A Philosophical Poem. BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. NEW YORK: PRINTED BY WILLIAM BALDWIN AND CO. CORNER OF CHATHAM STREET. 1821. PREFACE. THE Editor of this edition of "Queen Mab," was in England in the Spring of 1815, and received a copy of the Poem from the Author, who was then in his twentysecond year. It was written during his minority, and a small number were printed, and circulated privately, without a title-page, or printer's name. The press of England was never free, even in her best days, but now that she is rapidly declining in the scale of empire and prosperity, and bending her neck to the yoke of despotism, it is completely enslaved. No one who valued his liberty could think of publishing such a work, and it remained in obscurity until a bookseller, of the name of Clarke, had the temerity to print and sell publicly in London, an elegant octavo edition, early in the present year. A prosecution was speedily commenced against him, by an infamous junta of canting hypocrites, assuming the title of "A Society for the Suppression of Vice," and he has, most probably, ere this been tried, condemned, and consigned to a dungeon, |