LYTTON, EDWARD ROBERT BULWER, The son of the preceding author, better known perhaps by his nom de plume, Owen Meredith, born November 8th, 1831. He entered the diplomatic service in 1849. and has represented the British Government with great distinction. His chief works are Clytemestra, Lucile, The Wanderer, Fables in Song, The Ring of Amasis, a prose romance, etc.
MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, a celebrated historian, orator, essayist and poet, was born at Rothley Temple, Lincolnshire, October 26th, 1800. From his earliest years he exhibited signs of superiority and genius, and earned a great reputation for his verses and oratory. He studied law and was called to the Bar, commencing his political career in 1830, and in 1834 he went to India, as a member of the Supreme Council, returning in 1838 to England, where for a few years he pursued politics and letters, representing Edinburgh in the House of Commons, but being rejected, on appearing for re-election, he devoted himself to literature. During the last twelve years of his life his time was almost wholly occupied with his History of England, four volumes of which he had completed and published, and a fifth left partly ready for the press when he died. Besides the History and Essays, he wrote a collection of beautiful ballads, including the well-known Lays of Ancient Rome. In 1849 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and in 1857, his honours culminated in his elevation to the peerage as Baron Macaulay. He died on the 28th of December, 1869.
MILTON, JOHN, An immortal poet, and with the exception of Shakespeare, the most illustrious name in English Literature, was born in Bread Street, London, on December 9th, 1608. He graduated at Cambridge, and was intended for the law or the Church, but did not enter either calling. He settled at Horton in Buckinghamshire, where he wrote his Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penuroso, and Lycidas. He took the side of the Parliament in the dispute with King Charles I. and rendered his party efficient service with his pen. About 1654 he became totally blind, and after serving the Protector as Latin Secretary for four or five years, he retired from public life in 1657. In 1665, the time of the Great Plague, he first showed the finished manuscript of his great poem, Paradise Lost, which was first printed in 1667, this immortal work being sold to a bookseller for £5! He afterwards wrote Paradise Regained, but it is, in all respects, quite inferior to Paradise Lost. He died in London, on the 8th of November, 1674.
MOORE, THOMAS, a celebrated poet, born in Dublin, May 28th, 1779, and was educated at Trinity College in that city. He studied law but never practised. He published two volumes of poems previous to the production of Lalla Rookh, his masterpiece, which was highly successful and was published in 1817. His works are very numerous and some of them are extremely popular, the best being Lalla Rookh and Irish Melodies. As a poet he displays grace, pathos, tenderness and imagination, but is deficient in power and naturalness. He died February 26th, 1852.
POE, EDGAR ALLAN, a distinguished American poet and prose writer, born in Baltimore in 1809. He was an entirely original figure in American literature, his temperament was melancholy, he hated restraint of every kind and he gave way to dissipation, and his life is a wretched record of poverty and suffering. But the Bells, The Raven and Annabel Lee, his principal poetical works, are wonderfully melodious, constructed with great ingenuity, and finished with consummate art. He wrote several weird prose tales and some critical essays. He died at Baltimore, under circumstances of great wretchedness, October 7th, 1849.
POPE, ALEXANDER, a popular English poet and critic, born in London, May 22nd, 1688. During his childhood he displayed great ability and resolved to be a poet. His Pastorals were written at the age of sixteen. He wrote a large number of poems, the most celebrated being; the Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock and the Essay on Man. He also published translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. His talent for satire is conspicuous in the Duncaid. He possessed little originality or creative imagination, but he had a vivid sense of the beautiful, and an exquisite taste. He owed much of his popularity to the easy harmony of his verse, the keenness of his satire, and the brilliancy of his antithesis. He has, with the exception of Shakespeare, added more phrases to the English language than any other poet. He died on the 30th of May, 1744.
PROCTER, ADELAIDE ANNE, an English poet, born in London, October 30th, 1825. She was a daughter of Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall). She was a contributor to Household Words and All the Year Round, and published in 1858, a volume of poetry, Legends and Lyrics. A second volume was issued in 1861. She died February 3rd, 1864.
READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN, a distinguished American artist and poet, born in Pennsylvania, March 12th, 1822. He visited England and also spent several years in Florence and Rome. He wrote several good poems, but his Sheridan's Ride, brought him more popularity than any of his previous works. He died May 11th, 1872.
ROGERS, SAMUEL, an eminent English poet, born in London, July 30th, 1763. He was a rich banker and enabled to devote much leisure time to literature, of which he was a magnificent patron. His best works are Pleasures of Memory, Human Life, and Italy, the last appeared in a magnificent form, having cost £10,000 in illustrations alone. Died December 18th, 1855.
SAXE, JOHN GODFREY, a humorous American poet, born in Vermont, in 1816. He has been most successful in classical travesties and witty turns of language, and he has won a good place as a sonneteer. A complete edition of his poems (the 42nd) was published in 1881.