echoing keys and under infinite variations of melody the same intense intellectual passion, the same most holy love of humanity, the same godlike perception of ideal beauty. A "flood of rapture" still more divine remained to crown the work of the master in Epipsychidion, and a still more certain grasp on the combined resources of the lyric and dramatic crafts was yet to be shewn in Hellas,-the one put forth by itself, the other with a single lyric of astonishing fitness; but the fact remains that the selection and arrangement of lyrics to accompany Prometheus was a thing unequalled in perceptiveness; and in that case, at all events, the highest importance is to be attached to the preservation of Shelley's order among these lesser poems, lesser only than greater things of his own, and greater than anything lyric to be found elsewhere in modern literature,

In regard to the posthumous poems generally the case is different; and it is at the option of every editor to arrange these to the best of his judgment, according to the knowledge accessible to him, and the special requirements of his edition. Of at least one point, however, I have no doubt,—namely that everything distinctly immature should form a separate chronology; and it is for that reason that the immature Queen Mab, instead of preceding the mature Alastor, in which Shelley's real career begins, is treated as the climax of the juvenile period, and reserved for an appendix. Shelley lived to protest against its being published at all; but it has now become an

inalienable part of the world's possessions; and all we can do out of respect to his memory is to assign to it the position which he assigned, that of a juvenile work.

As regards the juvenile works and all the other volumes published or printed while Shelley was alive, there were two courses open to me beside the one I have chosen; and both of them would have been very much easier: the one, to reprint with mechanical exactness and without remark the original editions, still remains to be done if it be thought worth while; but I do not imagine it will be thought worth while, as an exact reprint of the originals is embodied in the present text and notes: the other course, to rewrite Shelley's works according to the editor's view of how he ought to have written them, has been sufficiently pursued elsewhere.

Why there should be any need to do more than simply reprint those poems which were printed in the first instance under Shelley's own supervision, is a curious question, and one which needs to be considered carefully and fully. We have heard enough and too much about Shelley's being “a careless writer,"-enough because such truth as there is in this current assertion has been long ago laid to heart by those who are discerning in such matters, and too much because very few are discerning, and the text that cost the greatest lyric poet of England infinite pains to elaborate has been held fair ground whereon every clumsy and thoughtless emendator (or rather innovator) might do just what suited his fancy.

VOL. I.

If, therefore, we admit at all that Shelley was a careless writer, we must guard such admission round about with saving clauses, and clearly understand in what sense the intrinsically damaging word careless is used. That he would have done himself no credit before a Chinese board of examiners in pen-craft and orthography and the punctilio of smart composition, may be safely admitted; and those who would fain fit his compositions for presentation before such a board are not qualified by natural proclivity for the labour of editing the works of a great poet. But that he was careless as an artist in any sense in which it behoved such an one to be careful, is amply refuted by the fact for which Mr. Garnett vouches in the following striking paragraph from the Relics of Shelley, pages xi and xii:

They [the pieces in the Relics] appear to have been hitherto overlooked, for the reason that must also serve as an excuse for the imperfect manner in which they are even now presented to the public-the extremely confused state of these books [Shelley's manuscript note-books], and the equal difficulty of deciphering and connecting their contents. Being written in great haste, and frequently with pencil, the hand-writing is often indistinct of itself; and rendered far more so by erasures and interlineations ad infinitum. Shelley appears to have composed with his pen in his hand, and to have corrected as fast as he wrote; hence a page full of writing frequently yields only two or three available lines, which must be painfully disentangled from a chaos of obliterations. Much that at first sight

wears the appearance of novelty, proves on inspection to be merely a variation of something already published; and sometimes the case is reversed, as in the Prologue to Hellas, so buried in the MS. of that drama (which has in itself on the average ten lines effaced for one retained), as to be only discoverable or separable upon very close scrutiny." Mr. Garnett adds a note to the effect that, when Shelley wrote for the printer, his handwriting was "singularly neat and beautiful"; and it seems to me that the proportion of lines rejected and lines retained in his rough drafts, taken in connexion with the quality of his "printer's copy," is the best possible proof of due care. As regards the statement that his drafts for the printer were beautifully written, I can confirm that from the evidence of the copy of Julian and Maddalo which he sent from Italy to Hunt, to have published: not only is the writing most careful and beautiful; but the punctuation is at once eminently characteristic and peculiar, and generally adequate and accurate from the poet's own point of view. This is still more noteworthy, inasmuch as Shelley wrote the poem out with his own hand twice at least, in ink. One copy is in a book among those in Sir Percy Shelley's possession; the other, on what seem to be the gilt-edged leaves of a pocket-book, is that already referred to, and of which a specimen will be given in fac-simile in the volume containing the poem. I may say in the mean time that this manuscript supplies the missing line in one instance of rhymelessness, which has been hitherto among the items of

the count against Shelley for small sins of omission and

commission.

That the confused note-books described by Mr. Garnett imply care, not the reverse, must be evident to any one who thinks for a moment: these were Shelley's means of putting his thoughts on record at once as they came burning upon him; and they were never meant for any one's guidance but his own. It was a need inherent in the fiery exaltation of his lyric mood that the result should be set down at once; and, for mere temporary memoranda, it mattered not how intricately one poem might be blended with another. He knew how to disentangle and write them fairly, or dictate them to Mrs. Shelley; and, had he lived to have the slightest suspicion how we should venerate every scrap of paper bearing the impress of his hand and pen, he would, we may be sure, have taken ample care to place these note-books beyond our reach.

The subject of Shelley's method of composition, a right understanding of which is the first requisite for any one aspiring to edit his works, would be a very fruitful theme for prolonged discussion. In one of the keenest and at the same time most enthusiastic of recent contributions to Shelley literature this theme is very happily touched upon. I refer to an article in The Edinburgh Review for April 1871, written à propos of Mr. Rossetti's edition of Shelley,

-an article which I am authorized to connect with the name of Professor Thomas S. Baynes of St. Andrew's University, and which I cannot do better than quote.