INTRODUCTION I. A BRIEF SKETCH OF LANIER'S LIFE (1842-1881) SIDNEY LANIER has so recently passed from us that it seems desirable briefly to recount the chief incidents of his life. This task is much lightened by Dr. Wm. Hayes Ward's Memorial,1 upon which, as stated in the Preface, is based this section of my essay. Born at Macon, Ga., February 3, 1842, Sidney Lanier came of a family noted for their love and cultivation of the fine arts. From the time of Queen Elizabeth to the Restoration, several of his paternal ancestors were connected with the English court as musical composers and as painters. The father of the poet, however, Robert S. Lanier, was a most industrious lawyer, who, after a lingering illness of three years, recently answered Adsum to the summons of the supreme tribunal. The poet's mother, Mary Anderson, a Virginian of Scotch descent, likewise sprang from a family distinguished for their love of oratory, music, and poetry. 2 With such an ancestry we are not surprised to learn that Sidney's earliest passion was for music, and that in boyhood he could, although untutored, 1 For the full title of works cited see Bibliography. 2 October 20, 1893, at Macon, Ga. |