Excerpt from The Poets and Poetry of the Nineteenth Century: George Crabbe to Samuel Taylor Coleridge The critical and biographical notices in most cases bear the names of the writers responsible for them. It has been the Editor's desire that these should be written sympathetically, as he believes that a sympathetic spirit is necessary to an accurate insight, and that the whole truth is rarely spoken except by those who Speak the truth in love. In the Editor's judgment every man has a right that the best shall be said of him that can be said, and he has a right that the best shall be said, if not first in point of order, certainly in the best place and in the best way. It is not yet possible to appraise accurately the poetic work of the century; distance is necessary to a comprehensive View, and the ultimate verdict after all is not with the critics, but with mankind. Lord Houghton, in his introduction to the poems of David Gray, says, There is in truth no critic of poetry but the man who enjoys it, and the amount of gratification felt is the only just measure of criticism. To help to the enjoyment of contem porary poetry is the object of the criticism in this work, and in no sense is it an attempt to anticipate the final judgment which can only be pronounced when Time, the Editor of editors, shall select for the last anthology the swan-songs of the world. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.