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 «,\WEUNIVE
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley 
 
 BY 
 
 Thomas R. Slicer
 
 MEMORABILIA. 
 
 Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, 
 And did he stop and speak to you, 
 
 And did you speak to him again F 
 How strange it seems, and new ! 
 
 But you were living before that, 
 
 And also you are living after; 
 And the memory I started at — 
 
 My starting moves your laughter ! 
 
 I crossed a moor, with a name of its own 
 And a certain use in the world, no doubt; 
 
 Yet a hand' s-breadth of it shines alone 
 *Mid the blank miles round about : 
 
 For there I picked up on the heather 
 And there I put inside my breast 
 
 A moulted feather, an eagle-feather ! 
 Well, I forget the rest. 
 
 Robert Browning.
 
 
 QIEEN MAB. 
 
 I. 
 
 H,,w « (iiul<-fful i* iJt'alh, 
 D'-a'h anil lH^ bmihrr SUvp 1 
 
 Our. j«i1p a* \ oiulrr Mtiijug moon 
 U llti li('» of luflit b'.uf ; 
 
 T!i'' oiher, fo«) a« the mora 
 
 Wlirii lhronc<l oil 1.1 fan* witc 
 It li!u»hPi oVr ihf wurltl: 
 
 Yet hi't'i «" jn^'in^ woiidprful ! 
 
 KatJi lh*n tin- i;lo..in> I'owff 
 \\)i'i5* rriKn i« in ihf tainti<l x-pulchre» 
 **«ize*l "'11 htT »ihlp*'« fcoul ' 
 Mult thpfi Ihit [iwrlPiS form
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley 
 
 An Appreciation 
 By 
 
 Thomas R. Slicer 
 
 Author of "The Great Affirmations of ReHgion" 
 and " One World at a Time" 
 
 With an Illustrated Bibliograph}^ 
 
 New York 
 
 Privately Printed 
 
 1903
 
 Copyright, 1903 
 By Charles P. Everitt 
 
 « t 
 
 , c • t •
 
 \ 
 
 po 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 Q 
 
 
 I. 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 An Appreciation 
 
 II- 
 
 i AN ILLUSTRATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 ^ of the Early Writings of 
 
 <^ PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 LU 
 (=1 
 
 <3' 
 
 411)89
 
 OF THIS BOOK 15 COPIES HAVE BEEN 
 PRINTED ON IMPERIAL JAPANESE VEL- 
 LUM, AND 150 COPIES ON AMERICAN 
 HAND-MADE PAPER 
 
 / /-/ /.^>^^^<>^/ 
 
 ^^K^e
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 ^ ^. ^• 
 
 TDercy Bysshe Shelley was a child born 
 to nature at her best. His eyes of wonder 
 opened upon a Sussex summer. His beautiful 
 mother and her babe lay bathed in the light 
 of an August day in 1792; that year and that 
 month in which the French Revolution was 
 proclaimed. Louis XVI was holding his last 
 levee on the fourth of August, Shelley's birth- 
 day. In France the clergy were proscribed, 
 and their establishments secularized, just as 
 the consciousness of this rebel-angel began to 
 open in the atmosphere of revolt ; his cradle 
 began to rock as the ancient institutions 
 were feeling the swaying motion which tested 
 
 9
 
 their foundations in the last decade of the 
 Eighteenth Centur3^ 
 
 He was a child of the privileged class, who 
 was to make common cause with the op- 
 pressed. He came of an ancient lineage; the 
 traditions of heroism were in his family'. 
 Edward Shellc}' of Worminghurst died in the 
 year of the Spanish Armada, 1588 ; Sir 
 Richard Shelley of Queen Mary's time was a 
 swordsman, Grand Prior of the order of St. 
 John of Jerusalem, whose effigy appears upon 
 medals struck in his honor in Venice. Another 
 Shelley conspired against seminary priests in 
 England ; still another was executed for con- 
 spiring against Queen Elizabeth in the in- 
 terest of Queen Mary. But the career of 
 knight-errants had passed into the erratic 
 wandering of the second generation before 
 Shelle\'''s birth. It seems rather a prosaic 
 figure, that of old Sir B^^sshe Shellej', the 
 grandfather of the poet, to end a line so 
 heroic. But he had courage also; for did 
 he not marrv' two heiresses against the will 
 of their families, and was not his wit keen 
 and his hand strong, who at twenty-one 
 
 10
 
 came home to England from North America, 
 (Newark, N. J.,) where he had been born, 
 surer of building a great fortune by a 
 judicious and gallant rescue of noble maidens 
 from unwilling fathers than by any subjuga- 
 tion of the virgin soil of the new world ? A 
 hard old man was this Sir Bysshe. He lived 
 long, and gave his tough fibre to Sir Timo- 
 thy, Percy's father, and made much good 
 monej^ and kept it, too, — so secure from son 
 and grandson as to make the latter say that 
 he could only publish what he wrote by 
 stinting himself of bread. 
 
 Thus we see that Shelley came of stock 
 wath a twist in the grain — knight-errant in 
 the remote past, contentious, rebellious and 
 loyal by turns, according to the time and the 
 stress of conscience ; and in later days leaping 
 all barriers to bear away fair ladies. Of Sir 
 Bysshe, his grandson declares that he behaved 
 ill to his wives, was an atheist, and based his 
 hopes on annihilation. But the estate w^as 
 entailed ; and the Baron's title would survive 
 the annihilation of him who bore it. When 
 we find I^ercy so descended, we have a right 
 
 11
 
 ^ to expect that a flower blooming on such a 
 stock will give some token that there has 
 been strange cross-fertilization in preparing 
 its beaut}' — its singular beauty — and its 
 exceptional tendencies of growth. 
 
 Shelley's mother was a woman of Surre^^ 
 Elizabeth Pilfold was married to Timothy 
 Shelley, the unrelenting and conventionally 
 virtuous, in the year 1791. She is described 
 as of " rare beauty, strong sense and a strong 
 fine temper." She was not especially wise in 
 letters, and certainly failed to lay her first 
 born on her bosom with a pressure which 
 made him feel the heart within. Among the 
 children Shelley loved his oldest sister best, 
 and was loved by her, until his unrestrained 
 contempt for tradition made the daughter of 
 the conservative and virtuous Timothy feel 
 to what a hopeless doom this rebel might be 
 destined. Doubtless she felt, without defining 
 it, what a later critic has said, that he was 
 "a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in 
 the void his luminous wings in vain." 
 
 The lad's loneliness began earh'. It was 
 the loneliness of one who was so loving 
 
 12
 
 toward his kind, he had no love to give to 
 institutions; whether it was "fagging" at 
 Eton, or the black medal on a disobedient 
 child's neck at school, or marriage, or Kings, 
 it was all one to Shelley, boy and man alike. 
 The injustice which exacted a share of 
 life unwillingh' bestowed, must be swept 
 aside by the free human spirit. Doctor Dow- 
 den — Shelle3^'s best biographer — declares 
 th^it "all Shelley's best poems are fragments 
 of a great confession. " If this be true, then 
 in Prince Athanase we have a pitiful picture 
 of a boy's loneliness — a loneliness relieved by 
 only one friend Avho could advise, and another 
 w^ho could s^-mpathize. Prince Athanase is 
 not to be taken too literally, and j^et who can 
 doubt the self-revelation of his boyhood's sol- 
 itude and longing for love, w^hich Shelley 
 makes in its lines : 
 
 Fearless he was, and scorning all disguise, 
 
 What he dared do or think, tho' men might start, 
 
 He spoke with mild 3'et unaverted eyes ; 
 
 ***** and his weak foes 
 He neither spurned nor hated ; tho' with fell 
 And mortal hate their thousand voices rose. 
 They passed like aimless arrows from his ear. 
 
 13
 
 No one can doubt the application of those 
 Hnes who remembers how the quadrangle at 
 Eton rang with the uproar of five hundred 
 boys shouting "Mad Shelley ! Mad Shelley !" 
 "vShelley!" "Atheist vShelley!" while the 
 slight, delicate child stood among them 
 trembling with rage, and helpless to resist, 
 his shrill voice lifted in protest : 
 
 Nor did his heart or mind its portal close 
 To those, or them, or an3' whom life's sphere 
 May comprehend within its wide array. 
 
 This was a boy already possessed by that 
 spirit which knew it had the power to soar, 
 but had not yet learned to sing : 
 
 » « » » * Xhough his lips did seem 
 
 Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods; 
 And thro' his sleep, and o'er each waking hour. 
 Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes. 
 
 Were driven within him, by some secret power, 
 
 Which bade them blaze, and live and roll afar. 
 
 Like light and sounds, from haunted tower to tower 
 
 O'er castled mountains borne — 
 
 What was his grief, which ne'er in other minds 
 
 A mirror found — he knew not, none could know ; 
 
 But on whoe'er might question him he turned 
 
 The light of his frank eyes, as if to show 
 
 He knew not of the grief within that burned. 
 
 It
 
 But asked forbearance with a mournful look ; 
 Or spoke in words from which none ever learned 
 The cause of his disquietude ; or shook 
 
 With spasms of silent passion, or turned pale: 
 Some said that he was mad, others believed 
 That memories of an antenatal life 
 
 Made this, where now he dwelt, a penal Hell ; 
 And others said that such m^-sterious grief 
 From God's displeasure, like a darkness fell 
 
 On souls like his, which owned no higher law 
 Than love ; love calm, steadfast, invincible 
 B3' mortal fear or supernatural awe. 
 
 The good and kind friend of Shelley's unde- 
 fended loneliness, who saved him from a 
 mad-house to which his bewildered parents 
 would have sent him when ill with fever, was 
 Doctor Lind. This man aroused the reverence 
 of the bo3^ for nature's nn^steries, and drew 
 to himself that ready devotion which wisdom 
 and love always spread before him as a sac- 
 rament. Where Shelley bestowed his heart, 
 he did not simply love, he worshipped. He 
 speaks thus of Doctor Lind : 
 
 Prince Athanase had one beloved friend. 
 An old, old man, with hair of silver white, 
 And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and 
 blend 
 
 15 
 
 *^^a(»-
 
 With his wise words; and CA-es whose arrowy light 
 Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds. 
 
