HENLEY, WILLIAM ERNEST (1849-1903)

—Poet and critic, b. at Gloucester, made the acquaintance of Robert Louis Stevens on ( q.v. ), and collaborated with him in several dramas, including Deacon Brodie , and Robert Macaire . He engaged in journalism, and became ed. of The Magazine of Art , The National Observer , and The New Review , compiled Lyra Heroic a , an anthology of English poetry for boys, and, with Mr. Farmer, ed. a Dictionary of Slang . His poems, which include Hospital Rhymes , London Voluntaries , The Song of the Sword , For England's Sake , and Hawthorn and Lavender , are very unequal in quality, and range from strains of the purest music to an uncouth and unmusical realism of no poetic worth. He wrote with T.F. Henderson a Life of Burns , in which the poet is set forth as a "lewd peasant of genius." Complete works, 7 vols., 1908.