[In addition to the Fragment of Prince Athanase there was a selection of smaller poems which Shelley meant to have published with Julian and Maddalo. In a letter to Mr. Ollier, dated "Pisa, November 10th, 1820," printed in the Shelley Memorials (pp. 139 and 140), he says: "I send some poems to be added to the pamphlet of Julian and Maddalo. I think you have some other smaller poems belonging to that collection. . . . The Julian and Maddalo, and the accompanying poems, are all my saddest verses raked up into one heap. I mean to mingle more smiles with my tears in future." These remarks may not afford a sufficient key to the poems which were intended; but we cannot be far wrong in selecting from the Posthumous Poems all the saddest lyrics written before the end of 1820 and not published till they appeared in that volume in 1824. It will be remembered that Mrs. Shelley recovered from Mr. Ollier a quantity of MSS. for the purposes of that volume (eventually issued by John and Henry L. Hunt); and it is but natural to assume that the lyrics for the Julian and Maddalo collection were among them. I do not pretend to infallibility in the selection which, on these data, I have made from the Posthumous Poems, and placed after Prince Athanase; but it seems to me that the arrangement must be according to the spirit of Shelley's intention.-H. B. F.]

PRINCE ATHANAS E.1

A FRAGMENT.

PART I.

THERE was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,
Had grown quite weak and grey before his time;
Nor any could the restless griefs unravel

Which burned within him, withering up his prime
And goading him, like fiends, from land to land.
Not his the load of any secret crime,

For nought of ill his heart could understand,
But pity and wild sorrow for the same;—
Not his the thirst for glory or command

Baffled with blast of hope-consuming shame;
Nor evil joys which fire the vulgar breast
And quench in speedy smoke its feeble flame,

Had left within his soul their dark unrest:
Nor what religion fables of the grave
Feared he,-Philosophy's accepted guest.

1 Mrs. Shelley places this fragment

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mous Poems,-and "Marlow, 1817,"

among poems written in 1817. The at the end of the Fragments of Part

date "December, 1817." was printed at the end of Part I in the Posthu

II.

For none than he a purer heart could have,
Or that loved good more for itself alone;

Of nought in heaven or earth was he the slave.

What sorrow strange,1 and shadowy, and unknown,
Sent him, a hopeless wanderer, through mankind? 20
If with a human sadness he did groan,

He had a gentle yet aspiring mind;
Just, innocent, with varied learning fed,
And such a glorious consolation find

In others' joy, when all their own is dead:
He loved, and laboured for his kind in grief,
And yet, unlike all others, it is said,

That from such toil he never found relief;
Although a child of fortune and of power,

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Of an ancestral name the orphan chief.2

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His soul had wedded wisdom, and her dower
Is love and justice, clothed in which he sate
Apart from men, as in a lonely tower,

Pitying the tumult of their dark estate-
Yet even in youth did he not e'er abuse

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The strength of wealth or thought, to consecrate

Those false opinions which the harsh rich use
To blind the world they famish for their pride;
Nor did he hold from any man his dues,

1 In the Posthumous Poems the adjective here is deep strange is given in the collected editions.

2 In the Posthumous Poems the fullstop is here; but in the later editions it is shifted back to relief, and a

comma placed at chief. I think this change is wrong. The antithesis between wealth and work is natural, -that between wealth and wisdom strained to the last degree.

But like a steward in honest dealings tried

With those who toiled and wept, the poor and wise, His riches and his cares he did divide.

Fearless he was, and scorning all disguise,

What he dared do or think, though men might start,

He spoke with mild yet unaverted eyes;

Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart,
And to his many friends-all loved him well-
Whate'er he knew or felt he would impart,

If words he found those inmost thoughts to tell;
If not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes
He neither spurned nor hated, though with fell

And mortal hate their thousand voices rose,
They past like aimless arrows from his ear-
Nor did his heart or mind its portal close

To those, or them, or any whom life's sphere
May comprehend within its wide array.
What sadness made that vernal spirit sere?

He knew not. Though his life, day after day,
Was failing like an unreplenished stream,
Though in his eyes a cloud and burthen lay,

Through which his soul, like Vesper's serene beam
Piercing the chasms of ever rising clouds,
Shone, softly burning; though his lips did seem

Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods;
And through his sleep, and o'er each waking hour,
Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,

Were driven within him, by some secret power,
Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar,
Like lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower

O'er castled mountains borne, when tempest's war
Is levied by the night-contending winds,
And the pale dalesmen watch with eager ear;—

Though such were in his spirit, as the fiends
Which wake and feed on everliving woe,-
What was this grief, which ne'er in other minds

A mirror found,-he knew not-none could know;
But on whoe'er might question him he turned
The light of his frank eyes, as if to show,

He knew not of the grief within that burned,
But asked forbearance with a mournful look;
Or spoke in words from which none ever learned

The cause of his disquietude; or shook
With spasms of silent passion; or turned pale:
So that his friends soon rarely undertook

To stir his secret pain without avail;—
For all who knew and loved him then perceived
That there was drawn an adamantine veil

Between his heart and mind,-both unrelieved
Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife.
Some said that he was mad, others believed

That memories of an antenatal life

Made this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell;
And others said that such mysterious grief

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