Since the greater part of the present volume was printed, I have had the opportunity of collating a few manuscripts of Shelley's not seen in time to be dealt with in framing the text. The chief results of such collation will be found at the end of the volume, under the head of Addenda. The manuscript of Hellas and the list of errata for that poem, sold by auction on the 19th of last month, are treasure-trove of importance for the Shelley student,though the manuscript of the poem is not written by Shelley, but only revised by him. H. BUXTON FORMAN. 38, Marlborough Hill, St. John's Wood, August, 1877. [Mrs. Shelley says in her Note on Poems of 1819 that Shelley "had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate the people's "circumstances and wrongs-he wrote a few, but in those days of prosecution for libel they could not be printed." I presume it was to this same scheme that Shelley referred when he wrote to Leigh Hunt as late as the 1st of May, 1820, enquiring whether he knew of any "bookseller who would like to publish a little volume of popular songs, wholly political, and destined to awaken and direct the imagination of the reformers." This enquiry is made in a letter to Hunt placed at my disposal by Mr. Townshend Mayer, and which I have never seen in print. Mrs. Shelley says these popular poems are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style." I imagine we may safely accept the first six poems in the following section as the extant result of this scheme,—but Mrs. Shelley tells us that "besides these outpourings of compassion and indignation, he had meant to adorn the cause he loved with loftier poetry of glory and triumph-such is the scope of the Ode to the Assertors of Liberty." That ode will be found in Vol. II of this edition, pp. 294-5; and there seems to be no doubt that, though originally published with the heading An Ode, [written, October, 1819, before the Spaniards had recovered their liberty.], Shelley meant it to apply to England, the first stanza in particular having reference to the Manchester massacre. Other minor poems belonging to this year are the Ode to Heaven, Ode to the West Wind and An Exhortation, which have already been given in this edition (Vol. II), with Prometheus Unbound, as Shelley gave them. The year that produced, with all these smaller works, The Cenci, the greater part of Prometheus, The Mask of Anarchy, and Peter Bell the Third, must be reckoned a great year in the career of Shelley.-H. B. F.] POEMS WRITTEN IN 1819. LINES WRITTEN DURING THE CASTLEREAGH ADMINISTRATION.1 I. CORPSES are cold in the tomb; Stones on the pavement are dumb; Abortions are dead in the womb, And their mothers look pale-like the white shore Of Albion, free no more. II. Her sons are as stones in the way- III. Then trample and dance, thou Oppressor! For thy victim is no redresser; Thou art sole lord and possessor Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions-they pave 1 First published in The Athenæum in 1832, and reprinted the following year in The Shelley Papers, edited by Captain Medwin. |