The masque of anarchy. A poem

LIBRARY |U^|E UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

LIBRARY OFT

JBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

LIBRARY OF Tl

>^^g^H4^<H; i

SITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GALIFOR

I \r

a = 6

1SITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOR

^£?mm

SECOND SERIES. No. 13.

THE

MASQUE OF ANABCHY

. BY

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

A

TYPE-FACSIMILE REPRINT OF

The Original Edition, first published (together with a Preface by

Leigh Hunt) in 1832

THOMAS J. WISE

Hontion >. .

PUBLISHED FOR DISTRIBUTION
TO MEMBERS OF THE SHELLEY SOCIETY ONLY

1892

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

Of this Book
Two Hundred Copies only

HAVE BEEN PRINTED.

MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
& yoem.

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

A

TYPE-FAC-SIMILE REPRINT OF

The Original Edition, first published (together with a
Preface by Leigh Hunt) in 1832.

GBtlttetJ
BY THOMAS J. WISE.

Hontocm :

PUBLISHED FOR THE SHELLEY SOCIETY
BY REEVES AND TURNER, 196 STRAND.

1892

set, &

no J3

CASE

CONTENTS.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF : page

The First Edition, 1832 ... xii

Watson's Edition, 1842 xiii

Fac- simile of Shelley's Manuscript,
edited by h. buxton forman xv

Shelley, Peterloo, and the Mask of

Anarchy xviii

Type-facsimile reprint.
PREFACE, BY LEIGH HUNT v

TEXT OF THE MASQUE 1

M8.'35865

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

In the autumn of 1819 Shelley was residing
at the Villa Valsovano, near Leghorn, and it
was here that the tidings of the now famous
" Peterloo Massacre/' which took place at
Manchester on August 16th, 1819, reached his
ears. The news seems, from the abundant
evidence before us, to have filled him with a
more than usual amount of horror and disgust,
and he at once threw his feelings into words
in the lines of The Masque of Anarchy. The
poem, when completed, was transcribed by
Mary Shelley ; and this transcript, freely
revised by Shelley himself, was forwarded to
Leigh Hunt, in England, for insertion in the

Xll BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Examiner, of which paper Hunt was at that
time the Editor. For reasons which may
readily be apprehended Hunt deemed it
imprudent to print the poem then, and it
remained in manuscript until the year 1832,
when Moxon issued a slender booklet, of the
title-page of which the following is a tran-
script :

The / Masque of Anarchy. / A Poem. / By
Percy Bysshe Shelley. / Now first published,
with a Preface / by Leigh Hunt. / Hope is
strong; / Justice and Truth their winged
child have found. / Revolt of Islam. / Lon-
don : / Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street. /
1832.

Collation : — Foolscap octavo, pp. xxx -f 47 ; con-
sisting of Fly- title (with blank reverse) pp.
i — ii ; Title-page, as above (with blank
reverse) pp. iii — iv ; Preface pp. v — xxx ; and

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Xlll

Text of the Masque pp. 1 — 47. The imprint
(which occurs at the foot of the last page) is :
" London : / Bradbury and Evans, Printers, /
Bouverie Street." At the end are two pages
filled with Moxon's advertisements.
Issued in drab boards, with white paper back-
label, which reads Shelley's Masque. Some
later copies were put up in cloth boards of
various colours, with the same label up the back.

No second edition of The Masque of Anarchy
was published until 1842, when a pamphlet
appeared bearing the following title-page : —

The / Masque of Anarchy. / To which is
added, / Queen Liberty; / Song — To the
Men of England. / By Percy Bysshe Shelley. /
With a Preface / By Leigh Hunt. / Hope is
strong ; / Justice and Truth their winged child
have found. / Revolt of Islam. / London : /
J. Watson, 15, City Road, Finsbury. / 1842.

XIV BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Collation : — Foolscap octavo, pp. 24 ; consisting

of Title-page, as above (with blank reverse)

pp. 1 — 2; Preface pp. 3 — 10; and Text of

the Masque pp. 11 — 22; of Queen Liberty

p. 23 ; and of the Song p. 24. The imprint

(at the foot of the last page) reads : " 3 .

Watson, Printer, 15, City Road, Finsbury."

Issued in plain paper wrappers, which in some

examples are yellow, and in others drab. The

brochure is now of considerable scarcity.

