ised, however, was but preparatory to the real object of the
article, which was to assail Rossetti's new volume.

The poems were traversed in detail, with but little (and that the most
grudging) admission of their power and beauty, and the very sharpest
accentuation of their less spiritual qualities. Since the publication
of the article in question, events have taken such a turn that it is no
longer either necessary or wise to quote the strictures contained in it,
however they might be fenced by juster views. The gravamen of the charge
against Rossetti, Mr. Swinburne, and Mr. Morris alike--setting aside
all particular accusations, however serious--was that they had "bound
themselves into a solemn league and covenant to extol fleshliness as
the distinct and supreme end of poetic and pictorial art; to aver that
poetic expression is greater than poetic thought, and by inference that
the body is greater than the soul, and sound superior to sense."

Such, then, is a synopsis of the hostile article of which the nucleus
appeared in _The Contemporary Review_, and it were little less than
childish to say that events so important as the publication of the
article and subsequent pamphlet, and the controversy that arose out
of them, should, from their unpleasantness and futility, from the bad
passions provoked by them, or yet from the regret that followed after
them, be passed over in sorrow and silence. For good or ill, what was
written on both sides will remain. It has stood and will stand. Sooner
or later the story of this literary quarrel will be told in detail and
in cold blood, and perhaps with less than sufficient knowledge of either
of the parties concerned in it, or sympathy with their aims. No better
fate, one might think, could befall it than to be dealt with, however
briefly, by a writer whose affections were warmly engaged on one side,
while his convictions and bias of nature forced him to recognise the
justice of the other--stripped, of course, of the cruelties with which
literary error but too obviously enshrouded it.

Whatever the effect produced upon the public mind by the article
in question (and there seems little reason to think it was at all
material), the effect upon two of the writers attacked was certainly
more than commensurate with the assault. Mr. Morris wisely attempted
no reply to the few words of adverse criticism in which his name was
specifically involved; but Mr. Swinburne retorted upon his adversa