Critics from the beginning onwards have complained
of the six introductory epistles, as breaking the unity of the story.
But I cannot see that the remark has weight. No poem is written for
those who read it as they do a novel--merely to follow the interest of
the story; or if any poem be written for such readers, it deserves to
die. On such a principle--which treats a poem as a mere novel and
nothing else,--you might object to Homer that he interrupts the battle
so often to dwell on the origin of the heroes who are waging it; or to
Byron that he deserts Childe Harold to meditate on the rapture of
solitude. To my mind the ease and frankness of these confessions of
the author's recollections give a picture of his life and character
while writing _Marmion_, which adds greatly to its attraction as a
poem. You have a picture at once not only of the scenery, but of the
mind in which that scenery is mirrored, and are brought back frankly,
at fit intervals, from the one to the other, in the mode best adapted
to help you to appreciate the relation of the poet to the poem.
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