The manuscript sent from Italy, and from
which Hunt printed the Masque in 1832, was
fortunately preserved by him, and in the year
1876 it passed into the possession of Mr. H.
Buxton Forman. Until the commencement
of 1887 this manuscript remained the chief
known authority for the text of the poem ;
but in the early days of that year an earlier
and far more important manuscript was lent

BIBLIOGRAPHY. XV

by its possessor, Mr. Lewin Bowring, to Mr.
F. S. Ellis, at Torquay; and the fact of its
existence was communicated by him to The
Athenceum, in a letter which appeared in that
journal for January 22nd, 1887. This manu-
script, Shelley's original holograph, from which
Mary Shelley's transcript was probably made,
was transferred, within a week or two of its
recovery, to the collection of the present
Editor. Its importance being at once re-
cognised by the Committee of the Shelley
Society it was promptly photo-lithographed,
and a facsimile was published, under Mr.
Forman's editorial care, in the following
volume : —

The / Mask of Anarchy / Written on the
occasion of / The Massacre at Manchester /
By Percy Bysshe Shelley / Fac-simile / of the /

XVI BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Holograph Manuscript / with an / Introduction
by / H. Buxton Forman / London / Published
for the Shelley Society / By Reeves and
Turner 196 Strand / 1887.

Collation : — Quarto, pp. xii + 54 + 24 ; consist-
ing of Half-title (with blank reverse)
pp. i — ii ; Certificate of Issue (with blank
reverse) pp. iii — iv ; Title-page, as above
(with blank reverse) pp. v — vi ; Biblio-
graphical Note * (with blank reverse)
pp. vii — viii ; Contents (with blank reverse)
pp. ix — x; Fly-title to the Introduction
(with blank reverse) pp. xi — xii; Text of
the Introduction, pp. 1 — 52 ; Fly-title to
the Masque (with blank reverse) pp. 53 — 54 ;
and the facsimile of The Masque of Anarchy

* This Note states that "the following remarks, although written
expressly to accompany the present fac-simile of the holograph Mask
of Anarchy, now in the possession of Mr. Thomas J. Wise, have
furnished the substance of a paper read before the Shelley Society on
the 9th of February 1SS7, and of an article printed in The Gentleman's
Magazine for March 1887 ; but the bearings of the manuscript on the
text of the poem are dealt with in the ensuing pages more in detail
than in the paper or in the article."

BIBLIOGRAPHY. XVII

24 un-numbered pages \ followed by another
un-nunibered leaf with the imprint upon its
recto. Inserted at the end are 8 pages of
advertisements of the Shelley Society's Pub-
lications, and Mr. Buxton Forman's editions
of Shelley and Keats.
Issued in mottled-grey paper boards, lettered both
upon the front, and up the back. Five hundred
copies were printed, the published price being Ten
Shillings.

The textual variations supplied by the
holograph will be found dealt with fully in
Mr. Forman's Preface ; they also furnished
material for a lecture delivered by him before
the Shelley Society on February 9th. 1887, and
printed in the Society's Transactions of that
year. The lecture was also printed separately
in a thin octavo volume having the following
Title-page :—

b

XV111 BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Shelley / "Peterloo" / and / " The Mask of
Anarchy" / By/^H. Buxton Forman / London /
Printed for Private Circulation / 1887.

Collation : — Octavo, pp. 29, including Half-title,

Title, and Certificate of issue.
Issued in inottled-grey paper boards, lettered
both upon the front, and up the back. Twenty-
five copies were printed upon Dutch Hand-made
paper, and three upon Yellum. A fac-simile of
three of the stanzas of the poem (from Mary
Shelley's transcript, worked upon by Shelley) were
inserted as a frontispiece.

Such is the Bibliography of The Masque of
Anarchy, one of the most interesting of Shelley's
lesser works, dealing as it does less with
poetic art than with matters of public interest ;
and showing as it also does what the poet's
feelings truly were. In its pages we see
Shelley not as a visionist enveloped in his

BIBLIOGEAPHY. XIX

dreams — but as a man sympathising with
men ; not as an Anarchist, stirring up a
useless and wasteful strife — but as an able
leader urging his followers to a bloodless
revolution; bidding them press forward with
strength and vigour, but yet "with folded
arms and steady eyes " obeying " the laws of
their own land."

1 ' The old laws of England — they
Whose reverend heads with age are grey,
Children of a wiser day."

Thomas J. Wise.

September, 1892.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

a $oem.

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

NOW FIRST PIKI.ISHEP, WITH A PREFACE

BY LEIGH HUNT.

Hope is strong ;
Justice ami Truth their winged child have found.

Revolt oc Islam.

