autumn, Degen came back to Basel.  It seemed as if all were going well; for the poet, with his books around him, and the blue-bloused Degen by his bedside, talked happily of politics and literature, and of an Italian journey in the spring.  He walked out twice; was he still happy?  Who can tell?  Was it happiness, or misery, or what strange impulse, that drove him, on his third walk, to go to a chemist’s shop in the town, and to obtain there a phial of deadly poison?  On the evening of that day—­the 26th of January, 1849—­Dr. Ecklin, his physician, was hastily summoned, to find Beddoes lying insensible upon the bed.  He never recovered consciousness, and died that night.  Upon his breast was found a pencil note, addressed to one of his English friends.  ‘My dear Philips,’ it began, ‘I am food for what I am good for—­worms.’  A few testamentary wishes followed.  Kelsall was to have the manuscripts; and—­’W.  Beddoes must have a case (50 bottles) of Champagne Moet, 1847 growth, to drink my death in ...  I ought to have been, among other things,’ the gruesome document concluded, ’a good poet.  Life was too great a bore on one peg, and that a bad one.  Buy for Dr. Ecklin one of Reade’s best stomach-pumps.’  It was the last of his additions to Death’s Jest Book, and the most macabre of all.

Kelsall discharged his duties as literary executor with exemplary care.  The manuscripts were fragmentary and confused.  There were three distinct drafts of Death’s Jest Book, each with variations of its own; and from these Kelsall compiled his first edition of the drama, which appeared in 1850.  In the following year he brought out the two volumes of poetical works, which remained for forty years the only record of the full scope and power of Beddoes’ genius.  They contain reprints of The Brides’ Tragedy and Death’s Jest Book, together with two unfinished tragedies, and a great number of dramatic fragments and lyrics; and the poems are preceded by Kelsall’s memoir of his friend.  Of these rare and valuable volumes the Muses’ Library edition is almost an exact reprint, except that it omits the memoir and revives The Improvisatore.  Only one other edition of Beddoes exists—­the limited one brought out by Mr. Gosse in 1890, and based upon a fresh examination of the manuscripts.  Mr. Gosse was able to add ten lyrics and one dramatic fragment to those already published by Kelsall; he made public for the first time the true story of Beddoes’ suicide, which Kelsall had concealed; and, in 1893, he followed up his edition of the poems by a volume of Beddoes’ letters.  It is clear, therefore, that there is no one living to whom lovers of Beddoes owe so much as to Mr. Gosse.  He has supplied most important materials for the elucidation of the poet’s history:  and, among the lyrics which he has printed for the first time, are to be found one of the most perfect specimens of Beddoes’ command of unearthly pathos—­The Old Ghost—­and