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 perishing of the superficial, of that which has no national ideas behind its work. Yet, if we desire to possess an historical example in poetry of this period, we may find in some library on some dusty shelf the volume which contains The Forest Sanctuary and some short lyrics by Mrs. Hemans. They mark her pretty capacity, and they embody the sentimental elements of this worn-out poetic period.

Once more, a small set of poets belonging to this time, undertook the defence and propagation of those orthodox views in theology which Shelley had attacked, which Keats ignored, and which Byron had accepted and hated. The best of these was Robert Pollok, who published in 1827 his Course of Time, a long poem in ten cantos, describing with many episodes and illustrations the condition of man before the last judgment, and the tremendous event itself. It had a certain harsh and hateful power, but its doctrine was as unspeakable as the Turk. The one inference to be drawn from it is, that it was indeed a mercy that a soul like Shelley's should, in the realm of poetry, have denounced a theology which violated every principle of humanity, and have recalled the hearts of men to love and forgiveness as the ground of religion.

These then were the poetic elements in the air of this parenthesis in the story of our poetry. But England was not to remain a prey to exhaustion, a land without ideas, a nation without national emotions on high matters of human progress, a forest with no