As the hour drew near for the publication of _Zastrozzi_, Shelley was urgent with his publisher to spend money in getting favourable reviews of the superlatively foolish book. The publisher declining to part with his money for that purpose, the literary aspirant (more truth-loving though he was than other boys, if Lady Shelley may be trusted) discovered a grievance in Mr. Robinson's niggardly reluctance to bribe the reviewers. As the man of business would not make needful arrangements with the 'gentlemen of the press,' Shelley declared his intention (in a letter dated 1st April, 1810), to see that the 'venal villains' were properly 'pouched.' Many a boyish author has talked and written in the same vein, and even tipt a 'venal villain' for a lying paragraph, without bearing himself in later time so as to acquire a reputation for untruthfulness or for labouring under semi-delusions. A biographer might well disdain to notice so trivial an indication of a readiness to tamper with the truth and fib by deputy, had Shelley's veracity never been called in question in later time. Under the circumstances of the case, one does not make too much of the small matter, in remarking that, whilst it accords with the action of the young man who offered verse for sale as 'original poetry' with the knowledge that it was not 'original,' this resolve to buy insincere praise, in order to deceive the public and win money or homage from credulous readers, is out of harmony with the fine things that have been said of the poet's sublime sincerity and passionate abhorrence of falsehood. If Medwin was right in saying _Zastrozzi_ was favourably reviewed and declared 'a book of much promise,' the critic must have been a sufficiently 'pouched' and 'venal villain.'