And before you reach the end you will have encountered _en route_
pretty nearly all the moods of poetry that exist: tragic, humorous,
ironic, elegiac, lyric--everything. You will have a comprehensive
acquaintance with a poet's mind. I guarantee that you will come safely
through if you treat the work as a novel. For a novel it effectively
is, and a better one than any written by Charlotte Bronte or George
Eliot. In reading, it would be well to mark, or take note of, the
passages which give you the most pleasure, and then to compare these
passages with the passages selected for praise by some authoritative
critic. _Aurora Leigh_ can be got in the "Temple Classics" (1s. 6d.),
or in the "Canterbury Poets" (1s.). The indispensable biographical
information about Mrs. Browning can be obtained from Mr. J.H. Ingram's
short Life of her in the "Eminent Women" Series (1s. 6d.), or from
_Robert Browning_, by William Sharp ("Great Writers" Series, 1s.).
This accomplished, you may begin to choose your poets. Going back
to Hazlitt, you will see that he deals with, among others, Chaucer,
Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Chatterton, Burns, and
the Lake School. You might select one of these, and read under his
guidance.
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