Mortimer Collins, a famous English novelist and poet, was born in Plymouth, June 29, 1827, and died at Knowl Hill, Berkshire, July 28, 1876. His novels include: “Who Is the Heir,” “Sweet Anne Page,” “The Ivory Gate,” “The Vivian Romance,” “The Marquis and Merchant,” “Two Plunges for a Pearl,” “Blacksmith and Scholar,” etc. Also: “Idyls and Rhymes,” “Summer Songs,” and “The British Birds.”
No historian who has yet written has shown such familiarity with the facts of English history, no matter what the subject in hand may be: the extinction of villeinage, the Bloody Assizes, the appearance of the newspaper, the origin of the national debt, or the state of England in 1685. Macaulay is absolutely unrivaled in the art of arranging and combining his facts, and of presenting in a clear and vigorous narrative the spirit of the epoch he treats. Nor should we fail to mention that both Essays and History abound in remarks, general observations, and comment always clear, vigorous, and shrewd, and in the main very just.
“Library of the World’s Best Literature,” ed., Warner, p. 9386.—John Bach McMaster.
John Bach McMaster, a renowned American historian, was born at Brooklyn, N. Y., June 29, 1852. He has written: “Brief History of the United States,” “Cambridge Modern History,” “A Primary School History of the United States,” “Daniel Webster,” “The Struggle for the Social, Political and Industrial Rights of Man,” “Life and Times of Stephen Girard,” and his most famous work, “History of the People of the United States.”
Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?
“The Fair Penitent,” Act III, Sc. I,—Nicholas Rowe.
Nicholas Rowe, a distinguished English dramatist and poet-laureate, was born at Little Barford, Bedfordshire, June 30 (?), 1674, and died December 6, 1718. He is best known as the translator of Lucan’s “Pharsalia.” He was the author of many successful plays, the most popular being: “Tamerlane,” “The Fair Penitent,” “Jane Shore,” and “Lady Jane Grey.”
Why thus longing, thus forever sighing
For the far-off, unattained, and dim,
While the beautiful all round thee lying
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?
“Why thus Longing?”—Harriet Winslow Sewall.
Harriet (Winslow) Sewall, a noted American poet, was born at Portland, Me., June 30, 1819, and died at Wellesley, Mass., February, 1889. “Poems, with a Memoir,” was published in 1889.