Irish churchman and literary critic. Born in Glendowan, Donegal, Ireland on 14 November 1832. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Ordained in the Church of England in 1857. From 1863 to 1865 he was the chaplain to the Empress Frederick in Berlin, and in 1875 the chaplain to Queen Victoria. In 1880 he left the Church of England, and became Unitarian minister at Bedford chapel, Bloomsbury. But in 1894 Bedford chapel came down, and from that time he had no church to which he belonged. In spite of having no church of his own, he was famous for his eloquence and religious personality. He was also much interested in literature, which made him a sharp critic. On 11 March 1893 at Bloomsbury House he gave the inaugural lecture to the London Irish Literary Society on ‘The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue’, in which he insisted that Irish national poetry should become not only Irish, but also alive to the interests and passions of universal humanity. His main works are English Literature (1876), The History of Early English Literature (1892), and English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest (1898). He and his son-in-law, T. W. Rolleston, edited A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue (1900). Died on 18 March 1916. (H. N.)