[100] See Ma Mission en Prusse, by Benedetti, Paris, 1871, p. 372 et seq.
[101] Roth, Achtzig Tage in preussischen Gefangenschaft, p. 13.
[102] Sacher-Mosach, Ueber den Werth der Kritik, Leipzig, 1873, p. 55.
SOME FORGOTTEN CATHOLIC POETS.
“… Illacrimabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longa
Nocte carent quia vate sacro.”
When we speak of Catholic poets, three of the foremost names in English literature come up at once—Dryden, Pope, and Moore. The two latter are more eminent, perhaps, as poets than as Catholics, but of Dryden’s sincerity and steadfastness in the change of faith which “moralized his song” and gave a masterpiece to English poetry there is, happily, no doubt. Many later names are familiar to the general reader as those of Catholics whose genius has lent lustre to our own epoch. Some, like Newman, Faber, De Vere, and Adelaide Procter, claim fellowship with the most famous and are known wherever English poetry is read. Others, like Caswall, Coventry Patmore, and D. F. MacCarthy, are favorites of a narrower circle. All are known as Catholic poets to many by no means intimate with their works. Even poor Clarence Mangan has not been denied his place and his crust of praise on the doorsteps of the “Victorian Era”—he was never a very importunate suppliant: no act of Parliament could have made that minstrel a “sturdye begger”—and is scarcely yet forgotten, although he added to the (æsthetic) crime of being a Catholic and the weakness of being an Irishman the unpardonable sin of living and dying in utter poverty and wretchedness.