I think you will now understand what Swinburne's purpose was, and be able to judge of it. His mistakes were due not only to his youth but also to his astonishing genius; for he could not then know how much superior in ability he actually was to any other English poet. He imagined that there were many who might do what he could do. The truth is that hundreds of years may pass before another Englishman is born capable of doing what Swinburne could do. Men of letters have long ago forgiven him, because of this astonishing power. They say, "We know the poems are improper, but we have nothing else like them, and English literature cannot afford to lose them." The scholars have forgiven him, because his worst faults are always scholarly; and a common person cannot understand his worst allusions. Indeed, one must be much of a classical scholar to comprehend what is most condemnable in the first series of the "Poems and Ballads." Their extreme laxity will not be perceived without elaborate explanation, and no one can venture to explain--I do not mean in a university class room only, I mean even in printed criticism. When this was attempted by the poet's enemies, he was able to point out, with great effect, that the explanations were much more immoral than the poems. Now in considering Swinburne's poetry in a short course of lectures, I think it will be well to begin by explaining his philosophical position; for every poet has a philosophy of his own. As I have already said, there is less of this visible in Swinburne than in the other Victorian poets, but the little there is has a particular and beautiful interest, which we shall be able to illustrate in a series of quotations. I am presuming a little in speaking about his philosophy because there has been nothing of importance written about his philosophy, nor has he himself ever made a plain statement of it. In such a case I can only surmise, and you need not consider my opinion as definitive. Swinburne is, like George Meredith, an evolutionist, and he has something of the spiritual element in him which we notice in Meredith as a philosopher--but always with this difference, that Meredith makes evolution preach a moral law, and Swinburne does not. But here we notice that Swinburne's evolution is something totally different from Meredith's in its origin. I have said to you that Meredith expresses evolutional philosophy according to Herbert Spencer; I consider him the greatest of our philosophical poets for that very reason. Swinburne does not appear to have felt the influence of Herbert Spencer; he seems rather to reflect the opinions of Comte--especially of Comte as interpreted by Lewes, and perhaps by Frederic Harrison. He speaks of the Religion of Humanity, of the Divinity of Man, and of other things which indicate the influence of Comte. Furthermore, I must say, being myself a disciple of Spencer, that Swinburne's sociological