1. POETRY.--Matthew Arnold (b. 1822) has written some of the most refined
verse of our day, and among critics holds the first rank. Algernon
Swinburne (b. 1837) excels all living poets in his marvelous gift of
rhythm and command over the resources of the language. Dante Rossetti (d.
1883) had great lyrical power; Robert Buchanan has large freedom and
originality of style; Edwin Arnold has extraordinary popularity in the
United States for his remarkable poem, "The Light of Asia," and for other
poems on Oriental subjects; Lord Lytton ("Owen Meredith") has a place of
honor among poets as the author of "Lucile" and other poems; William
Morris writes in the choicest fashion of romantic narrative verse. Among
other poets of the present generation whose writings are marked by
excellences of various kinds are Edmund Gosse, Austin Dobson, Cosmo
Monkhonse, Andrew Lang, Philip Marston, and Arthur O'Shaughnessy.
The poems of Jean Ingelow have a merited popularity; those of Adelaide
Procter (d. 1864) are pervaded by a beautiful spirit of faith and hope;
Christina Rossetti shows great originality and deep and serious feeling.
The lyrics and dramas of Augusta Webster are marked by strength and
breadth of thought; the ballads, sonnets, and other poems of Mary Robinson
show that she possesses the true gift of song.
2. FICTION.--The writings of Mrs. Lewes, "George Eliot" (1815-1880), are
the work of a woman of rare genius, and place her among the greatest
novelists England has produced. They are in sympathy with all the
varieties of human character, and written in a spirit of humanity that is
allied with every honest aspiration.
Anthony Trollope (d. 1884) has produced many works remarkable for their
accurate pictures of English life and character. George Macdonald and
Wilkie Collins are novelists of great merit, as are William Black, Richard
Blackmore, Mrs. Oliphant, Edmund Yates, Justin McCarthy.
3. SCIENCE.--Herbert Spencer (b. 1820) as early as 1852 advanced the
theory of the natural and gradual coalition of organic life upon this
globe. In 1855, in his "Principles of Psychology," he gave a new
exposition of the laws of mind, based upon this principle, and held that
it is by experience, registered in the slowly perfecting nervous system,
that the mental faculties have been gradually evolved through long courses
of descent, each generation inheriting all that had been previously
gained, and adding its own increment to the sum of progress; that all
knowledge, and even the faculties of knowing, originate in experience, but
that the primary elements of thought are _a priori_ intuitions to the
individual derived from ancestral experience. Thus the intuitional and
experience hypotheses, over which philosophers had so long disputed, were
here for the first time reconciled. This work, the first permanent
scientific result of the application of the law of evolution, formed a
turning-point in the thought of the scientific world. Spencer's prospectus
of a philosophical system, in which the principles of evolution were
applied to the subjects of life, mind, society, and morals, appeared in
1858, maturely elaborated in its scientific proofs and applications, thus
preceding the works of other evolutionary writers, the most distinguished
of whom, Charles Darwin (1809-1883), has been more identified in the
popular mind with the theories of evolution than Spencer himself. The
writings of Darwin have had a wider influence and have been the subject of
more controversy than those of any other contemporary writer. In his
"Origin of Species" he accounts for the diversities of life on our globe
by means of continuous development, without the intervention of special
creative fiats at the origin of each species, and to this organic
evolution he added the important principle of natural selection. He may be
regarded as the great reformer of biology and the most distinguished
naturalist of the age. Tyndall (b. 1810) has done more than any other
writer to popularize great scientific truths. Huxley (b. 1825) stands
foremost among physiologists and naturalists.
Among numerous other writers distinguished in various branches of science
a few only can be here named. Walter Bagehot writes on Political Society;
Alexander Bain on Mind and Body; Henry Maudsley on Brain and Mind; Norman
Lockyer on Spectrum Analysis; and Sir John Lubbock on Natural History.
4. MISCELLANEOUS.--The most distinguished historian of the times is James
Anthony Froude (b. 1818), who, in his "Short Studies," shows the same
vigor of thought and power of description that render his history so
fascinating. The histories of John Richard Green are valuable for their
original research, and have a wide celebrity. Max Müller has rendered
important services to the sciences of Philology and Ethnology, by his
researches in Oriental languages and literatures. Lecky is eminent for his
history of "Rationalism in Europe" and "History of Morals." Leslie
Stephen, John Morley, and Addington Symonds are distinguished in various
departments of criticism and history. Justin McCarthy, in his "History of
our own Times," has skillfully presented an intellectual panorama of the
period.
Hamerton writes on Art and on general topics with keen and critical
observation. Lewes (d. 1878) is the able expounder of the philosophy of
Comte. Frances Power Cobbe, in her "Intuitive Morals" and other works,
shows strong reasoning powers and great earnestness of purpose. John
Stuart Mill (d. 1873) holds a high place as a writer on Political Economy,
Liberty, and on the Subjection of Women. The periodicals and newspapers of
the day show remarkable intellectual ability, and represent the best
contemporary thought in England in all departments.