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back again to the perception of the soul those mystic music strains which excite joy or grief in the human bosom!

Gentle reader, how true is this of the name of that beautifully mystic youth:"A pard like spirit, beautiful and swiftA love in desolation masked ;-a power Girt round with weakness; it can scarce uplift The weight of the superincumbent hour; It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,

A breaking billow;-even while we speak,
Is it not broken? On the withering flower
The killing sun smiles brightly on a cheek
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart
may break."

The true poet is seen as well as heard in his embodied inspirations. The spiritual photograph beams forth, as from a sea-like mirror, in calm and storm. Splenetic critics, knowing this, have not unfrequently, with fiendlike revelry, regardless of the poet's manifest honesty, in self betrayal seized upon the revealed and suspected fact, and pointing to it, have, as if in the cause of human welfare, exclaimed, "Behold the man!" That genius should be found in the labyrinths of error, is a sorrowful fact, but that there should be found among men those who can in the ear of the world upbraid or even taunt such wanderers, is still more lamentable.

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We have no language equally expressive of our utter disgust for such critics. The eventful though short career of Percy Bysshe Shelley is calculated to excite admiration and love towards him in all refined and sympathetic minds. There is a high degree of moral grandeur-the sublimest heroism-in the life and conduct of Shelley, which we cannot but admire, notwithstanding the numerous errors, practical and theoretic, which cast their gloomy shade o'er all his being! We regard him as a love in desolation masked," a beautiful, kindly, mighty, mystic being a soul enraptured in sorrowa spirit meek and sincere, earnest to agony, resolute to martyrdom. The meekness of his disposition, the affectionateness of his heart, the purity of his morals, the high fortitude of his soul, are so manifest in his character, that we know not how to reconcile so much beauty of character and grandeur of conduct, with such monster errors in belief, which we learn, from his prose and poetry, did constitute parts of his creed and primal principles of action. Never, surely, did so lovely a being exist with soul so divergent from fundamental truth! Never in one

being did so much real loveliness and purity coexist with so much pernicious delusion! We have, in our essayic character, to speak of Shelley's poetic genius, and not particularly of his life as a man, or his creed as a religionist; but the fact is, that it is impossible to separate them, or to do justice to the former, without to a certain extent noticing the latter. We always regard Shelley's divergence from the standard of religious truth as the result of his early religious education, and the cruel treatment he received at the shrines of scholasticism for daring to think for himself, despite the maledictory vetos of doctors, who were more anxious to dogmatize and manifest their pseudo-authority by reprobating and branding a sincere and potent spirit, than to act out the reclaiming principles of that which they merely professed and panegyrized. We do not justify the conduct of Shelley—we lament over his errors; but we pronounce the conduct of those about him as most inconsistent and cruel.

Shelley was a truly great poet; and as such we shall regard him in two particulars. Ist. In the poetic expressions of real and ideal sublimity and beauty. Some minds are naturally and highly endowed with this lofty perceptivity. Sublimity and beauty to such minds are not the happy results of material order, organization, and association, so much as the expression of something spiritual and eternal as the soul itself. Sublimity and beauty present themselves to such minds as inherent principles and latent qualities, of which matter is the simple vehicle, and as far superior to mere matter as soulperception is to optical vision, or as the immortal mind is to the perishable body. Hence, doubtless, the origin of Grecian Pantheism, and the fascinating idea which Shelley so firmly believed and constantly mirrored forth in his poesy, viz., that of "a pervading spirit, co-eternal with the universe.”

"Infinity within,

Infinity without, belie creation;
The exterminable spirit it contains
Is nature's only God."

This beautiful conception was the basis of Shelley's religious love-creed, and may pass for open Atheism with some; but when allied with a life of manifest purity, earnestness, affection, and moral heroism, can never pass for such in the estimation of Omniscient

Deity, thus partially recognized in his works, dream-sleep of Ianthe-the majesty of the or in the estimation of any true soul! soul in its disembodied state:"Sudden arose

Pantheism, and the idea of an all-pervading spirit, are true, and sublimely true, as far as they go; perhaps this is the utmost limit that human conception, unaided by direct scriptural revelation, can attain. It is the right track; but the soul faileth to pursue it, because of weakness and finity; and enamoured of its sublimity and beauty, grasps it, as in the case of Shelley, this the grand product of its own conceptive might, unaided by Christian light and Biblical theology-grasps it as the absolute and ultimate truth, the deep and everlasting basis of all things existent-grasps it as the key-stone to the universe, and the mainspring of all being! In the conception of the soul there is but one step beyond this on the track of ultimate sublimity. - the Biblical revelation of the unity and personality of the Eternal Godhead! Would that Shelley had lived a few more fleeting years; for, having survived the blighting influences of his training, he would most assuredly, under the influence of that wondrous book, the Bible, which he read and loved to the last of his short career, have risen to the belief of its sublimest truth-the unity and personality of Deity!

