ford, but did not take his degree. His earliest poems, contained in the notorious volume Laus Veneris, were not published until 1866, when the poet's fame had been already gained by his Atalanta and Chastelard. The outrageously gross and pantheistic character of the Laus Veneris injured Mr. Swinburne seriously in the public estimation. His Atalanta in Calydon, written in imitation of the Greek tragedy, was a marked success, and heralded the advent of a new poet. It was speedily followed by Chastelard, and The Song of Italy, which helped to swell the report.

It is impossible, as yet, to pronounce any final opinion upon Mr. Swinburne's genius. His works abound in passages of rare beauty, but the general effect is unsatisfactory.

E. R. Bulwer-Lytton-"Owen Meredith." EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON, 1831 under his assumed name of Owen Meredith, has achieved merited distinction as a poet. Mr. Lytton is the only son of Lord Lytton. He was educated at Harrow, and studied also at Bonn. He has been engaged chiefly in diplomatic service, first in Washington, 1849-1852, as private secretary to his uncle, Sir H. L. Bulwer, then successively at Florence, Paris, The IIague, Vienna, Copenhagen, Athens, and Lisbon. Ilis first publication, Clytemnestra and Other Minor Poems, appeared in 1855, and was well received. Since that time he has published The Wanderer, a Collection of Poems in Many Lands; Lucille, a Novel in verse: Serbski Pesmi, a Collection of the National Songs of Servia; and The King of Amadis.

Morris.

WILLIAM MORRIS, 1830 , without any preliminary heralding, rose at once to fame by the publication, in 1867, of a long narrative poem called The Life and Death of Jason, and, in the years 18681871, of a still longer poem, called The Earthly Paradise.

The traveller through Ludgate Hill, London, who reads, as he passes, the sign Morris & Co, would hardly suspect that the active senior of the mechanical business there pursued was the author of a world-renowned series of poems. As in the case, however, of Grote, the English banker and historian, and of our American bookseller and naturalist, Isaac Lea, Mr. Morris has found, or made, the leisure, in the midst of the cares of trade, to produce a work which bids fair to have a permanent place among the great English classics.

Mr. Morris was born in London, and educated at Oxford. His first publication was The Defence of Guenevre and Other Poems, in 1853. It was not until the publication of Jason, however, in 1867, that he attracted any attention. This was followed by the publication, at intervals, in 1868-1871, of The Earthly Paradise, in four parts.

These poems are unlike any others in our literature, though more suggestive of the poetry of Chaucer than of anything else, and they place the author unquestionably in the rank of great poets.

The Earthly Paradise consists of legends derived from the classical and mediæval periods, set in a framework belonging to the age of Chaucer. "Certain gentlemen and mariners of Norway, having considered all that they had heard of the Earthly Paradise, set sail to find it, and after many troubles, and the lapse of many years, came, old men, to some western land of which they had never before heard." Missing the "Happy Isles," the fair Avallon, which poets had fabled, the worn and disappointed Wanderers find some comfort in the hospitality extended to them by the Elders

of this western city. Twice each month, at a solemn feast made for their entertainment, some chronicle of the olden time is rehearsed, alternately by one of the city Elders and by one of the Wanderers. The chronicles rehearsed by the city Elders are classical, being legends from the Greek mythology; those rehearsed by the Wanderers are taken from other traditions, chiefly medieval. The twelve months of the year thus give occasion for twenty-four of these chronicles, each chronicle being by itself a long narrative poem. Between the several pairs of chronicles are pleasant interludes of song, keeping up the connection of the whole with the original adventure. The whole poem makes a large work about the size of the Canterbury Tales.

ROBERT BUCHANAN, 1841

also of very recent celebrity, is

sometimes called the Poet of the People.

Mr. Buchanan's first work, Undertones, appeared in 1860. Since that time he has published Idyls and Legends of Inverburn; London Poems; Wayside Posies; Danish Ballads. Mr. Buchanan was educated at the Edinburgh High-School.

II. THE NOVELISTS.

Dickens.

Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, was, on the whole, the greatest novelist of his day, and one of the greatest of all time.

His Career.-Dickens was designed for the profession of the law, and began studying for that purpose, but not finding the business congenial, he became a reporter of the parliamentary debates for some of the London papers. While engaged in this work for the Morning Chronicle, he wrote for the evening edition of that paper Sketches of Life and Character by Boz. These Sketches immediately arrested attention. One of the booksellers thereupon engaged Dickens to write, and a comic draughtsman to illustrate, the adventures of a party of cockney sportsmen. This was the origin of the famous Pickwick Papers by Boz, with Illustrations by Phiz. The book was instantly and universally popular. All England and America were in a roar over Pickwick, and Sam Weller, and the other notabilities of that wonderful book. From that date onward the author was in constant demand, the greedy public, like his own Oliver, ever" asking for more;" and he continued, up to the very day of his death, to pour forth book after book with unceasing and most prolific activity.

