Proserpine and Midas | Page 4

published the contents in _The Life of Percy Bysshe
Shelley, By Thomas Medwin, A New Edition printed from a copy
copiously amended and extended by the Author_ . . . Milford, 1913.
The passage here quoted appears on p. 27 of the 2nd vol. of the 1847
edition (Forman ed., p. 252)] The passage is clearly intended--though
chronology is no more than any other exact science the 'forte' of that
most tantalizing of biographers--to refer to the year 1820.

'Mrs. Shelley had at this time been writing some little Dramas on
classical subjects, one of which was the Rape of Proserpine, a very
graceful composition which she has never published. Shelley
contributed to this the exquisite fable of Arethusa and the Invocation to
Ceres.--Among the Nymphs gathering flowers on Enna were two
whom she called Ino and Uno, names which I remember in the
Dialogue were irresistibly ludicrous. She also wrote one on Midas, into
which were introduced by Shelley, in the Contest between Pan and
Apollo, the Sublime Effusion of the latter, and Pan's characterised Ode.'
This statement of Medwin finally settles the question. The 'friend' at
whose request, Mrs. Shelley says, [Footnote: The Hymns of Pan and
Apollo were first published by Mrs. Shelley in the Posthumous Poems,
1824, with a note saying that they had been 'written at the request of a
friend to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas'. Arethusa
appeared in the same volume, dated 'Pisa, 1820'. Proserpine's song was
not published before the first collected edition of 1839.] the lyrics were
written by her husband, was herself. And she was the author of the
dramas. [Footnote: Not E. E. Williams (Buxton Forman, ed. 1882, vol.
iv, p. 34). The manuscript of the poetical play composed about 1822 by
the latter, 'The Promise', with Shelley's autograph poem ('Night! with
all thine eyes look down'), was given to the Bodleian Library in 1914.]
The manuscript (Bodleian Library, MS. Shelley, d. 2) looks like a
cheap exercise-book, originally of 40, now of 36 leaves, 8 1/4 x 6
inches, in boards. The contents are the dramas here presented, written
in a clear legible hand--the equable hand of Mrs. Shelley. [Footnote:
Shelley's lyrics are also in his wife's writing--Mr. Locock is surely
mistaken in assuming two different hands to this manuscript (_The
Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley_, Methuen, 1909, vol. iii, p. xix).]
There are very few words corrected or cancelled. It is obviously a fair
copy. Mr. C. D. Locock, in his _Examination of the Shelley
Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library_ (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1903,
pp. 24-25), has already pointed out the valuable emendations of the
'received' text of Shelley's lyrics which are found here. In fact the only
mystery is why neither Shelley, nor Mary in the course of her long
widowed years, should have published these curious, and surely not

contemptible, by-products of their co-operation in the fruitful year
1820.

II.
For indeed there is more than a personal interest attached to these
writings of Mrs. Shelley's. The fact that the same mind which had
revelled, a few years earlier, in the fantastical horrors of Frankenstein's
abortive creation, could now dwell on the melancholy fate of
Proserpine or the humorous disappointment of Midas, and delight in
their subtle poetical or moral symbolism--this fact has its significance.
It is one of the earliest indications of the revival, in the heart of
Romanticism, of the old love of classical myths and classical beauty.
The subject is a wide one, and cannot be adequately dealt with in this
place. But a few words may not be superfluous for a correct historical
appreciation of Mrs. Shelley's attempt.
How deficient had been the sense of classical beauty in the so-called
classical age of English literature, is a trite consideration of criticism.
The treatment of mythology is particularly conclusive on this point.
Throughout the 'Augustan' era, mythology was approached as a mere
treasure-house of pleasant fancies, artificial decorations, 'motives',
whether sumptuous or meretricious. Allusions to Jove and Venus,
Mercury, Apollo, or Bacchus, are of course found in every other page
of Dryden, Pope, Prior, Swift, Gay, and Parnell. But no fresh
presentation, no loving interpretation, of the old myths occur anywhere.
The immortal stories were then part and parcel of a sort of poetical
curriculum through which the whole school must be taken by the stern
masters Tradition and Propriety. There is little to be wondered at, if this
matter of curriculum was treated by the more passive scholars as a
matter of course, and by the sharper and less reverent disciples as a
matter of fun. Indeed, if any personality is then evinced in the
adaptation of these old world themes, it is generally connected with a
more or less emphatic disparagement or grotesque distortion of their