in part rebuilt there yet remains a vast & gloomy pile of feudal architecture-. (62) There is a court in one part of the palace, built round with fragments of antient Rome, & granite columns & antique friezes of fine workmanship adorn the balcony over balcony of which it consists. (63)

One of the gates built of immense stones & leading thro a passage dark vast & opening into gloomy subterranean chambers struck me particularly. The palace is situated in a remote & obscure corner of Rome, in the quarter of the Jews and from the upper windows you see the ruins and the trees of the Palatine Mount. (64)

I have endeavoured as nearly as possible to represent the characters (65) as they (66) probably were, and (67) have (68) sought to avoid the error of (69) making (70) them actuated by my own conceptions of right & wrong, true & false, thus, under a thin veil, making the names and actions of the seventeenth century cold impersonations of my own mind. They are Catholics, & all, as Catholics deeply religious. — (71) To a Protestant apprehension there will appear something unnatural in the earnest & perpetual (72) sentiment of the relations between God & man which pervade the tragedy of the Cenci. (73) It will especially be startled at that combination of an undoubting (74) persuasion of the truth of the

(62) The / One of the gates, built of immense stones (63) This is now a heap of ruinous building (64) The Story is / The / In compliance with / In / In compliance with the (65) as acting & speaking, as they really would have spoken (66) were (67) when this (68) attemp[ted] (69) making (70) this/persons feel (72) reference to

(71) He would write / succeed in dramatic (73) The

(74) faith

popular religion, with (75) a cool & determined (76) perseverance in enormous guilt. (77) But if it is maintained either out of or in England that (78) that kind of people are necessarily (79) infidels (80) in Italy the affair is different. Religion is interwoven with the whole fabric of life, & the system of (81) established belief (82) coexists, as it were, with a faith in that of which all men have the most certain knowledge, in the mind of a Catholic. It (83) has no necessary connexion with moral virtue, & may subsist with the greatest vigour (84) in the heart of the most atrocious villain. In fact it (85) pervades intensely the whole frame of Society, & is, according to the temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion or a persuasion-but never a cheat. Cenci himself built a chapel in the court of his palace, & dedicated it to St Thomas & established masses, for the peace of his soul. (86)

In the 1st Scene of the 4th Act Lucretias design in exposing herself to the (87) consequences of an expostulation with Cenci, immediately after having given the opiate was (88) to induce him (89)

(75) The (78) these

(76) resolution of (79) is an (80) but

(83) is supposed (86) It / In the 1st

(77) Our old / We think (81) popular belief (82) has not as in our own country a languid admission but is almost amounts to such a knowledge as in the mind of a true Catholic, the inhabitant of a Catholic country, to has an intensity (84) & that without (85) exists resides Scene/When Beatrice / The story is much the same in the tragedy as in the manuscript except that in the latter the action is hurried more hurried, & that Orsino—whose real name was Guerra—plays a more conspicuous part. / of the fourth Act Lucretias design in exposin[g]. In the statement about the story the word latter must have been put by mistake instead of former. (87) rage of Cenci

(88) if possible (89) to confess

by a feigned tale, to confess himself before (90) his death; this being esteemed by the Catholics essential to salvation, & she only relinquishes her purpose when she finds that (91) perseverance would expose Beatrice to a repetition of the unutterable horror which is the subject of the drama.

In all dramatic composition the imagery & the passion should interpenetrate one another, the (92) former being reserved to the developement & complete exhibition of the latter - imagination shd assume flesh for the redemption of passion it is thus that the most remote & the most familiar imagery may alike be (93) fit for dramatic when employed in the illustration of strong passion, which raises what is low & levels to our apprehension that which is lofty casting over all, the shadow of its own greatness (94) The finest Works of Shakespeare are a perpetual illustration of this doctrine [.

I have avoided with great care the introduction of what is commonly called mere poetry (95) and I imagine that there will be hardly found one detached simile or a single isolated description (96) unless that speech of Beatrice a passage in which was suggested by an idea (97) in the Purgatorio de San Patricio of Calderon, (98) the only plagiarism to which I can plead guilty, should be judged to be (99).

(97) a

(90) his (91) it would risque un (92) imagery serving, even in physical compl (93) impressive & sublime (94) Shakespeares (95) the (96) in the whole piece with the exception of one passage (98) which is (99) Note those lines which point out the description of the spot designed for the Ass [assination] the spot desti[ned] designed. The elements of the text and note in this part of the draft are somewhat in confusion.

The story is that (100) an old man, (101) having spent his life in debauchery & wickedness conceived at length an implacable hatred towards all his children, which showed itself (102) towards one daughter (103) under the form of an incestuous passion. This daughter found no escape from his attempts, & from the horror which she felt at being compelled to live (104) in what she considered as a perpetual contamination both of (105) body & soul, (106) leagued with her Mother in law & (107) brother to kill their common tyrant. (108) The young (109) maiden who was (110) urged to this tremendous deed by an impulse which overpowered its horror was evidently a most gentle & amiable being a creature formed to adorn & to be admired (111). Such a story, if (112) told, so as to present to the reader (113) all the feelings of those who once acted it, (114) the progress of their fears (115) and hopes, their confidences (116) and misgivings (117) the exaltation of hardened crime, the terror, the heartsick agony, (118) wd be as a light to (119) make apparent some of the most dark & secret (120) caverns of (121) the human heart but when I consider how (122) powerfully superstitions & customary (123) persuasions (124) had acted to render intolerable what appears even

(107) one story to b

(112) it

(100) of a (101) having who (102) Towards the rest (103) in (104) as (105) a (106) She but in of her (108) She had a lover also who appears by the (110) impelled (111) The details of (114) would (115) their (116) their (118) the (119) lay open (120) places (122) religion, education, a sense of modesty (124) acted

(109) creature

(113) the

exultation

nature

in [gs]

(117) their

(121) our

(123) feel

to a philosophical mind sufficiently disgusting, I feel that [. .

but I

A young prelate, (125) in love with (126) Beatrice assists them in their design, & so soon as their deed is discovered abandons them (127) & in spite of the most (128) earnest & universal interest made with the Pope, (129) they are led to execution (130).

My caution to avoid the ever intruding faults of youthful composition, diffuseness, a profusion of inapplicable imagery, vagueness, generality, & as Hamlet says Wordswords, has (131) charged I fear some of the scenes of the two first acts with defects of an opposite nature. (132) These defects if they exist are however those which, as they proceed rather from diffidence than presumption the (133) best deserve, & the most easily receive, forgiveness.

[End of the Draft.]

It should be recorded before passing on that Shelley twice used the French form manuscrit in drafting this preface, not of course intentionally, but simply through oversight or momentary forgetfulness of the retention of the original p in English, while the two languages of which he had been (125) of the (126) Beatrice acted according to the (127) —If he had pos[s]essed anything like virtue or courage /

deed is discovered,

are executed

(128) impassioned interest

(130) The law
(133) most

feared that they have

(131) cast thrown

They are / (129) They

(132) I