was born at Woburn, Bedfordshire. After teaching school for several years, he became librarian to the Duke of Bedford, and continued in that position till his death. He was a poet, and a diligent student of the poetry of Spain and Italy. He published Aonian Ilours and Other Poems; Julian Alpinula, the Captive of Stamboul; The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega, translated into English verse, with a critical and historical essay on Spanish poetry; Jerusalem Delivered, a translation from the Italian of Tasso in Spenserian stanza. "The best scholar among a' the Quakers is Friend Wiffin, a capital translator, Sir Walter tells me, o' poets wi' foreign tongues, sic as Tawso, and wi' an original vein, too, sir, which has produced, as I opine, some verra pure ore."-The Ettrick Shepherd in Noctes Ambros.

WILLIAM SOTHEBY, 1757-1833, was a native of London. He was educated at Harrow; entered the royal army, but resigned in 1780. Sotheby was a man of high literary and general culture, genial in his manners, and possessed of ample means to gratify his hospitable tastes.

Sotheby's talent might be called imitative rather than original. Not that he was ever guilty of literary theft, but that he succeeded better in his translations than in his original pieces. The latter are numerous and smoothly written. He published a volume of poetry descriptive of a tour through Wales, The Battle of the Nile, Cuzco, Julian and Agnes, Constance of Castile, Five Tragedies, and one or two other poetical works or dramatic works, which were well received on the occasion of their appearance, but which are now little read.

Sotheby's translations are still in favor. They comprise Wieland's Oberon (much praised by the author), Virgil's Georgics, Specimens from Homer, and afterwards the entire Iliad and Odyssey. He also published Virgil's Georgics in a six-language edition, namely, in the original, and in Italian, Spanish, German, French, and English translations. Sotheby is a careful translator, adhering closely to the original, but occasionally becoming stiff. It may be doubted, however, whether the English language has in the main any better renderings of such originals as Homer, Virgil, and Wieland than those contributed by Sotheby.

Bowles.

REV. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, 1762-1850, published in 1793 a small volume of Sonnets, only fourteen in number, which, besides being exquisitely beautiful in themselves, had the honor of contributing materially to mould the poetry of the three great masters, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth.

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Coleridge, whose first poetic impulses were in a false direction, acknowledged himself to have been withdrawn from his errors by his admiration for the tender and manly beauty of these poems. Southey acknowledges his obligation to the same "We have ourselves heard from Wordsworth's own lips, that he got possession of the same Sonnets one morning when he was setting out with some friends on a pedestrian tour from London; and that so captivated was he with their beauty that he retreated into one of the recesses in Westminster Bridge, and could not be induced to rejoin his companions till he had finished them."- Gent. Mag.

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"The Sonnets of Bowles may be reckoned among the first fruits of a new era in poetry. . . In these Sonnets there was observed a grace of expression, a musical versification, and especially an air of melancholy tenderness, so congenial to the poetical temperament, which still, after sixty years of a more propitious period than that

which immediately preceded their publication, procures for their author a highly respectable position among our authors."- Henry Hallam.

Mr. Bowles published, at different times, a good deal, both prose and verse. One of his publications, an edition of Pope, led to a warm literary controversy. In his notes upon Pope, Mr. Bowles insisted strongly on the descriptive in poetry as being an essential element. To one of his dogmas, especially that "all images drawn from what is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature, are more beautiful and sublime than any images drawn from art; and that they are therefore per se more poetical," Campbell and Byron took strong exceptions, Byron replying that a ship in the wind, with all sail set, is a more poetical object than a hog in the wind, though the hog is all nature, and the ship all art. The controversy growing out of this edition of Pope, and Campbell's strictures upon it in his Specimens of the Poets, lasted for many years.

Mr. Bowles published Ten Plain Parochial Sermons; Paulus Parochialis, a series of sermons on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, suited to country congregations; The Life of Bishop Ken; Little Villager's Verse-Book; Cottage Hymns, and numerous other poems. The Little Villager's Verse-Book is highly praised. "One of the sweetest and best little publications in the English language."— Lit. Gazetie.

ALEXANDER BALFOUR, 1767-1829, a clerk in the publishing house of Mr. Blackwood, Edinburgh, was an author of some note. He wrote: Campbell, or the Scottish Probationer; Contemplation and Other Poems; The Foundling of Glenthorn; and Highland Mary. He contributed also to the Edinburgh Review.

GEORGE COLMAN, JR., 1752–1836, was, like his father of the same name, an educated professional dramatist. His plays were numerous, and had a marked success. Some of the most noted were The Iron Chest, John Bull, and Broad Grins. "Few books have caused more loud laughter than the Broad Grins of George Colman the younger; it is a happy union of mirth and the muse, and good jokes are related in so agreeable and facetious a manner that they can scarcely be forgotten."— Literary Chronicle.

