the prelude to that of ROBERT BROWNING in 1889. NEWMAN survived until 1890. In 1891 LORD LYTTON passed away. But 1892 was the year of pre-eminent loss, for the deaths of CORY and WOOLNER were scarcely noted in the universal mourning of an empire for the greatest poet of the century, for TENNYSON himself. One more name, that of JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, has been erased from the list even while our work of revision has been in progress. For these fourteen deceased poets, of strangely different force and value, we have endeavoured to substitute others whose work has come into prominence since this book was originally planned. Seventeen poets are represented in this edition for the first time. It cannot be pretended that among these new inheritors of renown there are as yet to be found any who fill in our hearts the place so long occupied by TENnyson, and for not a few years before their deaths by BROWNING and ARNOLD. But it is an easy thing to depreciate the achievement of youth by comparing it with the fulfilment of long life; and it is certainly not our intention here to despair of the Republic of Poetry. We believe that among those poets who have secured a hearing within the last decade there are several whose voices will continue to sound more clearly and more loudly as they slowly ascend the hill of song. As in 1882, so now in 1893, our selection is not quite so complete as we should wish to make it. One young poet of very high promise has been prevented by health from according or refusing that permission which we are certain he would have generously given. Another writer, as did an elder confrère in 1882, declines to be bound with others in a collection. But though we deplore these two omissions, we still hope that the book, in its revised form, may be found to be no less characteristic of the poetry of the present day than its predecessor was acknowledged to be of that of eleven years ago. September, 1893. |