ttle ungrateful and ungracious to say these things,
when but for Mr. Shorter we should not have had Emily's complete poems
at all. And to accuse Mr. Shorter of present indifference (in the face
of his previous achievements) would be iniquitous if it were not absurd;
it would be biting the hand that feeds you. The pity is that, owing to a
mere momentary lapse in him of the religious spirit, Mr. Shorter has
missed his own opportunity. He does not seem to have quite realized the
splendour of his "find". Nor has Sir William Robertson Nicoll seen fit
to help him here. Sir William Robertson Nicoll deprecates any
over-valuation of Mr. Clement Shorter's collection. "It is not claimed,"
he says, "for a moment that the intrinsic merits of the verses are of a
special kind." And Mr. Clement Shorter is not much bolder in proffering
his treasures. "No one can deny to them," he says, "a certain
bibliographical interest."

Mr. Shorter is too modest. His collection includes one of the
profoundest and most beautiful poems Emily Bronte ever wrote,[A] and at
least one splendid ballad, "Douglas Ride".[B] Here is the ballad, or
enough of it to show how live it is with sound and vision and speed. It
was written by a girl of twenty:

What rider up Gobeloin's glen
Has spurred his straining steed,
And fast and far from living men
Has passed with maddening speed?

I saw his hoof-prints mark the rock,
When swift he left the plain;
I heard deep down the echoing shock
Re-echo back again.

* * * * *

With streaming hair, and forehead bare,
And mantle waving wide,
His master rides; the eagle there
Soars up on every side.

The goats fly by with timid cry,
Their realm rashly won;
They pause--he still ascends on high--
They gaze, but he is gone.

O gallant horse, hold on thy course;
The road is tracked behind.
Spur, rider, spur, or vain thy force--
Death comes on every wind.

* * * * *

Hark! through the pass with threatening crash
Comes on the increasing roar!
But what shall brave the deep, deep wave,
The deadly pass before?

Their feet are dyed in a darker tide,
Who dare those dangers drear.
Their breasts have burst through the battle's worst,
And why should they tremble here?

* * * * *

"Now, my brave men, this one pass more,
This narrow chasm o