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75
Art.
V.—Shelley.
The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. A revised Text,
with Notes and a Memoir. By W. M. Rossetti. . 2 vols.
Moxon and Co. 1870.
rpHE connexion of Mr W. M. Rossetti's name with a Memoir of
I Shellev and an edition of his works, is a sufficient guarantee
of the impartiality and thoroughness with which these tasks have
been respectively accomplished. There was ample scope for Mr.
Rossetti’s labours in both departments ; indeed, it is not too much
to say that it has been reserved for him to make the first serious
attempt either at a complete biography or a correct text.. This is
in itself no slight distinction; the intelligence, ingenuity, and
industry he has displayed in it are more commendable still; but
the spirit of affectionate enthusiasm in which he has wrought is
best of all, and will insure him the sincere sympathy of all
admirers of Shelley, independently of any estimate which may
be formed of the actual value of his work.
All biographies of Shelley have hitherto been of a fragmentary
character, either from their partial and limited scope, as those
of Trelawny, Hogg, and Peacock; or from their desultoriness,
as the Shelley Memorials; or from imperfect information,
as the narratives of Medwin and Middleton. Of the latter it
is not necessary to say much. Med win’s incredible heedless
ness and blundering have destroyed the authenticity, and con
sequently the value of excellent materials. Mr. Middleton’s work
is written in an admirable spirit; but in all other respects what
Medwin’s is to a good book it is to Medwin’s. The Shelley
Memorials contain many documents of the highest interest and
much intelligent literary criticism. They answered their pur
pose, more could not be required. Mr. Peacock’s notes also, we
suppose, answered their purpose, together with another not con
templated by the writer—that of demonstrating his entire in
capacity to understand the man in whose intimacy he had spent
so many years. Notwithstanding, however, the cold and unin
viting character of Mr. Peacock’s reminiscences, and the serious
misrepresentations which they have been shown to contain, he
deserves our thanks for having preserved some interesting par
ticulars which would otherwise have been forgotten, and the
precision of his style offers some amends for his singular deficiency
in graphic power. We may dwell somewhat more fully on the
works of Mr. Jefferson Hogg and Captain Trelawny, as it is to
these that we at least are indebted for our most vivid impres-
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Shelley.
sions of the poet's personality. Mr. Hogg, besides his unques
tionable power as a raconteur, was well fitted for his task from
his college friendship with Shelley, and the intimacy he continued
to maintain with him until his final departure from England.
We therefore carry away from the perusal of his book, in which
he d wells with infinite gusto on the minute traits of his immortal
friend, a lively picture of the wild yet gracious figure of the poet
in his youth. Fet whatever our enjoyment of the sparkle of
anecdote and humour, whose quaint brilliancy imparts such a
charm to these pages, we cannot help thinking that Mr. Hogg
mistook one matter of essential importance—the style and man
ner in which it became him to write of such a man as Shelley.
His keen appreciation of the ludicrous was evidently too strong
a temptation to be resisted, and has thrown an air of grotesque
ness over his entire work. Another point on which the world has
found it difficult to sympathize with him, is his palpably honest
conviction that the life of Thomas Jefferson Hogg was only
second, if second, in importance to that of Percy Bysshe Shelley
himself. It is almost ungracious to quarrel with irrelevancies
which have afforded us such hearty amusement; but we must
repeat that amusement, although a good thing in itself, is, when
intruded into a biography of Shelley, a good thing out of its
proper place. We believe, however, that his fault was not a want
of love but a lack of imaginative power and keen insight, which
misled him to fasten on the momentary and accidental, instead
of penetrating into the deep and eternal parts of the poet’s
nature.
The other work, which is indeed a mere sketch, but to which
we are most truly indebted for fresh and graphic delineations of
Shelley, is Captain Trelawny’s “ Recollections of the Last Days
of Shelley and Byron,” which, unfortunately for all lovers of
Shelley, scarcely extends over more than the last six months of
the poet’s life. But it bears on every page the impress of love
and sincerity, and possesses at the same time the rare power of
conveying in the simplest language pictures that bear stamped
on them the seal of the most unmistakable reality. The descrip
tion, for example, of his first meeting with Shelley is inimitable
in its way; but as Mr. Rossetti has wisely incorporated it in
Trelawny’s own words into his Memoir, we refrain from quotiug
it here. But, indeed, the book is full of passages where one
catches no less delightful glimpses of the poet’s ways, while every
where, even in the most trifling anecdote, we are kept aware of
the fact that we are brought into closer contact with a higher, a
truly godlike nature. One cause of Captain Trelawny’s supe
riority as a biographer to Shelley’s other friends may probably
be found in the more favourable circumstances under which he
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77
approached him in the first instance. Mr. Hogg and Mr. Peacock
made Shelley’s acquaintance when he was young and undistin
guished | they associated with him on a footing of entire equality,
had obviously no conception of his superiority, and spent the
rest of their lives in finding it out, if indeed they ever attained
to this knowledge at all. Captain Trelawny tells us that he was
led to seek Shelley’s acquaintance by the report of his genius,
his adventurous history, and his unlikeness to the mass of men.
Availing himself of all these scattered materials, as well as of
a number of new and interesting particulars obtained from inde
pendent sources of information, Mr. Rossetti has for the first
time combined them into a symmetrical whole. And great praise
indeed is due to him for the clear and methodical arrangement
and the straightforward manly tone of his Memoir, which, far
from being a mere compilation, is a substantial and independent
work, bearing the clear impress of the writer’s powerful indi
viduality» In order, however, to form a correct estimate of Mr.
Rossetti’s Memoir, we should make it clear to ourselves what task
it was he really aimed at accomplishing, and whether he has
accomplished this. He states so plainly that the end he had
in view was to sift and authenticate the extant mass of material
as a contribution towards the systematizing of a “ Life of
Shelley/* that it would be a wilful misrepresentation of the whole
scope of his work to measure it by a standard at which it never
aimed. The condensed scheme on which Mr. Rossetti’s Life had
necessarily to be written has probably made it impossible for him
to enter more deeply into the poet’s character; this drawback,
however, is partly compensated by the resulting compression of
matter and nervousness of style. We confess that in our judg
ment a more vivid picture of the poet’s individuality might have
been obtained if the illustrative anecdotes, instead of being all
massed together in one section, had been distributed over the
whole extent of the Life in the natural order of their occurrence.
