SKETCH OF THE AUTHOE

HiPPOLYTB Adolphe Taine was bom at Vouziers, 1828. He pursued his étudies with brilliant snccess in the Collège Bourbon and l'École Normale, Paris. Af ter having brought ont several works, of which one {Tite Livé) was crowned by the Freneh Academy, he was called to the professorship of Esthetics and the History of Arts in l'École de beaux arts, 1864. The superior excellence of his writings, especially of his well-known Histoire de la littérature anglaise (1864), and of his yet more important work, Les Origines de la France contemporaine, which began to appear 1875, secured for him the coveted prize of being elected one of the^forty immortals'of the Freneh Academy.

Taine visited several of the European countries as a close-obserring traveller, and he was called to lecture at the TJniversity of Oxford, England. After his marriage (1868) he usually passed his summers at his country résidence in Savoy and his winters in Paris. He died in Paris the 5th of March, 1893.

Taine is distinguished as a writer of brilliancy, breadth of culture, and philosophical eamestness. Thèse qualities are ail displayed in his varions works