953 sc ex scr ner.4 THE MASK OF ANARCHY Facsimile of Shelley's Manuscript r The issue of this book is strictly limited to five hundred copies 'sat* Cun^'. THE MASK OF ANARCHY WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MASSACRE AT MANCHESTER BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Jf ar- simile OF THE HOLOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT WITH AN JfnittrtMtfion bg H BUXTON FORMAN Uontoon PUBLISHED FOR THE SHELLEY SOCIETY BY REEVES AND TURNER 196 STRAND 1887 The following remarks, although written expressly to accompany tlie present facsimile of tlie holograph "Mask of Anarchy" now in the possession of Mr. Thomas f. Wise, liave furnished the substance of a paper read before the S/ielley Society on tJie gth of February 1887, and of an article printed in " The Gentleman's Maga- zine" for March 1887; but tJte bearings of the manuscript on tlie text of the poem are dealt with in the ensuing pages more in detail than in the paper or in the article. 75' CASE 8 • M834274 CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION— I. The " Manchester Massacre," and what Shelley THOUGHT OF IT I II. Recovery of Manuscripts of " The Mask of Anarchy " 13 III. The Holograph consulted on moot points in the Text 16 IV. Further Details of the Holograph 28 V. Mrs. Shelley's Portrait-drawing in "The Last Man" 36 VI. A Talk with Mr. H. M. Stanley 43 appendix- Mrs. Shelley's Letter to Bowring 51 FAC-SIMILE OF SHELLEY'S MANUSCRIPT 55 FRONTISPIECE Facsimile of Three Stanzas of "The Mask of Anarchy" written out by mrs. shelley and revised by shelley. INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION. I. THE " MANCHESTER MASSACRE," AND WHAT SHELLEY THOUGHT OF IT. ♦ THE year 1819 was a critical one in the history of reform. Democratic agitation had been rife among the British working classes for some years ; monster public gatherings were becoming more and more frequent ; and in the summer of 18 19 the movement culminated in a huge concourse at Manchester. On the 31st of July an advertisement in The Manchester Observer set forth that a meeting would be held on the 9th of August in a large open space called St. Peter's Field, with the view of urging forward parliamentary reform. The magistrates declared that such a meeting would be illegal ; and its promoters postponed it while endeavouring to compass B 2 INTRODUCTION. their end in a more formal manner, but eventually held their meeting on the 16th of August 1 8 19, in St. Peter's Field. The people poured into Manchester by thousands from all the surrounding towns, coming peaceably and in order, but for a purpose pronounced to be illegal : it was arranged that the chair should be taken by the noisy demagogue Henry Hunt, best known as Orator Hunt, and not connected in any way with Leigh Hunt. The authorities at Manchester had made extensive but muddlesome preparations for what they termed the preservation of peace. They had ready for action a large number of special constables, some yeomanry cavalry, and some three hundred hussars ; but, although the authorities had ample knowledge and warning of the meeting, they failed to arrange beforehand any definite plan of action. They made no effort to arrest the ring- leaders on their way to St. Peter's Field ; and it was not till Hunt was on the platform, surrounded by a densely packed and enormous crowd of peaceable and orderly men, women, and children, that an absurd attempt to take him into custody was made. When the warrant for the apprehension of the reform leaders was handed INTRODUCTION. 3 to the chief constable for execution, he averred that he should need military aid. To this end some forty of the yeomanry cavalry were despatched to make their way through the crowd, — an obvious impossibility, — and were speedily hemmed in on all hands and stuck fast. They do not appear at first to have done or received serious harm ; but, when their mission was found to have failed, a hasty order ' was given to the three hundred hussars, who were in attendance hard by, to disperse the crowd. , They made a vigorous charge, resulting in a terrific scene of confusion and indiscriminate slashing and overturning ; and in the end about six people were killed outright, while twenty or thirty were wounded by the sabres of the cavalry, and some fifty or more injured by being trodden under foot and otherwise maltreated.. ' Such, in a few words, was the Manchester Massacre, as 1 '"Good God, sir! Do you not see how they are attacking the yeomanry ? Disperse the crowd.' On this, the word ' Forward ' was instantly given, the trumpet sounded, and the cavalry dashed among the multitude." See A History of the Thirty Years' Peace, by Harriet Martineau, 4 volumes, 1877, vol. i, pp. 283-314, for a full account of the whole episode. 4 INTRODUCTION. Shelley termed it, or> as it is often called, the Peterloo Massacre. When the news of this ugly business reached Shelley at Leghorn, he was beyond measure transported by resentment against the local authorities and the Government. The affair took place during the adminis- tration of the Earl of Liverpool, when Lord Eldon was Lord High Chancellor, Viscount Sidmouth Home Secre- tary, and Lord Castlereagh Foreign Secretary. Lord Sidmouth publicly expressed the satisfaction of the Prince Regent with the " prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public tranquillity," adopted by the local authorities. Lord Eldon, equally, supported the magistrates ; and for the rest, the cup of iniquity both of Castlereagh and of Eldon had long, in Shelley's eyes, been full to overflowing; so that he might well, as the Pageant of Anarchy passed before his eyes in "the visions of poesy," see Murder with a mask like Castlereagh and Fraud with an ermined gown like Lord Eldon's. He may have had reasons outside the words quoted above for identifying Lord Sidmouth with Hypocrisy; but the words are themselves sufficiently untrue and time-serving to make the identification at INTRODUCTION. 5 east as applicable as that of Lords Castlereagh and Eldon with Murder and Fraud. It is thus that Mrs. Shelley, in her note on the poems of 1 8 19, describes her husband's feelings on this occasion : — 11 Though Shelley's first eager desire to excite his countrymen to resist openly the oppressions existent during ' the good old times ' had faded with early youth, still his warmest sympathies were for the people. He was a republican, and loved a democracy. He looked on all human beings as in- heriting an equal right to possess the dearest privileges of our nature, the necessaries of life, when fairly earned by labour, and intellectual instruction. His hatred of any despotism, that looked upon the people as not to be consulted or protected from want and ignorance, was intense. He was residing near Leghorn, at Villa Valsovano, writing The Cenci, when the news of the Manchester Massacre reached us : it roused in him violent emotions of indignation and compassion. The great truth that the many, if accordant and resolute, could control the few, as was shown some years after, made him long to teach his injured countrymen how to resist. Inspired by these feelings he wrote the Masque of Anarchy. . . ." It may be questioned whether the words " writing The Cenci" were meant to be taken literally. Professor Dowden tells us {Life of Sltelley, vol. ii, p. 279) that, on Sunday the 8th of August, Shelley " brought the first rough draft [of The Cenci] to an end," and that during some later days of the same month he was " engaged in copying and correcting the poem." c 6 INTRODUCTION. I have reason to know that the words "first rough draft " are not quoted from any contemporary record, but are of the nature of an interpretation, there being no precise knowledge at present as to the degree of finish which characterized the tragedy as completed by Shelley on the 8th of August. It seems certain, how- ever, that a week later than that it was not absolutely finished; for on the nth of August he was re-copying some portion of it. On the 15th of August he wrote to Leigh Hunt — * " My Prometheus is finished, and I am also on the eve of completing another work, totally different from any thing you might conjecture that I should write ; of a more popular kind ; and, if any thing of mine could deserve attention, of higher claims." The work referred to is The Cenci\ and, as the middle of August is generally accepted as the time of comple- tion, it is not improbable that the 15th was actually the eve of the tragedy's birthday. Mrs. Shelley appears to have assisted later in copying; but even of this there seems to be no record later than the 20th of August. Now if the 16th was actually the day on which Shelley 1 Prose Works, vol. iv, p. 115. INTRODUCTION. 7 put the last finishing touch to his tragedy, as I think we may reasonably assume it to have been in the absence of further evidence, the coincidence was sufficiently remark- able ; for that was the very day on which the Manchester magistrates, in the plenitude of their wisdom and fore- thought for the " public tranquillity," took order for the enactment of the tragedy in St. Peter's Field, which was to provide him with the subject of his next considerable poem. But these, we must recollect, were not the days of Reuter's telegrams, nor did news reach Leghorn from England by post in two or three days. The chances are that Shelley remained ignorant of the massacre till August had given place to September. By the 9th of September he was sending a printed copy of T/ie Cenci to Peacock ; and there is a letter to Mr. Oilier * in which he mentions the indescribable trouble he had with the Italian printer in getting the work through the press at Leghorn. Now this indescribable trouble must certainly have occupied a plurality of weeks, as any one who is familiar with printing processes at their best must be convinced : I do not doubt, therefore, that the business 1 See Tkt Shelley Library, p. 91. 