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I feel peculiar satisfaction in seizing the opportunity which your politeness places in my power, of expressing to you personally (as I may say) a high acknowledgment of my sense of your talents and principles, which, before I conceived it possible that I should ever know you, I sincerely entertained. Your "Empire of the Nairs," which I read this spring, succeeded in making me a perfect convert to its doctrines. I then retained no doubts of the evils of marriage, Mrs. Wollstonecraft reasons too well for that; but I had been dull enough not to perceive the greatest argument against it, until developed in the "Nairs," viz. prostitution both legal and illegal.

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I am a young man, not yet of age, and have now been married a year to a woman younger than myself. Love seems inclined to stay in the prison, and my only reason for putting him in chains, whilst convinced of the unholiness of the act, was, a knowledge that, in the present state of society, if love is not thus villainously treated, she, who is most loved, will be treated worse by a misjudging world. In short, seduction, which term could have no meaning in a rational society, has now a most tremendous one; the fictitious merit attached to chastity has made that a forerunner of the most terrible of ruins, which, in Malabar, would be a pledge of honour and homage. If there is any enormous and desolating crime, of which I should shudder to be accused, it is seduction.' I need not say how much I admire "Love ;" and

vinced of its morality, would have scrupled to send my Empire of the Nairs' to any minor, however promising his talents. In fact, I knew not of Shelley's existence, before he wrote for 'Love, an Allegory; when this poem being out of print, Mr. Hookham applied to me, and I lent him, for Shelley, my only remaining copy. Not long afterward, I received the following letter, of which Captain Medwin seems to have discovered the intended original amongst Shelley's papers.

'During the following winter, I knew not which most to admire in him, his talents, his enthusiasm, his angelic goodness, his manly character, or his youthful appearance. He showed me what he had finished of his " Queen Mab,' and the sketch of the remainder. I frequently objected to him that he went too far, and we discussed several points. We subsequently exchanged letters, but I never saw him after Buonaparte's overthrow, in 1814, when I returned to the

Continent, from which the atrocities of the Corsican had driven me."

In the foregoing passage, Lawrence refers, of course, to Medwin's Memoir in The Shelley Papers, first published in The Athenæum in 1832, and then in a separate form in 1833, the year before the issue of The Etonian out of Bounds; and the whole passage which he considers Medwin to have taken from the intended original is

"I abhor seduction as much as I adore love; and if I have conformed to the usages of the world on the score of matrimony, it is that disgrace always attaches to the weaker sex."

Whether this passage really stood in the draft that would seem to have come into Medwin's hands appears to me questionable enough: it may have so stood; but it is quite as likely that finding so cold a word as admire applied to Love, and not knowing that Love was the title of a book, Medwin saw fit to trim the phrase a little.

little as a British public seems to appreciate its merit, in never permitting it to emerge from a first edition, it is with satisfaction I find, that justice has conceded abroad what bigotry has denied at home.

I shall take the liberty of sending you any little publication I may give to the world. Mrs. S. joins with myself in hoping, if we come to London this winter, we may be favoured with the personal friendship of one whose writings we have learned to esteem.

Yours very truly,

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

LETTER XVII.

To THOMAS JEFFERSON HOGG.

Bishopgate, September, 1815.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Your letter has lain by me for the last week, reproaching me every day. I found it on my return from a water excursion on the Thames, the particulars of which will have been recounted in another letter. The exercise and dissipation of mind attached to such an expedition have produced so favourable an effect on my health, that my habitual dejection and irritability have almost deserted me, and I can devote six hours in the day to study without difficulty. I have been engaged lately in the commencement of several literary plans, which if my present temper of mind endures, I shall probably complete in the winter. I have consequently deserted Cicero or proceed but slowly with his philosophic dialogues. I have

read the Oration for the poet Archias, and am only disappointed with its brevity.

I have been induced by one of the subjects which I am now pursuing to consult Bayle. I think he betrays great obliquity of understanding and coarseness of feeling. I have also read the four first books of Lucan's Pharsalia, a poem as it appears to me of wonderful genius and transcending Virgil. Mary has finished the 5th book of the Eneid and her progress in Latin is such as to satisfy my best expectations.

The East wind-the wind of autumn-is abroad, and even now the leaves of the forest are shattered at every gust. When may we expect you? September is almost passed and October the month of your promised return is at hand, when we shall be happy to welcome you again to our fireside.

No events, as you know, disturb our tranquillity.

Adieu.

Ever affectionately yours,

1 This letter, which as far as I know has not appeared in print till now, represents a most important period of Shelley's life, and one of which but few letters are known. Those readers who have observed

PERCY B. SHELLEY.'

how many unfinished prose works have been conjecturally assigned to the year 1815 will know how to appreciate the statement in the text as to "the commencement of several literary plans."

LETTER XVIII.

To THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.1

Hotel de Sécheron, Geneva, May 15th, 1816.

AFTER a journey of ten days, we arrived at Geneva. The journey, like that of life, was variegated with intermingled rain and sunshine, though these many showers were to me, as you know, April showers, quickly passing away, and foretelling the calm brightness of summer.

The journey was in some respects exceedingly delightful, but the prudential considerations arising out of the necessity of preventing delay, and the continual attention to pecuniary disbursements, detract terribly from the pleasure of all travelling schemes.

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You live by the shores of a tranquil stream, among low and woody hills. You live in a free country, where you may act without restraint, and possess that which you possess in security; and so long as the name of

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1 This is a portion of the "very little original matter, curiously obtained," which Peacock refers to in speaking of Middleton's Shelley and his Writings, in Fraser's Magazine for June, 1858 (p. 644). In the same magazine for January, 1860, Peacock says (p. 99) that copies of two unpublished letters from Shelley to him were obtained by Middleton, who published "portions of them :" this and No. XIX are the portions. It is explained that the copies were made by Mrs. Shelley, and, being left accidentally at Marlow, "fell into unscrupulous

hands." The originals were sold among the rest at the sale of Peacock's books, &c., in June, 1866. The present letter I identify by means of the extract given in the auctioneer's catalogue, and am thus enabled to insert the date. The fact that Mrs. Shelley had kept a copy of this letter accounts for the occurrence of some of the finest passages from it in the Six Weeks' Tour, where they will be found incorporated in Letter No I, a letter dated two days later than this

one.

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