Visit to the United States.- In 1841 Mr. Dickens visited the United States, where he was lionized extensively, and on his return to England, he published in the following year American Notes for General Circulation. Some of his laughable caricatures of American manners and society gave great umbrage, the Americans then being more thin-skinned in such matters than they have since become, and forgetting that the humorist was doing for us exactly what we admired so much and

enjoyed so heartily in his dealings with his own countrymen. In his next succeeding novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, in which the hero has experience of American life, the same features appeared, and we Americans became seriously and most absurdly angry. But this feeling gradually passed away, and when, near the close of his life, he again visited our country, for the purpose of giving a course of public readings, he was everywhere received with the most hearty welcome.

Literary Projects. In 1845 he established The Daily News, which has since become a leading journal of the metropolis. His connection with it, however, was of short duration. In 1850 he started a weekly paper, Household Words, which he conducted for several years, and which had a very large circulation. In 1859 he began another periodical of similar character, called All the Year Round. Most of his novels and tales appeared first as serials in the periodicals with which he was connected. For many years before his death he published annually a Christmas Story. These Christmas Stories became a notable feature in his authorship, and are among his very happiest efforts.

The following are Dickens's principal works: Pickwick Papers; Oliver Twist; Nicholas Nickleby; Master Humphrey's Clock; Barnaby Rudge; Martin Chuzzlewit; Dombey and Son; David Copperfield; Bleak House; Hard Times; Little Dorrit; A Tale of Two Cities; Great Expectations; Our Mutual Friend; The Commercial Traveller; Sketches by Boz.

Public Readings.— Mr. Dickens was an excellent reader, and he had all the talents and qualities needed to become a first-rate actor. Towards the close of his life he gave public Readings of portions of his own works, with great applause; and his second visit to America, which was in 1867, was for this purpose. It was strictly a professional tour, and was eminently successful. He gave a great pleasure to many hundreds of thousands of his admirers, and added by the tour both to his fame and his fortune.

Dickens died suddenly in the midst of his literary labors, and in the full maturity of his powers. His constitution, both mental and physical, was extremely active and vigorous, capable, apparently, of any amount of work that his royal will saw fit to impose; and, in the consciousness of this abounding strength, he drew too freely upon his vital force. He even went further, and stimulated his flagging energies by an over-generous diet and by the free use of strong drinks, to enable him to bear the enormous strain put upon his powers, until at length nature gave way, and he died in the very height and flood-tide of abounding life.

Thackeray.

William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811-1863, shares with Dickens and Bulwer in the supremacy of the world of fiction.

Career. Thackeray was born in India, but educated at the CharterHouse School, London, and at Cambridge. Life in the old CharterHouse is depicted fully in The Newcomes, and University Life in Pendennis. Thackeray inherited a handsome fortune, which he lost and wasted. For some time he studied art in England and on the continent, but finally decided upon literature as a vocation.

Thackeray became a regular contributor to Fraser, Punch, The Times, The New

Monthly Magazine, and other periodicals. Many of his most brilliant sketches appeared in this fugitive form, and have since been collected and republished. Among them are The Book of Snobs, Fitzboodle's Confessions, and Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh's numerous sketches and essays. Nearly all these contributions, as indeed many of his subsequent novels, were humorously illustrated by the author himself. Thackeray's first great work, Vanity Fair, appeared as a serial in 1847-8, and was speedily followed by Pendennis. The next in order was Harry Esmond, published in 1852. To this was added, in 1855, The Newcomes, and in 1859 The Virginians. Lovel the Adventurer and the Adventures of Philip appeared in 1860 and in 1862, respectively. At his death Thackeray left an unfinished novel, Dennis Duval. He had also contemplated writing a history of the reign of Queen Anne. Besides Thackeray's works of fiction should be mentioned his Lectures on the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century, and on The Four Georges.

His Character and Standing.-Thackeray is familiar to all, through his own writings and through the numerous biographical sketches that have appeared since his death. His personal appearance was commanding, his manners were most genial. No other form was so well known to the habitués of his club and to the men about town. The news of his death cast a gloom over the literary world which was only equalled, scarcely surpassed, by the mourning for Dickens. Nor will it be necessary to dwell at much greater length upon his standing as a writer. The author of Vanity Fair and Harry Esmond will be his own best interpreter. At the same time Thackeray has been sorely misunderstood and even misrepresented.

