not improbably, by both, of his having completed a metaphysical essay, in support of Atheism, and which he intended to promulgate throughout the university. I represented that his expulsion would be the inevitable consequence of so flagrant an insult to such a body. He however, was unmoved, and I instantly wrote to his father explicitly enough for any other person than himself. "OXFORD, 28th of January, 1811. “SIR,—On my arrival at Oxford, my friend Mr. Hogg communicated to me the letters which passed in consequence of your misrepresentations of his character, the abuse of that confidence which he invariably reposed in you. I now, sir, desire to know whether you mean the evasions in your first letter to Mr. Hogg, your insulting attempt at coolness in your second, as a means of escaping safely from the opprobrium naturally attached to so ungentlemanlike an abuse of confidence (to say nothing of misrepresentations) as that which my father communicated to me, or as a denial of the fact of having acted in this unprecedented, this scandalous manner. If the former be your intention, I will compassionate your cowardice, and my friend, pitying your weakness, will take no further notice of your contemptible attempts at calumny. If the latter is your intention, I feel it my duty to declare, as my veracity and that of my father is thereby called in question, that I will never be satisfied, despicable as I may consider the author of that affront, until my friend has ample apology for the injury you have attempted to do him. I expect an immediate, and demand a satisfactory letter. "Sir, I am, "Your obedient and humble servant, "Mr. J. J. Stockdale, Bookseller, 41 Pall Mall, London.” "FIFLD PLACE, 30th of January, 1811. "SIR,--I am so surprised on the receipt of your letter of this morning, that I cannot comprehend the meaning of the language you use. I shall be in London next week, and will then call on you. 66 "Your obedient humble servant, "Mr. Stockdale, Bookseller, Pall Mall, London.” On Mr. Shelley's arrival in London, he called, agreeably to his promise, and I gave him such particulars as the urgency of the case required. The consequence was, as but too often happens, that all concerned became inimical to me. I had satisfied my own feelings at the expense of my purse; and how much those feelings were aggravated by the arrival of news of the catastrophe which I had too truly predicted, I shall not attempt to describe. On Mr. Bysshe Shelley's arrival in London, he, on the 11th of April, wrote me the following brief letter, for we had already met for the last time. "" 15 POLAND STREET, OXFORD STREET. “SIR,-Will you have the goodness to inform me of the number of copies which you have sold of 'St. Irvyne'? Circumstances may occur which will oblige me, in case of their event, to wish for my accounts suddenly; perhaps you had better make them out. 66 Sir, "Your obedient humble servant, "Mr. Stockdale, 41 Pall Mall." "SIR, Your letter has at length reached me; the remoteness of my present situation must apologize for my apparent neglect. I am sorry to say, in answer to your requisition, that the state of my finances render immediate payment perfectly impossible. It is my intention, at the earliest period of my power to do so, to discharge your account. I am aware of the imprudence of publishing a book so ill-digested as 'St. Irvyne;' but are there no expectations on the profits of its sale? My studies have, since my writing it, been of a more serious nature. I am at present engaged in completing a series of moral and metaphysical essays—perhaps their copyright would be accepted in lieu of part of my debt? “Sir, I have the honor to be, "CWMELAN, RHAYADER, RADNORSHIRE, August 1st, 1811." SHELLEY READING PLATO. We are told in the editor's preface to the "Poetical Works of Shelley," that it was not until he resided in Italy that he made Plato his study. If it be meant, as no doubt it is, that he did not study Plato in the original, the assertion is correct. It would be absurd to affirm that a profound, accurate, critical knowledge of the author may be acquired through the medium of traslations, and at second-hand by abstracts and abridgments. But enough of the philosopher's doctrines and principles may be, and were, in fact, imbibed at Oxford, and at an early age, without consulting the Greek text to convince him of the incorrectness and inconclusiveness, of the dangers indeed, of the reasonings and conclusions of the school of Locke and his disciples. Many of the tenets of Plato, of Socrates their common master, are exhibited by Xenophon, whose writings we had already read in the original. The English version of the French translation by Dacier of the " Phædo,” and several other dialogues of Plato, was the first book we had, and this we