Page:Rosalind and Helen (Shelley, Forman).djvu/7

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ADVERTISEMENT.

[By Shelley.]

The story of "Rosalind and Helen" is, undoubtedly, not an attempt in the highest style of poetry.^[1] It is in no degree calculated to excite profound meditation; and if, by interesting the affections and amusing the imagination, it awaken a certain ideal melancholy favourable to the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned myself, as I wrote, to the impulse of the feelings which moulded the conception of the story; and this

↑ Mrs. Shelley tells us that Rosalind and Helen was begun at Marlow, and thrown aside till she found it, when, at her request, Shelley ﬁnished it at the Baths of Lucca in the Summer of 1818; and Lady Shelley (Memorials, p. 87) says that a large part of it was written in 1817 (when the Shelley’s lived at Marlow); but it is not stated whether this was in the Spring or “’inter,—before or after the composition of Laon and Cythna, which occupied the summer and autumn. The lapse of many eventful months may account for some of the inconsistencies in detail; and the fact that Shelley had to be urged to ﬁnish it at all shews how little he prized it, and how little, therefore, he would have been likely to bring it up to any high degree of ﬁnish. In a letter to Peacock, written from Rome on the 6th of April 1819, while this Eclogue was being printed, the poet, after enquiring with some anxiety after the safety of his Lines written among the Euganean Hills, says of Rosalind and Helen, “ I lay no stress on it one way or the other.” On the whole, therefore, I should imagine that it was hastily written with the full knowledge that such was the case, and that Shelley deliberately declined to reduce it to perfection of detail, however willing to correct“ errors in the sense”. If so, to attempt to make good the omission of rhymes and so on is simply to invade the poem with rash assistance, and forget the fate of Uzza. The very inlperfections have a value; and the great beauty of passages in every page becomes the more wonderful.

[1] Mrs. Shelley tells us that Rosalind and Helen was begun at Marlow, and thrown aside till she found it, when, at her request, Shelley ﬁnished it at the Baths of Lucca in the Summer of 1818; and Lady Shelley (Memorials, p. 87) says that a large part of it was written in 1817 (when the Shelley’s lived at Marlow); but it is not stated whether this was in the Spring or “’inter,—before or after the composition of Laon and Cythna, which occupied the summer and autumn. The lapse of many eventful months may account for some of the inconsistencies in detail; and the fact that Shelley had to be urged to ﬁnish it at all shews how little he prized it, and how little, therefore, he would have been likely to bring it up to any high degree of ﬁnish. In a letter to Peacock, written from Rome on the 6th of April 1819, while this Eclogue was being printed, the poet, after enquiring with some anxiety after the safety of his Lines written among the Euganean Hills, says of Rosalind and Helen, “ I lay no stress on it one way or the other.” On the whole, therefore, I should imagine that it was hastily written with the full knowledge that such was the case, and that Shelley deliberately declined to reduce it to perfection of detail, however willing to correct“ errors in the sense”. If so, to attempt to make good the omission of rhymes and so on is simply to invade the poem with rash assistance, and forget the fate of Uzza. The very inlperfections have a value; and the great beauty of passages in every page becomes the more wonderful.

[1]