34413

BY

CHARLES S. MIDDLETON.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

THOMAS

LONDON:

CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER,

30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE.

1858.

J. Billing, Printer, 103, Hatton Garden, London, and Guildford, Surrey.

PREFACE.

FIVE years ago, I conceived the idea of writing the Life of Shelley. It would be incorrect to say that I have been engaged upon it ever since; but from that period I have devoted the best energies of my mind to the accomplishment of this object.

I have sought diligently for materials, and have lived as it were in almost perpetual communion with the Poet whose character I have endeavoured faithfully to represent, and to whose genius I have desired to pay the tribute of my admiration.

Hitherto a Life of the Poet can scarely be said to have existed. The volumes by Captain Medwin are so incomplete, that they appear to me by no means to supply the place of one;