The Visions of England

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Title: The Visions of England
Lyrics on leading men and events in English History
Author: Francis T. Palgrave
Editor: Henry Morley
Release Date: March 5, 2006 [eBook #17923]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VISIONS OF ENGLAND***
Transcribed from the 1889 Cassell and Company edition by David Price, [email protected]
THE VISIONS OF ENGLAND: LYRICS OF LEADING MEN AND EVENTS IN ENGLISH HISTORY
BY?FRANCIS T. PALGRAVE?Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford?Late Fellow of Exeter College
TANTA RES EST, UT PAENE VITIO MENTIS TANTUM OPUS INGRESSUS MIHI VIDEAR
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:?LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE?1889
By the same Author
THE VISIONS OF ENGLAND: Seventy Lyrics on leading Men and Events in English History: 8vo. 7/6
LYRICAL POEMS, Four Books: Extra Fcap. 8vo. 6/-
ORIGINAL HYMNS: 18mo. 1/6

Poetry edited by the same
THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY: 18mo. 4/6
THE CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY, with Notes and Glossary: 18mo. 2/6. Or in two parts, 1/- each
SHAKESPEARE'S LYRICS. SONGS FROM THE PLAYS AND SONNETS, with Notes: 18mo. 4/6
SELECTION FROM R. HERRICK'S LYRICAL POETRY, with Essay and Notes: 18mo. 4/6
THE POETICAL WORKS OF J. KEATS, reprinted; literatim from the original editions, with Notes: 18mo. 4/6
LYRICAL POEMS BY LORD TENNYSON, selected and arranged, with Notes: 18mo. 4/6
GLEN DESSERAY AND OTHER POEMS, by J. C. Shairp, late Principal of the United College, S. Andrews, and Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. With Essay and Notes. 8vo.
Messrs. MACMILLAN, Bedford St., Covent Garden

To be published presently
THE TREASURY OF SACRED SONG, selected from the English Lyrical Poetry of Four Centuries, with Notes Explanatory and Biographical
CLARENDON PRESS, OXFORD?Aug. 1889
INTRODUCTION.
Again, on behalf of readers of this NATIONAL LIBRARY, I have to thank a poet of our day--in this case the Oxford Professor of Poetry--for joining his voice to the voices of the past through which our better life is quickened for the duties of to-day. Not for his own verse only, but for his fine sense also of what is truest in the poets who have gone before, the name of Francis Turner Palgrave is familiar to us all. Many a home has been made the richer for his gathering of voices of the past into a dainty "Golden Treasury of English Songs." Of this work of his own I may cite what was said of it in Macmillan's Magazine for October, 1882, by a writer of high authority in English Literature, Professor A. W. Ward, of Owens College. "A very eminent authority," said Professor Ward, "has accorded to Mr. Palgrave's historical insight, praise by the side of which all words of mine must be valueless," Canon [now Bishop] Stubbs writes:--"I do not think that there is one of the Visions which does not carry my thorough consent and sympathy all through."
Here, then, Mr. Palgrave re-issues, for the help of many thousands more, his own songs of the memories of the Nation, addressed to a Nation that has not yet forfeited the praise of Milton. Milton said of the Englishman, "If we look at his native towardliness in the roughcast, without breeding, some nation or other may haply be better composed to a natural civility and right judgment than he. But if he get the benefit once of a wise and well-rectified nurture, I suppose that wherever mention is made of countries, manners, or men, the English people, among the first that shall be praised, may deserve to be accounted a right pious, right honest, and right hardy nation." So much is shown by the various utterances in this NATIONAL LIBRARY. So much is shown, in the present volume of it, by a poet's vision of the England that has been till now, and is what she has been.
H. M.
TO THE NAMES OF?HENRY HALLAM AND FRANCIS PALGRAVE?FRIENDS AND FELLOW-LABOURERS IN ENGLISH HISTORY?FOR FORTY YEARS,?WHO, DIFFERING OFTEN IN JUDGMENT,?WERE AT ONE THROUGHOUT LIFE IN DEVOTED LOVE OF?JUSTICE, TRUTH, AND ENGLAND,?IN AFFECTIONATE AND REVERENT REMEMBRANCE?THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED
PREFACE
As the scheme which the Author has here endeavoured to execute has not, so far as he knows, the advantage of any near precedent in any literature, he hopes that a few explanatory words may be offered without incurring censure for egotism.
Our history is so eminently rich and varied, and at the same time, by the fact of our insular position, so stamped with unity, that from days very remote it has supplied matter for song. This, among Celts and Angles, at first was lyrical. But poetry, for