It was as artistic worker and employer of skilled labour that Morris imbibed that profound disgust with our social condition which induced him to adopt the principles of extreme socialism. For a long time his views had tended in that direction, and at the end of 1884 he joined the Socialist League, a body professing the doctrines of international revolutionary socialism. He is the editor of its official organ, the _Commonweal_, which contains many contributions from his pen both in prose and verse. That the poet has not been entirely sunk in the politician, that longing for beauty is at least the partial cause of this desire for change at any price, is however proved by such a sentiment as, "Beauty, which is what is meant by _art_, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident of human life which people can take or have as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is unless we are content to be less than men," or by such a vision of a future earthly paradise as is expressed in the following lines: Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deeds of his hand, Nor yet come home in the even, too faint and weary to stand, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed, Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Then all _mine_ and _thine_ shall be _ours_, and no more shall any man crave For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend for a slave. One may admire the pathetic beauty of such lines, without sharing the poet's hope, that their import will ever be realised, in a world peopled by men and not by angels. History teaches and personal experience confirms that art enjoyment and art creation of the highest type must be confined to the few, and it is to be feared that social democracy, whatever it may do for the physical welfare of the many, will care little about beauty, either in nature or in art. The _Demos_ will never admire Rossetti's pictures or Keats's poetry, and the first thing the much-vaunted peasant proprietors, or peasant communes would do would be to cut down our ancient trees, level every hedgerow and turn parks and commons into potato plots or it may be turnip fields. One may feel certain of all this and yet admire the author of _The Earthly Paradise_, "the idle singer of an empty day" when he preaches universal brotherhood in the crossways of Hammersmith, and wrestles with policemen, or wrangles with obtuse magistrates about the freedom of speech. Conviction thus upheld at the cost of worldly advantage and personal convenience and taste must command respect even from those who cannot share it. Francis Hueffer. CONTENTS. Page From "THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE AND OTHER POEMS."