COWPER, WILLIAM, is one of the most eminent and popular of all
  English poets.  He was born in the year 1731.  His mother dying when he
  was only six years old, the child was sent away from home to boarding
  school, where he suffered so much from the cruelty of a bigger boy that
  he was obliged to leave that school for another.  At the completion of
  his college course he expressed regrets that his education was not
  received in a school where he could be taught his duty to God.  “I have
  been graduated,” he writes, “but I understand neither the law nor the
  gospel.”  His longest poem is “The Task,” upon which his reputation as a
  poet chiefly depends.  He died in the year 1800.

DICKENS, CHARLES, one of the greatest and most popular of the
  novelists of England, was born in 1812.  By hard, persistent work he
  raised himself from obscurity and poverty to fame and fortune.  After
  only two years of schooling he was obliged to go to work.  His first job
  was pasting labels on blacking-pots, for which he received twenty-five
  cents a day!  He next became office boy in a lawyer’s office, and then
  reporter for a London daily paper.  He learned shorthand by himself from
  a book he found in a public reading-room.  In 1841, and again in 1867, he
  lectured in America.  He died suddenly in 1870, and is buried in
  Westminster Abbey.

DONNELLY, ELEANOR CECILIA, began to write verses when she was but
  eight years old.  Her early education was directed by her mother, a
  gifted and accomplished lady.  Her pen has ever been devoted to the cause
  of Catholic truth and the elevation of Catholic literature.  Besides
  hundreds of charming stories and essays, she has published several
  volumes of poems.  Her writings on sacred subjects display a strong,
  intelligent faith, and a tender piety.  She is a writer whose pathos,
  originality, grace of diction, sweetness of rhythm, purity of sentiment,
  and sublimity of thought entitle her to rank among the first of our
  American poets.  Miss Donnelly has lived all her life in her native city
  of Philadelphia, where she is the center of a cultured circle of
  admiring friends, and where she edifies all by the practice of every
  Christian virtue and by a life of devotedness to the honor and glory of
  Almighty God.

GOULD, HANNAH F., an American poetess, has written many pleasant
  poems for children.  “Jack Frost” and “The Winter King” have long been
  favorites.  She was born in Vermont in the year 1789, and died in 1865.

HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL, was born in Salem, Mass., on July 4, 1804. 
  When still quite young he showed a great fondness for reading.  At the
  early age of six his favorite book was Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.”  At
  college he was a classmate of Longfellow.  Among his writings are a