WITHOUT the rich imagination of Stoddard, or the versatility of Stedman, Mr. Aldrich surpasses them both in delicate and artistic skill. His jewelled lines, exquisitely pointed, express a single mood or a dainty epigram with a pungent and tasteful beauty that places him easily at the head of our modern lyrical writers. Thomas Bailey Aldrich was born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 11, 1836. In childhood he was taken to Louisiana, where he remained a number of years, his father being a merchant at New Orleans. After returning to Portsmouth, he was preparing for college when his father suddenly died, making it necessary for him to relinquish this design, to take a position of immediate remuneration, which he found in his uncle’s counting house in New York. This pursuit he found so far removed from the bent of his mind, however, that he gave it up after three years to take a situation as a reader in a New York publishing house. During his mercantile career he contributed to the current press, and afterwards became attached to various periodicals as contributor or in an editorial capacity. Among others, he worked on N. P. Willis’ “Home Journal,” the “Illustrated News,” and the “New York Evening Mirror.” During the Civil War he was for a time with the Army of the Potomac, as a newspaper correspondent. In 1865, he married, and removed to Boston, where he edited “The Weekly Journal” every Saturday. He remained with this paper until 1874. In 1881 he succeeded William Dean Howells as editor of the “Atlantic Monthly.” This position he resigned in 1890 in order to devote himself to personal literary work and travel. The degree of A. M. was conferred upon him in 1883 by Yale, and in 1896 by Harvard University. Mr. Aldrich had published one volume of verse, “The Bells” (1854), a collection of juvenile verses, before the “Ballad of Baby Bell and Other Poems” appeared in 1858, and made his reputation as a poet. Other volumes of his poetry issued at the following dates are entitled: “Pampinea and Other Poems” (1861), “Cloth of Gold and Other Poems” (1873), “Flower and Thorn” (1876), “Friar Jerome’s Beautiful Book” (1881), “Mercedes and Later Lyrics” (1883), “Wyndham Towers” (1889), “Judith and Holofernes, a Poem” (1896).