We think that by these means a certain local colour would have
been obtained, and greater life and motion imparted to the flow
of the narrative. We question also the desirability, taking of
course the necessary brevity of the Memoir into consideration, of
devoting bo large a portion of the allotted space to Shelley’s
views on Art, while rather hurrying over his opinions on religion
and philosophy, and also perhaps thereby curtailing the writer’s
own criticism on Shelley’s poems.
Our account of Mr. Rossetti’s edition would be very incom
plete without some notice of what forms, after all, its distin
guishing feature, and will always render its appearance an era
in the history of Shelley’s writings. We allude to its character
as the first critical edition of the poet’s works. Respecting the
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need of such a revision there has been but one opinion among
the students of Shelley, whose impatience at the frequently
marred and mangled condition of the text has borne a tolerably
fair proportion to their capacity for the apprehension of its
beauties It will suffice to cite the testimony of the late Pro
fessor Craik, of Mr. F. T. Palgrave, and of Mr. Swinburne.
Several partial attempts—among which special recognition is
due to the ingenious emendations of Mr. F. G. Fleay—had pre
viously been made to remedy the defects unmistakably indi
cated ; but to Mr. Rossetti belongs the honour of having first
grappled with the task as a whole. His task has in the main
been exceedingly well performed. His edition is a monument of
unwearied assiduity, of vigilant attention to the minutest detail.
Such labour is the indispensable condition of correctness; but it
needed an interest in his author passing the ordinary love of
editors to enable Mr. Rossetti to spare so much time from the
brilliant but precarious feats of conjectural emendation for the
humbler, but not less essential scrutiny of punctuation and
orthography, and the rectification of annoying grammatical negli
gences. His services in the former department are inestimable,
and it is only to be regretted that they must necessarily elude
the recognition of all but the most critical readers. The amend
ment of Shelley's careless grammar is a more delicate matter;
but we are disposed to think that Mr. Rossetti has not exceeded
the latitude which may be fairly claimed by an editor of clear
judgment, and fully exempt from the taint of hypercriticism. As
regards the several arrangement of the volumes, we are only
disposed to regret (and we cannot help regretting strongly) the
dislocation occasioned by the removal of several of the most
important poems to the appendix of fragments. Not only is
their effectiveness greatly impaired by their juxtaposition with
fugitive and imperfect snatches of verse, but the parts of the
collection from which they have been removed appear impove
rished by their absence. The more we are enabled to regard
Shelley’s pieces as so many passages of one grand poem—the
poetical interpretation of a life—the more we must regret such
interruptions of the sequence of his thought.
As an emendator, Mr. Rossetti has two main resources—
collation with the original editions and conjecture. The first
has assisted him to some admirable corrections ; as, for instance,
the restoration of the vivid and Shelleian word ruining, in
a passage of “ Alastor,” which since the first edition has always
been printed “ Wave running on wave.” As a conjectural
corrector Mr. Rossetti has not always been equally successful,
and we shall be able to show that many of his most plausible
suggestions are unfounded ; but fortunately these have usually
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79
remained in the state of suggestions, and have not been incorpo
rated with the text. To no man was ever less applicable,
indeed, Dryden’s shrewd criticism on critics, that they study
rather to display themselves than to explain their authors. Mr.
Rossetti seldom scruples without some reasonable ground; and
if in many instances his scruples are needless, there are many
others where they have been called forth by a real corruption,
which he has instinctively felt without seeing how to remove it.
In other instances his corrections are brilliant and indisputable,
as in stanza vi. of the dedication of the “ Revolt of Islam,”
where the lines—
“ Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be
Aught but a lifeless clog, until revived by thee,”
are themselves marvellously “revived” by the simple substitution
of clod.
We would gladly have dwelt longer on Mr. Rossetti’s charac
teristics as an editor, but we must pass on to the contribution
which we are ourselves enabled to offer to the improvement of
Shelley’s text, a contribution which we can bring forward without
misgiving, inasmuch as it is derived from the only infallible source
of information, the original MSS. themselves. These documents,
M students of Shelley are aware, were examined by Mr. Garnett
in 1862, with the result of the discovery of ninety pages of pre
viously unknown matter printed in that gentleman’s valuable
Relics of Shelley,” as well as not a little more, which now
appears for the first time in Mr. Rossetti’s edition. From various
circumstances, however, the examination was in some respects
Cursory, and more was done for the enrichment than for the
correction of the text, although some very interesting emendations
were made, such as “ might” and “ earth,” for “ light” and “ air”
in the first stanza of the lines written at Naples. We must
here express how deeply we are indebted to Mr. Garnett, and
to the liberality of Shelley’s representatives, in now being able to
offer, the results of a more minute examination made since the
publication of the recent edition. A few words must suffice to
explain why this examination has proved less productive than
might have been hoped. Shelley’s MSS. may, from our present
point of view, be divided into two classes—those of poems pub
lished during his lifetime, and of poems published after his
death. The former, although a great part of the “ Prometheus”
is fortunately an exception, have in general shared the usual
fate of MSS. sent to the printer—they have been disregarded,
as chrysalis cases for which no man concerns himself after the
emergence of their Psyche. The rough drafts of these poems,
indeed, are extant in many instances, but except where the printed
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text is evidently faulty, it would manifestly be unsafe to unsettle it
on their authority. On the other hand, the second class of MSS.,
with a few exceptions, such as the “ Witch of Atlas,” exists solely
in the form of rough drafts, usually written three or four times over,
and in these instances perpetually at variance with each other.
