No More Learning

_500 Betty]Emma 1839, 2nd edition. See letter from Shelley to Ollier,
May 14, 1820 (Shelley Memorials, page 139).

(_512 Vox populi, vox dei. As Mr. Godwin truly observes of a more
famous saying, of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally destitute
of philosophical accuracy. --[SHELLEY'S NOTE. ])

(_534 Quasi, Qui valet verba:--i. e. all the words which have been,
are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A
sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter's progenitor
who selected this name seems to have possessed A PURE ANTICIPATED
COGNITION of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his
posterity. --[SHELLEY'S NOTE. ])

_602-3 See Editor's Note.

(_583 A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic
Pantisocratists. --[SHELLEY'S NOTE.
])

(_588 See the description of the beautiful colours produced during the
agonizing death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long
poem in blank verse, published within a few years. ["The Excursion", 8
2 568-71. --Ed. ] That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual
hardening of a strong but circumscribed sensibility, of the perversion
of a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding. The author might
have derived a lesson which he had probably forgotten from these sweet
and sublime verses:--

'This lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,
Taught both by what she (Nature) shows and what conceals,
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels. '--[SHELLEY'S NOTE. ])

(_652 It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and
Peter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a
sort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than
Peter, because he pollutes a holy and how unconquerable cause with the
principles of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one
ridiculous and odious.

If either Peter or Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more
indignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied
in the moral perversion laid to their charge. --[SHELLEY'S NOTE. ])


NOTE ON PETER BELL THE THIRD, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

In this new edition I have added "Peter Bell the Third". A critique on
Wordsworth's "Peter Bell" reached us at Leghorn, which amused Shelley
exceedingly, and suggested this poem.

I need scarcely observe that nothing personal to the author of "Peter
Bell" is intended in this poem.