LXXXII.

"The old laws of England - they

Whose reverend heads with age are gray,

Children of a wiser day;

And whose solemn voice must be

Thine own echo - Liberty!

LXXXIII.

"On those who first should violate Such sacred heralds in their state Rest 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.

LXXXV.

"With folded arms and steady eyes,

And little fear, and less surprise
Look upon them as they slay

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.

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.

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

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 thro' each heart and brain, Heard again-again — again

XCI.

"Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number

Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you—

Ye are many they are few.”

HOUGH Shelley's first eager desire to excite his countrymen to resist openly the oppressions existent during" the good old times" had faded with early youth, still his warmest sympathies were for the people. He was a republican, and loved a democracy. He looked on all human beings as inheriting an equal right to possess the dearest privileges of our nature; the necessaries of life when fairly earned by labour, and intellectual instruction. His hatred of any despotism that looked upon the people as not to be consulted, or protected from want and ignorance, was intense. He was residing

Note on The Mask of Anarchy

near Leghorn, at Villa Valsovano, writing "The Cenci," when the news of the Manchester Massacre reached us; it roused in him violent emotions of indignation and compassion. The great truth that the many, if accordant and resolute, could control the few, as was shown some years after, made him long to teach his injured countrymen how to resist. Inspired by these feelings, he wrote the "Mask of Anarchy," which he sent to his friend Leigh Hunt, to be inserted in the Examiner, of which he was then the editor.

"I did not insert it," Leigh Hunt writes in his valuable and interesting preface to this poem, when he printed it in 1832, "because I thought that the public at large had not become sufficiently discerning to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse." Days of outrage have passed away, and with them the exasperation that would cause such an appeal to the many to be injurious. Without being aware of them, they at one time acted on his suggestions, and gained the day. But they rose when human life was respected by the Minister in power; such was not the case