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P. 67.

"The fabulous Thamondocana."

Ptolemy, in his Geography, mentions this city: it is now supposed not to be "fabulous," but the same as Timbuctoo-which the French traveller Caillé, the first European who visited it, ascertained to be in nearly the same latitude and longitude indicated by Ptolemy. (Mr. Garnett supplies me with these particulars).

P. 76.
Epipsychidion.

"*

Shelley forwarded this poem to Mr. Ollier on 16 February 1821 for publication, saying:-"The longer poem I desire should not be considered as my own: indeed, in a certain sense, it is a production of a portion of me already dead—and, in this sense, the 'advertisement' is no fiction. It is to be published simply for the esoteric few; and I make its author a secret, to avoid the malignity of those who turn sweet food into poison, transforming all they touch into the corruption of their own natures. My wish with respect to it is that it should be printed immediately in the simplest form, and merely one hundred copies. Those who are capable of judging and feeling rightly with respect to a composition of so abstruse a nature certainly do not arrive at that number-among those, at least, who would ever be excited to read an obscure and anonymous production: and it would give me no pleasure that the vulgar should read it. If you have any bookselling reason against publishing so small a number as a hundred, merely distribute copies among those to whom you think the poetry would afford any pleasure.' In October of the same year the poet wrote to Mr. Gisborne:-"The Epipsychidion is a mystery. As to real flesh and blood, you know that I do not deal in those articles: you might as well go to a gin-shop for a leg of mutton as expect anything human or earthly from me. I desired Ollier not to circulate this piece except to the ovverol: and even they, it seems, are inclined to approximate one to the circle of a servant girl and her sweetheart. But I intend to write a Symposium of my own, to set all this right." The ovverol would have comprised, or consisted solely of, Hunt, Godwin, Hogg, Peacock, Keats, Moore, Horatio Smith, and Byron; who are named in a letter of Shelley's dated 6th September 1819 (Shelley Memorials, p. 120) as those who are to receive whatever he publishes.-The word Epipsychidion may be understood as meaning "a poem on the soul." The work was mainly-perhaps completely-written in 1820: a letter from Mrs. Shelley dated 29th December 1820, printed in Hunt's Correspondence, speaks of it as then done. Hitherto, however, it has figured, in the collected editions, as written in 1821.

P. 76.

"Emilia Viviani, now imprisoned in the Convent of St. Anne, Pisa."

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In the original edition of Epipsychidion, and all others till now, the initial "V—— has alone appeared (so also E. V." in the poem at p. 266), and "the Convent of ." The following account of the lady in question is given by Lady Shelley in the Shelley Memorials, being condensed from Medwin's details. "The noble and unfortunate Lady Emilia V—' was the daughter of an Italian Count, and was shut up in a convent by her father until such time as he could find for her a husband of whom he approved. In this dreary prison [after she had been there about four years] Shelley saw her; and was struck by her amazing beauty, by the highly cultivated grace of her mind, and by the misery which she suffered in being debarred from all sympathy. She was subsequently married to a gentleman chosen for her by her father; and, after pining in his society, and in the marshy solitudes of the * *Shelley Memorials, pp. 152, 153. + Shelley Memorials, p. 154.

Maremma, for six years, she left him, with the consent of her parent,-and died of consumption in a dilapidated old mansion at Florence. This occurred long after the death of Shelley; who used frequently to visit her while she was living in the convent, and to do his utmost to ameliorate her wretched condition."

P. 76.

"L'anima amante " &c.

Translated for the benefit of those who are not Italian readers. "The loving soul launches beyond creation; and creates for itself in the infinite a world all its own, far different from this obscure and terrifying gulf." The sentence here cited is only a portion of an outpouring of some little length, given in Medwin's Life of Shelley, vol. ii.

P. 76.
"Gran vergogna" &c.

A quotation from Dante, signifying: "Great were his shame who should rhyme anything under a garb of metaphor or rhetorical colour, and then, being asked, should be incapable of stripping his words of this garb so that they might have a veritable meaning."

P. 76.

"Sweet Spirit, sister of that orphan one

Whose empire is the name thou weepest on."

This couplet has often been cited as unintelligible. Mr. Garnett (Relics of Shelley, p. 97) proposes an explanation which, if nothing clearer is offered, may satisfy enquirers. "The orphan one,' Emilia's spiritual sister, is Mary Shelley, whose mother died in giving her birth: the 'name' is Shelley's own."

