ultimate appreciation cannot be yet: for Shelley's fame and influence are still crescent, his cyclic day is still far from its noon; the Poet of the distant Future must culminate in the epoch to which he properly belongs. His own lofty words in the "Defence of Poetry" are decidedly applicable to himself, if not to all his illustrious predecessors and contemporaries: "Even in modern times, no living poet ever arrived at the fulness of his fame; the jury which sits in judgment upon a poet, belonging as he does to all time, must be composed of his peers; it must be impanneled by Time from the selectest of the wise of many generations."
We may note, by way of postscript, that there are a few slight slips of the pen, which Mr. Symonds might as well correct on revision. Thus, in some of the sentences quoted our readers will have marked the ambiguities of he, his, and him. On p. 77, there is confusion in the comparison of inner circle, centre, and middle; p. 83, "the language used by Lady Shelley and Mr. Garnett justify us," should, of course, be justifies; 95, two spots are named as the birthplace of the "Prometheus Unbound;" 143, "No criticisms upon Shelley's works are half so good as his own," should be No other.
1880
