passed hurriedly by with his donkey, giving Shelley a wide berth, and evidently thinking that the melancholy Englishman had now become a raving maniac." (Trelawny, 1822).

"With how unconquerable an aversion do I shrink from political articles in newspapers and reviews! I have heard people talk politics by the hour, and how I hated it and them! I went with my father several times to the House of Commons, and what creatures did I see there! What faces! what an expression of countenance! what wretched beings!" (Shelley, as reported by Hogg, circa 1811).—“ A newspaper never found its way to his rooms the whole period of his residence at Oxford; but, when waiting in a bookseller's shop, or at an inn, he would sometimes, although rarely, permit his eye to be attracted by a murder or a storm. If it chanced to stray to a political article, after reading a few lines he invariably threw it aside to a great distance; and he started from his seat, his face flushing, and strode about muttering broken sentences, the purport of which was always the same-his extreme dissatisfaction at the want of candour and fairness and the monstrous disingenuousness which politicians manifest in speaking of the characters and measures of their rivals." (Hogg, circa 1811)." Never have I seen him read a newspaper." (Medwin, circa 1821).

"I was about to enter Covent Garden when an Irish labourer whom I met, bearing an empty hod, accosted me somewhat roughly, and asked why I had run against him: I told him briefly that he was mistaken. He discoursed for some time with the vehemence of a man who considers himself injured or insulted; and he concluded, being emboldened by my long silence, with a cordial invitation just to push him again. Several persons not very unlike in costume had gathered round him, and appeared to regard him with sympaihy. When he paused, I addressed to him slowly and quietly, and (it should seem) with great gravity, these words, as nearly as I can recollect them: 'I have put my hand into the hamper, I have looked upon the sacred barley, I have eaten out of the drum, I have drunk and was well pleased; I have said kò̟yğ öμπağ, and it is finished.'— 'Have you, sir?' enquired the astonished Irishman; and his ragged friends instantly pressed round him with 'Where is the hamper, Paddy?' 'What barley?' and the like. I turned therefore to the right, leaving the astounded neophyte, whom I had thus planted, to expound the mystic words of initiation as

he could to his inquisitive companions. I marvelled at the ingenuity of Orpheus—if he were indeed the inventor of the Eleusinian mysteries-that he was able to devise words that (imperfectly as I had repeated them, and in the tattered fragment that has reached us) were able to soothe people so savage and barbarous. Kooy oμra, and it is finished!' exclaimed Shelley, crowing with enthusiastic delight at my whimsical adventure [afterwards narrated to him]. A thousand times, as he strode about the house, and in his rambles out of doors, would he stop, and repeat aloud the mystic words of initiation; but always with an energy of manner, and a vehemence of tone and of gesture, that would have prevented the ready acceptance which a calm passionless delivery had once procured for them. How often would he throw down his book, clasp his hands, and, starting from his seat, cry suddenly with a thrilling voice, 'I have said koyg bμağ, and it is finished!'" (Hogg, circa 1811).

"To be always in a hurry was Bysshe's grand and first rule of conduct. His second canon of practical wisdom-and this he esteemed hardly less important than the former-was to make a mystery of everything, to treat as a profound secret matters manifest, patent, and fully known to everybody. A lively fancy, which imagined difficulties and created obstacles where none existed, was the true cause of a course of dealing that was troublesome and injurious to himself, and to all connected with him." (Hogg, circa 1811).

"I am determined to apply myself to a study that is hateful and disgusting to my very soul, but which is above all other studies necessary for him who would be listened to as a mender of antiquated abuses—I mean that record of crimes and miseries, history." (Shelley, 1812).—“I am unfortunately little skilled in English history; and the interest which it excites in me is so feeble that I find it a duty to attain merely to that general knowledge of it which is indispensable." (Ditto, 1818).

"He took strange caprices, unfounded frights and dislikes, vain apprehensions and panic terrors, and therefore he absented ''himself from formal and sacred engagements. He was unconscious and oblivious of times, places, persons, and seasons. When he was caught, the king of beauty and fancy would too commonly bolt. His flight from society was usually surreptitious and stealthy; but I have observed him to start up hastily, to declare publicly that his presence was imperatively required

elsewhere on matters of moment, and to retreat with as much noise and circumstance as an army breaking up its camp.” (Hogg, circa 1813).—" Amongst the persons who called on him at Bishopgate was one whom he tried hard to get rid of, but who forced himself on him in every possible manner. He saw him at a distance one day as he was walking down Egham Hill; and instantly jumped through a hedge, ran across a field, and laid himself down in a dry ditch. Some men and women who were haymaking in the field ran up to see what was the matter, when he said to them: 'Go away, go away! Don't you see it's a bailiff?' On which they left him, and he escaped discovery." (Peacock, circa 1815).-" One morning I was in Mrs. Williams's drawing-room. Shelley stood before us with a most woful expression. 'Mary says she will have a party! There are English singers here, the Sinclairs; and she will ask them, and every one she or you know-oh the horror! For pity go to Mary, and intercede for me. I will submit to any other species of torture than that of being bored to death by idle ladies and gentlemen.' After various devices, it was resolved that Ned Williams should wait upon the lady, and see what he could do to avert the threatened invasion of the poet's solitude. Ned returned with a grave face. 'The lady,' commenced Ned, 'has set her heart on having a party, and will not be baulked.' But, seeing the poet's despair, he added: 'It is to be limited to those here assembled, and some of Count Gamba's family; and, instead of a musical feast-as we have no souls-we are to have a dinner.' The poet hopped off rejoicing; making a noise that I should have thought whistling, but that he was ignorant of that accomplishment. Shelley in society, not thinking of himself, was as much at ease as in his own home; omitting no occasion of obliging those whom he came in contact with, readily conversing with all or any who addressed him, irrespective of age or rank, dress or address." (Trelawny, 1822).

