CONTENTS OF THE APPENDIX. APPENDIX. I. FURTHER PARTICULARS AS TO "LAON AND CYTHNA," USUALLY KNOWN AS "THE REVOLT OF ISLAM." IN the note forming page 80 of the present volume I have set down the outline of what is known to me concerning the bibliography of Shelley's longest work, Laon and Cythna, or, as it is usually called, The Revolt of Islam; but the whole history of the transaction whereby Laon and Cythna became The Revolt of Islam is so remarkable that I have thought it desirable to give in an appendix fuller details of a transformation which is, as far as I am aware, without parallel in the history of literature. The late Thomas Love Peacock's version of this affair (valuable in virtue of his known intimacy with the poet, and also on account of the character which he has generally borne for unswerving veracity1), first appeared in Fraser's Magazine for January, 1860, in one of a series of papers of 1 I am of course not unaware of the bearing which my friend Mr. Garnett's masterly examination of some Peacock's statements may be held to have on this word; but I can imagine that those statements may seem suspicious, and yet have been made in perfect good faith. They form no part of the present subject; but whoever wishes to go into the question of Peacock's veracity should consult the 3rd vol. of his Works, and Mr. Garnett's Relics of Shelley. on Shelley which have since been reprinted in the author's collected works, and which are full of valuable and interesting details. According to Peacock, Shelley wrote Laon and Cythna "chiefly on a seat on a high prominence in Bisham Wood, where he passed whole mornings with a blank book and a pencil;" and this statement does not diverge materially from that of Mrs. Shelley, in her note on The Revolt of Islam, that "the poem was written in his boat, as it floated under the beech groves of Bisham, or during wanderings in the neighbouring country." Peacock's account goes on thus: "This work when completed was printed under the title of Laon and Cythna. In this poem he had carried the expression of his opinions, moral, political, and theological, beyond the bounds of discretion. The terror which, in those days of persecution of the press, the perusal of the book inspired in Mr. Ollier, the publisher, induced him to solicit the alteration of many passages which he had marked. Shelley was for some time inflexible; but Mr. Ollier's refusal to publish the poem as it was, backed by the advice of all his friends, induced him to submit to the required changes. Many leaves were cancelled, and it was finally published as The Revolt of Islam. Of Laon and Cythna only three copies had gone forth. One of these had found its way to The Quarterly Review, and the opportunity was readily seized of pouring out on it one of the most malignant effusions1 of the odium theologicum that ever appeared even in those days, and in that periodical." On this paragraph I have to observe (1) that altered passages of the poem are marked in pencil in the copy from which the text has been edited in the present volume, 2 so 1 The article in The Quarterly Review is of no intrinsic value or importance whatever; but for those who are curi ous in such matters it may be stated that it is in No. 42 (September, 1819). 2 See appendix II, on that copy. that I presume that to be the copy marked by Mr. Ollier; and (2) that the expression "induced to submit to the required changes" seems to me to correspond exactly with all we know of the matter. There is a slight variation of phrase in the Shelley Memorials (p. 83), where Shelley is described as "convinced of the propriety of making certain alterations:" convinced of the need he no doubt was, for the alternative was a desperate one; but there is nothing in his subsequent history to countenance the idea that he regarded Laon and Cythna as in any way offensive. Indeed, when The Quarterly Review1 returned after the lapse of over forty years, in a milder spirit, to the attack on Shelley, in regard to this poem, Peacock2 added the following supplementary account of the affair:-" Mr. Ollier positively refused to publish the poem as it was, and Shelley had no hope of another publisher. He for a long time refused to alter a line: but his friends finally prevailed upon him to submit. Still he could not, or would not, sit down by himself to alter it, and the whole of the alterations were actually made in successive sittings of what I may call a literary committee. He contested the proposed alterations step by step: in the end, sometimes. adopting, more frequently modifying, never originating, and always insisting that his poem was spoiled." For the rest, I cannot do better than quote some observations made in Notes and Queries (for April 12, 1862) by that acute and indefatigable Shelley-student Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy he says ( "If Mr. Peacock is correct in stating that only three copies of Laon and Cythna had gone forth, the fate of these three is easily accounted for. One,' as Mr. Peacock says, and as is evident both from the heading and the notes of the article referred to, 'found its way to The Quarterly 1 No. 220, October, 1861. 2 Fraser's Magazine, March, 1862. |
