DOUBTFUL POEMS THE WANDERING JEW A poem in MS., entitled The Wandering Jew, was offered by Shelley to Ballantyne & Co. of Edinburgh in the early summer of 1810, and declined by them September 24. It was immediately afterward, on September 28, offered by him to Stockdale of London, to whom he ordered Ballantyne & Co. to send the MS. ; but, as they delayed or failed to do so, he sent to Stockdale a second MS. which he had retained. A poem, thus entitled, was published, as by Shelley, in The Edinburgh Literary Journal, June 27 and July 4, 1829. The editor stated that the MS. was in Shelley's hand writing, and had remained for the preceding twenty years in the custody of a literary gentleman of Edinburgh, to whom Shelley in person had offered it for publication while on a visit to that city. A second version of the same poem was published, as by Shelley, and with Mrs. Shelley's consent, but without mention of the former publication, in Fraser's, July, 1831. Lines 435, 443-451, were quoted by Shelley as a motto for chapter viii., and lines 780, 782-790 for chapter x. of St. Irvyne, 1811. These last lines, and lines 1401-1408, were quoted by Medwin (Life, i. 56, 58), who ascribes them to Shelley, and are given among the Juvenilia by Rossetti, Forman and Dowden. The poem, as it appeared in Fraser's, appears to have been edited, by omission or alteration or both, and Mrs. Shelley's statement made below refers exclusively to such editing. Three lines are quoted in the Introduction to Fraser's version, as follows, "There is a pretty, affecting passage at the end of the fourth canto, which we dare say bore reference to the cloud of family misfortune in which he [Shelley] was then enveloped : """Tis mournful when the deadliest hate Of friends, of fortune, and of fate, Is levelled at one fated head.'" These lines are also quoted by Medwin (Life, i. 364) as written "in his seventeenth year," but he does not mention independent authority for them. They do not, however, appear in the poem as given in either version. Such are the facts making for Shelley's authorship. On the other hand Medwin claims to have written the poem, with aid from Shelley, and ascribes to him a concluding portion, embodying speculative opinions, which has never come to light. It is plain that the poem was not printed from Medwin's MS., which he does not himself seem to have consulted. His memory of the past was at best a confused one, as is shown by the inaccuracy of his Life of the poet; and, when the matter related to his literary partnership with Shelley, as in his translations at Pisa, his recollection of the share of each in their joint work was, one is compelled to think, very feeble indeed. It may, at least, be fairly surmised that more of Shelley's work goes under Medwin's name than has ever been affirmed. In the present instance Medwin's assertion of authorship, in which several blunders are obvious, is of no more value than other unsupported and loose statements by him, which would certainly be accepted only provisionally and with doubt. In view of the facts above, that Shelley twice offered the poem as his own and that it was twice printed from different MSS. without Medwin's interposition, the claim of a far more trustworthy writer would be much impaired. If the internal evidence of the poem be appealed to, the opinion that it is substantially Shelley's work is as much strengthened. The most plausible hypothesis is that Shelley worked with Medwin upon the subject in prose and in the first versification made of the prose; that he then rewrote the whole, confined the poem to the story, and reserved the speculative part, which has never appeared, among those early materials out of which Queen Mab was made and to which, both prose and verse, he referred in saying, that Queen Mab was written in his eighteenth and nineteenth year, or 1809-10; but that The Wandering Jew, as we have it, is substantially the poem offered by him for publication in 1810, and that it was Shelley's work and not Medwin's, are statements as well sup ported by external and internal evidence as can be looked for in such cases. Forman and, though with less decision, Dowden reject the poem, and therefore it is here placed in this division. The following documentary account of it is condensed from the Introduction to the reprint in the Shelley Society Publications by Mr. Bertram Dobell, who discovered the Edinburgh 1829 version. Messrs. Ballantyne and Co. (from Edinburgh) to Shelley, September 24, 1810: “Sir, The delay which occurred in our reply to you, respecting the poem you have obligingly offered us for publication, has arisen from our literary friends and advisers (at least such as we have confidence in) being in the country at this season, as is usual, and the time they have bestowed on its perusal. "We are extremely sorry at length, after the most mature delileration, to be under the necessity of declining the honor of bing the publishers of the present poem; not that we dot its success, but that it is perhaps better suited to the character and liberal feelings of the English, than the Egoted spirit which yet pervades many cultivated minds in his country. Even Walter Scott is assailed on all hands, at present, by our Scotch spiritual and evangelical magazines and instructors, for having promulgated atheistical doctrines in The Lady of the Lake. "We beg you will have the goodness to advise us how it should be returned, and we think its being consigned to some person in London would be more likely to ensure its safety than addressing it to Horsham." Stockdale's Budget, 1827. (Hotten's Shelley, i. 41) - Shelley (from Field Place) to Stockdale, September 28, 1810: "Sir, I sent, before I had the pleasure of knowing you, the MS. of a poem to Messrs. Ballantyne and Co., Edinburgh; they have declined publishing it, with the enclosed letter. I now offer it to you, and depend upon your honor as a gentleman for a fair price for the copyright. It will be sent to you from Edinburgh. The subject is The Wandering Jew. As to its containing atheistical principles, |