'During my existence I have incessantly speculated, thought and read.' So Shelley wrote when he was yet not quite twenty years old; and the statement fairly represents the history of his boyhood and youth. Queen Mab was composed in 1812-13, in its present form, and issued during the summer of the latter year, when Shelley was just twenty-one. It embodies substantially the contents of his mind at that period, especially those speculative, religious and philanthropic opinions to the expression of which his passion for reforming the world' was the incentive; and, poetically, it is his first work of importance. Much of its subject-matter had been previously treated by him. The figure of Ahasuerus, which was a permanent imaginative motive for him, had been the centre of a juvenile poem, The Wandering Jew, in which Medwin claims to have collaborated with him, as early as 1809-10; and youthful verse written before 1812 is clearly incorporated in Queen Mab. It may fairly be regarded, poetically and intellectually, as the result of the three preceding years, from the eighteenth to the twenty-first of the poet's life.

The poem owes much to Shelley's studies in the Latin and French authors. The limitations of his poetical training and taste in English verse are justly stated by Mrs. Shelley, in her note:

Our earlier English poetry was almost unknown to him. The love and knowledge of

ARCHIMEDES.

nature developed by Wordsworth - the lofty melody and mysterious beauty of Coleridge's poetry- and the wild fantastic machinery and gorgeous scenery adopted by Southey, composed his favorite reading. The rhythm of Queen Mab was founded on that of Thalaba, and the first few lines bear a striking resemblance in spirit, though not in idea, to the opening of that poem. His fertile imagina tion, and ear tuned to the finest sense of harmony, preserved him from imitation. Another of his favorite books was the poem of Gebir, by Walter Savage Landor.'

Queen Mab is, in form, what would be expected from such preferences. His own Notes indicate the prose sources of his thought. He dissented from all that was established in society, for the most part very radically, and was a believer in the perfectibility of man by moral means. Here, again, Mrs. Shelley's note is most just:

'He was animated to greater zeal by compassion for his fellow-creatures. His sympathy was excited by the misery with which the world is bursting. He witnessed the sufferings of the poor, and was aware of the evils of ignorance. He desired to induce every rich man to despoil himself of superfluity, and to create a brotherhood of property and service, and was ready to be the first to lay down the advantages of his birth. He was of too uncompromising a disposition to join any party.

He did not in his youth look forward to gradual improvement: nay, in those days of intol erance, now almost forgotten, it seemed as easy to look forward to the sort of millennium of freedom and brotherhood, which he thought the proper state of mankind, as to the present reign of moderation and improvement. Ill health made him believe that his race would soon be run; that a year or two was all he had of life. He desired that these years should be useful and illustrious. He saw, in a fervent call on his fellow-creatures to share alike the blessings of the creation, to love and serve each other, the noblest work that life and time permitted him. In this spirit he composed Queen Mab.'

Shelley's own opinion of the poem changed in later years. He always referred to it as written in his nineteenth year, when it was apparently begun, though its final form at any rate dates from the next year. In 1817 he wrote of it as follows:

. Full of those errors which belong to youth, as far as imagery and language and a connected plan is concerned. But it was a sincere overflowing of the heart and mind, and that at a period when they are most uncorrupted and pure. It is the author's boast, and it constitutes no small portion of his happiness, that, after six years [this period supports the date 1811] of added experience and reflection, the doctrine of equality, and liberty, and disinterestedness, and entire unbelief in religion of any sort, to which this poem is devoted, have gained rather than lost that beauty and that grandeur which first determined him to devote his life to the investigation and inculcation of them.'

In 1821, when the poem was printed by W. Clark, Shelley, in a letter of protest to the editor of the Examiner, describes it in a different strain:

A poem, entitled Queen Mab, was written by me, at the age of eighteen, I dare say in a sufficiently intemperate spirit - but even then was not intended for publication, and a few

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?

copies only were struck off, to be distributed among my personal friends. I have not seen this production for several years; I doubt not but that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition; and that in all that concerns moral and political speculation, as well as in the subtler discriminations of metaphysical and religious doctrine, it is still more crude and immature. I am a devoted enemy to religious, political, and domestic oppression; and I regret this publication not so much from literary vanity, as because I fear it is better fitted to injure than to serve the sacred cause of freedom.'

Queen Mab, as Shelley here states, was privately issued. The name of the printer was cut out of nearly all copies, for fear of prosecution. The edition was of two hundred and fifty copies, of which about seventy were put in circulation by gift. Many pirated editions were issued after Shelley's death both in England and America, and the poem was especially popular with the Owenites. By it Shelley was long most widely known, and it remains one of the most striking of his works in popular apprehension. Though at last he abandoned it, because of its crudities, he had felt interest in it after its first issue and had partly recast it, and included a portion of this revision in his next volume, Alastor, 1816, as the Damon of the World. The radical character of Queen Mab, which was made a part of the evidence against his character, on the occasion of the trial which resulted in his being deprived of the custody of his children by Lord Eldon, was a main element in the contemporary obloquy in which his name was involved in England, though very few persons could ever have read the poem then; but it may be doubted whether in the end it did not help his fame by the fascination it exercises over a certain class of minds in the first stages of social and intellectual revolt or angry unrest so widespread in this century.

The dedication To Harriet ***** is to his first wife.

And poured the magic of her gaze
Upon the maiden's sleep.

The broad and yellow moon
Shone dimly through her form
That form of faultless symmetry;
The pearly and pellucid car

Moved not the moonlight's line. 'T was not an earthly pageant. Those, who had looked upon the sight Passing all human glory, Saw not the yellow moon, Saw not the mortal scene, Heard not the night-wind's rush, Heard not an earthly sound, Saw but the fairy pageant, Heard but the heavenly strains That filled the lonely dwelling.

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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 shad

ow,

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, 100 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.

From her celestial car
The Fairy Queen descended,
And thrice she waved her wand
Circled with wreaths of amaranth;
Her thin and misty form
Moved with the moving air,
And the clear silver tones,
As thus she spoke, were such
As are unheard by all but gifted ear.

FAIRY

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'I am the Fairy MAB: to me 'tis given The wonders of the human world to keep; The secrets of the immeasurable past, In the unfailing consciences of men, Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find;

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The future, from the causes which arise
In each event, I gather; not the sting
Which retributive memory implants
In the hard bosom of the selfish man,
Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb
Which virtue's votary feels when he

Rolled through the black concave;
Its rays of rapid light

Parted around the chariot's swifter course,
And fell, like ocean's feathery spray
Dashed from the boiling surge
Before a vessel's prow.

The magic car moved on.

Earth's distant orb appeared

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The smallest light that twinkles in the

heaven;

Whilst round the chariot's way Innumerable systems rolled And countless spheres diffused An ever-varying glory.

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It was a sight of wonder: some Were horned like the crescent moon; Some shed a mild and silver beam Like Hesperus o'er the western sea; Some dashed athwart with trains of flame, Like worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like suns, and as the chariot passed,

Eclipsed all other light.

Spirit of Nature! here-
In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple!
Yet not the lightest leaf
That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with thee;
Yet not the meanest worm

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