BERNARD BARTON, 1784-1849, is commonly known as "The Quaker Poet."

He became a banker's clerk at the age of twenty-six, and continued in that position, like Lamb in the East India House, to the end of his life. He published no one extended poem, but a large number of detached pieces, mostly of a meditative charac"His works are full of passages of natural tenderness, and his religious poems, though animated with a warmth of devotion, are still expressed with that subdued propriety of language which evinces at once a correctness of taste and feeling."Gentleman's Magazine.

ter.

THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY, 1797-1839, is widely known as a prolific writer of novels, tales, plays, and songs.

His chief publications were the following: Aylmers, a Novel; Rough Sketches of Bath; Kindness in Women; Weeds and Witchery, Poems; Poetical Works, with Life, published after his death. He produced also thirty-six pieces for the stage, and his songs are numbered by the hundred. Many of his songs are universal favorites, such as I'd be a Butterfly, Why Don't the Men Propose? The Soldier's Tear, etc. possessed a playful fancy, a practised ear, a refined taste, and a sentiment which "He ranged pleasantly from the fanciful to the pathetic, without, however, strictly attaining either the highly imaginative or the deeply passionate.". -Moir.

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL, 1797-1835, a native of Scotland, and editor of several periodicals of that country, is chiefly known for his Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, with Notes and Introduction, and his Narrative and Lyrical Poems, a collection of original pieces.

"He was about equally successful in two departments, tive; yet, stirring as are his Sword Chant and his Battle-Flag of Sigurd, I doubt much -the martial and the plainwhether they are entitled to the same praise, or have gained the same deserved acceptance, as his Jeannie Morrison or his striking stanzas commencing My Heid is like to rend. . . . Several of his lyrics also verge on excellence; but it must be acknowledged of his poetry generally that, ingenious although it be, it rather excites expectation than fairly satisfies."- Moir.

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED, 1802-1839, holds a respectable position among the poets of this period.

He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and rose to some distinction in Parliament as a zealous conservative. He contributed numerous short poems to the magazines. Many of his earlier productions appeared in The Etonian. While at the University he gained two prizes by his poems Australia and Athens. A complete edition of his poetical works was published in 1864. Among his best known pieces are The Belle of the Ball-Room, The Bachelor, Time's Changes, Lillian, etc. Praed is one of a not very numerous class of authors in England-the writers of so-called society

verses.

"Praed's fancy was airy, bright, and arabesque. It enabled him, with his easy command of poetical expression, to produce picturesque sketches with equal grace and facility.... His prose is almost as quaintly and pensively playful as his verse.

We

have little doubt that if his correspondence were selected from, it would display all those qualities that sparkle so gracefully in his published pieces."- Lon. Athen.

Clare.

JOHN CLARE, 1793-1864, is one of the peasant-poets of England.

Clare obtained some little education by extra work as a ploughboy, — the labor of eight weeks sufficing to gain for him one month's schooling. At the age of thirteen, he met with Thomson's Seasons, a book which seems to have a special aptitude for imparting inspiration to the lowly. Having hoarded up a shilling wherewith to purchase a copy, he walked seven miles in the early spring morning to the town to buy a copy, and reached the place before the shops were open. Returning with his treasure through the beautiful scenery of a neighboring park, he composed on the road his first poem, The Morning Walk. This was followed by The Evening Walk. Most of his poems were composed in this way, out in the open fields, or on the roadside, and were written in pencil on the top of his hat.

A volume of Poems Descriptive of Country Life appeared in 1820, and another volume in 1821, The Village Minstrel and Other Poems. The reviews and magazines were unanimous in commendation of his verses, and several of the nobility were so far interested in his history as to contribute sums which gave him a permanent allowance of £30 a year. This, with what he raised from his two books, made quite a snug little fortune. He married his "Patty of the Vale," the heroine of his poetical inspirations, and settled down in calm and pleasant content amid the rural scenes of his boyhood. But his good fortune at last turned his head. He engaged in some pecuniary speculation, which proved disastrous, and his misfortunes finally drove him to the mad-house, where he died.

"He was a faithful painter of rustic scenes and occupations, and he noted every light and shade of his brooks, meadows, and green lanes. His fancy was buoyant in the midst of labors and hardship; and his imagery, drawn directly from nature, is various and original. His reading, before his first publication, had been extremely limited, and did not either frame his tastes or bias the direction of his poems. He wrote out of the fulness of his heart; and his love of nature was so universal, that he included all, weeds as well as flowers, in his picturesque catalogue of her charms."— Chambers.

