This sketch of Shelley's life was written in the summer of 1878. Since then Professor Dowden's Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley (2 vols., Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co., 1886) has been given to the world. In that exhaustive work many important documents belonging to the poet's heirs have been freely used for the first time. Professor Dowden has thus been able to elucidate some hitherto obscure points in Shelley's history, and to settle several doubtful questions. It is not probable that much more will be added in the future to our knowledge of his life.