 Such was Zonoras ; and as dajdight finds 
 One amaranth glittering on the path of frost, 
 When autumn nights have nipt all weaker kinds, 
 
 Thus through his age, dark, cold and tempest-tost, 
 
 Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he filled 
 
 From fountains pure, nigh over grown and lost, 
 
 The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child. 
 With soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore 
 And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild. 
 
 This was no transient influence in Shellej^'s 
 history, for besides the sympathy and under- 
 standing which brought him hght and 
 warmth, when dark and cold among those 
 who made him their sport, this wise old 
 scholar has made the world his debtor ; for, 
 certainly, if Timothy, the stupid, had been 
 able to carry out his purpose to put out of 
 harm's way his son, supposed insane, the 
 whole equilibrium of Shelley's life would have 
 been permanently destroyed. He travelled 
 so close to the narrow boundary between 
 genius and madness that only love saved 
 him all his life long from being lost to the 
 world. His organism jaelded to every breath. 
 
 16
 
 He trembled as though a si)asm assailed him 
 when cither delight or fear entered his mind. 
 His excitability seemed at times like hysteria ; 
 even the knowledge that on the page about 
 to be turned would appear an illustration of 
 Dante's great Epic, would cause his whole 
 person to quiver with excitement. When we 
 think of the narrow and crumbling bridge by 
 which his fancy led him from the real world 
 to the world of vision, we are not surprised 
 that he trembled, but that the chasm of de- 
 lirium did not engulf him. And yet, strange- 
 ly enough, there was but scant infusion of 
 bitterness in his soul. He was not smitten 
 with the soul-sickness which envenomed 
 B3'ron's life. Some self-pity there was, indeed; 
 and who can wonder that a nature dedicat- 
 ed to the well-being of his fellows should feel 
 the waste of love he poured out upon his 
 kind, — love which passed from his soul like 
 a flood, but disappeared, sinking in the 
 sand where it flowed. His love w^ent forth to 
 bless every associate of his life — Hogg, the 
 satirical and unworthy, Harriet Westbrooke, 
 insuflicient for his soul's needs, the exacting 
 
 17
 
 Godwin, philosopher and mart^-r, — philoso- 
 pher by intention and martyr by mistake, — 
 Miss Hitchener, his associate in the task of 
 reforming the world, in the effort for Catholic 
 emancipation and in other deeds of prowess 
 for justice's sake — quixotic schemes bequeath- 
 ed to Shelley's blood and brain by his remote 
 ancestor, the ancient swordsman of St. John. 
 All these were the beneficiaries of Shelley's 
 generosity and the sharers of his devotion : 
 all took what Shelley could bestow; love, 
 hospitality of house and mind, fortune — 
 money in exchange for promissory notes, 
 post obits. Naught came amiss, and naught 
 came back ; for no one ever thought of pay- 
 ing Shelley. He was a fountain for their 
 thirst ; he seemed repaid that their faces were 
 mirrored in his heart. He w^as loved, pity- 
 ingly by some, patronizingly by others, de- 
 votedly by one or two ; but the account was 
 never balanced. Even Byron, past-master in 
 selfishness, whose sensual mind revelled in 
 scenes from w^hich Shelley fled horror-struck, 
 was compelled to say : " You are all mistaken 
 about Shelley, who was without exception 
 
 18
 
 the best and least selfish man I ever knew." 
 And Trelawny declared: " Shelley loved every- 
 thing better than himself." It is absolutely 
 certain Shelley would have left Byron's lame- 
 ness to the secrecy of death, rather than yield 
 to the temptation which Trelawny could not 
 resist. Love is the key to all that Shelley 
 thought and did. His sense of duty was 
 strong, and kept him true to even fancied ob- 
 ligations, but where love and duty were 
 united, his devotion was an ecstacy. He seems 
 to the careless eye which regards him from a 
 distance, as a creature of mere impulse, but 
 he was in reality a nature given up to unre- 
 mitting industry. His application to a select- 
 ed task was unwearied, so long as the w^eak 
 frame could aid the unexhausted mind. The 
 constant recurrence of the word "faint" in 
 his poems betrays a constant sense of weak- 
 ness in the poet. How industriously he pur- 
 sued his education may be seen by reference 
 to the list of books given in Mary Shelley's 
 diary as read each year; and it must be re- 
 membered that his early expulsion from Ox- 
 ford must have made his devotion to classic 
 
 19
 
 literature no small labor in his earlier j^ears. 
 This expulsion from Oxford, and the later 
 incident of his brief residence in Dublin to aid 
 the Irish cause, are times as serious as death 
 with Shelley ; but they cannot fail to provoke 
 a smile from a less romantic generation. 
 Neither his brief essay. The Necessity of 
 Atheism — which procured his expulsion from 
 the University — nor his Address to the Irish 
 People can be taken very seriously now ; but 
 they were as native to his soul as that best 
 product of his ripest thought, Prometheus 
 Unbound. "Shelley at nineteen was pos- 
 sessed by an inextinguishable hope for the 
 world and an enthusiasm of humanity, 
 which never ceased to inspire his deeds and 
 words. He had a conviction that it is in the 
 power of every one, young or old, to do some- 
 thing to bring nearer the world's Great Age ; 
 that it is the duty of every one to contriliute 
 something to the public good. He had not 
 yet measured his own powers, and he pos- 
 sessed something of the self-confidence of 
 youth and inexperience, together with that 
 faith in itself which seems to be conferred on 
 
 20
 
 genius to sustain it in its contention with 
 the world. But his confidence chiefly arose 
 from his ardent beHef in certain truths or 
 doctrines — luminousl^^ self-evident as they 
 appeared to him, 3'et unapprehended by the 
 mass of men — truths or doctrines of which he 
 was to be the preacher; and if need be, the 
 martyr." This judgment of his latest bi- 
 ographer is sustained by all the facts of 
 Shelle3^'s earlier years, and illustrated by all 
 his riper experience. For the wild revolt of 
 Queen Mab is not more significant of a 
 nature in rebellion against the existing order, 
 than are the prophecies of Prometheus 
 proof of a faith in the Great Age which 
 awaits the perfecting of the human race. Hear 
 his protest in Queen Mah : 
 
 Whence thinkest thou, kings and parasites arose? 
 
 Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap 
 
 Toil and unvanquishable penury 
 
 On those who build their palaces, and bring 
 
 Their daily bread ? From vice, black, loathsome vice; 
 
 From rapine, madness, treachery and wrong; 
 
 From all that genders misery, and makes 
 
 Of earth this thorny wilderness ; from lust, 
 
 Revenge and murder . . . And when Reason's voice, 
 
 Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked 
 
 The nations ; and mankind perceive that vice 
 
 21
 
 Is discord, war, and misery ; that virtue 
 Is peace, and happiness and harmony ; 
 When man's maturer nature shall disdain 
 The playthings of its childhood ; kingly glare 
 Will lose its power to dazzle ; its authority 
 Will silently pass bj' ; the gorgeous throne 
 Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall. 
 Fast falling to decaj' ; whilst falsehood's trade 
 Shall be as hateful and unprofitable 
 As that of truth is now. 
 
 Professor Dowden makes a discriminating 
 analysis of Queen Mab, which goes to 
 prove the onward march of the spirit of 
 prophecy and high hope in Shelley : 
 
 ''Queen Mab, which is very far from being a 
 great poem, is also far from being 'villainous 
 trash.' A certain moral shallowness, indeed, 
 makes it comparatively uninteresting, — a 
 moral shallowness arising from the view of 
 evil as having existence less in human char- 
 acter than in institutions, laws, governments, 
 and generally in things external to the con- 
 science and the will. That Shelley had crude 
 notions about the history of the world, the 
 origin of civil institutions, of religions, and 
 much beside, is obvious on the hastiest sur- 
 vey ; and that he had taken a one-sided and 
 
 22
 
 therefore flagrantly unjust view of the Jewish 
 and the Christian reHgions is equally obvious. 
 * * * Nevertheless, the poem has value even 
 when regarded as an imaginative setting 
 forth of important truths. Seldom before in 
 English poetry had the unity of nature and 
 the universality of law — the idea of a cosmos 
 — been expressed with more precision or more 
 ardent conviction. Seldom before in poetry 
 had the vast and ceaseless flow of Being — 
 restless yet subject to a constant law of evo- 
 lution and development — been so vividly 
 conceived. Nature, or as Shelley preferred to 
 say, the Spirit of Nature, acting necessarily, 
 and at present producing indifferently good 
 and evil, giving birth alike to the hero, the 
 martyr, the bigot, the tyrant, poisonous ser- 
 pent and innocent lamb, yet tends uncon- 
 sciously upward to nobler developments, 
 purging itself of what is w^eak and base. 
 Shelley's spirit, w^hich circles half mournfully, 
 half exultingly above the ruins of the past, 
 which rises on the wing and screams at sight 
 of all the oppressions and frauds done under 
 the sun in this our day, flies to the future and 
 
 23
 
 embraces it ^Yith a lover's joy. He is already 
 enamoured of the ideal. His faith in the pos- 
 sibility of a better life of man did not die 
 away; it mspired the Hellas and Prometheus." 
 Now this is not only a clear and apprecia- 
 tive anal_vsis, doing justice to Shelley's right 
 direction, but it is the judgment of one of 
 the best English-Literature scholars of our 
 time. It is a judgment borne out by the 
 carefullest study of Queen Mat, Laon , 
 and Prometheus. It is a judgment illus- 
 trated in Shelley's private life by tender min- 
 istering to the poor ; by forgiveness of the in- 
 excusable dishonor of his closest friend , Hogg; 
 by his fidelity to Harriet, even after he was 
 convinced of her infidelity and repelled b\' her 
 indifference; by his inexhaustible reverence and 
 patience for Godwin; by the way in which 
 Byron's contempt for society and human 
 nature fell away from Shelley's soul, not able 
 to cling with icy touch to that centre of per- 
 petual summer. By all these and a thou- 
 sand other tests, the faith of this youth in 
 goodness and in -man as good, gave abun- 
 dant proof. His poetic genius was ever in 
 
 24
 
 debt to his prophetic spirit of truth and love. 
 
