Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/670

 Morris was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 21 Nov. 1856, was awarded a certificate of honour on 7 Jan. 1861, was called to the bar on 18 Nov. 1861, and practised, chiefly as a conveyancer, till 1880. Two poems, 'At Chambers' and 'A Separation Deed,' are based on incidents in his professional life.

In 1871 there appeared anonymously the first series of his 'Songs of Two Worlds, by a new writer.' It consisted chiefly of lyrical poems contributed from 1865 downwards to a small literary and artistic society, 'The Pen and Pencil Club,' meeting at the house of Peter Taylor [q. v.] (The New Rambler, p. 112). The sonorous verse and placid optimism won for these 'Songs' great popularity, and a second series which followed in 1874, and a third issued in 1875, proved equally attractive. Though published anonymously, the last poem in the third series, 'To My Motherland,' indicated the writer's identity (cf. Athenæum, 23 Sept. 1876). A new edition of the three series in one volume was issued in 1878.

Meanwhile Tennyson's 'Tithonus' had suggested to Morris (New Rambler, p. 121) a series of blank verse monologues put into the mouths of the chief characters of Greek mythology. His three earliest poems on this plan — 'Marsyas,' 'Eurydice,' and 'Endymion' — were rejected by various magazines {ibid. 112). Other poems expressed in a like spirit the reconceptions and moral ideals of his own age. The pieces were linked together by the device of a pilgrimage to the Shades. Finally all were collected umder the general title of 'The Epic of Hades' in three sections named Hades, Tartarus, and Olympus. The Hades section appeared as book ii. of the 'Epic' early in 1876 ; this was followed by books i. and iii. in the subsequent year, when a complete edition in one volume was also issued. The work, which was mostly written 'amid the not inappropriate sounds and gloom of the (London) Underground Railway' (ibid. p. 117), was described as 'by the author of "Songs of Two Worlds." ' The success of the volume was surprising : it ran through three editions of 1000 copies each in its first year, and some forty-five editions (exceeding fifty thousand copies) during the author's lifetime. A quarto edition with illustrations by George R. Chapman appeared in 1879. The lucidity of expression, the many idyllic pictures, the passages of spiritual exaltation, coupled with a strongly didactic character, made the work specially popular with the middle class, whose appreciation was voiced by John Bright when in his speech on Cobden at Bradford, 25 July 1877, he described it as 'another gem added to the wealth of the poetry of our language.'

Morris owed his vogue as a poet, which lasted throughout his lifetime, to his enforcement of simple truths in simple language and metre. He earnestly taught in verse a cheerful optimism, and if he often excited critical scorn for his lack of subtlety, he exerted a wide moral influence. Much of his work betokens discipleship to Tennyson. After 'The Epic of Hades' came in 1879 'Gwen : a Drama in Monologue, in Six Acts.' The theme was the tragedy of a secret marriage. Its form may have been suggested by Tennyson's 'Maud.' There is an interesting picture of Llangunnor church, where the author was himself buried. 'The Ode of Life' (1880), consisting of a series of poems descriptive of various stages and phases of life, maintained the 'Epic's' note of high moral purpose.

'Songs Unsung' (1883) was the first volume issued under the author's name. It was described on the title-page as 'by Lewis Morris of Penbryn.' He had used the same designation in 1876, when he first published a poem under his own name, namely, an elegiac poem in memory of his great-grandfather's poet-friend Goronwy Owen [q. v.], in ' Y Cjnumrodor,' vol. i., and in the 'Poetical Works of G. Owen,' ed. by R. Jones (1876), ii. 309-312, but this was never included in any edition of Morris's works. Penbryn was the name of the house near Aberystwyth where his great-grandfather had spent his later years, and Morris bestowed it on a house on the outskirts of Carmarthen bought by his father about 1840. This 'territorial' description of the author was the main theme of a savage attack on him in the 'Saturday Review' for 24 Nov. 1883.. Lewis Morris was contrasted with 'William Morris of Parnassus.' Yet the 'Saturday Review' had already hailed 'The Epic of Hades' as 'one of the most considerable and original feats of recent English poetry' (ibid. 31 March 1877).

'Gycia: a Tragedy, in Five Acts' (1886), written 'with a view to stage representation,' and based on a story (circa 970 A.D.) recorded by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his 'De Administratione Imperii,' displays more of a Greek spirit than any other of Morris's works. 'Songs of Britain' (1887) contains some patriotic odes like that on Queen Victoria's Jubilee (1887); three long poems based on Welsh legends are inferior in treatment to his verse on classical subjects. 