The indispensable biographical information about Mrs. Browning
can be obtained from Mr. J. H. Ingram's short Life of her
in the "Eminent Women" Series (1s. 6d.), or from *Robert Browning*,
by William Sharp ("Great Writers" Series, 1s.).


This accomplished, you may begin to choose your poets.
Going back to Hazlitt, you will see that he deals with, among others,
Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Chatterton,
Burns, and the Lake School. You might select one of these,
and read under his guidance. Said Wordsworth: "I was impressed
by the conviction that there were four English poets whom I must
have continually before me as examples--Chaucer, Shakespeare,
Spenser, and Milton." (A word to the wise!) Wordsworth makes a fifth
to these four. Concurrently with the careful, enthusiastic study
of one of the undisputed classics, modern verse should be read.
(I beg you to accept the following statement: that if the study
of classical poetry inspires you with a distaste for modern poetry,
then there is something seriously wrong in the method of your development.)
You may at this stage (and not before) commence an inquiry into
questions of rhythm, verse-structure, and rhyme. There is, I believe,
no good, concise, cheap handbook to English prosody; yet such a manual
is greatly needed. The only one with which I am acquainted is
Tom Hood the younger's *Rules of Rhyme: A Guide to English Versification*.
Again, the introduction to Walker's *Rhyming Dictionary* gives
a fairly clear elementary account of the subject. Ruskin also
has written an excellent essay on verse-rhythms. With a manual
in front of you, you can acquire in a couple of hours
a knowledge of the formal principles in which the music of English verse
is rooted. The business is trifling. But the business of appreciating