"A I. YOUNG POETS. Youthful POET is born, not made," said Horace. genius does not depend so much upon acquirements as upon talents, and consequently many poets have from early and almost untutored youth displayed their abilities. They have shone at once like pearls. But the art of poetry, nevertheless, requires cultivation, and the productions of the most gifted are all the better for being laid on the desk and carefully revised. Even diamonds reveal their greatest splendour by the slow touches of the polisher. In the older ages of the world, when teachers ". were few and far between," and opportunities of learning rare, youth was longer in its development, and a man was accounted young when he was under thirty. A few of the greatest Greek poets, however, rose to fame before they reached that age. ÆSCHYLUS, who became so illustrious as a tragic poet, was only twenty-five when he read his first piece in public. Even when he was a boy, it is said that he was dreaming of tragic poetry. SOPHOCLES learned the art from Eschylus, and obtained the laurel crown in competition with him at the age of twenty-seven. EURIPIDES wrote a tragedy at eighteen, and a few years afterwards became a competitor in dramatic contests. ARISTOPHANES was letting out his wit in matchless Attic before he was twenty, if we may trust the dates given by his biographers. He was below the legal age when he first contended for the prize; but under an assumed name he entered the lists and came out second. He gained the first prize for comedy three years afterwards. PINDAR is reported by his admiring eulogists to have had a swarm of bees upon his lips as he lay asleep in his cradle; and he very early gave such indications of genius as induced his father to send him to Athens for instruction in lyric composition. He returned before he was twenty with the reputation of a poet, and was soon employed by states and princes to write triumphal odes. The earliest of his extant poems was a youthful composition. ANACREON sang of love and wine in early youth at the court of Polycrates, and gained his fame before he became a voluptuary. BION's bucolic verse blossomed young before his premature death. Among Roman poets CICERO strove hard to get a place for his youthful verses; and JULIUS CESAR had similar aspirations, and wrote some verses which Augustus wisely refused to publish. LUCRETIUS was forty-four when he perished by his own hand; but he had wrought out his speculations on the nature of things in more youthful years. CATULLUS was younger when he died, yet he left one hundred and sixteen poems, some of them four hundred lines in length. With a young hand he touched Roman literature, and adorned all he touched. VIRGIL's greatest efforts were the fruit of mature age, but he wrote his "Eclogues" before he was thirty. His hand is supposed to have acquired its cunning by still more youthful efforts, which he suppressed. HORACE, too, was well advanced before he prepared those Odes which have charmed ages of scholars; but his first book of Satires is reckoned to be the work of years below thirty. TIBULLUS died at thirty-six; but in the epigram of Domitius Marsus he is spoken of as a youth sent to the Elysian fields. While with the legions in Gaul he wrote poetry with great purity of taste. OVID'S amatory verses were the product of his young and unbridled genius, and indicated the powers which appeared in the "Metamorphoses" and the "Fasti" in maturer years. When we come down the stream of time, and into dates on whose approximate accuracy we can depend, we find many instances of precocious youth in the fields of poetry. TORQUATO TASSO (1544-1595) is one of these. He was a poet's son, born at Sorrento, in the beautiful Bay of Naples. He says of himself : : "From my very birth My soul was drunk with love, which did pervade Of objects all inanimate, I made Idols, and out of wild and lovely flowers And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise, Where I did lay me down within the shade Of waving trees, and dreamed uncounted hours, His father being obliged to follow the exile of his patron, went to Northern Italy, and Tasso was sent to the Univer sity of Padua. He cultivated poetry in youth, and actually published a romantic poem called "Rinaldo " before he was eighteen. Several smaller pieces also appeared from his pen. Attention was at once drawn to him, and all Italy knew that a new poet had arisen. Tasso was patronized by the princes of Ferrara and taken into their service. Before he left the university he sketched the plan and actually composed a part of his great work, "Jerusalem Delivered." He also prepared "Aminta," a pastoral drama, which contained admirable versification. He very carefully elaborated his "Jerusalem," and indeed rewrote it, but hesitated for years before he published it. His mind became despondent and hypochondriacal, and suspecting himself guilty of heresy, he surrendered to the Inquisition. Happily the inquisitors recognized his disease, and did not proceed against him. A quarrel, however, got him into prison for a short time, and on his release he fled, and after wandering in the Apennines, reached Sorrento. His great work was published when he was thirty-one, and was a noble achievement of youthful genius. Its regularity, fine description, chivalry, tenderness, and pathos, with its incidents both earthly and supernatural, made it one of the few great epic poems of the world. He afterwards rewrote it, but the original work retained its popularity, and the revision sank into oblivion. He died at fifty-one, just as the Romans were preparing to bestow on him the laurel crown of literature. His "Jerusalem Delivered" is his true title to permanent fame. COPLAS DE MANRIQUE (about 1479), though a soldier who fell in his youth on the field of battle, was also a poet of Spain. It was the death of his father, Rodrigo Manrique, Count of Peres and Master of Santiago, which called forth the poetic genius of his son. His filial piety attempted an eulogy which took shape in smoothly-flowing verses, full of poetic beauty and of moral reflection. It became for centuries a great favourite in Spain. Longfellow thought it worthy of a translation from his elegant pen. He says that no less than four poetic glosses or running commentaries upon it have been published in Spain, and also a Latin commentary in prose. A few of the stanzas were found in the young poet's pocket as he lay slain on the battle-field. Of his father he sang : And the indomitable will His was a Trajan's goodness,-his And righteous laws, The arm of Hector, and the might In truth's great cause." He goes on in a striking series of comparisons which evince his extensive reading. LOPE DE VEGA (1562-1635) was a poet from his cradle, and made verses before he began to write. He used to bribe his senior school-fellows to commit to paper the rhymes he had composed. He wrote a drama when he was twelve. He then entered the University of Alcala, and devoted himself to study. On leaving this seat of learning he became secretary to the Duke of Alva, and wrote his "Arcadia" at that nobleman's request. At twenty-six he embarked on board the Spanish Armada, and wrote several poems amidst the stormy passage of that ill-fated expedition. His works. afterwards were very numerous; as many as two thousand comedies are ascribed to his pen. DON PEDRO CALDERON (1600-1683) was born at Madrid. He wrote a drama at thirteen. He became a most prolific writer, and composed five hundred dramas. He afterwards entered the priesthood and wrote sacred poems. Among English poets there is an illustrious galaxy of young men of genius, whose achievements are not only on record, but which survive in popular literature. JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) meditated in early youth on the composition of an epic poem, though he postponed the execution of it for many years. He was an eager student in his youth. "From the twelfth year of my age," says himself, "I scarce ever went to bed before midnight." He cultivated |