 Among Shelley's contemporaries in the 
 dawn of that new poetic era to which he be- 
 longed, among the older generation, he found 
 acquaintance with Southey. From Keswick, 
 Southey writes a friend concerning Shelley : 
 
 "Here is a man at Keswick who acts upon 
 me as my own ghost would do. He is just 
 what I was in 1794. His name is Shelley, 
 son to the member for Shoreham; with £6,000 
 a year entailed upon him, and as much more 
 in his father's power to cut off. Beginning 
 with romances of ghosts and murder, and 
 with poetry at Eton, he passed at Oxford 
 into metaphysics ; printed half a dozen pages, 
 which he entitled. The Necessity of Atheism, 
 sent one anonj^mouslj^ to Copleston — in ex- 
 pectation, I suppose, of converting him ; was 
 expelled in consequence; married a girl of 
 seventeen, after being turned out of doors by 
 his father. And here they both are in lodg- 
 ings, living upon £200 a year, which her father 
 allows them. He is come to the fittest ph}'- 
 sician in the world. At present he has got 
 to the Pantheistic stage of philosophy, and in 
 
 25
 
 the course of a week I expect he will be a 
 Berkele3^an, for I have put him upon a course 
 of Berkeley. It has surprised him a good deal 
 to meet for the first time in his life with a man 
 who perfectly understands him, and does him 
 full justice. I tell him all the difference between 
 us is, that he is nineteen and I am thirty- 
 seven ; and I dare saj^ it will not be very long 
 before I succeed in convincing him that he 
 may be a true philosopher, and do a great 
 deal of good with £6,000 a year,— the thought 
 of which troubles him a great deal more at 
 present than ever the want of six-pence (for I 
 have known such a want) did me * * * God 
 help us ! The world wants mending, though 
 he did not set about it exactly in the right 
 way." 
 
 This letter contains two portrait sketches : 
 Southey's, as well as Shelley's. No man can 
 play the master to so exceptional a pupil 
 without exhibiting himself. When at length 
 the separation from Harriet came and her 
 fall and suicide followed, Southey presumed 
 to sit in judgment upon Shelley's conduct 
 and motives. The reply of the younger man 
 
 26
 
 is that of one who has a dignity born of suf- 
 fering — self-restrained and much more just in 
 all its judgments than the words of his ac- 
 cuser. When he reproaches Southey with 
 "selecting a single passage out of a life not 
 only otherwise spotless, but spent in an im- 
 passioned pursuit of virtue, which looks like 
 a blot, merely because I regulated my domes- 
 tic arrangements without deferring to the 
 notions of the vulgar, although I might have 
 done so quite as conveniently had I descended 
 to their base thought" — we at once believe 
 the statement in all its particulars as truth- 
 ful, and interpret his reticence not as guilt, 
 but as love. There is no other passage in 
 this life which can be misconstrued : all else 
 plainly points to that moment of vision 
 w^hich came to him as a boy, and widened to 
 cover all his days : 
 
 I do remember well the hour which burst 
 
 My spirit's sleep. A fresh Ma3^ dawn it was 
 
 When I walked forth upon the glittering grass, 
 
 And wept I knew not why : until there rose 
 
 From the near school-room voices that, alas ! 
 
 Were but one echo from a world of woes — 
 
 The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 
 
 27
 
 And then I clasped my hands and looked around : 
 But none was near to mock my streaming eyes 
 Which poured their warm drops on the sunn^' 
 
 ground, 
 So without shame I spake: I will be wise 
 And just and free, and mild if in me lies 
 Such power; for I grow weary to behold 
 The selfish and the strong still tyrannize 
 Without reproach or check ! I then controlled 
 My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek 
 
 and bold. 
 
 Any discussion of Shelley's life and genius, 
 or any effort to set forth a picture of his 
 beautiful soul, must render necessar\^ some 
 word concerning the separation from his 
 young wife Harriet. For the lovers of Shellej^ 
 have been ever compelled to look at his por- 
 trait through this obscuring and distorting 
 veil. I can best approach this subject by 
 presenting to you three poems which belong 
 to this period, and were published for the first 
 time in 1886. They were taken by Professor 
 Dowden from a manuscript volume in the 
 possession of Mr. Esdail — Harriet's grandson 
 and lanthe's son : 
 
 EVENING. TO HARRIET. 
 O thou bright sun ! beneath the dark blue line 
 Of western distance that sublime descendest ; 
 
 28
 
 And gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline, 
 
 Thy million hues to every vapour lendest, 
 
 And over cobweb, lawn and grove and stream 
 
 Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light, 
 
 Till calm earth, with thy parting splendor bright, 
 
 Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream ; 
 
 What gazer ncjw with astronomic eye 
 
 Could coldly count the spots within thy sphere ? 
 
 Such were thy lover, Harriet, could he i[y 
 
 The thoughts of all that makes his passion dear. 
 
 And turning senseless from thy warm caress 
 
 Pick flaws in our close- woven happiness. 
 
 TO lANTHE: SEPTEMBER, 1813. 
 
 I love thee Baby! for thine own sweet sake: 
 Those azure eyes, that faintly dimpled cheek. 
 Thy tender frame so eloquently weak. 
 Love in the sternest heart of hate might wake; 
 But more when o'er thy fitful slumber bending 
 Thy mother holds thee to her wakeful heart, 
 Whilst love and pity in her glances blending. 
 All that thy passive eyes can feel impart : 
 More, when some feeble lineaments of her 
 Who bore thy weight beneath her spotless bosom, 
 As with deep love, I read thy face, recur ; 
 More dear art thou, O fair and fragile blossom ; 
 Dearest when most thj^ tender traits express 
 The image of thy mother's loveliness." 
 
 The following poem was found by Professor 
 Dowden in the manuscript collection of poems 
 prepared by Shelley for publication in the early 
 days of 1813. 
 
 29
 
 TO HARRIET: MAY, I8H. 
 Thy look of love has power to calm 
 The stormiest passion of my soul ; 
 Thy gentle words are drops of balm 
 In life's too bitter bowl : 
 No grief is mine, but that alone 
 These choicest blessings I have known. 
 
 Harriet! if all who long to live 
 In the warm sunshine of thine eye, 
 That price beyond all pain must give 
 Beneath thy scorn to die — 
 Then hear thy chosen own too late, 
 His heart most worthy of thy hate. 
 
 Be thou, then, one among mankind 
 Whose heart is harder not for state, 
 Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind 
 Amid a world of hate ; 
 And by a slight endurance seal 
 A fellow-being's lasting weal. 
 
 For pale with anguish is his cheek, 
 His breath comes fast, his eyes are dim. 
 Thy name is struggling ere he speak, 
 Weak is each trembling limb ; 
 In mercy let him not endure 
 The misery of a fatal cure. 
 
 O trust for once no erring guide ! 
 Bid the remorseless feeling flee ; 
 'Tis malice, 'tis revenge, 'tis pride, 
 'Tis anj'thing but thee ; 
 O deign a noble pride to prove, 
 And pity if thou canst not love. 
 
 This is one of several pieces added 
 
 30
 
 to that volume in Harriet's handwriting. 
 Professor Dowden says: "In its piteous 
 appeal Shelley deelares he has now no grief 
 but one — the grief of having known and lost 
 his wife's love : if it is the fate of all who 
 would live in the sunshine of her affection to 
 endure her scorn, then let him be scorned 
 above the rest, for he most of all has desired 
 that sunshine ; let not the world and the pride 
 of life harden her heart ; it is better that she 
 should be kind and gentle ; if she has some- 
 thing to endure it is not much, and all her 
 husband's weal hangs upon her loving endur- 
 ance ; for, see how pale and wildered anguish 
 has made him ; oh ! in mercy do not cure his 
 malady by the fatal way of condemning him 
 to exile beyond all hope or farther fear; oh, 
 trust no erring guide or unw^ise counsellor, no 
 false pride; rather learn that a nobler pride 
 may find its satisfaction in and through love; 
 or, if love be forever dead, at least let pity 
 survive in its room." 
 
 There is no record of any response upon 
 Harriet's part to this appeal, although she 
 copied and preserved the poem. Thornton 
 
 31
 
 Hunt assures us that she left her husband of 
 her own accord. Shelley in his petition for 
 the possession of her children after her death 
 declared in the Court of Chancery : " Delicac)' 
 forbids me to say more than that we were sep- 
 arated by incurable dissensions." The common 
 view that Shelley fell in love with Mary 
 Godwin and deserted his wife and children in 
 sheer passion has no shred of proof to sustain 
 it. In these "incurable dissensions" EHza 
 Westbrooke, who had attached herself to the 
 household as an insatiable leech, bore her 
 part. Shelley writes, just before his London 
 marriage with Harriet in 1814, concerning 
 her sister Eliza; "I certainly hate her with all 
 my heart and soul. It is a sight which awak- 
 ens an inexpressible sensation of disgust and 
 horror to see her caress my poor little lanthe. 
 * * * I sometimes feel faint with the fatigue 
 of checking the overflowing of my unbounded 
 abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But 
 she is no more than a blind and loathsome 
 worm which cannot see to sting." 
 
