Shelley (from Leghorn) to Peacock, April 6, 1819 : "By the by, have you seen Ollier? I never hear from him, and am ignorant whether some verses I sent him from Naples, entitled, I think, Lines on the Euganean Hills, have reached him in safety or not." Mrs. Shelley, Essays and Letters, ii. 213. "It was at I Capuccini that he etched though it appears that he did not complete the poem till his stay at Naples." Medwin, MS. note in a copy of his Life, quoted by Dowden, ii. 233. "Others, as, for instance, Rosalind and Helen and Lines written among the Euganean Hills, I found among his papers by chance; and with some difficulty urged him to complete them." Mrs. Shelley, 18391, I. xi. The lines on Byron were interpolated after the poem was sent to the publisher, as is shown by Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson's copy of Rosalind and Helen. TEXT: 43 Rossetti's emendation is a correction. 54 Sea-mew's Rossetti. 115 Palgrave's emendation is plainly wrong. 175 Forman's emendation destroys the highly imaginative unity of the figure, and substitutes a mere mixed metaphor therefor. 218 Misery. See Mrs. Shelley's Note on Shelley at Naples, above, p. 503. On this Medwin comments: "Had she been able to disentangle the threads of the mystery, she would have attributed his feelings to more than purely physical causes. Among the verses which she had probably never seen till they appeared in print was the Invocation to Misery, an idea taken from Shakespeare — making love to Misery, betokening his soul lacerated to rawness by the tragic event above detailed — the death of his unknown adorer." Life, i. 330, 331. He refers to a story, previously told by him in The Angler in Wales, ii. 194, related by Shelley to him and Byron, that "the night before his departure from London in 1814 [1816], he re ceived a visit from a married lady, young, handsome, and of noble connections, and whose disappearance from the world of fashion, in which she moved, may furnish to those curious in such inquiries a clue to her identity; " and he goes on to describe how, in spite of Shelley's entreaty and unknown to him, this lady followed him to the continent, kept near him, and at Naples, in this year, met him, told her wandering devotion, and there died. (Life, i. 324-329.) Medwin ascribes to this incident the next poem, and also the lines On a Faded Violet. Rossetti (i. 90) says he is "assured on good authority" that Medwin's connecting Misery with these events is "not correct." Lady Shelley says: "Of this strange narrative it will be sufficient to say here that not the slightest allusion to it is to be found in any of the family documents." (Shelley Memorials, p. 92.) Rossetti connects with the story Shelley's letter to Peacock, May, 1820, in which he refers to his health as affected "by certain moral causes," and also his letter to Ollier, December 15, 1819, in which he expresses his intention to "write three other poems [besides Julian and Maddalo] the scenes of which will be laid at Rome, Florence, and Naples, but the subjects of which will be all drawn from dreadful or beautiful realities, as that of this Miss Clairmont asserted that she knew the lady's name and had seen her. At Naples there died a little girl who was to some extent in Shelley's charge, and of whom he wrote with feeling. Dowden (ii. 252, 253), suggests some connection between the two incidents. was. TEXT: i. 1 by Rossetti, Forman. iv. 4 We will Forman. vi. 2 Thine arm shall be my Rossetti, Forman, Dowden. Mrs. Shelley's reading seems right, in poetic feeling. viii. 5 Forman's conjecture is prosaic. x. 2 lovers Rossetti. xi. 3 even Rossetti. Medwin's copy is inferior throughout to Mrs. state as well as errors of his own. 221 Stanzas written in dejection near Naples. See preceding Note. TEXT: i. 4 light 18391,2. 5 air 18392. These lines, as printed, are beyond doubt. POEMS WRITTEN IN 1819 [The material parts of Mrs. Shelley's note are given under the poems to which they refer.] 226 Lines written during the Castlereagh Administration. TEXT: i. 4 death omit 18391,2, Forman, Dowden. iv. 1 festal Forman. 4 which 18391,2, Rossetti, Forman, Dowden. v. 4 God 18391,2, Forman, Dowden. 5 thy Forman. MSS. Harvard, Frederickson. 228 To Sidmouth and Castlereagh. TEXT: ii. 2 hue 18391,2, 4 morn 18391,2. 229 England in 1819. Shelley (from Florence) to Hunt, November 23, 1819: “I send you a Sonnet. I don't expect you to publish it, but you may show it to whom you please." Hunt, Lord Byron, etc., i. 399. TEXT: 9 wield, 18392; wield, Rossetti; wield Forman, Dowden. 66 230 National Anthem. See below, note on Ode written October, 1819. TEXT: iii. 6 Where'er Rossetti conj. 232 Ode to Heaven. Mrs. Shelley, Essays and Letters, I. xii. : Shelley was a disciple of the immaterial philosophy of Berkeley. This theory gave unity and grandeur to his ideas, while it opened a wide field for his imagination. The creation, such as it was perceived by his mind a unit in immensity, was slight and narrow compared with the interminable forms of thought that might exist beyond, to be perceived per haps hereafter by his own mind; all of which are "Peace! the abyss is wreathed in scorn he expresses his despair of being able to conceive, far 234 An Exhortation. Shelley to Mrs. Gisborne, May 8, 1820: "As an excuse for mine and Mary's incurable stupidity, I send a little thing about poets, which is itself a kind of excuse for Wordsworth." Shelley Memorials, p. 141. MS. Harvard. 235 Ode to the West Wind. Shelley's Note: "This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapors which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. "The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it." TEXT: i. 13 are 18391. ii. 11 doom 18392. iv. 8 the 18392. 238 An Ode written October, 1819, before the Spaniards had recovered their Liberty. Mrs. Shelley's Note, 18392, p. 251: "Shelley loved the people, and respected them as often more virtuous, as always more suffering, and, therefore, more deserving of sympathy, than the great. He believed that a clash between the two classes of society was inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people's side. He had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate their circumstances and wrongs - he wrote a few, but in those days of prosecution for libel they could not be printed. They are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavors to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style; but they show his earnestness, and with what heartfelt compassion he went home to the direct point of injury that oppression is detestable, as being the parent of starvation, nakedness, and ignorance. Besides these outpourings of compassion and indignation, he had meant to adorn the cause he loved with loftier poetry of glory and triumph- such is the scope of the Ode to the Assertors of Liberty. He sketched also a new version of our national anthem, as addressed to Liberty." Rossetti adopts Mrs. Shelley's title, and notes that the poem is inspired by the Manchester massacre and addressed to Englishmen. MS. Montagu, with additional stanza. See FRAGMENTS, iii. 423. 240 On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery. Mrs. Shelley's Note, 18391, iv. 49: "We spent the latter part of the year 1819 in Florence, where Shelley passed several hours daily in the Gallery, and made various notes on its ancient works of art." TEXT: i. 5 seem 1824. 6 shrine 1824, 18391,2. iv. 2 these 18391,2. 242 The Indian Serenade. Medwin, Life, ii. 126: “For her [Mrs. Williams] were composed the exquisite lines, "I arise from dreams of thee," adapted to the cele |