LONDON :
EDWARD MOXON, 64, NEW BOND STREET.

1832.

PEEFACE.

This Poem was written by Mr. Shelley on
occasion of the bloodshed at Manchester, in the
year 1819. I was editor of the Examiner at
that time, and it was sent to me to be inserted
or not in that journal, as I thought fit. I did
not insert it, because I thought that the public
at large had not become sufficiently discern-
ing to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heart-
edness of the spirit that walked in this flaming
robe of verse. His charity was avowedly more
than proportionate to his indignation ; yet
B

VI

PREFACE.

I thought that even the suffering part oi
people, judging, not unnaturally, from their
feelings, and from the exasperation which suf-
fering produces before it produces knowledge,
would believe a hundred-fold in his anger, to
what they would in his good intention ; and this
made me fear that the common enemy would
take advantage of the mistake to do them both a
disservice. Mr. Shelley's writings have since
aided the general progress of knowledge in
bringing about a wiser period ; and an effusion,
which would have got him cruelly misrepresented
a few years back, will now do unequivocal
honour to his memory, and shew every body
what a most considerate and kind, as well
as fervent heart, the cause of the world has
lost.

PREFACE. Vll

The poem, though written purposely in a lax
and familiar measure, is highly characteristical of
the author. It has the usual ardour of his tone,
the unbounded sensibility by which he combines
the most domestic with the most remote and fan-
ciful images, and the patience, so beautifully
checking, and, in fact, produced by, the extreme
impatience of his moral feeling. His patience
is the deposit of many impatiences, acting upon
an equal measure of understanding and moral
taste. His wisdom is the wisdom of a heart
overcharged with sensibility, acquiring the pro-
foundest notions of justice from the completest
sympathy, and at once taking refuge from its
pain, and working out its extremest purposes, in
the adoption of a stubborn and loving fortitude

which neutralizes resistance. His very strokes
B 2

PREFACE.

of humour, while they startle with their ex-
travagance and even ghastliness, cut to the heart
with pathos. The fourth and fifth stanzas, for
instance, of this Poem, involve an allusion, which
becomes affecting from our knowing what he
must have felt when he wrote it. It is to his
children, who were taken from him by the late
Lord Chancellor, under that preposterous law,
by which every succeeding age might be made
to blush for the tortures inflicted on the opinions
of its predecessor.

"Anarchy the Skeleton," riding through the
streets, and grinning and bowing on each side
of him,

LIS

As well as if his education

Had cost ten millions to the nation,

is another instance of the union of ludicrousnei

JSS

PREFACE. IX

with terror. Hope, looking " more like De-
spair," and laying herself down before his horses'
feet to die, is a touching image. The descrip-
tion of the rise and growth of the Public En-
lightenment,

Upborne on wings whose grain

Was as the light of sunny rain,

and producing " thoughts " as he went,

As stars from night's loose hair are shaken,

till on a sudden the prostrate multitude look up,

and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
"Was walking with a quiet mien,

is rich with the author's usual treasure of
imagery and splendid words. The sixty-third

X PREFACE.

is a delicious stanza, producing a most happy
and comforting picture in the midst of visions of
blood and tumult. We see the light from its cot-
tage window. The substantial blessings of Free-
dom are nobly described ; and lastly, the advice
given by the poet, the great national measure
recommended by him, is singularly striking as
a political anticipation. It adv ises what has since
taken place, and what was felt by the grown
wisdom of the age to be the only thing which
could take place, with effect, as a final rebuke and
nullification of the Tories; to wit, a calm, lawful,
and inflexible preparation for resistance in the
shape of a protesting multitude, — the few
against the many, — the laborious and suffering
against the spoilt children of monopoly, — Man-
kind against Tory-kind. It is true the Poei

"

PREFACE. XI

recommends that there should be no active
resistance, come what might ; which is a piece of
fortitude, however effective, which we believe
was not contemplated by the Political Unions :
yet, in point of the spirit of the thing, the
success he anticipates has actually occurred, and
after his very fashion ; for there really has
been no resistance, except by multitudinous pro-
test. The Tories, however desirous they showed
themselves to draw their swords, did not draw
them. The battle was won without a blow.