Thackeray and Dickens. — It has long been the favorite occupation of a certain class of readers and writers to draw a comparison between him and Dickens, and always in favor of the latter. Dickens, in their view, is the man who sympathizes with the poor and lowly; Thackeray, the cynic painter of the follies of the rich. As a matter of fact, however, it may be conjectured that Thackeray was personally the more amiable of the two; and, as a matter of opinion, we have no reason for supposing that the writings of the one have had a healthier effect than those of the other. Each describes what he is most familiar with, each hates and lashes hypocrisy, sham, and affectation, and each loves the weakly erring. If Vanity Fair be the product of a cynic, the same must be said, with even greater truth, of the Pickwick Papers, which, with all their fun and mad cap humor, are little more than a travesty of English society without one solitary redeeming thought or character.

Both Realistic. — The fact is, that Thackeray, as well as Dickens, is intensely realistic. He describes men and women as he finds them in the world in which he lives. In his method, however, he differs widely from Dickens, and shows his own immense superiority. He does not content himself with drawing portraits or caricatures; he takes a strongly marked character, divests it of everything merely accidental, makes it general, and thus creates a type of character. Thus Major Pendennis and young Pen himself are not merely individuals; they are types of their whole class. The same may be said of Becky Sharp, Ethel Newcome, Beatrix Esmond. By the side of them, the Pecksniffs, Gradgrinds, Squeerses, fade away into mere names— labels for bundles of hateful qualities.

It is difficult to pronounce upon the comparative merits of Thackeray's works. Perhaps Harry Esmond is the most artistic, Vanity Fair the cleverest, and The Newcomes the most satisfactory. Nothing in them, however, surpasses, as a creation, the faultless figure of Major Pendennis. No one, not even Shakespeare, could have exhausted more completely the characteristics of bachelor-uncledom.

In style, Thackeray is most happy. His pages tingle with satire, or radiate with

broad humor. There is no vagueness, no weakness, in the strokes with which he por trays or narrates. Everything suggests healthy life, thought, and emotion. Even his minor works display the same unerring hand. For those of his readers who are familiar with French and German, the strange pseudonyms which he coins for his foreign characters have something inexpressibly humorous. His Lectures, also, are full of healthy humor and sound analysis. In short, as a man and a writer, Thackeray has left, by his death, a void in English letters which will not soon, perhaps never, be filled, and a fame second only to that of Scott.

MISS ANNE ELIZABETH THACKERAY, daughter of W. M. Thackeray, has gained considerable applause as a writer of tales and sketches. The following is a list of her works: The Story of Elizabeth; The Village on the Cliff; Five Old Friends; Esther and Other Sketches.

Bulwer-Lytton.

stands

Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1805 clearly in the first class of English novelists. Bulwer, Thackeray, and Dickens form a trio of great names, so nearly equal that it is not easy to determine which should bear the palm. Each has his advocates; each has, in fact, a greatness of his own, differing in kind, rather than in degree, from that of the others.

Career. Bulwer obtained, in 1844, the royal license to change his name from Bulwer to Bulwer-Lytton, the Lytton being his mother's family name. He is a son of General Bulwer. His early education was superintended by his mother. He afterwards studied at Cambridge. Aside from his immense labors as an author, he has served twice in Parliament, and was elected in 1856 Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.

Lord Lytton, or Bulwer, as he is generally known to American readers, evinced very early in life an aptitude for letters. At the age of fifteen he published Ismail, an Oriental Tale, and, at twenty, carried off the Chancellor's Prize by his poem, Sculp ture. He may be considered to have fairly made his debut as an author, however, in 1828, by the publication of Pelham. Since that time an unremitting stream of novels and other works has poured from his pen. They are so well known in England and America that a complete list of them is scarcely necessary in this place.

Bulwer's principal novels are perhaps Pelham; Devereux; Eugene Aram; The Last Days of Pompeii; Rienzi; Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings; The Caxtons; My Novel; What Will He do with It; A Strange Story. Bulwer has also published several dramas, of which Richelieu and The Lady of Lyons are the most famous; The New Timon and Other Poems; and many poems and ballads translated from Schiller. In the field of politics Bulwer has distinguished himself as a pamphleteer by The Crisis, Letters to John Bull, Esq., and other able writings of the kind.

The preceding sketch is only an outline of Bulwer's varied, intense, and protracted labors. He is probably the most prolific English writer of fame in the present century, and, in company with Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray, the most widely read.