though
unfinished is generally regarded as his masterpiece. In addition to these
novels, Stevenson wrote a large number of essays, the best of which are
collected in _Virginibus Puerisque, Familiar Studies of Men and Books_, and
_Memories and Portraits_. Delightful sketches of his travels are found in
_An Inland Voyage_ (1878), _Travels with a Donkey_ (1879), _Across the
Plains_ (1892), and _The Amateur Emigrant_ (1894). _Underwoods_ (1887) is
an exquisite little volume of poetry, and _A Child's Garden of Verses_ is
one of the books that mothers will always keep to read to their children.

In all his books Stevenson gives the impression of a man at play rather
than at work, and the reader soon shares in the happy spirit of the author.
Because of his beautiful personality, and because of the love and
admiration he awakened for himself in multitudes of readers, we are
naturally inclined to exaggerate his importance as a writer. However that
may be, a study of his works shows him to be a consummate literary artist.
His style is always simple, often perfect, and both in his manner and in
his matter he exercises a profound influence, on the writers of the present
generation.

III. ESSAYISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-1859)

Macaulay is one of the most typical figures of the nineteenth century.
Though not a great writer, if we compare him with Browning or Thackeray, he
was more closely associated than any of his literary contemporaries with
the social and political struggles of the age. While Carlyle was
proclaiming the gospel of labor, and Dickens writing novels to better the
condition of the poor, Macaulay went vigorously to work on what he thought
to be the most important task of the hour, and by his brilliant speeches
did perhaps more than any other single man to force the passage of the
famous Reform Bill. Like many of the Elizabethans, he was a practical man
of affairs rather than a literary man, and though we miss in his writings
the imagination and the spiritual insight which stamp the literary genius,
we have the impression always of a keen, practical, honest mind, which
looks at present problems in the light of past experience. Moreover, the
man himself, with his marvelous mind, his happy spirit, and his absolute
integrity of character, is an inspiration to better living.

LIFE. Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, in 1800. His
father, of Scotch descent, was at one t