"My greatest content would be utterly to desert all human society. I would retire with you and our child to a solitary island in the sea; would build a boat; and shut upon my retreat the floodgates of the world. I would read no reviews, and talk with no authors. If I dared trust my imagination, it would tell me that there are one or two chosen companions beside yourself whom I should desire. But to this I would not listen: where two or three are gathered together, the devil is among

them. And good far more than evil impulses, love far more than hatred, has been to me, except as you have been its object, the source of all sorts of mischief. So on this plan I would be alone; and would devote either to oblivion or to future generations the overflowings of a mind which, timely withdrawn from the contagion, should be kept fit for no baser object. The other side of the alternative (for a medium ought not to be adopted) is to form for ourselves a society of our own class, as much as possible, in intellect or in feelings; and to connect ourselves with the interests of that society. Our roots never struck so deeply as at Pisa." (Shelley to his wife, 1821).

"I knew Shelley more intimately than any man, but I never could discern in him any more than two fixed principles. The first was a strong irrepressible love of liberty; of liberty in the abstract, and somewhat after the pattern of the ancient republics, without reference to the English constitution-respecting which he knew little and cared nothing, heeding it not at all. The second was an equally ardent love of toleration of all opinions, but more especially of religious opinions-of toleration, complete, entire, universal, unlimited; and as a deduction and corollary from which latter principle he felt an intense abhorrence of persecution of every kind, public or private." (Hogg, circa 1814).

"He was one day going to town with me in the Hampstead stage when our only companion was an old lady, who sat silent and still after the English fashion. Shelley was fond of quoting a passage from Richard the Second, in the commencement of which the king, in the indulgence of his misery, exclaims,

'For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.'

Shelley, who had been moved into the ebullition by something objectionable which he thought he saw in the face of our companion, startled her into a look of the most ludicrous astonishment by suddenly calling this passage to mind, and, in his en1 thusiastic tone of voice, addressing me by name with the first 'Hunt,' he exclaimed,

two lines.

'For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.'

The old lady looked on the coach-floor, as if expecting to see us take our seats accordingly."* (Leigh Hunt, 1817).

The reader who wishes to judge whether some of Hogg's anecdotes should not be taken cum grano salis, may compare this temperate and authentic version of the matter with that in Hogg's Life, vol. ii. pp. 304-7.

"Shelley, in coming to our house that night, had found a woman lying near the top of the hill, in fits. It was a fierce winter night, with snow upon the ground; and winter loses nothing of its fierceness at Hampstead. My friend, always the promptest as well as most pitying on these occasions, knocked at the first house he could reach, in order to have the woman taken in. The invariable answer was that they could not do it. Time flies; the poor woman is in convulsions—her son, a young man, lamenting over her. At last my friend sees a carriage driving up to a house at a little distance. He plants himself in the way of an elderly person, who is stepping out of the carriage with his family. He tells his story: they only press on the faster. 'Will you go and see her?' 'No, sir; there's no necessity for that sort of thing, depend on it. Impostors swarm everywhere the thing cannot be done. Sir, your conduct is extraordinary.' 'Sir,' cried Shelley, assuming a very different manner, and forcing the flourishing householder to stop out of astonishment, 'I am sorry to say that your conduct is not extraordinary; and, if my own seems to amaze you, I will tell you something which may amaze you a little more, and I hope will frighten you. It is such men as you who madden the spirits and the patience of the poor and wretched; and, if ever a convulsion comes in this country (which is very probable), recollect what I tell you :-You will have your house, that you refuse to put the miserable woman into, burnt over your head!' 'God bless me, sir! Dear me, sir!' exclaimed the poor frightened man, and fluttered into his mansion. The woman was then brought to our house, which was at some distance, and down a bleak path (it was in the Vale of Health);* and Shelley and her son were obliged to hold her till the doctor could arrive." (Leigh Hunt, circa 1817).

"When Shelley was staying in the villa of the Gisbornes, a most droll incident occurred. It appears that the servants, Giuseppe and Annunziata, who were man and wife, had been left behind with the Shelleys. One evening there had sprung up a thorough conjugal tempest; and Shelley, hearing Giuseppe abusing his wife very savagely, and also ill-using her, rushed upon him with a pistol, shouting, 'I'll shoot you, I'll shoot you! The startled fellow ran for his very life, Shelley

• Mr. Thornton Hunt believes that Shelley carried the woman on his back for some way down the Vale of Health, her son's strength having begun to fail him. VOL. I.