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