Sappho: Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings and a Literal Translation

of his name on my pages, I owe more to his cordial help and criticism than I can acknowledge here.

Little more than I have given is needed to prove how transcendent an artist Sappho was; but I cannot forbear concluding with an extract from a recent essay on poetry by Mr. Theodore Watts:—

“Never before these songs were sung, and never since, did the human soul, in the grip of a fiery passion utter a cry like hers; and, from the executive point of view, in directness, in lucidity, in that high imperious verbal economy which only Nature can teach the artist, she has no equal, and none worthy to take the place of second.”

39, St. George’s Road,
Kilburn, London, N.W.

April, 1887.