WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY BIOGRAPHY

HENLEY, WILLIAM ERNEST (1849-1903). —Poet and critic, born at Gloucester, made the acquaintance of Robert Louis Stevenson ( 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 Heroica , 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."