 I have quoted this passage not only for the 
 bearing it may seem to have upon Shelley's 
 
 32
 
 miser}', but because it is not the feeling Shellej^ 
 earlier felt for her and because it stands 
 almost alone in all the multitude of beautiful 
 things he has written, as an expression of 
 personal hate. Only one other person seems 
 to have affected him thus; that was Mrs. 
 Godwin, the second— Claire Clairmont's unen- 
 durable mother. Shelley sa^'s that when he 
 dines at Godwin's and sees Mrs. Godwin at 
 table, he finds himself "leaning back in his 
 chair and languishing into hate." She must 
 have been worthy to excite such an emotion, 
 if the record of her influence upon Fanny 
 Imlay, Mary Shelley and her own daughter 
 Claire may be trusted. From the moment 
 she began to court her neighbor, William 
 Godwin, from her window, with the exclam- 
 ation "Can it be that I behold the immortal 
 Godwin!" (to which description Godwin 
 seems to have assented,) her whole career was 
 self-seeking and untrustworthy. She appears 
 in the history of these lives as a malignant 
 influence, a thoroughly respectable woman of 
 the worst type. But her effect upon Shelley 
 w^as not traceable in any behavior of his 
 
 33
 
 toward her. It was however, perhaps due 
 to her want of sympathy with Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft's daughter that Shelley was given 
 opportunity for placing himself in the danger- 
 ous companionship of this fascinating girl. 
 He had not yet broken finally with Harriet ; 
 although the breach between them seemed 
 beyond remedy, when a visit to Godwin re- 
 vealed the presence in that household of a 
 girl whose keen intellect, enthusiasm and love 
 of "Intellectual Beauty" were no less than 
 his. It was her custom to take her book or 
 work and go to sit by her mother's grave in 
 the churchyard of old St. Pancras, — a place 
 instinct with the presence of the mother she 
 had never know^n, but whose name and in- 
 fluence were to her a realit}^ in the world of 
 books and in the vindication of her own free- 
 dom from undue restraint. She had a strange 
 training, this girl of sixteen, delicate, fair and 
 finely strung. Had she not been the free soul 
 she was, the freedom Godwin proclaimed 
 must have been an incentive to uncontrol. It 
 is not thus a matter of surprise, that these 
 two, — the one a child, Shelley scarcely more 
 
 34
 
 than a boy, should have compared their 
 sorrows under the willow in the St. Pancras 
 Churchyard, and have come to feel that their 
 loneliness and separation from all comfort 
 decreed that they should be a solace, each to 
 the other's grief. In Mary Shelley's words it 
 is recorded: "His anguish, his isolation, his 
 difference from other men, his gifts of genius 
 and eloquent enthusiasm, made a deep im- 
 pression on Godwin's daughter, Mary * * * 
 who had been accustomed to hear Shelley 
 spoken of as something rare and strange. 
 To her as they met one eventful day in St. 
 Pancras Churchyard by her mother's grave, 
 Bysshe, in burning words poured forth the 
 tale of his wild past — how he had suffered, 
 how he had been misled, and how if support- 
 ed by her love, he hoped in future years to 
 enroll his name with the wise and good, who 
 had done battle for their fellow-men, and 
 been true, through all adverse storms, to the 
 cause of humanity. Unhesitatingly she placed 
 her hand in his, and linked her fortune with 
 his own ; and most truthfully, as the remain- 
 ing portions of these memorials will prove, 
 
 35
 
 was the pledge of both redeemed. The theo- 
 ries in which the daughter of the authors 
 of Political Justice^ and The Rights of 
 Woman, had been educated spared her from 
 any conflict between her duty and her affec- 
 tion. For she was the child of parents whose 
 writings had had for their object to prove 
 that marriage was one among the many in- 
 stitutions which a new era in the history of 
 mankind was about to sweep away. By her 
 father, whom she loved, by the writings of 
 her mother, whom she had been taught to 
 venerate — these doctrines had been rendered 
 familiar to her mind. It was therefore natural 
 that she should listen to the dictates of her 
 own heart, and willingly unite her fate with 
 one who was so worthy of her love." This 
 is the whole story — whether the personality 
 of Shelley or the education of both be con- 
 sidered ; and when to this is added the step- 
 mother, and the questionable influence of 
 Claire Clairmont, Byron's mistress, we need 
 search no further for the causes which set 
 these two, wayward and rash, but strangely 
 gifted creatures upon a path of rebellion 
 
 36
 
 against the conventions of a dull world, 
 and the experience of a world, which is often 
 wisest when dull. 
 
 "Rare and strange" indeed was Shelley! 
 Literature shows no counterpart. Of some 
 what the same make, but of different finish, 
 more fragile if not more rare, were Keats and 
 Chatterton. They seemed mortal ; that Shel- 
 ley never seemed — he was elfish rather. It 
 was to Mary as though she had stooped to 
 pluck a rose that grew in her path, and found 
 that it was a rose, white once and wet with 
 dew, but now crimson from some w^ound its 
 beauty hid ; it was as though a bird had 
 flow'n chilled and trembling to her bosom, 
 and had straighway begun a plaintive song 
 against her heart. This was the song: 
 
 Mine e3'es were dim with tears unshed ; 
 Yes, I was firm — thus wert not thou ; 
 My baffled looks did fear yet dread 
 To meet thy looks — I could not know 
 How anxiously they sought to shine 
 With soothing pity upon mine. 
 
 To sit and curb the soul's mute rage 
 Which preys upon itself alone ; 
 To curse the life which is the cage 
 Of fettered grief that dares not groan, 
 
 37 
 
 ^'41089
 
 Hiding from many a careless eye 
 The scorned load of aj^ony. 
 
 Upon my heart thy accents sweet 
 
 Of peace and pity fell like dew 
 
 On flowers half dead ; — thy lips did meet 
 
 Mine tremblingly- ; thy dark eyes threw 
 
 Their soft pursuasion on my brain, 
 
 Charming away its dream of pain. 
 
 We are not happy sweet ! Our state 
 Is strange and full of d()ul)t and fear; 
 More need of words that ills abate ; — 
 Reserve or censure come not near 
 Our sacred friendship, lest there be 
 No solace left for thee and me. 
 
 Shelley was wretched, but comforted even 
 while wretched. His was a nature enamoured 
 of loveliness, pursuing as in a trance some ideal 
 beauty of mind and form ; as he says, "Anti- 
 gone," seen of him "in some previous state of 
 being." He was of all modern poets most 
 Greek in sympathy with nature, most full of 
 passion, most free from the gross infusion of 
 passion. He was not the inflammable creature 
 Matthew Arnold makes him out to be. His 
 w^as a flame electric, most clear, most bright, 
 but giving forth no heat of common fire, nor 
 corrupting the atmosphere in which it 
 burned. The second crisis of his life was just 
 
 38
 
 past, in which he had worshipped at the shrine 
 of Intellectual Beauty — a worship which he 
 celebrates in a matchless Hymn. 
 
 I vowed that I would dedicate 1113' powers 
 To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow ? 
 With beating heart and streaming eyes even now 
 I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 
 Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned 
 bowers 
 
 Of studious zeal or love's delight 
 
 Outwatched with me the envious night — 
 They know that never joy illumed my brow 
 
 Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
 
 This world from its dark slavery, 
 
 That thou — O awful Loveliness, 
 Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. 
 
 The day becomes more solemn and serene 
 When noon is past — there is a harmony 
 In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 
 Which thro' the summer is not heard or seen 
 As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! 
 
 Thus let thy power, which like the truth 
 
 Of Nature on my passive youth 
 Descended, to my onward life suppl}' 
 Its calm — to one who worships thee, 
 And every form containing thee, 
 Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind 
 To fear himself, and love all human kind. 
 
 Here again Shelley shows the absorbing 
 passion for truth, and for all its beautiful 
 manifestations. He seemed to have the power 
 
 39
 
 to realize abstract truth only in concrete form, 
 — it was the Greek temper again. His imag- 
 ery is sometimes bold beyond the demands of 
 Art, but never gross. But there was in it that 
 intensitj^ also which caused him to lavish all his 
 heart on each object, and he seems to forget 
 for the time being that any other had a mo- 
 mentary claim upon him. It was thus his 
 nature showed itself in commonest things. 
 He would lie in his boat and study effects of 
 light and color on sea and sky, unmindful of 
 the rudder entrusted to his care. His life 
 lacked guiding, because his eyes w^ere onlook- 
 ing, and he forgot that the furthest flight 
 of the affections must end at home. 
 
 The influences which wrought upon Shel- 
 ley's mind were varied. He belonged to a 
 remarkable group of men who made famous 
 the last years of the Eighteenth Century 
 and the first quarter of the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury,- Scott, Coleridge, Southey, Leigh Hunt, 
 Byron, Charles Lamb and Keats. With all 
 these excepting Scott, Shelley had relations 
 more or less intimate. All seem to have 
 been a delight to him except Southej'^ and 
 
 40
 
 Byron, and even these gained something 
 from him. Southey gained a fresh accession 
 of self-conceit; tind Byron's poems of the 
 Lake Leman period are penetrated by the 
 influence of Shelley's more delicate intelli- 
 gence. They skirted the lake together with 
 Rousseau in hand, £ind out of their inter- 
 change of thought came Shelley's Julian, 
 and Count Maddolo, and Byron's Childe 
 Harold and Prisoner of Chillon. 
 
 But, one influence wrought more than all 
 others — an influence malign, it seems, an in- 
 fluence of unadulterated evil. In the world oi 
 morals this influence is called a rebellion from 
 the sacraments of the heart ; in government 
 it is known as anarchy ; in society as personal 
 freedom in its most selfish form ; in literature 
 it is known by the name of— William Godwin. 
 Professor Dowden's estimate of Godwin 
 seem to me only partly true. He says ; 
 
 "A lyrical nature trying to steady its ad- 
 vance by revolutionary abstractions — such 
 was Shelley * * * Godwin's philosophy 
 brought Shelley something w^hich his imag- 
 ination demanded, and something which 
 
 41
 
 was needful to his character. Godwin, with 
 his abstract principles, made a clean sweep 
 of tradition and all the accumulated trea- 
 sures, and all the accumulated lumber of the 
 past; these same principles received as the 
 foundation of a new human society en- 
 throned boundless hopes for the future * * * 
 Godwin's philosophy, while it was on the 
 one hand a chariot from which Shelley's 
 wild-eyed hopes could lean forward to drink 
 the wind of their own speed, was on the 
 other hand an intellectual counterpoise to 
 his excitable temper." 
 
 But little note is now made of William 
 Godwinj except that he married Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft and was the father of Mary 
 Shelley. He would have been a clod indeed 
 who had not loved Mary Wollstonecraft, 
 and beyond the parentage and shelter of 
 home, the influence of Godwin on Mary 
 Shelley's life seems a blight and a distress. 
 
