J. B. Leicester Warren, Lord de Tabley, was a man of richer poetic gifts, who might have done very great work had he met with popular encouragement. He began his poetic career as early as 1859, but his first volume of importance was _Præterita_, issued under the pseudonym of William Lancaster, in 1863. For the next ten years he was an active writer. Partly his own taste and partly admiration for _Atalanta in Calydon_ induced him to attempt the classical drama; and his two experiments, _Philoctetes_ (1866) and _Orestes_ (1867), rank among the most finished of their class. They secured the warm approval of the best judges, but they did not become popular. He tried novels, also without winning popularity; and after two more experiments in verse--_Rehearsals_ (1870) and _Searching the Net_ (1873)--he almost disappeared from the ranks of authors for twenty years; for the _Soldier of Fortune_, though bulky, can hardly be considered important. It was the reissue in 1893 of his best pieces under the title of _Poems Dramatic and Lyrical_ that first made Lord de Tabley's name widely known. So marked was the success of this collection that it was followed two years later by another, which was less successful because it was the result of a less rigid selection. These volumes represent Lord de Tabley at his best, and that best is very good indeed. Such pieces as the _Hymn to Astarte_, the _Woodland Grave_ and _Jael_, would do honour to any poet. There is intense dramatic power in the last-named piece, and a rich magnificence of style in the others. A tendency to sameness may sometimes be detected. He has, for example, one favourite colour, and the whole world is seen by him bathed in an amber light. There are also here and there echoes of contemporary poets, such as Browning, and still more, Swinburne, whose fulness of sound attracted De Tabley. But he is an essentially independent poet, and had he been encouraged to write he would doubtless have grown increasingly independent. Few losses in contemporary literature are more serious than that occasioned by his almost complete silence between 1873 and 1893, just the years when, by reason of his age, his work ought to have been best. He was a great man unrecognised, and the failure to recognise is sometimes severely punished. [Sidenote: William Morris (1834-1896).]