It would be easy to fill pages with such variations, but in all
such cases, as it appears to us, the presumption is in favour of the
received reading, which probably was not adopted without good
authority, perhaps that of some more perfect copy now lost. Thus
for example, we should hesitate to substitute Cl innocent heaven*
for “serene heaven/’ in the “ Ode to Naples/’ although the variad
tion is entitled to great respect from the beautiful condition of the
copy, and from this being the only one which contains the two
“ introductory epodes” as Shelley unclassically styles them—a
circumstance of great interest, as it shows that these exquisitely
beautiful stanzas were an afterthought. The inspection of two
pieces, however, has been fruitful of results, though on opposite
accounts—that of the “ Letter to Maria Gisborne” from the
perfect, that of the “ Triumph of Life” from the chaotic cha
racter of the original MS. The examination of the “ Prome
theus” has also led to the correction of several errors which had
insinuated themselves from the necessity of entrusting the cor
rection of the proofs to others. Several alterations in the minor
poems, generally of much interest, may also be regarded as
indisputable, and as such entitled to a place here. Finally, we
shall enumerate the instances in which emendations proposed by
Mr. Rossetti, or mentioned in his notes, have not been confirmed
upon an appeal to the original. Our references are in all cases
made to his edition.
Vol. I.
Prometheus Unbound, p. 317, 1. 21.—“And gnash beside
the streams of fire, and wail Your foodless teeth.” The punctua
tion is faulty. In the original, which is always carefully punc-i
tuated, there is a comma after gnash and wail respectively, but
not after fire, showing that wail is here not a verb but a sub
stantive. The allusion is to the two infernal streams, Phlegethon
and Cocytus. P. 327, at bottom, for silent footsteps read
killing. P. 330, stage direction at the beginning of act ii.,
for lonely read lovely. P. 333, 1. 29, for morn read moon. P.
337, 1. 6, the much queried lake-surrounded is correct,
though not very intelligible. P. 337, 1. 18, “And wakes the
destined soft emotion.” The sense has hitherto been obscured
by the erroneous punctuation. Destined ought to be followed
by a full stop. L. 21, for streams read steams. P. 338, 1. 15,
for on read in. P. 372, 1. 25, “Radiance and light,” read life,
avoiding the tautology.
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81
Vol. II.
Letter to Maria Gisborne, p. 245, 1. 9, for philosophic read
\ philanthropic, as already acutely conjectured by Mr. Rossetti.
L. 18, 1‘ Which fishes found under the utmost crag,” read
fishers, one of the most striking examples conceivable of
the wonderful way in which the most trifling modification will
Sometimes convert nonsense into sense. An almost equally re
markable instance is afforded by the first line on the following
page, “ Reply to them in lava-cry, halloo,” where the sense has
been utterly perverted by placing a hyphen instead of a comma
between lava and cry. The earthquake demons do not reply
to the gnomes’ toast in lava-cries, but in lava itself, a more
congenial beverage. Same page, L 24, for green read queer.
P. 247, four lines from bottom, for know read knew. P. 248, at
top, for acting read citing. P. 249, 1. 12, the celebrated pas
sage on Godwin has been tampered with. It originally read—•
“ That which was Godwin, greater none than he
Though fallen and fallen on evil times, to stand.”
Consideration for Godwin evidently dictated an alteration which
in justice to Shelley should now be revoked. Same page, three
lines from bottom, for said read read. The blanks on p. 251,
1» 80, should be filled with the names of Hogg, Peacock, and
Smith. That on p. 252, 1. 10, is unfortunately irretrievable.
Triumph of Life, p. 397, eight lines from the bottom,
toursued or spurned the shadows, read shunned. Last line, for
wiocZ lawn-interspersed, read wood-lawns interspersed. P. 899,
1. 8, for thunders read thunder. L. 6, for meet read greet. P.
400, 1. 16, supply while before “the shock.” P. 401, 1. 24, for
sentiment read nutriment. P. 403, eight lines from bottom,
>fill up the chasm thus:—
“ Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs,
And then------”
P. 404, 1. 8, for comest read earnest. L. 23, for years dawn
read season. Same page, three lines from bottom, for her read
the. P. 406, first line, “ out of the deep cavern, with palms so
tender, omit out, and insert and before with. L. 3, omit the.
K 17, for to read in. P. 409,1. 7, “ The words of hate and care,”
for care read awe, thus negativing the ingenious correction of
words into world, proposed by Mr. Rossetti, which we had re
warded as nearly certain, and which still appears to us more
beautiful both in sense and music. Same page, 1. 18, for vale
read isle. The correction is significant from the fact that these
countless swarms of bats are found in the Indian Archipelago,
not upon the continent. The idea was probably suggested to
[Vol. XCIV. No. CLXXXV.J—New Series, Vol. XXXVIII. No. I.
G
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Shelley by Trelawny’s narratives of his adventures in these
regions. L. 29, for rode like demons read sate like vultures.
P. 410, seven lines from the bottom, for wrapped read wrought.
Mr. Rossetti had divined an error, which he proposed to amend
by reading shaped or warped.
How wonderfully Shelley usually improved on his first drafts
is again shown by the commencement of the “ Triumph of Life,”
which originally stood as follows :—
“ Out of the eastern shadow of the earth
Amid the clouds upon its margin grey,
Scattered by night to swathe in its bright birth
In gold and fleecy snow the infant Day,
The glorious Sun arose, beneath his light
The earth and all.”
As it now stands the Introduction to the “ Triumph of Life”
is one of the most highly wrought and perfect passages we know
in poetry.
Translation from Faust, p. 494, stage direction, Faust
dances and sings with a girl. The song is as follows :—
Faust.
“ I had once a lovely dream
In which I saw an apple tree,
Where two fair apples with their gleam
To climb and taste attracted me.”
The Gibe.
. “ She with apples you desired
From Paradise came long ago :
With you I feel that if required,
Such still within my garden grow.”
Same page, three lines from the bottom, “ Are we so wise, and
is the pond still haunted ?” This is an absurd mistranslation of
the original, “Wir sind so klug, und dennoch spukt’s in
Tegel,” the allusion being to the recent apparition of a spectre
in the hamlet of Tegel, to the scandal of enlightened persons.
The blunder is not, however, attributable to Shelley, who, not
knowing what Tegel meant, left a blank in consequence, but to
the person who published his MS. in the Liberal.
Miscellaneous corrections. Julian and Maddalo, vol. i.
p. 290, 1. 14. For dales read vales, the word employed by
Milton in the passage referred to—Lines to Misery, st. x. 1. 2.
