Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/750

ÆT. 63] raspberry-canes, which Giles has trellised up neatly, so that they look like a mediæval garden: they are thriving splendidly.

"Moreover Hobbs has been re-thatching a lot of his sheds and barns, which sorely needed it, and used to keep me in a fever of terror of galvanized iron: so that this time at least there is some improvement in the village."

At Kelmscott he had written the last of his contributions to the literature of Socialism, a brief article for the May-Day number of "Justice." When he returned to London on the 6th of May he found that all the picture sheets of the Chaucer had been printed off, and the block of the title-page was ready for approval. The printing was completed two days later. At the end of May he went for a few days to Mr. Wilfrid Blunt at Newbuildings Place; he was then too weak to work, but could enjoy the beautiful West Sussex country. He returned to London on the 30th: and on the 2nd of June the first two copies of the Chaucer came from the binder, one for himself and the other for Burne -Jones. Morris's own copy is now in the library of Exeter College. The other was given on the 3rd of June by Sir Edward Burne-Jones to his daughter for her birthday. "I want particularly to draw your attention," Burne-Jones wrote of the volume when complete, and the feeling is one which Morris himself fully and cordially shared, "to the fact that there is no preface to Chaucer, and no introduction, and no essay on his position as a poet, and no notes, and no glossary; so that all is prepared for you to enjoy him thoroughly."

Thus the work which had been for just five years in project, and for three years and four months in actual preparation and execution, was brought to a conclusion.