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Α

PHILOSOPHICAL POEM,

WITH

NOTES.

BY

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

ECRASEZ L'INFAME!

Correspondence de Voltaire.

Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante
Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis ;
Atque haurire: juratque novos decerpere flores.

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Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musæ
Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis
Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.

Lucret. lib. iv.

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791

TO HARRIET * *

WHOSE is the love, that gleaming through the world,
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
Whose is the warm and partial praise,
Virtue's most sweet reward?

Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more?

Harriet! on thine :-thou wert my purer mind;
Thou wert the inspiration of my song;

Thine are these early wilding flowers,

Though garlanded by me.

Then press into thy breast this pledge of love,
And know, though time may change and years may roll,
Each flowret gathered in my heart,

It consecrates to thine.

NOTICE OF SHELLEY,

BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS.

IF intellectual powers of the first order, if a disinterestedness that was pushed almost to generous romance, if social virtues that endeared him to every one with whom he came in contact, if purity of heart and sweetness of temper and uprightness of life-if these entitle to a place among the amiable and the gifted and the noble hearted, that place belongs to PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. Born and educated amidst the affluences of British aristocracy, cradled (so to speak) in orthodoxy and conformity and titled privilege, he was a democrat and a heretic. His father, SIR JOHN SHELLEY, disinherited him on account of his opinions, or rather of his honesty in expressing them; and the world continued a persecution against him for the same heinous crime; a persecution which did not terminate with his death, but pursued even the memory of one, whom mankind in the mass were too hypocritical to applaud, or perhaps too gross to appreciate. He was arraigned, tried, and convicted of heterodoxy; and that was enough to justify, in the world's eyes, the murder of his reputation,

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