=Edmund Gosse (1849- )= is not less distinguished than the writers I have named. He would be widely known as a writer of charming verse were he not actively engaged in literary criticism. The son of a famous naturalist, Mr Gosse is the author of many admirably written books about the literature of the past and the present. What Carlyle so largely did for German literature by introducing it to English readers Mr Gosse has done for Scandinavian literature. In conjunction with Mr William Archer--a dramatic critic of singular insight--he has translated Ibsen, whose influence has been as marked during the past ten years as the influence of German writers was marked during the previous thirty. Mr Gosse's best biography is his "Life of Gray." A critic of remarkable learning is =Leslie Stephen (1832- )=, whose "Hours in a Library" and "History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century" are books which have profoundly impressed the age. Mr Leslie Stephen has written a large number of biographies, all of them characterised by singular accuracy, by remarkable graces of style, and by genuine insight. He was the first editor of the _Dictionary of National Biography_, a work which has proved invaluable to students of our later literature. =Andrew Lang (1844- )= is the last of the critics I have named, and not the least active. He has shone in many branches of literary work. His "Ballads and Lyrics of Old France," "Ballades in Blue China," and numerous other verses, have gained him considerable reputation as a poet. His translations of Homer and Theocritus are by many counted the finest translations that our literature has seen. Some have contended that his musical prose rendering of the Odyssey is incomparably superior to all the efforts of Pope, of Cowper, and of the many other poets who have attempted to render Homer in verse. Mr Lang is an authority on folk-lore; he has joined issue with Professor Max Müller on many points which are of keen interest to those who are attracted towards the science of language and the study of comparative religion. As a writer of fairy-tales, and as the editor of books of fairy-stories, Mr Lang has endeared himself to thousands belonging to the younger generation. But all this is but dimly and inefficiently to appraise Mr Lang's marvellous versatility. He has written fiction, history, and, above all, biography, his biographical work including a Life of Sir Stafford Northcote and a Life of John Gibson Lockhart, Scott's son-in-law.