The wayward faith, the faulty life,
Vanished before a nation's pain.
Panther and Hind forgot their strife,
And rival statesmen thronged the fane.
O gentle censor of our age!
Prime master of our ampler tongue!
Whose word of wit and generous page
Were never wrath, except with wrong,—
Fielding—without the manner's dross,
Scott—with a spirit's larger room,
What Prelate deems thy grave his loss?
What Halifax erects thy tomb?
But, may be, he,—who so could draw
The hidden great,—the humble wise,
Yielding with them to God's good law,
Makes the Pantheon where he lies.
THE END.
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.
EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.
These Short Books are addressed to the general public with a view both to stirring and satisfying an interest in literature and its great topics in the minds of those who have to run as they read. An immense class is growing up, and must every year increase, whose education will have made them alive to the importance of the masters of our literature, and capable of intelligent curiosity as to their performances. The Series is intended to give the means of nourishing this curiosity, to an extent that shall be copious enough to be profitable for knowledge and life, and yet be brief enough to serve those whose leisure is scanty.