AN ENGLISH ACADEMY.

The Journal of Education lately proposed to its readers to send in lists of the "ten greatest living English men of letters" with the greatest work of each. Of such lists 534 were sent. The authors were ranked by the number of votes each received and the first forty would be considered as the "Immortals" of England, if the scheme was carried out. But it must be remembered that this journal appeals mainly to the great middle-class of England, and though no doubt well educated, yet its literary taste or judgment is not of the highest. Mr. George McDonald, Mr. Smiles, Mr. Justin McCarthy are among the forty. However "Lord" Tennyson heads the list with 501 votes. His chief work is "In Memoriam." Next to Mr. Tennyson comes Mr. Ruskin with 462 votes; Mr. Matthew Arnold is third with 455, and Mr. Browning fourth with 448. Mr. Ruskin's chief work is, according to the number of votes it received. "Modern Painters;" Mr. Arnold's is "Literature and Dogma;" Mr. Browning's, "The Ring and the Book. The historians are headed by Froude 391, who comes next to Browning, closely followed by Mr. Freeman, 241. Mr. Herbert Spencer is eight with 235 votes, Cardinal Newman, (for his "Apologia) is ninth with 192 votes, John Morley has (187, William Morris, 147; Professor Huxley, 115; and Mr. W. E. Gladstone, 107. Novel writing is thought to appeal greatly to the popular taste but the novelists are at a discount, none of them getting a tenth of Mr. Tennyson's votes, Black, Shorthouse, and Blackmore being the most favored in that way. Among the poets Swinburn, 262, comes next to Browning. The forty ends with the names of two distinguished biblical scholars, Bishop Lightfoot and Canon Westcott. Though of necessity containing many of the lights of English Literature this "forty " is by no means representative, containing as it does the names of so many second rate writers. A full list of the "forty" is given in the Pall Mall Budget for November 30.