'prankt,' 'snatcht,' 'kist,' 'opprest,' etc.) like that of 'crept'
from 'creep'--I have not hesitated to print the longer form 'leaped,'
and the shorter (after Mr. Henry Sweet's example) 'lept,' in order
clearly to indicate the pronunciation intended by Shelley. In the
editions the two vowel-sounds are confounded under the one spelling,
'leapt.' In a few cases Shelley's spelling, though unusual or
obsolete, has been retained. Thus in 'aethereal,' 'paean,' and one or
two more words the "ae" will be found, and 'airy' still appears as
'aery'. Shelley seems to have uniformly written 'lightening': here the
word is so printed whenever it is employed as a trisyllable; elsewhere
the ordinary spelling has been adopted. (Not a little has been written
about 'uprest' ("Revolt of Islam", 3 21 5), which has been described
as a nonce-word deliberately coined by Shelley 'on no better warrant
than the exigency of the rhyme.' There can be little doubt that
'uprest' is simply an overlooked misprint for 'uprist'--not by any
means a nonce-word, but a genuine English verbal substantive of
regular formation, familiar to many from its employment by Chaucer.
True, the corresponding rhyme-words in the passage above referred to
are 'nest,' 'possessed,' 'breast'; but a laxity such as
'nest'--'uprist' is quite in Shelley's manner. Thus in this very poem
we find 'midst'--'shed'st' (6 16), 'mist'--'rest'--'blest' (5 58),
'loveliest'--'mist'--kissed'--'dressed' (5 53). Shelley may have first
seen the word in "The Ancient Mariner"; but he employs it more
correctly than Coleridge, who seems to have mistaken it for a
preterite-form (='uprose') whereas in truth it serves either as the
third person singular of the present (='upriseth'), or, as here, for
the verbal substantive (='uprising').

The editor of Shelley to-day enters upon a goodly heritage, the
accumulated gains of a series of distinguished predecessors. Mrs.