We are only certain that the Greeks were not wrong in representing love as the brother of death. The Oriental philosophers went further; they identified love with death, making them one and the same. One cannot help thinking of the Indian statue representing the creative power, holding in his hand the symbol of life, but wearing around his neck a necklace of human skulls. The poem that introduces the first volume of Swinburne's poems, as published in America, gave its name to the book, so that thousands of English readers used to call the volume by the name of this poem, "Laus Veneris," which means the praise of Venus. I do not think that there is a more characteristic poem in all Swinburne's work; it is certainly the most interesting version in any modern language of the old mediæval story. Without understanding the story you could not possibly understand the poem, and as the story has been famous for hundreds of years, I shall first relate it. After Christianity had made laws forbidding people to worship the old gods, it was believed that these gods still remained wandering about like ghosts and tempting men to sin. One of these divinities especially dreaded by the Christian priests, was Venus. Now in the Middle t Ages there was a strange story about a knight called Tannhäuser, who, riding home one evening, saw by the wayside a beautiful woman unclad, who smiled at him, and induced him to follow her. He followed her to the foot of a great mountain; the mountain opened like a door, and they went in, and found a splendid palace under the mountain. The fairy woman was Venus herself; and the knight lived with her for seven years. At the end of the seven years he became afraid because of the sin which he had committed; and he begged her, as Urashima begged the daughter of the Dragon King, to let him return for a little time to the world of men. She let him go; and he went to Rome. There he told his story to different priests, and asked them to obtain for him the forgiveness of God. But each of the priests made answer that the sin was so great that nobody except the Pope of Rome could forgive it. Then the knight went to the Pope. But when the Pope heard his confession, the Pope said that there was no forgiveness possible for such a crime as that of loving a demon. The Pope had a wooden staff in his hand, and he said, "Sooner shall this dry stick burst into blossom than you obtain God's pardon for such a sin." Then the knight, sorrowing greatly, went back to the mountain and to Venus. After he had gone, the Pope was astonished to see that the dry staff was covered with beautiful flowers and leaves that had suddenly grown out of it, as a sign that God was more merciful than his priests. At this the Pope became sorry and afraid, and he sent out messengers to look for the knight. But no man ever saw him again, for Venus kept him hidden in her palace under the mountain. Swinburne found his version of the story in a quaint