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It has been estimated that there were four hundred poets in
England in the time of
Shakespeare, and in the century during which
Dante lived
Europe fairly swarmed with poets, many of them of high excellence.
Frederick II.
of
Germany and Richard I. of
England were both good poets, and were as proud of their verses as they were of their military exploits.
Frederick II.
may be said to have founded the vernacular in which
Dante wrote; and
Longfellow rendered into English a poem of Richard's which he composed during his cruel imprisonment in
Austria.
A knight who could not compose a song and sing it to the guitar was as rare as a modern gentleman of fashion who cannot play golf.
When
James Russell Lowell resigned the chair of poetry at
Harvard no one could be found who could exactly fill his place, and it was much the same at
Oxford after
Matthew Arnold retired.
The difference between then and now would seem to reside in the fact, that poetry is more easily remembered than prose.
From the time of
Homer until long after the invention of printing, not only were ballad-singers and harpers in good demand, but the recital of poetry