 Shelley was still a boy when there fell in his 
 way Godwin's revolutionary treatise entitled, 
 Political Justice. It is difhcult for us to 
 conceive how this work could have made the 
 
 42
 
 impression it did in England. It will aid 
 us in this conception if we call to mind 
 the state of English politics and society, 
 and look toward France, where from the 
 English shores could be seen the ascend- 
 ing smoke of a growing conflagration. This 
 was the period in which the Georges inflicted 
 their rule upon English government und their 
 manners upon English society — the period 
 when Lord Castlereagh was the "power be- 
 hind the throne" and Lord Eldon was Chan- 
 cellor. Of this Lord Eldon, Sidney Smith, 
 who had a good word for everybody, could 
 say only evil. He calls him "the most bigoted, 
 heartless and mischievous of human beings, 
 who passed a long life in perpetrating all 
 sorts of abuses, and in making money of 
 them." It may be imagined how a rebel like 
 Godwin would write such a book as Political 
 Justice, and with what execration it would 
 be received on the one hand, and on the other 
 with what admiration the minds in revolt 
 would hail it. It is not difficult to believe 
 that it seemed to Shelley an oracle of wis- 
 dom; and that when he discovered that its 
 
 43
 
 author was still liv'ing, he should write that 
 remarkable letter which is the begining of a* 
 relation in which Shelley's consistent fidelity 
 was matched by Godwin's consistent impe- 
 cuniosity. 
 
 Shelley's susceptibility to such an influence 
 has been thus stated : "Shelley's second letter 
 [to Godwin] which reviews his past life is of 
 much biographictil interest, but one must 
 bear in mind that the writer, who had only a 
 faint interest in the history of nations, was 
 one of those men for whom the hard outline 
 of facts in their own individual history has 
 little fixity; whose footsteps are forever fol- 
 lowed and overflowed by the waves of 
 oblivion ; who remember with extraordinary 
 tenacity the sentiment of times and places, 
 but lose the framework of circumstance in 
 which the sentiment was set ; and who in re- 
 constructing an image of the past, often un- 
 consciously supply links and lines ujjon the 
 suggestion of that sentiment or emotion 
 which is for them the essential reality * * * 
 For them their lives are a train of emotions 
 and ideas rather than of events ; and in re- 
 
 44
 
 calling foregone events an involuntary in- 
 stinct is at work, unconsciously adapting 
 circumstances to feelings by the aid of a win- 
 nowing wind of desire, astir amid the mobile 
 cloud-land of the past." 
 
 This is a truthful and very keen discernment 
 of the method of Shelley's mind. How this 
 "muddy pool" of Godwin's treatise upon 
 reason gave forth, in Shelley's thinking, a 
 luminous and beautiful mist, may be seen not 
 only in the crude and turbulent rebellions oi 
 Queen Mah, but in the sublimer and better 
 considered utterances of Prometheus. "Some- 
 how Shelley sought and found comfort under 
 his general sense that everything is but the 
 baseless fabric of a vision — a verj^ uncom- 
 fortable vision it seems to us made up ot 
 pain and grief" It pleased his fancy, that — 
 
 Life like a dome ol many colored glass 
 Stains the white radiance of Eternity. 
 
 Thus was a mental contact established be- 
 tween Shelley, the radient dweller in eternal 
 verities, and Godwin, this juggler with un- 
 realities. "Godwin," said Northcote to Haz- 
 litt, "is a profligate in theorj', and a bigot 
 
 45
 
 in conduct. He does not seem at all to prac- 
 tice what he preaches, though this does not 
 appear to avail him anj'thing." "Yes," re- 
 plied riazlitt, "he writes against himself. He 
 has written against matrimony and has been 
 twice married. He has scouted all the com- 
 mon-place duties, and yet he is a good hus- 
 band and a kind father. He is a strange 
 composition of contrary' qualities. He is a 
 cold formalist, and full of ardour and en- 
 thusiasm of mind ; dealing in magnificent 
 projects and petty cavils ; naturalh' dull, and 
 brilliant by dint of study; pedantic and play- 
 ful; a dry logician and a writer of romances." 
 Talfourd declares, Godwin "was a man 
 of two beings — which held little discourse 
 with each other." Shelley also was two 
 beings — which held constant discourse with 
 each other — he was a poet bathed in the 
 sun of a new dawn ; he was a reverent scep- 
 tic seeking to account for the nature and 
 grow^th of all things under the sun. He took 
 Godwin's logic and passed it through the 
 alembic of his ardent soul and it hovered 
 about him a luminous cloud; — he took God- 
 
 46
 
 win's social heresies and laid them against 
 his heart, and fiuickencd them to a pure ex- 
 perience by the love his heart supplied. His 
 subtle alchemy extracted whatever gold was 
 in this mine of Godwin, and the world has 
 been raking over the refuse from his furnace 
 ever since. Shelley was consumed in this 
 social, personal passion for truth; but as in 
 the fire which burned him to ashes on the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, to one who can 
 look into the white heat, there will be dis- 
 covered a heart still whole. 
 
 It remains to speak briefly of Shelley as a 
 poet simply. No one can fail to expect song 
 who looks into the eyes of this singer, as he 
 gazes with melancholy tenderness out of Miss 
 Curran's portrait of him. His throat, round 
 and white as a girl's, seems ready to pulsate 
 with a rush of melody. His nearest friend 
 says of him that he had "a marv^ellous gentle- 
 ness of disposition," therefore, say we, he will 
 sing us sonnets and melodious ballads ; but^ 
 says the same friend, there "was great audac- 
 ity of intellect." Ah, say we, then he will 
 give us an epic or a drama when he is aroused 
 
 47
 
 — a battle song will he sing amid the crash of 
 outworn systems. But he had "also a re- 
 markable and earnest spirit." Let the elegy 
 for Keats — early dead — say how true this 
 earnest spirit was, how unselfish, free from 
 jealousy and all envy of this singer set free 
 from the frail cage of human life, to seek that 
 empirean whither Shellej^ turned his constant 
 gaze. 
 
 Let me reset here a gem taken from the vast 
 wealth of Shelley's verse, I have spoken of 
 him as a singer, — this was the pre-eminent 
 qualitj^ of his gift. Sometimes the song is an 
 ecstacy ofjoy, and sometimes the unutterable 
 passion of grief; sometimes rhapsodj^ with 
 which our slow minds scarce keep pace. Let 
 me recall this song; we think oftenest of 
 The Cloud and The Skylark and of this, when 
 we think of Shelley, as a singer : 
 
 My soul is an enchanted boat, 
 
 Which Hke a sleeping swan doth float 
 
 Upon the silver waves of thj' sweet singing; 
 
 And thine doth like an angel sit 
 
 Beside a helm conducting it, 
 
 Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. 
 
 It seems to float ever, forever. 
 
 Upon that many winding river, 
 
 48
 
 Between mountains, woods, abysses, 
 
 A paradise of wildernesses ! 
 
 Till, like one in slunil>er bound, 
 
 Borne to the ocean, 1 float down around. 
 
 Into a sea profound, of ever-spreadinj^ sound. 
 
 Contrast the liquid music of that immortal 
 verse with this snarl, of the Third Fury- 
 answering Prometheus' word : "I weigh not 
 what ye do, but what ye suffer, being evil:" 
 
 We will live through thee, one by one, 
 
 Like animal life, and though we can obscure not 
 
 The soul which burns within, that we will dwell 
 
 Beside it, like a vain loud multitude 
 
 Vexing the self-content of wisest men ; 
 
 That v^'e will be dread thought beneath thy brain, 
 
 And foul desire round thine astonished heart, 
 
 And blood within thy labj'rinthine veins 
 
 Crawling like agony. 
 
 Prometheus. 
 
 Whj', ye are thus now ; 
 Yet am I king over myself, and rule 
 The torturing and conflicting throngs within. 
 As Jove rules you when Hell grows mutinous. 
 
 It seems incredible that this passage which 
 has in it the dark chasms which 3'awn down- 
 ward into blackness, and the stalwart moun- 
 tain sides of the rock-ribbed Caucasus, should 
 have been created in the same soul which 
 wrote the dialogue of the Fauns. 
 
 49
 
 First Faun. 
 Canst thou iinaj:;inc wlicrc those spirits live 
 Which make such delicate music in the woods? 
 We haunt within the least frequented caves 
 And closest coverts, and we know these wilds, 
 Vet never meet them, thoujjjh we hear them oft: 
 Where may they hide themselves? 
 
 Second Faun. 
 
 'Tis hard to tell : 
 I have heard those more skilled in spirits say. 
 The Ijubljles, which the enchantment of the sun 
 Sucks from the pale, faint water-flowers that pave 
 The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools. 
 Are the pavilions where such dwell and float 
 Under the green and j^olden atmosphere. 
 Which noon-tide kindles thro' the woven leaves ; 
 And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, 
 The which they breathed within those lucent domes 
 Ascends to flow like meteors thro' the night, 
 They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed, 
 And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire 
 Under the waters of the earth again. 
 
 First Faun. 
 If such live thus, have others other lives. 
 Under pink blossoms or within the bells 
 Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep, 
 Or, on their dying odours when they die, 
 Or, in the sunlight of the sphered dew ? 
 
 Second Faun, 
 hye, many more which we may well divine. 
 But should we stay to speak, noontide would come. 
 And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn. 
 And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs 
 
 50
 
 Of fate and chance, and God, and Chaos old. 
 And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom. 
 And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth 
 One brotherhood : delightful strains which cheer 
 Our solitary twilights, and which charm 
 To silence the unenvving nightingales. 
 
 One is almost constrained to accept as not 
 too strong the earlier estimate by Robert 
 Browning of a man who has so distanced 
 other poets in the swiftness, directness and 
 strength of his winged flight. In his tribute 
 to Shelley as man and poet Browning says : 
 "There is surely enough of the work of 
 Shelley to be known enduringl^- among men, 
 and, I believe, to be accepted of God, as 
 human work may ; and around the imperfect 
 proportions of such, the most celebrated pro- 
 ductions of ordinary art must arrange them- 
 selves as inferior illustrations." Thus the 
 most famous modem poet speaks of one who 
 has girded the loins of sorrow with sustain- 
 ing love. "Love taught grief to fall like 
 music from his tongue." 
 
 Shellej^ had not yet reached his thirtieth 
 year when the end came — when he was 
 
 51
 
 Made one with nature, 
 
 A portion of the loveliness 
 Which once he made more lovely. 
 
