James Thomson

“ We are not concerned here with Shelley's opinions ; but as mere outsiders, who have no Alma Mater to look back upon either with gratitude or contempt, we may remark that a university which has no other discipline at command for sceptical or heretical pupils than expulsion, proclaims its own utter incapacity for the duties it undertakes to fulfil in the guidance and education of youth. ”

“ Symonds' book fairly reaches the high-water mark of cultivated and liberal appreciation of Shelley, as poet and as man, in the present time. The ultimate appreciation cannot be yet : for Shelley's fame and influence are still crescent, his cyclic day is still far from its noon ; the poet of the distant future must culminate in the epoch to which he properly belongs. His own lofty words in the " Defence of Poetry " are decidedly applicable to himself, if not to all his illustrious predecessors and contemporaries : " Even in modern times, no living poet ever arrived at the fulness of his fame ”

“ Memoir," as yet the richest collection of biographical materials from all sources, is bound up with his critical edition of the poems ; Hogg's " Life " is but a fragment, and, unfortunately, far less trustworthy than brilliant, if not in the general impression, at any rate in many of the details it gives of Shelley at Oxford, and after his expulsion; Medwin's "Life" (1847) is sketchy and inaccurate, and not easily accessible ; Lady Shelley's " Memorials " are distinctly ancillary ”