book in 1894 that
his co-religionists began to recognize his possible merits,
and their enthusiasm has not perhaps been always wise.
It is natural that they should, as some of them openly
state they do, prefer the poems that I am rejecting to
those which I print; but this edition was undertaken in
response to a demand that, both in England and America,
has gradually grown up from the genuinely poetic interest
felt in the poems which I have gradually introduced to the
public:--that interest has been no doubt welcomed and
accompanied by the applause of his particular religious
associates, but since their purpose is alien to mine I regret
that I am unable to indulge it; nor can I put aside the
overruling objection that G. M. H. would not have wished
these 'little presentation pieces' to be set among his more
serious artistic work. I do not think that they would
please any one who is likely to be pleased with this book.

1. ST. DOROTHEA. Written when an exhibitioner at Balliol
College. Contemporary autograph in A, and another
almost identical in H, both undated. Text from A. This
poem was afterwards expanded, shedding its relative pro-
nouns, to 48 lines divided among three speakers, 'an
Angel, the protonotary Theophilus, (and) a Catechumen':
the grace and charm of original lost:--there is an auto-
graph in A and other copies exist. This was the first of
the poems that I saw, and G. M. H. wrote it out for me
(in 1866?).

2. HEAVEN HAVEN. Contemporary autograph, on same page
with last, in H. Text is from a slightly later autograph
undated in A. The different copies vary.

3. HABIT OF PERFECTION. Two autographs in A; the earlier
dated Jan. 18, 19, 1866. The second, which is a good
deal altered, is apparently of same date as text of No. 2.
Text follows this later version. Published in Miles.

4. WRECK OF THE DEUTSCHLAND. Text from B, title from A
(see description of B on p. 94). In 'The Spirit of Man'
the original first stanza is given from A, and varies;
otherwise B was not much corrected. Another transcript,
now at St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow, was made by
Rev. F. Bacon after A but before the correction of B.
This was collated for me by the Rev. Father Geoffrey Bliss,
S.J., and gave one true reading. Its variants are distin-
guished by G in the notes to the poem.

The labour spent on this great metrical experiment must
have served to establish the poet's prosody and perhaps
his diction: therefore the poem sta