this symptom sufficiently shows the true nature of my disease to be consumption. It is to my advantage that this malady is in its nature slow, and, if one is sufficiently alive to its advances, is susceptible of cure from a warm climate. In the event of its assuming any decided shape, it would be my duty to go to Italy without delay; and it is only when that measure becomes an indispensable duty that, contrary to both Mary's feelings and to mine, as they regard you, I shall go to Italy. I need not remind you (besides the mere pain endured by the survivors) of the train of evil consequences which my death would cause to ensue. I am thus circumstantial and explicit, because you seem to have misunderstood me. It is not health, but life, that I should seek in Italy; and that, not for my own sake — I feel that I am capable of trampling on all such weakness but for the sake of those to whom life may my be a source of happiness, utility, security, and honor, and to some of whom my death might be all that is the reverse.

"I ought to say, I cannot persevere in the meat diet. What you say of Malthus fills me, as far as my intellect is concerned, with life and strength. I believe that I have a most anxious desire that the time should quickly come that, even so far as you are personally concerned, you should be tranquil and independent. But when I consider the intellectual lustre with which you clothe this world, and how much the last generation of mankind may be benefited by that light, flowing forth without the intervention of one shadow, I am elevated above all thoughts which tend to you or myself as an individual, and become, by sympathy, part of those distant and innumerable minds to whom your writings must be present.

66

I meant to have written to you about Mandeville * solely; but I was so irritable and weak that I could not write, although I thought I had much to say. I have read Mandeville, but I must read it again soon, for the interest is of that irresistible and overwhelming kind, that the mind, in its influence, is like a cloud borne on by an impetuous wind—like one breath* Godwin's novel, so called. - Ed.

lessly carried forward, who has no time to pause, or observe the causes of his career. I think the power of Mandeville is inferior to nothing you have done; and, were it not for the character of Falkland,* no instance in which you have exerted that power of creation, which you possess beyond all contemporary writers, might compare with it. Falkland is still alone; power is, in Falkland, not, as in Mandeville, tumult hurried onward by the tempest, but tranquillity standing unshaken amid its fiercest rage. But Caleb Williams never shakes the deepest soul like Mandeville. It must be said of the latter, you rule with a rod of iron. The picture is never bright; and we wonder whence you drew the darkness with which its shades are deepened, until the epithet of tenfold might almost cease to be a metaphor. The noun smorfia touches some cord within us with such a cold and jarring power, that I started, and for some time could scarce believe but that I was Mandeville, and that this hideous grin was stamped upon my own face. In style and strength of expression, Mandeville is wonderfully great, and the energy and the sweetness of the sentiments scarcely to be equalled. Clifford's character, as mere beauty, is a divine and soothing contrast; and I do not think — if, perhaps, I except (and I know not if I ought to do so) the speech of Agathon in the Symposium of Plato — that there ever was produced a moral discourse more characteristic of all that is admirable and lovely in human nature, more lovely and admirable in itself, — than that of Henrietta to Mandeville, as he is recovering from madness. Shall I say that, when I discovered that she was pleading all this time sweetly for her lover, and when at last she weakly abandoned poor Mandeville, I felt an involuntary, and, perhaps, an unreasonable pang? Adieu!

66

Always most affectionately yours,

"P. S."

During the summer and autumn of 1817, Shelley had

* In the novel of Caleb Williams. Ed.

written the Revolt of Islam a poem which was originally put forth under the title of Laon and Cythna; or, the Revolution of the Golden City: a Vision of the Nineteenth Century. Mr. Ollier (from whose house proceeded the first volume of Keats) was the chief publisher; and some copies of the poem, with the original name, were issued a little before Christmas. Some apprehension, on the score of the bold doctrines advocated in its pages, induced Mr. Ollier to arrest the progress of the work for a while, with a view to obtaining some modification of particular parts. Hereupon Shelley wrote to his publisher a letter, which is a remarkable specimen of the courage with which he defied conventional opinions :

"DEAR SIR,

"Marlow, December 11th, 1817.

