Austin, ALFRED

Austin, ALFRED, critic, journalist, and poet-laureate (in succession to Tennyson), born of Catholic parents at Headingley near Leeds, May 30, 1835. He was educated at Stonyhurst and St Mary's College, Oscott, graduated at the university of London in 1853, and was called to the bar in 1857. He soon turned to literature for a living. His first work was Randolph (1854), an anonymous poem full of sympathy for the Poles; but his first important book was The Season: a Satire (1861), which was so severely criticised, that its author felt it necessary to reply in My Satire and its Censors (1861). The Human Tragedy (1862) he soon recalled, but did not issue it in its altered form till 1876. Later volumes of verse are Interludes (1862); Savonarola, a tragedy (1881); Solilo- quies in Song (1882); At the Gate of the Convent (1885); Love's Widowhood (1889); Narrative Poems (1891); England's Darling (1896); The Conversion of Winckelmann (1897). The Garden that I Love (1894) and In Veronica's Garden (1895) are in prose and verse. He wrote much for the Standard and Quarterly Review, and in 1883-93 was editor of the National Review. He twice stood unsuccessfully for parliament, has written political pamphlets, and in 1896 was appointed poet-laureate.