In literary circles there has always been a strong prejudice against “B.V.,” owing, of course, to his atheistical views and the general lack of “respectability” in his life and surroundings. I was told by Mr. William Sharp that, just after the _Life of James Thomson_ was published, he happened to be travelling to Scotland in company with Mr. Andrew Lang, and having with him a copy of the book, which he was reviewing for the _Academy_, he tried to engage his companion in talk about Thomson, but was met by a marked disinclination to discuss a subject so uncongenial. I was not surprised at hearing this; but I had been puzzled by a refusal which I received from Mr. Swinburne to allow me to publish a letter which he had addressed to Mr. W. M. Rossetti some years before, in high praise of Thomson’s narrative poem “Weddah and Om-el-Bonain,” which he had described as possessing “forthright triumphant power.” That letter, so Mr. Swinburne wrote to me, had been inspired by “a somewhat extravagant and uncritical enthusiasm,” and he now spoke in rather severe reprobation of Thomson, as one who might have left behind him “a respectable and memorable name.” The word “respectable,” coming from the author of _Poems and Ballads_, deserves to be noted. About two years later, in 1890, the immediate cause of this change of opinion on Mr. Swinburne’s part was explained to me by no less an authority than Mr. Watts-Dunton, who had invited me to pay him a visit in order to have a talk about Thoreau. During a stroll on Putney Heath, shared by Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Watts-Dunton told me the story of James Thomson’s overthrow; and as the similar downfall of Whitman, and of some of Swinburne’s other early favourites, was probably brought about in the same manner, the process is worth relating. Mr. Swinburne, as I have said, had written in rapturous praise of one of “B.V.’s” poems. One day Mr. Watts-Dunton said to him: “I wish you would re-read that poem of Thomson’s, as I cannot see that it possesses any great merit.” A few days later Swinburne came to him and said: “You are quite right. I have re-read ‘Weddah and Om-el-Bonain,’ and I find that it has very little value.” Watts-Dunton’s influence over his friend was so complete that there are in fact _two_ Swinburnes: the earlier, democratic poet of the _Songs before Sunrise_, who had not yet been rescued by Mr. Watts-Dunton; and the later, respectable Swinburne, whose bent was for the most part reactionary. A “lost leader” indeed! Contrary to the proverb, the appeal, in this case, must be from Philip sober to Philip drunk.