Mr. Shelley's countrymen know how anxious
lie was for the advancement of the common good,
but they have yet to become acquainted with
his anxiety in behalf of this particular means of
it — Reform. The first time I heard from him,
was upon the subject : it was before I knew him,

Xll PREFACE.

and while he was a student at Oxford, in the year
1811. So early did he begin his career of phi-
lanthropy ! Mankind, and their interests, were
scarcely ever out of his thoughts. It was a
moot point when he entered your room, whether
he would begin with some half-pleasant, half-
pensive joke, or quote something Greek, or ask
some question about public affairs. I remem-
ber his coming upon me when I had not seen
him for a long time ; and after grappling my hands
with both his, in his usual fervent manner, sitting
down, and looking at me very earnestly, with a
deep though not melancholy interest in his face.
We were sitting in a cottage study with our
knees to the fire, to which we had been getting
nearer and nearer in the comfort of finding
ourselves together ; the pleasure of seeing hir

,;

PREFACE. Xlll

was my only feeling at the moment ; and the air
of domesticity about us was so complete, that I
thought he was going to speak of some family
matter — either his or my own ; when he asked
me, at the close of an intensity of pause,
what was " the amount of the National Debt."

I used to rally him on the apparent
inconsequentiality of his manner upon these
occasions ; and he was always ready to carry on
the joke, because he said that my laughter did
not hinder my being in earnest. With deepest
love and admiration was my laughter mixed, or
I should not have ventured upon paying him the
compliment of it.

I have now before me his corrected proof of
an anonymous pamphlet which he wrote in the
year 1817, entitled "A Proposal for Putting

XIV

PREFACE.

Reform to the Vote through the Country
will make an extract or two from it, to shew
zealous he was on the subject ; how generous in
the example which he offered to set in behalf of
Reform; and how judicious as well as fervent
this most calumniated and noble spirit could be
in recommending the most avowed of his opinions.
The title-page of the proof is scrawled over
with sketches of trees and foliage, which was
a habit of his in the intervals of thinking, when
ever he had pen or pencil in hand. He would
indulge in it while waiting for you at an inn, or
in a door- way, scratching his elms and oak-trees
on the walls. He did them very spiritedly, and
with what the painters call a gusto, particularly
in point of grace. If he had room, he would
add a cottage, and a piece of water, with a sail

PREFACE. XV

ing boat mooring among the trees. This was his
beau ideal of a life, the repose of which was
to be earned by zeal for his species, and war-
ranted by the common good. What else the
image of a boat brings to the memory of those
who have lost him, I will not say, espeeialJy
as he is still with us in his writings. But it is
worth observing how agreeably this habit of
sketching trees and bowers evinced the gentle-
ness of my friend's nature, the longing he had
for rest, and the smallness of his personal
desires.

It has been hastily implied in a late notice of
him, in a periodical work, that he was an aris-
tocrat by disposition as well as birth ; a conclu-
sion natural enough, even with intelligent
men, who have been bred among aristocratical

XVI PREFACE.

influences ; but it is a pity that any such persons
should give it as their opinion, because it tends
to confirm inferior understandings in a similar
delusion, and to make the vulgarity of would-
be refinement still more confident in its assump-
tions. It is acknowledged on all hands, that
Mr. Shelley's mind was not one to be measured
by common rules, — not even by such as the vul-
gar, great or small, take for uncommon ones,
or for cunning pieces of corporate knowledge
snugly kept between one another. If there
is anything which I can affirm of my beloved
friend, with as much confidence as the fact of
his being benevolent and a friend, it is that
he was totally free from mistakes of this kind ;
that he never for one moment confounded the
claims of real and essential, with those of con-

PREFACE. XV11

ventional refinement ; or allowed one to be
substituted for the other in his mind by any
compromise of his self-love.

I will admit it to be possible, that there were
moments in which he might have been deceived
in his estimation of people's manners, in con-
sequence of those to which he had been early
accustomed ; but the charge implied against
him involves a conscious, or at least an habitual,
preference of what are called high-bred man-
ners, for their own sakes, apart from the natures
of those who exhibited them, and to the disad-
vantage of those to whom they had not been
taught. I can affirm that it is a total mistake,
and that he partook of no such weakness. I
have seen him indeed draw himself up with a
sort of irrepressible air of dignified objection,

XV1U

PREFACE.

when moral vulgarity was betrayed in his pr
senee, whatever might have been the rank of the
betrayer; but nobody could hail with greater jo
and simplicity, or meet upon more equal grounds
the instinct of a real delicacy and good intention,
come in what shape it might. Why should h
have done otherwise ? He was Shelley ; an
not merely a man of that name. What ha<
ordinary high life, and its pretensions, and the
getting together of a few people for the sak
of giving themselves a little importance, to d
with his universal affinities ? It was finely said
one day in my hearing by Mr. Hazlitt, when
asked why. he could not temporize a little now
and then, or make a compromise with an
untruth, that it was " not worth his while."
was not worth Mr. Shelley's while to be a:

1,

i

.e

:

PREFACE. XIX

aristocrat. His spirit was large enough to take
ten aristocracies into the hollow of his hand,
and look at them as I have seen him look at
insects from a tree, certainly with no thought
either of superiority or the reverse, but with a
curious interest.

