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.

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

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.

country and the selfish conceptions it includes shall subsist, England I am persuaded, is the most free and the most refined.

Perhaps you have chosen wisely, but if I return and follow your example, it will be no subject of regret to me that I have seen other things. Surely there is much. of bad and much of good, there is much to disgust, and much to elevate, which he cannot have felt or known who has never passed the limits of his native land.

So long as man is such as he now is, the experience of which I speak will never teach him to despise the country of his birth-far otherwise, like Wordsworth, he will never know what love subsists between that and him until absence shall have made its beauty more heartfelt; our poets and our philosophers, our mountains and our lakes, the rural lanes and fields which are so especially our own, are ties which, until I become utterly senseless, can never be broken asunder.

These, and the memory of them, if I never should return, these and the affections of the mind, with which, having been once united, are' inseparable, will make the name of England dear to me for ever, even if I should permanently return to it no more.

But I suppose you did not pay the postage of this, expecting nothing but sentimental gossip, and I fear it will be long before I play the tourist properly. I will, however, tell you that to come to Geneva we crossed the Jura branch of the Alps.

The mere difficulties of horses, high bills, postilions, and cheating, lying aubergistes, you can easily conceive;

There seems to be something wanting here, perhaps the word we before are; but I am not sure

that that is the right reading, and therefore leave the text as Middleton left it.

fill up that part of the picture according to your own experience, and it cannot fail to resemble.

The mountains of Jura exhibit scenery of wonderful sublimity. Pine forests of impenetrable thickness, and untrodden, nay, inaccessible expanse, spreading on every side. Sometimes descending they follow the route into the valleys clothing the precipitous rocks, and struggling with knotted roots between the most barren clefts. Sometimes the road winds high into the regions of frost, and there these forests become scattered, and loaded with

snow.

The trees in these regions are incredibly large, and stand in scattered clumps over the white wilderness. Never was scene more awfully desolate than that which we passed on the evening of our last day's journey.

The natural silence of that uninhabited desert contrasted strangely with the voices of the people who conducted us, for it was necessary in this part of the mountain to take a number of persons, who should assist the horses to force the chaise through the snow, and prevent it from falling down the precipice.

I

We are now at Geneva, where, or in the neighbourhood, we shall remain probably until the autumn. may return in a fortnight or three weeks, to attend to the last exertions which L is to make for the settlement of my affairs; of course I shall then see you; in the meantime it will interest me to hear all that you have to tell of yourself.

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P. B. SHELLEY.

Longdill, Shelley's solicitor, I presume.