The British Poets Author:Francis James Child Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: JOAN OF ARC. EI2 OIQN02 APISTOS AMTNE26AI HEPI IIATPH2. HOHKE. Perlege, cognosces anlmum sine viribus alas Ingenil expllculsse loves, nam vera fatebor; ... more »Implumen tepido proceps me gloria nido Expulit, et coelo jusslt volitare remoto. Poenltet inccepti, cursum revocare juventn 8i llceat, mansisse domi com tempore nervoa Cooaolldasse velim. Pmuu. PREFACE TO JOAN OF ARC. Earlt in July, 1793, I happened to fall in conversation, at Oxford, with an old schoolfellow upon the story of Joan of Arc; and it then struck me as being singularly well adapted for a poem. The long vacation commenced immediately afterwards. As soon as I reached home, I formed the outline of a plan, and wrote about three hundred lines. The remainder of the mouth was passed in travelling; and I was too much engaged in new scenes and circumstances to proceed, even in thought, with what had been broken off. In August I went to visit my old schoolfellow, Mr. Grosvenor Bedford, who at that time resided with his parents at Brixton Causeway, about four miles on the Surrey side of the metropolis. There, the day after completing my nineteenth year, I resumed my undertaking ; and there, in six weeks from that day, finished what I called an Epic Poem in twelve books. My progress would not have been so rapid, had it not been for the opportunity of retirement which I enjoyed there, and the encouragement that I had received. In those days, London had not extended in that direction farther than Kennington; beyond which place, the scene changed suddenly, and there was an air and appearance of country which might now be sought in vain at a far greater distance from town. There was nothing, indeed, to remind one that London was so near, except the smoke which overhung it. Mr. Bedford's residence was situated upon...« less