Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 4. Naturalism in England

The title page names George Brandes as author of Main Currents in Nineteen Century Literature in six volumes, with Naturalism in England. The contents list names, among others, Common Characteristics of the Period, The Lake School's Conception of Liberty, The Poetry of Irish Opposition and Revolt, and Byron: The Passionate Personality. The text takes a poet as ethereally idealistic as Shelley to show that even his morality is as distinctly utilitarian as Bentham's and John Stuart Mill's.

A passage about Moore says Moore is no Mozart, yet asks whether a song quoted there is not almost like a Mozart air, like one of the hero's or Zerlina's in Don Juan. The text says songs by Rossini and Moore retain their value even though the world owned at the same time a Schubert and a Shelley. The Tuscan Government is described as quite as much afraid of Byron and the Gambas as was the Government of the Papal States, with another expulsion and the party proceeding to Genoa, Byron's last place of residence in Italy.