his study and reading-room of the shadowed copse, the stream, the lake, and the waterfall. Ill health and continual pain preyed upon his powers, and the solitude in which we lived, particularly on our first arrival in Italy, although congenial to his feelings, must frequently have weighed upon his spirits; those beautiful and affecting "Lines, written in dejection at Naples," were composed at such an interval; but when in health, his spirits were buoyant and youthful to an extraordinary degree. Such was his love for nature, that every page of his poetry is associated in the minds of his friends with the loveliest scenes of the countries which he inhabited. In early life he visited the most beautiful parts of this country and Ireland. Afterwards the Alps of Switzerland became his inspirers. 66 Prometheus Unbound" was written among the deserted and flower-grown ruins of Rome; and when he made his home under the Pisan hills, their roofless recesses harboured him as he composed "The Witch of Atlas," ," "Adonais," and "Hellas." In the wild but beautiful Bay of Spezia, the winds and waves which he loved became his playmates. His days were chiefly spent on the water; the management of his boat, its alterations and improve ments, were his principal occupation. At night, when the unclouded moon shone on the calm sea, he often went alone in his little shallop to the rocky caves that bordered it, and sitting beneath their shelter, wrote "The Triumph of Life," the last of his productions. The beauty but strangeness of this lonely place, the refined pleasure which he felt in the nionship of a few selected friends, our entire sequestration from the rest of the world, all contributed to render this period of his life one of continued enjoyment. I am convinced that the two months we passed there were the happiest he had ever known: his health even rapidly improved, and he was never better than when I last saw him, full of spirits and joy, embark for Leghorn, that he might there welcome Leigh Hunt to Italy. I was to have accompanied him, but illness confined me to my room, and thus put the seal on my misfortune. His vessel bore out of sight with a favourable wind, and I remained awaiting his return by the breakers of that sea which was about to engulph him. return to us. We waited for them in vain; the sea, by its restless moaning, seemed to desire to inform us of what we would not learn :-but a veil may well be drawn over such misery. The real anguish of these moments transcended all the fictions that the most glowing ima. gination ever pourtrayed: our seclusion, the savage nature of the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, and our immediate vicinity to the troubled sea, combined to imbue with strange horror our days of uncertainty. The truth was at last known,-a truth that made our loved and lovely Italy appear a tomb, its sky a pall. Every heart echoed the deep lament; and my only consolation was in the praise and earnest love that each voice bestowed, and each countenance demonstrated, for him we had lost,-not, I fondly hope, for ever: his unearthly and elevated nature is a pledge of the continuation of his being, although in an altered form. Rome received his ashes: they are deposited beneath its weed-grown wall, and "the world's sole monument" is enriched by his remains. solemnity-the compa He spent a week at Pisa, employed in kind offices towards his friend, and enjoying with keen delight the renewal of their intercourse. He then embarked with Mr Williams, the chosen and beloved sharer of his pleasures and of his fate, to a This volume, which contains a republication of his " Alastor,' collection of all his smaller poems which have been scattered through different periodical works, with the addition of several unpublished poems and fragments, and some translalanguages, possesses exactly the same tions from the Greek and modern beauties and defects which characterize his published works-the same same obscurity— the same, or rather greater carelessness, and the same perfection of poetical expression. It is this last quality which will always give to Shelley an original and distinct character among the poets of the age; and in this, we have little hesitation cidedly superior to them all. in saying, that we consider him deEvery word he uses, even though the idea exaggerated, or unnatural, is intensehe labours to express be vague, or ly poetical. In no writer of the age is the distinction between poetry and prose so strongly marked: deprive his verses of the rhymes, and still the exquisite beauty of the language, the harmony of the pauses, the arrangement of the sentences, is perceptible. This is in itself a talent of no ordinary kind, perfectly separate in its nature, though generally found united with that vigour of imagina◄ tion which is essential to a great poet, and in Mr Shelley it overshadows even his powers of conception, which are unquestionably very great. It is by no means improbable, however, that this extreme anxiety to embody his ideas in language of a lofty and uncommon cast, may have contributed to that which is undoubtedly the besetting sin of his poetry, its extreme vagueness and obscurity, and its tendency to allegory and personification. Among the many-folded hills,-they were Those famous Euganean hills, which bear, As seen from Lido through the harbour The likeness of a clump of peaked isles- Around the vaporous sun, from which Hence it is in the vague, unearthly, and mysterious, that the peculiar power of his mind is displayed. Like the Goule in the Arabian Tales, he leaves the ordinary food of men, to banquet among the dead, and revels with a melancholy delight in the gloom of the churchyard and the cemetery. He is in poetry what Sir Thomas Browne is in prose, perpetually hovering on the confines of the grave, prying with a terrible curiosity Said my companion, “I will show you into the secrets of mortality, and speculating with painful earnestness on every thing that disgusts or appals mankind. But when, abandoning these darker themes, he yields himself to the description of the softer emotions of the heart, and the more smiling scenes of Nature, we know no poet who has felt more intensely, or described with more glowing colours the enthusiasm of love and liberty, or the varied aspects of Nature. His descriptions have a force and clearness of painting which are quite admirable ; and his imagery, which he accumulates and pours forth with the prodigality of genius, is, in general, equally appropriate and original. How forcible is this Italian sunset, from the first poem in the present collection, entitled Julian and Maddalo, a piece of a very wild, and not a very agreeable cast, but rich in eloquent