The New International Encyclopædia/Austin, Alfred

AUSTIN, Alfred (1835—). An English poet, born May 30, 1835, at Headingley, near Leeds. He graduated at the University of London, in 1853, and was called to the bar in 1857, but abandoned law for literature. After writing much for other periodicals, he became editor of the National Review in 1883. He was made Poet Laureate of England in 1896. Among his many volumes of verse, are The Season: A Satire (1861); Savonarola, a tragedy (1881); English Lyrics (1890); The Conversion of Winckelmann and Other Poems (1897); Songs of England (new ed., 1900), and A Tale of True Love and Other Poems (1902), dedicated to President Roosevelt. Austin attracted much notice in 1870 by an essay entitled The Poetry of the Period, in which he severely criticised Tennyson, Browning, and other Victorians. As a critic he is original and interesting, and although he has not the imagination of the poets whom he attacked, he has written some graceful verse. He has also published The Garden that I Love (1894) and In Veronica's Garden (1895)—two pieces in prose interspersed with short poems.