regards artistic tendencies, essentially a sequel of _The Germ_, the organ of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, begun and continued for three numbers only, six years before. Several of the contributors to the earlier venture, including Rossetti, also supported its offshoot. Neither, however, gained popular favour, and after a year's struggling existence _The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine_ also came to an untimely end. At present both are eagerly sought for by collectors and fetch high prices at antiquarian sales. So changeable is the fate of books. In 1859 Morris married, after having the year before brought out his first volume of verse entitled _The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems_. The book fell dead from the press, and it was not till it was republished 25 years later that the world recognised in it some of the freshest and most individual efforts of its author, whose literary position was by that time established beyond cavil. That position the poet owed in the first instance to two works published in rapid succession, _The Life and Death of Jason_, and _The Earthly Paradise_, the latter a collection of tales in verse filling four stout volumes. His remaining original works are _Love is enough_, a "morality" in the mediæval sense of the word, and _The Story of Sigurd the Volsung_, his longest and, in the opinion of some, his most perfect epic. In addition to these should be mentioned the translations from the old Norse undertaken in conjunction with Mr. Magnusson the well-known Icelandic scholar, and comprising _The Story of Grettir the Strong_ (1869), _The Volsunga Saga, with certain songs from the Elder Edda_ (1870), and _Three Northern Love Stories_ (1875); and finally a metrical rendering of _The Æneids of Virgil_.