The rough draft has lovers instead of shadows, which having
been also in Med win’s copy, and being, as Mr. Rossetti justly
observes, more uncommon and poetical, should we think be
adopted. Lines to an Indian Air, vol. ii. p. 210, 1. 9, in what
is to all appearance the last written of the many drafts of this
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83
divine song, the words “champak odours” are distinctly altered
into “odours of my chaplet.” The alteration is startling, and we
confess our preference for the poem as it stood in the older
edition. Although it makes the line agree more formally in
metre with the corresponding verses of the other two stanzas,
yet it loses that subtle musical charm which it previously
possessed.
[ The Question, p. 225. The line hitherto missing from the
second stanza of that exquisite poem is, “ Like a child, half in
tenderness and mirth.” Mutability, p. 272, 1. 9, for too read
Aow. Prince Athanase, last line, p. 307, for frame read flame.
Otho, p. 309, 1. 20, for buy read bring, instead of wring, as
'ingeniously surmised by Mr. Rossetti. On Keats, p. 351, 1. 2,
for montldess read prfniZess, omitting and. Evening, p. 358,
1. 8, for enormous read cinereous. Fragment of an unfinished
Drama, p. 358,1. 27, for spring read spray. Cyclops, p. 447,
1. 23, insert “ to be” after “ not,” as suggested by Mr. Rossetti.
Epigram from, Plato, p. 457, 1. 5, for does read doth. Pan
awl Echo, p. 458, 1. 14, omit the.
Besides those already mentioned, the following emendations,
proposed by Mr. Rossetti, or adverted to in his notes, are nega
tived by the evidence of the MS., vol. i. p. 257, 1. 10, there for
¿free. ‘ P. 314, eight lines from bottom, ghostly for ghastly.
P. 327, 1. 10, bestrewn for between. P. 365, 1. 3, obscure for
o&scene. Vol. ii. p. 210, 1. 9, pine for fail. P. 247, 1. 25, age
for eye. P. 449, 1. 20, manoeuvre for measure. Dr. Dobbin’s
ingenious suggestion of “ stony” for “ strong” in the “ Hymn to
Mercury,” st. viii. 1. 1, is confirmed by the MS.
Notwithstanding all that has been effected, the imperfections
of Shelley's MSS. still leave a not inconsiderable field open for
eoniectural emendation, and the following suggestions may
perhaps help to elucidate a few obscure readings :—
I A well-known passage in “ Alastor” (vol. i. p. 107) has occasioned
infinite perplexity to Mr. Rossetti and Mr. Swinburne. The latter
abandons it as hopeless ; the former endeavours to render it
intelligible by a change in the punctuation, according to which
it reads as follows :—
“ On every side now rose
Rocks which in unimaginable forms
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening, and (its precipice
Obscuring) the ravine disclosed above.”
“ According to my punctuation,” says Mr. Rossetti, “ the state
ment is, that there were certain rock-pinnacles which, while they
obscured the precipice (or precipitous descent) of the ravine, left
the ravine itself visible higher up.” If, however, these spires of
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rock were less elevated than the walls of the ravine, we cannot
understand how they should be “ lifted in the light of evening,”
or how they could with any propriety be termed pinnacles at all.
A pinnacle is surely the highest and not the lowest point of the
rock. But if for disclosed we read inclosed, all is plain, and
we get a beautiful picture with scarcely any disturbance of the
text.
In the “Revolt of Islam” (canto iii. st. 15) is a passage abso
lutely preposterous as it stands :—
“ The moon was calm and bright,—around that column
The overhanging sky and circling sea
Spread forth in silentness profound and solemn,
The darkness of brief frenzy cast on me,
So that I knew not mine own misery.”
This is evidently nonsense ; darkness could not be spread forth
by the calm brightness of sky and sea. Cast should be altered
into past, and a colon substituted for the comma at the end of
the third line.
In Prometheus Unbound (vol. i. p. 351), Ocean says—
“ My streams will flow
Round many peopled continents.”
Read many-peopled as a compound epithet. The meaning is
not that there will be more continents than heretofore after the
liberation of Prometheus ; but that, in consequence of their
exemption from war and other calamities, these continents will
henceforth be more populous.
With these few remarks we must take leave of the biography
and textual criticism, and we are indeed sorry that within our
limits it is simply impossible to render justice to the thoroughness,
the impartiality, the indefatigable labour and genuine love which
are Mr. Rossetti’s most eminent characteristics as biographer
and editor. We cannot, however, refrain from expressing our
extreme surprise and disappointment when, on looking over
“Queen Mab” in the new edition, we saw the deforming
transformation which that poem had undergone. It is true
the alterations which Mr. Rossetti has introduced into the
text are taken from the “ Dsemon of the World,” which Shelley
purposed to be a modified extract of “ Queen Mab,” and pub
lished in the same volume with “ Alastor and other Poems.
But we can only infer from this fact that when once the inspira
tion which went to the shaping of any work ot art has totally
passed away, a poet may easily mar his own creation by trying
to make it better. Though “ Queen Mab” may in some respects
be a crude production, yet it is so full of the sap and ferment
of genius, and bears so unmistakably the stamp of Shelley’s
peculiar characteristics, that besides the value it possesses for us
�Shelley.
85
as poetry, it has the additional interest of being the earliest
' production in which we can trace the true workings of the poet’s
mind. And it appears to us that for this reason, if for no other,
1 the text ought to have been allowed to remain as it originally
stood; for with regard to those really juvenile effusions such as
the “Wandering Jew” and the “Posthumous Fragments of
Margaret Nicholson,” which Mr. Rossetti has seen fit to print in
the appendix to this edition, it is a pity he has thus rescued
Ithem from the oblivion they so richly deserve. But indeed the
new readings of “ Queen Mab,” so far from possessing any greater
poetic beauty whether of idea or expression, seem to us invariably
a diluted version of the original.
But let the reader judge for himself. We will first quote the
lines as they stand in the original “ Queen Mab,” and place
underneath them the alterations in the present edition.
“The Fairy’s frame was slight; yon fibrous cloud
That catches but the palest tinge of even,
And which the straining eye can hardly seize
When melting into eastern twilight’s shadow
Were scarce so thin, so slight, but the fair star
That gems the glittering coronet of morn,
Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful,
As that which bursting from the Fairy’s form
Spread a purpureal halo round the scene,
Yet with an undulating motion
Swayed to her outline gracefully.”