That quintessence of gentlemanly demeanour
which was observable in Mr. Shelley, in draw-
ing-rooms, when he was not over-thoughtful,
was nothing but an exquisite combination of
sense, moral grace, and habitual sympathy. It
was more dignified than what is called dignity
in others, because it was the heart of the thine
itself, or intrinsic worth, graced by the sincerest
idealism ; and not a response made by imputed
merit to the homage of the imputers. The best
conventional dignity could have no more come

PREFACE.

up to it, than the trick of an occasion to the
truth of a life *

But if an aristocracy of intellect and morals
were required, he was the man for one of their

-

* The consciousness of possessing the respect of others,
apart from any reason for it but a conventional one, will
sometimes produce a really fine expression of countenance,
where the nature is good. On the other hand, I have
seen Mr. Shelley, from a doubt of the sympathy of those
around him, suddenly sink from the happier look above
described, into an expression of misgiving and even of
destitution, that was extremely touching. It arose out of
a sudden impression, that all the sympathy was on his
side. Sympathy is undoubtedly the one thing needful
and final ; and thoagh the receipt of it on false grounds,
appears the most formidable obstacle in the way of its
true ascendancy, and is so, yet out of the very spirit of
that fact will come the salvation of the world; for when
once a right view of it gets into fashion, the prejudices
as well as understandings of mankind will be as much
on that side as they are against it now, and the accelera-
tion of good be without a drawback.

PREFACE. XXI

leaders. High and princely was the example he
could set to an aristocracy of a different sort, as
the reader will see by the following extract from
his pamphlet. The late death of an extraordinary
man of genius, the delight of nations, and the
special glory of his country, has just shewn the
blushing world what little things could be done
for him, dead or alive, by the "great men" whom
he condescended to glorify. The manager of
a Scottish theatre (to his immortal credit) * has
contributed, in furtherance of the erection of a
monument to him, precisely the same sum as was
drawn forth out of the money bags of a Scottish

* Mr. Murray. I remember the gentlemanly paternity
of his father's manner on the English stage, and the fine
eyes of his sister (Mrs. Henry Siddons) ; and was not sur-
prised to find generosity in such a stock.
C

PliEFACE.

Duke in the receipt of nearly a thousand pounds
a day. The sum is the same that is mentioned in
the ensuing paragraph from Mr. Shelley's pam-
phlet. After proposing a meeting of the Friends
of Reform, for the purpose of recommending his
plan to the nation, the author notices the ex-
penses which would probably be incurred ; and
then makes the following offer : —

" I have an income of a thousand a year, on
•which I support my wife and children in decent
comfort, and from which I satisfy certain large
claims of general justice.* Should any plan

* By these " claims of justice," he meant the wants of
his friends and the poor. I do not wish, God knows, to
dispute the phrase with him ; hut such were the notions
of this singular "aristocrat," and most equal-sighted fellow-
creature.

PREFACE. XXlll

resembling that which I have proposed be de-
termined on by you, I will give 100/., being a
tenth part of one year's income, towards its
object ; and I will not deem so proudly of
myself as to believe that I shall stand alone in
this respect, when any rational or consistent
scheme for the public benefit shall have received
the sanction of those great and good men who
have devoted themselves for its preservation."

The delight of talking about my friend, has
led me into a longer Preface than I intended to
write. I did not think of detaining the reader
so long from his Poem : — most probably, indeed,
I have not detained him. I will, however, make
the other, and longer extract, without further
remark. If this Pamphlet was the work of an

aristocrat, even in the passages where it recom-
c 2

XXIV PREFACE.

mends time to be given for the abolition of his
class, he was surely the strangest republican
of an aristocrat that ever existed, and had the
oddest notions of what was puerile ! *

"A certain degree of coalition," says he,
" among the sincere friends of Reform, in

* See his works, passim. A multitude of passages
might be quoted, such as no aristocrat would write out of
mere spleen, or "with greater pride of his own." They
are too frequent, earnest, and full of thought. If Mr.
Shelley met with a gird at things aristocratical, in any
book he was reading, he marked it as worthy to be noted.
I was looking the other day into a Diogenes Laertius that
belonged to him, and almost the first passage I met with
thus marked, was a saying of the biographer's namesake,
in which birth and honours are treated with contempt. 1
am not here begging the question against such things. I
am merely recording my friind's real opinions. The only
sentiment by which a privileged class is to be vindicated,
may claim a fair discussion ; and the settlement of it be
safely left to the growth of the sentiment itself, and its ex-
pansion into a freedom from its own necessity.

