"We pity the plumage but forget the Dying Bird" AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE ON THE Death of the Princess Charlotte. BY THE HERMIT OF MARLOW. “You, O Books, are the golden vessels of the Temple; burning lamps to be ever held in the hand." RICHARD AUNGERVYLE. PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE AUNGERVYLE SOCIETY, EDINBURGH. Introduction. HE tract here reprinted from a copy in my possession will be read with the deepest interest by all admirers of Percy Bysshe Shelley. However much we may disagree with the opinions of what was known in 1817 as the "Radical party," we must admire the energy and beauty of style here displayed. None can read this "Address to the People" and fail to be convinced that, right or wrong, Shelley believed implicitly in the views he enunciated; that, to him, Brandreth, Turner, and Ludlam were martyrs ; and martyrs in the cause of Justice and Liberty. To us the case seems different. The condition of the people in 1817 was indeed as miserable as can well be conceived. Some reckless demagogues, caring nothing for the real welfare of the class they claimed to represent (as has been the custom of their kind from the remotest ages to our present year of grace, 1883), and taking advantage of the wretchedness induced by Poverty and Starvation, had successfully driven their miserable dupes into acts of violence and semi-rebellion. Poor creatures, theirs. were no imaginary grievances, like so many which fill our newspaper columns at the present day! In December 1816, the Corporation of London had stated in a petition to the Prince Regent, that "the distress and misery was no longer limited to one portion of the Empire," and that "the commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing interests were all sinking under irresistible pressure." This misery and ruin, the Corporation attributed to “rash and ruinous wars, a delusive paper currency, the unexampled magnitude of the Civil List, the enormous sums paid for sinecures, all arising from the corrupt and inadequate representation of the people in Parliament whereby all constitutional control over the servants of the Crown has been lost, and Parliaments have become subservient to the will of Ministers." When we find the London Corporation speaking thus, can we be surprised that a youth with burning imagination and heart full of sympathy should have thrown his whole soul into his address to the people? The rarity of this pamplet is well known. Privately printed in 1817, Shelley did not even append his name to his impassioned appeal. It was produced under the pseudonym of the "Hermit of Marlow." It bears no imprint, and consists of 16 pp. 8vo. Brandreth, better known as "The Captain," whose execution with Turner and Ludlam was the occasion of this address, instigated by Oliver, a spy of the Government, had been the leader of what is known as the "Derby Insurrection," an assemblage of a few hundred men, which had been easily dispersed by the authorities, but whose silly attempt was held to justify the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. EDMUND GOLDSMID, EDINBURGH, Nov, 1883. AN ADDRESS, &c. I. The Princess Charlotte is dead. She no longer moves, nor thinks, nor feels. She is as inanimate as the clay with which she is about to mingle. It is a dreadful thing to know that she is a putrid corpse, who but a few days since was full of life and hope; a woman young, innocent, and beautiful, snatched from the bosom of domestic peace, and leaving that single vacancy which none can die and leave not. II. Thus much the death of the Princess Charlotte has in common with the death of thousands. How many women die in childbed and leave their families of motherless children and their husbands to live on, blighted by the remembrance of that heavy loss? How many women of active and energetic virtues; mild, affectionate, and wise; whose life is as a chain of happiness and union, which once being broken, leaves those whom it bound to perish: have died, and have been deplored with bitterness, which is too deep for words? Some have perished in penury or shame, and their orphan baby has survived, a prey to the scorn and neglect of strangers. Men have watched by the bedside of their expiring wives, and have gone mad when the hideous deathrattle was heard within the throat, regardless of the rosy child sleeping in the lap of the unobservant nurse. The countenance of the physician had been read by the stare of this distracted husband, till the legible despair sunk into his heart. All this has been and is. You walk with a merry heart through the streets of this great city, and think not that such are the scenes acting all around you. You do not number in your thoughts the mothers who die in childbed. It is the most horrible of ruins. In sickness, in |