a collection of verses,
misleadingly entitled _Poems by Two Brothers_, which appeared in 1826.
At Cambridge his _Timbuctoo_ won the chancellor's prize, but the first
proof of his powers was given by a volume of short poems published in
1830, followed by a similar volume two years later. By far the greater
part of his work lies in the next period, but the volume of 1833 already
included some of his best known poems.

Among minor poets of this period the highest rank must perhaps be
assigned to Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore as authors of some of the
most stirring and graceful lyrics in the English language. The former
had attained celebrity by the _Pleasures of Hope_, published before the
end of the eighteenth century, but his choicest poems, such as _Ye
Mariners of England_, the fine verses on Hohenlinden and Copenhagen, and
_Gertrude of Wyoming_, appeared between 1802 and 1809. The series of
Moore's Irish melodies, on which his poetical fame largely rests, was
begun in 1807, though not completed until long afterwards. They were
followed by other lyrical pieces of great merit, and by a series of
witty and malicious lampoons, collected in 1813 into a volume called the
_Twopenny Post Bag_. _Lalla Rookh_, his most ambitious effort, was not
published until 1817.

Two prose writers of the same epoch, Southey and Bentham, claim special
notice, though Southey may also be numbered among the poets. Having
established himself close to Keswick in 1804, he prosecuted a literary
career with the most untiring industry until his mental faculties at
last failed him some thirty-six years later. During this period he
produced above a hundred volumes in poetry and prose, besides numerous
scattered articles and other papers. Most of these were of merely
ephemeral interest, but the _Life of Nelson_, published in 1813, may be
said to have set a standard of simplicity, purity, and dignity in
English prose which has been of permanent value. Bentham's style, on the
contrary, was so wanting in beauty and perspicuity that one at least of
his chief works is best known to English readers in the admirable French
paraphrase of his friend Dumont. This is his famous _Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation_, in which the doctrines of the
utilitarian philosophy are rigorously applied to jurisprudence and the
regulation of human conduct. Several of his numerous treatises had been
planned, and others actually composed, before the end