“ The Fairy’s frame was slight; slight as some cloud
That catches but the palest tinge of day
When evening yields to night—
Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue
Its transitory robe,
Her thin and misty form
Moved with the moving air;
Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds
Of wakening Spring arose,
Filling the chamber and the midnight sky.”
Mark here those changes which, although apparently often
’trifling, yet alter the whole delicate texture of this exquisite
passage : instead of the original and most apt epithet applied to
the cloud, “ fibrous,” we get nothing at all in the later version,
and we are indeed at an utter loss to account for the alteration.
Thus, for the simple expression “ palest tinge of even,” we find
this awkward way of saying the identical thing, “ palest tinge of
day, when evening yields to night,” &c.; but far worse, the
truly lovely line, “ the fair star that gems the glittering coronet
of morn,” is omitted altogether, swallowed up, annihilated.
The limits of our essay will not allow us to give any further
�86
Shelley.
examples, but we could cite passage after passage where the
original beautiful text has been equally marred. And we must
be allowed here to express the earnest hope, which we can
hardly doubt will be echoed by all lovers of Shelley, that in any
future edition “ Queen Mab” may be restored to its original form.
Let us now, however, turn our attention to the criticism of the
works themselves; and as it is Mr. Rossetti’s evident disposition
to lay the chief stress on the technical execution of Shelley’s
poems, touching but slightly on their subject-matter and general
design, we may perhaps be justified in dwelling somewhat mor®
fully on the latter point, thus endeavouring to supplement a
deficiency highly characteristic of certain tendencies predomi
nant in contemporary art and poetry. For while on the one
hand there is in our age a propensity to depreciate the important
functions of the Beautiful, thus robbing the speculative faculties
of an ally that would impart form and colour to their abstractions,
we have on the other hand the no less mischievous error of
giving an undue prominence to workmanship and execution, and
looking on form and colour, not as the temple where the image
of the god stands enshrined, but as the very deity itself. By
these fatal demarcations and barriers erected in the mental
territories, where one realm is assigned to the Beautiful, another
to the True, and a third to the Good, we impoverish each one
of these three great forces, and in the mistaken conviction of
thereby strengthening their respective activities we obstruct that
interchange of influences which should vivify the .¿Esthetics*
Ethics, and Science of a nation. Let us for one moment stay to
consider what would become of the Beautiful, if, securely dammed
up against the influx of moral convictions and the speculations
and discoveries of the reasoning faculties, it were subsisting in
proud isolation only on and through itself. Assuredly epics such
as the “ Divina Commedia” and “ Paradise Lost,” revolving the
mighty problems “concerning God, free will, and destiny,”
struck and wound their roots inextricably round the deepest
philosophic and religious thought of their time, while the very
structure of tragedy, consisting as it does, not in the blind
and insensate conflict of passion hurtling on passion (else the
commotion of waves and winds would be an equally tragic
spectacle), but of passion lashing in mutinous revolt the iron
front of the moral law, has its foundations laid in the ethical
convictions of mankind.
What then, we may well inquire, is to become of poetry if
cut off from influences of such vital importance to its two great
divisions—the Epos and the Drama. It is evident that the form
and manner, from the imperative necessity of which, however,
we would be the last to detract, would thus truly comprise the
�Shelley.
87
Alpha and Omega of a work of Art And thus the same care
would be lavished on the polishing of a pebble or a diamond, the
polishing and setting being considered the chief things needful.
This total misapprehension of its divine mission necessarily produces that blight of all true poetry—namely, mannerism. Far
, otherwise indeed was Shelley^s conception of poetry. Both in
I theory and practice be would have extended its limits to an
almost incredible extent, enclosing both science and philosophy
within its domain. In his “ Defence of Poetry,” he goes even so
far as to say that the distinction between poets and prose writers
is a vulgar error, and that not only Plato and Bacon, but “all the
authors of revolution in opinion are not only necessarily poets
as they are inventors, nor even as their words unveil the per
manent analogy of things by images which participate in the life
of truth, but as their periods are rounded and rhythmical, and
contain in themselves the elements of verse, being the echo of
the eternal music.”
L Considering how marked was Shelley’s bias towards this view,
we think Mr. Rossetti somewhat apt to undervalue what con
stitutes the true centre of gravity of all the poet’s divine crea
tions, when, as for example, in speaking of“ Alastor” with reference
to “Queen Mab” (of which, in our judgment, he speaks too irre
verently when he thinks it necessary to state that it is not
unmitigated rubbish), he remarks that in the former we have
at last “ the genuine, the immortal Shelley.” With all due
deference to Mr. Rossetti’s opinion, we must yet dissent from
this assertion; and while admitting the wonderful advance in
the perfection of form, in the exquisiteness of the language, and
greater musical subtlety in the rhythm of the blank verse, still
we think that in many respects “the genuine, the immortal
Shelley” can more truly be traced in “ Queen Mab” than even in
“ Alastor,” as it palpitates with that intense faith in progress, that
fiery love of liberty, that impetuous passion for reforming the
World, which are, after all, the distinguishing features of Shelley,
and which were brought out in their full glory in his “ Revolt of
Islam,” and “ Prometheus Unbound.” Shelley indeed, when
he launched that enfant terrible of a poem into the world, fully
believed in his power of making a breach in the solid rampart of
custom, so as to take by storm and overnight, as it were, that
great stronghold in which theology, monarchy, and matrimony
have hitherto braved even the sap of Time and Change. It is
with an emotion wavering between a smile and a tear that we
think of this frail, gentle, pure, and lofty being who, with
“ weak hands though mighty heart,” dared that triple-headed
power which rules the world. It is doubtless by the violent
recoil of hopes forced back upon his own mind, and debarred
�68
Shelley.
their natural fieiy action on the nation at large, that we must
interpret the sad and solemn harmonies of “Alastor.” These
spring from the revulsion of those impassioned aspirations to
which “ Queen Mab” owed its being, and the despair that broods
over them is but the shadow cast by the sun of hope itself. It
is therefore a total misapprehension of the dominant quality of
Shelley s mind, if, as is so often the case, those poems which
express, in however beautiful and inimitable a manner, his
melancholy or despondent moods, are considered as his most re
presentative poems; on the contrary, they are but the expressions
of that dominion which the momentary and the casual must
exercise over every mind still subject to the varying influences
of life; but that which indeed constitutes “the intense, the deep,
the imperishable” Shelley, which will exercise a constraining in
fluence over the centuries, is the aspiration after goodness no
dejection could quench—the faith in humanity which doubts
might assail, but never shake; the love which year after year
of the short life in which he met with so much persecution and
bitter hate, rounded to a fuller and more resplendent orb.
