[The Elysian Fields is printed from a MS. in Slielley's writing, so headed, in my possession: I presume it belongs to about the same period as the Marlow Pamphlets. In a letter dated the 20th of January, 1821 (Shelley Memorials, page 136), Shelley thus refers to a paper by Archdeacon Hare in Olliers Literary Miscellany: "I was immeasurably amused by the quotation from Schlegel, about the way in which the popular faith is destroyed—first the Devil, then the Holy Ghost, then God the Father. I had written a Lucianic essay to prove the same thing." Mr. Rossetti (Poetical Works, 1878, Vol. I, page 150) thinks the reference is to the Essay on Devils, withdrawn after being prepared for publication with the Essays, Letters &c. (1840), and never yet published. It does not seem to me certain that Shelley alludes to that essay; but I feel pretty confident that The Elysian Fields is a portion of a Lucianic epistle from some Englishman of political eminence, dead before 1820, to, perhaps, the Princess Charlotte. The exposition foreshadowed in the final paragraph might well have included a view of the decay of popular belief. Those who are intimately familiar with the political history and literature of England will probably be able to identify the person represented. It is not unlikely to be Charles Fox, judging from the juxtaposition of his name, in the Address to the Irish People, with sentiments much the same as those set forth iu the third paragraph of The Elysian Fields. Compare that paragraph with the relative passage in the Address, Vol. I, page 332.—H. B. F.]