8 INTRODUCTION. on which the poet was occupied when he heard first of the meeting in St. Peter's Field and its sanguinary results must have been the printing and not the writing of The Cenci. How the indescribable trouble inflicted on him by Signor Masi x and his compositors must have shrunk into insignificance when he opened the English newspapers and read of the hideous and sanguinary bungle, it is not difficult to picture to one's thought. Let us look in imagination into that glazed-in loggia at the top of Villa Valsovano, 2 where the summer had seen Shelley at work upon the greatest tragedy produced since Shakespeare's hand left working in that kind : do we not see the same Shelley dividing his time between attention to the inde- scribable proof-sheets of the said tragedy, damp from printer Masi's office, and boiling over the news contained in the papers from his abandoned country, where a less remote if less poetic tragedy had just been enacted ? 1 Professor Dowden {Life of Shelley, vol. ii, p. 279) says that the book was printed at Masi's, adding, however, in a foot-note, " I have no positive evidence that Masi was Shelley's printer, but it seems morally certain that to Masi he would go." 2 See Mrs. Shelley's note on The Cenci. INTRODUCTION. 9 Whether Masi's mangling of the majestic lines of The Cenci, or thoughts of that ghastly rush of cavalry to mangle the limbs of his countrymen, drove him the oftener to the glazed front of his "airy cell," 1 who shall say ? Whether, when driven from his high retreat to rush into Leghorn and make personal repre- sentations to the bewildered and bewildering printers, the completed tragedy of medieval Italy or the poem already getting forward on the new tragedy of modern England, was uppermost in his thoughts, who shall guess ? But we cannot thrust aside the recurring picture of the poet, starting up once and again with impulsive fingers thrust through his wild locks, stung now by some blunder of the printers in transferring from manuscript to print the unfamiliar language of his fresh great " summer-task," 2 now by some detail, or imagined detail, of the massacre, to find a momentary relief in gazing down from the study "half way between the town [of Leghorn] and Monte Nero : " 8 from that study he could 1 Mrs. Shelley's note on The Cenci. * "So now my summer-task is ended, Mary." Loon and Cythtta — Dedication. * Mrs. Shelley's note on The Cenci. D i o IN TROD UCTION. drink in through the eyes the benign influence of the "near sea" which he loved, and could for a moment calm his vexed spirit with the " wide prospect of fertile country " 1 of the land of his choice. But we have not to depend on sheer imagination in order to realize the vivid series of impressions kept up in Shelley's mind : not only have we in our hands the admirable poem which he wrote on the impulse of this ugly episode in the history of reform in England, but letters and memoranda are preserved for our guidance. On the 6th of September, when well through his troubles with the Leghorn printers, he wrote a letter 2 to his publisher, Mr. Oilier, announcing his intention to send The Cenci for publication, and commenting thus on the Manchester Massacre : — " The same day that your letter came, came the news of the Manchester work, and the torrent of my indignation has not yet done boiling in my veins. I wait anxiously to hear how the country will express its sense of this bloody, murderous oppression of its destroyers. ' Something must be done. What, yet I know not.' " 8 1 Mrs. Shelley's note on The Cenci. 2 Shelley Memorials, pp. 1 18-19. 8 This quotation from The Cenci (act hi, scene i, lines 86-7) gives us a glimpse of the way in which the real and literary tragedies were dividing - INTRODUCTION. u Three days later he wrote to his good friend Pea- cock, 1 sending him a copy of The Cenci and exhibiting an unabated interest in the Peterloo business : — " Many thanks for your attention in sending the papers which contain the terrible and important news of Manchester. These are, as it were, the dis- tant thunders of the terrible storm which is approaching. The tyrants here, as in the French Revolution, have first shed blood. May their execrable lessons not be learnt with equal docility ! I still think there will be no coming to close quarters until financial affairs bring the oppressors and the oppressed together. Pray let me have the earliest political news which you consider of importance at this crisis. " After the lapse of twelve days more, he again ad- dressed Peacock, further concerning Tlie Cenci, and {inter alia) concerning the massacre : — 2 " I have received all the papers you sent me, and the Examiners regularly, perfumed with muriatic acid. 8 What an infernal business — this of Man- chester ! What is to be done ? Something assuredly.* H. Hunt has behaved, I think, with great spirit and coolness in the whole affair. " his mind. The "torrent " of his indignation did not, it seems, even give him time to reflect whether Mr. Oilier would understand the words "op- pression of its destroyers " as meaning oppression exercised by the persons so characterized. 1 Prose Works, vol. iv, pp. 123-4. * Ibid. voL iv, pp. 124-6. * The result of quarantine operations. 4 Note the curious way in which the Cenci words quoted to Oilier are put in plain prose for the unsympathizing Peacock, the "nursling of the exact and superficial school in poetry. " 12 INTRODUCTION. That the poem seethed in his mind for a continuance of time is also evident from another passage in Mrs. Shelley's note on the poems of 1819: — " The poem was written for the people, and is therefore in a more popu- lar tone than usual ; portions strike as abrupt and unpolished, but many stanzas are all his own. I heard him repeat (and admired) those beginning, — My Father Time is old and grey, 1 before I knew to what poem they were to belong. But the most touching passage is that which describes the blessed effects of liberty ; they might make a patriot of any man, whose heart was not wholly closed against his humbler fellow-creatures. " In what form the poem was first put into black and white perhaps we may never know ; but the chances are that it was jotted down in note-books or on scraps of paper, with pencil or pen as occasion ruled, before being reduced to its finished form. However that may be, it was copied out by Mrs. Shelley, finally revised by Shelley, and despatched to Leigh Hunt for publica- tion in The Examiner \ before November 18 19. It never saw the light till 1832; for Hunt, prudent for once, thought that, if given to the public in 18 19, it would have a very different effect from that for which 1 Presumably from memory. We should read weak for old. INTRODUCTION. 13 the poet designed it. When Mrs. Shelley reprinted the poem in her collected editions, dating from 1839 onwards, she included a stanza not given by Hunt ; but, so far as the public knew, from that time till 1876, there were no available means of verifying by consultation of manuscripts the readings of either the one version or the other. II. RECOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS OF "THE MASK OF ANARCHY." In 1876 some Shelley papers preserved by Leigh Hunt came to the surface of the stream of Time which had swamped them ; and in the following year, when the third volume of my library edition of Shelley's Poetical Works was issued, The Mask of Anarchy was given from the very copy which Mrs. Shelley had written and Shelley had revised with minute and scrupulous care, for Hunt to publish in The Examiner. E i 4 INTRODUCTION. Certain peculiarities in that manuscript, notably gaps left by Mrs. Shelley and afterwards filled in by Shelley, led me to surmise that the poet had dictated the poem to his wife from rough notes, such as we know he made, in ample measure, of his poetic thoughts. Until the present year (1887) the Hunt manuscript remained the sole known written authority for the text of The Mask ; and it did not seem very probable that another authority would be discovered. Nevertheless, Shelley's own manu- script of the whole poem, less a few omitted lines, has at length been found, and has blown to the winds my theory of dictation, — the peculiarities being the result, not of hesitant instructions to an amanuensis, but of copying out, as literally as might be, a poem which was practically completed, but required just a few finishing touches. Of Shelley's holograph manuscript the following pages are a fac-simile : of Mrs. Shelley's copy, revised and filled in by the poet, a fac-simile of three sample stanzas is inserted as a frontispiece to this book. The recovery of the holograph is a direct result of the Shelley Society's activity. Mr. Frederic S. Ellis, INTRODUCTION. 