General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1908 Original Publisher: A. Melrose Subjects: English literature English poetry Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.1 After the long biography of Moore, it is half a comfort to think of a poet as to whom our information is but scanty. The few intimates of Shelley seem inclined to go to their graves without telling in accurate detail the curious circumstances of his life. We are left to be content with vain " prefaces" and the circumstantial details of a remarkable blunderer. We know something, however ; -- we know enough to check our inferences from his writings ; in some moods it is pleasant not to have them disturbed by long volumes of memoirs and anecdotes. One peculiarity of Shelley"s writing makes it natural that at times we should not care to have, that at times we should wish for, a full biography. No writer has left so clear an image of himself in his writings ; when we remember them as a whole, we seem to want no more. No writer, on the other hand, has left so many little allusions which we should be glad to have explained, which the patient patriarch would not perhaps have endured that any one should comprehend while he did not. The reason is that Shelley has combined the use of thetwo great modes by which writers leave with their readers the image of themselves. 1 The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1853. Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations, and Fragments. By Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1854. The Life of Percy Byssh...