Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/252

 verdict of all competent critics has been unanimous. That this wretched rubbish should exist at all in print is vexation enough for those to whom the honour of the greatest poets is dear; but Mr. Hogg's book is a monument likely to prove something less durable than brass, and in its mouldering pages the evidence of Shelley's boyish absurdities and atrocities in the way of rhyme might have been trusted to rot unobserved save of some rare collector of strange and worthless things. But to have them bound up with the ripest work of the first lyric poet of England, tied on as it were to the tail or pinned to the back of a volume which undertakes to give us for the first time a critical text of Shelley, is a thing not to be endured or extenuated. The argument or apology of the editor on behalf of this lamentable act of caprice has not I believe made a single convert, and is I should hope not likely to make one. Those who did most justice to the zealous labour and the strenuous devotion of Mr. Rossetti, those who were the first to recognise with all gratitude what thanks were due to his ardour and ability, were the first to utter their protest