The son of a clergyman, and was born on St. Mark’s day at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, where he wrote his beautiful collection of sacred poems for all the Sundays and Feasts of the year, called the _Christian Year_, by which his name will always be known and honoured. Keble College in Oxford was built as a memorial of him, and an acknowledgment of his teaching.
Born 1812.—Died 1870.—George III.—George IV.—William IV.—Victoria.
This fertile and most popular novelist was educated for the law, and then became a reporter to the _Morning Chronicle_ newspaper, in which he published a series of sketches, now known as _Sketches by Boz_. The _Pickwick Papers_ came next, and these were succeeded by _Nicholas Nickleby_, _Oliver Twist_, _The Old Curiosity Shop_, _Barnaby Budge_, and a number of other fictions, in which vice is always painted in its true colours, and the advantage of truthfulness, straightforward dealing, and kindliness brought out in strong and clear characters. He died at the age of fifty-eight, and was privately buried in Westminster Abbey in 1870.