LATE PROfessor of POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD VOL. V THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMPROMISE OF THE EFFECTS OF THE CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE; LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSIT OF London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY All rights reserved CALIFORN PREFATORY NOTE In view of comments which have been made on previous volumes of this history, I would again remind the reader that my design from the first has been, not to furnish an exhaustive list of the English poets as individuals, but rather to describe the general movements of English Poetry, as an Art illustrating the evolution of national taste.1 The poets whose works are here considered are treated as having contributed something characteristic towards these movements; but I have not thought it necessary to dwell on the lives and writings of versifiers such as Ambrose Philips, Beattie, Aaron Hill, and others, whose names appear in collections like those of Anderson and Chalmers; their poetry having too little distinctive character for my purpose. 1 Vol. i. p. 8. |