The Toys By Coventry Patmore - review

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The Toys By Coventry Patmore

Biography:

The eldest son of Peter George Patmore, himself an author, Coventry was born at Woodford in Essex. He was privately educated, his father's intimate and constant companion, and inherited from him his early literary enthusiasm. It was his ambition to become an artist, and he showed much promise, being awarded the silver palette of the Society of Arts in 1838. In the following year he was sent to school in France for six months, where he began to write poetry. On his return his father planned to publish some of these youthful poems; but meanwhile Coventry had become interested in science and the poetry was set aside.

He soon returned to literary interests, moved towards them by the sudden success of Alfred Lord Tennyson; and in 1844 he published a small volume of Poems, which was original but uneven. Patmore, distressed at its reception, bought up the remainder of the edition and destroyed it. What upset him most was a cruel review in Blackwood's Magazine; but the enthusiasm of his friends, together with their more constructive criticism, helped foster his talent. The publication of this volume bore immediate fruit in introducing its author to various men of letters, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, through whom Patmore became known to William Holman Hunt, and was thus drawn into the pre-Raphaelite movement, contributing his poem "The Seasons" to the Germ.

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At this time Patmore's father was financially embarrassed; and in 1846 Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton obtained for Coventry the post of assistant librarian in the British Museum, a post he occupied for nineteen years, devoting his spare time to poetry. In 1847 he married Emily, daughter of Dr Andrews of Camberwell. At the Museum he was instrumental in 1852 in starting the Volunteer movement. He wrote an important letter to The Times upon the subject, and stirred up much martial enthusiasm among his colleagues.

In the next year he republished, in Tamerton Church Tower, the more successful pieces ...

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