this enthusiasm is an attractive characteristic. It
has never been permitted to distort the vision or cloud the critical
faculty; and we follow the teaching of the Master all the more closely
because we feel his fervor, and know how completely he becomes possessed
with a subject which appeals to his imagination or his heart. I have
therefore not scrupled to revive the words which he consented to
immolate at the shrine of Prudence.

It is not my province here to enter into any criticism of the pages
which follow; but, for the benefit of those who are not versed in the
minutiae of Shelleyan topics, a word may be said regarding Mr. Ruskin's
reference[G] to the poet who met his death in the Bay of Spezzia. The
_Don Juan_ was no "traitorous" craft. Fuller and more authentic
information is to hand now than the meager facts at the disposal of a
writer in 1856; and we know that the greed of man, and not the lack of
sea-worthiness in his tiny vessel, caused Percy Shelley to

"... Suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange."

[G] See _post_, p. 3.

There is, unhappily, no longer any room for doubt that the _Don Juan_
was willfully run down by a felucca whose crew coveted the considerable
sum of money they believed Byron to have placed on board, and cared
nothing for the sacrifice of human life in their eagerness to seize the
gold.

The twelve engravings, to which reference has already been made, have
been reproduced by the photogravure process from a selected set of early
examples; and, in addition, the plates so prepared have been carefully
worked upon by Mr. Allen himself. It will thus be apparent that
everything possible has been done to produce a worthy edition of a
worthy book, and to place in the hands of the public what to the present
generation of readers is tantamount to a new work from a pen
which--alas!--has now for so long a time been still.

THOMAS J. WISE.

AUTHOR'S ORIGINAL PREFACE.

Among the many peculiarities which distinguished the late J. M. W.
Turner from other landscape painters, not the least notable, in my
apprehension, were his earnest desire to arrange his works in connected
groups, and his evident intention, with respect to each drawing, that it
should be considered as expressing part of a continuous system of
thought. The practical result of this feeling was that he commenced many
series of drawings,--and, if any accident interfered with the
continuation of