bitter disappointment, the poet never lost his faith in his genius and
destiny. "The artist shall put forth, humbly and lovingly," he wrote to
his father, "and without bitterness against opposition, the very best and
highest that is within him, utterly regardless of contemporary criticism.
What possible claim can contemporary criticism set up to respect--that
criticism which crucified Jesus Christ, stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for a
madman, tried Luther for a criminal, tortured Galileo, bound Columbus in
chains, and drove Dante into a hell of exile?"

The need of a regular income became more and more a necessity. "My head
and my heart," he wrote, "are both so full of poems, which the dreadful
struggle for bread does not give me time to put on paper, that I am often
driven to headache and heartache purely for want of an hour or two to
hold a pen." He sought various positions--a clerkship in Washington, an
assistant's place in the Peabody Library, a consulship in the south of
France--all in vain. He lectured to parlor classes in literature--an
enterprise from which he seems to have derived more fame than money.
Finally, in 1879, he was appointed to a lectureship in English literature
in Johns Hopkins University, from which dates the final period of his
literary activity and of his life.

The first fruits of this appointment were a series of lectures on
metrical forms, which appeared, in 1880, in a volume entitled _The
Science of English Verse_. It is an original and suggestive work, in
which, however, the author's predilections for music carry him too far.
He has done well to emphasize the time element in English versification;
but his attempt to reduce all forms of verse to a musical notation can
hardly be regarded as successful. His work, though comprehensive in
scope, was not intended to impose a new set of laws upon the poet. "For
the artist in verse," he says in his brief concluding chapter, "there is