S.B. from Newcastle.
THE poetry of today is easily classified into two distinct schools; they may usefully be termed the ' emotional' and the ' intellectual' schools. The appeal of the former is naturally the wider; but poetry of the cerebral type finds an unexpectedly wide following. Of the emotional school one of the founders may be said to be Masefield, with whom, particularly, Prof. Crofts will deal in the last talk of his series. Masefield began with such ' realist' poems as 'The Widow in the Bye Street' and 'The Everlasting Mercy': his output latterly has been almost entirely religious or classical in theme; but whether of the first period or tho last, Masefield's poetry has the power to catch the ear of the majority without pandering.