New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-12-11
-, Men and Women of the Time 1t Is

1910 .Men and Women of the Time" 1t is
sns~ .s,v on the whole, the worst book of refer
g. the world, but it has one great merit,
sn's anv Of its biographies. especially those run
~ 80 come length and relating TO men whose
hL ..s 10 notice is dsputable, there is internal
's.noe that the biography has been written by
e,. spb;ect Of it. This praiseworthy practice
s ..oas- on the obvious theory that every man
rs,,s more about himself than anybody else can.
e., WAS rude man in the last century who
"a that all autobiographies are false. He prob
~. had not been invited to write his own. To
- how wrong he was, you have only TO turn TO
=. combinations which appear under the editor
~, Of Mr. G. Washington Moon, and especially
:. that of Mr. Lewis Morris.
Every literary work ought to be done with con-
..,.,iop: the author will never do his best unless
\. have due sense of the Importance of his sub
-, This is a canon which Mr.. Morris has under
..ood and never acted on more piously than when
:. wrote on Mr.. Morris. 1 would / could
canister the whole OF this admirable composition
- vour columns nothing but considerations
q soace forbid. Extracts are all can permit
myself, or you.
II is touching to find that he was born in that
cary Carmarthcn which has just proved the truth
~ musty saying by refusing him the honor that
e his due He was born in 1888; in 1870 he
ga appointed Knight of the Order of the Saviour
60 unfamiliar am i with the orders of chivalry
that know not whether this be the same as that
Order of the Redeemer OF which the King of
6rece in 1881 created our countryman, General
lain Meredith Read, Knight Grand Cross 1t is
certainly different from that Order of the White
ELepbant with which the King of Siam decorated
.Aat other distinguished poet who for portion of
his life has borne the name of Edwin Arnold now
engaged 10 borrow Mr.. Morris's phrase, in COM
Melting the education of the United States from
the lecture platform. II were interesting. indeed
n attempt a parallel between these two poets and
their poetry and to seek for those laws of verse
which should enable us TO say whether the Epic
NJ Hades be nobler effort of the imagination than
the Light Of Asia, or vice-versa; and why; and
in what particulars each is superior to Paradise
Lost Certain it is that Milton never lived to
Gee his poem in a twenty-sixth edition, like Mr.
Mcrriss more popular epic, or in q fortieth, like
Sir Edwin Arnold's still more popular and more
epic volume of verse upon Asia.
But must keep TO Mr.. Morris and to his too
wellfounded conviction, expressed, it would ap-
near upon his defeat for Pembroke in 1856. that
he had definitely renounced all connection with
politics His poetcal career is treated in his
autobiography even more fully than his political
career, and, in parts, not less prOphetically. We
learn how, owing TO the illness of the Poet
Laureate Mr. Morris, whose candidature in sue
cession 10 Lord Tennyson has already been an
rounced, wrote an Ode on the opening of the I'm
perial Institute, for which he received the'
Jubilee medal from tho Queen decoration which
few Of her subjects escaped. Then comes this:
Mr. Morris is understood TO have completed
bis final and most considerable poem, to be en-
titled Vision of Saints. which, proceeding after
the manner of Dante, attempts for the Christian
ideal what the Epic of Hades did for that OF the
Pagan world"
There let us pause. We shall never get beyond
the sublimity Of serene self-confdence which leads
Mr. Morris TO establish comparison between Mr.
Morris and Dante. q. w. ).