that my "years and achievements make it fitting" for me "to point the finger of scorn at" figures enthroned in the pantheon of his moral mythology. What may be the years and what the achievements of Mr. Peter Bayne I know not; but I do know that the years of Nestor and the achievements of Napoleon would not suffice to extenuate fatuity on the one hand and false witness on the other.

A slandered man may, if he please, claim leave to take (though he may not care to make) occasion in passing to set a mark on the calumniator; but he will hardly care to take into his hands the hangman's office of applying the iron or the lash. I have done, and return without apology from mean to higher matters. Of the relation between Shelley and Byron I have here no more to say; but before ending these notes I find yet another point or so to touch upon. Perhaps to every student of any one among the greater poets there seems to be something in his work not yet recognised by other students, some secret power or beauty reserved for his research. I do not think that justice has yet been done to Shelley as to some among his peers, in all details and from every side. Mr. Arnold, in my view, misconceives and misjudges him not less when set against Keats than when bracketed with Byron. Keats has indeed a divine magic of language applied to nature; here he is unapproachable; this is his throne, and he may bid all kings of song come bow to it. But his ground is not Shelley's ground; they do not run in the same race at all. The "Ode to Autumn," among other such poems of Keats, renders nature as no man but Keats ever could. Such poems as the "Lines