tendency. Moreover, extreme mental and physical debility, and especially an immoderate use of laudanum, peculiarly adapted a being so singularly constituted, for conjuring up any vision of this kind on a wild winter-night by a lonely sea-shore, during the pelting of a pitiless

storm.

Shelley, however, was profoundly convinced of the reality of the visitation, and even rested his suspicion on the supposed assassin.

There was a man living in the neighbourhood who had taken offence at some slight he imagined the young poet had offered to him. He avenged himself not only on the private character, but on the public opinions of Shelley.

He obtained the pamphlet which Shelley had published in Dublin, and sent it to the government, denouncing its principles and its author; moreover, he was frequently heard to say that he was determined to drive him out of the country.

This man busied himself the morning after the occurrence with spreading a report that the whole affair was a fabrication of Shelley's, that he might have an excuse for leaving the country

VOL. I.

M

without paying his bills. Did Shelley imagine it was he? If so, it is a remarkable fact, that he did not recognise his antagonist, whom he well knew, in a hand-to-hand struggle.

There is not wanting evidence that the poet's mind was in an extemely desponding state at this period. Preyed upon by the dread of secret assassination, he hastily quitted the scene of this mysterious event.

He proceeded at once to Bangor, where he waited the departure of the boat for Dublin, hoping there to dissipate the painful impressions associated with the place he was leaving.

He arrived in Dublin after a voyage of forty hours, terribly prostrated from the effects of sea sickness, about the 8th of March, nearly a fortnight after his strange adventure. He took up his abode at No. 35 Cuffe Street, Stephen's Green, "a locality," says Dr. Madden, “sufficient to show the nature of the pecuniary circumstances in which Shelley was placed.

Here his circumstances were reduced to so low an ebb that he was frequently reduced to

* Dr. Madden's Life of Lady Blessington, vol. iii. P. 418.

the necessity of borrowing small sums from his friends to meet his current expenses, but his prodigal liberality never forsook him even in his greatest need; and we find him contributing £20 to the benefit of the Hunts, with the declaration, that although overwhelmed with his distresses, he was by no means indifferent to the necessities of others, suffering for the cause of liberty and virtue.

Shelley's second residence in Dublin was but of short duration; and not long after this period we find him again directing his steps towards London, prompted, as I suspect, by the increased embarrassment of his affairs, as well as the necessity of obtaining legal advice on the subject of his approaching majority.

He arrived in London late in the spring of this year, and from the date of its production, appears to have been engaged upon another literary labour, which now becomes the subject of our consideration.

Queen Mab-Its original construction; and subsequent alteration Notes to Queen Mab-Object and tendencies of the poem-Its private circulation-Its subsequent revision by the author; and ultimate repudiation-General view of Queen Mab.

I HAVE already had

singularly wild and

occasion to allude to that beautiful poem entitled

"Queen Mab," * commenced, according to Medwin, at the age of seventeen; and I am of opinion, from the circumstance of its dedication to the object of his first love, that it must have been completed also before his expulsion from Oxford; but as it stood in its original form, it appears to have been nothing more than a highly imaginative poem,

* A New Edition of "Queen Mab," with Shelley's own revisions, is preparing for the Press.

intended to illustrate his favourite theory of dreams.

the

The fanciful doctrine that the soul possesses

power of disembodying itself during sleep, and casting off all stain of earthliness as it arose in its simple essence to the attainment of its native dignity, drew him to contemplate it in that state.

"As it aspires to heav'n,

Pants for its sempiternal heritage,
And ever changing, ever rising still,
Wantons in endless being."

Such a subject held out to Shelley peculiar attractions, since it offered unlimited scope for his imagination, which, requiring the taming influence of maturer judgment, was not less wild and vagrant, than rich, vivid, and soaring in its aspirations.

He could ascend to whatever height he pleased―he could roam through the depths of infinity, whithersoever his inspired fancy led him, without let or hindrance, and utterly resigning himself to his own spiritual thoughts— he could contemplate the universe in all its vast sublimity, resolving the Pleiades and Orion and