phrase, to which in criticism only Walter Pater can lay claim, and which may secure for these two a station in literature to which the majority of our busy, voluble, graphic writers must aspire in vain. A. C. B. ETON, _July, 1895_. CONTENTS PAGE THE EVER-MEMORABLE JOHN HALES 1 A MINUTE PHILOSOPHER 19 HENRY MORE, THE PLATONIST 35 ANDREW MARVELL 68 VINCENT BOURNE 96 THOMAS GRAY 119 WILLIAM BLAKE 147 THE POETRY OF KEBLE 180 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 203 THE LATE MASTER OF TRINITY 238 HENRY BRADSHAW 252 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 268 THE POETRY OF EDMUND GOSSE 292 EPILOGUE 310