The later age gave birth to no supreme
poets, like Shakspere and Milton. It produced no _Hamlet_ and no
_Paradise Lost_; but it offers a greater number of important writers, a
higher average of excellence, and a wider range and variety of literary
work than any preceding era. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron,
Shelley, and Keats are all great names; while Southey, Landor, Moore,
Lamb, and De Quincey would be noteworthy figures at any period, and
deserve a fuller mention than can be here accorded them. But in so
crowded a generation, selection becomes increasingly needful, and in the
present chapter, accordingly, the emphasis will be laid upon the
first-named group as not only the most important, but the most
representative of the various tendencies of their time.
[Illustration: Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats.]
The conditions of literary work in this century have been almost unduly
stimulating. The rapid advance in population, wealth, education, and the
means of communication has vastly increased the number of readers. Every
one who has any thing to say can say it in print, and is sure of some
sort of a hearing. A special feature of the time is the multiplication
of periodicals. The great London dailies, like the _Times_ and the
_Morning Post_, which were started during the last quarter of the 18th
century, were something quite new in journalism.
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