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be thought a hundred years hence, to have been the truest expression in verse of the moral and intellectual tendencies of the period in which he lived." Clough was the son of a cotton merchant of Liverpool, and he was a pupil of Dr Arnold at Rugby. He gained a Balliol scholarship, and went into residence in 1837. The coming years brought doubts and distractions, religious and political, and Clough parted from Oxford. His most famous poem, "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich," was published in 1848. In 1852 he sailed to Boston in the same ship that carried Thackeray and Lowell. Emerson, who had met him in England, welcomed him there. Travelling through Europe for his health, he died of paralysis in Florence in 1861.[6]

      The catalogue of great English poets of the period is completed with the names of Rossetti and Morris. Perhaps there is no more romantic figure in modern literature than Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828-1882, although he has suffered cruelly from the biographer. His father, Gabriele, was an Italian exile, a critic of Dante, a teacher of Italian in London. His mother was a sister of the notorious Polidori, whose charlatanry is remembered wherever an interest in Lord Byron prevails.

      The younger Rossetti had relatives—a brother, William Michael, who has written verses, criticisms, and a ponderous biography of Gabriel; and a sister, Maria Francesca Rossetti 1827-1876, whose "Shadow of Dante" makes good reading for admirers of the great Florentine, and, indeed, may be recommended to every English student of Dante. Another sister, Christina Georgina Rossetti 1830-1894, wrote many books. She will live by her "Goblin Market" (1862), and by numerous short poems. Books of the type of "Called to be Saints" and "The Face of the Deep: A Commentary on the Revelation," have also won her much affection and admiration from religious sympathisers. She was not responsible for "Maude" and "New Poems," inadequate works which her brother thought fit to publish after her death. They are practically worthless.

      Dante Rossetti was a considerable painter as well as a poet. His name is written large in that pre-Raphaelite movement which gave him for associates Mr Holman Hunt and Sir John Millais. The movement, which had Mr John Ruskin for its literary champion, when reduced to simple statement, meant a harking back to early mediæval art. Sir John Millais and Mr Holman Hunt speedily abandoned this position, and Rossetti himself was never a pre-Raphaelite in any real sense. The pre-Raphaelites issued in 1850 a journal under the editorship of Rossetti's brother, and to the Germ, as it was called, Rossetti contributed his poem, "The Blessed Damozel," and a story, "Hand and Soul." To the Germ also, Thomas Woolner (1825-1892), the sculptor, contributed the poems of "My Beautiful Lady."

      One epoch in the life of Rossetti was his introduction to Mr Ruskin, and another was his first acquaintance with William Morris. Ruskin bought his pictures with characteristic generosity, and further assisted Rossetti to publish "The Early Italian Poets" (1861), afterwards reprinted as "Dante and his Circle" (1874). William Morris introduced Rossetti to his Oxford friends, including Mr Swinburne, and to the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, in which many of his finest poems were published. After his wife's death, from an overdose of laudanum in 1862, Rossetti moved to Queen's House, Cheyne Walk, where for a time he had for associates in payment of rent Mr Swinburne and Mr George Meredith, though the latter never actually lived in the house. From that time to his death he published many important poems—ballads of singular power like "The White Ship," "The King's Tragedy," and "Sister Helen," and the many splendid sonnets of "The House of Life." The two volumes of Rossetti's collected works must always command readers. Rossetti died at Birchington-on-Sea, and a simple tomb in the churchyard marks his grave.

      The name of William Morris1834-1896 closes the list of Victorian poets of the first rank. Morris was as versatile as Rossetti. He touched many branches of Art with remarkable success. Now he was designing wall-papers, and became a successful manufacturer in this branch of commerce: now he was indefatigable in printing notable books in English literature from a type which he had himself selected. The wall-paper has given a new direction to the decoration of English houses, and the Kelmscott Press has added many beautiful books to our libraries, and given an impetus to a revival of taste in printing. This was but a part of Morris's life. Although a rich man, he was a vigorous lecturer on behalf of Socialism, and wrote many books, such as, for example: "The Dream of John Ball" (1888), and "News from Nowhere" (1891), in support of his ideals. From the appearance of his "Defence of Guenevere" (1858), and "Life and Death of Jason" (1867), he was always publishing, and his translations from Homer, Virgil, and Scandinavian literature make a small library by themselves. But a practical handbook to Victorian literature needs but to mention one of his books. "The Earthly Paradise" (1868-70), will live as long as a love of good story-telling remains to us. The tales are told by twenty-four travellers who desire to find the earthly paradise, and the book opens as do the Canterbury Tales with a Prologue. The lyrical introduction is one of the most quotable things in our later literature:—

      "Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,

      I cannot ease the burden of your fears,

      Or make quick-coming death a little thing,

      Or bring again the pleasure of past years,

      Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,

      Or hope again for aught that I can say,

      The idle singer of an empty day.

      "Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,

      Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?

      Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme

      Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,

      Telling a tale not too importunate

      To those who in the sleepy region stay,

      Lulled by the singer of an empty day.

      "Folk say, a wizard to a Northern King

      At Christmastide such wondrous things did show

      That through one window men beheld the Spring,

      And through another saw the Summer glow,

      And through a third the fruited vines arow,

      While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,

      Piped the drear wind of that December day."

      William Morris has not seldom been confused with a writer with whom he had nothing in common but the name. Sir Lewis Morris1833-, a Welsh squire, and candidate for Parliament, has stood for convention as decisively as William Morris has stood against it. His "Songs of Two Worlds" (1871-5), and "Epic of Hades" (1876), brought him a considerable popularity, which "A Vision of Saints," and later books have not been able to maintain. Another literary knight of our time who has secured a large share of public attention through his verse is Sir Edwin Arnold1832-, whose "Light of Asia" interpreted to many the story of Buddha's career. A poem upon Christ and Christianity "The Light of the World," owed the fact of its smaller success to the greater familiarity of the public with its main incidents. Sir Edwin Arnold has won other laurels as a traveller and as a journalist.

      Some of the best poetry of the era has been produced by writers whose principal achievements are in the realm of prose. The Brontës, Charles Kingsley, George Meredith, and George Eliot—to name but a few—all wrote verse which must ultimately have secured attention had they not made great reputations as novelists.

      Assuredly, the three most successful poems in Victorian literature, of that portion of it which is already passing into oblivion, are "Proverbial Philosophy," "Festus," and "Philip Van Artevelde." The "Proverbial Philosophy" of Martin Farquhar Tupper1810-1889 created an excitement in literary and non-literary circles, which it is difficult for the present generation to comprehend. It is true that when it was first published, in 1838, it was greeted by the Athenaeum as "a book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's." In spite of this, it sold in thousands and hundreds of thousands; it went through over nine hundred editions in England, and five hundred thousand copies at least were sold in America. It was translated into French, German, and many other tongues; its author was a popular hero, although of his later books, including

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