Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/671

 Collected editions of Morris's works were issued in three volumes in 1882, and in one volume in 1890. 'A Vision of Saints' (1890) was Morris's last poem of first-rate importance, and was intended to be the Christian counterpart of his pagan 'Epic of Hades,' consisting of a series of monologues of nineteen saintly characters, concluding with Elizabeth Fry and Father Damien. His remaining volumes were three collections of lyrics — 'Songs without Notes' (1894); 'Idylls and Lyrics' (1896); and 'Harvest Tide' (1901) — and 'The Life and Death of Leo the Armenian (Emperor of Rome): a Tragedy, in Five Acts' (1904). When in 1907 Morris carefully revised his collected works for a sixteenth edition, he announced in the preface that he 'brought to a definite close his long career as a writer of verse.' An authorised selection of his poems was issued in 1904, and after his death a volume of selections, 'reprinted under the author's supervision' from the fourteenth edition of the collected works, appeared in 'The Muses' Library.'

In 1905 Morris issued a volume of essays, appreciations, and addresses under the title 'The New Rambler: from Desk to Platform' (Longmans, Green & Co.). The work, in which he discusses his ideals as a poet, and answers some of his severest critics, is largely autobiographical. Most of the addresses deal with problems of Welsh education, which was the second great interest of his life. Until 1876, Morris, who then lived chiefly in London, took no active interest in Welsh affairs. He had not mastered the Welsh language (cf. his poem, The Eisteddfod: 'Hardly the fair tongue I know'), nor did he know much of the history and literature of Wales, while Welsh archæology did not appeal to him. Hugh Owen [q. v.] first interested him in Welsh education (New Rambler, 262). In Oct. 1878 he became one of the joint honorary secretaries to the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, which from its opening in 1872 depended entirely on voluntary contributions. Thenceforth he was concerned with all its varying fortunes, drafting various appeals on its behalf and (with another) its amended constitution in 1885 (after its receipt of a government grant). He was joint treasurer of the college from March 1889 to March 1896, and from the latter date till his death one of its two vice-presidents.

He was one of the five members of a departmental committee appointed in Aug. 1880, with Lord Aberdare as chairman, to inquire into of intermediate and higher education in Wales. The committee's report (C. 3047), issued in 1881, resulted in the establishment of two new colleges and eventually of the University of Wales, and the passing of the Intermediate Education (Wales) Act of 1888, 'the educational charter of modern Wales' During the inquiry Morris epecially interested himself in the higher education of women, to which he was 'early a convert' (New Rambler, 280. 301). He threw himself with vigour into the propaganda and constructive effort which followed the issue of the report.

After the establishment of the university in 1893 he became its junior deputy chanoellor for 1901–3, and received from it the honorary degree of D.Litt. in 1906. He was a member of the council of the Cymmrodorion Society from 1877 to Dec. 1802, and thenceforth one of its vice-presidents. He served as a member of the Carmarthenshire intermediate education committee, and was a justice of the peace for Carmarthen. When Sir Hugh Owen's proposal for the reform of the eisteddfod by the formation of a National Eisteddfod Association were adopted, Morris was in Sept. 1880 appointed chairman of the council of the executive committee of the new body. That office he held till his death.

During Tennyson's later years Morris was a frequent guest of his (Lord Tennyson, by his Son, ii. 389), and on Tennyson's death in 1892 he was disappointed of the poet-laureateship (cf. New Rambler, p. 180). In 1893 he wrote the odes on the marriage of the Duke of York (now George V) and on the opening of the Imperial Institute, and in 1895, during Lord Rosebery's premiership, he was knighted.

Next to the laureateship his main ambition was a seat in parliament, which he also failed to win. An advanced liberal in politics, and from 1887 till his death a member of the political committee of the Reform Club, he was in favour of home rule and Welsh disestablishment. But his chief interest lay in social reform (see his odes for the first co-operative festival in 1888, for the trade union congress at Swansea in 1901, and on the opening of the West Wales Sanatorium in 1906). In 1868, and again in 1881 and 1883, he was invited to contest the Carmarthen Boroughs but withdrew in favour of another liberal. In July 1886 he unsuccessfully contested the Pembroke Boroughs (cf. his idyll, In