15 while carrying on the work of editing and supervising the Shelley Concordance, which my wife began some years ago, and was compelled to abandon, had to appeal through the columns of The AtJienaum for additions to his phalanx of workers. From communications made to Mr. Ellis in this connexion it transpired that Mrs. Shelley, in 1826, gave the holograph Mask of Anarchy to the late Sir John (then Mr.) Bowring, whose son, Mr. Lewin Bowring, C.S.I. , placed it temporarily in Mr. Ellis's hands, together with a most interesting letter sent by Mrs. Shelley with her precious gift. This letter, with particulars of the manuscript, was at once communicated by Mr. Ellis to The Atlienamm \ x and arrangements were shortly made for the transfer of the manuscript and letter to their present owner, Mr. Thomas J. Wise. In a small way, the recovery of this manuscript, and its bestowal in the hands of one who will not keep it hidden, have made quite a stir. To Shelley specialists the knowledge that the holograph of another of Shelley's poems is extant and accessible is neces- 1 January 22, 1887. 1 6 INTRODUCTION. sarily gratifying ; and the production of a fac-simile of it is an obvious desideratum, — a fac-simile being serviceable both for the purposes of students who desire to know more of Shelley's way of work, and for such collectors as cannot hope to possess originals. III. THE HOLOGRAPH CONSULTED ON MOOT POINTS IN THE TEXT. It may now be well to note the particular reasons, independent of Shelleyolatry and autograph-hunting, for which the -recovery of this manuscript was to be desired. The spelling of the word Mask in the title was already settled ; for Shelley himself wrote the head- ing of the Hunt manuscript, and put Mask, not Masque. He also added the words, " written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester." It is INTRODUCTION. 17 fortunate that further evidence on these points was not wanted ; for the holograph affords none, — the poem being entirely without title or heading. But a few textual points remained on which the evidence of the holograph was desirable. For instance, stanza iv opens in the Hunt manuscript with the lines "Next came Fraud, and he had on, Like Eldon, an ermined gown ; " but Hunt gave the second line thus — " Like Lord Eldon, an ermined gown ; " and Mrs. Shelley gave it thus — " Like Lord Eldon, an ermine gown ; " as a matter of fact the word Lord is in the holograph very faint and small, and written in a peculiar way, above the other words, as if for reconsideration ; but, as Shelley deliberately and very decidedly cut it out of the final manuscript, its existence in the other has no present bearing on the text. Stanza vi has always been a difficult one to me. Why Hypocrisy, appropriately mounted on a crocodile F 1 8 INTRODUCTION. and bearing the similitude of Viscount Sidmouth, should be "Clothed with the Bible, as with light, And the shadows of the night," I cannot with any security explain. In the Hunt manu- script an asterisk is placed against the first line, and a space is left at the foot of the page, as if for the insertion of a note. It was legitimate to hope that a rough draft of such a note might exist ; but the holograph shows no trace whatever of it : indeed the idea of a note would seem to have been an after- thought ; for Shelley's manuscript has neither the asterisk nor the space for a note. Perhaps we are meant to understand that the Bible is a mingled web of light and darkness — of high thought and teaching and gross and bloody superstition ; and that dogmas and professions from the Hebrew scriptures were the favourite cloak for hypocrisy in those days. It would not be far from the truth; and perhaps the imagery is meant to apply to Hypocrisy at large rather than to the particular hypocrisy of the Home Secretary. INTRODUCTION. 19 Stanza ix stands thus in the Hunt manuscript — " And he wore a kingly crown ; And in his grasp a sceptre shone ; On his brow this mark I saw — ' I am God, and King, and Law ! ' " Hunt altered the third line to ' ' And on his brow this mark I saw — " and Mrs. Shelley gave the second thus — " In his hand a sceptre shone" which turns out to be the reading of the holograph, though, again, a reading which Shelley rejected in favour of that of the Hunt manuscript, where the line is revised by his own hand. In stanza xx all editions and the Hunt manuscript give the first couplet thus — " For he knew the Palaces Of our Kings were nightly his ; " but the late James Thomson ("B.V.") proposed to substitute rightly for nightly, — a proposal which Mr. Rossetti supported. The holograph confirms this read- ing ; and those who turn to page 5 of the fac-simile zo INTRODUCTION. will see how pardonable the error of transcription was. That it was simply a mistake in copying, which Shelley failed to discover, is, I think, certain. If the word he wrote is rightly, as it unquestionably is, he cannot have wanted to change it to nightly^ and so substitute a difficulty for an easy passage. Mrs. Shelley, in the passage from stanza xiv, " Hearing the tempestuous cry Of the triumph of Anarchy " — changed tempestuous to tremendous ; and in stanza xviii, she altered " Thou art King, and God, and Lord ;" to "Thou art King, and Law, and Lord," while for the expressive line " Fumbling with his palsied hands ! " in stanza xxiii, she substituted " Trembling with his palsied hands ! " Of none of these variations is there any trace in the holograph ; and in regard to the last, at all events, I INTRODUCTION. 21 should think it most likely that Trembling was a printer's error left undiscovered : as Mrs. Shelley first Jieard that graphic stanza, and remembered vividly her impression of it, she would scarcely have made so vital a mistake about it. Again, the lovely line in stanza xxxi, "As flowers beneath May's footstep waken," has appeared variously with the words the footstep (Hunt), and Mays footsteps (Mrs. Shelley) ; but the reading of the Hunt manuscript, May's footstep, receives such confirmation as it may be thought to have needed from the holograph. Stanzas xl and xli, which I gave as continuous, without a point at the end of the first, are continuous in Shelley's own manuscript as well as in that prepared for the press. Perhaps the point of most consequence for consultation of the holograph was the status of the stanza " Horses, oxen, have a home, When from daily toil they come ; Household dogs, when the wind roars, Find a home within warm doors." 22 INTRODUCTION. This stanza is in the holograph, but is omitted from the elaborately careful manuscript communicated to Hunt for publication. Mrs. Shelley replaced it between stanzas xlix and 1 ; but I relegated it to the foot- notes, as having been in all probability rejected by Shelley. With the holograph before me, I see no reason for a change of opinion. The two stanzas between which Mrs. Shelley replaced it read thus — " Birds find rest in narrow nest When weary of their winged quest ; Beasts find fare in woody * lair When storm and snow are in the air. " Asses, swine, have litter spread And with fitting food are fed ; All things have a home but one — Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none ! " My reason for thinking Shelley's rejection of this stanza likely and wise is that it carries on the comparison a little too long, and tends to use up or discount the sacred word home before it occurs in its real and full signifi- cance in juxtaposition with the mention of the homeless Englishman. As the verses now stand the thought passes 1 In the holograph rocky was originally written instead of woody. INTRODUCTION. 23 over the rest of birds, the lair of beasts, the litter of asses and swine, and the home that the Englishman lacks. But, with the other stanza inserted, the sequence is mingled — rest, lair, home, home, litter, home. The change effected by the omission is one which I should venture to call magical. The bearing of the holograph on the question is not strong. Although the stanzas are numbered from 1 to 74 x in the manuscript revised for press, they are not numbered in the holograph. Had both copies been numbered, I should have thought it most improbable that Shelley, who was very curious about the numbering of his verses and stanzas, could have revised with such remarkable pains the copy for the press, and yet not found out the omission by the want of correspondence in the numbers. As it is, he seems to have made one of his usual counts at this very point, for at the end of the fifty-first stanza 1 Stanza 74 in the original and Library editions is 76 in Mrs. Shelley's transcript, the 45th and 50th stanzas being divided, and numbered twice over by accident. Each of those stanzas begins at the foot of a column (there are four columns on a page) ; and at the top of the next column each of them gets a new number. The stanzas after the 74th are not numbered at all ; but the transcript contains ninety-three of them, as the original and Library editions do. 24 INTRODUCTION. in his copy he has written in the margin the figure 51, whereas that stanza becomes the fiftieth in the final manuscript. I do not lay much stress on this, but note it for what it is worth. For the rest, I am confident that, had he wanted the stanza, he would have missed it, numbers or no numbers ; and I can see no ground what- ever for restoring it to a place in the text. Stanza liv (part of the address to Freedom) reads thus in the Hunt manuscript — " For the labourer thou art bread, And a comely table spread From his daily labour come To a neat and happy home." Up to 1877, the last line was printed as " In a neat and happy home." I am inclined to think I should have left it so had I then known that it stands so in the holograph ; for here, though technically Shelley passed the word To for press, his hand is not traceable in the particular stanza of the final manuscript ; and the preposition may have escaped his notice. The fact that lines 2, 3, and 4 are wholly unpunctuated leaves us without help to a decision. The construction is so lax with INTRODUCTION. 