WILLIAM MORRIS, author of “The Earthly Paradise” and of numerous prose studies and essays, was born near London in 1834, and educated at Oxford University. There he met Burne-Jones, and through intimacy with him became one of the chief factors in the æsthetic movement which so greatly influenced England during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Morris had hopes of re-creating society through his ideals of order and beauty, and he unquestionably did much to improve typography and decorating in general through work done under his direction. “The Earthly Paradise “is a poem conceived on an elevated plane, and it lacks nothing of the first rank in its class, save sustained musical expression. He wrote other poems of merit, and his essays, collected under the title of “Hopes and Fears for Art,” are admirable examples of the best English prose. He died at Hammersmith near London, October 3d, 1896.