THE MASK OF ANARCHY.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Our text follows in the main the transcript by Mrs. Shelley (with
additions and corrections in Shelley’s hand) known as the ‘Hunt
manuscript.’ For the readings of this manuscript we are indebted to Mr.
Buxton Forman’s Library Edition of the Poems, 1876. The variants of the
‘Wise manuscript’ (see Prefatory Note) are derived from the Facsimile
edited in 1887 for the Shelley Society by Mr. Buxton Forman.
1.
Like Eldon, an ermined gown; (4 2.)
The editio princeps (1832) has Like Lord E— here. Lord is inserted in
minute characters in the Wise manuscript, but is rejected from our text
as having been cancelled by the poet himself in the (later) Hunt
manuscript.
2.
For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his; (20 1, 2.)
For rightly (Wise manuscript) the Hunt manuscript and editions 1832,
1839 have nightly which is retained by Rossetti and in Forman’s text of