Swinburne, Algernon Charles

poet and prose writer, born in London, son of Admiral Swinburne; educated at Balliol College, Oxford, went to Florence and spent some time there; his first productions were plays, two of them tragedies, and "Poems and Ballads," his later "A Song of Italy," e ay on "William Blake," and "Songs before Sunrise," instinct with pantheistic and republican ideas, besides "Studies in Song," "Studies in Prose and Poetry," .; he ranks as the succe or of Landor, of whom he is a great admirer, stands high both as a poet and a critic, and is a man of broad and generous sympathies; his admirers regard it as a reproach to his generation that due honour is not paid by it to his genius; b . 1837.