imaginative type would not be expected in such quantity and of such fine merit as in an age when more of the people were dreamers. It is possible, however, for elegance of diction to unite with the practical, truth-loving spirit of the times and produce an artistic and at the same time didactic poetry as far removed from the monotony of some of Wordsworth's duller poems as it is from the sickly sentimentalism of another epoch. Lyric poetry has some of its fine examples in this age and the drama alone is seriously inferior to that of the Elizabethan epoch. A few great names there are and a multitude of lesser ones whose place in the great world of letters cannot be fixed with certainty till the years have given perspective to their work. This brief summary of the times paves the way for the more detailed study of the men whose work is regarded greatest. So diversified has been the literary product and so numerous the excellent writers that it will be better to follow a classification than treat everything in a purely chronological order. Charles SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY Greatest among his contemporaries was Charles Darwin (1809-1882) whose minute research, clear intellectual insight, and wonderful power of logical reasoning enabled him to propose and sustain theories of evolution and Science and Philosopby development that have changed the philosophy of the world. At first his views were greeted with intense hostility by religious men who saw in what he advocated the most direct contradiction of their traditional opinions. That "All organic beings have descended from some one primordial form into which life was first breathed" would seem to substitute natural causes for divine interference and thereby destroy the foundation of scriptural revelation. But, somewhat modified by the subsequent studies of other gifted men, his views are now generally accepted by most thinkers and the opposition that greeted his greatest works, the Origin of Species and Descent of Man has changed to an effort to adapt theological dogmas to the principles of an approved science. Herbert Herbert Spencer (1820-1895), the Spencer ablest of the evolutionist philosophers, constructed his system upon the same basis that Darwin used, but he carried the idea much further. He would show not only that have plants and animals grown and differentiated from one simple common ancestor, but that society, morality, and even religion have come about by the process of evolution. Thomas Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) may be ranked as the scientist who has done the most to bring an understanding of the new theories to the people at large. By means of popular essays and lectures he caught the attention of many hearers, and the profound theories of his day became the subject of daily conversation in thousands of homes. Science Effect of John Tyndall, Hugh Miller, John on Literature Stuart Mill and several others have thought, written and carried conviction to the minds of men. Considered as literature the work of these scientists and philosophers may never take the highest rank, but their influence upon literature has been so considerable that they rank as inspirers if not as creators. Both prose and poetry show the effect of the new light, but in a vastly different way. The prose writers accepted and advocated the scientific discoveries, or actively opposed them. Science was the subject under discussion. Fiction so far as it touched the subject at all did so in a way that brought out the struggle between the new and the old ideas and the triumph of the one was not more frequent than that of the other. It was the poet whose imagination was caught by the new theories and who often accepted them without discussion but with a keenness of insight that rarely led him into The poetry of the Victorian Age has not the lightsome gaiety of the earlier eras nor the plain simple acceptance of life as it appears upon the surface, that characterized the early Romanticists, but it often deals with the most serious problems of mind and soul, not always in a hopeful way. It is the influence of science, the influ error. Effect of Science on Literature ence of patient investigation and logical deduction that has wrought this change. Speaking upon this point, E. C. Stedman in his Victorian Poets says: "It follows that, in any discussion of the recent era, the scientific movement which has engrossed men's thoughts, and so radically affected their spiritual and material lives, assumes an importance equal to that of all other forces combined. The time has been marked by a stress of scientific iconoclasm. Its bearing upon theology was long since perceived, and the so-called conflict of Science with Religion is now at its full height. Its bearing upon poetry, through antagonism to the traditional basis of poetic diction, imagery, and thought, has been less distinctly stated. The stress has been vaguely felt by the poets themselves, but they are not given to formulating their sensations in the polemical manner of those trained logicians, the churchmen; and the attitude of the latter has so occupied our regard that few have paused to consider the real cause of the technical excellence and spiritual barrenness common in the modern arts of letter and design. Yet it is impossible, when we once set about to look over the field of late English verse not to see a question of the relations between Poetry and Science pressing for consideration at every turn and outpost. ... Every period, however original and creative, has a transitional aspect in its relation to the years before and after. In scien tific iconoclasm, then, we have the most important of the symptoms which mark the recent era a transition period, and presently shall observe features in the structure and composition of its poetry which justify us in thus ranking it. The Victorian poets have flourished in an equatorial region of common sense and demonstrable knowledge. Thought has outlived its childhood, yet has not reached a growth from which experience and reason lead to visions more radiant than the early intuitions. The zone of youthful fancy excited by unquestioning acceptance of outward phenomena, is now well passed; the zone of cultured imagination is still beyond us. At present skepticism, analysis, scientific conquest, realism, scornful unrest; Apollo has left the heavens. The modern child knows more than the sage of antiquity." HISTORY From the many historians of the age it is difficult to select any one as the greatest. Their characteristics are so varied and the subjects they treat so different that there is little ground for comparison. Four names are, however, more prominent than others and each of these four in his own particular way surpasses the others. James A. Froude (1818-1894) wrote a History of England which though sometimes inaccurate is regarded as one of the most interesting works on |