Let us, however, now turn our attention to the poem next in
chronological sequence, “ The Revolt of Islam/’ which Mr.
Rossetti has despatched in a few words, and which appears to us
to be a mine of inexhausted thought. The vast scope, gorgeous
imagination, and enchantment of rhythm and language which
mark this work are so widely known, that we proceed at once
to point out what appears to us to constitute its fundamental
idea, and one which hitherto has been overlooked. This is the
completely changed aspect in which the relation of the sexes
is regarded. Hitherto all poets creating ideals of woman, however
pure or lofty these might be, had depicted her invariably in her
relation as either wife or mistress, mother or daughter—that is,
as a supplement to man’s nature, or, as Milton plainly expresses
it—
“ He for God only, she for God in him
or, in other words, he raised to the contemplation of an infinite;
she condemned to that of his finite nature.
To Shelley belongs the honour of being the first poet who '
has embodied, in a shape of the loftiest loveliness, the most
momentous of all our modern ideas—that of the emancipation of
women from this subjection to men. He is thus the poetic fore
runner of John Stuart Mill, and has achieved in the world of the
ideal that which is now being realized practically by the man of
science. For by making his verse the receptacle of his bold and
lofty speculations on that subject, and by impregnating with
them the highest and most sensitive minds of the generation that
�Shelley.
89
succeeded his own, he has doubtless opened one of the paths
which have led to the present widespread movement regarding
this question.
In Cythna we hail a new female type, and one indeed which
I hitherto has been repugnant to poets, who, if they approached at
all that side of woman’s character which she represents, approached
it either to distort its features or to soften them down to the more
1 accepted standard. But Shelley, with his usual fearlessness, bates
not one jot of the idea. He holds that woman, just as man, is
or should be a being whose sympathies are too vast—whose
thoughts too multiform to converge to the one focus of personal
love, and that in the self-same way it is at once her right and
her duty to take an active share in the general concerns of
humanity, and to influence them, not only indirectly through
others, but directly by her own thoughts and actions. Thus
►Cythna, prophet, reformer, and martyr—invested with all the
glow and glory which the poet’s imagination could bestow on
her-—is a creation unique in the whole range of fiction.
The poet, with deep insight, indicates in canto ii. that the
task of the regeneration of woman can only be brought about by
woman herself; that it is she who must rouse man’s interest,and
kindle his enthusiasm in her cause, for, as Laon says—
“ This misery was but coldly felt, till she
Became my only friend, who had indued
My purpose with a wider sympathy;
Thus, Cythna mourned with me the servitude
In which the half of humankind were mewed,
Victims of lust and hate, the slave of slaves ;
She mourned that grace and power were thrown as food
To the hyaena lust, who, among graves
Over his loathed meal, laughing in agony, raves.
And I still gazing on that glorious child,
liven as these thoughts flushed o’er her :—‘ Cythna, sweet,
Well with the world art thou unreconciled ;
Never will peace and human nature meet,
Till free and equal man and woman greet
Domestic peace ; and ere this power can make
In human hearts its calm and holy seat,
This slavery must be broken.’ ”
Such an exalted ideal of woman necessarily produced a con
ception and expression of love which is simply supreme. The
sensuous and susceptible temperament which usually underlies
poetic genius has almost inevitably the tendency of stimulating
the passions too strongly in one direction, and from this point
of view Plato had doubtless a fair excuse for his verdict against
the poets as elements of disturbance and fiery insurrection in
�90
Shelley.
the serene atmosphere of his model state. Shelley, however,
forms in this respect a marvellous exception. His love, indeed,
would almost require the baptism of some new name to distin
guish it from the lower and lesser passion which currently goes
by that appellation, for it “ transcends the senses infinitely as
heaven does earth.” Unrivalled in this respect is the sixth
canto of the “ Revolt of Islam/’ where the poet, secure in the
“ golden purity” of bis nature, has fearlessly penetrated into the
fiery depths of human passion, blending it in strains of laby
rinthine music with the subtlest ecstasy which emanates from the
spirit. Between such a conception, embracing the whole circum
ference of love, and that of Keats, for example, who describes
it much in the same spirit of childlike sensuousness with which
he descants on “lucent syrops” and other “spiced dainties,” or
of Byron, to whom in some of his most powerful flights it revealed
no deeper aspect than that of being “youth’s madness,” what
an immeasurable distance! These remarks naturally lead us
to Epipsychidion, where Shelley, apparently bursting the last
link of “ dull mortality,” has not only sustained the inspiration
of his subject at a dizzy height, but, soaring ever higher in
miraculous ascent, lands us ultimately in the Empyrean of love
itself. We indeed cannot comprehend how Mr. Rossetti, after
some just remarks descriptive of the beauty of its poetry, could
actually bring himself to say of this most exquisitely lovely pro
duction, “ I may confess, however, to doubting whether it is quite
a justifiable poem to write. Its very mood tends towards the
intangible, and its framework of imagery and symbol remains to
this day an enigma to students of the poetry and the life of
¡Shelley /’ to which our only answer is that, to put such a question
with regard to such a poem is in our opinion equivalent to asking
whether the “Symposium” or the “Vita Nuova,” or any work,
in short, where that most delicate bloom of the emotions, neces
sarily the rare attribute of a “ sacred few,” finds its peculiar
expression, was a justifiable production. If Mr. Rossetti had not
shown in his criticism on Walt Whitman a remarkable power of
appreciating qualities of genius the most opposite to what con
stitutes the sculpturesque or the pictorial in poetry, we might
probably have inferred that his intimate appreciation of the
sister art of painting had had an influence in diminishing his
appreciation of works whose subject-matter belonging essentially
to the inward and incommensurable life of thought, necessitated
a mode of treatment which, adapting itself to this quality, occa
sionally verges on the border-land of mysticism ; but this would
evidently have been a wrong inference, and we are therefore at a
loss to account for Mr. Rossetti s estimate of Epipsychidion.
