First Publications. — Mr. Browning's first publication was Paracelsus. It was highly commended by the critics, but met with little popular favor. He next produced the Tragedy of Strafford, which in the opinion of good judges ought to have been successful, but somehow it did not succeed, though presented by no less an actor than Macready.

Want of Popularity. — So has it been pretty much with all of Mr. Browning's writings. They give unmistakable evidences of genius, but they are not popular. The author does not court popularity, and apparently does not value it, not present popularity at least, preferring to await the verdict of "those who shall come after." But there is a studied obscurity in his meaning, particularly in his works of greatest mark, which will be quite as repellant to readers of the twentieth century as to those of the nineteenth. He will probably always have, as he now has, a few devoted wor shippers, but he will never be the idol of the many. The critics will laud, but the people will not read.

Other Works. His principal works, in addition to those already named, are Sordello; Pippa Passes, a Drama; The Blot in the 'Scutcheon, a Drama; King Victor and King Charles, a Tragedy; Colombe's Birthday, a Play; Lurria, a Tragedy; A Soul's Tragedy; The Return of the Druses; Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, containing many of those short pieces by which he is most generally known, as How we Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, etc.; The Ring and the Book. The poem last named is his largest work, and the one in which all his peculiarities, good and bad, are most strongly marked.

"Next to Tennyson, we hardly know of another English poet who can be compared with Browning. The grandest pieces in the volumes [This was written before the appearance of the Ring and the Book] are Pippa Passes, and a Blot on the Scutcheon. The latter, in the opinion of Charles Dickens, is the finest poem of the century. Once read, it must haunt the imagination forever; for its power strikes deep into the very substance and core of the soul."- Whipple.

Mrs. Browning.

MRS. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 1807-1861, is generally admitted to be the greatest of English poetesses.

Early Career.—Mrs. Browning (Elizabeth Barrett) was the daughter of a wealthy merchant of London, and had the advantage of a superior education. She was, in particular, thoroughly versed in the Latin and Greek languages. She began authorship very early in life, writing both in prose and verse at the age of ten, and publishing a volume of poems at the age of seventeen. Her health was always delicate, so that she was unable to bear the strain of the highest intellectual achievements. Had her physical powers been commensurate with her intellectual, it would not be easy to assign a limit to what she might have accomplished. She undoubtedly had genius of the highest order. But a great poem, or a great work of art of any kind, can only be produced by the expenditure of great and long-continued labor, and to such labor Mrs. Browning's physical frame was at no time adequate. What she achieved, therefore, brilliant as much of it was, and enduring as some of it doubtless will be, must yet be accepted rather as an intimation of what she might have done than its full realization.

Works. Her largest single work is Aurora Leigh, a narrative poem, which met with immediate and general favor. Casa Guidi Windows, written in Italy, and giving expression to her thoughts and feelings on Italian affairs, is thought to contain the

finest efforts of her genius. Some of her other publications are: The Drama of Exile; A Vision of the Poets; The Poet's Vow; Isabel's Child; The Rhyme of the Duchess May; The Romaunt of the Page; Prometheus Bound, a translation from the Greek; The Seraphim and Other Poems; Lady Geraldine's Courtship; The Cry of the Chil dren.

She wrote also translations and paraphrases from Theocritus, Apuleius, Nonnus, Hesiod, Homer, Anacreon, and Euripides, and she contributed to the Athenæum a series of critical papers on The Greek Christian Poets.

Her Sonnets deserve particular mention; they are numerous, and of extraordinary excellence. Many a single sonnet in this collection is enough to make a reputation. The Sonnets from the Portuguese, so called, are thought to describe the love-making between her and Mr. Browning.

Her personal appearance is thus described by Mary Russell Mitford: "A slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face-large tender eyes, fringed with dark lashes - and a smile like a sunbeam."

She was happily married in 1846 to the poet Robert Browning, and lived thereafter on the continent, chiefly in Italy, to the manifest improvement of her health. Tho poems of these later years are by far her best. "The poetical reputation of Mrs. Browning has been growing slowly, until it has reached a height which has never before been attained by any modern poetess, though several others have had wide circles of readers."— North British Review, 1857.

"She abounds in figures, strong and striking; sometimes strange and startling; sometimes grotesque and weird; often, one may say, unallowable; but always having a piercing point of meaning that gives warrant for their singularity. Swords have not keener edges, nor flash brighter lights, than the sudden similes drawn by this poet's hand. She illustrates at will from nature, art, mythology, history, literature, scripture, common life. She plucks metaphors wherever they grow; and to those who have eyes to see, they grow everywhere. Occasionally, taking for granted a too great knowledge on the part of her readers, even of such as are cultured, her figures are covered with dust of old books, and their meaning is hidden in a vexing obscurity. But, on the other hand, her sentences often are as clear as ice, and have a lustre of prismatic fires." Theodore Tillon.

