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PHILIP JAMES BAILEY (1816-1902)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 217 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PHILIP See also:JAMES See also:BAILEY (1816-1902)  , See also:English poet, author of See also:Festus, was See also:born at See also:Nottingham on the 22nd of See also:April 1816 . His See also:father, who himself published both See also:prose and See also:verse, owned and edited from 1845 to 1852 the Nottingham See also:Mercury, one of the See also:chief See also:journals in his native See also:town . See also:Philip See also:James See also:Bailey received a See also:local See also:education until his sixteenth See also:year, when he matriculated at See also:Glasgow University . He did not, however, take his degree, but moved in 1835 to See also:London and entered See also:Lincoln's See also:Inn . Without making serious practice of the See also:law he settled at Basford, and for three years was occupied with the See also:composition of Festus, which appeared anonymously in 1839 . Its success, both in See also:England and See also:America, was immediate . It passed through a dozen See also:editions in the See also:country of its See also:birth, and nearly three times as many in the See also:United States; and when in 1889 its author was able to publish a " See also:Jubilee Edition," he could feel that it was one of the ,few poems of ,its See also:time which was known to both the older and the younger generations . Its author is known almost exclusively by his one voluminous poem, for though Bailey published other verses he is essentially a See also:man of one See also:book . Festus has undergone many changes and incorporations, but it remains a singular example of a piece of See also:work virtually completed in youth, and never supplanted or reinforced by later achievements of its author . It is a vast See also:pageant of See also:theology and See also:philosophy, comprising in some twelve divisions an See also:attempt to represent the relation of See also:God to man and of man to God, to emphasize the benignity of See also:Providence, to preach the See also:immortality of the soul, and to postulate " a See also:gospel of faith and See also:reason combined." It contains See also:fine lines and dignified thought, but its ambitious theme, and a certain incoherency in the manner in which it is worked out, prevent it from being easily readable by any but the most sympathetic student . Bailey died on the 6th of See also:September 1902 .

End of Article: PHILIP JAMES BAILEY (1816-1902)
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