into professed socialism, and Morris led rather than followed in this change. He supported the federation largely with money, and devoted himself almost wholly to writing, speaking, and organising in its service. In 1884 jealousies among the leaders and differences of opinion with regard to policy led to a disruption of the federation. The seceders organised themselves as a separate body under the name of the Socialist league, and Morris, much against his will, was forced into a leadership of this group, among whom he was conspicuous alike by means, education, and character. To the service of the league he gave himself up with even more complete devotion, managing and financing their journal, the 'Commonweal,' preaching socialism among the working class in most of the industrial centres of Great Britain, and addressing street meetings regularly with the view of organising discontent towards a social revolution. In connection with one of these meetings in East London he was arrested in September 1885, but discharged without trial. During this period he wrote much in the 'Commonweal,' and also published many socialist tracts and pamphlets, both prose and verse. Not until the spring of 1886 did he begin to find time for literature other than that of direct socialism. He then took up a task, or rather to him a recreation, delightful in itself and the more pleasant by contrast with his political work, the translation of the 'Odyssey' into English verse. His 'Odyssey' was published in 1887, as was a volume of essays and addresses entitled 'The Aims of Art.' In 1888 followed a second volume of addresses, called 'Signs of Change,' and the most remarkable of his prose writings, 'A Dream of John Ball,' a work of singular elevation and beauty, which may be classed either as a romance or as a study in the philosophy of history. In the same year he had taken his head managers into partnership, and thus relieved himself from much of the routine work of his manufacturing business.
Increased leisure, and the conviction (finally confirmed by the events of 13 Nov. 1887 in Trafalgar Square) that no social revolution was now practicable, and that the true work of socialists lay in education towards revolution by influence on opinion, were leading Morris by this time, on the one hand towards a more passive socialism, and on the other towards the resumption of other and older interests. The ideal human life of the future lay far beyond reach ; he now once more reverted to that of a remote or fabulous past, in a series of prose romances which he went on writing for the remainder of his life. The first of these, 'The House of the Wolfings' (1889), is a story in which a romantic and supernatural element is combined with a semi-historical setting, of life in a Teutonic community of Central Europe in the time of the later Roman empire. It was followed by 'The Roots of the Mountains' (1890), a story of somewhat similar method, but of a less defined place and time. The former of these stories is in a vehicle of mixed prose and verse used with remarkable skill, which he did not repeat, although the subsequent romances include passages of lyrical verse. Next came 'The Story of the Glittering Plain' (1890), 'The Wood beyond the World' (1894), 'Child Christopher' (1895), and 'The Well at the World's End ' (1896), the longest and most elaborate of his romances. 'The Water of the Wondrous Isles' and 'The Story of the Sundering Flood,' the last two of the series, were only published after his death (1897, 1898). Midway between these romances and the literature of socialism is the romantic pastoral of 'News from Nowhere,' describing the England of some remote future under realised communism, which appeared in the 'Commonweal' in 1890, and was published as a book in 1891.
The socialist league had since 1887 been dwindling in numbers and losing coherence : its control passed in 1889 into the hands of a group of anarchists, and in 1890 Morris formally withdrew from it. He had already become absorbed in a new work, that of reviving the art of printing as it had flourished in the later years of the fifteenth century. The Kelmscott Press was started by him at Hammersmith during 1890. He designed for it three founts of type and an immense number of ornamental letters and borders, and superintended all the details of printing and production. In 1893 he also became his own publisher. One of the earliest of the Kelmscott Press books was a volume of his own shorter poems, chiefly lyrics and ballads, entitled 'Poems by the Way' (1891), the greater number of which were now published for the first time. Fifty-three books in all were issued from the Press between April 1891 and March 1898, when it was wound up by Morris's executors. They fall broadly under three heads : (1) Morris's own works ; (2) reprints of English classics, mediaeval and modern, beginning with that of Caxton's 'Golden Legend' (1892), and ending with the Chaucer of 1896, which competent judges have pronounced the finest printed book ever pro-
