"The buds unfold more brightly, till no more The context makes it impossible that these lines should come in at the end of section iv. The appropriate place for them must be found further on, and the most appropriate seems to be on p. 50, where (as the lines are not of the kind one is better pleased to find unplaceable) I have introduced them-altering the ungrammatical word "mar" into "mars," and "its" into "their." P. 27. "Even as the leaves," &c. From the emendated Q. M.: "Even as the leaves Which countless autumn storms have scattering heaped In wild dells of the tangled wilderness, Through many waning years." P. 33. "His footsteps through that labyrinth of crime." To correspond with the rest of the diction in this passage, I have substituted "His" for "Its," which appears in all other editions. P. 36. "And all their causes to an abstract point Converging, thou didst bend, and call it God." In the text, "call'd." The grammatical emendator has to choose between "call" and the uneuphonious "call'dst." This passage of Q. M., beginning "Thou taintest all thou look'st upon," was published in the Alastor volume as a separate composition under the title Superstition. The close is there altered thus: "And all their causes to an abstract point Converging, thou didst give it name and form, P. 40. "The exterminable spirit it contains Is nature's only God." Why "exterminable?" The word would naturally mean "such as can be exterminated;" but Shelley has already termed the spirit of the universe "eternal," and otherwise asserted its unendingness. I almost think that, instead of "exterminable," Shelley must have written "interminable," or "inexterminable;" or should we possibly read "ex-terminable," quasi “non-terminable, limitless"? P. 46. Made stingless by the Spirit of the Lord." I think this should assuredly be "the Spirit of the Lord;" in previous editions it stands "spirits." P. 46. "Unstained by crime and misery Which flows from God's own faith.” "Flow" would be correct, as it is quite obvious that both crime and misery are spoken of as thus flowing. If the reader opines that the word ought to have been altered in our text, I can hardly profess to dissent from him. P. 48. "O human Spirit! spur thee to the goal And 'midst the ebb and flow of human things Shows somewhat stable, somewhat certain still, A light-house o'er the wild of dreary waves.” The text gives "show somewhat stable," as if it were the Spirit of Ianthe who is to show this. But I think that indisputably it is "virtue" that really shows this, and consequently the word must be "shows." P. 52. "Dawns on the virtuous mind." In previous editions, the word is "Draws" in this passage; but afterwards, where the same passage is cited in Shelley's Notes, "Dawns." I think "Dawns" is right, and have therefore inserted it. P. 56. "The future Fades from our charmèd sight." The text gives "the past," instead of "the future." Nothing, I conceive, can be more unquestionable than that Shelley wrote, or meant to write, "the future." P. 58. "The restless coursers pawed the ungenial soil, Snuffed the gross air, and then, their errand done, The emendated Q. M. substitutes: "This fragment is the translation of part of some German work, whose title I have vainly endeavoured to discover. I picked it up, dirty and torn, some years ago, in Lincoln's Inn Fields." Shelley's statement on this point has been a good deal canvassed. Mr. Hogg says that the fragment is not a translation at all, but is Shelley's own original composition. A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette ("Joannes," 21st Decr. 1866) refutes this assertion very convincingly. He proves that the fragment really is a translation from a German poem by C. D. F. Schubart; but not an exact translation. The passage beginning "I now mixed with the butchers of mankind," and ending "the giant's steel club rebounded from my body," is an interpolation; and the concluding sentence is substituted for one in which Ahasuerus is made by Schubart to receive ultimate forgiveness. The conclusion of Joannes is that Shelley most probably made the translation, adapting it to suit his own point of view. But the fact appears to be (though this also is controverted by Captain Medwin) that Shelley did not begin to learn German till 1815: so he cannot have been the translator. Medwin says that Shelley's own account of the matter is strictly correct, save in one particular: it was not Shelley, but Medwin himself, who found the translated fragment, with its genuine ending, in Lincoln's Inn Fields (Medwin's Life of Shelley, vol. i., p. 57'. That author conjectures that the translation had probably appeared in a magazine; and a writer in Notes and Queries (C. R. S., 2nd ser., vol. v., p. 373) shows that it came out in 1802 in a monthly magazine named The German Museum, vol. iii. Though Medwin is not an accurate writer, we may fairly accept as true his account of what happened to himself; and conclude that the rhapsodic tale of the Wandering Jew given in the notes to Queen Mab is a translated re-casting in prose of the German poem by Schubart, which re-casting was found in the street by Medwin, and through him became known to Shelley. P. 80. "It cannot arise from reasoning." The word in the original is "conviction:" but the insertion of that word does not, to my mind, "arise from reasoning," but from an inadvertent repetition. P. 90. "Written by a man of great talent." I.e. Mr. Jefferson Hogg. The articles referred to are those named Shelley in Oxford, now incorporated in Mr. Hogg's Life of Shelley. P. 90. "At the age of seventeen." The incident referred to is, of course, that of Shelley's expulsion from Oxford. Seventeen is a mistake. Shelley was expelled in March 1811; and was then getting on towards nineteen, " P. 91. "He wrote also a poem on the subject of Ahasuerus, . before it was printed." considerably altered Captain Medwin (Shelley Papers, pp. 7, 8) says that Shelley, about the age of fifteen, and