398 ELIZABETHAN AND VICTORIAN POETRY 



estimating their achievement. This intimate and pungent 

 personality, settling the poet's attitude toward things, mould- 

 ing his moral sympathies, flavouring his philosophy of life 

 and conduct, colouring his style, separating him from 

 fellow-workers, is the leading characteristic of Victorian 

 literature that which distinguishes it most markedly from 

 the Elizabethan. 



While many points have been passed in review much has 

 naturally been omitted, and the method of treatment has 

 necessitated the suppression of important modifications. It 

 would in the one case have been interesting to raise the 

 question how far Puritanism influenced the national tone in 

 literature : whether, for example, the abeyance into which 

 music fell after the Commonwealth had anything to do with 

 the decline of song and spontaneous melody. It would have 

 been desirable in the second case, while treating of Restora- 

 tion, Queen Anne, and Georgian poetry, to have qualified 

 some sweeping statements by an examination of a lyrist like 

 Gray, and to have shown to what extent the three main 

 periods marked out shade into one another at their edges. 

 But two Greek proverbs, no less than want of space, warn me 

 to lay down the pen here. ' Nothing overmuch,' * The half 

 is better than the whole.' 



