WILLIAM COWPER. +1731-1800+. Commissioner in Bankruptcy; Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords; poet. +Table Talk+ (1782); +John Gilpin+ (1785); +A Translation of Homer+ (1791); and many other _Poems_. His Letters, like Gray’s, are among the best in the language. +1740+ EDWARD GIBBON. +1737-1794+. Historian; M.P. +Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire+ (1776-87). “Heavily laden style and monotonous balance of every sentence.” Rebellion in Scotland, 1745, commonly called “The ’Forty-five.” +1750+ ROBERT BURNS. +1759-1796+. Farm-labourer; ploughman; farmer; excise-officer; lyrical poet. _Poems and Songs_ (1786-96). His prose consists chiefly of Letters. “His pictures of social life, of quaint humour, come up to nature; and they cannot go beyond it.” Clive in India, 1750-60. Earthquake at Lisbon, 1755. Black Hole of Calcutta, 1756. +1760+ WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. +1770-1850+. Distributor of Stamps for the county of Westmoreland; poet; poet-laureate. +Lyrical Ballads+ (with Coleridge, 1798); +The Excursion+ (1814); +Yarrow Revisited+ (1835), and many poems. +The Prelude+ was published after his death. His prose, which is very good, consists chiefly of Prefaces and Introductions. George III. ascends the throne in 1760. Napoleon and Wellington born, 1769. +1770+ SIR WALTER SCOTT. +1771-1832+. Clerk to the Court of Session in Edinburgh; Scottish barrister; poet; novelist. +Lay of the Last Minstrel+ (1805); +Marmion+ (1808); +Lady of the Lake+ (1810); +Waverley+-- the first of the “Waverley Novels”-- was published in 1814. The “Homer of Scotland.” His prose is bright and fluent, but very inaccurate. Warren Hastings in India, 1772-85. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. +1772-1834+. Private soldier; journalist; literary man; philosopher; poet. +The Ancient Mariner+ (1798); +Christabel+ (1816); +The Friend+-- a Collection of Essays (1812); +Aids to Reflection+ (1825). His prose is very full both of thought and emotion. ROBERT SOUTHEY. +1774-1843+. Literary man; Quarterly Reviewer; historian; poet-laureate. +Joan of Arc+ (1796); +Thalaba the Destroyer+ (1801); +The Curse of Kehama+ (1810); +A History of Brazil+; +The Doctor+-- a Collection of Essays; +Life of Nelson+. He wrote more than a hundred volumes. He was “the most ambitious and and most voluminous author of his age.” American Declaration of Independence, 1776. CHARLES LAMB. +1775-1834+. Clerk in the East India House; poet; prose-writer. _Poems_ (1797); +Tales from Shakespeare+ (1806); +The Essays of Elia+ (1823-1833). One of the finest writers of writers of prose in the English language.