PREFACE. XXV

whatever shape, is indispensable to the success
of this proposal. The friends of universal or
of limited suffrage, of Annual or Triennial
Parliaments, ought to settle the subjects on
which they disagree, when it is known whether
the nation wills that measure on which they
are all agreed. It is trivial to discuss what
species of Reform should have place, when it
yet remains a question whether there will
be any Reform or no. Meanwhile, nothing
remains for me but to state explicitly my sen-
timents on this subject. The statement is
indeed quite foreign to the merits of the proposal
in itself; and I should have suppressed it, until
called upon to subscribe such a requisition as
I have suggested, if the question which it is
natural to ask. as to what are the sentiments

XXVI PREFACE.

of the person who originates the scheme, could
have received in any other manner a more
simple or direct reply.

" It appears to me, that Annual Parliaments
ought to be adopted as an immediate measure,
as one which strongly tends to preserve tb
liberty and happiness of the nation. It would
enable men to cultivate those energies on
which the performance of the political duties
belonging to the citizen of a free state, as the
rightful guardian of its prosperity, essentially
depends ; it would familiarize men with liberty,
by disciplining them to an habitual acquaint-
ance with its forms. Political institution is
undoubtedly susceptible of such improvements
as no rational person can consider possible, so
long as the present degraded condition to

PREFACE. XXVll

which the vital imperfections in the existing
system of government has reduced the vast
multitude of men shall subsist. The securest
method of arriving at such beneficial innova-
tions, is to proceed gradually, and with caution ;
or, in the place of that order and freedom,
which the friends of Reform assert to be vio-
lated now, anarchy and despotism will follow..
Annual Parliaments have my entire assent. I
will not state those general reasonings in their
favour, which Mr. Cobbett and other writers
have already made familiar to the public mind.
" With respect to Universal Suffrage, I con-
fess I consider its adoption, in the present
unprepared state of public knowledge and
feeling, fraught with peril. T think that none
but those who register their names as paying

XXV111

PREFACE.

a certain small sum in direct taxes* ought, at
present, to send Members to Parliament. The
consequence of the immediate extension of the
elective franchise to every male adult, would
be to place power in the hands of men who
have been rendered brutal, and torpid, and
ferocious, by ages of slavery. It is to suppose
that the qualities belonging to a demagogue
are such as are sufficient to endow a legislator.
I allow Major Cartwright's arguments to be
unanswerable; abstractedly it is trie right of
every human being to have a share in the
government. But Mr. Paine' s arguments are
also unanswerable : a pure republic may be shewn,
by inferences the most obvious and irresistible, to

His own italics. The rest are the Editor's*

PIIEFACE. XXIX

be that system of social order the fittest to produce
the happiness, and promote the genuine eminence
of man. Yet nothing can be less consistent
with reason, or afford smaller hopes of any
beneficial issue, than the plan which should
abolish the regal and the aristocratical branches
of our constitution, before the public mind,
through many gradations of improvement, shall
have arrived at the maturity which can dis-
regard those symbols of its childhood."

I need not point out to the reader's attention
the singular and happy anticipations contained
in the above extract ; neither shall I stop to in-
quire how far Mr. Shelley would have thought
the feasibilities of improvement hastened by the
events that have taken place of late years —
events, one of them in particular, (the Glorious

XXX PREFACE.

Three Days) which it would have repaid him
for all his endurances, had he lived to see.

And who shall say that he has not seen them ?
For if ever there was a man upon earth, of a
more spiritual nature than ordinary, partaking
of the errors and perturbations of his species,
but seeing and working through them with a
seraph ical purpose of good, such an one w
Percy Bysshe Shelley.

L. H.

MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

As I lay asleep in Italy,
There came a voice from over the sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
II.

I met Murder on the way —
He had a mask like Castlereagh —
Very smooth he look'd, yet grim ;
Seven bloodhounds followed him :

III.

All were fat; and well they might

Be in admirable plight,

For one by one, and two by two,

He tossed them human hearts to chew,

Which from his wide cloak he drew.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
IV.

