sc. 4) Eternity, symbolised in
Demo-gorgon, is described in terms not wholly unlike those which we
are now debating:--

'I see a mighty Darkness
Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom
Dart round, as light from the meridian sun,
Ungazed upon and shapeless. Neither limb,
Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is
A living Spirit.'

As to the phrase in the cancelled stanza, 'In darkness of his own
exceeding light,' it need hardly be observed that this is modified
from the expression in Paradise Lost (Book 3):--

'Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear.'

1. 5. _Thunder-smoke, whose skirts were chrysolite._ Technically,
chrysolite is synonymous with the precious stone peridot, or
olivine--its tint is a yellowish green. But probably Shelley thought
only of the primary meaning of the word chrysolite, 'golden-stone,' and
his phrase as a whole comes to much the same thing as 'a cloud with a
golden lining.'

+Stanza 6,+ 1. 1. _And like a sudden meteor._ We here have a
fragmentary simile which may--or equally well may not--follow
on as connected with St. 5. See on p. 147, for whatever it may
be worth in illustration, the line relating to Coleridge:--

'A cloud-encircled meteor of the air.'

1. 5. _Pavilioned in its tent of light._ Shelley was fond of the word
Pavilion, whether as substantive or as verb. See St. 50: 'Pavilioning the
dust of him,' &c.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the _Life of Mrs. Shelley_, by Lucy Madox Rossetti (_Eminent
Women Series_), published in 1890. The connexion between the two
branches of the Shelley family is also set forth--incidentally, but with
perfect distinctness--in Collins's _Peerage of England_(1756), vol. iii.
p. 119. He says that Viscount Lumley (who died at some date towards
1670) 'married Frances, daughter of Henry Shelley, of Warminghurst in
Sussex, Esq. (a younger branch of the family seated at Michaelgrove, the
seat of the present Sir John Shelley, Bart.).'

[2] I am indebted to Mr. J. Cordy Jeaffreson for some strongly reasoned
arguments, in private-correspondence, tending to Harriet's disculpation.

[3] This line (should be '_Beneath_ the good,' &c.) is the final line of
Gray's _Progress of Poesy_. The sense in which Shelley intends to apply
it to _The Cenci_ may admit of some doubt. He seems to mean that _The
Cenci_ is not equal to really good tragedies; but still is superior to
some tragedies which have recently appeared, and which bad critics