read to us his "Ode to Liberty"; and was riotously accompanied by the
grunting of a quantity of pigs brought for sale to the fair. He compared
it to the 'chorus of frogs' in the satiric drama of Aristophanes; and,
it being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting
another, he imagined a political-satirical drama on the circumstances of
the day, to which the pigs would serve as chorus--and "Swellfoot" was
begun. When finished, it was transmitted to England, printed, and
published anonymously; but stifled at the very dawn of its existence by
the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who threatened to prosecute it,
if not immediately withdrawn. The friend who had taken the trouble of
bringing it out, of course did not think it worth the annoyance and
expense of a contest, and it was laid aside.

Hesitation of whether it would do honour to Shelley prevented my
publishing it at first. But I cannot bring myself to keep back anything
he ever wrote; for each word is fraught with the peculiar views and
sentiments which he believed to be beneficial to the human race, and the
bright light of poetry irradiates every thought. The world has a right
to the entire compositions of such a man; for it does not live and
thrive by the outworn lesson of the dullard or the hypocrite, but by the
original free thoughts of men of genius, who aspire to pluck bright
truth

'from the pale-faced moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep
Where fathom-line would never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned'

truth. Even those who may dissent from his opinions will consider that
he was a man of genius, and that the world will take more interest in