tions_ and numerous other works mark
him as one of our best literary critics; and Leslie Stephen, famous for his
work on the monumental _Dictionary of National Biography_, and for his
_Hours in a Library_, a series of impartial and excellent criticisms,
brightened by the play of an original and delightful humor.

Among the most famous writers of the age are the scientists, Lyell, Darwin,
Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Wallace,--a wonderful group of men whose
works, though they hardly belong to our present study, have exercised an
incalculable influence on our life and literature. Darwin's _Origin of
Species_ (1859), which apparently established the theory of evolution, was
an epoch-making book. It revolutionized not only our conceptions of natural
history, but also our methods of thinking on all the problems of human
society. Those who would read a summary of the greatest scientific
discovery of the age will find it in Wallace's _Darwinism_,--a most
interesting book, written by the man who claims, with Darwin, the honor of
first announcing the principle of evolution. And, from a multitude of
scientific works, we recommend also to the general reader Huxley's
_Autobiography_ and his _Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews_, partly
because they are excellent expressions of the spirit and methods of
science, and partly because Huxley as a writer is perhaps the clearest and
the most readable of the scientists.

THE SPIRIT OF MODERN LITERATURE. As we reflect on the varied work of the
Victorian writers, three marked characteristics invite our attention.
First, our great literary men, no less than our great scientists, have made
truth the supreme object of human endeavor. All these eager poets,
novelists, and essayists, questing over so many different ways, are equally
intent on discovering the truth of life. Men as far apart as Darwin and
Newman are strangely alike in spirit, one seeking truth in the natural, the
other in the spiritual history of the race. Second, literature has become
the mirror of truth; and the first requirement of every serious novel or
essay is to be true to the life or the facts which it represents. Third,
literature has become animated by a definite moral purpose. It is not
enough for the Victorian writers to create or attempt an artistic work for
its own sake; the work must have a definite lesson for humanity. The poets
are not only singers, but leaders; they hold up an ideal, and they compel
men to recogn