"Longius") stanza v. Medwin presumes the Epitaph to have been "probably a school-task."

P. 500.
Victoria.

Captain Medwin says that some of the poems introduced into Shelley's juvenile romance of St. Irvyne, of which this is one, were "written a year or two before the date of the romance." I have assumed that the poems to which this observation applies are those which have no direct connexion with the story of St. Irvyne. These therefore I date 1808; the residue 1809, in which year that unspeakable work of fiction was probably written (published in 1810). "Three of them," says Medwin, "are in the metre of Walter Scott's Helvellyn, a poem he greatly admired, although the Lay of the Last Minstrel was little to his taste."

P. 505.
Fading.

This is a song in the early poem on the Wandering Jew, written by Shelley and Medwin: see notes, vol. i., p. 473- The succeeding few lines (headed The Wandering Jew) are also referred to by Medwin (Life of Shelley, vol. i., p. 58) as if they were Shelley's.

P. 511.

Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson.

See the Memoir, p. xlviii. as to the poems constituting this series. Mr. Hogg says that he and Shelley made the poems purposely absurd by various processes, "especially by giving them what we called a dithyrambic character, which was effected by cutting some lines in two, and joining the different parts together that would agree in construction, but were the most discordant in sense." I must confess that I have been unable to trace in the poems a single clear instance of this process; and, having had to transcribe the whole of them, I have necessarily given to their verbal minutiæ an amount of attention which other readers do not, and certainly need not, vouchsafe. The opening poem in the volume is omitted from our edition, because Mr. Hogg affirms that it was not Shelley's own work, but "confided to him by some rhymester of the day."

The name Fitzvictor, as pertaining to a supposititious nephew of Margaret Nichol son, was an invention of Shelley's; not more extravagant, however, than the name which her son did really adopt for a change, Daphne. Margaret attempted to kil George III. with a knife. A publican at the corner of Clare Market had in his window, "within the memory of a literary friend" (if we may believe the Gentieman's Magazine for March 1869), the announcement: "To be seen within, the fork belonging to the knife with which Margaret Nicholson attempted to stab his Majesty George III."

It seems clear that "not" ought to be inserted in this line: and I therefore in

troduce it.

P. 519.
The Tear.

Shelley forwarded these verses to Hogg on 6 January 1811, saying in his letter: "You see the subject of the foregoing; I send it because it may amuse you." He "had been most of the night pacing a churchyard." The reader of the present day will not perhaps find the "subject" very self-evident.

P. 522.

"Revenge does not howl o'er the dead."

In Mr. Hogg's book the word is "in," not "d'er," I presume, a misprint. The poem, if that is the proper word for such a performance, was written by Shelley when he conceived himself outraged by the intolerant bigotry of his family, and especially by its influence on his sister Elizabeth.

P. 523.

Verses on a Fête at Carlton House.

See Notes, p. 599. This is the sole now known fragment from a poem of about fifty lines which Shelley wrote and printed on a fête which had taken place towards the beginning of the summer of 1811. A stream of water had been made to meander down a long table; and the extravagance of the affair generally had excited some murmurs. Shelley, it is said, "amused himself with throwing copies of the poem into the carriages of persons going to Carlton House after the fête."

P. 524.
To a Star.

Shelley sent this to Hogg, along with the succeeding verses, Love's Rose; saying"I transcribe for you a strange mélange of maddened stuff which I wrote by the midnight moon last night." It is not quite clear whether the two compositions are to be understood as consecutive or connected.

P. 525.

To Mary, who died in this Opinion.

Shelley sent this poem to Miss Hitchener from Keswick on the 23d November 1811, saying: "I transcribe a little poem I found this morning. It was written some time ago; but, as it appears to show what I then thought of eternal life, I send it."I do not know who Mary was: possibly the same person who is referred to in the phrase "the vile female who destroyed Mary"--which phrase occurs in a letter from Shelley to Hogg dated the 8th May 1811, printed in Hogg's Life, vol. i., p. 370.

P. 526.

Mother and Son.

"The subject is not fictitious," says Shelley on the 7th January 1812, writing from Keswick. It is worthy of observation that this effusion, which bears traces of a Wordsworthian influence, was indited when Shelley was in habits of intercourse with Southey.

P. 528.

The Mexican Revolution.

These verses, and those which follow, To Ireland, were sent by Shelley in a letter from Dublin. He says: "Have you heard a new republic is set up in Mexico? I have just written the following short tribute to its success. . . . These are merely sent as lineaments in the picture of my mind on these two topics. I find that I sometimes can write poetry when I feel, such as it is."

P. 530.
Eyes.

This poem is extracted by Mr. Garnett from a MS. book, and had never yet been published. He notes its date as not later than 1813: I have put 1812 conjecturally.

P. 530.

The Damon of the World-Conclusion.

See notes, vol. i., p. 464.

P. 531.
Singing.

The reader will observe that the first two lines of this snatch of verse were utilized by Shelley in the Prometheus (vol. i., p. 347).

P. 532.
A Hate-Song.

Mr Browning has favoured me with this amusing absurdity, retailed to him by Leigh Hunt. It seems that Hunt and Shelley were talking one day (probably in or about 1817) concerning Love-Songs; and Shelley said he didn't see why Hate-Songs also should not be written, and that he could do them; and on the spot he improvised these lines of doggrel. P. 537

"Father, our woes so great were yet the less."

The word given in Captain Medwin's book is "not" instead of "yet": the direct contrary of what Dante says.

P. 537.
Epithalamium.

Of this variation of the Bridal Song at p. 277 I am enabled to give two versions. The first is from Medwin's Life of Shelley; which informs us that "during the Spring he (Williams) had written a play, taken from the interweaving of two stories in Boccaccio; and Shelley had assisted him in the work, and supplied him with an Epithalamium for music-since incorrectly published, and which I give in its original form." Then follows, in Medwin's book, the version which stands the first of the two in our Appendix. The second I have extracted, by permission of Mr. Trelawny, from the very MS. play of Lieutenant Williams, still extant. It is entitled-The Promise; or a Year, a Month and a Day. The three forms of the poem have substantial diversities. I almost think that the Bridal Song, in the body of the poems, is the least interesting of the three: the others, at any rate, are more marked in form, and indicate better the purpose for which the poem was written.

P. 537.

"Lest eyes see their own delight."

Medwin gives "let eyes see" &c. or "Let eyes not see."

Clearly it ought to be either "Lest eyes see,"

P. 539.
Buona Notte.

See Good-Night, p. 260. It might be inferred from Medwin's account that Shelley wrote these Italian verses first, and afterwards turned them into English: but the evidence of dates negatives that. They are not in very correct Italian, either in phrase or in rhythmical flow: one blunder in the lines, as printed by Medwin, has been corrected by me from the original MS. in Shelley's notebook.

P. 542.

To Jane-The Recollection. Omitted Passage.

The original MS. of this poem gives the stanzas published in the body of our edition, followed by a figure for a further stanza, which is represented by asterisks only. The poem must nevertheless be accepted as a complete composition.

ERRAT A.

[IN looking over the sheets of this edition, as printed off, I observe the following Errata. For these, and any others which may eventually be discovered (spite of no small care on my part), I apologize to Shelley's memory and to the reader.]

VOL. I.

Page xlvi. line 7 (Note) for going read giving.

Page 12, line last, for out read one.

for sacred read secret.

:

11 31, 1

11 136

10 for read

"542 Delete 1821, as date of the Indian Serenade.

END OF VOL. II.

E. Moxon, Son, & Co., 44 Dover Street, London, W.