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FAUST.

Accompany thyself to us-come here!

WAGNER.

It is a blundering foolish beast. Thou standest stillhe waits too thou speakest him to-he struggles to thee only on loose what he would it bring, after thy stick in the water would spring.

FAUST.

Thou hast well: I find not the step of a ghost, and all is ...

WAGNER.

With a dog, when he well pulls, will himself a wise man weigh. Yes, thy affection desires he quite and entirely; he of students the most excellent scholar.

LETTERS WRITTEN BEFORE THE

FINAL DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND.

66

[The following letters are given either for their interest in connexion with Shelley's literary career, or as having some strong independent interest. Some are gathered from outlying publications which have but little of Shelley's ipsissima verba in them; and others are published from the original manuscripts. The first in the series, from an autograph letter in the possession of Mr. Frederick Locker, is chiefly valuable on account of its evidence of Shelley's early engagement in literary projects. When Mr. Garnett discovered the letters in Stockdale's Budget, he pointed out (Macmillan's Magazine, June, 1860, article, “Shelley in Pall Mall”) that the one about the Victor and Cazire Poems, dated the 6th of September, 1810, was the earliest extant except "the childish note printed by Medwin." The letter to Messrs. Longman and Co., now placed first in the series, is dated sixteen months earlier than the first to Stockdale, and must take its place as the opening of Shelley's literary correspondence, until superseded by further discovery. Mr. Garnett explained to his readers that Stockdale's Budget was a periodical issued in 1827; a sort of appendix to the more celebrated 'Memoirs of Harriet Wilson;"" and such an explanation is still more or less necessary; for though Shelley's letters to Stockdale have been more than once reprinted, Stockdale's memoirs of his connexion with the youthful author have never been republished in extenso. Indeed, though they might form a proper appendix to an exhaustive biography, they have no literary value whatever, and only a mediocre biographic value. All the letters given in the Budget Series are here reprinted. Their genuineness is beyond question; and of one of them I have seen the original in Shelley's writing. The letter to Sir James Lawrence has been unduly left out of sight, because the obscurity of the book in which it first appeared seems to have emboldened the forger of the spurious letters of 1852 to copy it out in a quasi-Shelleyan hand and sell it as an original; but there is no possibility of doubt that the composition is Shelley's. The same may be said of all the twenty-one given in this group.-H. B. F.]

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It is my intention to complete and publish a Romance' of which I have already written a large portion, before the end of July. My object in writing it was not pecuniary, as I am independent, being the heir of a gentleman of large fortune in the county of Sussex, and prosecuting my studies as an Oppidan at Eton; from the many leisure hours I have, I have taken an opportunity of indulging my favourite propensity in writing. Should

it produce any pecuniary advantages, so much the better for me, I do not expect it. If you would be so kind as to answer this, direct it to me at the Rev. George Bethell's.

1 We need not doubt that the reference is to Zastrozzi. Messrs. Longman & Co's memorandum on the letter is "We shall be happy

to see the MS. when finished." If they ever saw it, it would seem it did not suit them, as it was published elsewhere.

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