pleasure and profit, the gay and the grave, the poetry and the prose, singing and sermonizing."

We have also glimpses of Carlyle, brief criticisms of Tennyson and Dickens and appreciations of Thackeray, as well as some references to Edgar A. Poe, one of the first of critics to recognize Miss Barrett's genius.

In one of her letters Miss Barrett gives an exquisite autobiographical sketch of her childhood and early reading. After describing her studies and her disposition to versify, she goes on:

As to the gods and goddesses, I believed in them all quite seriously and reconciled them to Christianity, which I believed in, too, after a fashion, as some greater philosophers have done—and went out one day with my pinafore full of little sticks (and a match from the housemaid's cupboard) to sacrifice to blue-eyed Minerva, who was my favorite goddess, on the whole, because she cared for Athens. As soon as I began to doubt about my goddesses I fell into a vague sort of general skepticism, and, though I went on saying the Lord's prayer at nights and mornings, and the "Bless all my kind friends" afterward by the childish custom, yet I ended this liturgy with a supplication which I found in " King's Memoirs' and which took my fancy and met my general views exactly: "O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul." Perhaps the theology of many thoughtful children is scarcely more orthodox than this; but indeed it is wonderful to myself sometimes how I came to escape, on the whole, as well as I have done. .. Papa used to say: "Don't read Gibbon's History--it's not a proper book. Don't read Tom

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Jones' and none of the books on this side, mind." So I was very obedient and never touched the books on that side, and only read instead Tom Paine's "Age of Reason" and Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary" and Hume's "Essays " and 'Werther" and Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft, books which I was never suspected of looking toward and which were not on "that side" certainly, but which did as well.

One could quote from these delightful letters without end. They form an authentic part of the lives of the Brownings that every lover of their poetry should read.

RICHARD HENGIST HORNE.

(1803-1884.)

In reading the published letters of the Brownings one frequently comes across the name of Richard Henry Horne, who was their friend and correspondent and most highly esteemed by both. He was also a poet, and, if one chooses to inquire, he was among the greatest of the Victorian poets. Yet he is now quite obscure, unknown possibly to thousands with whom the names of the Brownings and Tennyson are household words. He was not only a poet, but remarkable in other ways, having led an adventurous life in many parts of the world, being notable for his feats of strength. He was a daring swimmer. Could bend a poker by striking it against his forearm, and danced and played and sung up to his eightieth year. He fought for Mexican independence in 1820 as a midshipman in the Mexican Navy, and took part in the capture of Vera Cruz. After the war

he traveled northward through the United States, or rather the Western territories, and had many adventures among the Indians. In going through Canada he stopped at Niagara Falls, where he performed some foolhardy exploits that resulted in his breaking two of his ribs. He was shipwrecked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on his voyage home to England on a merchant ship the crew mutinied and fired the ship in midocean. He finally reached London, and in 1833, when he was in his thirtieth year, commenced his literary career. He became the friend and companion of literary men-Leigh Hunt, Carlyle, Tennyson, the Brownings, Dickens, Walter Savage Landor, Bulwer, G. P. R. James, George Henry Lewis and all the writers of his time best worth knowing.

Carlyle said "the fire of the stars was in him,” and Lewis declared him to be a man of the most unquestioned genius.

His first play was entitled "Cosmo de Medici," a historical tragedy that met with fair success on the stage and very high praise from the critics. It is a better reading play than an acting one. His second venture, a single act play, "The Death of Marlowe," has been considered almost Shakespearian in its power and was received with

immense praise. "Gregory VII." was another tragedy that was well liked by the reading public, but Macready declined to produce it on the stage. His most popular work of this period, however, was a series of essays called "A New Spirit of the Age," after the manner of Hazlitt, in which he discusses the prominent writers of the time. Among the celebrities criticised are Carlyle, Macaulay, Tennyson, Elizabeth B. Barrett, Robert Browning, Leigh Hunt, Charles Dickens, Macready, Thomas Hood, Theodore Hook, Sydney Smith, Mrs. Shelley, G. P. R. James, and quite a number of others still more or less remembered. These essays are for the most part appreciations, though the criticism is discriminating. They are written in a vivacious and easy style and are still very interesting to the general reader.

In 1843 he published “Orion, an Epic Poem in Three Books." It was in pamphlet form and was sold for a farthing, "a price placed upon it" said the author, "as a sarcasm upon the low estimation into which epic poetry has fallen." It is related that one day when the author was sitting in the publisher's shop a boy came in and throwing down a penny, called for "a penny's worth of epics." The poem proved to be im