_On the Cliffs_.] So the
feminists have been only embittered by their brothers' praise.

As time wears on, writers averse to feminine verse seem to be losing
thecourage of their convictions. At the end of the eighteenth century,
woman's opponent was not afraid to express himself. Woman writers were
sometimes praised, but it was for one quality alone, the chastity of
their style. John Hughes [Footnote: See _To the Author of "A Fatal
Friendship."_] and Tom Moore [Footnote: See _To Mrs. Henry Tighe_.] both
deplored the need of such an element in masculine verse. But Moore could
not resist counteracting the effect of his chary praise by a play, _The
Blue Stocking_, which burlesques the literary pose in women. He seemed
to feel, also, that he had neatly quelled their poetical aspirations
when he advertised his aversion to marrying a literary woman. [Footnote:
See _The Catalogue_. Another of his poems ridiculing poetesses is _The
Squinting Poetess_.] Despite a chivalrous sentimentality, Barry Cornwall
took his stand with Moore on the point, exhorting women to choose love
rather than a literary career. [Footnote: See _To a Poetess_. More
seriously, Landor offered the same discouragement to his young friend
with poetical tastes. [Footnote: See _To Write as Your Sweet Mother
Does_.] On the whole the prevalent view expressed early in the
nineteenth century is the considerate one that while women lack a
literary gift, they have, none the less, sweet poetical natures. Bulwer
Lytton phrased the old-fashioned distinction between his hero and
heroine,

In each lay poesy--for woman's heart
Nurses the stream, unsought and oft unseen;
And if it flow not through the tide of art,
Nor win the glittering daylight--you may ween
It slumbers, but not ceases, and if checked
The egress of rich words, it flows in thought,
And in its silent mirror doth reflect
Whate'er affection to its banks hath brought.
[Footnote: Milton.]

Yet the poetess has two of the strongest poets of the romantic period on
her side. Wordsworth, in his many allusions to his sister Dorothy,
appeared to feel her possibilities equal to his own, and in verses on an
anthology, he offered praise of a more general nature to verse written
by women. [Footnote: See To Lady Mary Lowther.] And beside the sober
judgment of Wordsworth, one may place the unbounded enthusiasm of
Shelley, who not only praises extravagantly the verse of an individual,
Emilia Viviani, [F