Next came Fraud, and lie had on,

Like Lord E , an ermined gown;

His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell ;

v.

And the little children, who

Round his feet played to and fro,

Thinking every tear a gem,

Had their brains knocked out by them.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
VI.

Clothed with the * * as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like * * * next, Hypocrisy,
On a crocodile rode by.

VII.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

VIII.
Last came Anarchy ; he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood ;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

IX.

And he wore a kingly crown ;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone ;
And on his brow this mark I saw —
" I am God, and King, and Law I *

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

X.

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he past,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

And a mighty troop around,

With their trampling shook the ground,

Waving each a bloody sword,

For the service of their Lord.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

XII.

And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

XIII.
O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down,
Till they came to London town.
D

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

XIV.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken,
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

XV.

For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers who did sing,
" Thou art God, and Law, and King.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
XVI.

" We have waited, weak and lone,

For thy coming, Mighty One !

Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,

Give us glory, and blood, and gold."

XVII.

Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed ;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering — " Thou art Law and God."
D 2

10

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

XVIII.

Then all cried with one accord,

" Thou art King, and God, and Lord ;

Anarchy, to thee we bow,

Be thy name made holy now ! w

XIX.

And Anarchy, the skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education,
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 11

XX.

For lie knew the palaces
Of our kings were nightly his ;
His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
And the ^old-in- woven robe.

XXI.

So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned parliament,

12 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

XXII.

When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said :
But she looked more like Despair ;
And she cried out in the air ;

XXIII.

" My father, Time, is weak and grey
With waiting for a better day ;
See how idiot- like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands !

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 13

XXIV.

" He has had child after child,
And the dust of earth is piled
Over every one but me —
Misery ! oh, Misery I "

XXV.

Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

^SQUE OF ANALCHY.
XXVI.

When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak and frail
Like the vapour of the vale:

XXVII.

Till, as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crown'd giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 15

XXVIII,

It grew — a shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.

XXIX.

On its helm, seen far away/

A planet, like the morning's, lay ;

And those plumes it light rained through,

Like a shower of crimson dew.

16 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

XXX.

With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men — so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked — and all was empty air.

XXXI.

As flowers beneath the footstep waken,
As stars from night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 17

XXXII.

And the prostrate multitude
Looked — and ankle deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien :

XXXIII.

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,

Lay dead earth upon the earth ;

The Horse of Death, tameless as wind,

Fled, and with his hoofs did grind

To dust the murderers thronged behind.

18 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

XXXIV.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense, awakening and yet tender,
Was heard and felt — and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose:

xxxv.

(As if their own indignant earth,
Which gave the sons of England birth,
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe,

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 19

XXXVI.

Had turned every drop of blood,

By which her face had been bedewed,

To an accent unwithstood,

As if her heart had cried aloud :)

XXXVII.

" Men of England, Heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty mother,
Hopes of her, and one another,

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
XXXVIII.

" Rise, like lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep had fall'n on you.

XXXIX.

" What is Freedom ? Ye can tell
That which Slavery is too well,
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 21

XL.
" Tis to work, and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell '
For the tyrants' use to dwell :

XLI.

" So that ye for them are made,
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade ;
With or without your own will, bent
To their defence and nourishment.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
XLII.

" Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak :-
They are dying whilst I speak.

XLIII.

" 'Tis to hunger for such diet,
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
XLIV.

" 'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from toil a thousand fold,
More than e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old :

XLV.

" Paper coin — that forgery
Of the title deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.
E

24 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
XLVI.

" 'Tis to be a slave in soul,
And to hold no strong controul
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

XLVII.

11 And at length when ye complain,
With a murmur weak and vain,
Tis to see the tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you : —
Blood is on the grass like dew.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 25

XLVIII.

" Then it is to feel revenge,

Fiercely thirsting to exchange

Blood for blood — and wrong for wrong :

Do NOT THUS, WHEN YE ARE STRONG.

XLIX.

" Birds find rest in narrow nest,
When weary of the winged quest ;
Beasts find fare in woody lair,
When storm and snow are in the air.
E 2

26 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

L.

" Asses, swine, have litter spread,
And with fitting food are fed ;
All things have a home but one :
Thou, oh Englishman, hast none !

LI.

u This is Slavery — savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den,
Would endure not as ye do :
But such ills they never knew.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 27

LII.

" What art thou, Freedom ? Oh ! could Slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand, tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery.

LIU.

" Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the caves of Fame.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
LIV.

