One after another Shelley now poured out the marvelous works on which his fame is based. He took the old myth of Aeschylus and wrote a drama, “Prometheus Unbound,” which might be described as the distilled essence of revolt, the most modern of philosophical dramas, proclaiming the defiance of the human spirit to all ordained gods. At the other extreme, and written in the same year, was “The Cenci,” a tragic story out of Renaissance Italy, human and simple, therefore poignant and real. The poet Keats died, and Shelley wrote “Adonais”--and those who think that art exists for art’s sake and beauty for beauty’s sake, make note that here is a work which combines all the perfections of poetry, and yet has a moral, a fighting message. He wrote also political comedies in the style of Aristophanes--representing English society by an ecstatic chorus of pigs. So savage is this lashing that even today English critics keep silence about “Swellfoot the Tyrant.” The odious fat lecher, King George IV, was sued for divorce by his wife, Queen Caroline, and it was a most horrible scandal, which Britain hardly dared to whisper. I remember when I was a student in college, twenty-five years ago, searching the libraries in an effort to find out the contents of the “Green Bag” which figures in Shelley’s drama; but no commentator would tell me--and I don’t know yet! Shelley has the qualities of sublimity and fervor; also he has the defects of these qualities--he is often windy and wordy and unreal. But in his last miraculous years he shed these faults, and produced lyrics of such loveliness that he is today the poet of poets, the soul companion of generous and idealistic youth. In his “Mask of Anarchy” are songs of revolt which have reached the workers--and which therefore English critics still find it necessary to deprecate! A couple of years ago was celebrated in London the anniversary of Shelley’s death, and there assembled a great number of people of the sort who would have skinned him while he was alive. A famous editor, Mr. J. C. Squires, took occasion to quote the poem: “Men of England, wherefore plow?” How obviously foolish! If the men of England did not plow, they would starve! But it just happens that Shelley did not say that; what he said was: “Men of England, wherefore plow for the lords who lay ye low?” And five million, five hundred thousand labor votes echo: “Wherefore?”