MORRIS.  William Morris (1834-1896) is a most interesting combination of literary man and artist.  In the latter capacity, as architect, designer, and manufacturer of furniture, carpets, and wall paper, and as founder of the Kelmscott Press for artistic printing and bookbinding, he has laid us all under an immense debt of gratitude.  From boyhood he had steeped himself in the legends and ideals of the Middle Ages, and his best literary work is wholly mediaeval in spirit. The Earthly Paradise (1868-1870) is generally regarded as his masterpiece.  This delightful collection of stories in verse tells of a roving band of Vikings, who are wrecked on the fabled island of Atlantis, and who discover there a superior race of men having the characteristics of ideal Greeks.  The Vikings remain for a year, telling stories of their own Northland, and listening to the classic and Oriental tales of their hosts.  Morris’s interest in Icelandic literature is further shown by his Sigurd the Volsung, an epic founded upon one of the old sagas, and by his prose romances, The House of the Wolfings, The Story of the Glittering Plain, and The Roots of the Mountains.  Later in life he became deeply interested in socialism, and two other romances, The Dream of John Ball and News from Nowhere, are interesting as modern attempts at depicting an ideal society governed by the principles of More’s Utopia.

SWINBURNE.  Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) is, chronologically, the last of the Victorian poets.  As an artist in technique—­having perfect command of all old English verse forms and a remarkable faculty for inventing new—­he seems at the present time to rank among the best in our literature.  Indeed, as Stedman says, “before his advent we did not realize the full scope of English verse.”  This refers to the melodious and constantly changing form rather than to the content of Swinburne’s poetry.  At the death of Tennyson, in 1892, he was undoubtedly the greatest living poet, and only his liberal opinions, his scorn of royalty and of conventions, and the prejudice aroused by the pagan spirit of his early work prevented his appointment as poet laureate.  He has written a very large number of poems, dramas, and essays in literary criticism; but we are still too near to judge of the permanence of his work or of his place in literature.  Those who would read and estimate his work for themselves will do well to begin with a volume of selected poems, especially those which show his love of the sea and his exquisite appreciation of child life.  His Atalanta in Calydon (1864), a beautiful lyric drama modeled on the Greek tragedy, is generally regarded as his masterpiece.  In all his work Swinburne carries Tennyson’s love of melody to an extreme, and often sacrifices sense to sound.  His poetry is always musical, and, like music, appeals almost exclusively to the emotions.

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