A NEW EDITION.
LONDON: F. Pitman, 20, Paternoster Row.
MANCHESTER: John Heywood, Ridgefield; and Offices
of the Vegetarian Society, 75, Princess Street.
1884.
Shelley's "Vindication of Natural Diet" was first written as part of thenotes to "Queen Mab," which was privately issued in 1813. Later in thesame year the "Vindication" was separately published as a pamphlet, andit is from this later publication that the present reprint is made. Theoriginal pamphlet is now exceedingly scarce, but it is said to have beenreprinted in 1835, as an appendix to an American medical work, the"Manual on Health," by Dr. Turnbull, of New York. Two copies only areknown to have been preserved of this excessively rare pamphlet, thoughpossibly others may be hidden in unfrequented libraries and out of theway country houses. One copy is in the British Museum, and the other isin the possession of Mr. H. Buxton Forman, who has reprinted it in hisgreat edition of Shelley, where it forms the opening part of the secondvolume of the "Prose Works."
The main object of Shelley's pamphlet was to show that a vegetable dietis the most natural, and therefore the best for mankind. It is not anappeal to humanitarian sentiment, but an argument based on individualexperience, concerning the intimate connection of health and moralitywith food. It has no claim to originality in the arguments adduced; itsmaterials being avowedly drawn from the works of Dr. Lambe and Mr.Newton, of whom an account may be read in Mr. Howard Williams' "Catena,"but the style is Shelley's own, and the pamphlet is in many ways one ofthe most interesting and characteristic of his prose works.[Pg 4] Perhaps itsmost remarkable feature is to be found in the very pertinent remarks asto the bearing of Vegetarianism on those questions of economy and socialreform, which are now forcing themselves more and more on the attentionof the English people.[1]
At the time of writing his "Vindication of Natural Diet," Shelley hadhimself, for some months past, adopted a Vegetarian diet, chiefly, nodoubt, through his intimacy with the Newton family. There seems noreason to doubt that he continued to practise Vegetarianism during therest of his stay in England, that is from 1813 to the spring of 1818.Leigh Hunt's account of his life at Marlow, in 1817, is asfollows:—"This was the round of his daily life. He was up early,breakfasted sparingly, wrote this 'Revolt of Islam' all the morning;went out in his boat, or in the woods, with some Greek author or theBible in his hands; came home to a dinner of vegetables (for he tookneither meat nor wine); visited, if necessary, the sick and fatherless,whom others gave Bibles to and no help; wrote or studied again, or readto his wife and friends the whole evening; took a crust of bread or aglass of whey for his supper, and went early to bed."
In 1818, he left England for Italy, and during his last four years, themost dreamy