25 either preposition that there is not much to choose ; but strictly speaking the better sense would be got from in. With to, we should have to understand that Freedom is for the labourer, bread and a comely table spread when he returns from work to a neat and happy home. This sense really leaves the neat and happy home outside the attributes of Freedom. With in, the sense is that Freedom is, for the labourer, bread and a comely table spread in a neat and happy home, when he returns from his work. This sense involves all the benefits named in the definition of Freedom. On this ground it might be well to revert to the old reading. It is obviously unlikely that Shelley meant to make a trifling change of that kind when detrimental to the sense in however small a degree. In stanza lviii (continuing the same address) there was something that looked like editorial watering- down : — " Thou art Wisdom — Freemen never Dream that God will damn for ever " said the Hunt manuscript ; but Hunt printed " Freedom never Dreams that God will damn for ever " a 26 INTRODUCTION. and Mrs. Shelley, while restoring Freemen for Freedom, put doom for damn. The holograph corresponds pre- cisely with the Hunt manuscript, and leaves both editors answerable for their readings. Stanza lxiii, as revised by Shelley for the press, is " Science, Poetry and Thought Are thy lamps ; they make the lot Of the dwellers in a cot So serene, they curse it not." The rhythm of the first line was altered by the insertion of and between Science and Poetry in all editions pub- lished before 1877; and Mrs. Shelley, followed by Mr. Rossetti, gave the fourth line as " Such they curse their Maker not." The holograph does not contain the and; but it does contain both readings of the fourth line, — the first written boldly, like the rest of the poem, the second written very small and faintly with a different pen, the words so serene and it being cancelled lightly, as though the matter were yet to be further considered. 1 1 Mr. Rossetti says on this point — " I retain the reading of the last line which appears in Mrs. Shelley's editions, instead of — ' So serene they curse it not.' This last quoted line seems to me decidedly weak, and hardly self- INTRODUCTION. 27 In stanza lxv, Hunt printed the second line as " Of the fearless, of the free " though the manuscript from which he published reads ' ' Of the fearless and the free " and this preference for a more staccato reading must, I fear, be set down to lax views of an editor's duties. At all events Shelley's manuscript does not do anything to relieve his friend from that imputation ; nor was it to be expected that it would. In stanza lxxiii Mrs. Shelley reads (1839 and onwards) — " Declare with ne'er said words, that ye Are, as God has made ye, free " In the Hunt manuscript she had written the stanza without finishing the third line, which she left thus — " Declare with " and the words — " measured words that ye " were written in by Shelley in his plainest style. consistent in its terms : the other line, if rather awkward in diction, is at least sound in sense, and can only, I think, have been set aside to humour the susceptibilities of some person other than Shelley himself." My own view is that the line which Shelley wrote first, as far as we have evidence, was the result of his deliberate choice, and that it is far more characteristic than the revised line. 28 INTRODUCTION. Stanza lxxxviii opens in the Hunt manuscript with the couplet — " And the bold, true warriors Who have hugged Danger in wars " but Mrs. Shelley reads in the wars, a change for which the holograph, at all events, is not the authority. IV. FURTHER DETAILS OF THE HOLOGRAPH. Having now dealt with the chief points upon which a consultation of the holograph was to be desired, we must proceed to examine the manuscript stanza by stanza to ascertain how it compares in detail with the received text. In the first three stanzas, there is nothing to note, and nothing of consequence occurs in stanza iv, where line 4 is written thus — " Turned to millstones as he fell " he being obviously put by accident for they. INTRODUCTION. 29 In stanza vi there is a cancelled reading, Clothed in the Bible for Clothed with the Bible. In stanza vii the fourth line is " Like Bishops lawyers peers & spies " not "Like Bishops, lawyers, peers or spies." But the reading of the holograph was probably meant to be rejected. In stanza xii there is a cancelled reading of line 2 — " Past thro England proud & gay" and in stanza xiii line 2 reads " Past that pageant swift & free " a reading which I am inclined to think preferable to the authorized reading — " Past the Pageant swift and free." The first line of stanza xv stands thus — himl " For from to meet them J came " them being lightly struck through. To show how con- scientiously Mrs. Shelley worked, it may be noted that she left the whole line blank after For from, for I 30 INTRODUCTION. Shelley not only to supply the missing word but also to decide between him and them : he decided for him. The second line of stanza xxiv opens with a But cancelled in favour of And. Stanza xxx in the manuscript prepared by Shelley for press reads thus — " With step as soft as wind it past O'er the heads of men — so fast That they knew the presence there, And looked, — and all was empty air." The holograph reads but for and in the last line ; and I am disposed to prefer that reading, although we cannot be certain that the other was a mistake of transcription which Shelley failed to discover. The fourth line of stanza xxxi begins with Hopes, cancelled for Thoughts, no doubt because M Hope, that maiden most serene," was not to have her abstract domain invaded by concrete hopes. Stanza xlv shows a variation in the third line—; from the worth instead of of the worth : the authorized reading is of course the better, and entitled to stand. INTRODUCTION. 31 Stanza xlvi reads will for wills in the third line ; and I should be inclined to think that reading worthy of a place in the text, notwithstanding Shelley's having passed the other in his wife's copy. Line 4 of stanza lvii reads in Shelley's copy " Shieldst alike both high & low " but in Mrs. Shelley's transcript * 'Shield'st alike the high and low." It is possible to contend for both as stronger and more emphatic ; but it is certainly less accurate. We do not say, "both the cat and the kitten are alike," because there can be no question of one being alike and the other not alike. Mrs. Shelley may have had Shelley by her to be appealed to while she copied the stanza ; and I should not consider the claims of the carefully- revised manuscript, prepared for press, as set aside by the holograph in a case of this kind, which is not one of obvious error or indisputable inferiority. 1 1 Such a case, — not of obvious error, but of indisputable inferiority, — is to be found in stanza Ixxix. See pp. 34-5. 32 INTRODUCTION. Stanza Ixiv stands thus in the holograph, with a cancelled reading — 1 ' Spirit, Patience, Gentleness All that can adorn & bless f let deeds not \ Art thou - - - \ how can f words express Thine exceeding loveliness — " Mrs. Shelley copied the third line wrongly, putting lent for let: Shelley corrected it. That peculiar pause in the third line is significant. I have been rallied on making a point of retaining the printed equivalent, three hyphens, upon those rare occasions on which it occurs, as in Epipsychidion, lines 138, 394, and 397. Any one who will turn to page 16 of the following fac-simile will be convinced, I should say, that Shelley made use of this broken pause with deliberate intention. Stanzas lxvi and lxvii stand transposed in the holo- graph, though Shelley has marked them to come in the proper order. The third line of stanza lxvii was originally " Where all who live & suffer " but, before Shelley had completed it by the word moan, it was cancelled to become the present line 4. INTRODUCTION. 33 The most important of the fresh readings is the following complete cancelled stanza : " From the cities where from caves Like the dead from putrid graves Troops of starvelings gliding come Living Tenants of a tomb " a stanza which is found between what are the 67th and 68th of the printed version (original and Library editions, — 68th and 69th in Mrs. Shelley's and Mr. Rossetti's editions). It gives place to the two fine stanzas " From the workhouse and the prison Where pale as corpses newly risen Women, children, young and old Groan for pain, and weep for cold — " From the haunts of daily life Where is waged the daily strife With common wants and common cares Which sows the human heart with tares — " No one will regret the removal of the old stanza from the text ; but it has great interest as a cancelled reading ; and it is to be noted that it contains, in itself, two variations, thus — " Hosts of starvelings gliding come Tenants of a living tomb." 34 INTRODUCTION. Line 2 of stanza lxviii shows the rejected reading spectres for corpses. The second couplet of stanza lxxii stands thus — " Your lost country bought & soul p [ a price of blood & gold " but Mrs. Shelley in copying it put the correct word sold for soul. Stanza lxxiii originally began with " Let a vast Assembly be And declare with " but the unfinished second line was cancelled for an extension of the sense. In stanza lxxvii the second line shows the cancelled reading keen for sharp, and the fourth sharp for keen. No doubt it struck Shelley that the expression " Looking sharp, as one for food " was ambiguous. Stanza lxxix has hitherto stood thus — " Stand ye calm and resolute, Like a forest close and mute, With folded arms and looks which are "Weapons of an un vanquished war," INTRODUCTION. 