 That was a bitter day to the little group 
 who had watched Shelley's boat go out to 
 sea, when the sea and boat together were 
 shut from view by the curtain of storm which 
 dropped between them. No one will know 
 how that frail boat went down and wrecked 
 the frailer freight it carried. The tidings for 
 which the Mediterranean shores were scanned 
 for days came at last, and Shelley in his 
 shroud of seaweed lay on the beach. You 
 know the rest; — how, as seemed fitting, he 
 was laid upon a burial of flame (a human 
 flower such as he must not know corruption), 
 how the solitary sea bird flew back and forth 
 above the brightness of the fire, like an 
 escaped soul seeing the cage consume; how 
 Leigh Hunt and Trelawny watched all that 
 was mortal pass into ashes, and B3'ron, un- 
 able to endure an irony greater than his own, 
 turned his back upon the funeral pyre and 
 plunged into the sea to reach his boat. When 
 
 52
 
 Mary Shelley died a copy of the Pisa edition 
 of Adonais was found among her treasures. 
 They had wondered what had been done with 
 the heart of Shelley, which Trelawny had 
 snatched from the fire. They opened the 
 Adonais volume, and "at the page which 
 tells how death is swallowed up in immor- 
 tality, was found, under a silken covering, the 
 embrowned ashes, now shrunk and withered, 
 which she had secretly treasured." 
 
 Let Shelley add to this imperfect por- 
 traiture his own in the Adonais — the elegy 
 upon Keats, beside whom his ashes lie in the 
 cemetery in Rome ; a spot of which he said : 
 "It might make one in love with death, to 
 think that he should be buried in so sweet a 
 place!" 
 
 Midst others of less note, came one frail form, 
 A phantom among men; companionless, 
 As the last cloud of an expiring storm 
 Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, 
 Has gazed on nature's naked lovliness, 
 Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray 
 With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, 
 And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, 
 Pursued, like raging hounds their father and their 
 prey. 
 
 53
 
 A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift — 
 A love — in desolation masked; — a power 
 Girt round with weakness; — it can scarce uplift 
 The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
 It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 
 A breaking billow; — even whilst we speak 
 Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
 The killing sun smiles briglitly : on a cheek 
 The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may 
 break. 
 
 54
 
 II. 
 
 AN ILLUvSTRATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 of the Early Writings of 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
 
 THE FACSIMILES ARE REPRODUCED FROM 
 THE ORIGINALS IN THE COLLECTION OF 
 MR. HARRY B. SMITH OF NEW YORK
 
 Note — The bibliographical notes, in this volume, are 
 taken, for the most part, from The Shelley Library, an 
 Essay in Bibliography, by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, pub- 
 lished by Reeves & Turner, London, 1886. Where access 
 to the rarer Shelleys could be obtained, these extracts 
 have been carefully verified. 
 
 Descriptions of other works of Shelley are not added 
 as these are more frequently found and more readily iden- 
 tified.
 
 IRr: 
 
 ZASTROZZI, 
 
 A ROMANCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 P. B. S. 
 
 "That their God 
 
 Miy prove Uieir foe, and with repenting hand 
 Aboliih hn own worki— Thi-) would nirpaM 
 Common rrvengc. 
 
 fARADHS LOST. 
 
 LONDO N: 
 
 fAlt4TC0 FOR O. WILRIE AND J. ROBINSONj 
 ■)7, FATEHKOS'fEh BOW. 
 
 1810.
 
 ZASTROZZI. 
 
 Zastrozzi, which appears to be the first 
 work of Shellej^ which can be called a book, is 
 a duodecimo volume, consisting of ^-title, 
 Zastrozzi, \ a Romance, with imprint at foot, 
 Printed by S. Hamilton, Weybridge, title- 
 page as given below, and 252 pages of text 
 with the head-line Zastrozzi throughout. 
 
 ZASTROZZI, 
 
 A ROMANCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 P. B. S. 
 
 That their God 
 
 May prove their foe, and Avith repenting hand 
 Abolish his own works — This would surpass 
 Common revenge. 
 
 PARADISE LOST. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR G. WILKIE AND J. ROBINSON, 
 57, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1810.
 
 It appears to have been issued in blue 
 boards backed with drab, bearing the label 
 "ZASTROZZI. I A ROMANCE. I Price Ss." 
 
 It is said to have been published on the 5th 
 of June, 1810, and advertized in The Times on 
 the 5th and 12th, but a letter to Graham 
 from Shelle}^ dated Eton, April 1, 1810, and 
 another dated May 29 indicate that the book 
 was to appear immediateh', or had appeared. 
 Shelley was in his eighteenth j'-ear. 
 
 ORIGINAL POETRY BY VICTOR AND 
 CAZIRE 
 
 is the second book of Shelley ; of this no copy 
 was known to be extant until 1897 when a 
 single cop3^ came to light. It appears to 
 have been given before binding to Rev. 
 Charles Grove, brother of Harriet; when 
 discovered it was bound up with some other 
 pamphlets. This very rare item is now in 
 the possession of Mr. Thomas J. Wise (See 
 article in Bookman, December 1900, by L. S. 
 Livingston.) The fact that Shelley had issued 
 in the Autumn of 1810 a volume entitled 
 Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, though 
 
 60
 
 made public in 1826, was not generally 
 known to Shelley students until Mr. Garnett, 
 having discovered it in 1859, made it known 
 in June 1860 through Macmillan's Magazine. 
 Numbers I to IX of Stockdalc's Budget (13 De- 
 cember, 1826, to 7 February, 1827) contain a 
 series of articles by Stockdale headed with 
 Shelley's name. From the first of these it 
 appears that, in the Autumn of 1810, Shelley 
 called upon Mr. J. J. Stockdale, publisher, of 
 Pall Mall, and arranged with him for the 
 issue of a book printed at Horsham under the 
 title quoted, and that, on the 17th of Sep- 
 tember, 1810, Stockdale received 1480 copies 
 of the book, "a thin ro3^al 8vo. volume." The 
 book was advertized in The Morning Chron- 
 icle for September 18, in The Morning 
 Post, September 19, and in The Times for 
 October 12, 1810. 
 
 According to Stockdale, about a hundred 
 copies had been put into circulation, when he 
 discovered in regard to some of the verses 
 what a caustic contemporary review in The 
 Poetical Register — a review which conclu- 
 sively establishes the existence of the book — 
 
 61
 
 ' alleges of all, that they were not original. 
 
 Shelley seems to have had a real collabor- 
 ator; and Stockdale found out that one of 
 the poems (doubtless of "Cazire") had 
 already appeared as the work of M.G.Lewis. 
 He communicated with Shelley, and the book 
 was at once suppressed. Mr. Garnett con- 
 jectures that Cazire was the same colleague 
 who is said to share with Shelle^^ the produc- 
 tion of Zastrozzi, his cousin Harriet Grove. 
 By others Shelley's sister Elizabeth is sup- 
 posed to be the joint-author with him of these 
 poems. This view is supported b3^ a reference 
 in Hogg's life of Shelley. The wording of the 
 title-page cannot be reproduced, but the ad- 
 vertisement in the Morning Post of Sept. 19, 
 1810, is as follows: 
 
 This day is published, in royal Svo., price 4s in boards, 
 
 ORIGINAL POETRY, 
 By Victor and Cazire, 
 
 Sold by Stockdale, Junior, No. 41, Pall Mall. 
 
 Though advertized and remembered by 
 Stockdale as a royal octavo, the book was 
 review^ed as a small octavo. 
 
 62
 
 POSTHUMOUS FRAGMENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARGARET NICHOLSON; 
 
 BEING POEMS FOUND AMONGST THE PAPERS 
 
 OF THAT NOTED FEMALE WHO 
 
 ATTEMPTED THE LIFE OF 
 
 THE KING IN 1786. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 3®1bm lf1l^ZlD1IC^®1R- 
 
 OXFORD : 
 PRINTED AND SOLD BY J. MUNDAY. 
 
 1810. 
 
 This is an interesting and much debated 
 pamphlet. It is a quarto, consisting of fly- 
 title, Posthumous Fragments \ of \ Margaret 
 Nicholson, title, a third leaf bearing the "Ad- 
 vertisement," and text pages 7 to 29. At the 
 foot of page 29 is the imprint Munday, 
 Printer, Oxford. 
 
 There have been at least two reproductions. 
 Mr. H. Buxton Forman says af the first: 
 
 "Some years ago a so-called fac-simile of 
 the Posthumous Fragments was issued with- 
 out any intentional indication that it was not 
 the original. * * * * But for the benefit 
 
 63
 
 of the unwary it maj'- be set down that the 
 })apcr of the reprint is thicker and stiffer than 
 that of the original ; that the two long rules 
 in the title-])age above and below the words 
 edited by John Fit zvict or are straight rules in 
 the reprint and fancy rules in the original ; 
 that at page 8 of the reprint, line 12, baleful 
 is misprinted hateful; that in the heading of 
 the poem beginning at page 11 the word 
 Ravaillac is transferred in the reprint to the 
 third line, being in the second in the original; 
 and that the ' French rules ' which are of the 
 plain form in the original are of two less 
 simple forms in the 'fac-simile.' " 
 Mr. Forman's own reprint bears this title : 
 
 POSTHUMOUS FRAGMENTS OF MAR- 
 GARET NICHOLSON. I Edited by H. 
 Buxton Forman, | and printed for private 
 distriljution.| mdccclxxvii. 
 
 This reprint consists of title as above, a 
 second leaf bearing a bibliographical note, flj'- 
 title, title-page, and "Advertisement" as in the 
 original, and pages 11 to 24 of text. The 
 issue was restricted to 50 copies on ordinary 
 
 64
 
 ST. IRVYNE; 
 
 on, 
 
 THE ROSICRUCIAy 
 
 V. 
 
 A ROMANCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 A GENTLEMAN" 
 
 OF THE l.Si\T.ivElTY OF OXIuIlD 
 
 LONDOy.- 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. J. STOCKDAL£. 
 
 41, PALjL MaLL. 
 
 1811.
 
 paper, 25 on Whatman's hand-niade paper, 
 and 5 on vellum. 
 
 ST. IRVYNE. 
 
