new poetry
Chapter LXI Defoe—­the first newspapers
Chapter LXII Defoe—­“Robinson Crusoe”
Chapter LXIII swift—­the “Journal to Stella”
Chapter LXIV swift—­“Gulliver’s travels”
Chapter LXV Addison—­the “Spectator”
Chapter LXVI Steele—­the soldier author
Chapter LXVII Pope—­the “Rape of the lock”
Chapter LXVIII Johnson—­days of struggle
Chapter LXIX Johnson—­the end of the journey
Chapter LXX goldsmith—­the vagabond
Chapter LXXI goldsmith—­“The vicar of Wakefield”
Chapter LXXII Burns—­the plowman poet
Chapter LXXIII Cowper—­“The task”
Chapter LXXIV Wordsworth—­the poet of nature
Chapter LXXV Wordsworth and Coleridge—­the lake poets
Chapter LXXVI Coleridge and Southey—­sunshine and shadow
Chapter LXXVII Scott—­the awakening of romance
Chapter LXXVIII Scott—­“The wizard of the north”
Chapter LXXIX Byron—­“Childe Harold’s pilgrimage”
Chapter LXXX Shelley—­the poet of love
Chapter LXXXI Keats—­the poet of beauty
Chapter LXXXII Carlyle—­the sage of Chelsea
Chapter LXXXIII Thackeray—­the cynic? 
Chapter LXXXIV Dickens—­smiles and tears
Chapter LXXXV Tennyson—­the poet of friendship

YEAR 7

Chapter I IN THE LISTENING TIME

Has there ever been a time when no stories were told?  Has there ever been a people who did not care to listen?  I think not.

When we were little, before we could read for ourselves, did we not gather eagerly round father or mother, friend or nurse, at the promise of a story?  When we grew older, what happy hours did we not spend with our books.  How the printed words made us forget the world in which we live, and carried us away to a wonderland,

    “Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew
    And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
    And everything was strange and new;
    The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
    And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
    And honey bees had lost their stings,
    And horses were born with eagles’ wings."*