But Wilson is a rhetorician, not a theorist of poetry; he is not concerned with the moral example as the purpose of poetry.

These opinions, deliberately expressed by Shelley at different dates as a theorist in prose, should be taken into account if we endeavour to estimate what he means when, as a poet, he speaks, whether in Hellas or in Adonais, of an individual, his mind and his immortality.

"Thus," he continued, "we have been regarded by one class of theorists as an hydraulic engine, composed of various tubes fitted with their several fluids, the laws and functions of which have been deduced from calculations of velocities, altitudes, diameters, friction, &c. Another class considered man as a mere chemical engine, and his stomach as an alembic.

In the Middle Ages United Italy was an Idea to theorists like Dante, who dreamed for her an actual supremacy beneath her Emperor's sway in Rome.

I would rather agree with Grim than argue with any inky theorist on earth, having seen too many theories upset.

Sir Henry Maine would surely have done better service in this grave and difficult discussion, if he had dealt with views which he mistrusts, as they are really held and expressed by sane theorists, and not by insane theorists out of sight.