Mrs. Norton.

MRS. CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH NORTON, 1808of no little celebrity.

is a poetess

Mrs. Norton is a grand-daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. She was divorced from her husband, Hon. George Chapple Norton, in 1836.

Literary Career. Mrs. Norton began her career as a writer very early in life. At the age of twelve she wrote a satire, The Dandies' Rout, and, at seventeen, The Sorrows of Rosalie. Her first work of merit, however, is The Undying One, a poem published in 1830. Since that time she has given to the world a number of tales and poems. The Voice from the Factories and The Child of the Islands, like Mrs. Browning's Cry of the Children, are vigorous protests against the degraded condition of the English poor. The Dream is a vigorous poem, and Aunt Carry's Ballads a collection of verses for children. Her later works, in prose and verse, are: Stuart of Dunleath, Lady of Garaye, Lost and Saved. Mrs. Norton also published a letter addressed to the Queen, upon Lord Cranworth's Marriage and Divorce Bill, which occasioned some discussion.

"Her ear for the modulation of verse is exquisite; and many of her lyrics and songs carry in them the characteristic of the ancient Douglasses, being alike 'tender and true.' It must be owned, however, that individuality is not the most prominent feature of Mrs. Norton's poetry."― Moir.

Alaric Watts.

ALEXANDER ALARIC WATTS, 1799-1864, has been prominent as a poet, an editor, and a journalist.

Mr. Watts does not appear to have enjoyed anything higher than a good school education. In 1822 he published a small volume, entitled Poetical Sketches, which was received at once into general favor. He was afterwards connected with the Leeds Intelligencer and the Manchester Courier. From 1824 to 1834 he edited The Literary Souvenir, an elegant annual, which, by its superb engravings, contributed largely to the culture of art in England. In 1833 he founded The United Service Gazette, an organ for the army and navy, from which he retired in 1843, in consequence of a protracted lawsuit with his partner. In 1851 he published a second volume of poems, entitled Lyrics of the Heart; some of them, written much earlier, handsomely illustrated. From 1841 to 1847 he was connected with the London Standard. Some of the poems in the Lyrics of the Heart are by Watts's wife.

"In his Poetical Sketches, an early work, as well as in his more recent Lyrics of the Heart, Alaric Watts has given abundant proofs, if not of high creative strength, of gentle pathos, of cultivated intellect, and an eye and ear sensitively alive to all the D. genial impulses of nature, of home-bred delights and heart-felt happiness." M. Moir.

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER, 1790-1874, better known as Cornwall," was a poet of great merit.

"Barry

Mr. Procter studied at Harrow, being contemporary there with Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel. He was a lawyer by profession, and held for many years a lucrative appointment in the Court of Chancery; he had besides ample means by inheritance. Mr. Procter forms a connecting link between the present generation and one that has already become historical. So late even as 1866, he came before the public with a new work of considerable size, yet he was famous fifty years ago;- the contemporary and associate of Byron and Moore.

Mr. Procter's first publication, Dramatic Scenes, appeared in 1821. It was an attempt to reproduce some of the best features of the older English drama, and was remarkably successful. "None but a mind both of exquisite tact and original power could have created so many fine things in the very spirit of the old drama and of nature. He looks on the feelings of our daily human life through the soft light of imagination, rendering them dearer, tenderer, and lovelier to his human heart."— Blackwood.

Mr. Procter's other publications were: A Sicilian Story and Other Poems; Marcian Colonna, an Italian Tale, with three Dramatic Sketches, and Other Poems; Mirandola, a Tragedy, performed at Covent Garden with great success; The Flood of Thessaly; The Girl of Provence and Other Poems; Portraits of the British Poets, illustrated by Notes, Biographical, Critical, and Poetical; English Songs and other small Poems; Essays and Tales in Prose; Life of Edmund Keane, 2 vols., Svo; Charles Lamb, a Memoir.

"If it be the peculiar province of Poetry to give delight, this author should rank very high among our poets, and in spite of his neglect of the terrible passion, he does rank very high in our estimation. He has a beautiful diction, and a fine ear for the music of verse, and great tenderness and delicacy of feeling. He seems, moreover, to be altogether free from any tincture of bitterness, rancor, or jealousy, and never shocks us with atrocity, or stiffens us with horror, or confounds us with the dreadful sublimities of demoniacal energy. His soul, on the contrary, seems filled to overflow with images of love, and beauty, and gentle sorrow, and tender pity, and mild and holy resignation. The character of his poetry is to soothe and melt and delight, to make us kind and thoughtful and imaginative, to purge away the dross of our earthly passions by the refining fires of a pure imagination, and to lap us up from the eating cares of life in visions so soft and bright as to sink like morning dreams on our senses, and at the same time so distinct and truly fashioned upon the eternal pattern of nature, as to hold their place before our eyes long after they have again been opened on the dimmer scenes of the world."-Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review.

Adelaide Procter.

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER, 1825-1864, daughter of the poet Procter, is herself a poet by divine right.

She is the "golden-tressed Adelaide " celebrated in one of her father's songs, and is thus mentioned by Willis, on the occasion of his visit to the family mansion: "A beautiful girl of eight or nine years, 'the golden-tressed Adelaide,' delicate, gentle, and pensive, as if she was born on the lip of Castaly, and knew she was a poet's child, completed the picture of happiness."

Miss Procter's first considerable publication was in 1858, a volume entitled Legends and Lyrics, a Book of Verses. It met with immediate success, and passed through a large number of editions. A second series of Legends and Lyrics appeared in 1860, and in 1862 A Chaplet of Verses.

"Seldom do we meet a collection of fugitive poems so pleasantly fulfilling friendly desire, and so able to bear the brunt of criticism as this. There is reality in it. It is full of a thoughtful seriousness, a grave tenderness, a fancy temperate but not frigid, which will recommend themselves to every one who has a touch of the artist in his composition. The manner (and this is much to say) is not borrowed. Without any startling originality, it is Miss Procter's own, and not her father's; not Wordsworth's; not the Laureate's; not referable to the Brownings."— Lon. Athen.

CHARLES SWAIN, 1803

Poet."

,

is often called "The Manchester

Mr. Swain was a native of Manchester, and was intended for the dyeing business. He left the business at the age of twenty-nine, to become an engraver, to which profession he adhered.

Ever since his twentieth year, Mr. Swain has contributed numerous poetical pieces to the periodicals. Some have been published in book-form. Among the best known are his Metrical Essays, Beauties of the Mind, Rhymes for Childhood. Dryburgh Abbey is a much admired elegy on Scott. Among Swain's admirers are such names as Montgomery, Wordsworth, and Southey.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY, 1816

published at the age of twenty

a poem called Festus, which created a great sensation.

"It is an extraordinary production, out-Heroding Kant in some of its philosophy, and out-Goething Goethe in the introduction of the three persons of the Trinity as interlocutors in its wild plot. Most objectionable as it is on this account, it yet contains so many exquisite passages of genuine poetry, that admiration of the author's genius overpowers the feeling of mortification at its being misapplied, and its meddling with such dangerous topics.” — London Literary Gazette.

The poem was subsequently both pruned and enlarged. "Every line has undergone the refining crucible of the author's brain, and has been modified by the greater maturity of his mind." Besides Festus, Mr. Bailey has published The Angel World; The Mystic; The Age, a Colloquial Satire.

Mr. Bailey was born at Nottingham, and studied for two sessions in the University of Glasgow. He afterwards studied law, and was admitted to the bar, but found a literary life more congenial.

TOM TAYLOR, 1817 tist.

is a popular English writer and drama

Mr. Taylor studied at the University of Glasgow and at Cambridge, and was for a time Fellow at Cambridge and Professor of English Literature in University College, London. He was also admitted to the bar, but seems to have devoted himself, of late, exclusively to authorship.

Mr. Taylor has contributed a number of articles to the London Punch, and to other periodicals. He has edited the works of Leslie, with a prefatory Essay, furnished the text for Birket Foster's Pictures of English Landscape, and translated the Ballads and Songs of Brittany. Mr. Taylor is probably best known, however, by his dramas. He is the author of several of the most popular plays of the recent stage, such as Still Waters Run Deep, The Overland Route, Our American Cousin, The Babes in the Wood, etc. He has also been associated with Charles Reade in the composition of Masks and Faces, Two Loves and a Life, and The King's Rival.

Talfourd.

SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, 1795-1854, commonly called Sergeant Talfourd, was a prominent lawyer, essayist, and dramatist.

Talfourd studied the classics under Dr. Valpy, and law in the office of the celebrated Chitty. He rose to eminence in his profession, was appointed Justice of the Com mon Pleas, and knighted. He was also a Member of Parliament, and assisted in the passage of the Copyright Act.

Talfourd was one of the first to recognize Wordsworth's poetic merit, which he proclaimed in an essay entitled An Attempt to Estimate the Poetical Talent of the Present Age, 1815. Talfourd is also the author of the Memorials of Charles Lamb, 1848, and of numerous essays published in the London Magazine, Retrospective Review, Edinburgh Review, and other periodicals. His best known dramas are Ion, The Athenian Captive, and The Castilian. Felton pronounced Ion to be "the most successful reproduction of the antique spirit," an opinion which can scarcely be sustained. His miscellaneous essays were collected and published in 1842.

Talfourd was a man of literary culture and poetic sympathies, but did not possess an imagination sufficiently creative to become a poet. He was an eminently success