How fascinated Blake would have been with Mr. Swinburne if by some exquisite accident he had lived after him.  We should have had, I fancy, another Prophetic Book; something of this kind: 

   Swinburne roars and shakes the world’s literature—­
   The English Press, and a good many contemporaries—­
   Tennyson palls, Browning is found—­
   Only a brownie—­
   The mountains divide, the Press is unanimous—­
   Aylwin is born—­
   On a perilous path, on the cliff of immortality—­
   I met Theodormon—­
   He seemed sad:  I said, ’Why are you sad—­
   Are you writing the long-promised life—­
   Of Dante Gabriel Rossetti?’—­
   He sighed and said, ’No, not that—­
   Not that, my child—­
   I consigned the task to William Michael—­
   Pre-Raphaelite memoirs are cheap to-day—­
   You can have them for a sextet or an octave.’—­
   I brightened and said, ‘Then you are writing a sonnet?’
   He shook his head and said it was symbolical—­
   For six and eightpence!—­
   A golden rule:  Never lend only George Borrow—­

A new century had begun, and I asked Theodormon what he was doing on that path and where Mr. Swinburne was.  Beneath us yawned the gulf of oblivion.

’Be careful, young man, not to tumble over; are you a poet or a biographer?’

I explained that I was merely a tourist.  He gave a sigh of relief:  ’I have an appointment here with my only disciple, Mr. Howlglass; if you are not careful he may write an appreciation of you.’

’My dear Theodormon, if you will show me how to reach Mr. Swinburne I will help you.’

’I swear by the most sacred of all oaths, by Aylwin, you shall see Swinburne.’

Just then we saw a young man coming along the path with a Kodak and a pink evening paper.  He seemed pleased to see me, and said, ’May I appreciate you?’

I gave the young man a push and he fell right over the cliff.  Theodormon threw down after him a heavy-looking book which, alighting on his skull, smashed it.  ‘My preserver,’ he cried, ’you shall see what you like, you shall do what you like, except write my biography.  Swinburne is close at hand, though he occasionally wanders.  His permanent address is the Peaks, Parnassus.  Perhaps you would like to pay some other calls as well.’

I assented.

We came to a printing-house and found William Morris reverting to type and transmitting art to the middle classes.

‘The great Tragedy of Topsy’s life,’ said Theodormon, ’is that he converted the middle classes to art and socialism, but he never touched the unbending Tories of the proletariat or the smart set.  You would have thought, on homoeopathic principles, that cretonne would appeal to cretins.’

‘Vale, vale,’ cried Charles Ricketts from the interior.

I was rather vexed, as I wanted to ask Ricketts his opinions about various things and people and to see his wonderful collection.  Shannon, however, presented me with a lithograph and a copy of ’Memorable Fancies,’ by C. R.