Warren, K: Treasury of English Literature, Vol. 4

Excerpt from A Treasury of English Literature, Vol. 4: Bacon to Milton

This book is the fourth of a series of six volumes which form, all together, an anthology of English verse and prose from the earliest time up to Burns. The whole has been already published in one volume under the title of A Treasury of English Literature, but for the convenience of students and classes who may wish to study separately a particular epoch, this edition in six books has been prepared. The selections in each volume of the series represent a period of literature, and, so far, form a whole. For an account of the aims of the complete anthology readers are referred to the Editor's Preface which, together with Mr. Stop ford Brooke's Introduction, is printed at the beginning of this book.

The present volume begins with the Authorized Version of the Bible and ends with Milton. It will be seen that prose now takes a more prominent place than in the earlier books. An age which produced such prose writers as Lord Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor and Bunyan, to name only these four, may be forgiven if its poets (always excepting Milton, whose soul was, like a star and dwelt lost by degrees the Eliza bethan charm and developed those metaphysical qualities which were soon to bring about, for a time, the death of true poetry. But the metaphysical poets included in this volume are of a high order, and sometimes peculiarly beautiful to see them at their worst, and to understand why they came to an end, the reader should consult Johnson's Life of Cowley.

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