Bryant's Puritan ancestry and training laid a heavy hand upon him. Thoughts of "the last bitter hour" are constantly recurring in his verse. The third line of even his poem _June_ brings us to the grave. His great poems are often like a prayer accompanied by the subdued tones of a mighty organ. Nothing foul or ignoble can be found in his verse. He has the lofty ideals of the Puritans. ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD As we saw in the preceding chapter, WORDSWORTH and COLERIDGE at the close of the last century began to exert a new influence on literature. Wordsworth's new philosophy of nature (p. 99) can be traced in the work of Bryant. The other poets of this age belong to the romantic school. BYRON (1788-1824), the poet of revolt against the former world, shows the same influences that manifest themselves in the American and the French Revolution. He voices the complaints, and, to some extent, the aspirations of Europe. He shows his influence in Fitz-Greene Halleck's _Marco Bozzaris_. Shelley, who also belongs to the school of revolt, has a peculiar position as a poet of ethereal, evanescent, and spirit-like beauty. He is heard in the voice of the West Wind, the Cloud, the unseen Skylark, the "Spirit of Night," and "the white radiance of Eternity." Bryant's call in _The Evening Wind_ (1829) to "... rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest, Summoning from the innumerable boughs The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast," may even have been suggested by Shelley's _Ode to the West Wind_ (1819) "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone." In the early part of this period, Wordsworth and Shelley were both making these harmonies of nature audible to ears which had hitherto not heard them. KEATS (1795-1821) is the poet of beauty, and he makes more of an appeal to the senses than Shelley. The favorite creed of Keats was:-- "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." His influence will gradually extend to later American verse. SIR WALTER SCOTT was the great prose writer of the age preceding the Victorian. The first of his series of _Waverley_ novels was published in 1814, and he continued until his death in 1832 to delight the world with his genius as a writer of romances. His influence may be traced in Cooper's work, although the American author occupies an original field. Readers are still charmed with the exquisite flavor and humor in the essays of CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834). The essays of DE QUINCEY (1785-1859) are remarkable for precision, stateliness, and harmony. LEADING HISTORICAL FACTS, 1809-1849.