Scott, Byron, Coleridge, and Keats were dead when Queen Victoria ascended the throne; but there still lived such poets as Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, and Landor, and later there came into prominence Robert Browning and his wife, Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, Philip James Bailey, Alexander Smith, Swinburne, Morris, Jean Inge-low, Dante Rossetti, and Christina Rossetti. Punch, the world-renowned paper, was founded in this reign, and drew together some clever young writers, while among its illustrators were such famous artists as Doyle, Leech, and Tenniel.
Then we come to the novelists. Who has not heard of Dickens and Thackeray, and enjoyed their works time and time again? Perhaps these two are the most familiar, to young people, of the English novelists of the present century; but we must mention besides Charles Reade, Anthony Trollope, Charlotte Bronte, Bulwer, Charles Kingsley, Black, Charles Lever, Miss Mulock, and Hardy.
This very incomplete list of names, that suggest the various branches of literature, will serve to show that no century has produced so many men and women whose names deserve to be handed down to posterity as the present one.
Thus far, and no further, are we permitted to inquire into her majesty's private life. Whatever we have written has been furnished from the royal diary, extracts of which have been made from Mr. Theodore Martin's "Life of the Prince Consort." Whatever else we might add would not be based upon authentic documents, and would degenerate into gossip. It is left for others, who, after her majesty's death, may have access to her private papers, to chronicle such events of importance and interest as may have centred around her. Let us only express a sincere hope that it may be many years before opportunity offers.