The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIII. The Victorian Age, Part One.
VI. Lesser Poets of the Middle and Later Nineteenth Century.
§ 33. Sir F. H. Doyle.
| Very different, again, from either of these was their (slightly) junior, Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, who, rather late in life, became professor of poetry at Oxford, and justified his election by lectures, somewhat exoteric, indeed, but singularly acute and sensible. Sir Francis could write verse of various kinds which was never contemptible, but his strong point was the very difficult and dangerous kind of war poetry, in which, putting The Charge of the Light Brigade aside, he surpassed every other writer between Campbell and a living poet. Whenever he came near this great and too often mishandled subject, his genius seemed to catch fire; and, in two almost famous pieces—The Red Thread of Honour and A Private of the Buffs—in the first especially, that curious inspiriting and exciting quality which all songs of what Dante calls salus (war and patriotism) 27 should have, and which they too often lack, is present in almost the highest degree. |
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