salvation of the world depended on the Crimean
War and the prosecution of Lord Palmerston's policy." Finally he strayed
into quotations from Sidney Dobell, a writer now hardly remembered, with
one of which, describing a girl bathing, he made the Master's academic
rafters ring:

"She, with her body bright sprinkles the waters white,
Which flee from her fair form, and flee in vain,
Dyed with the dear unutterable sight,
And circles out her beauties to the circling main."

He was almost shouting these words when another sound became
audible--that of an opening door, followed by Jowett's voice, which said
in high-pitched syllables, "You'd both of you better go to bed now."

My next meeting with Swinburne took place not many days later. He had
managed meanwhile to make acquaintance with a few other
undergraduates--all of them enthusiastic worshipers--one of whom
arranged to entertain him at luncheon. As I could not, being otherwise
engaged, be present at this feast myself, I was asked to join the party
as soon as possible afterward. I arrived at a fortunate moment. Most of
the guests were still sitting at a table covered with dessert dishes.
Swinburne was much at his ease in an armchair near the fireplace, and
was just beginning, as a number of smiling faces showed, to be not only
interesting, but in some way entertaining also. He was, as I presently
gathered, about to begin an account of a historical drama by himself,
which existed in his memory only--a sort of parody of what Victor Hugo
might have written had he dramatized English events at the opening of
the reign of Queen Victoria. The first act, he said, showed England on
the verge of a revolution, which was due to the frightful orgies of the
Queen at "Buckingham's Palace." The Queen, with unblushing effrontery,
had taken to herself a lover, in the person of Lord John Russell, who
had for his rival "Sir Peel." Sir Peel was represented as pleading his
own cause in a passionate scene, which wound up as follows: "Why do you
love Lord John Russell, and why do you not love me? I know why you love
Lord John Russell. He is young, he is beautiful, he is profligate. I
cannot be young, I cannot be beautiful, but I will be profligate." Then
followed the stage direction, "Exit for ze Haysmarket." In a later act
it appeared that the Queen and Lord John Russell had between them given
the world a daughter, who, having been left to her own devices, or, in
other wo