P. 79.

"The crimson pulse of living Morn may quiver."

A horrid violation of grammar is given in previous editions--

"The crimson pulse of living morning quiver."

The words "morn may" might easily be misread and misprinted as "morning." I trust therefore that the reader will tolerate this emendation.

P. 80.

"We are we not formed, as notes of music are" &c.

It seems to me almost a certainty that the opening "We" in this line ought to be cancelled.

P. 85.

"Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom!—"

This long sentence (which begins with the opening of the paragraph) has after all no syntactical conclusion: I have therefore thought best to punctuate its ending interjectionally as above.

P. 89. "The sky

Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery."

This phrase may be accounted for by understanding that the season when the flowers fade is the winter, and that then the glinting of the light comes through the tracery of the denuded branches or tendrils. Still, I cannot help suspecting that Shelley wrote "inter-woof." "Inter-woof of tracery" would be a very natural variation upon the equally natural term "interwoven tracery": and words compounded with "inter" are continual in Shelley.

P. 91.

"Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest."

It is not for me to surmise with any confidence whether or not these names designate particular individuals. The name Marina is continually applied to Mrs. Shelley in the letters of Leigh Hunt and his wife. Vanna is the short of Giovanna, the Italian synonym of Jane, the Christian name of Mrs. Williams-a lady whom Shelley was introduced to shortly before the time when he dispatched Epipsychidion to London.

P. 92.

Adonais, an Elegy on the Death of John Keats.

These words of the title are followed, in the original edition, by the words "Author of Endymion, Hyperion," &c.,-which have hitherto been reproduced in subsequent issues. I think the time has come to drop them. Keats is as indelibly recorded among the poets as Spenser or Dryden; and we should not deem it neces sary to certify the reader that the one was the author of The Fairy Queen, and the other of Absalom and Achitophel.

It has been stated before now (as for instance by Captain Medwin in the Shelley Papers) that Adonais is modelled on Moschus and Bion. Shelley himself, as if to court the remark, gives the poem a motto from Moschus; and it seems to me a plausible suggestion that the name Adonais (which may stand for a Doric form of "Adonis," but is not, I believe, to be found in any classic author) was adopted by the poet to recall to mind the Idyll of Bion on Adonis. I am not aware, however, that any one has yet pointed out the parallel passages. Mr. G. S. D. Murray, of Christ Church College, Oxford, has noted those from Bion, and very obligingly placed them at my disposal for the advantage of this edition. The principal instances are as follows:

Stanza i.

"I weep for Adonais-he is dead!" Αἴαζω τὸν "Αδωνιν· ἀπώλετο καλὸς 'Αδωνις.

(I lament for Adonis; beautiful Adonis is dead).

Stanza vii.

"While still

He lies as if in dewy sleep he lay."

Καὶ νέκυς ὢν καλός ἐστι, καλὸς νέκυς οἷα καθεύδων.

(Even as a corpse he is beautiful, a corpse beautiful as though in sleep). Stanzas x., xi. "And fans him with her inoonlight wings.

One from a lucid urn of starry dew

Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them;
Another clipped her profuse locks."

̓Αμφὶ δέ μιν κλαίοντες ἐπιστενάχουσιν ἔρωτες
κειράμενοι χαίτας ἐπ ̓ ̓Αδώνιδι, ὃς δὲ λέβησι

χρυσείοις φορέησιν ὕδωρ, ὃ δὲ μήρια λούει

ὃς δ ̓ ὅπιθεν πτερύγεσσιν ἀναψύχει τὸν Αδωνιν.

(And round about him the Loves mourn for him weeping, having clipped their locks for Adonis; and one brings water in golden urns, and another washes his limbs, and another from behind fans Adonis with her wings).

Stanza xxvi.

"Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live!

And in my heartless breast and burning brain

That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive ;
I would give

All that I am to be as thou now art:

But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart."
τοσσοῦτόν με φίλασον ὅσον ζώει τὸ φίλαμα

φίλαμα δὲ τοῦτο φυλάξω

ὡς αὐτὸν τὸν ̓Αδωνιν.

ὁ δὲ τάλαινα,

ζώω καὶ θεὸς ἐμμὶ καὶ οὐ δύναμαί σε διώκειν.

