Were I to hear to-morrow that the main library of Harvard University, with every one of its 496,200 volumes, had been reduced to ashes, there is in my mind no question what book I should most regret. It is that unique, battered, dingy little quarto volume of Shelley’s manuscript poems, in his own handwriting and that of his wife, first given by Miss Jane Clairmont (Shelley’s “Constantia”) to Mr. Edward A. Silsbee, and then presented by him to the library. Not only is it full of that aroma of fascination which belongs to the actual handiwork of a master, but its numerous corrections and interlineations make the reader feel that he is actually traveling in the pathway of that delicate mind. Professor George E. Woodberry had the use of it; he printed in the “Harvard University Calendar” a facsimile of the “Ode to a Skylark” as given in the manuscript, and has cited many of its various readings in his edition of Shelley’s poems. But he has passed by a good many others; and some of these need, I think, for the sake of all students of Shelley, to be put in print, so that in case of the loss or destruction of the precious volume, these fragments at least may be preserved. There occur in this manuscript the following variations from Professor Woodberry’s text of “The Sensitive Plant”—variations not mentioned by him, for some reason or other, in his footnotes or supplemental notes, and yet not canceled by Shelley:— “Three days the flowers of the garden fair Like stars when the moon is awakened, were.” III, 1-2. [_Moon_ is clearly _morn_ in the Harvard MS.] “And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant.” III, 100. [The prefatory _And_ is not in the Harvard MS.] “But the mandrakes and toadstools and docks and darnels Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels.” III, 112. [The word _brambles_ appears for _mandrakes_ in the Harvard MS.] These three variations, all of which are interesting, are the only ones I have noted as uncanceled in this particular poem, beyond those recorded by Professor Woodberry. But there are many cases where the manuscript shows, in Shelley’s own handwriting, variations subsequently canceled by him; and these deserve study by all students of the poetic art. His ear was so exquisite and his sense of the _balance_ of a phrase so remarkable, that it is always interesting to see the path by which he came to the final utterance, whatever that was. I have, therefore, copied a number of these modified lines, giving, first, Professor Woodberry’s text, and then the original form of language, as it appears in Shelley’s handwriting, italicizing the words which vary, and giving the pages of Professor Woodberry’s edition. The cancelation or change is sometimes made in pen, sometimes in pencil; and it is possible that, in a few cases, it may have been made by Mrs. Shelley.