Shelley, "Peterloo" And "the Mask of Anarchy"

by Harry Buxton Forman

Excerpt from Shelley, "Peterloo" And "the Mask of Anarchy"

Lord High Chancellor, Viscount Sidmouth Home Secre tary, and Lord Castlereagh Foreign Secretary. Lord Sidmouth publicly expressed the satisfaction of the Prince Regent with the prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public tranquillity adopted by the local authorities. Lord Eldon, equally, supported the magistrates; and for the rest, the cup of iniquity both of Castlereagh and of Eldon had long, in Shelley's eyes, been full to over?owing; so that he might well give to Murder a mask like the one, and to Fraud an ermined gown like that of the other.

Genres: History

35 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2007

About the author

Henry Buxton Forman CB (11 July 1842 – 15 June 1917) was a Victorian-era bibliographer and antiquarian bookseller whose literary reputation is based on his bibliographies of Percy Shelley and John Keats. In 1934 he was revealed to have been in a conspiracy with Thomas James Wise (1859–1937) to purvey large quantities of forged first editions of Georgian and Victorian authors. [Wikipedia]

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a transcript of a lecture delivered at the Shelley Society in 1887 by the author. The beginning gives a brief overview of the events at Manchester and how it outraged Shelley, inspiring his writing of "The Mask of Anarchy." The majority of the lecture is about editing issues and variations in wording in the poem. Not helpful if you're researching Peterloo, but interesting if you're studying Shelley.

[Sem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as advertised.

[Dzevad · Rating 5 out of 5]

The work of a master.A dreadful event with the background of shameless degradation of society perfectly converted into a written word.