Hogg found him one day busily engaged in correcting proofs of some original poems.

Shelley asked his friend what he thought of them, and Hogg answered that it might be possible by a little alteration to turn them into capital burlesques.
The idea took the young poet's fancy; and the friends between them soon effected a metamorphosis in Shelley's serious verses, by which they became unmistakably ridiculous.

Having achieved their purpose, they now bethought them of the proper means of publication.

Upon whom should the poems, a medley of tyrannicide and revolutionary raving, be fathered?
Peg Nicholson, a mad washerwoman, had recently attempted George the Third's life with a carving-knife.

No more fitting author could be found.