BRONTE, CHARLOTTE (Currer Bell). A popular English novelist, born at Thornton, Yorkshire, April 21st, 1816, was a daughter of the Rev. Patrick Bronté. In 1846, in conjunction with her sisters—Anne and Emily— published a small volume of poems. It was as a writer of fiction, however, that Charlotte achieved her great success, and in 1848, her novel of Jane Eyre, obtained great popularity, and brought the talented author well merited fame. She afterwards published Shirley and Villette, both very successful works. In June, 1854, she married the Rev. Arthur B. Nicholls, but after a brief taste of domestic happiness, she died at Haworth, March 31st, 1855. The Professor, her first production (written in 1846), was published in 1856, after her death.
BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, one of the most gifted female poets that have ever lived, the daughter of Mr. Barrett, an opulent London merchant, born near Ledbury, Herefordshire, about 1807. She began to write verse when only ten years of age, and gave early proofs of great poetical genius. At the age of seventeen, she published An Essay on Mind, with other Poems, and her reputation was widely extended by The Seraphim and other Poems, published in 1838. In 1846, she was married to Robert Browning, the poet, and they lived for many years in Italy. In 1851, she published Casa Guidi Windows, the impressions of the writer upon events in Tuscany, and in 1856, appeared Aurora Leigh, a poem, or novel in verse, which is greatly admired. "The poetical reputation of Mrs. Browning," says the North British Review (February, 1857), "has been growing slowly, until it has reached a height which has never before been attained by any modern poetess." She died at Florence, June 29th, 1861.
BROWNING, ROBERT, a distinguished English poet, born at Camberwell, London, in 1812. He was educated at the University of London, and in 1836 published his first poem, Paracelsus, which attracted much attention by its originality. He has been a voluminous writer, and of all his works, Pippa Passes, and The Blot in the Scutcheon, are perhaps the best. The Ring and the Book appeared in 1868. He is considered by some critics as one of the greatest English poets of his time, but is not very popular.
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, an American poet, born at Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3rd, 1794. At the age of ten years he made very creditable translations from the Latin poets, which were printed, and at thirteen he wrote The Embargo, a political satire which was never surpassed by any poet of that age. He wrote Thanatopsis when but little more than eighteen, and it is by many considered as his finest poem. In 1826 he became one of the editors of the Evening Post, which he continued to edit until his death. He published a complete collection of his poems in 1832, and in 1864. Among his prose works are, Letters of a Traveller, and in 1869 he published a translation of Homer's Iliad, which is an excellent work. Washington Irving says of Bryant: "That his close observation of the phenomena of nature, and the graphic felicity of his details, prevent his descriptions from becoming commonplace." He died June 12th, 1878.
BURNS, ROBERT, the national poet of Scotland, was the son of a small farmer, and was born near the town of Ayr, on January, 25th, 1759. His early life was spent in farming, but he was about emigrating to the West Indies, when the publication of a volume of his poems, in 1786, which were very favourably received, determined him on remaining in his native land, and he proceeded to Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of the distinguished men of letters of that famous city. His reception was triumphant, and a new edition of his poems was issued, by which he realised more than £500. In 1788 he was married to Miss Jean Armour (Bonnie Jean), and soon after obtained a place in the excise, and in 1791 he removed to Dumfries, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died on July 21st, 1796. Nature had made Burns the greatest among lyric poets; the most striking characteristics of his poetry are simplicity and intensity, in which qualities he is scarcely, if at all, inferior to any of the greatest poets that have ever lived. "No poet except Shakespeare," says Sir Walter Scott, "ever possessed the power of exciting the most varied and discordant emotions with such rapid transitions."
BYROM, DR. JOHN, an English poet, born at Kersal, near Manchester, in 1691. He contributed several pieces to the Spectator, of which the beautiful pastoral of Colin and Phoebe, in No. 603, is the most noted. He invented a system of shorthand, which is still known by his name. Died at Manchester in 1763.
BYRON, GEORGE GORDON NOEL (Lord), an English poet and dramatist of rare genius, was born in London, January 22nd, 1788. He was educated partly at Harrow, and in 1805 proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge. While at College he published, in 1807, his Hours of Idleness, a volume of juvenile poems, which was severely criticised in the Edinburgh Review. Two years later he published his reply, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, a satire which obtained immediate celebrity. In 1812 he gave the world the fruits of his travels on the continent, in the first two Cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. The success of this was so extraordinary that, as he tells us, "he awoke one morning and found himself famous." He then took his seat in the House of Lords, but soon lost his interest in politics. In 1813 he published The Giaour, and The Bride of Abydos, and in 1814, The Corsair. In January, 1815, he married Anne Isabella Milbank, only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbank, but the marriage was an unhappy one, and she returned to her father's in the January of 1816. In April, 1816, Byron left his country with the avowed intention of never seeing it again, and during his absence he published, in rapid succession, the remaining cantos of Childe Harold, Mazeppa, Manfred, Cain, Sardanapalus, Marino Faliero, The Two Foscari, Werner, and Don Juan, besides many other smaller poems. During his residence on the Continent, his sympathies for Grecian liberty became strongly excited, and he resolved to devote all his energies to the cause, and left Italy in the summer of 1823. He arrived in Missolonghi on January 10th, 1824. On February 15th he was seized with a convulsive fit, which rendered him senseless for some time. On April 9th he got wet, took cold and a fever, on the 11th he grew worse, and on the 19th he died, inflammation of the brain having set in. Among the most remarkable characteristics of Byron's poetry, two are deserving of particular notice. The first is his power of expressing intense emotion, especially when it is associated with the darker passions of the soul. "Never had any writer," says Macaulay, "so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy and despair…. From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation, there is not a single note of human anguish of which he was not master."
CAMPBELL, THOMAS, an eminent British poet, born at Glasgow in 1777. In 1799 he published The Pleasures of Hope, of which the success has perhaps had no parallel in English literature. He visited the continent in 1800 and witnessed the battle of Hohen-linden, which furnished the subject of one of his most exquisite lyrics. Gertrude of Wyoming, published in 1809, is one of his finest poems. He wrote several spirited odes, etc., and other literary work, has placed his fame on an enduring basis. He died at Boulogne, in 1844, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
CARY, ALICE, an American author, born near Cincinnati, Ohio, about 1822. She first attracted attention by her contributions to the National Era, under the name of Patty Lee; she afterwards published several volumes of poems and other works, including Hagar, Hollywood, etc. Her sketches of Western Life, entitled Clovernook, have obtained extensive popularity. She died, February 12th, 1871.
CARY, PHOEBE, a sister of Alice, has also contributed to periodical literature and in 1854 published a volume entitled Poems and Parodies. She died July 31st, 1871.