The Strayed Reveller

Introdudtion.
hills which border the Rhine were at one time
volcanoes.
Of the two early prize poems, which appear for the
first time in this edition, " Alaric at Rome," composed
at Rugby, and " Cromwell," which obtained the
Chancellor's medal at Oxford, not much need be said,
except that they well deserve to be retrieved from
oblivion. The Rugby poem is the more important,
and is one of the very few pieces of the kind from
which the writer's subsequent poetical distinction might
have been predicted with some confidence. It perhaps
owes something of its excellence to the interest in
Roman history engendered by the writer's devotion to
his illustrious father, so pleasingly manifested in his
correspondence. The production of such a poem
as "Cromwell" was a safe guarantee of intellectual
eminence; but, although much above the usual standard,
it is not more remarkable poetically than the
similar compositions of many who have never become
distinguished as poets.
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R. GARNETT.