35 and that an in the fourth line certainly looks as if it had no legitimate business there. Sense and rhythm alike would be the better for its absence ; and when we find that the holograph reads " Weapons of unvanquished war " what can we do but gladly accept the amendment, and assume an undiscovered error of transcription ? It may be mentioned that this stanza in the Hunt manuscript is one of four consecutive stanzas, conspicuous for the absence of a single trace of Shelley's pen, employed so liberally in retouching the transcript throughout. In the third line of stanza lxxxiii the holograph contains another example of Shelley's dotted pause — " Rest the blood that must ensue . . . ." In Mrs. Shelley's transcript the final e in ensue comes right up to the edge of the paper ; and a comma below the line is perforce substituted. A third example occurs at the end of line 2, stanza lxxxvii, where the word stand comes so close to the edge that Shelley put two dots only. 36 INTRODUCTION. V. MRS. SHELLEY'S PORTRAIT-DRAWING IN "THE LAST MAN." Although the disinterment of Shelley's own manu- script of The Mask of Anarchy is clearly a matter of considerable interest for Shelley specialists, still, outside that very small band and the larger band composing the Shelley Society, it will probably be deemed that the net result of the examination of this manuscript is not of high importance. But this is not quite the case with regard to the letter which Mrs. Shelley wrote to Sir John Bowring when she sent him this valuable relic. 1 I have already had occasion to remark elsewhere 2 upon the interest of the confession which the letter contains of that mysterious feeling as to Shelley's 1 For Mrs. Shelley's letter, see Appendix. 2 Athenaum, January 29, 1887. INTRODUCTION. 37 personality resulting from the most intimate proximity to him ; and I cannot but think that a confession of this kind, on the part of a person of such strong intelligence and liberal views as characterized the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstone- craft, will prove a valuable memorandum for the Shelley biographer of the future in examining several of those curious episodes in the poet's history which have given rise to controversy and to grave doubts. But the im- portant point here is the positive record that, in one of Mrs. Shelley's novels, she had liberated her heart in sketching a portrait of her husband. The letter is dated the 25 th of February [1826]; and the latest book published by Shelley's widow at that time was the weird and terrible romance of The Last Man} It has long been a familiar thought to me that Adrian Earl of Windsor in The Last Man was meant to represent Shelley in point of character ; but a confession of that intention was needed to give the literary portrait solid value. Whether my friend Professor Dowden would have made use of the 1 The Last Man. By the Author of Frankenstein. In Three Volumes. London : Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street. 1826. 38 INTRODUCTION. sketch in any way had this evidence turned up in time, I cannot say ; but I confess that, if I were engaged on a study of Shelley's character, I should regard this study of the same, which his widow wove into the fabric of The Last Man, as a document of real value, though I might not have ventured to appeal to it without the absolute certainty that the author's deliberate intention was to depict Shelley. The statement that the sketch " pleased some of those who best loved him " is one which we can readily accept as based upon genuine expressions of satisfaction. We should expect to find, if the materials for search existed, statements to that effect from Leigh Hunt and Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Claire Clairmont and Jane Williams; but we must be content for the present to let one only of these four devoted friends of Shelley speak for him- self. Professor Dowden tells me that Hogg, in that same year 1826, pronounced the character which Mrs. Shelley had drawn in The Last Man to be " most happy and most just." Beside this portrait of Shelley, The Last Man contains other studies after nature. Lord Raymond is certainly INTRODUCTION. 39 intended to represent Byron in an idealized form ; and the character of Perdita is drawn in so intimate and analytical a manner that one cannot doubt there is much in the material for that character that was derived from experience. Any future biographer of Shelley would certainly do well to make a scrupulous examination of the inner life of Perdita as recorded in The Last Man, and collate with direct records the various passages that seem to bear upon the life of Shelley and Mary. Curiously enough, there is one point that links Perdita with the holograph Mask of Anarchy. At the back of one of the leaves are a few lines of Italian, which turn out on examination to be a translation from the opening of Epipsychidion, that poem which Trelawny de- clared to have been first composed in Italian, and which embodies a philosophy of divided love, such as cannot in the nature of things have been satisfactory to Shelley's wife. Indeed, I think her inclusion of this wondrous poem (issued anonymously) among the acknowledged works of Shelley was an act of some heroism — an act of stoical justice to his poetic reputation, but characterized by a reserve that is unusual in Mrs. Shelley's treatment 40 INTRODUCTION. of her husband's works. Epipsychidion is the one poem of importance which Mrs. Shelley was not at the pains to comment on, or in any way elucidate ; and it is at least remarkable that we should find expressions of Perdita in The Last Man combatting the philosophy of divided love. When Perdita finds out that her husband's allegiance to her is divided, her life is, so to speak, wrecked. She writes him a letter containing the following passage : — x " I loved you — I love you — neither anger nor pride dictates these lines : but a feeling beyond, deeper, and more unalterable than either. My affec- tions are wounded ; it is impossible to heal them : — cease then the vain endeavour, if indeed that way your endeavours tend. Forgiveness ! Return ! Idle words are these ! I forgive the pain I endure ; but the trodden path cannot be retraced. " Common affection might have been satisfied with common usages. I believed that you read my heart, and knew its devotion, its unalienable fidelity towards you. I never loved any but you. You came the embodied image of my fondest dreams. The praise of men, power and high aspira- tions attended your career. Love for you invested the world for me in enchanted light ; it was no longer the earth I trod — the earth common mother, yielding only trite and stale repetition of objects and circumstances old and worn out. I lived in a temple glorified by intensest sense of devo- tion and rapture ; I walked, a consecrated being, contemplating only your power, your excellence ; For O, you stood beside me, like my youth, Transformed for me the real to a dream, Cloathing the palpable and familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn. 1 Vol. i, pp. 303-6. INTRODUCTION. 41 " ' The bloom has vanished from my life ' — there is no morning to this all investing night ; no rising to the set-sun of love. In those days the rest of the world was nothing to me : all other men — I never considered nor felt what they were ; nor did I look on you as one of them. Separated from them ; exalted in my heart ; sole possessor of my affections ; single object of my hopes, the best half of myself. " Ah, Raymond, were we not happy ? Did the sun shine on any, who could enjoy its light with purer and more intense bliss ? It was not — it is not a common infidelity at which I repine. It is the disunion of an whole which may not have parts ; it is the carelessness with which you have shaken off the mantle of election with which to me you were invested, and have become one among the many. Dream not to alter this. Is not love a divinity, because it is immortal ? Did not I appear sanctified, even to myself, because this love had for its temple my heart ? I have gazed on you as you slept, melted even to tears, as the idea filled my mind, that all I possessed lay cradled in those idolized, but mortal lineaments before me. Yet, even then, I have checked thick-coming fears with one thought : I would not fear death, for the emotions that linked us must be immortal. " And now I do not fear death. I should be well pleased to close my eyes, never more to open them again. And yet I fear it ; even as I fear all things ; for in any state of being linked by the chain of memory with this, happiness would not return — even in Paradise, I must feel that your love was less enduring than the mortal beatings of my fragile heart, every pulse of which knells audibly, The funeral