education. In 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. His works are Poems, Essays on Criticism, etc. EDWIN ARNOLD (1831 - -) wrote The Light of Asia.

GERALD MASSEY (1828 −) produced in 1854 his most celebrated work, the Ballad of Babe Christabel, and other poems. COVENTRY PATMORE (1823 -) is best known by his Angel in the House, a poem illustrating the growth of the domestic affections. ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER (1825-1864), daughter of Bryan Waller Procter, wrote poems of sorrow that find response in all hearts touched by grief.

EDWARD ROBERT, LORD LYTTON (1831 -- -), son of Lord Lytton (BULWER), under the nom de plume of "Owen Meredith" has published various poems - Clytemnestra, and Other Minor Poems; The Wanderer, a Collection of Poems in Many Lands; Lucille, a Novel in Verse; and a translation of the national songs of Servia.

JEAN INGELOW (1830 -) was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, England. Her poems and prose stories have become popular in both continents.

WILLIAM MORRIS (1834 -) is an exquisite story-teller in verse. His principal poems are The Life and Death of Jason and The Earthly Paradise.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1843 -) rose suddenly into fame when, in 1865, he published Atalanta in Calydon. This work bespoke genius and poetic feeling. His next, Bothwell, a tragedy founded on the story of Mary Queen of Scots, was marred by voluptuousness, and the poet was denounced as loudly as he was at first hailed with pleasure. He has since written many poems, among them Erechtheus (1876), and Songs of the Spring Tides, 1880.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-1882), with the two poets last named, are the representatives of the pre-Raphaelite school of poetry. Rossetti's poems aim to express the feeling and tone of the pre-Raphaelite school of painting. The father, GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1783-1854), also a poet, was an Italian by birth. CHRISTINA GABRIELA ROSSETTI (1830 -), daughter of the latter and sister to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, has written, besides The Goblin Market and Other Poems, a number of stories in prose and in verse.

E. W. GOSSE (1849- -), AUSTIN DOBSON (1840 ————), and PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON (1850), with others of equal merit, have recently appeared as poets and critics.

Poets of Scotland.

Scotland will ever be the land of song. Many of her poets are so thoroughly identified with the English, and have contributed so much to the strength and purity of the English tongue, that, unless they use the Scottish dialect, we seldom think of them as Scotchmen.

DAVID MACBETH MOIR (1798-1851) is known in literature as a poet and critic. His first contributions to Blackwood's Magazine were under the character of the Greek letter Delta. THOMAS AIRD (1802–1876), himself a fine poet and critic, edited the works of Moir. WILLIAM EDMONDSTONE AYTOUN (18131865) made a name in literature by his stirring Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. His next work of importance was Bothwell, a Poem. He also collected two volumes of Scottish Ballads. ROBERT BUCHANAN (1841 -) in his earliest poems gave great promise of excellence. Undertones and Idyls of Inverburn were his first poems. He has since published London Poems; Danish Ballads; The Book of Orm, a Prelude to the Epic; Napoleon Fallen, a Lyrical Drama; and the Drama of the Kings.

The popular Drama is barely represented in this period. The interest in dramatic performances has in no degree abated, but the more cultivated taste of the age asks no better entertainment than a play of Shakespeare's well performed. Some modern dramas, however, have found favor on the stage. BULWER'S plays are popular, especially his Richelieu and Lady of Lyons. TOM TAYLOR (1817 -) has perhaps been the most prolific playwriter of the time. His best known plays are The Ticketof-Leave Man, Still Waters Run Deep, etc. In her early career MRS. FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (1811 -) wrote two dramas, GILBERT ABBOT

Francis the First and The Star of Seville. Á BECKET (1810-1856), author of Comic Histories of England and Rome, wrote numerous dramas. MARK LEMON (1809 1870), editor of "Punch" from its commencement in 1841 until his death, also wrote plays. CHARLES SHIRLEY BROOKS (1815–

1874), who succeeded Lemon as editor of Punch, wrote dramas and novels. Other later dramatists best known to Americans are DION BOUCICAULT (1822 -) and the melo-dramatists, MESSRS. W. S. GILBERT ( -) and ARTHUR S. SULLIVAN (1842 -). Their especial forte is burlesque; their latest attempt, Patience, is a burlesque of the degenerate æsthetic school of poetry. In these joint plays the melodies are supplied by Mr. Sullivan,

Novelists.

Among the throng of novelists since Scott, the names of four stand out as stars of the first magnitude. They were CHARLOTTE BRONTÉ, already mentioned, DICKENS, THACKERAY, and "GEORGE ELIOT." Yet even without these most illustrious names in fiction, the department of English literature would be well represented by BULWER, DINAH MULOCH (Mrs. Craik), CHARLES READE, WILKIE COLLINS, ANTHONY TROLLOPE, DISRAELI, CHARLES KINGSLEY, THOMAS HUGHES, MRS. GASKELL, MAYNE REID, GEORGE MACDONALD, MRS. OLIPHANT, THOMAS HARDY, WILLIAM BLACK, MISS THACKERAY, GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA, and innumerable other younger writers.

When the friend of mankind, CHARLES DICKENS (1812–1870), passed to his eternal home, the world of humanity mourned. His was the warm, genial heart ever beating in unison with the joys and sorrows of his fellow-men. He lived in his works. The creations of his fancy became to him real men and women.*

His men and women are often exaggerations, showing what mankind might be. The very sunshine of happiness seems to issue from his heart and to inspire all that it touches. To make people happy whether they will be or not, seems to be his aim. Thus he symbolizes the happy, sunny spirit in the sweet music which the "Golden Locksmith" hammers from his anvil:

"Tink, tink, tink,-clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause

* We are told that when he finished the death-scene of "Little Nell," it was all so real to him, that he secluded himself from company, mourning for the little child whose beautiful, patient life was ended.

of the streets' harsher noises, as though it said, 'I don't care. Nothing puts me out. I am resolved to be happy. Women scolded, children squalled, still it struck in again, no higher, no lower,-tink, tink, tink."

Dickens thoroughly identifies himself with his creations. The griefs of "Poor Joe" and "Smike" are all his own. In a transport, himself, with the freaks of his fancy, he infuses his actual spirit into dumb life. The little image of the hay-maker, on the top of the Dutch clock, is as animated as the cricket on the hearth; the toys in "Caleb Plumer's" shop people the dingy little room with a curious sort of life. How he loved to portray the frolic of the wind; investing, too, the objects of its chase with personality. His exuberant imagination makes him as much poet as novelist, while the rhythmic measure of his prose flows as delightfully as a poem. But his mission was to the brotherhood of the race-to the poor and lowly-rather than to the world of song.

The best part of an earnest man's life is found in his works. Still, every sympathizing, intelligent reader feels a desire to know something of the actual existence of every writer.

The brief facts in the life of Charles Dickens are: He was born at Landport, in Portsea, England. His childhood was unhappy. His father being imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea prison, the boy engaged himself in a blacking warehouse. This portion of his life he endured as a degradation, feeling that all of his young, ambitious hopes were extinguished, in thus being forced to mingle with the coarse and ignorant and crafty. From this galling life he was rescued, and sent for two years to school. At the age of fifteen he was placed at an attorney's office in an inferior capacity. Soon after he studied short-hand, and became a reporter in Parliament,—a good discipline for the future novelist, enabling him with his quick sympathies and imagination to give with vitalized energy the thoughts and feelings of the speaker. While he was engaged as reporter for the "Morning Chronicle," he one day wrote a story, and stealthily dropped it into the letter-box of the "Old Monthly Magazine." It appeared in print, "on which occasion," says he, "I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy." This was the beginning of Dickens's literary career. From this followed

Sketches by Boz, which may, indeed, be considered his first work. It was published in 1836. His next work was Pickwick Papers. He then began editing "Bentley's Magazine," in which he published Oliver Twist. The publication of Nicholas Nickleby followed; then Old Curiosity-Shop and Barnaby Rudge.

In 1842 Dickens visited America, publishing, the next year, his American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit. The same year he began his famous series of Christmas Stories. These were followed by Dombey and Son and David Copperfield. After the completion of David Copperfield, Dickens established and became the editor of "Household Words," which was followed by "All the Year Round." In those two magazines were published, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The latter was unfinished when the great author died.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863), though less genial than Dickens, is as powerful in his delineations of character. He is a keen satirist, unmerciful in his truthfulness, when he holds up to ridicule the foibles and weaknesses of mankind. In Thackeray's characters we see our own faults reflected; in Dickens's we see our neighbors'. But if Thackeray's satire is severe, his humor is mellowed with kindliness. It was for the arrogant and deceitful in fashionable society that he kept his blade sharpened. No man was ever more charitable to weakness when unconcealed by deception.

The family of Thackeray was originally from Yorkshire. His father and grandfather had occupied positions in India in the employ of the East India Company. Thackeray was born in Calcutta, but at the death of his father soon after, was taken by his mother to England. He was placed at the famous Charter-House School, and afterwards at Cambridge.* While here he edited a journal entitled The Snob. Thackeray's early inclination was more towards art than literature. Happily he combined them, and with his own sketches illustrated several of his later literary works. He first wrote under the

* Tennyson was a fellow-student here.