Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/292

 2 So Dictionary of English Literature

in which he exhibits a marvellous familiarity with Oriental manners and modes of thought. The chief of these are The. Adventures of Hajji Baba (1824), and Hajj'i Baba in England (1828), Zohrab the Hostage (1832), Ayesha (1834), and The Mirza (1841). All these works are full of brilliant description, character-painting, and delicate satire.

MORISON, JAMES COTTER (1832-1888). Was ed. at Oxf.

He wrote Lives oijGibbon (1878), and Macaulay (1882) ; but his best work was his Life of St. Bernard ( 1 863). The Service of Man ( 1 88 7) is written from a Positivist point of view.

MORLEY, HENRY (1822-1894). Writer on English litera ture, 5. of an apothecary, was b. in London, ed. at a Moravian school in Germany, and at King's Coll., London, and after practising medicine and keeping schools at various places, went in 1850 to London, and adopted literature as his profession. He wrote in periodicals, and from 1859-64 ed. the Examiner. From 1865-89 he was Prof, of English Literature at Univ. Coll. He was the author of various biographies, including Lives of Palissy, Cornelius Agrippa, and Clement Marot. His principal work, however, was English Writers (10 vols. 1864-94), coming down to Shakespeare. His First Sketch of English Literature the study for the larger work had reached at his death a circulation of 34,000 copies.

MORRIS, SIR LEWIS (1833-1907). Poet, b. at Penrhyn, Carmarthenshire, and ed. at Sherborne and Oxf., was called to the Bar, and practised as a conveyancer until 1880, after which he de voted himself to the promotion of higher education in Wales, and became honorary sec. and treasurer of the New Welsh Univ. In 1871 he pub. Songs of Two Worlds, which showed the influence of Tennyson, and was well received, though rather by the wider public than by more critical circles. It was followed in 1876-77 by The Epic of Hades, which had extraordinary popularity, and which, though exhibiting undeniable talent both in versification and narrative power, lacked the qualities of the higher kind? of poetry. It deals in a modern spirit with the Greek myths and legends. Other works are A Vision of Saints, Gwen, The Ode of Life, and Gycia, a tragedy.

MORRIS, WILLIAM (1834-1896). Poet, artist, and socialist,

b. at Walthamstow, and ed. at Marlborough School and Oxf. After!! being articled as an architect he was for some years a painter, and then joined in founding the manufacturing and decorating firm of) Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., in which Rossetti, Burne- Jones, and other artists were partners. By this and other means he did; much to influence the public taste in furnishing and decoration,, He was one of the originators of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, \ to which he contributed poems, tales, and essays, and in 1858 he| pub. Defence of Guenevere and other Poems. The Life and Death of\ Jason followed in 1867, The Earthly Paradise in 1868-70, and Love Enough in 1875. In the last mentioned year he made a translation in verse of Virgil's JEneid. Travels in Iceland led to the writing of Three Northern Love Stories, and the epic of Sigurd the Volsung (1876). His translation of the Odyssey in verse appeared 1887. Ai series of prose romances began with The House of the Wolfings (1889),