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guished men who formed Burke's circle of friends, Thurlow, Fox, Reynolds, Johnson, and others. By these means, he obtained ecclesiastical patronage, and a recognition of his literary merits. The Library, which first appeared, was favorably received, and brought him substantial returns. After several changes in his clerical position, he finally settled down in a pleasant country parish in Wiltshire.

Works. The first poem that obtained a marked success was The Village. It con tained vivid descriptions of scenes among the poor, such as he himself had been familiar with, and it was instantly and thoroughly popular. After that, whatever he produced was in demand. His other poems are: The Parish Register, The Borough, Tales in Verse, and Tales of the Hall. On bringing out the one last named, Murray the publisher gave him for it, and for the unexpired term of the former copyrights, the sum of £3000. Mr. Crabbe had naturally a cheerful disposition, and the close of his life was calm and peaceful.

The chief characteristic of his poetry is the extreme accuracy of the descriptions, and his partiality for subjects which are in themselves dull and even forbidding. He was undoubtedly a poet of great power and even, at times, of tenderness, but his pathos is usually linked to something coarse and humiliating. The reader is affected but he is not drawn to read a second time.

Heber.

Reginald Heber, D. D., 1783-1826, is justly celebrated for his noble work as a missionary Bishop in India, and for his missionary hymn, "From Greenland's icy mountains."

Career. Heber was educated at Oxford, where he was distinguished for his classical scholarship, and for the elegance of his English style. His learning, accomplishments, and genius would have insured him high preferment in the church, had he remained at home. In accepting the Bishopric at Calcutta, he was influenced by the true self-denying spirit of a Christian minister, and he entered upon its duties with the greatest zeal. He died in India, at the early age of forty-three.

Works. -The following are his principal works: Palestine, a Poem, which gained a prize at Oxford, while the author was a student there; Europe, Lines on the Present War, 1809; Hymns, adapted to the Weekly Church Service; A Journey through India, 2 vols., 4to: Sermons, several volumes. Bishop Heber was one of the most accomplished and scholarly divines that the Church of England has produced in modern times. His one Missionary Hymn, however, will survive all else that he wrote or did, and will carry his memory to the latest generation.

"Fine as some of these (Oxford) prize poems have unquestionably been, more espe cially Porteus's Death, Glynn's Day of Judgment, Grant's Restoration of Learning, and Wrangham's Holy Land, still, it is doubtful whether Heber has been equalled either by any preceding or succeeding competitor. It is admirably sustained throughout; and indeed the passages relating to the building of the Temple, and to the scenes on Calvary, pass from the magnificent almost into the sublime."- Moir.

"These Hymns have been by far the most popular of his productions, and deservedly so; for in purity and elevation of sentiment, in simple pathos, and in eloquent earnestness, it would be difficult to find anything superior to them in the range of lyric poetry. They have the home-truth of Watts, but rank much higher as literary compositions than the Moral and Divine Songs of that great benefactor of youth; and all the devotion of Wesley or Keble, without their language and diffuse verbosity. Heber always writes like a Christian scholar, and never finds it necessary to lower his tone on account of his subject."— Moir.

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"This is another book for Englishmen to be proud of. He surveys everything with the vigilance and delight of a cultivated and most active intellect,-with the eye of an artist, an antiquary, and a naturalist, — the feelings and judgment of an English gentleman and scholar, the sympathies of a most humane and generous man, and the piety, charity, and humility of a Christian. Independently of its moral attraction, we are induced to think it, on the whole, the most instructive and important publication that has ever been given to the world on the actual state and condition of our Indian Empire.". Lord Jeffrey.

Hogg.

JAMES HOGG, 1770-1835, is known as

"The Ettrick Shepherd."

Hogg was born in a cottage on the banks of the Ettrick River in Selkirkshire, Scotland. The only regular education that the young poet received was six months' schooling before he was eight years old. His early life he passed as a shepherd in the service of Mr. Laidlaw. Some of his poenis happening to fall into the hands of Sir Walter Scott, attracted that author's attention. One of his songs, Donald McDonald, was set to music and was widely spread. He also contributed to Sir Walter Scott's Border Minstrelsy.

In 1813 Hogg published his most celebrated work, The Queen's Wake, a collection of seventeen ballads, and subsequently a number of scattered pieces. He also wrote several stories in prose, the principal of which is the Brownie of Bodstock, and he projected a series of Altrive peasant tales, only one volume of which was published. Like Burns, Hogg was at one time the lion of Scotch society. The latter part of his life was spent in rustic retirement. Hogg's poetry has received its full measure of praise, and although no longer the fashion is still much read and enjoyed. The poems are by no means equal in execution, but those that are good are very good -the sparkling emanations of a pure poetic fancy.

Bloomfield.

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, 1766-1823, an unlettered shoemaker, while working in a garret with six or seven others, composed a poem, The Farmer's Boy, which set all England ablaze, and made its author, for the time, "the observed of all observers."

In three years, twenty-six thousand copies of The Farmer's Boy were sold,—an enormous sale for those days,-and the book was reprinted on the continent, besides being translated into French, Italian, and Latin. He could at first find no publisher for it, but succeeded at length through the patronage of Capel Lofft, a man of wealth as well as of letters, who saw the merits of the work.

Relieved from the necessities of manual labor, Bloomfield devoted himself to author ship, and produced several other works, but none equal to his first. Among them Rurai Tales, Ballads and Songs; Good Tidings, or News from the Farm; Wild Flow ers; Banks of the Wye; May-Day with the Muses.

The verdict of the critics as to the merits of The Farmer's Boy has been almost unanimous. Of our uneducated poets, who have risen to fame, he stands next probably to Burns, though certainly at a long distance below Burns. "In true pastoral imagery and simplicity, I do not think any production can be put in competition with it since the days of Theocritus."- Dr. Nathan Drake. "The Farmer's Boy is by far the best written, as to style and composition, of any of the works of our un educated poets. The melody of the versification is often exceedingly beautiful."Blackwood.

Bloomfield is not much read now. The quiet scenes of country life which he describes are too tame to suit the present taste. Besides, the universal and romantic circumstances attending his introduction to the literary world led naturally, for a time, to an exaggerated estimate. His work was compared, not with the great works of all time, but with what might be expected from a poor, uneducated laborer, working in his garret in the daily toil and struggle for bread.

Pollok.

ROBERT POLLOK, 1799-1827, acquired for a time a prodigious reputation by his poem, The Course of Time.

Pollok was a native of Scotland. He studied at the University of Glasgow, and was about entering the ministry when cut down by disease, brought on by excessive study. Pollok is the author of three stories, collected under the name of the Tales of the Covenanters, now but little read, and of The Course of Time, a poem which has been widely spread throughout Scotland and America.

The Course of Time.- This poem was at one time a great favorite, and is still read and admired by many. The commonly received opinion is that it has many good and even brilliant passages, but that, as a whole, it is weak in conception, and weak in execution. It is the work of an immature mind. In passing judgment upon The Course of Time, however, it should be kept in mind that its author died too young to reach maturity. For one of his age it is certainly a remarkable production, leaving on the mind of the reader a deep regret that Pollok could not have attained to full development.

JOHN FINLAY, 1782-1810, a poet of some note, was born in Glasgow, and studied at the University there.

Finlay died young. He wrote Wallace, or the Vale of Ellerslie; Scottish Historical and Romantic Ballads; Life of Cervantes. "His chief poem, Wallace, which was written at the age of nineteen, is doubtless an imperfect composition; but it displays a wonderful power of versification, and contains many splendid descriptions of external nature. It possesses both the merits and defects which we look for in the early compositions of true genius. The collection of Historical and Romantic Ballads entitles Finlay to a place among Scottish antiquaries, and to follow those of Walter Scott and Robert Jamieson."- Blackwood.

JEREMIAH HOLME WIFFIN, 1792-1836, was a member of the Society of Friends. He

was born at Woburn, Bedfordshire. After teaching school for several years, he became librarian to the Duke of Bedford, and continued in that position till his death. He was a poet, and a diligent student of the poetry of Spain and Italy. He published Aonian Hours and Other Poems; Julian Alpinula, the Captive of Stamboul; The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega, translated into English verse, with a critical and historical essay on Spanish poetry; Jerusalem Delivered, a translation from the Italian of Tasso in Spenserian stanza. "The best scholar among a' the Quakers is Friend Wiffin, a capital translator, Sir Walter tells me, o' poets wi' foreign tongues, sic as Tawso, and wi' an original vein, too, sir, which has produced, as I opine, some verra pure ore."-The Ettrick Shepherd in Noctes Ambros.

WILLIAM SOTHEBY, 1757-1833, was a native of London. He was educated at Harrow; entered the royal army, but resigned in 1780. Sotheby was a man of high literary and general culture, genial in his manners, and possessed of ample means to gratify his hospitable tastes.

Sotheby's talent might be called imitative rather than original. Not that he was ever guilty of literary theft, but that he succeeded better in his translations than in his original pieces. The latter are numerous and smoothly written. He published a volume of poetry descriptive of a tour through Wales, The Battle of the Nile, Cuzco, Julian and Agnes, Constance of Castile, Five Tragedies, and one or two other poetical works or dramatic works, which were well received on the occasion of their appearance, but which are now little read.

Sotheby's translations are still in favor. They comprise Wieland's Oberon (much praised by the author), Virgil's Georgics, Specimens from Homer, and afterwards the entire Iliad and Odyssey. He also published Virgil's Georgics in a six-language edition, namely, in the original, and in Italian, Spanish, German, French, and English translations. Sotheby is a careful translator, adhering closely to the original, but occasionally becoming stiff. It may be doubted, however, whether the English language has in the main any better renderings of such originals as Homer, Virgil, and Wieland than those contributed by Sotheby.

Bowles.

REV. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, 1762-1850, published in 1793 a small volume of Sonnets, only fourteen in number, which, besides being exquisitely beautiful in themselves, had the honor of contributing materially to mould the poetry of the three great masters, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth.

source.

Coleridge, whose first poetic impulses were in a false direction, acknowledged himself to have been withdrawn from his errors by his admiration for the tender and manly beauty of these poems. Southey acknowledges his obligation to the same "We have ourselves heard from Wordsworth's own lips, that he got posses. sion of the same Sonnets one morning when he was setting out with some friends on a pedestrian tour from London; and that so captivated was he with their beauty that he retreated into one of the recesses in Westminster Bridge, and could not be induced to rejoin his companions till he had finished them."- Gent. Mag.

"The Sonnets of Bowles may be reckoned among the first fruits of a new era in poetry.... In these Sonnets there was observed a grace of expression, a musical versification, and especially an air of melancholy tenderness, so congenial to the poetical temperament, which still, after sixty years of a more propitious period than that

which immediately preceded their publication, procures for their author a highly respectable position among our authors."- Henry Hallam.

Mr. Bowles published, at different times, a good deal, both prose and verse. One of his publications, an edition of Pope, led to a warm literary controversy. In his notes upon Pope, Mr. Bowles insisted strongly on the descriptive in poetry as being an essential element. To one of his dogmas, especially that "all images drawn from what is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature, are more beautiful and sublime than any images drawn from art; and that they are therefore per se more poetical," Campbell and Byron took strong exceptions, Byron replying that a ship in the wind, with all sail set, is a more poetical object than a hog in the wind, though the hog is all nature, and the ship all art. The controversy growing out of this edition of Pope, and Campbell's strictures upon it in his Specimens of the Poets, lasted for many years.

Mr. Bowles published Ten Plain Parochial Sermons; Paulus Parochialis, a series of sermons on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, suited to country congregations; The Life of Bishop Ken; Little Villager's Verse-Book; Cottage Hymns, and numerous other poems. The Little Villager's Verse-Book is highly praised. “One of the sweetest and best little publications in the English language.”— Lit. Gazette.

ALEXANDER BALFOUR, 1767-1829, a clerk in the publishing house of Mr. Blackwood, Edinburgh, was an author of some note. He wrote: Campbell, or the Scottish Probationer; Contemplation and Other Poems; The Foundling of Glenthorn; and Highland Mary. He contributed also to the Edinburgh Review.

GEORGE COLMAN, JR., 1752-1836, was, like his father of the same name, an educated professional dramatist. His plays were numerous, and had a marked success. Some of the most noted were The Iron Chest, John Bull, and Broad Grins. "Few books have caused more loud laughter than the Broad Grins of George Colman the younger; it is a happy union of mirth and the muse, and good jokes are related in so agreeable and facetious a manner that they can scarcely be forgotten."- Literary Chronicle.

JAMES BOADEN, 1762-1839, was a dramatic writer, and was connected also with the drama by his intimacy with John Philip Kemble. Boaden wrote a number of Plays, seven of which are enumerated by Watt; he wrote also Biographies of Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, and Mrs. Jordan; A Critical Notice of the Papers of Shakespeare published by Ireland; and An Inquiry into the Authenticity of the various Pictures of Shakespeare which have been published.

JOHN O'KEEFE, 1747-1833, of Irish descent, was a voluminous playwright. Some of his plays are still performed, such as Tony Lumpkin in Town, Wild Oats, Love in a Camp, etc. In 1826 he published his Recollections of My Life. After his death appeared a small volume of poems from his pen, under the name of O'Keefe's Legacy to his Daughters.

SAMUEL J. ARNOLD,

1852, son of the celebrated musical composer, Samuel Arnold, was the author of a large number of dramatic pieces, running from 1794 to 1×10. The following are attributed to him: Auld Robin Gray, Who Pays the Reckoning? Shipwreck, Irish Legacy, Veteran Tar, Foul Deeds will Rise, Prior Claim, Up all Night, Britain's Jubilee, Man and Wife, The Maniac, Plots.

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