Antonia - the poem of the plague

Abstract

Poetry played an important part in the English literary scene during the 19th century. The quality varied from the sublime – Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson – to the mediocre. English magazines of the time often featured verses by those belonging to the latter category. One such was Murdo Young, a Scotsman who is remembered not for his poetic output but for the fact that he was the editor, and later proprietor, of The Sun, a prominent newspaper of the early 19th century.