Page:The Story of Rimini - Hunt (1816, 1st ed).djvu/24

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xviii

writers, though Horace, for his delightful companionship, is my favourite, Catullus appears to me to have the truest taste for nature. But an Englishman need go no farther than Shakspeare. Take a single speech of Lear's, such for instance as that heart-rending one,

I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, &c.

and you have all that criticism can say, or poetry can do.

In making these observations, I do not demand the reader to conclude that I have succeeded in my object, whatever may be my own opinion of the matter. All the merit I claim is that of having made an attempt to describe natural things in a language becoming them, and to do something towards the revival of what appears to me a proper English versification. There are narrative poets now living who have fine eyes for the truth