Plato says, with profound allegory, that Love is not itself beautiful, but seeks the possession of beauty; this idea seems embodied in the deformed dwarf who bids, with a voice as from a trumpet, Anthemion enter. After feast and music the natural result of the situation of the lovers' is related by the poet to have place. The last Canto relates the enjoyments and occupations of the lovers; and we are astonished to discover that any thing can be added to the gardens of Armida and Alcina, and the Bower of Bliss: the following description among many of a Bacchanalian dance is a remarkable instance of a fertile and elegant imagination.2 Oft, 'mid those palace-gardens fair, And as she moves, in all her charms, How many forms of grace can be. The youths and maids, her beauteous train, Follow fast in sportive ring, Some the torch and mystic cane, Some the vine-bough, brandishing; Some, in giddy circlets fleeting, The Corybantic timbrel beating: Pour the wine's red-sparkling tide, Which youths, with heads recumbent dancing, 1 Cancelled reading, their situa tion. 2 Cancelled reading, is worthy remark. 1 There must have been another leaf or two of the MS. The last leaf I have ends without completing the extract; and I have added the final couplet. Doubtless Shelley followed his friend's narrative to the catastrophe,-the slaying of Rhododaphne by Uranian Love, who, as he sends his shaft into her breast, exclaims With impious spells hast thou profaned My altars; and all-ruling Jove, Though late, yet certain, has unchained The vengeance of Uranian Love!CANTO VII, p. 159. How Anthemion finds himself with CANTO VII, pp. 148-50. the dead Rhododaphne near Calliroë's door, how Calliroë comes out, the spell of her trance being broken, to greet her lover, Shelley doubtless told in few words, and perhaps concluded with verses that must have commended themselves to him But when the maid Anthemion led CANTO VII, pp. 165-6. [A large portion of this fragment appeared in The Athenæum for the 1st of September, 1832, and was afterwards included in The Shelley Papers. Mrs. Shelley published the whole of what is here given in the Essays &c. (1840). Medwin's version, as far as it goes, has been collated with the more authoritative version of Mrs. Shelley here adopted; and all variations of the least importance are noted. After speaking of the fragment on Love, Mrs. Shelley says (Preface, page x) “The Coliseum' is a continuation to a great degree of the same subject. Shelley had something of the idea of a story in this. The stranger was a Greek,-nurtured from infancy exclusively in the literature of his progenitors, and brought up as a child of Pericles might have been; and the greater the resemblance, since Shelley conceived the idea of a woman, whom he named Diotima, who was his instructress and guide. In speaking of his plan, this was the sort of development he sketched; but no word more was written than appears in these pages." Mrs. Shelley adds that The Assassins (1814) was "composed many years before"; and Mr. Rossetti cannot be far wrong in assigning The Coliseum to the year 1819. Indeed Medwin assigns it to the winter of 1818-19, and (Shelley Papers, page 52) says, "Like Byrou in 'Childe Harold,' or Madame de Staël, he meant to have idealized himself in the principal character. This exquisite fragment he allowed me to copy," &c. It would be rash to set down to the characteristic way in which this opportunity was embraced the whole of the variations of text. It seems probable that, in adding to the fragment, Shelley revised the part already copied out by Medwin.-H. B. F.] |