Chaunt I my lays;
Sorrowing tearfully,
Saddest of men,
Can I sing cheerfully,
As I could then?

Many a verity
In those glad times
Of my prosperity
Taught I in rhymes;
Now from forgetfulness
Wanders my tongue,
Wasting in fretfulness,
Metres unsung.

Worldliness brought me here
Foolishly blind,
Riches have wrought me here
Sadness of mind;
When I rely on them,
Lo! they depart,--
Bitterly, fie on them!
Rend they my heart.
Why did your songs to me,
World-loving men,
Say joy belongs to me
Ever as then?
Why did ye lyingly
Think such a thing,
Seeing how flyingly
Wealth may take wing?

Works of Alfred the Great, Jubilee Edition (Oxford and Cambridge, 1852).

CHARLES GRANT ALLEN

(1848-)

The Irish-Canadian naturalist, Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen, who
turns his industrious hand with equal facility to scientific writing, to
essays, short stories, botanical treatises, biography, and novels, is
known to literature as Grant Allen, as "Arbuthnot Wilson," and as
"Cecil Power."

His work may be divided into two classes: fiction and popular essays.
The first shows the author to be familiar with varied scenes and types,
and exhibits much feeling for dramatic situations. His list of novels is
long, and includes among others, 'Strange Stories,' 'Babylon,' 'This
Mortal Coil,' 'The Tents of Shem,' 'The Great Taboo,' 'Recalled to
Life,' 'The Woman Who Did,' and 'The British Barbarians.' In many of
these books he has woven his plots around a psychological theme; a proof
that science interests him more than invention. His essays are written
for unscientific readers, and carefully avoid all technicalities and
tedious discussions. Most persons, he says, "would much rather learn why
birds have feathers than why they have a keeled sternum, and they think
the origin of bright flowers far more attractive than the origin of
monocotyledonous seeds or esogenous stems."

Grant Allen was born in Kingston, Canada, February 24th, 1848. After
graduation at Merton College, Oxford, he occupied for four years the
chair of logic and philosophy at Queen's College, Spanish Town, Jamaica,
which he resigned to settle in England, where he now resides. Early in
his career he became an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and Herbert
Spencer, and published the attractive