1. 37. The succeeding acknowledgments, from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers. The notice here principally referred to is probably that which appeared in the Edinburgh Review in August 1820, written by Lord Jeffrey.

1. 42. Whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made callous by many blows. Shelley, in this expression, has no doubt himself in view.  He had had serious reason for complaining of the treatment meted out to him by the Quarterly Review:  see the opening (partially cited at p. 17) of his draft-letter to the Editor.

1. 44. One of their associates is, to my knowledge, a most base and unprincipled calumniator. Shelley here refers to the writer of the critique in the Quarterly Review of his poem Laon and Cythna (The Revolt of Islam).  At first he supposed the writer to be Southey; afterwards, the Rev. Mr. (Dean) Milman.  His indignant phrase is therefore levelled at Milman.  But Shelley was mistaken, for the article was in fact written by Mr. (afterwards Judge) Coleridge.

1. 46. Those who had celebrated with various degrees of complacency and panegyric Paris, and Woman, and A Syrian Tale, and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne. I presume that most readers of the present day are in the same position as I was myself—­that of knowing nothing about these performances and their authors.  In order to understand Shelley’s allusion, I looked up the Quarterly Review from April 1817 to April 1821, and have ascertained as follows, (1) The Quarterly of April 1817 contains a notice of Paris in 1815, a Poem.  The author’s name is not given, nor do I know it.  The poem, numbering about a thousand lines, is in the Spenserian stanza, varied by the heroic metre, and perhaps by some other rhythms.  Numerous extracts are given, sufficient to show that the poem is at any rate a creditable piece of writing.  Some of the critical dicta are the following:—­’The work of a powerful and poetic imagination....  The subject of the poem is a desultory walk through Paris, in which the author observes, with very little regularity but—­with great force, on the different objects which present themselves....  Sketching with the hand of a master....  In a strain of poetry and pathos which we have seldom seen equalled....  An admirable mirable poet.’ (2) Woman is a poem by the Mr. Barrett whom Shelley names, termed on the title-page ‘the Author of The Heroine.’ It was noticed in the Quarterly for April 1818, the very same number which contained the sneering critique of Endymion.  This poem is written in the heroic metre; and the extracts given do certainly comprise some telling and felicitous lines.  Such are—­

’The beautiful rebuke that looks surprise.  The gentle vengeance of averted eyes;’

also (a line which has borne, and may yet bear, frequent re-quoting)