Enough is known of the poem, that was perused by Campbell and offered to the Ballantynes of Edinburgh, to warrant a strong opinion that originality of thought was not one of its characteristics. One of the cousins (Medwin) lived to think it 'a sort of thing such as boys usually write, a cento from different favourite authors;' and probably the other author would have described the puerile performance even more unfavourably, had he written about it in his later time. The vision in the third canto was taken from Lewis's _Monk_, one of the bad novels in which Shelley delighted. The crucifixion scene seems to have been lifted bodily into the manuscript from a published work; it was (to use Medwin's words) 'altogether a plagiarism from a volume of Cambridge Prize Poems.' Bold play was doubtless made with 'the fragment' by the joint authors, who differed on one important particular,--Shelley wishing to leave the Jew at large, whilst Medwin wished to put a period to the wretch's sufferings by killing him at the end of the last canto. When seven or eight cantos had been made up in this fashion, the patchwork of shameless plagiarisms was copied fair from the first to the last line by Shelley, and sent off to the Edinburgh publishers who, after keeping the authors a long while in suspense, declined their proposal (without returning the MS.) in the following terms:-- '_Edinburgh, September 24th, 1810._ 'SIR, 'The delay which occurred in our reply to you respecting the poem you have obligingly offered us for publication, has arisen from our literary friends and advisers (at least such as we have confidence in) being in the country at this season, as is usual, and the time they have bestowed on its perusal. 'We are extremely sorry, at length, after the most mature deliberation, to be under the necessity of declining the honour of being the publishers of the present poem;--not that we doubt its success, but that it is, perhaps, better suited to the character and liberal feelings of the English, than the bigoted spirit which yet pervades many cultivated minds in this country. Even Walter Scott is assailed on all hands at present by our Scotch spiritual, and Evangelical magazines, and instructors, for having promulgated atheistical doctrines in the _Lady of the Lake_. 'We beg you will have the goodness to advise us how it should be returned, and we think its being consigned to the care of some person in London would be more likely to ensure its safety than addressing it to Horsham. 'We are, Sir, your most obedient humble servants, 'JOHN BALLANTYNE & Co.'