ABSTRACT
Austin’s critique originally appeared in Temple Bar, July 1869, xxvi, 457–74; it was reprinted, with very slight changes, in his Poetry of the Period (1870), the text of which is followed here. Austin’s leading idea is that the age made great poetry impossible. Most of the poets are compared unfavourably with Byron, a comparison leading Browning to allude to Austin in ‘Pacchiarotto’ as ‘Banjo-Byron’. In Under the Microscope Swinburne discusses Austin’s views (see Introduction, section IV).
