In 1868 when William Michael Rossetti brought out his Selected Poems of Walt Whitman it raised a regular storm in British literary circles. The bitter-minded critics of the time absolutely flew at the Poet and his work as watch-dogs do at a ragged beggar. Unfortunately there were passages in the _Leaves of Grass_ which allowed of attacks, and those who did not or could not understand the broad spirit of the group of poems took samples of detail which were at least deterrent. Doubtless they thought that it was a case for ferocious attack; as from these excerpts it would seem that the book was as offensive to morals as to taste. They did not scruple to give the _ipsissima verba_ of the most repugnant passages. In my own University the book was received with cynical laughter, and more than a few of the students sent over to Trübner’s for copies of the complete _Leaves of Grass_—that being the only place where they could then be had. Needless to say that amongst young men the objectionable passages were searched for and more noxious ones expected. For days we all talked of Walt Whitman and the new poetry with scorn—especially those of us who had not seen the book. One day I met a man in the Quad who had a copy, and I asked him to let me look at it. He acquiesced readily: “Take the damned thing,” he said; “I’ve had enough of it!” I took the book with me into the Park and in the shade of an elm-tree began to read it. Very shortly my own opinion began to form; it was diametrically opposed to that which I had been hearing. From that hour I became a lover of Walt Whitman. There were a few of us who, quite independently of each other, took the same view. We had quite a fight over it with our companions who used to assail us with shafts of their humour on all occasions. Somehow, we learned, I think, a good deal in having perpetually to argue without being able to deny—in so far as quotation went at all events—the premises of our opponents. However, we were ourselves satisfied, and that was much. Young men are, as a rule, very tenacious of such established ideas as they have—perhaps it is a fortunate thing, for them and others; and we did not expect to convince our friends all at once. Fortunately also the feeling of intellectual superiority which comes with the honest acceptance of an idea which others have refused is an anodyne to the pain of ridicule. We Walt-Whitmanites had in the main more satisfaction than our opponents. Edward Dowden was one of the few who in those days took the large and liberal view of the _Leaves of Grass_, and as he was Professor of English Literature at the University his opinion carried great weight in such a matter. He brought the poems before the more cultured of the students by a paper at the Philosophical Society on May 4, 1871, on “Walt Whitman and the Poetry of Democracy.” To me was given the honour of opening the debate on the paper.