A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY 122442 BY W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B. M.A., D. LITT., LL.D. LATE PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD VOL. III THE INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT OF THE DECADENT INFLUENCE OF THE FEUDAL MONARCHY: London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY All rights reserved PREFATORY NOTE IN the first volume of this History I expressed the hope that my work might be completed by the close of the last century. I have observed without surprise that by my failure to make good this anticipation I have exposed myself to some, perhaps not unmerited, reproach. But I venture to think I am not without excuse. Had it indeed been my purpose to make this History a mere record of biographical facts and isolated studies of individual poets, I might have been able to perform what I promised. But to accomplish the task that I have proposed to myself—namely, to trace through our poetry the growth of the national imagination, and to estimate the place occupied by each poet in a continuous movement of art steady concentration of thought is required; and here circumstances have been against me. For to say nothing of my official duties, my election in 1895 to the Chair of Poetry at Oxford, which I could not have foreseen when making my first calculations, turned the thoughts of my leisure hours in a different direction, and it was not until the close of 1900 that I was able to resume my interrupted work. If allowance be made for this five years' interval, I trust it may be V |