note Of love, deep buried, without resurrection. No — no— me miserable ; for love extinct there is no resurrection ! " The whole letter from which this is taken is a very noble one — at once impassioned and dignified, and on a higher level than I should expect to find in the 1 utterance of one of Mrs. Shelley's characters drawn M 42 INTRODUCTION. from simple imagination. After the letter there is a conversation between Perdita and her brother, in which she says : — * " Do you think that any of your arguments are new to me ? or that my own burning wishes and intense anguish have not suggested them all a thousand times, with far more eagerness and subtlety than you can put into them ? Lionel, you cannot understand what woman's love is. In days of happiness I have often repeated to myself, with a grateful heart and exult- ing spirit, all that Raymond sacrificed for me. I was a poor, uneducated, unbefriended, mountain girl, raised from nothingness by him. All that I possessed of the luxuries of life came from him. He gave me an illustrious name and noble station ; the world's respect reflected from his own glory : all [t]his joined to his own undying love, inspired me with sensations towards him, akin to those with which we regard the Giver of life. I gave him love only. I devoted myself to him : imperfect creature that I was, I took myself to task, that I might become worthy of him. I watched over my hasty temper, subdued my burning impatience of character, schooled my self-engrossing thoughts, educating myself to the best perfec- tion I might attain, that the fruit of my exertions might be his happiness. I took no merit to myself for this. He deserved it all — all labour, all devotion, all sacrifice ; I would have toiled up a scaleless Alp, to pluck a flower that would please him. I was ready to quit you all, my beloved and gifted companions, and to live only with him, for him. I could not do otherwise, even if I had wished ; for if we are said to have two souls, he was my better soul, to which the other was a perpetual slave. One only return did he owe me, even fidelity. I earned that ; I deserved it. Because I was mountain-bred, unallied to the noble and wealthy, shall he think to repay me by an empty name and station ? Let him take them back ; without his love they are nothing to me. Their only merit in my eyes was that they were his." Without looking beyond the mere significance of the 1 Vol. i, pp. 309-II. INTRODUCTION. 43 words, I should like to accept that utterance as coming direct from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ; and I for one should certainly cherish her memory the more warmly for it. VI. A TALK WITH MR. H. M. STANLEY ON SHELLEY. While preparing my notes on the circumstances in which The Mask of Anarchy was produced, I have re- ceived from a member of the Shelley Society, who was travelling through Italy by the special train service provided for the Indian mails, a most interesting letter, bearing upon Shelley's influence in a manner more ap- propriate, perhaps, to this particular poem than any other. In the bed below my correspondent in the sleeping-car was Mr. H. M. Stanley, on his way to Emin Bey, very quiet and thoughtful, talking little. He picked up my friend's copy of the Shelley Society's 44 . INTRODUCTION. Report upon its first year's work, just issued, and asked for information about the Society. " I am afraid," said Mr. Stanley, " I am a poorly- educated man ; but Shelley, I take it, wrote for such, not (begging your pardon) for the literary connoisseurs who now take him up, patronize, puff, and dissect him." "Not patronize," said my correspondent, "though perhaps puff. Yet, after all, is not the puff delicate a fair means of spreading good doctrines among good men ? " Mr. Stanley rejoined : " Some lines of Shelley live with me, as some of Leopardi's do with most Italians. He was for freedom, so am I. He had go — he had enthusiasm." Then, after a pause, "You are a funny people, you Shelleyites: you are playing — at a safe distance yourselves, may be — with fire. In spread- ing Shelley you are indirectly helping to stir up the great Socialist question — the great question of the needs, and wants, and wishes of unhappy men ; the one question which bids fair to swamp you all for a bit." INTRODUCTION. . 45 Stanley bade farewell to his car-companion at Brindisi, leaving the impression that he well knew the question of his ever getting back to be a hazardous one, and taking with him by way of solace my friend's copy of the Shelley Society's reprint of A las tor. Such a glimpse as this of the impression produced by Shelley on a man of vigorous mind and strong practical proclivities is more interesting, because far more difficult to obtain, than many pages of accomplished literary judgments. Still, if it be true that the spread of Shelley's influence tends to stir up the socialist question, it is true only in the sense in which the spread of the gospel may be similarly considered. The Nazarene carpenter was far more a typical socialist than Shelley was; and yet we do not throw it in the teeth of the clergy that the doctrines of him whom they profess tend to stir up and force forward the socialist question. But if this verdict on Shelley's influence be true in any serious and immediate sense, it should be peculiarly ap- plicable to the poem with which we are now particularly concerned, — to TIte Mask of Anarchy \ — and to that group of poems written in 18 19, with the view of awakening N 46 INTRODUCTION. Englishmen to a sense of their degradation, their needs, their rights, and their powers. Now let us take one passage from The Mask of Anarchy. We might fearlessly take the whole poem, with its ardent advocacy of a bloodless resistance to force and fraud ; but one passage will suffice : — 4 ' Let the laws of your own land, Good or ill, between ye stand Hand to hand, and foot to foot, Arbiters of the dispute, " The old laws of England — they Whose reverend heads with age are grey, Children of a wiser day ; And whose solemn voice must be Thine own echo — Liberty ! " On those who first should violate Such sacred heralds in their state Rest the blood that must ensue, And it will not rest on you." This appeal to the wisdom of English law is not much like the "bed-rock" nonsense of the professional socialist, is it ? Well, that is Shelley's way of stirring up the socialist question ; and I think we may rest satisfied that Mr. Stanley has carried off the impression of some part of the trappings of Shelley's poetry without INTRODUCTION. 47 going to the root of what he really meant. Nevertheless it is, as I said before, extremely interesting to learn what impression there is in the mind of such a man concerning Shelley and his teachings. Again, as to Shelley's poems being written for the half- educated, — if that be true of anything beside Queen Mab, it is of T/ie Mask of Anarchy and the small political group of 1 8 19. That group is by no means representa- tive : it is a distinctly poor group compared with other work of the period from the same hand ; and even the Mask, — splendid as it is in many respects, — does not gain, and could not gain, from the violence done to Shelley's native manner and style in the earnest desire to reach the hearts and minds of the struggling proletariat of his own day. Of course in a certain sense the most enlightened of Shelley's readers are only half- educated ; and the more enlightened a man is the less will he be likely to lay claim to more than half an education in the widest sense of the word. But here the question is one of comparison ; and setting Shelley be- side his contemporaries, — say beside Byron, Scott, and Wordsworth, — I should think that about three times as 48 INTRODUCTION. much education would be required to read Shelley's works with comfort as would be wanted for the like perusal of Byron's, Scott's, and Wordsworth's works together. This admission would probably be taken by the world at large as counting against Shelley and in favour of Byron, Scott, and Wordsworth. " Well, if it be so, so it is, you know, And if it be so— so be it ! " We who love Shelley and his poetry can afford to take him as he is, and do our best to educate ourselves up to the necessary standard for a full and fruitful intelligence of all he meant and all he was. H. BUXTON FORMAN. Marlborough Hill, St. John's Wood, February 1887. APPENDIX APPENDIX. Letter from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to John Bowring. Your note, my dear Friend, is on many accounts gratifying to me — But you must not wonder at my fear of intruding— for I know your time to be so valuable — & being myself a broken branch from the tree of life — a solitary creature — I am tainted by that morbid feeling which I dislike, while I at times yield to it of feeling myself neglected & forgotten — Pardon this last apology — I will never make another to you — trusting to the kind sentiments you express, I [will] be vain enough to believe that you really have a pleasure in now and then hearing from me & being asked to do such kind offices as I have before now solicited from you. Do not think me capricious if I defer my negociation with Dr. Schinas — it is not I but another female, Fortune, who is guilty of caprice on this occasion — I must wait a little before I can take the lessons I desire. Do not be afraid of losing the impression you have concerning my lost Shelley by conversing with any one who