" For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread,
From his daily labour come,
In a neat and happy home*

" Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude :
No — in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be,
As in England now we see.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 29

LVI.

" To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim ; thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

LVII.

■ Thou art Justice — ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold,
As laws are in England : — thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.

30 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

LVIII.

M Thou art Wisdom — Freedom never
Dreams that God will damn for ever
AH who think those things untrue,
Of which priests make much ado.

LIX.

" Thou art Peace — never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be,
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 31

LX.

" What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood !
It availed, — oh Liberty !
To dim — but not extinguish thee.

LXI.

" Thou art Love — the rich have kist
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free,
And through the rough world follow thee.

32

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

LXIL

" Oh turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy beloved sake,
On wealth and war and fraud : whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

LXIII.

* Science, and Poetry, and Thought,
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 33
LXIV.

u Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,

All that can adorn and bless,

Art thou : let deeds, not words, express

Thine exceeding loveliness.

LXV.

" Let a great assembly be

Of the fearless, of the free,

On some spot of English ground,

Where the plains stretch wide around.

34 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

LXVI.

" Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth, on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be,
Witness the solemnity,

LXVIL

" From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast ;
From every hut, village, and town,
Where those who live and suffer, moan
For others' misery and their own :

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 35

LXVIII.
" From the workhouse and the prison,
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young, and old,
Groan for pain, and weep for cold ;

LXIX.

" From the haunts of daily life,
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares,
Which sow the human heart with tares ;

36 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

LXX.

(t Lastly, from the palaces,
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around ;

lxxi.

" Those prison-halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail,
As must make their brethren pale ;

THE MASQUE OF ANAECHY. 37

LXXII,

" Ye who suffer woes "untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold ;

LXXIII.

"Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words, that ye
Are. as God has made ye, free !

38 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

LXXIV.

" Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

LXXV.

u Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 39

LXXVI.

" Let the charged artillery drive,
Till the dead air seems alive

With the clash of clanging wheels,

And the tramp of horses' heels.

LXXVII.

" Let the fixed bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood,
Looking keen as one for food.
F

40 THE MASQUE OF ANAKCHY.

LXXVIII.

" Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars.
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

LXXIX.

" Stand ye calm and resolute,

Like a forest close and mute,

With folded arms, and looks which are

Weapons of an unvanquished war.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 41
LXXX.

" And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armed steeds,
Pass, a disregarded shade,
Thro' your phalanx undismay'd *

* The three stanzas next ensuing are printed in italics, not because
they are better, or indeed so well written, as some of the rest, but as
marking out the sober, lawful, and charitable mode of proceeding
advocated and anticipated by this s-upposed reckless innovator. "Pas-
sive obedience " he certainly had not ; but here follows a picture and a
recommendation of " non-resistance," in all its glory. The mingled
emotion and dignity of it is admirably expressed in the second line of
stanza eighty-five. Let churches militant read it, and blush to call
the author no Christian !

42 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
LXXXI.

a Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand,
Hand to hand, and foot to foot ;,
Arbiters of the dispute.

LXXXII.

" The old laws of England — they
IVhose reverend heads with age are grey,
Children of a wiser day ;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo — Liberty !

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 43

LXXXIII.

" On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state,
Best the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.

LXXXIV.

" And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there ;
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew ;
What they like, that let them do.

44 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.

LXXXV.

* With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear and less surprise,
Look upon them as they stay
Till their rage has died away :

LXXXVI.

" Then they will return with shame,
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek :

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 45

LXXXVII.

" Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand—
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street :

LXXXVIII.

11 And the bold, true warriors,
Who have hugged Danger in wars,
Will turn to those who would be free
Ashamed of such base company :

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
LXXXIX.

" And that slaughter to the nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular,
A volcano heard afar :

xc.

" And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom,
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again — again — again.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 47

XCI.

Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number !
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fall'n on you :
Ye are many — they are few.

THE END.

LONDON:

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS,

UOU ViSIUB STREET.

Reprinted by

Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, London and Bungay,

September SOth, 1892.

NOTICE.

The Honorary Secretary begs to remind Members that
a large number of the Subscriptions for the current year
are still unpaid. He would esteem it a favour if those
Members who have not already done so would kindly
forward the amount due (One Guinea) without delay.

THOMAS J. WISE,

52, Ashley Road,

Crouch Hill, N.

*

/'

•

•

Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
london and bungay,

VvoJ>

RNIA

TTf

RNIA

LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF I

^0
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF I