notes, [Footnote: I. e. ed. H. Buxton Forman, p. 253.] and 'whose
arguments she then thought irrefutable--_tempora mutantur!_'

However that may be, the two little mythological dramas on
_Proserpine_ and _Midas_ assume, in the light of that enthusiasm, a
special interest. They stand--or fall--both as a literary, and to a
certain extent as an intellectual effort. They are more than an
attitude, and not much less than an avowal. Not only do they claim our
attention as the single poetical work of any length which seems to
have been undertaken by Mrs. Shelley; they are a unique and touching
monument of that intimate co-operation which at times, especially in
the early years in Italy, could make the union of 'the May' and 'the
Elf' almost unreservedly delightful. It would undoubtedly be fatuous
exaggeration to ascribe a very high place in literature to these
little Ovidian fancies of Mrs. Shelley. The scenes, after all, are
little better than adaptations--fairly close adaptations--of the Latin
poet's well-known tales.

Even _Proserpine_, though clearly the more successful of the two, both
more strongly knit as drama, and less uneven in style and
versification, cannot for a moment compare with the far more original
interpretations of Tennyson, Swinburne, or Meredith. [Footnote:
_Demeter and Persephone_, 1889; _The Garden of Proserpine_, 1866; _The
Appeasement of Demeter_, 1888.] But it is hardly fair to draw in the
great names of the latter part of the century. The parallel would be
more illuminating--and the final award passed on Mrs. Shelley's
attempt more favourable--if we were to think of a contemporary
production like 'Barry Cornwall's' _Rape of Proserpine_, which, being
published in 1820, it is just possible that the Shelleys should have
known. B. W. Procter's poem is also a dramatic 'scene', written 'in