A COPY of "Stockdale's Budget," containing the letters by Shelley now republished, was purchased by the British Museum in 1859, and came under my notice in the autumn of that year. Struck by the interesting nature of this correspondence, and especially by the discovery of an early work by Shelley, previously unknown to all his biographers, I lost no time in communicating the circumstance to his family, whose acquaintance it was already my privilege to possess. It was at first hoped that these letters might have appeared in the second edition of the " Shelley Memorials," but it was found that the printing of that work was already too far advanced to allow of their being inserted in their proper place. They were accordingly reserved for the third edition; but the prospect of this being required appearing as yet somewhat remote, it has been finally determined to publish them in a separate form. I have accordingly copied them from the obscure periodical in which they originally appeared, and added such explanations as seemed needful to render the connexion of the whole intelligible.

Much has been written about Shelley during the last three or four years, and the store of materials for his biography has been augmented by many particulars, some authentic and valuable, others trivial or mythical, or founded on mistakes or misrepresentations. It does not strictly fall within the scope of this paper to notice any of these, but some of the latter class are calculated to modify so injuriously what has hitherto been the prevalent estimate of Shelley's character, and, while entirely unfounded, are yet open to correction from the better knowledge of so few, that it would be inexcusable to omit an opportunity of comment which only chance has presented, and which may not speedily recur. It will be readily per

ceived that the allusion is to the statements respecting Shelley's separation from his first wife, published by Mr. T. L. Peacock in Fraser's Magazine for January last. According to these, the transaction was not preceded by longcontinued unhappiness, neither was it an amicable agreement effected in virtue of a mutual understanding. The time cannot be distant when these assertions must be refuted by the publication of documents hitherto withheld, and Shelley's family have doubted whether it be worth while to anticipate it. Pending their decision, I may be allowed to state most explicitly that the evidence to which they would in such a case appeal, and to the nature of which I feel fully competent to speak, most decidedly contradicts the allegations of Mr. Peacock.

So extensive is the miscellaneous bibliographic and literary lore lying safely hidden away in unsuspected quarters, that a line of inquiry in Notes and Queries would almost certainly elicit some one able to tell us all about the ancient publishing-house of the Stockdales, father and son-to inform us when they commenced business, and where and what were the principal books they published, and in what years, and how these speculations respectively turned out-and so trace the Pall Mall chameleon through all its changes from original whiteness to the undeniable sable of the publication we are about to notice.

It is even possible that a moderate amount of laudable industry might have enabled us to do all this ourselves, and thus to present the grateful or ungrateful reader with a complete bibliopolic monography. Feeling, however, for our own parts, a very decided distaste to the minute investigation of unimportant matters, and interested in John Joseph Stockdale as far as, and no further than,

he was concerned in the affairs of Percy Bysshe Shelley, we have chosen to assume that the reader's feelings are the same, and that he will be content with knowing just as much about the publisher as is absolutely necessary to explain his connexion with the poet, and the circumstances under which he came to print the notes written to him by the latter. During, then, the last twenty years of the eighteenth and the first twenty of the nineteenth century, the Stockdales' publishing-house (located for part of the time in Pall Mall, and part, if we mistake not, in Piccadilly) was resorted to by novelists, poets, and more particularly dramatists. It was the chief, almost the sole orthodox and accredited medium for perpetuating the transient applause which the play-going public Vouchsafes to the dramatist.

It pur

veyed the patrons of circulating libraries with a mental diet as light as Indiarubber, and no less wholesome and digestible; and facilitated the ambition of all young poets willing to be immortalised at their own costs and charges. As universally known, the author of the "Cenci" never had a chance of immortality on easier terms; the conditions on which "Paradise Lost" was disposed of were princely compared to any which any publisher ever thought of tendering to him; and as his first aspirations after literary renown began to stir within him in the younger Stockdale's palmy days, and lay altogether within the scope of the latter's publishing business, it might almost have been predicted that these two most dissimilar men would not pass away without some slight contact or mutual influence. In fact, Shelley's second novel bears the name of Stockdale as the publisher; and the singular discovery of a portion of the business correspondence that passed between the two respecting this publication now enables us not merely to write the history of the connexion, which might probably be acceptable to none but a thorough-going hero-worshipper, but perhaps to throw some light on the feelings which possessed, and the influences which contributed to mould one

of the most original of human spirits, at the most momentous, if not the most eventful period of its earthly existence.