read together several times very attentively at Oxford. We had a French translation of the "Republic;" and we perused with infinite pleasure the elegant translation of Floyer Sydenham. We had several of the publications of the learned and eccentric Platonist, Thomas Taylor. In truth, it would be tedious to specify and describe all the reflected lights borrowed from the great luminary, the sun of the Academy, that illumined the path of two young students. That Shelley had not read any portion of Plato in the original before he went to Italy, is not strictly true. He had a very legible 66 edition of the Works of Plato in several volumes; a charming edition, the Bipont, I think, and I have read passages out of it with him. I remember going up to London with him from Marlow one morning; he took a volume of Plato with him, and we read a good deal of it together, sitting side by side on the top of the coach. Phædrus, I am pretty sure, was the dialogue-on beauty. THE WANDERING JEW. Before Shelley came to Oxford, he composed a tale, or a fragment of a tale, on the subject of the Wandering Jew, giving to him, however, the name of a Persian, not of a Jew— Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes. This no learned, accurate German would have done. That he found the composition in the streets of London is an integral portion of the fiction. "This fragment is the translation of part of some German work, the title of which I have vainly endeavored to discover. I picked it up, dirty and torn, some years ago, in Lincoln's Inn Fields.” It is a common device to add to the interest of a romance by asserting that the MS. was discovered in a cavern, in a casket; that it had lain long hidden in an old chest, or a tomb. From the preface of Dictys the Cretan, whose history of the Trojan war was discovered, we are told, in Crete, the author's tomb having been opened by an earthquake, down to the most modern fictions, this embellishment has been in constant use. Respecting the finding of this fragment, some have affirmed one thing, and some another. It has been said that it was part of a printed book in the German language. If it had been in German, Shelley could not have translated it at that time, for he did not know a word of German. The study of that tongue -being both equally ignorant of it—we commenced together in 1815. Of this our joint study hereafter. Somebody or other, determined not to be left behind in the race, declares that he found it himself, if I mistake not, and presented it to Shelley. Was not this worthy gentleman also present at Gnossus when the tablets of Dictys were brought to light by the earthquake? A portion of the fragment has been printed in the notes to 66 Queen Mab." I have amongst Shelley's papers a fragment of the fragment, in his handwriting. It is one leaf only, and it appears to be the last, the conclusion of the story. The last sentence has never been printed; it presents the narrative of the sufferings of Ahasuerus in a totally different point of view with reference to moral and religious considerations, and is therefore not undeserving attention. FRAGMENT OF The Wandering Jew. -did the elephant trample on me, in vain the iron hoof of the wrathful steed. The mine, big with destructive power, burst upon me and hurled me high in the air. I fell down upon a heap of smoking limbs, but was only singed. The giant's steel club rebounded from my body. The executioner's hand could not strangle me; nor would the hungry lion in the circus devour me; I cohabited with poisonous snakes; I pinched the red crest of the dragon; the serpent stung, but could not kill me; the dragon tormented, but could not devour me. I now provoked the fury of tyrants. I said to Nero, "Thou art a bloodhound; " said to Christern, “Thou art a bloodhound ;” said to Muley Ismail, “Thou art a bloodhound." The tyrants invented cruel torments, but could not kill me. Ha! Not to be able to die; not to be permitted to rest after the toils of life; to be doomed for ever to be imprisoned in this clay-formed dungeon; to be for ever clogged with this worthless body, its load of diseases and infirmities; to be condemned to hold for millenniums that yawning monster, Time, that hungry hyena, ever bearing children, ever devouring again her offspring. Ha! Not to be permitted to die! Awful Avenger in Heaven, hast Thou in Thine armoury of wrath a punishment more dreadful? Then let it thunder upon me. Command a hurricane to sweep me down to the foot of Carmel, that I there may lie extended, may pant, and writhe, and die! And Ahasuerus dropped down. Night covered his bristly eyelid. The Angel bore me back to the cavern. "Sleep here," said the Angel, "sleep in peace; the wrath of thy Judge is appeased; when thou shalt awake, He will be arrived, He whose |