JAMES BOADEN, 1762-1839, was a dramatic writer, and was connected also with the drama by his intimacy with John Philip Kemble. Boaden wrote a number of Plays, seven of which are enumerated by Watt; he wrote also Biographies of Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, and Mrs. Jordan; A Critical Notice of the Papers of Shakespeare published by Ireland; and An Inquiry into the Authenticity of the various Pictures of Shakespeare which have been published.

JOHN O'KEEFE, 1747-1833, of Irish descent, was a voluminous playwright. Some of his plays are still performed, such as Tony Lumpkin in Town, Wild Oats, Love in a Camp, etc. In 1826 he published his Recollections of My Life. After his death appeared a small volume of poems from his pen, under the name of O'Keefe's Legacy to his Daughters.

SAMUEL J. ARNOLD,

1852, son of the celebrated musical composer, Samuel Arnold, was the author of a large number of dramatic pieces, running from 1794 to 1810. The following are attributed to him: Auld Robin Gray, Who Pays the Reckoning? Shipwreck, Irish Legacy, Veteran Tar, Foul Deeds will Rise, Prior Claim, Up all Night, Britain's Jubilee, Man and Wife, The Maniac, Plots.

II. THE NOVELISTS.

Sir Walter Scott.

Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832, after placing himself among the foremost writers of his day as a poet, outstripped both himself and them by his unbounded success as a novelist.

Early Career.Sir Walter was a descendant of the notorious Auld Wat, the freebooter of Scottish border story. In his eighteenth month he was rendered incurably lame by a severe attack of fever. His early childhood was passed in the country, under the care of his aunt, Miss Janet Scott. He afterwards studied at the High-School, and finally at the University of Edinburgh. He never became what is termed a good classical scholar, inasmuch as he never learned more than the rudiments of Greek, and speedily forgot even those, while his knowledge of Latin was always loose and superficial. Yet his power of imagination enabled him to enjoy and appreciate more thoroughly what he read than is the case with many a first-rate scholar.

After leaving the University, Scott became apprentice to his father, who was Clerk of the Signet, and, like many a poet before and after him, he was supposed to be devoting his time to the dry forms of conveyancing and procedure. But his genius and his taste were too imaginative for such an occupation. He learned German and Italian, and continued his readings in his favorite English authors.

Even as a very young boy, Scott was noted for his ability as a storyteller. In the High-School, and at the University, he was the idol of a select circle, who gathered around him in recess hours, to listen delighted to his improvisations. His poetical talents developed themselves later. His imagination was fertile enough, but it was long before he attained the power of rhyming and versification.

First Publications. -Scott's first appearance as an author was in a poetical capacity, as a translator of Bürger's Lenore, and The Wild Huntsman, in 1796. These were soon followed by a like rendering of Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen. In 1803 Border Minstrelsy was completed.

Great Poems.- Passing over one or two minor works, and his contributions to the Edinburgh Review, we come to The Lay of the Last Minstrel, in 1805, his first really great work. This made its author at once famous. In 1808, appeared Marmion, and, in 1810, The Lady of the Lake. In five years, Scott had placed himself at the very head of his generation.

Enthusiastic Popularity -We of the present day, with our tardy and carefully discriminating appreciation, find it difficult to realize the unbounded enthusiasm with which the men and women of fifty years ago read, or rather devoured, Scott's Marmion and Lady of the Lake, and Byron's Childe Harold and Manfred. It is often

asserted, rashly, that the age of poetry has passed. Longfellow, Tennyson, Browning, not to name many others, are living witnesses to the contrary, both for themselves, and for their millions of readers. The truth is, simply, that we are more critical, more given to judgment and less to applause, than were our forefathers.

Prosperous Days.-Scott's pecuniary profits from the sale of his poems were equal to his literary laurels. He purchased Abbotsford, near Melrose Abbey, and spent immense sums upon the estate, in the effort to convert it into a magnificent baronial mansion of the old style. In 1820 he was made a baronet. Living here in princely style, Scott made Abbotsford famous throughout the literary world, a synonym for lavish hospitality and fraternal reunion. To Abbotsford betook itself year after year all that was famous in art, literature, and science. Men of every country and profession were welcomed to its hospitable walls, and peer, prelate, and aspirant after fame came and went in ceaseless succession.

Publication of the Novels. Meanwhile the great wizard himself, the spell that kept together this gay concourse, was not resting on his laurels. In 1814 appeared, anonymously, Waverly, the first of the magnificent series of novels which goes by that name. The authorship was immediately ascribed to Scott, but persistently repudiated. In quick succession came Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lammermoor, year by year one or more, until the secret could not longer be kept, and it was proclaimed to the world that Scotland's greatest poet was also the greatest novelist of his age.

