ng 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