PREFACE 
7 
plagiarists ;  he alone caught the fierce frenzy of Baude-
laire’s brandied shrieks, and his First Series of Poems 
and Ballads was the legitimate echo of that not fierier 
note.  But English Art as a whole was unmoved, at 
any rate not stirred to any depth, by this wave of 
debauchery.  The great thinkers maintained the even 
keel, and the windy waters lay nor for their frailer 
barks to cross.  There is one exception of note, till 
this day unsuspected, in the person of George Archi-
bald Bishop.  In a corner of Paris this young poet 
(for in his nature the flower of poesy did spring, did 
even take root and give some promise of a brighter 
bloom, till stricken and blasted in latter years by the 
lightning of his own sins) was steadily writing day 
after day, night after night, often working forty hours 
at a time, work which he destined to entrance the 
world.  All England should ring with his praises ;  
bye-and-bye the whole world should know his name. 
Of these works none of the longer and more ambitious 
remains.  How they were lost, and how those frag-
ments we possess were saved, is best told by relating 
the romantic and almost incredible story of his life.  
The known facts of this life are few, vague, and 
unsatisfactory ;  the more definite statements lack cor-