dissent. The unique proof-leaf inserted in Shelley's own copy of Laon and Cythna (see pages 95 to 97 of this volume and also Appendix II) seems to me to indicate modifications important enough; and I think there is at all events a strong probability that great fastidiousness, involving in the event pretty considerable revisions of the proof sheets, are at the root of the strikingly corrupt state of the original edition of Laon and Cythna. I have, however, dwelt at some length on this subject in the Appendix to the present volume, and need only add here that the Alastor volume bears no evidence of careless revision, and that The Cenci and Adonais, printed in Italy under Shelley's own supervision expressly in order to avoid error, though characteristically inconsistent in minute details, shew remarkably few actual errors left undetected by Shelley. What he may have done in the way of modification on the proof-sheets, there are no data on which to form a hypothesis. With this note of partial dissent, I return to Professor Baynes's remarks; and they certainly qualify to some extent the expression from which I have dissented: "Not that Shelley was careless as to expression, or at all wanting in critical power. On the contrary, he had the finest instinct for language, which he had early cultivated so as to acquire a wonderful mastery over the more vivid, ideal, and expressive elements of poetical diction. But for this, indeed, with his rapid habit of composition, eagerness to print, and neglect of all after revision, the verbal difficulties of his poems would be far more serious than they

are. Again, his prose writings show that he possessed a critical faculty of the rarest delicacy and penetration, a power of philosophical analysis of the keenest edge and finest temper. But the persistent exercise of this faculty upon his own poetry would have required an amount of deliberation and delay, a coolness of temperament, a power of standing aloof from his own work and regarding it in a purely objective point of view wholly foreign to Shelley's nature. In seasons of inspiration he concentrated his whole soul on the work in hand, wrought strenuously to invest his poetical conceptions with the light of language,' and present them to the world in the most perfect form, and having done so he deliberately left them to their fate. To have occupied himself afterwards in touching and retouching the finished work would have been in his view a waste of time. Such careful and minute critical revision could in any case only be undertaken in intervals of leisure as a reaction and relief from creative effort. But Shelley was always producing; the completion of one poetical work being almost invariably followed by the commencement of another."

Still, we know that, before his poems went to the press he did not regard it as a waste of time to touch and retouch them; and I must confess I do not think he would ever have regarded as a waste of time the removal of anything that he recognized as a blemish. The fact is, however, that our current notions on the subject of artistic blemishes are crude, narrow, and conventional; and I do

not believe Shelley would have admitted as blemishes one fiftieth of the small inconsistencies of detail which his editors have been at so much pains to remove. It is perfectly true that, as Professor Baynes says, the longer poems rarely display "perfect evenness of verbal and metrical finish," Shelley's ideal of perfection being in fact something much higher than that,—so much so that we might as soon expect perfect evenness of utterance from his own inspirers the West Wind and the Skylark as from Shelley, whose highest technical feat was the production of works of art perfectly artless in aspect, and having the air rather of growth than of elaboration. "His finest passages," continues Professor Baynes, "have a witchery of aërial music, an exquisiteness of ideal beauty, and a white intensity of spiritual passion. . . But the very qualities of mind and heart out of which these perfections spring carry with them the conditions of relative imperfection in the minor details of his work. The lyrical depth and impetuosity of feeling which carries Shelley on, and gives such freedom and grace to the poetical movement of his kindled thought, is unfavourable to perfect smoothness and accuracy in the mechanical details of his verse. He was often, in fact, too completely absorbed in the glorious substance of his poetry to give any minute attention to subordinate points of form. Thus, although from native fineness of ear his lines are never unrhythmical, the rhyme is often defective, and sometimes the metre as well. And while his thought, even in its most subtle refinements, is always lucid, the expres

sion, from haste or extreme condensation, is sometimes far from being clear." I have freely quoted these remarks because they are admirable in themselves and appropriate to the subject in hand, and also because I think they enforce by implication the principles of editing which I have desired to follow. The lesson that we have to learn is that it was inherent in the very nature of Shelley's mind that certain unevennesses, inconsistencies, and divergences of practice should find place in his work, and that, instead of suspecting corruption where these occur, we should feel satisfied of incorruption, and do all in our power to preserve the fruit of his spirit intact,-not try to make it like the fruit of some other and lesser spirit.

In regard to Mrs. Shelley's editions of her immortal husband's works, there is nothing to be said derogatory to the admiration and gratitude which we all owe her. It is not surprising that, in the proximity of so radiant a source of light, she should have seen no need for studying minutely the details of a series of texts, faulty from several causes, and irregular to some extent owing to changes of method on the part of the author. In her lifetime the period had not arrived for the study of characteristic irregularities and changes in minute matters connected with Shelley's works; and she had quite enough to do in searching out new poems and passages of poems from among the mass of confused and undigested manuscripts which he left. On the text itself she probably worked pretty hard: but the measure of original genius with which she was herself endowed, though marking

her out for independent admiration, was rather a disqualification than otherwise for the editing of texts. Still, she must, through her intimate acquaintance with the mind and heart of Shelley, have been enabled to preserve and supply much of the spirit of his works that no one else could have seized in a situation similar to that in which she worked; and it is also fair to assume that some of the more important variations between the original and posthumous editions of his poems rest on something more than the intuition of his widow,— that she had, in some instances, manuscript authority for modifying passages in his poetry. That she also modified without such authority, there is no reasonable doubt; so that a re-editor has, necessarily, to use his own judgment, and whatever means are at his command, to discriminate between the authoritative and unauthoritative variations of Mrs. Shelley's editions from the originals. Having come to the definite conclusion that the changes in orthography and punctuation shewn by the posthumous editions are as a rule unauthoritative, I have not generally deemed it necessary to discuss or even note them; but I have carefully collated every page of the originals with the two collected editions of 1839, and sometimes with later editions, and have not failed to note all variations of importance to the sense, of course adopting them when they seem to be improvements, and have a decided air of authority. I have also noted in many instances variations which seem destructive or subversive of the sense, and which I do not think can possibly have any authority; and this has been done because, in an edition