If one had been content merely to make an anthology of poems dealing with the poet, one's deed would perhaps have been easier to excuse, for the public has been so often assured that anthologies are an economical form of publication, and a time-saving form of predigested food, that it usually does not stop to consider whether the material was worth collecting in the first place. Gleaner after gleaner has worked in the field of English literature, sorting and sifting, until almost the last grain, husk, straw and thistle have been gathered and stored with their kind. But instead of making an anthology, we have gone on the assumption that something more than accidental identity of subject-matter holds together the apparently desultory remarks of poets on the subject of the poet's eyebrows, his taste in liquors, his addiction to midnight rambles, and whatnot. We have followed a labyrinthine path through the subject with faith that, if we were but patient in observing the clues, we should finally emerge at a point of vantage on the other side of the woods. The primary grounds of this faith may have appeared to the skeptic ridiculously inadequate. Our faith was based upon the fact that, more than two thousand years ago, a serious accusation had been made against poets, against which they had been challenged to defend themselves. This led us to conclude that there must be unity of intention in poetry dealing with the poet, for we believed that when English poets talked of themselves and their craft, they were attempting to remove the stigma placed upon the name of poet by Plato's charge. Now it is easy for a doubter to object that many of the poems on the subject show the poet, not arraying evidence for a trial, but leaning over the brink of introspection in the attitude of Narcissus. One need seek no farther than self-love, it may be suggested, to find the motive for the poet's absorption in his reflection. Yet it is incontrovertible that the self-infatuation of our Narcissus has its origin in the conviction that no one else understands him, and that this conviction is founded upon a very real attitude of hostility on the part of his companions. The lack of sympathy between the English poet and the public is so notorious that Edmund Gosse is able to state as a truism: While in France poetry has been accustomed to reflect the general tongue of the people, the great poets of England have almost always had to struggle against a complete dissonance between their own aims and interests and those of the nation. The result has been that England, the most inartistic of the modern races, has produced the largest number of exquisite literary artists. [Footnote: _French Profiles_, p. 344.]