Notes to The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley | Page 7

thoughts. It is difficult even to express the simplicity and directness of
purpose that adorned him. Some few might be found in the history of
mankind, and some one at least among his own friends, equally
disinterested and scornful, even to severe personal sacrifices, of every
baser motive. But no one, I believe, ever joined this noble but passive
virtue to equal active endeavours for the benefit of his friends and
mankind in general, and to equal power to produce the advantages he
desired. The world's brightest gauds and its most solid advantages were
of no worth in his eyes, when compared to the cause of what he
considered truth, and the good of his fellow-creatures. Born in a
position which, to his inexperienced mind, afforded the greatest
facilities to practise the tenets he espoused, he boldly declared the use
he would make of fortune and station, and enjoyed the belief that he
should materially benefit his fellow-creatures by his actions; while,
conscious of surpassing powers of reason and imagination, it is not
strange that he should, even while so young, have believed that his
written thoughts would tend to disseminate opinions which he believed
conducive to the happiness of the human race.
If man were a creature devoid of passion, he might have said and done
all this with quietness. But he was too enthusiastic, and too full of
hatred of all the ills he witnessed, not to scorn danger. Various
disappointments tortured, but could not tame, his soul. The more
enmity he met, the more earnestly he became attached to his peculiar
views, and hostile to those of the men who persecuted him.
He was animated to greater zeal by compassion for his fellow-creatures.
His sympathy was excited by the misery with which the world is
burning. He witnessed the sufferings of the poor, and was aware of the
evils of ignorance. He desired to induce every rich man to despoil
himself of superfluity, and to create a brotherhood of property and
service, and was ready to be the first to lay down the advantages of his
birth. He was of too uncompromising a disposition to join any party.
He did not in his youth look forward to gradual improvement: nay, in
those days of intolerance, now almost forgotten, it seemed as easy to

look forward to the sort of millennium of freedom and brotherhood
which he thought the proper state of mankind as to the present reign of
moderation and improvement. Ill-health made him believe that his race
would soon be run; that a year or two was all he had of life. He desired
that these years should be useful and illustrious. He saw, in a fervent
call on his fellow-creatures to share alike the blessings of the creation,
to love and serve each other, the noblest work that life and time
permitted him. In this spirit he composed "Queen Mab".
He was a lover of the wonderful and wild in literature, but had not
fostered these tastes at their genuine sources--the romances and
chivalry of the middle ages--but in the perusal of such German works
as were current in those days. Under the influence of these he, at the
age of fifteen, wrote two short prose romances of slender merit. The
sentiments and language were exaggerated, the composition imitative
and poor. He wrote also a poem on the subject of Ahasuerus--being led
to it by a German fragment he picked up, dirty and torn, in Lincoln's
Inn Fields. This fell afterwards into other hands, and was considerably
altered before it was printed. Our earlier English poetry was almost
unknown to him. The love and knowledge of Nature developed by
Wordsworth--the lofty melody and mysterious beauty of Coleridge's
poetry--and the wild fantastic machinery and gorgeous scenery adopted
by Southey--composed his favourite reading; the rhythm of "Queen
Mab" was founded on that of "Thalaba", and the first few lines bear a
striking resemblance in spirit, though not in idea, to the opening of that
poem. His fertile imagination, and ear tuned to the finest sense of
harmony, preserved him from imitation. Another of his favourite books
was the poem of "Gebir" by Walter Savage Landor. From his boyhood
he had a wonderful facility of versification, which he carried into
another language; and his Latin school-verses were composed with an
ease and correctness that procured for him prizes, and caused him to be
resorted to by all his friends for help. He was, at the period of writing
"Queen Mab", a great traveller within the limits of England, Scotland,
and Ireland. His time was spent among the loveliest scenes of these
countries. Mountain and lake and forest were his home; the phenomena
of Nature were his favourite study. He loved to inquire into their causes,
and was addicted to