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 light and great touch as only a great workman can give, the real office and rank of the divine "shepherds," to distinguish Apollo from the run of Admetus's herdsmen. The reading "tragic" would be by comparison insignificant, even were there any ground of proof or likelihood to sustain it. In the fourth stanza of this poem Shelley calls Milton "the third among the sons of light." It has been asked who were the two first: it has been objected that there were at least three—Homer, Dante, Shakespeare. I should be slow to doubt that Shelley had in view the first and the last names only. To him Dante could scarcely have seemed a type of spiritual illumination, a son of light elect above other poets; of this we might be sure without the evidence we have. No man, not even Landor, has laid upon the shrine of Dante a thank-offering of more delicate and passionate praise, has set a deeper brand of abhorrence upon the religion which stained his genius. Compare the twenty-second of Shelley's collected letters with the "Pentameron" of Landor—who has surely said enough, and said it with all the matchless force and charm of his most pure and perfect eloquence, in honour of Dante, to weigh against the bitterness of his blame. Had I the right or the strength to defend the name of one great man from the charge of another, to vindicate with all reverence the fame of Landor even against the verdict of Mazzini, I would appeal to all fellow-students whether Landor has indeed spoken as one "infirm in mind" or tainted with injustice—as one slow of speech or dull of sense to appreciate the divine qualities of the founder of all modern poetry. He has exalted his name above wellnigh every