lication did not cause a single ripple on the
sea of literature. Gradually this book has become first a rarity and
then a famous possession, so that at the present moment there is
perhaps no volume of recent English verse so diminutive which commands
so high a price among collectors. When the library of Mr. Henry
Bradshaw was dispersed in November 1886, book-buyers thought that they
had a chance of securing this treasure at a reasonable price, for it
was known that the late Librarian of Cambridge University, an old
friend of the author, had no fewer than three copies. But at the sale
two of these copies went for three pounds fifteen and three pounds
ten, respectively, and the third was knocked down for a guinea,
because it was discovered to lack the title-page and the index. (I do
not myself think it right to encourage the sale of imperfect books,
and would not have spent half a crown on the rarest of volumes if I
could not have the title-page. But this is only an aside, and does not
interfere with the value of _Ionica_.)

The little book has no name on the title-page, but it is known that the
author was Mr. William Johnson, formerly a master at Eton and a fellow
of King's College, Cambridge. It is understood that this gentleman was
born about 1823, and died in 1892. On coming into property, as I have
heard, in the west of England, he took the name of Cory, So that he is
doubly concealed as a poet, the anonymous-pseudonymous. As Mr. William
Cory he wrote history, but there is but slight trace there of the author
of _Ionica_. In face of the extreme rarity of his early book, friends
urged upon Mr. Cory its republication, and he consented. Probably he
would have done well to refuse, for the book is rather delicate and
exquisite than forcible, and to reprint it was to draw public attention
to its inequality. Perhaps I speak with the narrow-mindedness of the
collector who possesses a treasure; but I think the appreciators of
_Ionica_ will always be few in number, and it seems good for those few
to have some difficulties thrown in the way of their delights.

Shortly after _Ionica_ appeared great developments took place in
English verse. In 1858 there was no Rossetti, no Swinburne; we may say
that, as far as the general public was concerned, there was no
Matthew Arnold and no William Morris. This fact has to be taken into
consideration in dealing with the tender humanism of Mr. Johnson's
verses. They are less coruscating and