ath
Shared with its kind. The world's enfranchised son,
Who found the trees of Life and Knowledge one,
Here set it, frailer than his laurel-wreath.

Shall not the wretch whose hand it fell beneath
Rank also singly--the supreme unhung?
Lo! Sheppard, Turpin, pleading with black tongue
This viler thief's unsuffocated breath!

We 'U search thy glossary, Shakspeare! whence almost,
And whence alone, some name shall be reveal'd
For this deaf drudge, to whom no length of ears
Sufficed to catch the music of the spheres;
Whose soul is carrion now,--too mean to yield
Some tailor's ninth allotment of a ghost.

Stratford-on-Avon.

The other sonnets referred to, those, namely, on the _French Liberation
of Italy_, and the _German Subjugation of France_, display all
Rossetti's mastery of craftsmanship. In strength of vision, in fertility
of rhythmic resource, in pliant handling, these sonnets are, in my
judgment, among the best written by the author; and if I do not quote
them here, or altogether regret that they do not appear in the author's
works, it is not because I have any sense of their possibly offending
against the delicate sensibilities of an age in which it seems necessary
to hide out of sight whatever appears to impinge upon the domain of what
is called our lower nature.

The circumstance has hardly obtained even so much as a passing mention
that Rossetti made certain very important additions to the ballad of
_Sister Helen_, just before passing the old volume through the press
afresh for publication, contemporaneously with the new book. The
letters I am now to quote show the origin of those additions, and are
interesting, as affording a view of the author's estimate of the gain in
respect of completeness of conception, and sterner tragic spirit which
resulted upon their adoption.

I was very glad to have the three articles together, including the one
in which you have written on myself. Looking at this again, it seems to
me you must possess the _best_ edition (the Tauchnitz, which has my last
emendations). Otherwise I have been meaning all along to offer you a
copy of this edition, as I have some. Who was your informant as to dates
of the poems, etc.? They are not correct, yet show some inkling. _Jenny_
(in a first form) was written almost as early as _The Blessed Damozel_,
which I wrote (and have altered