Lectures on English Poetry

had scarcely past his thirtieth year-with fame and fortune opening their brightest views before him, he perished under the attacks of a disease, from which no genius is a defence, and no talent a protection; which has numbered amongst its victims some of the loftiest spirits of humanity, and blighted the proudest hopes that ever waked the aspirings of ambition:

"Breasts, to whom all the strength of feeling given,
Bear hearts electric, charged with fire from Heaven,
Black with the rude collision, inly torn,

By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne,
Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst
Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder, scorch and
burst!"'

Iñ person, Henry Neele was considerably below the middle stature; but his features were singularly expressive, and his brilliant eyes betokened ardent feeling and vivid imagination. Happily, as it proved, though his disposition was in the highest degree kind, sociable, and affectionate, he was unmarried. His short life passed, indeed, almost without events; it was one of those obscure and humble streams which have scarcely a name in the map of existence, and which the traveller passes

without enquiring its source or its direction. His retiring manners kept him comparatively unnoticed and unknown, excepting by a few intimate friends, from whose grateful recollection his memory will never be effaced. An excellent son, a tender brother, and a warm and sincere friend, he was beloved most by those who knew him best; and at his death left not an enemy in the world.

Of his varied talents, the following Lectures will amply evidence the nervous eloquence of his Prose; while the grace and tenderness of his Poetry are instanced in almost every stanza of his composition. Some of his Poems are, however, tinctured with a morbid sensibility and bitter discontent, for which it would be difficult to account, without some reference to the unhappy malady to which he owed his destruction; particularly as he was generally distinguished by a mildness and aimiability of manner, by a gaiety of heart, and a playfulness of wit, which never failed to raise the spirit of mirth in whatever society he found himself. So strongly were these dark feelings expressed at times, that his friend Mr. Schoberl, the

Editor of the "Forget me Not," considered 1 it his duty to insert a "remonstrance" immediately after a contribution which Henry Neele had penned for that Annual in 1826, only two years before his death.

Those

Here this Introduction terminates. who loved him living, and who mourn him dead, will have some consolation in the assured conviction that his genius will long "leave a mark behind;" and this slight memorial has been written not without a hope that it may serve

"To pluck the shining page from vulgar Time

And leave it whole to late Posterity."

J. T.

Introduction

CONTENTS.

Page iii

LECTURE I.

INTRODUCTORY ANALYSIS.

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General Historical Summary:-The Age of Edward the

Third:-Chaucer:-The Ages of Henry the Eighth and