PREFACE

THE only memoir of the life of Algernon Charles Swinburne which has hitherto been published is the sketch which I contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography in 1912. This was the result of some years of investigation, and it is the skeleton on which the present biography is built up. But since that article was issued, a great deal of new material has passed through my hands, and I have had the advantage of consulting many fresh sources of information. Important correspondence has been entrusted to me, and early friends have kindly consented to revise my pages. My narrative is therefore not merely much fuller than it would have been in 1912, but in various respects more accurate.

Only those who have never adventured on the biography of an elder contemporary, and especially of one who lived in great retirement, will under-estimate the difficulty of obtaining exact particulars. Events which occurred seventy, or even sixty, years ago are remembered by few, and the recollections of these few are seldom consistent.

The unaided memory of old companions is apt to play strange vagaries, and in matters which are comparatively unimportant may differ in a degree distracting to the biographer. An additional difficulty is added in the present case, for Swinburne himself was an autobiographical Will o' the Wisp. He was not disinclined to give information about his life, but his recollections need the closest inspection. In the midst of

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statement of considerable importance and value, he is apt to introduce, by a slip of memory, some remark which makes the whole narrative seem apocryphal; and the biographer must always be prosaically guarding the poet against his own romance. After the checking and rechecking of eight years, however, I believe that I have surmounted the main difficulties of the task.

In attempting to do so, I have met with extraordinary and almost universal kindness from Swinburne's representatives and friends. Before all other helpers I must mention my dear and valued friend, the late Lord Redesdale, who never ceased to press me forward on my course with his unfailing interest and sympathy. There was no limit to his friendly solicitude, and he insisted on seeing the book through all its stages. He finished reading the last revise after he was confined to his bed by his fatal illness. Although in the body of the narrative I have made use

of the recollections which he collected at my request, I have printed, in an appendix, the letter itself in which Lord Redesdale embodied most of those memories, for it is an excellent and characteristic specimen of his own manner of writing. It is a sorrow to me that this volume, to the publication of which he so indulgently looked forward, can never reach his hands.

The early friends of Swinburne who have helped me are too numerous to be mentioned here, and their aid is acknowledged in the text. I must, however, express my particular thanks to Lord Bryce, who has been good enough to read the Oxford chapter, to which, moreover, he has substantially contributed. Those helpers who died while my book was being slowly prepared must be named here with regret as well as gratitude - Ingram Bywater, R. W. Raper, Edith Sichel, Francis Warre-Cornish, J. L. StrachanDavidson.

The Marquess of Crewe has generously placed at my disposal the correspondence of Swinburne with his father, Lord Houghton, together with important illustrative matter. Viscount Morley has entrusted to me his file of the poet's letters, and has been so kind as to read Chapters VI. and VII. in proof. Professor James Fitzmaurice-Kelly has read my proofs and given me many valuable suggestions. But most of all I have to thank Mr. Thomas J. Wise for loyal and active help

throughout, for endless loans of MSS. and correspondence, and for free access to his unrivalled collection of Swinburniana. In my fourth Appendix I give fuller testimony to his part in my labours.

So large is the amount of new biographical detail which I found in my possession and was unwilling to ignore, that I was obliged to abandon the idea of adding, in a final chapter, an estimate of Swinburne's comparative place in literature, and particularly in the history of poetry. Various books with this purpose have been published, among them those of Wratislaw (1900), Woodberry (1906), Mackail (1909), Thomas (1913), Drinkwater (1913), and Welby (1914). More will doubtless be attempted, since the genius of Swinburne will never cease to interest critics, and successive generations of students will be drawn to examine his writings with more and more intelligence and sympathy.

EDMUND GOSSE.

January 1917.