Mary Shelley celebrates her twenty-third birthday by studying Greek, and reading Percy’s “Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot the Tyrant,” a satire in verse dealing with Queen Caroline and George IV and inspired by the grunting of pigs at the Baths of San Guilliano.
“Prometheus Unbound” is in the merest spirit of ideal Poetry, and not, as the name would indicate, a mere imitation of the Greek drama, or indeed if I have been successful, is it an imitation of anything.
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one