De Libris: Prose and Verse by Austin Dobson
page 107 of 141 (75%)
page 107 of 141 (75%)
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[57] _Alexander Pope: his Safe Return from Troy. A Congratulatory Poem on his Completing his Translation of Homer's Iliad._ (In _ottava rima_.) By Mr. Gay, 1720(?). Frere's burlesque, _Monks and Giants_--it will be remembered--set the tune to Byron's _Beppo_. [58] _The Paradise of Birds_, 1870. [59] _Life in Poetry, Law in Taste_, two series of Lectures delivered in Oxford, 1895-1900. 1901. [60] _A History of English Poetry_. 1895 (in progress). THACKERY'S "ESMOND" At this date, Thackeray's _Esmond_ has passed from the domain of criticism into that securer region where the classics, if they do not actually "slumber out their immortality," are at least preserved from profane intrusion. This "noble story"[61]--as it was called by one of its earliest admirers--is no longer, in any sense, a book "under review." The painful student of the past may still, indeed, with tape and compass, question its details and proportions; or the quick-fingered professor of paradox, jauntily turning it upside-down, rejoice in the results of his perverse dexterity; but certain things are now established in regard to it, which cannot be gainsaid, even by those who assume the superfluous office of anatomising the accepted. In the first |
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