The following extract gives a good idea of his style:

THE THRUSH'S NEST-A SONNET.
"Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush
That overhung a molehill large and round,

I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns of rapture, while I drank the sound

With joy and oft an unintruding guest,

I watched her secret toils from day to day;
How true she warped the moss to form her nest,
And modelled it within with wood and clay.
And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue:

And there I witnessed, in the summer hours,
A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky."

II. WRITERS OF NOVELS AND TALES.

Miss Mitford.

Mary Russell Mitford, 1786-1855, is among the best writers of tales descriptive of English country life and character.

Miss Mitford was the daughter of an English physician of extravagant habits, who dissipated several fortunes, and finally became a helpless burden upon the hands of his young daughter.

Miss Mitford evinced early in life a fondness for letters. Poetry was her favorite, but she was forced, as she herself narrates, to turn aside to the every-day but more lucrative path of prose. Her earlier works are not without their merits, but chiefly as indicating her future excellence.

Publications. — In 1819 appeared, in the Lady's Magazine, Our Village, a series of delightful sketches of English rural life, which met with a very warm reception and established the author's reputation. Between this time aud 1828, Miss Mitford published several tragedies, which were acted with success. Among them were: Rienzi, The Foscari, Julian. Also a volume of Sonnets and Poems. These were followed by American Tales; American Tales for Children; Belford Regis, or Sketches of a Country Town; Country Stories; and Atherton, a tale of Country Life. Upon the whole, Miss Mitford succeeds best as a describer of English country life and character. Her sketches are drawn from nature itself, and have an air of the most charming reality. No books of the kind are more thoroughly enjoyable by old and young. They have outlived nearly all the fashionable novels, their great contemporaries, and entered into the permanent treasure-house of English literature.

Amelia Opie.

AMELIA OPIE, 1769–1853, is widely known Miss Edgeworth - for her popular Tales.

almost as widely as

Mrs. Opie was the daughter of James Alderson, an English physician. She was married, in 1798, to the distinguished painter, James Opie.

Her principal works are Father and Daughter, Adeline Mowbray, and Madeline. She wrote also a collection of shorter pieces, prominent among which are The Black Velvet Pelisse and The Ruffian Boy, and a series of stories to illustrate the evil consequences of lying. Her occasional poems are but little read.

Mrs. Opie's fame as a novelist has diminished considerably of late years. In no sense can she be considered a creator of character. Her personages are not marked, the plot of the story is weak, and the moral purpose throughout is too palpable. Her strength lies in her power to dissect morbid conditions and passions of the human heart.

Lady Morgan.

LADY SYDNEY MORGAN, 1789-1859, was in her day one of the leading celebrities of the literary world. She was chiefly known by her novels and her works of travel.

Lady Morgan was the daughter of Owenson, an actor at the Royal Theatre, Dublin. By her success as a novelist, she gained admission into fashionable society. In 1812 she married Sir Thomas Charles Morgan. Much of Lady Morgan's married life was passed in travel upon the continent.

Her published works are very numerous, chiefly novels and books of travel. The most popular of her novels are The Wild Irish Girl, and O'Donnel. Woman, or Ida of Athens, is noted as having furnished the occasion for one of Gifford's most ferocious reviews in the London Quarterly. Her two most celebrated works of travel are entitled respectively France and Italy. They are still interesting, and were read with avidity at the time of their appearance, although Gifford kept up his fulminations against the authoress.

Lady Morgan's style is sprightly, and her descriptions successful, but she was wholly incompetent to deal with the graver problems of life, such as she has touched upon in Woman.

JOHN BANIM, 1800-1842, an Irish novelist, is celebrated for his vivid descriptions of peasant life in Ireland.

His works are numerous: Tales of the O'Hara Family, 12 series; Croppy, a Tale of 1798; Anglo-Irish of the 19th Century; The Denounced; Father Connell; Bit O'Writiu; Boyne Water; Crohoore of the Bill-hook; Ghost-Hunter and his Family; John Doe; Mayor of Wind-Gap; Nowlans; Smuggler. He wrote also the Tragedy of Damon and Pythias. "The Ghost-Hunter and his Family, The Mayor of Wind-Gap, and several other works, are proofs of Mr. Banim's remarkable talent of eliciting the interest and sympathies of his reader. Fault has been found with him on the ground that there is throughout the whole of his writings a sort of overstrained excitement, a wilful dwelling upon turbulent and unchastened passions, which, as it is a vice most incident to the workings of real genius, more especially of Irish genius, so perhaps it is one which meets with least mercy from well-behaved, prosaic people."— Westminster Review.

