EDWARD DOWDEN, one of the best-informed and most appreciative Shakespearean critics of the nineteenth century, was born in Cork, Ireland, May 3d, 1843, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he is now professor of English Literature. Among his published works are: “Poems”; “Shakespeare: His Mind and Art,” 1872; “Southey,” 1879; “Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley,” 1886; “Studies in Literature,” 1887; “Introduction to Shakespeare,” 1897; and various “Literature Primers,” which are models of compact and lucid statement.