It has already been stated that this correspondence originally appeared in "Stockdale's Budget;" it now remains to be explained what Stockdale's Budget was. It was a periodical, issued in 1827; a sort of appendix to the more celebrated "Memoirs of Harriet Wilson," published by Stockdale some years previously, and well known to the amateurs of disreputable literature. The present writer has never seen this work, and for actual purposes it will be quite sufficient to state that it proved the source of infinite trouble to the unlucky publisher, not on account of its immorality, which seems to have been unquestionable, but from its attacks on private character. Owing to these, Stockdale became the object of a succession of legal proceedings, which speedily exhausted his purse, while his business vanished, and left not a wreck behind. Such a result could have surprised no man of ordinary understanding, but the united tongues of men and of angels would fail in conveying any adequate notion of the publisher's stolidity and obtuseness. He really considered himself an injured man, and the " Budget" was established as the means of impressing the same idea on others. Stockdale's method of ratiocination was certainly somewhat peculiar. Peers, he argued, do not always live happily with their wives. There is a baronet in custody in the midland counties, charged with assault; have they not just taken the Hon. Wellesley Pole's children from him? and what can be more shocking than that abduction case of the Wakefields? Argal, I, Stockdale, was quite justified in publishing those disagreeable particulars about Mr.

and the seizure of my furniture in consequence was an act of worse than Russian oppression.

In strict conformity with the principles of the Baconian philosophy, this conclusion was based on a wide induction, derived from all the instances of aristocratic frailty on which the publisher could possibly lay his hands,

accompanied by appropriate comments, and, when the supply failed to meet the demand, eked out by a compilation from the ordinary reports of the police courts. It cannot be said that there is anything positively immoral or libellous in the publication, but a duller or more uninviting accumulation of garbage it has never been our lot to see, and the only circumstance which could tempt any one to examine it, is the fact that Stockdale, searching among his MS. stores for letters from public characters, calculated to lend interest to his publication, stumbled on the notes, or rather some of them, addressed to him by Shelley during their brief business connexion. These he proceeded to publish, accompanied by a highly characteristic commentary, from which some particulars of real interest may be gleaned. The style of these letters sufficiently attests their genuineness; nor can we peruse Stockdale's acknowledged compositions without perceiving that the writer was in every sense incapable of a forgery, even if, in 1827, it had been worth any one's while to vilify the poet in a periodical.

Shelley's first introduction to Stockdale was verbal, and occurred under singularly characteristic circumstances. In the autumn of 1810 he presented himself at the publisher's place of business, and requested his aid in extricating him from a dilemma in which he had involved himself by commissioning a printer at Horsham to strike off fourteen hundred and eighty copies of a volume of poems, without having the wherewithal to discharge his account. He could hardly have expected Stockdale to do it for him, and the latter's silence is conclusive testimony that he contributed no pecuniary assistance, liberal as he doubtless was with good advice. By some means, however, the mute inglorious Aldus of Horsham was appeased, and the copies of the work transferred to Stockdale, who proceeded to advertise them, and take the other usual steps to promote their sale. An advertisement of "Original Poetry, by Victor and Cazire," will be found in

the Morning Chronicle of September 18, 1810, and the assumed duality of authorship was not, like the particular names employed, fictitious. The poems were principally-Shelley thought entirely the production of himself and a friend, and it becomes a matter of no small interest to ascertain who this friend was. It was not Mr. Hogg, whose acquaintance Shelley had not yet made, nor Captain Medwin, or the circumstance would have been long since made public.

A more likely coadjutor would be Harriet Grove, Shelley's cousin, and the object of his first attachment, who is said to have aided him in the composition of his first 66 romance, Zastrozzi." Indeed, "Cazire" seems to be intended for a female name; perhaps it was adopted from some novel. However this may be, the little book had evidently been ushered into the world under an unlucky star; few and evil were its days. It had hardly been published a week when Stockdale, inspecting it with more attention than he had previously had leisure to bestow, recognised one of the pieces as an old acquaintance in the pages of M. G. Lewis, author of "The Monk." It was but too clear that Shelley's colleague, doubtless under the compulsion of the poet's impetuous solicitations for more verses, had appropriated whatever came first to hand, with slight respect for pedantic considerations of meum and tuum. Stockdale lost no time in communicating his discovery to his employer, whose mortification may be imagined, and his directions for the instant suppression of the edition anticipated. By this time, however, nearly a hundred copies had been put into circulation, so that we will not altogether resign the hope of yet recovering this interesting volume, hitherto totally unknown to, or at least unnoticed by all Shelley's biographers. Only one of the letters relating to it remains;1 with the exception of the childish note printed

1 We have not scrupled to occasionally correct an obvious clerical error in these letters, generally the result of haste, sometimes of a misprint.