of Wordsworth's art of sinking profoundly into the joy and peace of things, and drinking a portion of their strength and repose, I am not sure that the fittest attitude of a human creature in this our mortal life is not Shelley's attitude-the attitude of aspiration and desire. Joy is not a thing for us to rest in; joy should rather open into higher joy, light should pass into purer light; from any height or deep at which we may arrive we should still cry, "O altitudo ?" to the height or deep beyond. To intensify and to purify desire is, perhaps, no less important for us than to deepen and purify satisfaction. And no one can live for a time in the lyrical poetry of Shelley without an exaltation and purification of desire.

"I can conceive Shelley if he had lived to the present time," wrote Peacock, "passing his days like Volney, looking on the world from his windows without taking part in its turmoils; and perhaps like the same or some other great apostle of liberty (for I cannot at this moment verify the quotation), desiring that nothing should be inscribed on his tomb but his name, the dates of his birth and death, and the single word Désillusionné." But it is he who would lie down and rest in some earthly satisfaction who will be disillusioned, not he who forever passes from desire to delight and from delight to desire, with a foot upon the ladder whose top reaches to heaven. Even in respect to political affairs I do not think that Shelley would have looked forth from his window disillusioned. A series of great events would probably have engaged his interest and aroused his imaginative ardour: first, the liberation of Greece, then the emancipation of

Catholics in Ireland, then the French Revolution of 1830, then the Reform Bill of 1832; and in 1832 Shelley would have reached his fortieth year, and his character would have gained the enduring ardour of midmanhood. But however this may have been, I cannot conceive Shelley insensible to hope, untouched by desire, incapable of new delights, possessing only the sorry wisdom of a man disillusioned. Rather, I think, he would have continued to live by admiration, hope, and love; and as these were directed to worthier objects and yet more worthy, he would have ascended in dignity of being.

In life and in literature there are three kinds of men to whom we give peculiar honour. The first are the craftsmen, who put true and exact work into all they offer to the world, and find their happiness in such faithful service. Such a craftsman has been described with affectionate reverence by George Eliot in her poem "Stradivarius" :

"That plain, white-aproned man who stood at work,

Patient and accurate, full fourscore years,

Cherished his sight and touch by temperance;

And since keen sense is love of perfectness

Made perfect violins, the needed paths

For inspiration and high mastery."

We do not reckon Shelley among the craftsmen. The second class is small in numbers; we call these men conquerors, of whom, as seen in literature, the most eminent representatives in modern times have been Shakspere and Goethe. These are the masters of life; and having known joy and anguish, and labour and pleasure, and the mysteries of love and death, of

evil and of good, they attain at last a lofty serenity upon heights from which they gaze down, with an interest that has in it something of exalted pity, on the turmoil and strife below. It is their part to bring into actual union, as far as our mortal life permits, what is real and what is ideal. They are at home in both worlds. Shakspere retires to Stratford, and enjoys the dignity and ease and happy activity of the life of an English country gentleman; yet it was he who had wandered with Lear in the tempest, and meditated with Hamlet on the question of self - slaughter. Goethe, councillor to his noble master, the Grand - Duke of Weimar, in that house adorned with treasures of art and science, presides as an acknowledged chief over the intellectual life of a whole generation; yet he had known the storm and stress, had interpreted the feverish heart of his age in "Werther," and all its spiritual doubts and desires and aspirations in his "Faust." Such men may well be named conquerors, and Shelley was not one of these. But how shall we name the third class of men, who live for the ideal alone, and yet are betrayed into weakness and error, and deeds which demand an atonement of remorse; men who can never quite reconcile the two worlds in which we have our being, the world of material fact and the spiritual world above and beyond it; who give themselves away for love or give themselves away for light, yet sometimes mistake bitter for sweet, and darkness for light; children who stumble on the sharp stones and bruise their hands and feet, yet who can wing their way with angelic ease through spaces of the upper air. These are they whom we say the gods

love, and who seldom reach the fourscore years of Goethe's majestic old age. They are dearer perhaps than any others to the heart of humanity, for they symbolise in a pathetic way, both its weakness and its strength. We cannot class them with the exact and patient craftsmen; they are ever half defeated and can have no claim to take their seats beside the conquerors. Let us name them lovers; and if at any time they have wandered far astray, let us remember their errors with gentleness, because they have loved much. It is in this third class of those who serve mankind that Shelley has found a place./

THE TEXT OF WORDSWORTH'S POEMS.*

THE text of Wordsworth becomes a subject of study for reasons precisely opposite to those which apply to the text of Shelley. Writing in a white heat of inspiration, Shelley corrected and re-corrected with impetuous speed; his critical instincts acted in and through his creative energy; his workmanship is therefore exquisite, and every word is vital. But it is true that Shelley, caught up in the wind of his own flight, was borne past obstacles or borne over chasms which one advancing deliberately must have avoided or removed; and it was not his custom to return again and again upon his own work, applying to the outcome of his mood of inspiration the criticism of a humbler mood of reflection. There

* It is right to mention that this study was published before the foundation of the Wordsworth Society, and before the appearance of the first volume of the edition of Wordsworth's Poems, in which Professor Knight has attempted to exhibit the variations of the text. The following editions have been used in preparing these notes:Lyrical Ballads, 1 vol., 1798; ditto, 2 vols., 1800; ditto, 1802; ditto, 1805; Poems, 2 vols., 1807; Excursion, 4to, 1814; White Doe, 1815; Poems, 2 vols., 1815; Thanksgiving Ode, &c., 1816; Peter Bell (2nd ed.), 1819; Waggoner, 1819; Excursion, 1820; Poems, 4 vols., 1820; River Duddon, &c., 1820; Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 1822; Ecclesiastical Sketches, 1822; Poems, 5 vols., 1827; ditto, 4 vols., 1832; Yarrow Revisited, 1835; Sonnets, 1838; Poems chiefly of Early and Late Years, 1842; Poems, 6 vols., 1843; ditto, vols., 1849; ditto, 1858; Earlier Poems (ed. Johnston), 1857. This last volume exhibits in notes the text of 1815. It may be observed that an earlier text is in some instances likely to be familiar to readers who have made use of other recent editions than those published by Moxon.