knew him about him — The mysterious feeling you experience was participated by all his friends, even by me, who was ever with him — or why say even ; — I felt it more than any other, because by sharing his fortunes, I was more aware than any other of his wondrous ex- cellencies & the strange fate which attended him on all occasions — Romance is tame in comparison with all that we experienced together & the last fatal scene was accompanied by circumstances so strange so inexplicable so full of terrific interest (words are weak 52 . APPENDIX. when one speaks of events so near the heart) that you would deem me very superstitious if I were only to narrate simple and incon- testible facts to you. — I do not in any degree believe that his being was regulated by the same laws that govern the existence of us common mortals — nor did any one think so who ever knew him. I have endeavoured, but how inadequately, to give some idea of him in my last published book — the sketch has pleased some of those who best loved him — I might have made more of it but there are feelings which one recoils from unveiling to the public eye — I have the greatest pleasure in sending you the writing for which you ask. — I hope you have not been a sufferer by this commercial turmoil — 1 am very sorry to hear of the illness of your children — My little boy had the measles in the autumn but is now quite well. Did I not mention to you that I had a portrait of Shelley — it would encrease your feeling with regard to him — some fine spring morning you will perhaps come and see it when I shall again have the pleasure of seeing you — I am, My dear Sir, Most truly yours Mary Shelley. Kentish Town 25 Feb. 1 By the bye 1 have some more MSS. of Shelley's which I think will interest you — Shall I send them to you ? — I have also some letters — but these would be to be read by you only — The longer poem I send was never published — It was called "The Mask of Anarchy" — and written in the first strong feel- ings excited by the cutting down of the people at Manchester in 1819 — 1 Like most of Mrs. Shelley's letters this is undated as to the year. Sir John Bowring added " 1826." FAC-SIMILE OF SHELLEY'S MANUSCRIPT ^ "4^ 4 /**/»» s-^ >jj£ \&> ^ -■■■'■•* y ;.*A- fSttej&f &*£■ J &^* y smi*> /^Csw jfar*<& **^S&£ A ^y^kj* s&b*^ r I nr&rti* $, '&mJL,jfi l ^^ ***** M-/0-^9^ '99* r ' 'y?'T/ r *W *>^<&^^* f S^ /£ *\ j/? / /S~" Sit* J& S&' vs. /fits Afr y$^50^' ^/i^i> wAtA w v., -,^, y »>Jr^» *;.Oi*a* '4&i^ V'jrC / ^ x ^ t'Pzbi,^ £, ^^ 4?ue4& +"&+* I'&i^jfiC jfcyfe^t'*?- '/m^ *S7L ?mr J7*£ &-,. jtJ/* yfe /fasxAijfc A 4* fam** #/4£d '###/■ '&*» Mete ^ /ri y/«~ /us** wty $&& '.&&& ^ sf'A -,£&/*•* ' / ^r. /> ? ^ ^nr^j # $&&. %fc*> ' jffi SP 3* tfyL#'/#u ; rfJ&l *%$ f**** $n> # A&t* jpjdfc, /fr£**t **&>} » _ » m * ,/ -r„ ~. ^?&#f* ftsn* r Afrv 4&tU ffi'Wf (XffifrA d&0?&t tfvfa* ***** s» % *y f s *y fas *■ ^_ &*#&» ' '" firr />fP! /V/?ffr*^'*fUr VL fc*\l\kfav "f&U^s pW&*/ v/Ont- ~r J9*,. m* Ar y/#, \'-'^y^fy/6y>- w," 'hA /4^yA^f* '/ 4 SS X ~' ^ * >^ S S /#& ^^4^'^>& /y * <&T * &^i4y***^9? *? / ■J "n j %%**& % ^ II % &"7U / tS* 1- ^^^t^^^px^ p 7 /7s/£f /%&&- ,^&^^ j&&&* * W^t)Jmm ^>^ <^( ir /^b $> M^-G^z- jfc& yJk ****«/ fete 4fa>7?*iK /& /$ &*) y/&/^ Js&*« #0**** a?* 1 ** ?**/ ^C &/>& 4^&m»£%~ // y / , y ^ // 5^^- Sjfa? The Facsimile Manuscript photo-lithographed and printed by W. Griggs, Elm House, Peckham, London, S.E. The letter-press printing done by Richard Ci-ay and Sons, Bread Street Hill, London. E.C. 1887 Gbe ©belles Society PUBLICATIONS FOR 1886—7 \ THE SHELLEY SOCIETY. PUBLICATIONS FOR 1886. 1. Shelley's Adonais : an Elegy on the Death of John Keats. Pisa, 4to, 1 82 1. A Type- Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper. Edited, with a Bibliographical Introduction, by Thomas J. Wise. {Tliird Edition, Revised). Price \os. Boards. [Issued. 2. Shelley's Hellas, a Lyrical Drama. London, 8vo, 1822. A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper ; together with Shelley's Prologue to Hellas, and Notes by Dr. Garnett and Mary W. Shelley. Edited, with an Introduction, by Thos. J. Wise. Presented by Mr. F. S. Ellis. {Third Edition.) Price 8s. Boards. [Issued. 3. Shelley's Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude; and other Poems. London, fcap. 8vo, 1816. A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand- made Paper, with a new Preface by Bertram Dobell. {Second Edition, Revised.) Price 6s. Boards. [Issued. 4. Shelley's Cenci (for the Society's performance in May), with a Erologue by Dr. John Todhunter ; an Introduction and Notes by [any Buxton Forman and Alfred Forman ; and a Portrait of Beatrice Cenci. Crown 8vo. Price 2s. 6d. Wrappers. [Issued. 5. Shelley's Vindication of Natural Diet. London, i2mo, 1 81 3. A Reprint, 1882, with a Prefatory Note by H. S. Salt and W. E. A. Axon. Presented by Mr. Axon. {Second Edition.) [Issued. 6. Shelley's Review of Hogg's Novel, " Memoirs of Prince Alexy Haimatoff." Now first reprinted from The Critical Review, Dec. 1 814, on hand-made Paper, with an Extract from Prof. Dowden's article, " Some Early Writings of Shelley " {Contemp. Rev., Sept 1884). Edited, with an Introductory Note, by Thos. J. Wise. ( Third Edition, Revised.) Crown 8vo. Price 2s. 6d. Boards. [Issued. 7. A Memoir of Shelley, by William Michael Rossetti, with a fresh Preface ; a Portrait of Shelley ; and an engraving of his Tomb. {Second Edition, with Contents and a full Index.) Crown 8vo. Boards. [Issued. 8. The Shelley Library : an Essay in Bibliography. London, 8vo, 1886. Part 1. "First Editions and their Reproductions." By H. Buxton Forman. Wrappers. [Issued. Note. — Copies of Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 can be purchased from the Society's Publishers and Agents at the prices quoted above, less the usual discount. They can also be procured through the trade in the ordinary manner. Nos. 5, 7 and 8 are not on sale. The complete set of books (8 volumes) for 1886 can, however, be obtained upon payment of the subscription (one guinea) for that year. PUBLICATIONS FOR 1887. The Society's Publications for 1887 will be so many of the following as the funds at their disposal enable the Committee to produce. The first three are already delivered ; the suc- ceeding four are in an advanced state, and will be sent out to Members at an early date. These seven volumes will complete the Society's first issue for the current year. 1. The Wandering Jew, a Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited, with an Introduction, by Bertram Dobell. 8vo. Price %s. Boards. [Issued. 2. A Shelley Primer, by Mr. H. S. Salt. This is published by Messrs. Reeves and Turner, and the Society has taken a copy for each of its Members. [Issued. 3. The Pianoforte Score of Dr. W. C. Selle's Choruses and Recitatives, composed for the Society's performance of Shelley's Hellas in November, 1886. Imperial 8vo. Wrappers. Price 4s. [Issued. 4. Shelley's Address to the Irish People. Dublin, 8vo, 1812. A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper. Edited by Thos. J. Wise. With an Introduction by T. W. Rolleston. Presented by Mr. Walter B. Slater. Ptice $s. Boards. [Ready Immediately. 5. Shelley's Necessity of Atheism. Worthing, i2mo, (n.d. but 181 1). A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper. Edited, with an Introduction, by Thos. J. Wise. Presented by the Editor. Price 3J. Boards. [Ready Immediately. 6. Shelley's Masque of Anarchy. Small 8vo, written in 1819, published in 1832. A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper, with full collations and fresh readings (including a hitherto unpublished stanza) from Shelley's lately discovered holo- graph manuscript which is now in the Editor's possession. Edited, with an Introduction, by Thomas J. Wise. Price $s. Boards. [Ready Immediately. 7. Shelley's Epipsychidion. London, 8vo, 182 1. A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper ; with an Introduction by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A., and a Note on the text of the poem by Algernon C. Swinburne. Edited by Robert A. Potts. Presented by the Editor. Price 6s. Boards. [Ready Immediately. 8. The Shelley Society's Papers, Part I. by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A.; Mathilde Blind; W. M. Rossetti ; H. Buxton Forman, Dr. Todhunter, &c. Part I, Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, are now at press. 9. The Shelley Society's Note-Book, Part I. Edited by the Honorary Secretary. io. Biographical Articles on Shelley, Part I : those by Stockdale, from his Budget 1826-7 ; by Hogg, from The New Monthy Mag- azine, 1832-3 ; by a " Newspaper Editor," from Fraser, June, 1841 ; by Thornton Hunt, from The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1863 ; and by Peacock, from Fraser, 1858, i860, and 1862. With two Portraits. Edited, with a Preface, by Thomas J. Wise. On hand- made paper. Octavo. Price 12s. Boards. [Preparing. 11. Robert Browning's Essay and Poems on Shelley. (Reprinted by permission of the Author.) With a Portrait of Mr. Browning, and Forewords by Dr. F. J. Furnivall. Octavo. Boards. [Preparing. 12. Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson. 4*0. 18 10. A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper. Prepared from the copies of the excessively rare original in the possession of Mr. F. Locker- Lampson, and in the British Museum. Edited, with an Introduction, by Thomas J. Wise. With a Portrait of Margaret Nicholson. Price 10s. Boards. [Preparing. 