but it is free from meretricions ornament, and evinces such a spirit of truth and of patient research as renders his works extremely valuable to the independent reader in quest of information.

ROBERT ALFRED VAUGHAN, 1823-1857, was son of Robert Vaughan, and was educated at University College, London. Young Vaughan attained great distinction among the Independents, and was the author of a few valuable works. His untimely death was deeply regretted by numerous warm admirers. It appears to have been the common belief among his friends that, had his life been prolonged, he would have developed rare intellectual powers. As it is, he has left behind him only one finished work of lasting reputation: Hours with the Mystics, a Contribution to the History of Religious Opinions. An earlier volume of poems, comprising The Witch of Endor, can scarcely be pronounced extraordinary. But the Hours with the Mystics is regarded as a very able treatment of an extremely difficult subject. After his death, a collection of his Essays and Literary Remains was published, together with a sketch of his Life, by his father, the well-known historian. The record thus given makes us feel only the more keenly the loss which his death has occasioned.

Thirlwall.

CONNOP THIRLWALL, 1797-1875, Bishop of St. David's, is well known by his History of Greece.

Thirlwall was educated at Cambridge. He resided at the University after graduation, and was admitted to the bar, but finally took orders in the Church of England. He was made Bishop of St. David's in 1840. Bishop Thirlwall has published several charges, sermons, and miscellaneous religious treatises, but is chiefly known by his History of Greece. This appeared originally in Lardner's Cabinet Encyclopædia, but was republished, in a much enlarged form, in 1845. Before this, the Bishop had been associated with Hare in translating Niebuhr's History of Rome.

Thirlwall's History of Greece met with immediate and general recognition. It was a worthy predecessor of Grote's great work. Indeed, that historian admits that, had Thirlwall's history appeared sooner, he himself would never have undertaken his own history.

Thirlwall's style is dry, and not inviting to the general reader. But the spirit of the work is liberal, and in direct opposition to Mitford's aristocratic teachings. It is the first scientific attempt at portraying the democratic element in Greek history, and is based upon careful and original investigation.

Kinglake.

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE, 1811-1870, is chiefly known by his history of The Invasion of the Crimea.

Kinglake was a native of Devonshire. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and was admitted to the bar in 1837. He was the author of Eothen, a collection of sketches of Eastern travel, which has been pronounced to be the most fascinating work of the kind ever written. He also accompanied the Crimean expedition, and commenced a detailed account of the campaign under the title. The Invasion of the Crimea, of which two volumes appeared. Kinglake is an enthusiastic admirer of Lord Raglan, and his work has therefore somewhat a partisan character. But the vivid and detailed description which it gives of the campaign, and its merciless exposure of the conduct of Louis

Napoleon, in connection with its clear and vigorous style, place the work in the foremost rank of contributions to special history.

ARTHUR HELPS, 1818-1875, is favorably known both as an historian and as a writer of miscellanies.

Helps was graduated at Cambridge in 1835. He has produced several poems, among them Catherine Douglas, a Tragedy, and a number of essays, the best of which are Friends in Council, and Companions of My Solitude. His later works are almost exclusively historical, and constitute a valuable contribution to the history of Spanish America. They are: The Conquerors of the New World, A History of the Spanish Conquest, and A Life of Columbus. Helps is a thoroughly earnest writer and a dili gent investigator, but his style lacks something of the dignity and finish of the clas sical historian.

GEORGE FINLAY, 1800

is an historian of some note.

Finlay is a native of Scotland. He spent some years in Athens. He has written: Greece Under the Romans; History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders to its Conquest by the Turks; History of the Byzantine Empire; History of the Byzantine and Greek Empire.

JOHN HILL BURTON, 1809 historian and biographer.

has won a high reputation as an

Mr. Burton was born at Aberdeen, in Scotland. His father, who died early in life, was an officer in the British army. His mother, the daughter of an Aberdeen laird, gave all her children a good education. Burton studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he took the degree of A. M. In 1831 he became an advocate at the Scottish bar. He has given much time to the cultivation of literature, and has written the best History of Scotland yet produced, being a large and original work. Besides this, he contributed to the Supplement and the later volumes of the Penny Cyclopædia, chiefly on subjects connected with Scottish law; he has done a large amount of scholarly labor in the way of editing the works of others, and has produced some important original works on subjects connected with his profession.

His principal publications are the following: Jeremy Bentham's Works, 11 vols., Svo, edited in conjunction with Sir John Bowring; Letters of Eminent Persons addressed to David Hume, Svo, edited; Life and Correspondence of David Hume, 2 vols., 8vo; Lives of Simon, Lord Lovet and Duncan Forbes, 8vo; Narratives from the Criminal Trials in Scotland, 2 vols., 8vo; Political and Social Economy; Manual of the Law of Scotland, 3 vols., 8vo; The Law of Bankruptcy, etc., in Scotland, 2 vols., 8vo; The History of Scotland, from Agricola's Invasion to the Revolution of 1668, 7 vols. 8vo. and from the Revolution to the Extinction of the Last Jacobite Insurrection, 16681748, 2 vols., 8vo. He has published also an interesting work called The Book Hunter.

WILLIAM STIRLING (now Sir William Stirling Maxwell), 1818has acquired celebrity as a writer on Spanish history.

Sir William is a native of Scotland. He studied at Cambridge, and afterwards resided for some time on the continent, familiarizing himself with the language and institutions of Spain. His chief works are: Annals of the Artists of Spain, Cloister Life of Charles V., Velasquez and his Works. He also edited the Memoirs of the Marquis of

Villars at the Court of Spain from 1678 to 1682. Stirling is one of the most accom plished Spanish scholars of the present day, His works are extremely interesting. He himself is called by Prescott "that prince of good fellows."

SIR JAMES PRIOR, 1790-1869, is known chiefly by his Life of Burke.

Prior was a native of Ireland. He served in the medical department of the Roya Navy. Sir James is the author of several works of decided literary value. Among them are his Memoirs of the Life of Burke, and several other works on Burke's Genius, Correspondence, etc., and also his Life of Oliver Goldsmith. These two biographies have been highly praised, the one of Burke as the best on that subject, the one on Goldsmith as second only to Forster's work. Prior has also published a life of Edward Malone.

JOHN FORSTER, 1812-1876, a journalist and a biographical writer of high standing.

He was a native of Newcastle. He was educated at the London University, and studied law. In 1834, he began writing for The Examiner, and in 1846 he became its chief Editor. He contributed also to the Edinburgh Review, and to the Foreign Quarterly, of which latter he was for four years the Editor.

His separate publications are Historical and Biographical Essays, 2 vols.; Walter Savage Landor, a Biography, 2 vols.; Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth, 7 vols.; Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith; A Life of Charles Dickens; Sir John Eliot, a Biography; Arrest of the Five Members by Charles I.; Debates on the Great Remonstrance. He had in hand, at the time of his death, a Life of Swift, of which one volume had been published.

The Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth gave the author an immediate and high rank as a political historian. The Life of Goldsmith led to a sharp controversy with Prior, who, in his voluminous work on the same subject, had diligently collected all the facts from original sources. Prior seemed to think that he had a sort of copyright to the facts, and that it was very impertinent in Mr. Forster to take the facts, thus collected, and make of them a more interesting story than his own. Prior's work was original, authentic, and dull. Forster's was lively and readable.

Mr. Smiles was at one time Editor of the Leeds Times, and then secretary to the South-Eastern Railway. His most popular works are: The Life of George Stephenson, Self-Help, and Lives of the Engineers. These have all become very popular in England and America, especially Self-Help. In addition to these, he has published James Brindley and the Early Engineers, the Lives of Bolton and Watts, and the Huguenots in England and Ireland. Mr. Smiles is a writer who has succeeded admirably in conveying information in a pleasing form. Mr. Smiles was born at Hadalugton, in Scotland, and was educated for the medical profession.

DAVID MASSON, 1823 a Scottish critic and essayist, has attained celebrity also as a biographer.

Prof. Masson was born in Aberdeen, and educated at Marischal College and at the University of Edinburgh. He has been from an early age a contributor to Frazer s Magazine, The North British and The London Quarterly Reviews. He became in 1859 the Editor of Macmillan's Magazine, and in 1865 he was appointed Professor of

Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Edinburgh. He has published Essays, Biographical and Critical, chiefly on English Poets; British Novelists and their Styles; The Life and Times of Milton. The work last named is one of high excellence, the best attempt yet made to do full justice to the great poet of the Commonwealth.

GEORGE HENRY LEWES, 1817 rapher.

is known chiefly as a biog

Mr. Lewes is a native of London. He abandoned commerce and medicine for letters. He has contributed a great number of articles to Frazer and Blackwood and to all the quarterlies. His independent works are: A Life of Robespierre; The Spanish Drama; Biographical History of Philosophy; and The Life of Goethe, besides two or three novels.

Mr. Lewes is not a profound thinker or investigator, neither is he a perfect master of style. His works, nevertheless, are extremely valuable contributions to literature. The best of them is undoubtedly The Life of Goethe. This is the most satisfactory and readable biography of the great poet that is to be found in any language. There are a few mistakes and deficiencies in the work, but in the main it is a just and ample portraiture of Goethe. It has been severely criticized in England and America; chiefly, however, by writers who know little of Goethe's real position in literature and nothing of the condition of Germany in that age. The Biographical History of Philosophy is clear and animated, but somewhat superficial. Mr. Lewes's mind is itself not philosophical enough, perhaps, to do full justice to such a theme. With all its defects, however, the work is a very practical manual for the general public.

JAMES GRANT, 1806, Editor of the London Morning Chronicle, is a native of Scotland. He has published a number of popular works, showing a fine talent for observation and for giving pen-pictures of men and things. Works: Random Recollections of the House of Lords. 2 vols. ; Ditto of the House of Commons, 2 vols.; The British Senate; The Great Metropolis, 2 vols.; The Bench and the Bar, 2 vols.; Travels in Town, 2 vols.; Sketches in London; The Metropolitan Pulpit, or Sketches of the Most Popular Preachers in London, 2 vols. The work last named is highly spoken of.

WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON, 1821

but has devoted himself to a literary life.

was educated for the bar,

He became Editor of the London Athenæum in 1853. His separate publications have been numerous. John Howard and his Prison-World of Europe; The London Prisons; William Penn, an Historical Biography, intended especially to vindicate Penn from the charge made by Macaulay; Life of Admiral Blake; The French in England, or Both Sides of the Question on Both Sides of the Channel; Personal History of Lord Bacon; The Holy Land; The Town of London; New America; Spiritual Wives, giving the results of his visit to the Mormons.

Thomas Wright,

THOMAS WRIGHT, 1810

is one of the most prominent anti

quarians and archæologists of the day.

Mr. Wright was educated at Cambridge. He has been since 1835 a resident of London. Whilst still a student at Cambridge, he published articles in the leading Eng

lish magazines upon subjects connected with English antiquities. His literary labors have been immense. He took an active part in the formation of the Camden, Percy, and Shakespeare societies and the British Archæological Congress, and is Corresponding Member of the French Institute.

Mr. Wright's works may be roughly grouped in two classes: editions of early English texts, and original works or treatises. The former are especially numerous. Prominent among them are Geoffrey of Monmouth's Life of Merlin, the Reliquiæ Antiquæ (in connection with Halliwell), Political Ballads of the Commonwealth, Piers Plowman's Creed and Vision, The Chester Plays, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (from the celebrated Harleian MSS.), etc. This list will give only a faint idea of the immense extent and variety of Mr. Wright's labors as an editor.

The more prominent of his treatises, or works of his own, are the Biographia Britannica Literaria; Essays on Subjects connected with the Literature, Popular Superstitions, and History of England during the Middle Ages; England under the House of Hanover, as Illustrated by Caricatures of the Day; Narratives of Sorcery and Magic; The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon; Dictionary of Provincial and Obsolete English; A History of Caricature, etc.

Even this list, by no means a short one, is incomplete. It will suffice, however, to give an approximate idea of the author's enthusiastic industry. Wright may safely be set down for the largest share of credit in awakening and sustaining the present popular and also the professional study of early English.

BENJAMIN THORPE, 1808–1870, was one of the most eminent AngloSaxon scholars of England.

Mr. Thorpe published a large number of works, all of great value in the department of literature to which he devoted himself. The following are some of them: Rask's Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue, translated; Caedmon's Metrical Paraphrase, etc., with English Translation and Notes; Anglo-Saxon Version of Apollonius of Tyre, with a translation and a glossary; Analecta Anglo-Saxonia, a selection, in prose and verse, from Anglo-Saxon authors, with a glossary; The Holy Gospels in AngloSaxon; The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church; Ancient Laws and Institutions of England; History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, translated from the German; Northern Mythology; Yule-Tide Stories, a collection of Scandinavian tales and traditions; The Anglo-Saxo. Poems of Beowulf, with a translation; The AngloSaxon Chronicle, etc.

SIR FREDERICK MADDEN, 1801, a well-known English antiquary, is Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum. In this capacity Sir Frederick has published a number of valuable contributions to English archæology and letters. His leading publications are: Havelok, the Dane; Sir Gawayne; Layamon's Brut; and a translation of Silvestre's Universal Paleography.

JAMES ORCHAD HALLIWELL, 1820, is a prominent British archæologist. He has edited a number of rare works, principally Shakesperiana. The best known are The Life of Shakespeare, published in 1848, and a grand edition of the works of the poet, in 20 vols., fol., profusely illustrated, and based upon a collation of all the early editions and the original plays and novels from which Shakespeare derived his plots.

REV. ALEXANDER DYCE, 1797-1869, was born and educated at Edinburgh. He entered the ministry of the English Church, and after 1827 resided permanently in Loudon. Mr. Dyce was eminent for his accurate scholarship in old English literature.