join any party. He did not in his tion. Another of his favourite books youth look forward to gradual improvement: nay, in those days of intolerance, now almost forgotten, it seemed as easy to look forward to the sort of millennium of freedom and brotherhood which he thought the proper state of mankind as to the present reign of moderation and improvement. Ill-health made him believe that his race would soon be run; that a year or two was all he had of life. He desired that these years should be useful and illustrious. He in a fervent call on his fellowcreatures to share alike the blessings of the creation, to love and serve each other, the noblest work that life and time permitted him. In this spirit he composed Queen Mab.

saw,

He was a lover of the wonderful and wild in literature, but had not fostered these tastes at their genuine sources— the romances and chivalry of the middle ages-but in the perusal of such German works as were current in those days. Under the influence of these he, at the age of fifteen, wrote two short prose romances of slender merit. The sentiments and language were exaggerated, the composition imitative and poor. He wrote also a poem on the subject of Ahasuerus-being led to it by a German fragment he picked up, dirty and torn, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. This fell afterwards into other hands, and was considerably altered before it was printed. Our earlier English poetry was almost unknown to him. The love and knowledge of Nature developed by Wordsworth-the lofty melody and mysterious beauty of Coleridge's poetry --and the wild fantastic machinery and gorgeous scenery adopted by Southey -composed his favourite reading; the rhythm of Queen Mab was founded on that of Thalaba, and the first few lines bear a striking resemblance in spirit, though not in idea, to the opening of that poem. His fertile imagination, and ear tuned to the finest sense of harmony, preserved him from imita

was the poem of Gebir by Walter Savage Landor. From his boyhood he had a wonderful facility of versification, which he carried into another language; and his Latin school-verses were composed with an ease and correctness that procured for him prizes, and caused him to be resorted to by all his friends for help. He was, at the period of writing Queen Mab, a great traveller within the limits of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His time was spent among the loveliest scenes of these countries. Mountain and lake and forest were his home; the phenomena of Nature were his favourite study. He loved to inquire into their causes, and was addicted to pursuits of natural philosophy and chemistry, as far as they could be carried on as an amusement. These tastes gave truth and vivacity to his descriptions, and warmed his soul with that deep admiration for the wonders of Nature which constant association with her inspired.

He never intended to publish Queen Mab as it stands; but a few years after, when printing Alastor, he extracted a small portion which he entitled The Daemon of the World. In this he changed somewhat the versification, and made other alterations scarcely to be called improvements.

Some years after, when in Italy, a bookseller published an edition of Queen Mab as it originally stood. Shelley was hastily written to by his friends, under the idea that, deeply injurious as the mere distribution of the poem had proved, the publication might awaken fresh persecutions. At the suggestion of these friends he wrote a letter on the subject, printed in the Examiner newspaper-with which I close this history of his earliest work.

To THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER.' 'SIR,

'Having heard that a poem entitled Queen Mab has been surreptitiously

published in London, and that legal | sacred cause of freedom. I have directed proceedings have been instituted my solicitor to apply to Chancery for an against the publisher, I request the favour of your insertion of the following explanation of the affair, as it relates

[Of the following pieces the Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, the Poems from St. Irvyne, or The Rosicrucian, The Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson and The Devil's Walk, were published by Shelley himself; the others by Medwin, Rossetti, Forman and Dowden, as indicated in the several prefatory notes.]

Sede tremenda. 20 It longs in thy cells to embosom its

DAR'ST thou amid the varied multitude 40 To live alone, an isolated thing? A Dialogue-22 o'er Esdaile MS.; on 1858. To the Moonbeam-28 rankle Esdaile MS.; wake 1858.

Shall usher to your fate. To Death-10 murderer Esdaile MS.; murders 1858.