PREFACE. [BY SHELLEY.] Φάρμακον ἦλθε, Βίων, ποτι σου στομα, φάρμακον εἶδες· 2 Ir is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem, a criticism upon the claims of its lamented. object to be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age. My known repugnance to the narrow principles of taste on which several of his earlier compositions were modelled, prove,3 at least that I am an 1 Shelley's indebtedness to Moschus for thoughts in Adonais is well known; but it is interesting to trace his familiarity with the Sicilian poet back some years. If Mr. Rossetti is right in assigning the Essay on Christianity to the year 1815 (and he is probably not far wrong), I think it is pretty clear that Shelley was then already in love with Moschus; for, written on the same paper with the missing fragment of that essay which was found among Hunt's papers by Mr. Mayer, there is the beginning of a translation of the third idyll,-the elegy on Bion, -a most beautiful fragment which will appear in Vol. IV. In caligraphy, it corresponds precisely with the prose fragment. * I am not aware that there ever was any separate London edition. What may by courtesy be termed the first English impression occurs in The Literary Chronicle for the 1st of December 1821, where, in a review of the poem that promises to quote the whole, the editor really did insert all but stanzas XIX to XXIV. The earliest separate reprint known to me is an octavo pamphlet published in 1829 with the imprint, "Cambridge: Printed by W. Metcalfe, and sold by Messrs. Gee & Bridges, Market-Hill." It contains the following notice: "The present edition is an exact reprint (a few typographical errors only being corrected,) of the first edition of the 'Adonais,'-dated, 'Pisa, with the types of Didot, MDCCCXXI.'” The minute variations from the original are far more considerable than the projectors seem to have been aware; but, in essential matters, it is a very accurate edition. Lord Houghton tells me that, when at Cambridge, he and Arthur Hallam (who brought a copy of the Pisa edition from Italy), and one or two others, resolved to get it reprinted; and, after some difficulty in finding a publisher, this was done. Lord Houghton cannot recollect whether he or Hallam edited the text but he remembers that Deighton, a proposed publisher, objected to the words "which was like Cain's or Christ's " (stanza XXXIV), and wanted to put asterisks for those names ! 3 Sic in Shelley's and Mrs. Shelley's editions grammar was so much a impartial judge. I consider the fragment of Hyperion, as second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years. of John Keats1 died at Rome of a consumption, in his twentyfourth year, on the 1821;2 and was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.3 The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I have dedicated these unworthy verses, was not less delicate and fragile than it was beautiful; and where cankerworms abound, what wonder, if it's young flower was blighted in the bud? The savage criticism on his Endymion, which appeared in the Quarterly Review, produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgments from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted. It may be well said, that these wretched men know not what they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders without heed as to whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made callous by many blows, or one, like Keats's composed of more penetrable stuff. is, to my knowledge, a most One of their associates, base and unprincipled calumniator. As to "Endymion"; was it a poem, whatever might be it's defects, to be treated contemptuously by those who had celebrated with various degrees of complacency and panegyric, "Paris," and "Woman," and a "Syrian Tale," and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne, and a long list of the illustrious obscure? Are these the men, who in their venal good nature, presumed to draw a parallel between, the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What gnat did they strain at here, after having swallowed all those camels? Against what woman taken in adultery, dares the foremost of these literary prostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone? Miserable man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse, that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but used none. The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's life were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready for the press. I am given to understand that the wound which his sensitive spirit had received from the criticism of Endymion, was exasperated by the bitter sense of unrequited benefits; the poor fellow seems to have been hooted from the stage of life, no less by those on whom he had wasted the promise of his genius, than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and his care. He was accompanied to Rome, and attended in his last illness by Mr. Severn, a young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been informed "almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every "prospect to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend." Had I known these circumstances before the completion of my poem, I should have been tempted to add my feeble tribute of applause to the more solid recompense which the virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own motives. 1 The author of Woman (a book of twaddlesome verse). Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from "such stuff as dreams are made of." His conduct is a golden augury of the success of his future career-may the unextinguished Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the creations of his pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name!1 1 Ina letter to Severn, dated the 29th of November, 1821, accompanying a copy of Adonais, Shelley says: "You will see, by the preface, that it was written before I could obtain any particular account of his last moments; all that I still know was communicated to me by a friend, who had derived his information from Colonel Finch. I have ventured to express, as I felt, the respect and admiration which your conduct towards him demands. "In spite of his transcendent genius, Keats never was, nor ever will be, a popular poet; and the total neglect and obscurity in which the astonishing remnants of his mind still lie, was hardly to be dissipated by a writer who, however he may differ from Keats in more important qualities, at least resembles him in that accidental one, a want of popularity. "I have little hope, therefore, that the poem I send you will excite any attention, nor do I feel assured that a critical notice of his writings would find a single reader. But for these considerations, it had been my intention to have collected the remnants of his compositions, and to have published them with a life and criticism."Life, Letters, &c., of John Keats, Vol. II, p. 101. |