and fervid painting! As those who pause on some delightful there came The inmost purple spirit of light, and made soon A better station." So o'er the lagune In melancholy gloom, the pinnace past, The silver noon into that winding dell, tops, From folded lilies in which glowworms dwell, When earth over her face night's man tle wraps; Between the severed mountains lay on high, Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. And ever as she went, the Image lay With folded wings and unawakened eyes; And o'er its gentle countenance did play The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies, Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay, and how much it may be injured by a harsh line, an imperfect or forced rhyme, a defective syllable, or, as is often the case here, an unfortunate [ occurring in the middle of a stanza. Others, however, are fortunately in a more finished state; and And drinking the warm tears, and the though even in these it is probable sweet sighs Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain, brain. And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud went : Now lingering on the pools, in which abode The calm and darkness of the deep content In which they paus'd; now o'er the shallow road Of white and dancing waters, all be sprent With sand and polish'd pebbles :-mortal boat In such a shallow rapid could not float. And down the earthquaking cataracts, which shiver Their snow-like waters into golden air, Or under chasms unfathomable ever Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear A subterranean portal for the river, It fled, the circling sunbows did up. Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray, By far the greater number of the pieces which the present volume contains are fragments, some of them in a very unfinished state indeed; and though we approve the feeling which led the friends of Mr Shelley to collect them all, we question whether a selection, from the more finished pieces, would not have been a more prudent measure, as far as his fame is concerned. It dissolves entirely the illusion which we wish to cherish as to the intuitive inspiration—the estro of poetry—to be thus admitted, as it were, into the workshop of Genius, and to see its materials confused and heaped together, before they have received their last touches from the hand of the poet, and been arranged in their proper order. And it is wonderful how much the effect of the finest poem depends on an attention to minutiæ, that much is wanting, which the last touches of the author would have given, we have no fear but that, imperfect as they are, they will bear us out in what we have said of the powers of the poet. What a quiet stillness breathes over this description of The Pine Forest OF THE CASCINE, NEAR PISA! The whispering waves were half asleep, The smile of Heaven lay. It seemed as if the day were one We paused amid the Pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude, With stems like serpents interlaced. By such a chain was bound, The breath of peace we drew, The calm that round us grew. It seemed that from the remotest seat Our mortal Nature's strife.- The magic circle there, We stood beside the pools that lie A purple firmament of light, Which in the dark earth lay, In which the massy forests grew, Like one beloved, the scene had lent Its every leaf and lineament There lay for glades and neighbouring And through the dark green crowd The white sun twinkling like the dawn Under a speckled cloud. Sweet views, which in our world above Can never well be seen, Until a wandering wind crept by, Like an unwelcome thought, Blots thy bright image out. For thou art good, and dear, and kind, But less of peace in S's mind, We should pity any one who could peruse the following affecting lines, entitled "Stanzas written in dejection, near Naples," without the strongest sympathy for their unfortunate author. The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent light Like many a voice of one delight, I see the Deep's untrampled floor With green and purple seaweeds strown; I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolv'd in star-show'rs, thrown: I sit upon the sands alone, Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, The sage in meditation found, Others I see whom these surround,— Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are ; My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan; They might lament, for I am one Whom men love not,-and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun' Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoy'd, like joy in memory yet. The following lines also appear to us extremely beautiful, though, in order to preserve the full effect of the rythm, they require some management in the reading. Lines. When the lamp is shattered When the lute is broken, As music and splendour The heart's echoes render What difference? but thou dost possess The things I seek, not love them less. When hearts have once mingled, To endure what it once possest. Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier? Its passions will rock thee As the storms rock the ravens on high: Bright reason will mock thee, Leave the naked to laughter, The following appear to us very much in the style of our old English lyric poets of the age of Charles I. Song Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight! As a lizard with the shade Of a trembling leaf, Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure, Thou wilt come for pleasure; Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. I love all that thou lovest, Spirit of Delight! The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, And the starry night; I love snow, and all the forms I love waves, and winds, and storms, As is quiet, wise, and good; I love Love-though he has wings, Thou art love and life! O come, Mutability. The flower that smiles to-day All that we wish to stay, Tempts and then flies; What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright. Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship too rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou-and from thy sleep Then wake to weep. Swifter far than summer's flight, Art thou come and gone : Lilies for a bridal bed, Pansies let my flowers be: Waste one hope, one fear for me. The longer poems, from which we have made no extracts, we think less interesting, though some of them, and particularly the Triumph of Life, an imitation of Petrarch's Trionfi, are written with very peculiar power and originality. Some translations are also included in this volume, of which the Scenes from Goethe's Faust, and Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso," are the most interesting. с |