DOWDEN, EDWARD (1843-1913), Irish critic and poet, was born at Cork and educated at Queen's college, Cork, and Trinity college, Dublin. He became professor of English litera ture at Trinity college in 1867. His first book, Shakespeare, his Mind and Art (1875), a revision of a course of lectures, was translated into German and Russian, and his Poems (1876) went into a second edition. His Shakespeare Primer (1877) was also translated into Italian and German. Later works by him in Shakespearean criticism were his Shakespeare's Sonnets (1881), Passionate Pilgrim (1883), Introduction to Shakespeare and editions of Hamlet (1899), Romeo and Juliet (19oo) and Cymbeline (1903) . His Studies in Literature (1878), Transcripts and Studies (1888), New Studies in Literature (1895), and other works, many of them biographical, showed a profound knowledge of the currents and tendencies of thought in various ages and countries; but it was his Life of Shelley (1886) that made him best known to the public at large. In 190o he edited an edition of Shelley's works. In 1 889 he became the first Taylorian lecturer at Oxford, and from 1892 to 1896 was Clark lecturer at Trinity college, Cambridge.