E630519A. Essays on the Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets (New York).
The Press (Philadelphia), 19 May 1863, p. 1.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 369.
Mr. Miller, publisher, in New York, has completed his collection of Mrs. Browning’s writings, by republishing her prose Essays on the Greek Christian Poets and on the English Poets. The first appeared in the London Athenœum, in 1842; the other is a rapid glance at the great poets of England, from Chaucer to Wordsworth. It was Mrs. Browning’s intention to revise these things, and it is a pity she did not carry it out. The Essays on the Greek Christian Poets, even as they stand, are worthy of attentive perusal. Mrs. Browning was familiar with the subject, and graced her pages with many metrical translations, by herself, from the authors in question. They are extremely spirited, and Mrs. Browning knew Greek so thoroughly, that their fidelity may be taken for granted. This little volume, gaudy in “blue and gold,” sadly reminds us of the loss that literature has sustained in Mrs. Browning’s death. Without the stateliness of Felicia Hemans, or the passion of Letitia Landon, or the solemn march of Caroline Norton, she possessed higher poetical feeling and expression than any other Englishwoman who ever wrote.
Reviewed:
Essays on the Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets (EBB), New York: James Miller, 1863.
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