13. Shelley's Refutation of Deism. London, 8vo, 1814. A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper, prepared from the excellent copy of the original in the possession of Dr. Richard Garnett. Edited by Thomas J. Wise. Price "js. Boards. [Preparing. 14. A Letter to Lord Ellenborough. Crown 8vo. (Not dated, but 1812.) A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper. Edited by Thomas J. Wise. Reproduced from the unique copy of the original in the possession of Sir Percy F. Shelley, Bart. Price $s. Boards. [Preparing. 15. Proposals for an Association of Philanthropists. 8vo. (Not dated, but 1812.) A Type-Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper. Edited by Thomas J. Wise. 16. A Facsimile of Mr. H. Buxton Forman's copy of Laon ana Cythna as corrected by Shelley into the Revolt of Islam. Edited, with an Introduction, by H. Buxton Forman. [Preparing. 17. The Shelley Society's Papers, Part II, containing the chief Papers read during 1887. 18. The Shelley Society's Note-Book, Part II, edited by the Honorary Secretary. [Contributions of Shclleyana for the pages of the Note-Book are at all times desired.] EXTRA SERIES. 1. The Pianoforte score of Dr. W. C. Selle's Choruses and Recitatives, composed for the Society's performance of Shelley's Hellas in November, 1886. Imperial 8vo. Wrappers. Price 4s. [Issued. 2. A cheap edition of Hellas, prepared for the Society's per- formance of the drama. Edited (with a brief Introduction) by Thomas J. Wise. 8vo. Price 3-r. in boards (on fine paper, with a Portrait of Shelley, one hundred copies only printed), or is. in wrappers. [Issued. 3. Shelley's Hymn of Pan, set to music by his son, Sir Percy F. Shelley, Bart., in 1864. This has not hitherto been publicly cir- culated, but one hundred copies have now been printed for sale for the benefit of the Society by Sir Percy's permission. Folio. Price 3-y. [Issued. 4. Shelley's Masque of Anarchy. Small 8vo, 1832. An exact re- production by photo-lithography (by W. Griggs, of Elm House, Peckham) of the recently-discovered holograph manuscript, now in the possession of Mr. Thomas J. Wise. With an Introduction by H. Buxton Forman. 4to. Price xos. Boards. (Five hundred copies only have been printed. No more will at any time be produced.) [Issued. 5. Shelley's Proposal for putting Reform to the Vote throughoict the Kingdom. 8vo. 1817. An exact reproduction by photo- lithography (by W. Griggs, of Elm House, Peckham) of the original holograph manuscript in the possession of Mr. Thomas J. Wise. With an illustration of Shelley's house at Marlow, and an Introduction by H. Buxton Forman. (A detailed account of this manuscript will be found in The Shelley Library, pp. 65-6.) 4to. Price 10s. Boards. (Five Hundred copies only have been printed. No more will at any time be produced.) [Issued. 6. Shelley at Oxford, by Thomas Jefferson Hogg. A cheap Edition, reprinted from the Society's Publications, Series III., Section I, Part I. 8vo. Wrappers. Price 2s. 6d. [Preparing. 7. Memoirs of Shelley, by Thomas Love Peacock. A cheap Edition, reprinted from the Society's Publications, Series III, Section I, Part I. 8vo. Wrappers. Price is. 6d. [Preparing. LARGE PAPER COPIES. A few Large-Paper copies (Quarto size) of some of the Society's Publications have been privately printed ; they can be obtained upon application to Mr. Bertram Dobell, 66, Queen's Crescent, Haverstock Hill, London, N.W. The volumes now ready are : — 1. Hellas, with an etched frontispiece on India-paper. Fifteen copies only printed. 2. Shelley's Review of Memoirs of Prince Alexy Haimatoff, with an etched frontispiece on India-paper. Sixteen copies only printed. 3. Alastor. Fifteen copies only printed. 4. The Wandering few. Twenty-one copies only printed. PUBLISHERS AND AGENTS. The Society's Publishers and Agents are : — Publishers : Reeves and Turner, 196, Strand, London, W.C. Agents : Charles HUTT, Clement's Inn Gateway, Strand, London, W.C. ; Bertram Dobell, 66, Queen's Crescent, Haver- stock Hill, London, N.W. library lEMtion of Sbelleip. PUBLISHED BY REEVES & TURNER, 196 STRAND. NOW READY, THE WHOLE WOEKS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY IN VERSE AND PROSE EDITED WITH NOTES AND APPENDICES % BT H. BUXTON FOEMAN. WITH COPIOUS INDEX OF SUBJECTS, INDEX OF FIEST LINES, PEDIGREE, SHIELDS OF ARMS, PORTRAITS, VIEWS, FACSIMILES, &c. Eight Volumes, demy 8vo, Emblematically Gilt Cloth, Contents lettered at back, Price £5. " . . . the typographical execution is all that the moat fastidious could desire, while it is symbolical of the critical care that has been bestowed by the most conscientious ot Editors." — Times. gstemr Also to be had separately, a re-issue of Mr. Buxton Forman 8 Annotated Library Edition of SHELLEY'S POETICAL WORKS, "With Mrs. Shelley's Notes, an Index of First Lines, and a copious Subject Index. Four Volumes, Demy 8vo. "With Portrait of Shelley ; Etchings by Arthur Evershed of Shelley's Birth- place, Residence at Marlow, and Grave ; Etching by W. B. Scott from Guido's Cenci; and five Facsimiles of MSS., executed by George Tupper. In Cloth Gilt Extra, with Emblematic Designs, and Contents lettered at back, £2 10s. The principle on which Mr. Forman has prepared the text had not before been applied to Shelley's Works. The volumes published by Shelley during his lifetime are re-printed precisely as they stand, except where there are obvious printer's errors, or writer's inadvertencies ; but, as these are often matters of opinion, the Editor does not deviate in so much as a comma or a single letter from the original, without indicating in a foot-note the precise change made. Some of the most important of those Poems which first ap- peared after Shelley's death are given from manuscript sources, instead of being reproduced from the incorrect editions hitherto circulated ; and for purposes of revision, as well as for variorum readings, manuscripts of works published in the poet's life-time, as well as those .of posthumous works, have been consulted. The highly important Leigh Hunt manuscripts, the actual copy of Loon and Cythna on which Shelley made the MS. changes converting the Poem into The Revolt of Islam, Shelley's own copy of Queen Mob, most copiously revised, and other special sources of information, have enabled the Editor not only to set the text right with absolute certainty in numerous instances, but also to give the reading public Poems by Shelley not hitherto known to Shelley students ; and the first volume contains a poem on Shelley's death by his widow. Explanatory notes are given when thought needful ; but, as the main object of the edition is to restore the text to what Shelley wrote, the notes are generally in defence of the readings adopted, or in refu- tation of readings adopted elsewhere. All the copyright poems are, by special arrangement, included. "The revision of the text has been carried out in the most thorough marine/, and every variety of reading noted." "Mr. Forman has produced the most complete and authentic edition of Shelley which has till now been published." — Saturday Review. "We have here an edition of Shelley's poems, which, in beauty, carefulness, and fidelity to printed texts, is superior to any that have gone before it." — Athenceum. " It is superbly got up..." " Not the least valuable part of Mr. Forman's ably executed work is the section in each volume devoted to a philological criticism of the obsolete and rare words used by Shelley in his poems..." — Notes and Queries. " It is difficult to convey any idea of the immense labour that has been devoted to the task of clearing up corruptions in the text." — London Quarterly Review. "We find in Mr. Forman's various introductions and comment? the most sagacious and sympathetic criticism." — World. " Without doubt the most adequate tribute to Shelley's genius yet produced." — Examiner. Xtbrars jewtfon of Iteats. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN KEATS, IS VEESE AND PROSE, INCLUDING NUMEROUS UNPUBLISHED PIECES. EDITED WITH NOTES AND APPENDICE8 BY H. BUXTON FORMAN. WITH INDEXES OF SUBJECTS AND FIRST LINES, RECOLLECTIONS OF PERSONAL FRIENDS, PORTRAITS, VIEWS, &c. &c. Four Volumes, demy 8vo. KEATS'S LETTERS. In One Volume, Foolscap 8vo., cloth, bevelled boards, Price 8s. 6d., LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS TO FANNY BRAWNE, Written in the years 1819 and 1820, and now first given from the original MSS. t WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, APPENDIX, AND INDEX, BY H. BUXTON FOKMAN, Illustrated with Severn's last portrait of Keats, etched by W. B. Scott ; a silhouette of Fanny Brawne, and an exquisite fac-simile of a three-page letter, printed upon actual paper of the period. ■ It is full of most important disclosures with regard to the hidden springs of Keats's life and thought. It reveals to us in a new light, not only the man, hut also the poet. ... In a certain sense, the publication of these letters might even be called the fulfilment of a duty." — Pall Mall Gazette. " Nothing in the literature of this century has been so much looked forward to and desired as these love letters. . . . Mr. Forman has displayed in editing them a scrupulous care and a tasteful delicaey that will do him great credit. He is a bibliographer of genius, and on every obscure point he has patiently concentrated the light of investigation." — Academy. LONDON: REEVES & TURNER, 196 STRAND. 3i ex.: