A poet whose verse was admired by critics as discerning and various as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Robert Bridges, and whose life and art represent a bridge between the Pre-Raphaelite movement and the art of Hopkins demands some attention from the student of poetry, but Dixon is also a historian of note, and the letters with which he comforted and encouraged Hopkins in that poet's dry time are a significant indirect contribution to English poetry.

Born in Islington, Richard Watson Dixon was the son of Dr. James Dixon and the grandson of the Rev. Richard Watson, two of the greatest Methodist leaders of the nineteenth century. Because Dixon's family was of the early school of Methodists who did not leave the Church of England, he was confirmed in the Church of England. His mother, the third wife of Dr. James Dixon, has...