Pierre continued to sob. His parents exchanged a displeased look. His sister shrugged her shoulders. He could not eat. And because he could not eat, he was sent to bed.

In bed he cried as he had never cried before. His godfather's gift was the only real gift that he ever received. As he had had the bad luck to be born on the twenty-sixth of December, and his parents were not rich, he was never given anything but useful articles. On New Year's he was given a cap, or some shirts, or a pair of boots, or, worst of all, some school books or a pencil box. Sometimes an uncle or an aunt would send a hypocritically instructive book such as The Perfect Little Historian, or My Début as a Calculator, childish compilations full of happy stratagems for luring children into the forest of knowledge. But Pierre never appreciated these jokes.

Pierre's godfather was a distant cousin who lived in Normandy. Being rich and a bachelor, all the family fought for his good will. He was friendly and generous, but rather sensitive, and when he came to Paris for the yearly Agricultural Show, he was the object of an extraordinary assault of various amiabilities. Pierre's parents, because of their son's relation to this rich godfather, considered their claim on him to be the greatest. The Norman was fond enough of his little godson, and every year sent him a very costly toy. Pierre, naturally enough, was not allowed to touch them, for he smashed everything put into his hands, and his mother sagely kept them for wiser years. But as he was a good reasoner, even for a child, he often asked himself why he was considered

destructive when nothing was ever given him which he could break. As for the toys, they were locked in a wardrobe and shown to envious visitors. Their splendor gave him importance and pride. He talked about them to his little comrades.

Now the immense joy of the year was to be taken away from him and put into the hands of another. He might even see it in the other's hands. So rending was this thought that he almost arose and destroyed the aeroplane. But he did not dare to, and fell into a sleep full of hopeless nightmares. On the following day the aeroplane, carefully packed up again, disappeared, and on the following Sunday at breakfast Pierre's father received a letter which he opened with an important air. He reddened with pleasure.

'Here,' said he to his wife, 'read this.' She took the letter and exclaimed, 'Of course, they were enchanted.' It was a splendid present. Your promotion-it is exactly as if it had been announced.

The sound of the doorbell cut short the exclamations. In the hall a deep, friendly voice was heard questioning the servant.

"They are in? So much the better.' Pierre's mother changed color. 'It is his godfather,' she murmured in a shocked voice.

Her husband stood up, livid. 'Impossible,' he said. But the Norman was already at the door, his face shining with a friendly smile. For the first time in years he had come in to Paris to spend the holidays with his relatives. Pierre's mother, however, was not daunted. After the first effusions she bent down to the boy and said imperatively, 'The aeroplane — say that you broke it.'

She then said aloud, 'Pierre's toy. You are too good. Really, you will spoil him. What do you think has

happened? We did not have the courage to take it away from him; he was so happy playing with it. Yes, you do well to cry.'

'Well, what did he do with it?' The godfather, astonished and somewhat defiant, stared at Pierre and waited for the truth. Pierre raised his eyes. He had been enjoying the satisfaction of his righteous rancune, but as he saw the looks of anguish which both his parents turned upon him, and recalled the words of his mother, emotion tore his soul apart. He would show that they could count upon him.

'It is broken. It was n't my fault. Yes, by the window. I wanted to make

it go. It fell into the street. A motor truck came along.'

He talked fast, inventing his story as he did so, and he sobbed with all his heart, for the aeroplane was really lost to him. The godfather was convinced. The despair of the child softened him. His displeasure faded away.

'Bah!' said he. 'Stop crying. Toys are made only to be broken. The next time I 'll send you something good and strong.' Then he went out with Pierre's father, while Pierre remained alone with his mother. She looked at him a long minute without saying a single word, and then, still silent, ended it all by taking him to her room and washing his tear-stained face.

SHELLEY'S transactions with his publishers were numerous; the books of no great English poet, and certainly none whose literary career at the most extended for not more than thirteen years, can have borne the names of so many separate firms. Until he placed his poems in the hands of the Ölliers, almost every book was issued by a new publisher. Everyone of his works was a failure, and only one went into a second edition; his wide fame as a poet w entirely posthumous.

Although none of Shelley's publishers was sufficiently interested to repeat the experience of issuing a second book by him, he was not dis

couraged by this want of sympathy. He continued until the end to write and to print his works at his own expense, and, if possible, to find publishers for them. In the absence of a publisher he issued them himself. He began and ended by verse writing, but in the interval his work was varied enough, comprising novels, drama, philosophy, satire, religious polemics, and politics.