Referring to "Queen Mab," under this aspect, we shall find many illustrations. Regarding this poem in the simple indications of his perception of, and power to express in poetic symbols, the sublime and beautiful, of the real and ideal, it has been truthfully styled, "his glory as a poet."

The first and second sections of this poem, with passages from the remaining sections of irreverent feeling, discontent, rabid declamation, and puerile presumption, are, we think, the most splendid lines of combined real and ideal sublimity and beauty to be found in modern poetry. There is all the grandeur of Miltonic epicism, without its cumbrous trampings and pomp of blank verse composition. It may be read, as all poetry ought to be, with ease. The verbal harmony and dictional symmetry, the sweetness and the smoothness of the parts of those poems already referred to, invest it with a power of enchantment which the soul instinctively recognizes as the prerogative of the highest order of genius! The

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"Upon the couch the body lay
Wrapt in the depth of slumber.
Its features were fixed and meaningless;
Yet animal life was there,

And every organ yet performed

Its natural functions; 'twas a sight Of wonder to behold the body and soul. The self-same lineaments, the same Marks of identity were there; Yet, oh, how different! One aspires to heaven, Pants for its sempiternal heritage, And ever-changing, ever rising still,

Wantons in endless being.

The other, for a time the unwilling sport
Of circumstance and passion, struggles on;
Fleets through its sad duration rapidly;
Then, like a useless and worn out machine,
Rots, perishes, and passes."

The mystic character of the Fairy Queen -the "magic car"-its ethereal course through "heaven's dark blue vault"-the last glimpses of this atom world in the scale of the Universe:

"Far, far below the chariot's path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous ocean lay.
The mirror of its stillness showed
The pale and waning stars-
The chariot's fiery track-
And the grey light of morn
Tinging those fleecy clouds
That canopied the dawn.
Seemed it that the chariot's way

Lay through the midst of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,

And semicircled with a belt
Flashing incessant meteors."

The universality of the Divine Spirit, and the eternity of matter, and the perpetual harmony of this vast and beautiful universe, as expressed in the concluding lines of the first section of this poem, are exquisite, viewed in any point of criticism. The opening of the second section is perhaps the purest, sweetest, most beautiful, and sublime specimen of all his writings, which, from its length and our want of space, we must not fully quote:

"If solitude hath ever led thy steps

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To the wild ocean's echoing shore," &c., &c.

none!" he said, in his actions; "Away with your college honours, your lordly status in rotten society, your parliamentary renown, and high marriage relationship! Give me freedom to think, act, and love, and I envy not the possessors or enamoured getters of such; I count them trash when obtained at the cost of manhood's crown-Freedom!"

Reader, we may learn wisdom from Shelley, and make his errors beacons on the sea of life; and still more we may from him learn to be brave, and grow in moral courage. In moral heroism our degenerate days of habit forfeiting manliness have seen few like him. He has gone, and has more fully realised his words concerning his departed brother-poet Keats:

"I am borne darkly, fearfully afar,

Whilst burning through the inmost veil of
Heaven,

"The Cloud," and some other minor pieces, are highly characterized with his intense spirit of beauty. Each of these is worthy of separate notice, but we must pass on to notice his two greatest productions, which will present the poet under our second aspect of criticism.

Hitherto we have spoken of this poem in the poetic aspect of criticism, which is indeed the brightest aspect. How mournful is the contrast as we turn to gaze upon its moral and religious character, its bold presumption and maniac distraction, 'mid the manifest light and glory of Him whom he saw not, although His name and love were written on all the scenes, worlds, and wonders he in poetic inspiration saw. The soul of Ianthe is summoned to pass through the vast tracks of Infinity, of splendour, of harmony, of em bodied goodness and boundless benevolence, to learn from the lips of one who knew somewhat of Deity from the light beyond the tomb, that the God of the Bible is "vengeful as almighty;" that the lovely Jesus came veiling his horrible Godhead in the shape of man;" that He, whose words were The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are." wisdom and actions love, was an hypocrite; and much more, horribilissimum dictu! Never "Adonais, an Elegy on the Death of John was so much poetic beauty and sublimity Keats;""Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude;" associated with such deep impiety and hor-"The Sensitive Plant;" "To a Skylark;" ror! Looking upon this, the chief aspect of the poet as a man, may we not exclaim, "How are the mighty fallen!" But we sit not in judgment here, the mystery is too deep for us to explore. The wild waves of the Gulf of Speiza, some thirty years back, rolled o'er the boy poet, and from the watery depth his immortal spirit took its ethereal flight to the just tribunal of God! Let it be remembered that this mysterious production was written at the age of 18, when his deep disgust, and, to a great extent, just abhorrence of the domination of a religious system was strongest upon his mind! These facts, which somewhat relieve the gloom which hangs over the memory of him who grew old in childhood-whose life was a deep solemnity, for he pursued the paths of truth and error with giant strength and boundless impulse-whose very smile and unfrequent mirth were prophetic of coming trial and disaster-whose life was lovelier and truer than his creed-whose religion was that of natural inspiration, love, and purity-whose demeanour to friend and foe was meekness and kindness, Christ-like though Christ-denying-whose freedom-loving mind could not tolerate pseudo-cracy, either in logic, morals, or religion. "Give me freedom; my freedom at the expense of

