her destiny was now completed, and that there was nothing which she could expect in future more miserable than what she had undergone. All the characters of this drama are well supported; but Beatrice's is the central point, and there is no male character of any pre-eminent beauty.

The third class of Shelley's poetry would comprehend all his lyrics, and all the poems which can be said to be the offspring of his own personal experience, or of feelings excited by the events of his times. Leigh Hunt compares his lyrics to those of Shakspeare and the dramatists of that time, and says that he should have written nothing but dramas interspersed with lyrics like these. They are remarkable as has been said for their intellectuality; also for their personification of spiritual attributes. They resemble Shakspeare in this, but more in their deeply poetical feeling :

"Come, be happy, sit near me,
Shadow-vested Misery."

"Where art thou, beloved To-morrow?
When young and old, and strong and weak,
Rich and poor, thro' joy and sorrow,

Thy sweet smiles we ever seek,—

In thy place-ah! well-a-day!
We find the thing we fled,-To-day."

My faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;

It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.

Thy barb, whose hoofs outstep the tempest's flight,
Bore thee far from me;

My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,
Did companion thee.

"Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed, Or the death they bear,

The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove
With the wings of care;

In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,
Shall mine cling to thee,

Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
It may bring to thee."

66 TO NIGHT.

Swiftly walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,

Where all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear,-
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of day,

Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long-sought!

"When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noon-tide bee,
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me? And I replied,
No! not thee.

"Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon—

Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!"

Passing from Shelley's merely literary characteristics, and proceeding to consider those of his mental and moral constitution generally, we find his to be one of those minds which, either from original constitution, or from external circumstances, stand in a world at variance with their own sentiments and opinions, and to whose received modes of thought and action they cannot accommodate themselves. Isolation of thought, and discrepancy with existing circumstances, is the price paid by genius, and belongs in a greater or less degree to all first-rate minds. Such, being brought into the world, to recast its existing form into one more in harmony with truth, goodness and beauty, find it necessarily in contradiction with their own ideas. It then becomes a problem with respect to their life, whether they are to continue through their sojourn in this world, with this consciousness of a discordant state of being, or whether they will fulfil the conditions of their existence, by reducing it in some degree, at least, to harmony with themselves. This they can only do by discovering the points of sympathy which lie between themselves and the mass of men,-using such harmonies as may exist between their own and common minds, to raise the latter to more elevated regions of thought and action. In this way do men cause revolutions in politics, literature, religion. By this means only can a superior mind hope practically to influence those around it, and if he fail in this, he must be content to see himself wondered at perhaps, but not followed, and to feel that though possessed of incalculable riches in his own mind, it will be some time before these can be so worked out as to become current coin.

The more ordinary race of minds glide with ease through the paths of life. If the beaten track becomes arduous or toilsome, they fall behind some more enterprising spirit. They live happily in the existing state of society, it being adapted to supply their immediate wants, and having few of those spiritual desires which call for a perfection, in whose realization they would breathe freely, and find their proper element. But those high and noble souls, whose office it is to open the eyes of mankind to the errors and evils of any state of society, and to advance them a few steps in their career towards perfection, come with a light from Heaven which sheds a divine radiance on the twilight of our existence, and which, beaming on the false lights and shadows which surround us, shows darkness where light was before, and discovers light in the midst of darkness; they come with the spear of Ithuriel to detect false

hood in her numerous disguises, and show her in her real deformity, to track injustice, cruelty and tyranny to their refuge in some worn-out dogma, some false view which has gathered round itself the usage and approbation of centuries, and lies encrusted in the hard rind of received opinion;-in some absurd privilege of the more powerful classes,-means to support an edifice crumbling with age and threatening to fall; they show where guilt and injustice walk on boldly and triumphantly, relying for impunity on rank, station, and influence, -and where the highest courage, the noblest forbearance, the most self-denying excellence lie shrouded in poverty and neglect. They show how man has deformed this world, which was created the beautiful temple of the divinity, they come to restore its primitive beauty, to gather together the elements of good from existing forms of evil, and by the structure thus raised, to form a new era in the history of mankind.

The poet and philosopher, with less immediate and apparent effect, has more real influence over the destinies of humanity than any other form of a great mind. The great starts which have been made by mankind from time to time in their progress, the new movements which they have taken towards the ascertainment and realization of some great truths, are the apparent product of numbers impressed by one idea, and struggling together for one object. But this assimilated mode of thought, this new idea, may not be, and probably is not, original, even to the leader of these multitudes, to whose influence the whole effect is ascribed. If traced to its origin, it will perhaps be found in the quiet but searching enunciation of a deep-thinking philosopher, or inscribed in living light, and glowing with all the fire of energetic enthusiasm, in the words of a mighty poet. As in the physical, so in the moral world, the workings of nature are secret and peaceful, unknown and unthought of till they burst forth in the hurricane and the earthquake, in those convulsions which shake the foundations of society to their basis. We plume ourselves much upon our advancement beyond our forefathers in wisdom and knowledge, and we look back with a kind of contemptuous pity on their gropings through the dark caves of error, their slow reception of any ray of truth, their futile waste of powers, their superstition and their prejudices. We may humble ourselves with the reflection, that we have had little or nothing to do with our own advancement, that we are the work of those who have gone before us; their struggles, their difficulties, were the price paid for our knowledge. We are connected with the great