HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE EDWARD S. HAWES ESTATE 1943 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW DIRECTORY FORECAST. HE printers ask if there is to be prefatory THE matter. There shall be no excuses, nor any defensive explanations and I shall only give here such forecast of this little book as may serve as a reminder, and appetizer, for the kindly acquaintances I meet once more; and further serve as an illustrative menu, for the benefit of those newer and more critical friends who browse tentatively at the tables of the booksellers. This volume-the fourth in its series of English Lands and Letters-opens upon that always delightful country of hills and waters, which is known as the Lake District of England;-where we found Wordsworth, stalking over the fells— and where we now find the maker of those heavy poems of Thalaba and Madoc, and of the charming little biography of Nelson. There, too, we find that strange creature, De Quincey, full of a tumult of thoughts and language-out of which comes ever and anon some penetrating utterance, whose barb of words fixes it in the mind, and makes it rankle. Professor Wilson is his fellow, among the hills by Elleray-as strenuous, and weightier with his great bulk of Scottish man= hood; the Isle of Palms is forgotten; but not "Christopher in his Shooting Jacket"-stained, and bespattered with Highland libations. A Londoner we encounter-Crabb Robinson, full of gossip and conventionalities; and also that cautious, yet sometimes impassioned Scottish bard who sang of Hohenlinden, and of Gertrude of Wyoming. Next, we have asked readers to share our regalement, in wandering along the Tweed banks, and in rekindling the memories of the verse, the home, and the chivalric stories of the benign master of Abbotsford, for whom-whatever newer literary fashions may now claim allegiance and whatever historic quid-nuncs may say in derogation - I think there are great multitudes who will keep a warm place in their hearts and easily pardon a kindred warmth in our words. After Dryburgh, and its pall, we have in these pages found our way to Edinboro', and have sketched the beginners, and the beginnings of that great northern quarterly, which so long dominated the realm of British book-craft, and which rallied to its ranks such men as Jeffrey and the witty Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh and the pervasive and petulant Brougham - full of power and of pyrotechnics. These great names and their quarterly organ call up comparison with that other, southern and distinctive Quarterly of Albemarle Street, which was dressed for literary battle by writers like Gifford, Croker, Southey, and Lockhart. The Prince Regent puts in an appearance in startling waistcoats and finery-vibrating between Windsor and London; so does the bluff SailorKing William IV. Next, Walter Savage Landor leads the drifting paragraphs of our story- a great, strong man; master of classicism, and master of language; now tender, and now virulent; never quite master of himself. Of Leigh Hunt, and of his graceful, lightweighted, gossipy literary utterance, there is indulgent mention, with some delightful passages of verse foregathered from his many books. Of Thomas Moore, too, there is respectful and grateful - if not over-exultant - talk; yet in these swift days there be few who are tempted to tarry long in the "rosy bowers by Bendemeer." From Moore and the brilliant fopperies of "The First Gentleman of Europe," we slip to the disorderly, but pungent and vivid essays of Hazlitt -to the orderly and stately historic labors of Hallam, closing up our chapter with the gay company who used to frequent the brilliant salon of the Lady Blessington-first in Seamore Place, and later at Gore House. There we find Bulwer, Disraeli (in his flamboyant youth-time), the elegant Count d'Orsay, and others of that trainband. Following quickly upon these, we have asked our readers to fare with us along the old and vivid memories of Newstead Abbey - to track the master-poet of his time, through his early days of romance and marriage — through his journeyings |