Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/18

viii has been delivered since the time of Warton, and to which we owe the criticism of Doyle, Shairp, Palgrave, and the high discourse of Arnold, in our own day. Had Mr. Lowell's health enabled him to initiate the Turnbull lectureship, the foundation would have derived a lustre at once the light and the despair of his successors. In the shadow of his lamented death it became my duty and distinction to prepare the following lectures, which are now issued in reconsideration of an intention, expressed in my last preceding volume of criticism, to write no more books upon the present theme.

Perhaps it is only natural that such an intention should be overcome by a striking illustration of the fact that, under stress of public neglect or distaste, the lovers of any cause or art find their regard for it more unshaken than ever. It seemed to me a notable thing that at a time when poetry as the utterance of feeling and imagination is strenuously rivalled by other forms of expression, especially by the modern industry of prose fiction; at a time when journalism, criticism, science more than all, not only excite interest, but afford activity and subsistence to original writers; at a time, moreover, when taste is fostered by the wealth of those to whose luxury the architect, the artist, and the musician, rather than the poet, are ready to minister; it seemed to me