Ot the “Prometheus Unbound,” that greatest production of
�Shelley.
91
Shelley, Mr. Rossetti has given us such a powerful and correct
estimate, that nothing further remains to be said of it in a narrow
compass ; it is, indeed, such a noble specimen both of his style
and criticism that we cannot abstain from quoting it as it
stands—
“ There is, 1 suppose, no poem comparable in the fair sense of that
word to 8 Prometheus Unbound.’ The immense scale and boundless scope
<jf the conception; the marble majesty and extra-mundane passion of
the personages ; the sublimity of ethical aspiration • the radiance of
ideal and poetic beauty, which saturates every phase of the subject,
and almost (as it were) wraps it from sight, as it were, and transforms
it out of sense into spirit; the rolling river of great sound and lyrical
rapture, form a combination not to be matched elsewhere, and scarcely
to encounter competition. There is another source of greatness in
this poem neither to be foolishly lauded nor (still less) undervalued.
It is this—-that Prometheus Unbound, however remote the foundation
of its subject-matter and unactual its executive treatment, does in
reality express the most modern of conceptions, the utmost reach of
speculation of a mind which burst up all crusts of custom and pre
scription like a volcano, and imaged forth a future wherein man should
be indeed the autocrat and renovated renovator of his planet. This it
is, I apprehend, which places Prometheus clearly, instead of disputably,
at the summit of all latter poetry ; the fact that it embodies in forms
of truly ecstatic beauty, the dominant passion of the dominant intel
lects of the age, and especially of one of the extremest and highest
among them all, the author himself. It is the ideal poem of perpetual
and triumphant progression—the Atlantis of Man Emancipated.”
Owing to the necessary limits of our essay, we must pass over
the 88 Cenci,” that drama which is the most magnificent refutation
of the charge often brought against the poet, that he was unable
to conceive and embody any character out of himself, or portray
the dark and malignant passions of human nature, and content
ourselves with a few remarks on 88 Adonais”and “Hellas,” the poet's
last complete compositions, and which doubtless contain the best
and maturest expression of his philosophical thought. Indeed, we
think Mr. Rossetti's section on the religion and philosophy of
Shelley necessarily defective from his scanty recognition of these
two poems, and from his not rendering sufficient justice to the
intense earnestness on these matters, which so essentially cha
racterizes Shelley, as, for example, when he says, 88 The general
tenor of ‘ Adonais’ may seem to amount to the expression of a
positive belief in the immortality of Keats, as a separate individual
soul; but we must be on our guard against poetic abstractions
and (not to use the word disrespectfully) poetic machinery.”
One of the stanzas from which M r. Rossetti would draw such an
inference, where it is said—
�92
Shelley.
“ He is made one with Nature : there is heard
His voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder to the song of night’s sweet bird ;
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone
Spreading itself where’er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above—”
justifies, in our opinion, the direct opposite of this conclusion—
namely, that Shelley appears, first, to have held that death was
the cessation of the separate insulated consciousness of the
individual, and the redistribution of the atoms that build up
his existence into the general universe of things ; secondly, that
whatever form of ultimate development this separate entity had
attained, during its transit through life, reacted again on passing
thence on the general universe—
“ Compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear.”
Any attempt, however, to range the swift and subtle spirit of
Shelley into a distinct school of philosophy, would, in our opinion,
be an undertaking as ill judged as assuredly futile : for, as he
primarily looks at the world with the eyes of the poet, he arrives
at his deepest convictions concerning it less through any sustained
chain of systematic reasoning, than through flashes of intuitive
perception, born of his intense absorption into, and passionate
worship of, the great Cosmos. As it is fabled that Pygmalion
was consumed by so potent a passion for the marble image that,
clasping it, he mastered the cold repose of the stone itself, and
won a response from its locked lips, even thus every true poet
stands in his relation to Nature, and besieges her with prayers,
tears, and entreaties, weary watches, and devouring aspirations,
till he feels at last the throb in the stony veins, hears the murmur
of the muffled voice, till, from the sun and the sea, the trees and
beasts, yea, the very stones, there burst awful manifestations,
opening glimpses, strange and sudden, into the vast dumb
mystery. To have cast the brilliant net of his language over
these divine but too fugitive moments of spiritual experience,
and thus for ever to have retained them in song, is one of the
highest of the many achievements of this transcendent genius.
But although we are thus convinced that Shelley’s philosophy
cannot, in the strict sense of that word, be classed under any
existing system of metaphysics, yet we think it evident that the
bent of his mind impelled him strongly towards an idealistic
conception of the universe ; and it is curious to note that, even
�Shelley.
93
in his days of rampant materialism, when saturated with the
study of Hume and the French encylopsedists, he sought a
vehicle for those views in “ Queen Mab,” he ever and anon, when
^wrought up to a pitch of high lyrical exaltation, bursts into ex
pressions that are the direct contrary of his professed opinions,
as when he says, for example, “ Soul is the only element.” This
of course by no means implies that Shelley’s thought was
stationary, but merely that his mind possessed an original bias
towards transcendentalism ; and there can be little doubt that
his positive assertions of atheism spring in great part, as is well
illustrated by an anecdote told in Mr. Rossetti’s Memoir, from
the deep conviction that every advance towards truth must be
painfully impeded, till the obstacles which an intolerant faith
opposed to it had been fairly demolished. Many of his asser
tions therefore should be considered relatively rather as missiles
used by a fearless combatant, than statements of an actual con
viction. It is evident however that, although there are passages
in “ Queen Mab” which certainly seem very much in harmony
with “ Hellas” and “Adonais,” yet the main philosophical concep
tion is in fact widely different, and we recognise the clearest
expression of this difference in the address to the “ Spirit of
Nature” (“Queen Mab,” p. 89). In this fine piece of declama
tion, the Spirit of Nature is represented as insensible to all
moral distinctions, and by a necessary consequence, as devoid of
moral beauty. It is therefore no object of adoration, love, or
even admiration : it is a mere machine, and what is still worse,
the human beings produced and controlled by it must be as
little the objects of affection or admiration. The spirit so
gloriously described in “ Adonais” is something widely different.
