Forman's text has been followed throughout. Recently discovered poems, such as the exquisite "Lines in the Bay of Lerici," have been inserted, and the titles of others rendered agreeable to Shelley's intention. In some instances this is very important; thus the lines at p. 347, and at p. 30, gain greatly in beauty and effectiveness by being known to be respectively addressed to Edward Williams and to Coleridge. The latter address is a remarkable instance of Shelley's psychological insight. Coleridge would not have written otherwise about himself. In conclusion, the hope may be expressed that a selection so well adapted for a wide circulation as the present may contribute to render Shelley a popular poet. The existing estrangement of the highest poetry from popular sympathy is equally to be regretted in the interest of the poet and his nation. The former cannot attain the full measure of his fame and influence until his words are household words: it is ill for the latter when its best minds are among it, but not of it. The Poets and readers have alike been in fault: some men of genius have wilfully chosen eccentric themes, or exhausted themselves in mere tours de force; while the deficient cultivation of the general public would restrict efforts made solely on its behalf to a very narrow area. But more in fault than either is the "false medium" of stereotyped criticism which interposes between the two. great poets of the early part of this century— long after they have proved themselves, in Shelley's own fine phrase, "the unacknowledged legislators of the world"—are, from the force of tradition, treated as if they were still under the ferule of Gifford or Jeffrey. The reader who comes to them with a fresh mind will discover that this is cant in its primary sense, not of hypocrisy, but of unthinking repetition. Wordsworth is not, with occasional exceptions, prosaic, or Coleridge indistinct, or Keats merely sensuous, or Shelley deficient in human interest or feeling. The only possible foundation for such a charge is, thatexcept in the "Cenci"-he does not embody his conceptions in personages derived from history or his own observation of life. Neither does Spenser, and Shelley is Spenser and Sappho too. Most of the other standard objections to his poetry proceed from mere inability to keep pace with a nimble and subtle intelligence, even when no remarkable intellectual effort seems to be required. A recent censor of the "Ode to the West Wind," for example, reproves Shelley for comparing leaves to ghosts, though he would have suffered him to compare ghosts to leaves. The same instinctive aversion to anything original has unconsciously inspired many another criticism of similar calibre. The only other serious obstacles to the general comprehension of Shelley are his erudition and the Italian atmosphere which envelops much of his poetry. Even these are less formidable than that dependence on local associations which, beyond the precincts of these islands, will probably be found to overbalance all the weighty claims to an European reputation preferred on Wordsworth's behalf by his latest editor. Shelley is at all events cosmopolitan : his fame may in the long run be rather promoted than impeded by its association with literatures and mythologies which have become imperishable constituents of human culture, and with regions of the earth so renowned as to be in a manner familiar to those who have never beheld them. This much may be affirmed, that Shelley's hopes of ultimate enrolment among the select band of the supreme poets of the world rest upon the same foundation as the hopes of the world itself. Enlightenment and the enthusiasm of humanity will always insure him readers: prevalent barbarism or materialism would extinguish him more speedily and effectually than any other writer. November 12, 1879. R. GARNETT. ALASTOR; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. EARTH, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood! Your love, and recompense the boon with mine; I consciously have injured, but still loved |