usually applied to the whole century, during the better part of which
Victoria reigned. The literature of this age is rich with the writings
of Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his sister
Christina, William Morris, Matthew Arnold, Edwin Arnold, Jean
Ingelow, Owen Meredith, Arthur Hugh Clough, Adelaide Procter, and a
host of minor poets.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, was born at Somersby, August 6, 1809.
He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first book of
poems, written with his brother Charles, was published two years
before he entered college; from that time until his death his literary
work was continuous. In 1850 he succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate,
and thirty-four years later was raised to the peerage. His poems
cover a wide range--lyrics, ballads, idyls, and dramas. His most
important works are "The Princess," "In Memoriam," "Maud," and "The
Idylls of the King." He died in 1892.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING was born at Durham, England, March
6, 1809. She was highly educated and was proficient in both Greek and
Latin. She wrote her first verses at the age of ten, and her first
volume of poems was published when she was but seventeen years old.
In 1846 she was married to the poet Robert Browning. Her first known
works are "Aurora Leigh," a novel in verse, "The Portuguese Sonnets,"
"Casa Guidi Windows," and "The Cry of the Children," a poem written
to show the wretchedness of the little children employed in the mines
and factories of England. She died at Florence, Italy, in June, 1861.

ROBERT BROWNING was born in Camberwell, England, in 1812. He
was educated at the University of London. He married Elizabeth