“Its smile kindles the universe;” “it wields the world with
never-wearied love.” It is compared to a fire, reflected with an
Infinite variety of intensity by an infinite multitude of mirrors;
if the reflection is imperfect, the fault is in the mirror, not in
the fire. In a word, the spirit of “ Queen Mab” is Necessity, and
is addressed as such ; the spirit of “ Adonais” is Love, and is
addressed as such. By so much higher as the idea of love is
than the idea of necessity, by so much better as the poetry of
“Adonais” is than the poetry of “Queen Mab,” by so much
higher and better are Shelley’s last thoughts than his first.
There is another noteworthy distinction. In “ Queen Mab” the
operation of the spirit is limited to the visible universe ; it is
expressly said to be “contained” by Nature. In “Adonais,” on
the other hand, it contains Nature ; it not merely pervades but
invests the universe—“ Sustains it from beneath and kindles it
above,” The same idea is still more forcibly expressed in the
prologue to “ Hellas”—
�94
Shelley.
“ Deem not thy worlds
Are more than furnace-sparks or rainbow-drops
Before the Power that wields and kindles them.”
Briefly, the spirit in “ Queen Mab” is contemplated as merely
immanent in the universe. In “Adonais” and “Hellas” it is im
manent still, but also transcendent., In this latter poem, indeed,
we find that the immaterialism of Shelley had reached its cul
minating point, and it is a significant fact that he was studying
Kant in September, 1821, and actually translating Spinoza in
November of the same year, at the time when “ Hellas” was
completed. How intently his mind must have been engaged on
these metaphysical speculations is evident from the fact that he
represents the Sultan in the midst of insurrection, whilst his
throne totters on the verge of ruin, as actually listening during
an interview with Ahasuerus to the most profound exposition
on the non-existence of matter. This is certainly carrying the
love of philosophizing to an incredible extent. But the passage
itself soars to such sublime heights of thought, and is moreover
such a complete resume of Shelley’s last convictions on these
subjects, that we are fain to crown these few inadequate remarks
with its surpassing splendour—
“ Sultan! talk no more
Of thee and me, the future and the past;
But look on that which cannot change—the One,
The Unborn, and the undying. Earth and ocean,
Space, and the isles of life or light that gem
The sapphire floods of interstellar air,
This firmament pavilioned upon chaos,
With all its cressets of immortal fire,
Whose out wall, bastioned impregnably
Against the escape of boldest thoughts, repels them
As Calpe the Atlantic clouds—this whole
Of suns and worlds, and men and beasts and flowers,
With all the silent or tempestuous workings
By which they have been, are, or cease to be,
Is but a vision ;—all that it inherits
Are motes of a sick eye, bubbles and dreams ;
Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor less
The future and the past are idle shadows
Of thought’s eternal flight—they have no being ;
Nought is but that it feels itself to be.”
Is there not a strange significance in this fact, that the last
work of importance on which this restless inquirer was engaged
should have been cut off abruptly at this point of interrogation,
“Then what is Life?” Bewildered cry cast into space whose
mournful reverberations were straightway muffled in death !
Evidently projected on a colossal scale, and wrapped in an
�Shelley.
95
atmosphere of supernatural mystery, where dream is super
imposed on dream, there is in the “ Triumph of Life” a weird
labyrinth of gloom and glare, and amid the cloudy whirl of grey,
half-ghastly phantoms, gleams of a celestial radiance which
almost recd to us the visions of the Apocalypse. Its allegory
is still indeed, and we fear must in part probably remain, a
magnificent riddle; we nevertheless entertain the hope that a
minute comparison with passages both in the poetry and prose
Blight help us to discover coincidences of symbol and imagery
which should throw a ray of light on the dark intricacy. There
can be no doubt that “ the shape all light” which is described as
appearing to Rousseau gliding out of the deep cavern along the
river—
“ With palms so tender
Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow,”
is the Urania of which it is said in “ Adonais”—
“ Out of her secret paradise she sped
Through camp and cities rough with stone and steel,
And human hearts which to her aery tread
Yielding, not wounded, the invisible
Palms of her tender feet where’er they fell.”
I On the other hand, the New Vision of the Car, wherein sits
a hooded figure crouching in the shadow of the tomb, represents
Life, and the Janus-visaged shadow who guides it with bandaged
eyes may be identified with
44 The world’s eyeless charioteer—
Destiny,”
spoken of in “ Hellas.” The excessive glare which is described
as proceeding from that chariot dims the fair shape, as hurrying
©n with solemn speed it whirls the loud million triumphantly
along with it. This probably means that all but a chosen few
are seized and preyed upon by the multitudinous passions of the
world, whose fiercer fires extinguish the celestial flame or aspira
tion after perfection. Rousseau himself is a type of those men
of genius who, having allowed the impure breath of earth to
alloy the spark with which their spirit had been kindled, have
thus in part subjected themselves to corruption. It also appears
probable that “ The Fable,” printed in the “ Relics of Shelley,”
and itself a remarkable fragment, written about the same time
as “ Epipsychidion,” affords a clue to that perplexing allegory of
the phantoms near the end of the poem. It is there said that
by the counsel of Life, Love left man in a savage place with
on|y the company of shrouded figures, of whom it is said,
“None can expound whether these figures were the spectres of
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley ... by W.M. Rossetti
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Blind, Mathilde
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 75-97 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Westminster Review (Vol. 38, no. 1, July 1870). Reviewer not named in text; attribution: Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900. A review by W.M. Rossetti of The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelly. A revised text with Notes and a Memoir. 2 vols. Moxon and Co., 1870. The Westminster Review was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal until 1828.
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[s.n.]
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[1870]
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G5314
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Poetry
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley ... by W.M. Rossetti), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Romantic poets