(Kiss me so far as a kiss lives . . . and I will guard this kiss as 'twere Adonis' self. . . . But I unhappy live, and am a goddess, and cannot follow thee).

P. 92.

Αστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες κ. τ. λ.

The distich by Plato which Shelley here applies to Keats will be found translated by him at p. 457 under the title To Stella.

P. 92.

"It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of the poem a criticism" &c. This intention was not fulfilled--owing (as stated in a letter of 25th September 1821 from Shelley to Mr. Ollier) to his having mislaid the volume containing Hyperion. Another generous idea of Shelley's, hardly to be called an intention, was to collect the remnants of Keats's writings, and publish them with a Life and criticism. This he mentions in a letter to Mr. Severn dated 29th November 1821; adding at the same time that the idea would not be carried out, as he doubted whether the criticism "would find a single reader." At such a discount in the market were those two glorious poets, Keats and Shelley, about half a year following the death of the former, and preceding that of the latter.

"John Keats died

...

P. 92.

on the 27th of December 1820."

1821."

Shelley mis-states the date: it should be the 23rd of February 1821. He seems to have been definitely misinformed after being indefinitely well-informed: for, in the original Pisan edition of Adonais, the date is given thus, "the of The allusion to Spring in stanza xvi. Keats just towards the close of winter.

also seems to imply that the world had lost Adonais was written about May 1821,

P. 92.

"The savage criticism on his Endymion which appeared in the Quarterly Review produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind," &c.

Shelley was not alone at the time in supposing this, and it is still a popular tradition among poetic readers: but the evidence supplied by the Life and Letters of Keats published by Lord Houghton shows distinctly that the notion was exaggerated - not to say, baseless.

P. 92.

"A most base and unprincipled calumniator."

No doubt Shelley here refers to the writer of the Quarterly Review notice of Laon and Cythna, whom he (after he became convinced it was not by Southey)-and not he alone-believed to be the Rev. Mr. (late Dean) Milman. It appears elsewhere that he ascribed to the same hand the harsh critique on Endymion. I am enabled to state positively that the review of Shelley was not by Milman: according to MedMost literary enwin, it was affirmed by Hobhouse (Lord Broughton) to be the handiwork of a nephew of Coleridge, i.e. the late Judge-and this, I learn, is correct. quirers, at the present day, attribute to Gifford the review of Keats.

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These words are quoted, but not verbatim, from a letter addressed by Colonel Finch to Mr. Gisborne. See Shelley's Essays, Letters, &c., vol. ii., p. 238.

P. 94.

"The third among the Sons of Light."

It may be questioned whom, as the first and second "Sons of Light," Shelley intended to associate with Milton. If he refers to English poets exclusively, Chaucer probably and Shakspeare certainly may be proposed. But perhaps he referred more particularly to epic poets. In that case, the two are assuredly Homer and Dante. His admirable Defence of Poetry says: "Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet; that is, the second poet the series of whose creations bore a defined and intelligible relation to the knowledge and sentiment and religion of the age in which he lived, and of the ages which followed it-developing itself in correspondence with their development. Milton was the third epic poet.

...

P. 95.

"Till darkness, and the law

Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw."

In the original Adonais, printed in Pisa, this line is different,
"Of mortal change, shall fill the grave which is her maw."

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So in the Pisa edition-and, I think, certainly correct. In subsequent editions, the word is "its."

P. 97.

"Amid the faint companions of their youth."

In the original edition this stands "the drooping comrades." Such a substitution can only, I presume, have been introduced into the text on Shelley's own authority.

P. 98.

"Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour

Is changed to fragrance."

It appears to me that the word "where" or "whose" might be preferred to "when." Perhaps "whose" would be the better of the two.

P. 100.

"They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low."

I incline to prefer the original reading-" spurn them as they go:" but, as it must be assumed that the alteration is Shelley's own, I have to leave it.

P. 100.

"Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent."

I feel rather sceptical about this word "magic"; but it figures in all the editions, and has at least a poetic ring.-The two poets mentioned in this stanza are (need it be said?) Byron and Moore: though whether Moore ever showed the faintest interest in or grief for Keats I know not. The next stanza (xxxii.) introduces Shelley himself; and xxxv., Severn.

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