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.