Reverses.—But the picture was soon to have its dark side. In 1826 Constable, and the Ballantynes, both large publishing firms, failed disastrously. Scott, who had been for some time a secret partner, was involved in the ruin, and was liable for their joint debts, amounting to over a hundred thousand pounds. With heroic courage he gave up his estate at Abbotsford in part-payment, and devoted the remainder of his life to writing himself, so to speak, out of debt. He succeeded, but the effort cost him his life. Not suffering himself to be interrupted even by the death of his beloved wife, in 1826, or by repeated attacks of ill health, he produced volume after volumethe conclusion of the Waverly series, from Woodstock on, the History of Napoleon, and The Tales of a Grandfather-until he sank into the grave, an overworn but not a broken-hearted mau. A few months before his death, Scott travelled in Italy, vainly seeking to recover his strength and spirits. His funeral was unostentatious, but the procession was over a mile long, and all Scotland and England sent its mourners.

No purely literary character was ever the recipient of greater spontaneous honor, in life and in death, than Sir Walter Scott. In the year 1871, the centennial anniversary of his birth was celebrated with an outburst of enthusiasm which carried the present generation back to the days of Marmion and Waverly.

Scott's descendants have died out, with the exception of a single grand-daughter, Mary Morrice Hope. Thus his pet ambition that of becoming the head of a long and illustrious line has been foiled by Providence. His true offspring are not of his flesh and blood, but the creatures of his brain. Scott's wife was a Frenchwoman, the daughter of Jean Charpentier, an émigré of Lyons. His eldest daughter Sophia was married to Lockhart, the author of the well-known Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott. This biography is, scarcely excepting Boswell's Life of Johnson, the most interesting in the language.

Rank as an Author. În estimating Scott's genius, we should be careful to distinguish between the poet and the novelist. As a poet, Scott is only in the second class, and not even first in that class. He is far surpassed in imagination by Tennyson, Browning, and Longfellow; in power and breadth of conception, by Byron. His

Marmion and Lady of the Lake are not great creations. Yet their diction is so spirited, their fundamental conceptions are so pure and cheerful, they suggest such a glamour of forest and mountain, lake and heather, that they will ever remain among the most delightful gems of the great English treasure-house. On the other hand, as a novelist, and a delineator of character, he is unsurpassed. It is the fashion, among writers of a certain class, to speak of Scott as superseded by Thackeray and Dickens. In a measure this is true; every writer, no matter how great, is crowded out more or less by his successors. Not even Shakespeare, Dante, and Goethe have been exceptions to the rule. But it may well be pondered, whether, years from now, when the final muster-roll of English novelists is called, Scott's name will not head the list—whether Meg Merrilies, Jeannie Deans, Caleb Balderstone, Domine Sampson, Rebecca of York, Dirck Hatterick, Dandie Dinmont, Fiora Mac Ivor, Rob Roy, Dugald Dalgetty, will not shine, like the older windows of the cathedral at Cologne in the evening twilight, clear and unfaded, while their younger and ambitious rivals, even Becky Sharpe, Major Pendennis, Ethel Newcome, Sam Weller, Mrs. Gamp, and Mr. Micawber, will appear by their side slightly dimmed and tarnished.

Scott's defects are palpable. He is diffuse, and not over-careful in the structure of his sentences. The plot is often unskilfully woven. The would-be heroes and heroines are not always interesting. But the subordinate characters display a wealth of humor, wit, fancy, shrewdness, and sentiment that make them unique. The tone of his works is healthy and life-giving throughout. Scott is nowhere so great as when he remains on his native heath. His Scottish novels are pre-eminently his best. His Tory prejudices and blindness of vision have passed away with the generation to which they were native, and there remain only his broad love of humanity, his cheery smile and quaint humor. To Scott belongs the honor of lifting the English novel from the dreary depths of the rakedom and sentimentality of the eighteenth century, and placing it upon the lasting foundations of good breeding, good morals, and good sense, from which no one henceforth can depart and be safe.

Maria Edgeworth.

Maria Edgeworth, 1767-1849, holds a high rank as a writer of novels and tales, and of works on education.

Miss Edgeworth was the daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth. She was born in England, but resided nearly all her life in Ireland. Mr. Edgeworth was himself a man of letters, and an author of celebrity, particularly in works on education. Several of Maria's works were written in conjunction with her father.

Among the conjoint works of father and daughter were: A Treatise on Practical Education; Early Lessons; Essay on Irish Bulls. Miss Edgeworth also wrote The Parent's Assistant, as a Sequel to Early Lessons, and completed the Memoirs of her father, begun by himself.

Her other works are chiefly Novels and Tales. They are descriptive of domestic and social life, and are so shaped and constructed as to teach the doctrines of morals and education with as much clearness as if they had been treatises on those subjects, and with a good deal more efficiency than most treatises. For their truthfulness and vividness of description, and their skill in the delineation of character, they have received the highest encomiums from all classes of critics, and they have been perused 84* 2 A