"IT is to be regretted that you did not consult your own safety and advantage (if you consider it connected with the non-publication of my book) before your declining the publication, after having accepted it, would have operated to so extensive and serious an injury to my views as now. The instances of abuse and menace, which you cite, were such as you expected, and were, as I conceived, prepared for. If not, it would have been just to me to have given them their due weight and consideration before. You foresaw, you foreknew, all that these people would say. You do your best to condemn my book before it is given forth, because you publish it, and then withdraw; so that no other bookseller will publish it, because one has already rejected it. You must be aware of the great injury which you prepare for me. If I had never consulted your advantage, my book would have had a fair hearing. But now it is first published, and then the publisher, as if the author had deceived him as to the contents of the work — and as if the inevitable consequence of its publication would

be ignominy and punishment - and as if none should dare to touch it or look at it-retracts, at a period when nothing but the most extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances can justify his retraction.

"I beseech you to reconsider the matter, for your sake no less than for my own. Assume the high and the secure ground of courage. The people who visit your shop, and the wretched bigot who gave his worthless custom to some other bookseller, are not the public. The public respect talent; and a large portion of them are already undeceived, with regard to the prejudices which my book attacks. You would lose some customers, but you would gain others. Your trade would be diverted into a channel more consistent with your own principles. Not to say that a publisher is in no wise pledged to all the opinions of his publications, or to any; and that he may enter his protest with each copy sold, either against the truth or the discretion of the principles of the books he sells. But there is a much more important consideration in the case. You are, and have been to a certain extent, the publisher. I don't believe that, if the book was quietly and regularly published, the Government would touch anything of a character so refined, and so remote from the conceptions of the vulgar. They would hesitate before they invaded a member of the higher circles of the republic of letters. they will make no distinctions; You might bring the arm of the now. Directly these scoundrels see that people are afraid of them, they seize upon them, and hold them up to mankind as criminals already convicted by their own fears. You lay yourself prostrate, and they trample on you. How glad they would be to seize on any connection of Hunt's, by this most powerful of all their arms-the terrors and self-condemnation of their victim. Read all the ex officio cases, and see what reward booksellers and printers have received for their sub

mission.

But, if they see us tremble, they will feel their strength. law down on us, by flinching

"If, contrary to common sense and justice, you resolve to

give me up, you shall receive no detriment from a connection with me in small matters, though you determine to inflict so serious a one on me in great. You shall not be at a farthing's expense. I shall still, so far as my powers extend, do my best to promote your interest. On the contrary supposition, even admitting you derive no benefit from the book itselfand it should be my care that you shall do so-I hold myself ready to make ample indemnity for any loss you may sustain.

"There is one compromise you might make, though that would be still injurious to me. Sherwood and Neely wished to be the principal publishers. Call on them, and say that it was through a mistake that you undertook the principal direction of the book, as it was my wish that it should be theirs, and that I have written to you to that effect. This, if it would be advantageous to you, would be detrimental to, but not utterly destructive of my views. To withdraw your name entirely, would be to inflict on me a bitter and undeserved injury.

"Let me hear from you by return of post. I hope that you will be influenced to fulfil your engagement with me, and proceed with the publication, as justice to me, and, indeed, a well-understood estimate of your own interest and character, demand. I do hope that you will have too much regard to the well-chosen motto of your seal * to permit the murmurs of a few bigots to outweigh the serious and permanent considerations presented in this letter. To their remonstrances, you have only to reply, 'I did not write the book; I am not responsible; here is the author's address state your objections to him. I do no more than sell it to those who inquire for it; and, if they are not pleased with their bargain, the author empowers me to receive the book and to return the money.' As to the interference of Government, nothing is more improbable that in any case it would be attempted; but, if it should,

"In omnibus libertas."