Peter Bell the Third
Thomas Brown, Esq., the Younger, H. F., to whom the “Dedication” is
addressed, is the Irish poet, Tom Moore. The letters H. F. may stand for
‘Historian of the Fudges’ (Garnett), Hibernicae Filius (Rossetti), or,
perhaps, Hibernicae Fidicen. Castles and Oliver (3 2 1; 7 4 4) were
government spies, as readers of Charles Lamb are aware. The allusion in
6 36 is to Wordsworth’s “Thanksgiving Ode on The Battle of Waterloo”,
original version, published in 1816:—
But Thy most dreaded instrument,
In working out a pure intent,
Is Man—arrayed for mutual slaughter,
—Yea, Carnage is Thy daughter!
1.
Lines 547-549 (6 18 5; 19 1, 2). These lines evidently form a continuous
clause. The full stop of the editio princeps at rocks, line 547, has
therefore been deleted, and a semicolon substituted for the original
comma at the close of line 546.
2.
‘Ay—and at last desert me too.’ (line 603.)
Rossetti, who however follows the editio princeps, saw that these words
are spoken—not by Peter to his soul, but—by his soul to Peter, by way
of rejoinder to the challenge of lines 600-602:—‘And I and you, My
dearest Soul, will then make merry, As the Prince Regent did with
Sherry.’ In order to indicate this fact, inverted commas are inserted at
the close of line 602 and the beginning of line 603.
3.
The punctuation of the editio princeps, 1839, has been throughout
revised, but—with the two exceptions specified in notes (1) and (2)
above—it seemed an unprofitable labour to record the particular
alterations, which serve but to clarify—in no instance to modify—the
sense as indicated by Mrs. Shelley’s punctuation.