“WARD, ARTEMUS”, (see BROWN, C.F.).

WARD, ROBERT PLUMER (1765-1846).—­Novelist and politician, b. in London, ed. at Oxf., and called to the Bar 1790, held various political offices, and wrote some books on the law of nations; also three novels, Tremaine, or the Man of Refinement, full of prolix discussions; De Vere, or the Man of Independence, in which Canning is depicted under the character of Wentworth; and De Clifford, or the Constant Man.

WARD, WILLIAM GEORGE (1812-1882).—­Theologian, ed. at Winchester and Oxf., and came under the influence of J.H.  Newman, whose famous Tract No.  XC. he defended, and whom he followed into the Church of Rome.  In 1844 he pub. The Ideal of a Christian Church from the Romanist point of view, whence his soubriquet of “Ideal Ward.”  He was lecturer on Moral Philosophy at St. Edward’s Coll., Ware, and wrote various treatises on controversial theology.

WARDLAW, ELIZABETH, LADY (1677-1727).—­Poetess, dau. of Sir Charles Halkett of Pitfirrane, and wife of Sir Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie, is believed to have written the pseudo-ancient ballad of “Hardyknute.”  The ballad of “Sir Patrick Spens” and others have also, but doubtfully, been attributed to her.

WARNER, SUSAN (1819-1885).—­Writer of tales, b. at New York, and wrote, under the name of “Elizabeth Wetherell,” a number of stories, of which The Wide, Wide World (1851) had an extraordinary popularity.  Others were Queechy (1852), The Old Helmet (1863), and Melbourne House (1864).  They have no particular literary merit or truth to nature, and are rather sentimental and “gushy.”

WARNER, WILLIAM (1558-1609).—­Poet, b. in London or Yorkshire, studied at Oxf., and was an attorney in London.  In 1585 he pub. a collection of seven tales in prose entitled Pan his Syrinx, and in 1595 a translation of the Menaechmi of Plautus.  His chief work was Albion’s England, pub. in 1586 in 13 books of fourteen-syllabled verse, and republished with 3 additional books in 1606.  The title is thus explained in the dedication, “This our whole island anciently called Britain, but more anciently Albion, presently containing two kingdoms, England and Scotland, is cause ... that to distinguish the former, whose only occurrants I abridge from our history, I entitle this my book Albion’s England.”  For about 20 years it was one of the most popular poems of its size—­it contains about 10,000 lines—­ever written, and he and Spenser were called the Homer and Virgil of their age.  They must, however, have appealed to quite different classes.  The plain-spoken, jolly humour, homely, lively, direct tales, vigorous patriotic feeling, and rough-and-tumble metre of Warner’s muse, and its heterogeneous accumulation of material—­history, tales, theology, antiquities—­must have appealed to a lower and wider audience than Spenser’s charmed verse.  The style is clear, spirited, and pointed, but, as has been said, “with all its force and vivacity ... fancy at times, and graphic descriptive power, it is poetry with as little of high imagination in it as any that was ever written.”  In his narratives W. allowed himself great latitude of expression, which may partly account for the rapidity with which his book fell into oblivion.