age under care of the Rev. W. Johns of WAS the son of a linen-draper of Bris Manchester, he became in a few years a good general scholar. At fifteen, however, he quitted school for the dye-works of his mother's brother, M. Tavare, who was at that time settled in Manchester, but, abandoning that business, he joined the firm of Messrs. Lockett & Co., engravers, of Manchester, of whom he afterward purchased a branch of their business. A poem of his published in the Literary Gazette first attracted notice, and in due time he became pretty generally known to the public through the annuals and other periodicals. In 1827 he made his first independent adventure in a volume entitled Metrical Essays, the success of which encouraged him to renew the experiment. In 1831 he published The Mind, and Other Poems, a volume of which several editions have been exhausted. This poem gave him a position in modern poetical literature which he has fully maintained. It was followed by "Dryburgh Abbey" (1832), a (1832), a poem on the death of Sir Walter Scott. In 1847 appeared Mr. Swain's Dramatic Chapters, and Other Poems, a collection of sketches. In 1819 he published a volume of lyrics, under the title of English Melodies, and in 1853 The Letters of Laura d'Auverne, and Other Poems. In 1862 appeared Leonardo da Vinci, Giulio Romano and Other Art-Sketches. Several of his songs have been adapted to music. In America as well as in England frequent editions of his poems have been reprinted, and some of them have been translated into tol, where he was born, August 12, 1774; received his early education at Bristol, Corston and (from 1788 to 1792) Westminster; was admitted to Balliol College, Oxford, November 3, 1792 (his uncle, the Rev. Herbert Hill, intending him for the Church); went up to reside, January, 1793, and left in 1794, in which year he published Wat Tyler, a dramatic poem; was married to Miss Edith Fricker of Bristol, November 14, 1795, and on the same day started for Lisbon with his uncle, who was chaplain to the British factory at that place; returned to Bristol in the summer of 1796; removed to London in February, 1797; entered himself a student of Gray's Inn, and commenced the study of law, which he soon, however, relinquished; again visited Lisbon, and after his return became, in 1801, private secretary to Mr. Corry, chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland; resigned this office in a little over six months, and resolved to devote himself to literature, to which he had already made some published contributions; in 1804 established himself at Greta Hall, near Keswick, Cumberland, and there spent the remaining forty years of a most industrious life; lost his first wife, who had previously suffered for about three years under derangement, November 16, 1837; married Caroline Anne Bowles, June 5, 1839; shortly afterward sank into a state of mental imbecility, from which he never fully recovered, and died in his sixty-ninth year, March 21, 1843. In his youth he was for a short time "a liberal," both in politics and religion; his later opinfons respecting Church and State were of a very different cast. In 1807 he received for literary services a pension, of which the clear receipts—one hundred and forty-four pounds per annum-were appropriated to pay the premiums on his life insurance (he had previously been indebted to his friend C. W. W. Wynn for one hundred and sixty pounds per annum); on the death of Pye he was made poet-laureate; in 1821 he was honored by the University of Oxford with the degree of LL.D.; in 1835, by the good offices of Sir Robert Peel, he was placed upon the civil list for a pension of three hundred pounds, having previously declined a baronetcy; he was also returned to Parliament for the borough of Downton, but refused to serve. Greatly embarrassed for many years of his life by the res angusta domi, he was yet enabled by dint of strenuous exertion and provident foresight in his life insurance to leave to his heirs about twelve thousand pounds and a very valuable library, afterward sold at auction in London. S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE. JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT. THIS poet and essayist was born in Southgate, England, October 19, 1784. His father, the son of a West India clergyman, was for a time a lawyer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but left this country on account of his sympathies with the royal cause. Leigh Hunt was educated at Christ Church, and was a liberal in politics when, in England, to be a liberal was to be a martyr. In 1808 he became joint editor and proprietor of The Examiner, and for an attack in this paper on the prince regent, calling him "a fat Adonis of fifty," he was fined five hundred pounds. and imprisoned for two years. His persecution by the government brought him. hosts of friends, among whom were Byron, Moore and Shelley, thus making his jaillife one of pleasure rather than of punishment. He excelled especially in narrative poetry, and his story of "Rimini" is the most celebrated of his poems. His short poem "Abou ben Adhem" is the most widely known of all his productions. Literature, and not politics, was his true calling. "He was grave, just and pious; he had no vices, but many foibles." He was deeply indebted for assistance and true friendship to the poet Shelley and his family. He suffered from poverty during the most of his life, but the close of his days was made easy by a pension from the government of two hundred pounds per annum. His death occurred at Highgate, August 29, 1859. WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. H THE HESE authors were both of Quaker origin, and were united in matrimony in A. D. 1823. William, the husband. was born at Heanor, Derbyshire, England, in the year 1795. His wife, whose maidenname was Botham, was also born in England, at Uttoxeter, and was nine years younger than her husband. They were both distinguished and voluminous writers in prose and poetry, and united in the authorship of many of their works. One of their joint productions was the Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, containing a complete history of the literature of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. He died at Rome, March 3, 1879. I SEE THEM ON THEIR WINDING WAY. SEE them on their winding The rogue is growing a little old; And fainter, fainter, fainter still, The dim march warbles the hill. up Again, again, the pealing drum, The clashing horn: they come! they come! Forth, forth, and meet them on their way! REGINALD HEBER. THE VAGABONDS. WE are two travellers, Roger and I. No, thank ye, sir; I never drink: Roger and I are exceedingly moral.Aren't we, Roger ?-See him wink! Well, something hot, then we won't quarrel. He's thirsty, too; see him nod his head? Roger's my dog.-Come here, you The truth is, sir, now I reflect, scamp! Jump for the gentleman. Mind your eye! Over the table! Look out for the lamp!- I've been so sadly given to grog I wonder I've not lost the respect (Here's to you, sir!) even of my dog. Put up that paw! Dress! Take your rifle! If you had seen her, so fair and young, Some dogs have arms, you see.-Now Whose head was happy on this breast, you could have heard the songs I sung Ι When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed That ever I, sir, should be straying From door to door with fiddle and dog, She's married since-a parson's wife. 'Twas better for her that we should partBetter the soberest, prosiest life Than a blasted home and a broken heart. I have seen her? Once. I was weak and spent On the dusty road: a carriage stopped; |