In recalling some facts connected with Shelley's literary enterprises a curious repetition of names and incidents will be noticeable. There were two separate publishers of the name of Stockdale with whom he treated, one

in Pall Mall and the other in Dublin. There was an Eton and an Eaton, the former a printer in Dublin, and the latter the publisher of the Third Part of Paine's Age of Reason, on behalf of whom Shelley wrote his Letter to Lord Ellenborough. Stockdale, of Pall Mall, and Munday, of Oxford, both listened with astonishment to his unrestrained conversation on matters of religion, and endeavored to lead him into an orthodox frame of mind. His boyish appearance and engaging enthusiasm undoubtedly made a strong appeal to them. There was a prolonged similarity in the fate of some of his early productions. Practically the whole edition of the Victor and Cazire volume was destroyed at the author's request, and The Necessity of Atheism and the Letter to Lord Ellenborough shared a like fate, though without Shelley's

consent.

In the year 1809 Shelley and his cousin, Tom Medwin, wrote a poem in the style of Scott's narrative verse on The Wandering Jew. It was sent to Scott's publisher, Ballantyne, of Edinburgh, who replied that it was 'better suited to the character and liberal feelings of the English than the bigoted spirit' which the writer declared 'yet pervades many cultivated minds in this country. Even Walter Scott is assailed on all hands at present by our Scotch spiritual and evangelical magazines and institutions for having promulgated atheistical doctrines with The Lady of the Lake.' This astonishing statement was evidently an excuse for declining The Wandering Jew, which found no publisher during Shelley's lifetime. He was, however, at that date busily occupied with his novel Zastrozzi, which he offered to Longmans. He may have been drawn to that firm as the publishers of a romance, which he is said to have admired and, indeed, to have imitated in Zastrozzi,

entitled Zofloya, or the Moor, by Mrs. Byron, or Charlotte Dacre, better known by her pseudonym, Rosa Malilda.

Although rejected by Longmans, Zastrozzi was published while Shelley was still at Eton by another Paternoster Row firm, Wilkie and Robinson. We are told that the young author received £40 or £50 for the book, apparently the only money he ever earned by his pen, which sum he spent in providing a farewell banquet to twelves of his schoolfellows.

There is a tradition that Shelley's grandfather, Sir Bysshe, paid for the printing at Horsham of some of the boy's earliest writings, but apparently none of these efforts has survived. Local printing offices seem to have had an attraction for Shelley; we shall see later that he printed books at Dublin, Barnstaple, Oxford, Leghorn, and Pisa.

Shelley's selection of Worthing, rather than Horsham, for his next venture may have been determined by his desire for secrecy. He made a selection of seventeen poems by himself and his sister Elizabeth with the title of Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, and put it into the hands of C. and W. Phillips, of Worthing. A daughter of the printer, 'an intelligent, brisk young woman,' was the active member of the firm, with whom Shelley was on very good terms. Shelley took great interest in the technical side of the business, and spent hours in the printing office learning typesetting. Some months later when at Oxford he had occasion to find a printer for his pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism, he again resorted to Messrs. Phillips, who both printed and added their names to the tract. When Shelley got into trouble in connection with The Necessity, his father's solicitors drafted a letter warning the printers of an im

pending prosecution, and recommend ing them not to proceed with the printing of any manuscripts that they might have by Shelley. Apparently the letter was never sent, and no prosecution was instituted against the printers, as Munday, the Oxford bookseller, who had been an unwilling agent in selling the pamphlet, sent a similar warning to them.

Before the printing of the Original Poetry of Victor and Cazire was completed, Shelley called on J. J. Stockdale, a publisher in Pall Mall, and persuaded him to publish the volume. Stockdale was a man with a doubtful past, who had issued a good deal of verse on commission for obscure verse writers, besides the scandalous Memoirs of Harriette Wilson. In later years he described, in Stockdale's Budget, a curious publication which is to be seen in the British Museum, how he received 1480 copies of the Original Poetry, and how he discovered, after some of them had been sent out to the press, that the volume contained a poem by M. G. Lewis. On inviting Shelley to explain this circumstance, the poet 'expressed the warmest resentment at the imposition practised upon him by the coadjutor,' and instructed Stockdale to destroy all the remaining copies; only three or four are now known to have survived.