 St.Irvyne is a duodecimo volume consisting 
 of fly-title, St. Irvyne ;\ or,\ the Rosicriician, 
 with imprint at foot of the verso, S. GosncU, 
 Printer, Little Queen Street, London, title- 
 page, and 236 pages of text, with head-lines 
 throughout, St. Irvyne ; or, on the left-hand, 
 the Rosicrucian on the right. At the foot of 
 page 236 is Printed by S. Gosnell, Little 
 Queen Street, London. The title reads: 
 
 ST. IRVYNE 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE ROSICRUCIAN : 
 
 A ROMANCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 A GENTLEMAN 
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. J. STOCKDALE, 
 
 41, PALL MALL. 
 
 1811.
 
 Copies are frequenth' found made up ap- 
 parently from the original sheets, with a fresh 
 title-page, worded preciseh^ as the original 
 title-page is worded, but with the date 1822. 
 The copies made up in 1822 have a back label 
 which reads "ST. IRVYNE;| or, the| Rosi- 
 cnicmn.\ H IROIUHUCCJ Price 4s. | Boards.] 
 1822." 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM. 
 
 Shelley's next extant publication after St. 
 Irvyne appears to be the tract which led to 
 his expulsion from Oxford. 
 
 THE 
 NECESSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 ATHEISM. 
 
 Quod clara et perspicua denionstratione careat 
 pro vcro habere mens oninino nequis huniana. 
 
 Bacon de Augment. Scient. 
 
 WORTHING: 
 Printed by E. & W. Phillips. 
 
 Sold in London and Oxford.
 
 It is a single foolscap sheet, folded in octavo, 
 and consists of fly-title, ^bCl 1FlCCC90it^ Ot 
 HtbCiSni, titlepage as given above, a third 
 leaf bearing the "Advertisement," the text 
 occupying pages 7 to 13, and finally a blank 
 leaf. The imprint at the end is Phillips, 
 Printers, Worthing. There are no head-lines ; 
 and the pages (8 to 13) are numbered cen- 
 trally in Arabic figures. 
 
 A POETICAL ESSAY ON THE EXISTING 
 STATE OF THINGS. 
 
 A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of 
 Things is said to have been published b3^ Shel- 
 ley for the benefit of Peter Finnert^^ im- 
 prisoned for a libel on Castlereagh. There 
 is enough evidence of such a poem having 
 been published to justify its insertion in a 
 Shellej' bibliography, though no copy is 
 known. That Shelley was interested in Fin- 
 nerty is shown by the paragraph about that 
 patriot and journalist in the Address to the 
 Irish People ; but Mr. MacCarthy discovered 
 that Shelley subscribed to a fund for Finner- 
 
 67
 
 ty's benefit, the subscription being acknow- 
 ledged in The Oxford Herald for the 2nd of 
 March 1811 ; while, in the number for the 
 9th of March 1811, Mr. MacCarthy found 
 the following advertisement "filling a space 
 of about three inches, and printed in the most 
 conspicuous part of the paper, at the head 
 of the first column": — 
 
 Literature 
 
 Just published, Price Two Shillings, 
 
 A POETICAL ESSAY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Existing State of Things 
 
 And Famine at her ninniNG wasted wide 
 The Wretched Land, till in the Public way, 
 Promiscuous where the dead and dying lay, 
 Dogs fed on human bones in the open light of day. 
 
 Curse of Kehama. 
 
 BY A 
 
 GENTLEMAN of the University of Oxford. 
 
 For assisting to maintain in Prison 
 
 MR. PETER FINNERTY 
 imprisoned for a libel. 
 
 London: Sold by B. Crosby and Co., 
 
 AND all other BOOKSELLERS. 
 1811.
 
 AN ADDRESS, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 I K I S H PEOPLE. 
 
 Bv PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Tkt liivist fmiUi ptkt ii /<•.' Qtt •'lii fulUcatin, ticauii it it ih ir'ention of 
 tki Author 11 eiutkti in Int mndj if the Iriih f-:^', a inrwUdtie cf ticir 
 TiM ilaie, ttPimarity }-t!n:-r.g off Ikt tvili of that stale, oxd' suggming 
 raicnal nucni cj remtJjf. — Ca/.sU-- Emma f alien , nnd a Rtftal of tk* 
 Vnian Act, (ikt ItlUr. the ir.i:l luaafui mpxe ihat EnglokJ ever wiildcd 
 c vtr till ninrj tf fidlin IrtlanJ,) burg Ireatid J m ^t jolUwnt^ cdJrtu,'^ 
 a: grievancci •a.i;Vi umurrim'if nr..i re.'iUilin maj rtr-.rvt, an.! es.'cdatint 
 re UuctcJ j:itA pea:sa'-\r firnnui, 'jetngtarnmlj reiemmtndcd, as mtani 
 ;;r er'.btiy.n^ that *.;,»«-ry/ and frmr.tsi, -wlKi must fiiu^lf be i::i:ti'ful. 
 
 *^3yT"- '■ ^?^
 
 LINES, 
 ADDRESSED 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS 
 
 THE 
 
 PRINCE OF WALES, 
 
 ON HIS 
 
 Being appointc^ IRcoent. 
 
 BY PHILOPATRIA, JUN. 
 
 SERUS IN CCELUM KEDEAS ; DIUQUE 
 LCETUS INTERSIS I'OPULO QUIRINI. 
 
 Horace, Ode 2. Lib. 1. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW ; 
 AND SOLD BY ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 1811. 
 
 This octavo pamphlet consists of title-page, 
 4 pages of Preface headed To the Public, and 
 18 pages of text containing fourteen lines in a 
 full page. There is a pastoral-musical orna- 
 ment at the head of page 1, repeated at the 
 end of the poem. At the back of the title-page 
 is the imprint Hamelin and Seyfang, Printers, 
 Queen Street, Cbeapside. 
 
 69
 
 AN ADDRESS, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 IRISH PEOPLE, 
 
 BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The lowest possible price is set on this publication, be- 
 cntisc it is the intention of the Author to awaken in 
 the minds of the Irish poor, a knowledge of their real 
 state, summarily pointing out the evils of that state, 
 and suggesting- rational means of remedy. — Catholic 
 Emancipation, and a Repeal of the Union Act, {the 
 latter, the most successful engine that England ever 
 wielded over the misery of fallen Ireland,) being 
 treated of in the following address, as grievances 
 which unanimity and resolution may remove, and 
 associations conducted with peaceable firmness, being 
 earnestly recommended, as means for embodying 
 that unanimity and firmness, which must finally be 
 successful. 
 
 H)ublin : 
 
 1812. 
 Price — 5d. 
 
 An Address to the Irish People is an octavo 
 pamphlet, consisting of title-page and 22 
 pages of text, including the postscript, which 
 
 70
 
 occupies the last leaf. It is printed on three 
 half-sheets, the title-page being the final leaf 
 of the last half-sheet, and doubled back over 
 the first two half-sheets. The pages have no 
 head-lines, but are numbered centrallj^: and 
 no printer's name appears. 
 
 PROPOSALvS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 
 The Proposals for an Association appeared 
 Monday, the 2nd of March, 1812, according 
 to MacCarthy ( Shelley' s Early Life, page 1 72 ) . 
 
 PROPOSALS 
 
 FOR AN 
 
 ASSOCIATION 
 
 OF THOSE 
 
 PHILANTHROPISTS, 
 
 WHO CONVINCED OF THE INADEQUACY OF THE 
 MORAL AND POLITICAL STATE OF IRELAND 
 TO PRODUCE BENEFITS WHICH ARE NEVER- 
 THELESS ATTAINABLE ARE WILLING TO 
 UNITE TO ACCOMPLISH ITS REGENERATION. 
 
 BY 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Dublin : 
 
 PRINTED BY I. ETON. WINETAVERN-STREET.
 
 It is an octavo pamphlet, consisting of title- 
 page as given above, undated, and 18 pages 
 of text, without head-lines, but numbered 
 centrally. 
 
 The pamphlet is printed in the roughest 
 style, with the worst possible ink, on the 
 worst possible paper; and manj^ letters are 
 dropped ; but it is not particularly incorrect, 
 except in regard to the words philanthropy, 
 philanthropic, &c., in which, oftener than not, 
 there is an h after the p in the last syllable. 
 
 QUEEN MAB. 
 
 The editio princeps of Queen Mah is a crown 
 octavo volume consisting of title-page, Dedi- 
 cation, pages 1 to 122 of text, fly-title Notes, 
 and pages 125 to 240 of Notes. Shelley did 
 not publish the book in the usual wa}-, but 
 printed it privately. It was printed on fine 
 paper, in the belief that, though it would 
 not be read by the aristocrats of that day, 
 it might be by their sons and daughters ; and 
 the chances are that not a copy, of the 250 
 said to have been printed, was wasted. Mr. 
 Forman declares that he never saw a copy 
 
 72
 
 ()ri:KN MAB; 
 
 « 
 
 I' II 1 I.OSOI' II K'A I. IM»1-:.M 
 wnii xoTKs. 
 
 n r 
 
 i-KUcv i;vssiii; suKr.i.i'.v. 
 
 K< r.ASKZ i.infamk; 
 
 Ari^ VirruUim por:kz^f> loca. ntitliurf niilo 
 'I'r.t* »<*I«>; jnvat inu-;;r'»n ;io-eil«:ic foultiB ; 
 A'.|iir hiutiro: juvat>|iia uuyf>9 iloicrperc tl-irci. 
 • ■ • • • 
 
 I'litlv priq* iiiilli VfUribt tcmpora tnutai. 
 rrnitnrfi 'juixl tii.iKt>:* ili>fv« dt r«'l»u» ; t-t nrctis 
 I'.'-Ui;i«uun> ki.iiiio* iitxjla )'X>i>Ucrr pirr^'O. 
 
 /.W'-it. lit*. IV. 
 
 I.nN 1)1 1\ : 
 
 iiM.N 1 Ki) isv r. i;. Hiii:i-J-i:v.
 
 with a printed label, and has no reason to 
 think there was one. The title-page runs 
 thus: 
 
 OUEEN MAB; 
 
 A 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL POEM: 
 
 WITH NOTES. 
 
 HY 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 ECRASEZ L'INFAME! 
 
 Correspondance de Voltaire. 
 
 Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante 
 
 Trita solo ; juvat integros accedere fonteis ; 
 
 Atque haurire : juratque novos decerpere flores. 
 * * * * « 
 
 Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae. 
 Primutn quod magnis doceo de rebus ; et arctis 
 Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo. 
 
 Lucret. lib. iv. 
 
 Aof 7r« fw, K(u Koafiov iciv?/aij. 
 
 Archimedes. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY P. B. SHELLEY, 
 
 23, Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square. 
 
 1813.
 
 mxccn noabJ by| percy bysshe 
 
 SHELLEY. I XO^^O^:l PRINTED AND 
 
 PUBLISHED BY \Y. CLARK, | 201, STRAND. 
 1821. 
 
 This is the first published edition so far as 
 can be determined. 
 
 This edition, an octavo, usually consists of 
 title-page, pages 3 to 89of text, flj'-title Notes 
 with note by Clark at the back, pages 93 to 
 182 of Notes, and a leaf bearing on the recto 
 six advertisements. 
 
 QUEEN MAB;| a| pbtlOSOpbtCal IPOCIU.I 
 BY I PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.] NEW 
 
 YORK: I PRINTED BY BALDWIN AND CO. 
 CORNER 0F| CHATHAM STREET. | 1821. 
 
 This is a duodecimo consisting of 10 pages 
 of unpaged preliminary matter beside the 
 title, a blank leaf, pages 3 to 88 of text, pages 
 89 to 181 of Notes, and one page of adver- 
 tisements. Some copies have an engraved 
 title-page in addition to the printed one: 
 (See facsimile) after Shelley's name this has a 
 caduceus and the imprint "New York,|
 
 «' 
 
 /3^ 
 
 
 ^RCSu-m^tkrV 
 
 "^jrA////-/// - 
 
 'J 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ssss iwmmt. 
 
 <r'^^|^^k,V 
 
 ; 
 
 3- 
 
 PaiNTED & soir> BT J.Baxdwiij-. 
 
 CORKER Ot, CHATHAJC STliEF.T. 
 
 — 1821— 
 Price 76 Gents. 
 
 <f - rr . 
 
 J
 
 Printed & Sold By J. Baldwin, | Corner of 
 Chatham Street.| 1821. | Price 75 cents." 
 And in some copies this is the only title-page, 
 while others have the words Philosophical 
 Poem in the printed title in Roman letters in- 
 stead of Old English. After the title or titles 
 comes a Preface of three pages signed "A 
 Pantheist." The writer says he got a copy of 
 the private edition from Shelley in the spring 
 of 1815, being then in England. He adverts 
 to the prosecution of Clark by the Society' for 
 the Suppression of Vice, says the little edition 
 has been done for "cheapness and portabil- 
 ity," recommends the octavo edition for 
 libraries as if he knew it was still to be had, 
 and reprints Shelley's letter to The Examiner 
 out of "justice to him." After this letter 
 comes an "Ode to the Author of 'Queen 
 Mab.'" This "A Pantheist" says was 
 written bj" a friend of his early in 1815 : it is 
 signed "R. C. F." Then comes an Argument 
 said to be from "a Polemical Magazine pub- 
 lished in London in 1815." At the end of 
 this extract the source is specified as "Theo- 
 logical Enquirer, by Erasmus Perkins." 
 
 75
 
 Mr. Buxton Forman says : " The book is a 
 substantial reprint, but not a perfectly accu- 
 rate one. It is not easy, perhaps not possible, 
 to decide whether it is a reprint of Clark's 
 edition or of Shelley's; for there are details in 
 which it varies from both ; but I lean to the 
 supposition that it was reprinted from 
 Clark's. I am wholly sceptical about the 
 bona fides of the imprint, and, judging 
 from the general appearance, should think 
 the book was printed in England, with an 
 American imprint on account of the libel pros- 
 ecutions against publishers oi Queen MabJ' 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF THE PRINCESS 
 
 CHARLOTTE. 
 
 Mr. Buxton Forman thus describes this 
 curious pamphlet: "As far as I have yet 
 been able to discover, no copj' of the original 
 Address to the People on the Death of the 
 Princess Charlotte is extant; but there is a 
 print bearing at the back of the title the 
 words Reprinted for Thomas Rodd, 2^ Great 
 
 76
 
 Newport Street, — evidence, bye the bye, 
 which fraudulent book-sellers occasionally 
 suppress with the aid of a knife, so as to offer 
 the tract as an 'original copy.' This reprint 
 is an octavo of two half-sheets 'stabbed' 
 together without any wrapper : it consists of 
 title-page as given below and pages 3 to 16 
 of text, in eleven numbered paragraphs, and 
 has at foot of the last page the single-line im- 
 print Compton & Ritchie, Printers, Middle 
 Street, Cloth Fair, London. The pamphlet is 
 printed in large type set closely, without 
 head-lines, and having the pages numbered 
 centrally." 
 
 " WE PITY THE PLUMAGE, BUT FORGET 
 THE DYING BIRD." 
 
 AN 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 ON 
 
 The Death of the Princess Charlotte. 
 
 BY 
 
 ITbe Mcrmlt of fioarlow.
 
 LAON AND CYTHNA. 
 [The Revolt of Islam.] 
 
 Mr. Forman gives the following interesting 
 account of the transition from the earliest 
 to the later form of this book : 
 
 "The editio princepsof Laon and Cythna is 
 an octavo volume, consisting of title-page, a 
 blank leaf, preface pages v to xxii, fly-title to 
 the Dedication, with quotation from Chap- 
 man's Byron's Conspiracy (Act III), Dedica- 
 tion pages XXV to xxxii, fl^^-title Laon and 
 Cythna with quotation from Pindar* and 
 270 pages of text. I have heard of a copy 
 containing advertisements dated October 
 1817, including one of Laon and Cythna it- 
 self. The label reads thus: 'LAONj and| 
 CYTHNA. I 10s. 6c/. Boards.' The title- 
 page is as follows : 
 
 *This fly-title is doubtless extremely scarce. It prob- 
 ably got lost through being a separate leaf, with a 
 separate signature, d, coming in between two complete 
 sheets, —unfortunately at that point where the Roman 
 numerals of the preliminary matter end, so that its 
 absence makes no obvious hiatus to be discovered by the 
 binder. 
 
 78
 
 Xaon ant) d^tbna; 
 
 OK, 
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 OF 
 
 THE GOLDEN CITY: 
 A Vision of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 IN THE STANZA OF STENSER. 
 
 BY 
 
 PERCY B. SHELLEY. 
 
 AOS nOY 2TS2 KAI K02M0N KINH2i2. 
 
 ARCHIMEDES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR SHERWOOD, NEELY, & JONES, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW; AND C. AND 
 
 J. OLLIER, WELBECK-STREET : 
 
 By B. M'Millan, Bow-Street, Coveut-Garden. 
 
 1818. 
 
 Written in the summer of 1817, the book 
 was printed in the latter part of that year, 
 the title-page being post-dated as usual ; but 
 before it was regularly issued, it was sup- 
 pressed for the purpose of altering the text in 
 some particulars and changing the title. 
 
 79
 
 The Revolt of Islam, being made up from 
 the same sheets with a fresh title-page and 26 
 cancel-leaves, the same bibliographical par- 
 ticulars apply, except that the preface, having 
 the final paragraph cancelled, ends on page 
 xxi, and the fly-title with quotation from 
 Pindar bears the words The Revolt of Islam. 
 Some few copies of The Revolt of Islam bear 
 the date 1817, instead of 1818. The same 
 sheets were used again in 1829, with a third 
 title-page ; and some copies of that issue con- 
 tain the original Laon and Cythna text, with- 
 out the changed leaves printed in The Revolt. 
 
 ROSALIND AND HELEN &c. 
 RosaUnd and Helen, &c., printed in the 
 spring of 1819, is an octavo volume consist- 
 ing of fly-title Rosalind and Helen, title-page, 
 2 pages of Preface (called "Advertisement"), 
 contents, fly-title Rosalind and Helen, a Mod- 
 ern Eclogue, and text pages 3 to 92. On the 
 back of the first fly-title are advertisements of 
 The Revolt of Islam and Alastor, and also an 
 imi)rint, C. H. Reynell, Broad-street, Golden- 
 square, London. The title-page is as follows : 
 
 80
 
 Hiion atxtf ^st'^na; 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 THi: (;oj.dj:n c-itv 
 
 3 Clision oitbc finmccmb Centura. 
 
 IN Illf, -T\N/\ iir Sl'ENSKK. 
 
 iir 
 
 J'0( V B. >fii:i,Li:v. 
 
 /-0,V/>O.V; 
 
 tOM , A.Nu c. A.Nr. J. oLtiKR. w iu.BK( K -vr.u.kT:
 
 ROSALIND AND HELEN, 
 
 A MODERN ECLOGUE; 
 
 WITH 
 
 OTHER POEMS: 
 
 BY 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED FOR C. AND J. OLLIER, 
 
 VERE STREET, BOND STREET. 
 1819. 
 
 Mrs. Shelley says in her note on Poems of 
 1816 that the hymn "was conceived during 
 Shelley's voyage around the Lake (Geneva) 
 with Lord Byron." It is to this period we 
 must refer Byron's Prisoner ofChillon. 
 
 THE CENCL 
 The first edition of The Cenci, though some- 
 what wide in proportion to its height and 
 approaching in shape to a quarto, is in reality 
 an octavo, being printed on half sheets of 
 paper folded in four. It consists of a blank 
 leaf in place of fly-title, title-page, Dedication 
 pages iii to v. Preface pages vii to xiv, fly-title 
 The Cenci with Dramatis Personae at back, 
 
 81
 
 and pages 3 to 104 of text, with head-lines 
 The Cenci on the left hand and Act and Scene 
 on the right. The 1)ack-label reads across, 
 thus: "THE I CENCI. I 4s. 6d. bdsr The 
 title runs thus : 
 
 THE CENCI. 
 A TRAGEDY, 
 
 IN FIVE ACTS. 
 By PERCY B. SHELLEY. 
 
 ITALY. 
 Printed for C. and J. Ollier 
 
 VERB STREET, BOND STREET. 
 
 LONDON. 
 1819. 
 
 82
 
 THE LITERARY COLLECTOR PRESS 
 GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

 
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