ER NORTH 85

LORD BYRON 94

SHELLEY 102

WASHINGTON IRVING 112

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 122

RALPH WALDO EMERSON 133

THOMAS CARLYLE 142

VICTOR HUGO 150

GEORGE SAND 164

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 177

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON 188

ALFRED TENNYSON 197

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 207

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW 220

JOHN G. WHITTIER 238

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 251

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 262

ROBERT AND ELIZABETH BROWNING 274

CHARLOTTE BRONTE 286

MARGARET FULLER 302

EDGAR ALLEN POE 312

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 322

CHARLES DICKENS 335

GEORGE ELIOT 351

CHARLES KINGSLEY 363

JOHN RUSKIN 372

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Home Life of Great Authors.

GOETHE.

In an old, many-cornered, and gloomy house at Frankfort-on-the-Main,
upon the 28th of August, 1749, was born the greatest German of his day,
Wolfgang Goethe. The back of the house, from the second story, commanded
a very pleasant prospect over an almost immeasurable extent of gardens
stretching to the walls of the city, but the house itself was gloomy,
being shut in by a high wall. Over these gardens beyond the walls and
ramparts of the city, stretched a long plain, where the young Wolfgang,
serious and thoughtful, was wont to wander and to learn his lessons. He
had the sort of superstitious dread which is usually the inheritance of
children with a poetic nature, an