Winthrop Mackworth Praed was born in London on 28 July 1802 and died there on 15 July 1839, only thirteen days short of his thirty-seventh birthday. His short life encompassed several identities that Victorian readers often preferred to keep distinct: he was a gifted schoolboy journalist, a prize-winning Cambridge classicist, a lawyer, a Conservative politician, a public speaker of exceptional brilliance, and one of…
“I should certainly refuse to occupy any post in which I should be expected to place myself in personal collision with any man.”
Neighbourhood:
Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Peace
Bryan Waller Procter, known to generations of readers by the literary name Barry Cornwall, was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, on 21 November 1787, and died in London on 5 October 1874. He belonged to that broad, fascinating company of early nineteenth-century writers who stood close to the great Romantic generation without ever wholly entering its innermost circle. He was not a poet of Byron’s volcanic self-dramatization,…
“Poetry in England is assuming a new character, and not a better character. It has a sort of pre-Raphaelite tendency which does not suit my aged feelings. I am for love, or the world well lost.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness