THOMAS HOOD, born in 1798, was the son of a London bookseller. His literary career began in Dundee, where he contributed to a local magazine. His works abound in sparkling wit and humour, being crammed with the choicest puns and most whimsical turns of thought. But his true power as a poet, unfortunately seldom put forth, appears in such tragic pieces as Eugene Aram's Dream, The Song of the Shirt, and The Bridge of Sighs, or

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in the richly fanciful Plea of the Midsummer Fairies. A kindred spirit, Jerrold, says that "his various pen touched alike the springs of laughter and the sources of tears." Hood died in 1845.

DAVID MACBETH MOIR, born in 1798, was the Delta of Blackwood's Magazine. The busy surgeon of Musselburgh found time to cultivate a poetic genius of the first order. A gentle melancholy is the ruling spirit of his works; but from his novel of Mansie Wauch and some of his lighter pieces, a mellow, quiet Scottish humour shines softly out. He died in 1851.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON was born in 1802 at Old Brompton, one of the London suburbs. Her signature of L. E. L. soon became known by the beautiful poems she contributed to the Literary Gazette. The Improvisatrice and The Golden Violet are among her principal works. She wrote also three novels, one of which is called Romance and Reality. Having married Mr. Maclean, Governor of Cape Coast Castle in Africa, she went out to that lonely home to die. One October morning in 1839, about two months after her arrival, she was found dead on her bedroom floor, having accidentally, it is thought, taken an overdose of prussic acid. Rich luxuriance of fancy is the most striking characteristic of her poetry.

THOMAS AIRD, born in 1802, at Bowden in Roxburghshire, contributed many poems to Blackwood. He has long been editor of the Dumfries Herald. The Devil's Dream is his noblest poem. Some racy prose sketches of Scottish character have also come from his pen.

CAROLINE NORTON (Miss Sheridan), grand-daughter of the celebrated dramatist, was born in 1808. The Sorrows of Rosalie-The Undying One, a poetic legend of the Wandering Jew-The Dream -and The Child of the Islands, may be named among her poems. Stuart of Dunleath is her principal novel. Her unhappy private life has won much sympathy for the hardly-tried authoress.

ELIZABETH BROWNING (Miss Barrett) attracted notice first by a translation of the Prometheus Bound of Eschylus. A long illness in early life, occasioned by the bursting of a vessel in the lungs, enabled her, by a wide and varied course of reading and

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much deep, solitary thought, to prepare for the high vocation of a poet. She certainly has given us the sweetest and noblest strains of poetry that have come in the present generation from her sex. Married in 1846 to Robert Browning, the author of Pipi Passes, she went to reside at Florence; and there what she saw of Tuscan affairs inspired her fine political poem of Casa Guidi Windows. A long poem in blank-verse, Aurora Leigh, depicts the maiden life of a poetess, "the autobiography of a heart and intellect." The principal favourites among Mrs. Browning's poems are, The Duchess May-Bertha in the Lane-Cowper's Grave-The Cry of the Children-Lady Geraldine's Courtship-Sonnets from the Portuguese. This gifted lady died in the earlier part of the present year (1861). Her husband, born at Camberwell in 1812, has written two tragedies, Strafford and The Blot on the Scutcheon, and several remarkable poetical works,-Paracelsus, Bells and Pomegranates, Men and Women, &c.

WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN was born in 1813 at Edinburgh. While at college his poem of Judith attracted the notice of Professor Wilson. But his fame rests chiefly upon his spiritstirring Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. He has also written the historic romance of Bothwell, and a most effective satire on modern poets, entitled Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy, by Percy T. Jones. He fills the chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University of Edinburgh, and is also Sheriff and Vice-Admiral of Orkney. In conjunction with THEODORE MARTIN, a parliamentary solicitor in London, he wrote Ballads by Bon Gaultier, and lately joined the same friend in translating the lyrics of Goëthe.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY, born in 1816 at Nottingham, has written some noble but unequal poems. Festus is his chief work (1839). The Angel World and The Mystic followed in succession, both being in the same rapturous and exalted style. In The Age, a Colloquial Satire, he tried another key, pitched as low as his former strains were high.

SYDNEY DOBELL, whose nom de plume is Sydney Yendys, was born in 1824 at Peckham Rye. In the uncongenial atmosphere of a wine-merchant's counting-house-his father followed that

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business near Cheltenham-he cultivated poetry with much success. The Roman (1850), was his first, and is still his best poem. Balder-Sonnets on the War, written in conjunction with ALEXANDER SMITH—and England in Time of War, complete the list of Mr. Dobell's works already published.

ALEXANDER SMITH, born in 1830 at Kilmarnock, made his fame by A Life Drama, written amid the toils of drawing patterns for a muslin house in Glasgow. A second volume, entitled City Poems, rich with the same excessive wealth of imagery, appeared in 1857. We have here the black streets of smoky Glasgow glorified with poetic light, which sometimes brightens to sublimity. The present year (1861) has produced mellowed fruit of his genius in a fine poem of the epic class, Edwin of Deira, which gives a stirring and truthful picture of Saxon life in old Northumbria. Mr. Smith has been for several years Secretary to the University of Edinburgh.

Supplementary List.

CAROLINE SOUTHEY. (1787-1854)-Miss Bowles-Buckland, Hants-Ellen Fitz-Arthur; The Widow's Tale; Chapters on Churchyards (prose). WILLIAM THOM.-(1789-1848)-Aberdeen-a weaver of Inverury-Rhymes and

Recollections.

BRYAN PROCTER.-(1790-still living)-known as Barry Cornwall--barrister and Commissioner of Lunacy-Marcian Colonna; Flood of Thessaly; Dramatic Scenes; Mirandola (a tragedy).

HENRY HART MILMAN.—(1791-still living)—London-Dean of St. Paul'sFazio, a tragedy; Samor; The Fall of Jerusalem; The Martyr of Antioch; History of Latin Christianity (prose).

JOHN CLARE. (1793—still living)-Helpstone, Northamptonshire-a ploughman-Poems of Rural Life; The Village Minstrel.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.-(1796-1849)-Clevedon, near Bristol-Poems; Lives of Northern Worthies (prose). DERWENT COLERIDGE.-(1800-still living) -Keswick-Memoir of Hartley Coleridge. SARA COLERIDGE.—(1803–

1852)-Keswick-Phantasmion.

HAYNES BAYLY.-(1797-1839)--near Bath-lyrist-The Soldier's Tear; I'd be a Butterfly.

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. (1797-1835) - Glasgow-journalist-Scottish Minstrelsy; Jeanie Morrison.

ALARIC ALEXANder Watts.—(1799—still living)—London-journalist-Poetical Sketches; Lyrics of the Heart.

JOHN EDMUND READE.-dramatist and poet-Italy; Revelations of Life; Cain and Catiline (dramas).

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WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.—(1802-1839)—London-barrister and politician-The Red Fisherman; Quince.

RICHARD HENRY HORNE.-(1803—still living)-London-Orion, an epic (sold at a farthing); Cosmo de Medici and Death of Marlowe (dramas).

CHARLES SWAIN.-(1803-still living)-Manchester-an engraver-The Mind; English Melodies; Letters of Laura D'Auverne.

THOMAS KIBBLE HERVEY (1804-1859)-Manchester-editor of the Athenæum -Australia; Modern Sculpture; England's Helicon.

THOMAS RAGG.-(1808-still living)-Nottingham-lace-weaver and bookseller -The Deity; Martyr of Verulam; Heber.

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.(1809-still living)—Yorkshire-politician— Poems of Many Years; Palm Leaves; Life of Keats.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.-(1810-still living)-London-barrister-Proverbial Philosophy; An Author's Mind; The Crock of Gold.

CHARLES MACKAY.-(1812-still living)-Perth-journalist-Voices from the Crowd; Town Lyrics; Egeria; The Salamandrine.

ROBERT NICOLL.-(1814-1837)-Tully beltane, Perthshire-editor of the Leeds Times-Thoughts of Heaven; Death.

FRANCES BROWN. (1816-still living)-Stranorlar, Donegal-The Star of Atteghei; Vision of Schwartz; Lyrics.

ELIZA COOK.-(1817—still living)--Southwark-Melaia, and Lyrical Pieces. MATTHEW ARNOLD.-(1822-still living)—Laleham—son of Dr. Arnold-inspector of schools-The Strayed Reveller; Empedocles on Etna.

COVENTRY PATMORE.-(1823-still living)-Woodford, Essex-assistant librarian, British Museum-Tamerton Church Tower; The Angel in the House. GEORGE MACDONALD.-(1826-still living)— Huntly-lecturer and author-Within and Without; Phantastes.

GERALD MASSEY (1828—still living)—Tring, Hertfordshire-originally a factory boy-Babe Christabel; Craigcrook Castle.

Among the many poets to whom our space prevents us from doing justice, WILLIAM BENNETT, and two Irish minstrels, DENIS FLORENCE M'CARTHY of Dublin and WILLIAM ALLINGHAM of Ballyshannon, are prominent. Of the ladies who adorn this department of our current literature it would be unpardonable to pass over ISA CRAIG, who wrote the prize poem on Burns in 1859; BESSIE PARKES, author of Gabriel; MARY HUME, author of Normiton; and ADELAIDE PROCTER, author of Legends and Lyrics; all of whom have added new lustre to their literary fame by untiring efforts to open a wider field of employment to their sex.

DRAMATISTS.

SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, born in 1795 in a suburb of Stafford, was the son of a brewer at Reading in Berkshire. Educated for the law, he rose rapidly, until in 1849 a seat on the