In the meantime Stockdale had undertaken to revive and publish Shelley's second novel, St. Irvyne: or, the Rosicrucian. The author's expectation to get at least £60 for this romance from Robinson, the publisher of Zastrozzi, was not realized, as the terms arranged with Stockdale were that the book should be published at the author's expense. The publisher mournfully recorded the fact some years later that the romance did not sell, and that he was never paid for the printer's bill. While St. Irvyne was

going through the press Shelley used to call at Stockdale's shop. The publisher became alarmed at the tone of Shelley's conversation, and, in the hope that his intentions would be well received, he communicated his suspicions to Shelley's father. Mr. Timothy Shelley, however, only snubbed Stockdale for his pains. Shelley was furious at the interference, and all hopes of obtaining a settlement of his bill vanished.

When Mr. Timothy Shelley took his son up to Oxford in October, 1810, he called with him at the shop of Munday & Slatter, the booksellers, where he advised him to get his supplies of book and stationery. Then, turning to the booksel'er, he said, 'My son here has a literary turn, he is already an author, and do pray indulge him in his printing freaks.' A month later Shelley took some of his verses to Munday, who agreed to publish them. His friend Hogg saw the proofs and, ridiculing their intended sincerity, suggested that with some corrections they would make burlesque poetry. Shelley somewhat reluctantly agreed, and the verses were altered to fit the title of The Posthumous Verses of Margaret Nicholson, edited by her nephew, John Fitzvictor. The lady in question was a mad washerwoman, who had attempted the life of George III in 1786, and was in 1810 still an inmate of Bedlam, though nominally dead as far as the world was concerned.

The fictitious nephew Fitzvictor was apparently a son of the Victor who had but recently collaborated with the peccant Cazire. When Shelley informed the bookseller that he had changed his mind about publishing, and showed him the altered verses, Munday was so pleased with the idea that he offered to publish the book on his own account, promising secrecy and as many gratis copies as

might be required. The book was issued as a bold quarto, and it became the fashion, says Hogg, among gownsmen to be seen reading it in the High Street, 'as a mark of nice discernment of a delicate and fastidious taste in poetry and the very criterion of a choice spirit.' Shelley was frequently in Munday & Slatter's shop, where he was in the habit of talking on his favorite subjects. The booksellers, like Stockdale, became uneasy at the tone of his conversation and endeavored to reason with him. Failing to make any impression, they persuaded him to meet a Mr. Hobbes, for whom they afterwards published a poetical work called The Widower. Mr. Hobbes undertook 'to analyze Shelley's arguments, and endeavored to refute them philosophically.' But Shelley was not convinced; he declined to reply in writing to Mr. Hobbes's arguments, and declared that he would rather meet any or all of the dignitaries of the Church than one philosopher.

If Mr. Hobbes's arguments were no better than his verses, Shelley was fully justified in his objections. Mr. Slatter, who has left a record of these facts, tells us that when some months later Shelley strewed the windows and counters of Munday's shop with copies of The Necessity of Atheism, which he had caused to be printed by his Worthing friends, the Phillips, he instructed their shopman to sell the pamphlet as fast as he could at a charge of six pence each. The result was magical. Mr. Walker, Fellow of New College, dropped into the shop and examined the tract and drew the booksellers' attention to its dangerous tendency. They resolved to destroy the copies, and promptly made a bonfire of them in the back kitchen. Shelley's expulsion from the University followed in due

course.

Shelley's activities in Dublin, in February and March, 1812, made it necessary for him to employ a printer, or printers, for his two pamphlets, An Address to the Irish People and Proposals for an Association of Philanthropists, but neither of these tracts bore the name of a publisher, and there are no details forthcoming of the circumstances connected with their production. Shelley, however, placed a collection of his poems in the hands of a firm of Dublin printers, Messrs. R. and J. Stockdale, but they refused to proceed with the book until they were paid, and it was never issued. The manuscript was recovered after Shelley left Dublin, and remained unprinted for seventy years, until Professor Dowden included some selections from it in his Life of Shelley.

I can find no record of when or how Shelley first met Thomas Hookham, but his earliest published letter to him, July 29, 1812, was evidently preceded by others that have not been preserved. Hookham's Library was an old-established business in Old Bond Street, and about the year 1811 Thomas Hookham the younger and his brother Edward started publishing on their own account at their father's address. They issued the second edition of Peacock's The Genius of the Thames and The Philosophy of Melancholy, and Hogg's novel, Memories of Prince Alexy Haimatoff, of which Shelley subsequently wrote a review. Shelley sent Thomas Hookham copies of his Letter to Lord Ellenborough, which he had printed at Barnstaple, but the tract shared the same fate as The Necessity of Atheism, and was destroyed by the printer as a dangerous publication. One copy was preserved by Hookham, the only one now known to exist; it is in the Bodleian Library.

In March, 1813, when Shelley was in, Dublin for the second time, he sent