Alfred Austin was a prolific author who produced more than twenty volumes of verse during the period 1854-1908. He was also a novelist, critic, and political journalist. He was an editor of the National Review (1883-1895) and succeeded Alfred, Lord Tennyson as poet laureate in 1896.

Born in Leeds of Roman Catholic parents, Joseph and Mary Austin, Austin was educated at Stoneyhurst College and Oscott College, University of London, which awarded him a B.A. in 1853. Austin trained as a lawyer but embarked on a literary career in 1858. He had already published Randolph: A Poem in Two Cantos (1855), and in 1858 a novel, Five Years of It , appeared. Although his first works were not well received, he continued to publish regularly during the next fifty years. As a political journalist, he was for thirty years (1866-1896) leader-writer for the London Standard, specializing in foreign affairs.

Austin's verse, though influenced by...