LADY CHARLOTTE BURY, 1775-1861, originally Campbell, of the Argyle family, was celebrated equally for her personal beauty and for her passion for elegant letters. She was ambitious also of being lady patroness to men of letters, and was one of the first to recognize the rising greatness of Walter Scott. She had a place in the household of Queen Charlotte, and is the reputed authoress of The Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV. The work was attributed to her ladyship by Brougham, who reviewed it with great severity. She published several novels: Alla Gioruata; The Devoted; The Disinherited and the Ensnared; Family Records; Flirtation; Separation.

ELLEN PICKERING, 1843, was considered in her day as the head of the Circulating Library school of novelists. The following is a list of her principal works: The Heiress, Agnes Searle, The Merchant's Daughter, The Squire, The Fright, The Prince and Pedlar, The Quiet Husband, Who Shall be Heir? The Secret Foe, The Expectant, and several others. She wrote also Charades for Acting, and Proverbs for Acting.

Captain Marryat.

FREDERICK MARRYAT, 1792-1848, captain in the Royal Navy, and an able officer as well as writer, is universally considered the best delineator of naval life and adventure.

Marryat's works, which are exceedingly numerous, are widely read in England and America. The principal of them are: The King's Own; The Pacha of Many Tales; Midshipman Easy; Japhet in Search of a Father; Peter Simple; Jacob Faithful; The Phantom Ship.

Besides his strictly nautical novels, Captain Marryat wrote several novels and sketches descriptive of American life in the West, such as Valerie, and The Narrative of Monsieur Violet, and also A Diary in America. During the latter part of his life Marryat published a number of stories for the young, such as Masterman Ready, The Children of the New Forest, etc.

As a writer upon American manners, Captain Marryat, like nearly all his countrymen of twenty or thirty years ago, is decidedly prejudiced, but is far from being the worst example of the class. It is only when he moves among scenes and persons thoroughly English that he displays his powers to the best advantage. His descriptions of incident and character are easy and vigorous, and extremely droll. The best of his works is perhaps Midshipman Easy, and the description of the great triangular duel by the boatswain, the purser, and the midshipman is inimitable. It must be observed, however, that in all Marryat's works there is a slight tinge of vulgarity, the besetting sin of class-writers, from which his great rival, Lever, has escaped. Marryat has produced many fascinating novels, but he has created nothing that can be placed by the side of Mickey Free, or Major Monsoon.

WILLIAM HAMILTON MAXWELL, 1794-1850, a native of Ireland, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, is the author of many novels and sketches, chiefly of an amusing character. He may be said to have started, by his Stories of Waterloo, the military novel, which has since proved such a rich field for subsequent writers. His principal works are: Stories of Waterloo; Wild Sports of the West (of Ireland); Life of the Duke of Wellington; Victories of the British Army; Adventures of Captain O'Sullivan; Bryan O'Lynn.

George Borrow.

GEORGE BORROW, 1803

venturer.

is a popular English writer and ad

Mr. Borrow was born at Norwich, England. He had a natural turn for acquiring by the ear a knowledge of living languages, and had in this way acquired, among other languages, a knowledge of that spoken by the Gypsies, and with it a great deal of curious information in regard to that singular people. Mr. Borrow seems to have been a sort of Gypsy himself, so far as an irrepressible love of wandering and adventure is concerned; and he was employed, with wonderful success, in circulating the Bible in Spain at a time when no other agency seemed capable of doing the work. His works, partly fictitious, and partly autobiographical, giving an account of his labors in Bible distribution and of his adventures among the Gypsies, are exceedingly entertaining, and have been very popular. The titles of his principal works are: The Bible in Spain, 3 vols; Zincali, an Account of the Gypsies in Spain, 2 vols.; Lavengro, the Scholar, the Gypsy, and the Priest, 3 vols.; Romany Rye, a Sequel to Lavengro; An Autobiography.

Mr. Borrow had the honor of being quoted in Parliament, and by no less a speaker than Sir Robert Peel. "Difficulties! were they to be deterred from proceeding by difficulties? Let them look at Mr. Borrow; why, if he had suffered himself to be prevented from circulating the Bible in Spain by the difficulties he met with, he could never have spread such enlightenment and information through that country,"