Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/202



is seldom that the work of a scholiast is so soon wanted as in Shelley's case it has been. The first collected edition of his works had many gaps and errors patent and palpable to any serious reader. His text is already matter for debate and comment, as though he were a classic newly unearthed. Certain passages begin to be famous as crucial subjects for emendation; and the master-singer of our modern poets shares with his own masters and models the least enviable proof of fame—that given by corrupt readings and diverse commentaries. Awaiting the appearance, now long looked for, of a surer and carefuller text, I have but a word to say in passing, a hand to lend in this humble service of verbal emendation. One poet only of late times, and that but once, has suffered more than Shelley from the negligence and dullness of those to whose hands the trust of his text was committed. The last relics of Landor came before us distorted and deformed in every page by this shameful neglect; and the value is thus impaired of some among the most precious and wonderful examples extant of great genius untouched by great age, full of the grace, the