Medwin himself, wrote "six or seven cantos on the story of the Wandering Jew; of which the first four, with the exception of a very few lines, were exclusively mine." These four cantos were eventually published in Fraser's Magazine, and may be found re-produced, as Shelley's, in a pirated edition (I believe Dugdale's) in two volumes. The cantos really written by Shelley have never, as far as I can trace, been published: the statement made by Mrs. Shelley in the present passage applies therefore, I presume, to the cantos by Medwin, supposed by her to be by Shelley, wholly or mainly. The story of the Wandering Jew evidently exercised great sway over Shelley's imagination; as, besides co-operating in this juvenile poem, he introduced Ahasuerus into Queen Mab, into Hellas, and into the prose tale of The Assassins: there is also an allusion to him in Alastor. P. 92. "Other alterations scarcely to be called improvements." At this point of her note Mrs. Shelley extracts, from the Damon of the World, the Invocation to the soul of Ianthe. As that lyric is now incorporated in our version of Queen Mab, I omit it here. I may add that the motto prefixed by Shelley to the Damon of the World was as follows: "Nec tantum prodere vati Quantum scire licet. Venit ætas omnis in unam Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot sæcula pectus." Shelley also added, after the preface to Alastor reprinted in our text, the following concluding paragraph: "The fragment entitled The Damon of the World is a detached part of a poem which the author does not intend for publication. The metre in which it is composed is that of Samson Agonistes and the Italian pastoral drama; and may be considered as the natural measure into which poetical conceptions expressed in harmonious language necessarily fall." P. 92. Letter to the Editor of the Examiner. As supplementary to this letter on the piracy of Queen Mab, I may here extract what Shelley wrote on the same subject to Mr. Gisborne (16th June 1821).* “A droll circumstance has occurred. Queen Mab, a poem written by me when very young, in the most furious style, with long notes against Jesus Christ, and God the Father, and the king, and bishops, and marriage, and the devil knows what, is just published by one of the low booksellers in the Strand, against my wish and consent; and all the people are at loggerheads about it. Horatio Smith gives me this account. You may imagine how much I am amused. For the sake of a dignified appearance, however, and really because I wish to protest against all the bad poetry in it-I have given orders to say that it is all done against my desire; and have directed my attorney to apply to Chancery for an injunction, which he will not get." In another letter (to Mr. Ollier, 11th June 1821) Shelley speaks of Queen Mab as "villainous trash." He was right in anticipating that an injunction in Chancery would not be granted: the publisher was, however, prosecuted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice; and even as late as 1840 a conviction followed the republication of Queen Mab. P. 93. Mr. Peacock says of this poem: "Shelley. was at a loss for a title, and I proposed that which he adopted-Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude. The Greek word aλáσTwp is an evil genius, kakodaíμwv; though the sense of the two words is somewhat different—as in φανεὶς ἀλάστωρ ἢ κακὸς δαίμων ποθέν of Eschylus. The poem treated the 'spirit of solitude' as a spirit of evil. I mention the true meaning of the word, because many have supposed 'Alastor' to be the name of the hero of the poem." (Fraser's Magazine, January 1860). P. 93. "The good die first," &c. Some readers will like to be reminded that these impressive lines are Wordsworth's. In the original edition of Alastor, this stands "Herself a poet." It is not quite clear that that is a misprint: but I strongly incline to suppose it is, and therefore adhere to the reading of the collected editions. P. 99. "Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms." In the text, "Conduct:" which is an obvious violation of grammar. In order to save the frequent repetition passim of notes regarding the emendation of trivial (but not the less annoying) slips of grammar or syntax, I here append a list of the emendations of this sort which I have introduced into the text. P. 133. P. 155. P. 164. "Yet nor in painting's light, nor [or] mightier verse, Nor [or] sculpture's marble language." "In trance had laid [lain] me thus within a fiendish bark." "But in my cheek And lips a flush of gnawing fire did find Its [their] food and dwelling." + · Essays, Letters from Abroad, &c., vol. ii., p. 239. P. 168. P. 242. "And thou, dread Nature, which to every deed, P. 363. P. 458. Vol. ii., P. 59. P. 81. P. 85. P. 88. P. 133. P. 157. P. 160. P. 178. P. 296. P. 307. P. 401. P. 433 P. 445. With the soft burthen of intensest bliss It is their [its] work to bear." "If you divide suffering or [and] dross, you may "Thou too, O Comet, beautiful and fierce, Who drew'st [drew] the heart of this frail universe "Which sun or moon or zephyr draws [draw] aside.” "Thou, Like us shalt [shall] rule," &c. "The rushing torrents' [torrent's] restless gleam, Which, from those secret chasms in tumult welling, Meet in the Vale." "From their [its] own shapes magnificent." "What though thou with all thy dead "The . . . thou alone shouldst [should] be. As thou, sweet love, requitedst [requited] me." "The shadows [shadow] of thy moving wings imbue." "Was indeed one of that [those] deluded crew." "Or whom the sea, And [or] earth with her maternal ministry, Nourish innumerable." "We pray thee, and admonish thee with freedom, That thou do [dost] spare thy friends who visit thee." P. 107. "On every side now rose Rocks which in unimaginable forms Lifted their black and barren pinnacles In the light of evening, and (its precipice Obscuring) the ravine disclosed above, 'Mid toppling stones, black gulfs, and yawning caves |