We refer to the super-tragic "Cenci," and "Hellas, a Lyrical Drama." Here the potent genius of Shelley is supremely manifest, in the production of a tragedy second to none since Shakspere, and a drama displaying a mind as classic as poetic. These may appear extravagant encomiums to those who have not read Shelley's works, but we think they are merely just statements of high merit. "The Cenci" has been attacked by some modern critics, as many of our best modern works have been. It would appear that most great minds must act their part on the stage of mortality, amid misrepresentation, contempt, prejudice, and ofttimes wanton cruelty, with motives misconstrued, and characters slandered-especially if such minds forsake the common track of common minds-and that the tomb must become the home of their mortality ere they gain the ear of the world, or the unbiassed regard of men. history attests it. The despised of one generation becomes the worshipped of the

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future. The murmur of the Speizan waves | Cenci, or love, even to worship, the beautistopped and hushed in everlasting silence ful Beatrice, in all her purity of untainted the bitterness of criticism and pretended soul virginity. Surely that is not immoral piety, and o'er the ashes of the lovely boy which enamours us with the lovely, or fortimalignancy and prejudice are seen weeping! fies us against the horrible in human characWhen "The Cenci" made its appearance, ter! He who sits down to the perusal of those who had shouted in hosts and thunders "The Cenci," or " Hamlet," and rises a worse "Infidelity," now cried "Immorality;" but man in moral character, did so with a soul the same charge has been thrown at our beyond redemption. The Bible would only immortal Shaks pere, and time and truth have feed his monster appetite for evil! The good shown in the estimation of wise and good he would make evil, and the very atmosphere men how shallow and empty it is. Its of Paradise pregnant with poisonous moral strength of argument lies herein. Because miasmata! the evils which afflict our common humanity are in "Hamlet" and "The Cenci" held up to the world's gaze, they must necessarily be immoral works, and tend to corrupt mankind. Forgetting in their blindness and puerile weakness, that what they meant by the term, "world's gaze," Shakspere and Shelley meant universal detestation and consequent avoidance. This we remember was the great argument used by those who held, in the late controversy in these pages, that Milton was a greater poet than Shakspere! The same argument will establish the evil tendency of that priceless book-the Bible!

To the point. Regarding the vivid personality and bold exhibition of character in "The Cenci," it is Shaksperian and grand, and its tendency anything but immoral. None but a corrupt mind could do anything less than loathe the incarnate fiend, Count

Of" Hellas" we must in conclusion say little. The lyrics with which it abounds are highly poetic, and instinct with the sublime spirit of the "Drama "-Liberty. It abounds with many sparkling truths, and displays a deep intimacy with the human soul, in its workings under particular influences. Chiefly it presents the poet to us a classic-not only in admiration, but in a knowledge which made him familiar with the poetry of Greek and Latin glory. Shelley, as a translator, is perhaps the purest and best. His translations of classic authors, though limited and few, are as happy and beautiful as his native poesy.

And then the writer of "Prometheus Unbound," is beyond critical praise-claiming, unconsciously, brotherhood with the magnate of the Grecian drama-Eschylus.

E. W. S.

YOUTHFUL NEGLECT.-Sir Walter Scott, in a narrative of his personal history, gives the following caution to youth:-"If it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages, let such readers remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect, in my manhood, the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth; and through every part of my literary career, I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance, and I would this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if by so doing, I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science."

SELFISHNESS.-Live for some purpose in the world. Act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Conduct yourselves so that you shall be missed with sorrow when you are gone. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of their existence, but are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are, while they live, like one pebble lying unobserved amongst a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach.

DECIMAL COINAGE:-THE NECESSITY FOR ITS ADOPTION-ITS ADVANTAGES OVER THE PRESENT SYSTEM-AND THE VARIOUS PLANS FOR CARRYING IT OUT WHICH HAVE BEEN PROPOSED.

APPENDIX No. I.

Table showing the Decimal Value of the Leading Coins of Various Countries; also, their Nearest Proximate Value in English Coinage, both in One and in One Thousand Coins; and giving the Difference in favour of the accuracy of the Decimal System.

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