Cambridge Poets 1900–1913

INTRODUCTION . victory at the price he knew he must pay for it, in being subject to the reading and hearing of so many ill verses as he was sure would be made upon it.' Now so far as we can separate it from the literary skill let us particularly consider the courage of this opening — which may challenge anything in Plato . Dryden no more fears to introduce a high literary dis cussion straight upon the retreating Dutch cannon than did Boccaccio to oppose his merry tales against a back ground of plague - swept Florence : for Boccaccio and Dryden , as greatmen , saw and trusted that man 's con cern in what literature can do for him is actually more vital and assuredly more permanent than his agitation , sharper for the moment , over any national crisis or public calamity . It takes (I say ) a great and a brave man to perceive this ; a very brave man indeed to maintain it when every neighbour he meets will accuse him for a fool and worse . Dryden chooses to be bolder yet , and pays our admission to his high discourse with a foolish light coin that passes current wherever men and women have nothing more serious on hand than to dine and chat and make themselves agreeable . For Howard 's pleasantry ( as old as Juvenal , and older ) has in truth very little sense to commend it. I am writing this by a window which stands open above a two - mile beach , along which the tide has for some three hours been advancing . Parables , analogies , have usually a weak point somewhere ; and so I dare say has this , which I take for an illustration only . But the seventh or ninth wave which hurls itself in on so proud a crest , to capture whole yards of territory , owes its impetus to the moving mass of water behind , though