Enough has been said of Shelley’s ‘Irish campaign’ to show that, so far as his reputation is concerned, the kindest way of dealing with the farcical affair is to make fun of its absurdities; and that he suffers less from biographers who, dealing lightly with the expedition, palliate its foolishness with kindly reference to the adventurer’s juvenility, than from the apologists who discover wisdom and political sagacity in the extravagances of a puerile escapade. To laugh at the droll business is to be in good humour with the boy, whose self-sufficiency is only brought into offensive prominence by attempts to justify it. In this particular the poet’s admirers may well prefer Hogg’s pleasantry to Mr. MacCarthy’s seriousness. In other ways the later biographer defeats his own purpose. It is curious, how he produces evidence, supporting the very assertions whose accuracy he impugns. Maintaining that Shelley’s speech in Fishamble Street was favourably received, he prints the poet’s confession that he was checked with angry clamour against utterances, to which the newspapers made no reference. Indignant with Hogg for saying the poet was mortified by the miscarriage of his efforts for Ireland, he publishes the very words in which Shelley acknowledges the failure of his schemes. Maintaining that Shelley left Dublin ‘at the precise time he had originally arranged to leave it,’ he sets forth the testimony that, whereas he withdrew from Ireland on the 7th April, 1812, he had originally designed to stay in Dublin till ‘the end of April.’ It is thus the author of _Shelley’s Early Life_ by turns disproves his own charges against Hogg’s accuracy, or shows himself more inexact than the biographer whom he accuses of falsehood.