ESSAYS BY DIVERS HANDS BEING THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE NEW SERIES VOL. VI EDITED BY G. K. CHESTERTON. STANFORD LIBRARY LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. MDCCCCXXVI. The poems quoted in the paper on "Christina Rossetti" are taken from two volumes entitled 'Poems' and 'New Poems' by Christina Rossetti. Thanks are hereby tendered to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for permission to print those which are copyright. 398073 Made and printed in Great Britain. CONTENTS. Introduction. By G. K. CHESTERTON I. The Royal Society of Literature: an Outline. By PAGE INTRODUCTION. By G. K. CHESTERTON, F.R.S.L. THIS Collection of five papers and one Professorial Lecture recently read before the Royal Society of Literature covers, as is natural, a very wide and varied world of topics; and yet in this case, if only by accident, there is a certain general trend or train of thought. Lord Crewe's clear and compact summary of the whole story of the institution itself serves not only as an introduction, but as a sort of framework, and can be used not only as a gate but as a groundplan. It appears plainly enough in such an outline that this Society passed through certain changes parallel to the changes in the modern national history and not without reference to the most recent names. It was first encouraged by George the Fourth, a man who had the makings of a very fine, because a very free, patron of letters; for in his youth he loved not only literature, but liberty. He was broken by an abrupt degeneration never fully explained, but one which was certainly not entirely his own fault. Unfortunately it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that he died as a man on the day he was crowned as a king. In some ways, therefore, it would be an even better symbol if we could say that this Academy was patronized, not by George the Fourth, but by the Prince Regent. For the Regency had some kinship with the Romantic movement. There was in it something of the glow and glamour and |