Maria.

Jaques.- pray you mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.

Orlando. I pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them illfavouredly.

AS YOU LIKE IT, Act iii, Scene 2.

"Love is the fulfilling of the Law."

If all who love, the law obey,
-(Our apostolic creed)—
Of good obedient converts, say,
-How many hast thou made?—

For who may gaze upon that brow,
His soul with rapture swelling,
Or who may meet that eye, nor know
Too well this Law's fulfilling.—

If the "Leeds Wesleyan Branch Society
For spreading Useful Knowledge,"

Would, (as they might with great propriety)—
Elect thee of their college;

Send thee to Gunga's heathen shore,

A Missionary there,

Thou'dst do more business in an hour

Than they in half a year.

Hoarse, Bickersteth might sing or say,

And ne'er a Black be taught
Where was the harm his vows to pay
To good St. Juggernaut.

This is a dreadful anachronism! Shelly a living poet, who died several years ago! But if Shelly is not a living poet, in his own proper person, he ought to be, and that is much the same thing to us, though not perhaps to him. His genius was, in the language of his brother cockney, Hazlett, " a pure emanation of the spirit of the age ;" and therefore entitled to notice in this series of articles. If we were as fond of quaintness as Mr. Jaques is, we could give another reason for calling Shelly a living poet-if he does not live, his poetry does-and though perhaps not immortal,

will last as long at any rate as that of some much more famous names. Percy Byshhe Shelly, then, beyond all doubt, the most neglected and unfortunate poet of our times, is the subject of the present article. Gifted with the most exquisite taste, the finest sensibilities, and transcendent poetical powers, he was cursed with a perverted judgment, a gross and clouded intellection, and there is too much reason to believe, with a depraved heart.* The finest productions of his genius -productions not unworthy of the golden age of Grecian literature-came almost still-born into the world, unknown and unnoticed, except by a small and rather suspected class in the republic of letters ; and before he had attained his thirtieth year, in the very vigour and maturity of his powers, he found a grave in the waters of the Mediterranean. He was early tainted with infidelity. He embraced the Pantheistic scheme of atheism, and was a firm believer in the absolute necessity of all things-if real belief there can ever be in a false and degrading philosophy. With this foul blemish all his works are more or less disfigured; and though in his later ones he appeared to have gained rather a better tone of thought and feeling, yet his Queen Mab will long remain a monument as well of the perversion of his reasoning faculties, as the splendour of his poetical diction; a monument at once of the elevations and debasements which the human mind can attain and sink to.

With all its fatal errors, Shelly's philosophical system is by no means of so heartless and revolting a nature, as most of the so-called liberal schemes of the

1 *If we are to believe all that has been said about his conduct to his first wife. And let it be remembered that a constitutional generosity, is no proof of rectitude of mind. His second wife, who is yet living, is the daughter of the once notorious Mrs. Macauley. She is the authoress of the well known novels Frankestein, and the Last Man-works which display a good deal of power and a large proportion of extravagance.

day. He allows a reality to virtue and the moral
affections, and believes in the constant tendency of all
things to a state of final perfection, But still it is a
dead and soulless system-utterly incapable of influenc-
ing the conduct, or of soothing and strengthening
under the pressure of evil. He allows mind and
spirit in name, but deprives them of their distinguish-
ing attribute-self motion. He places all things under
the controul of a blind and overpowering fatality,
which is his only principle of life and motion in the
universe. It is thus that he degrades the high office
and powers of the human imagination. Thus it is,
that his poetry is like one of the gilded mausoleums of
the East-all pomp and glitter and glare without-and
rottenness, death, and dissolution within. His system
is, therefore, evidently unfitted for true and genuine
poetry; and it is this want of a vital and animating
principle in his works, that will prevent Shelly from
ever attaining that eminence, which his wonderful
powers, had they been better directed, would have
entitled him to. There need be little apprehension of
his infidel doctrines ever doing much harm, although
the Queen Mab has been selected by the apostles of
atheism, for uniform publication with the Age of
Reason, and other theological writings (as they call
them,) of the same stamp-under the benevolent
intention of circulating them for the benefit of the
rising generation.* His obnoxious opinions are too
openly and broadly avowed to produce any notable
effect. The man, however great his genius, who could
write his name in the album of a Swiss Auberge,
"P.
B. Shelly, an atheist," who declares in a philosophical
poem, that "there is no God,"-and who when he
has to introduce into it the God of the Christians, can
find no other appellation for him than "the Almighty

They are advertised as being bound uniformly with Watts' Hymns!!

Fiend!"-such a man may cause astonishment and horror, but can never produce influence or conviction. It is the cold and biting sneer of Hume and Gibbon, and the appalling but specious inductions of some noted utilitarians of our day, assenting in word, but denying in inference, that the friends of religion have most to dread.

"Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer—
"The lords of irony."—"

But let them sap on.

There is little fear that the fabric of christianity will ever suffer materially even from a solemn sneer.

There is a dim and shadowy grandeur in Shelly's poetry, which often borders upon, and sometimes actually reaches the incomprehensible. He overflows, if we may use the expression, with imagery, and that often of the most splendid description. Every line glitters with all the pomp and decoration of poetry, and without possessing the exquisite superfine polish of Campbell and Rogers, can, at the same time, boast of far more strength and nerve. He often attains to an overwhelming energy in some of his best pieces, which gives to the mind of the reader, an indescribable sensation of loftiness and power. We feel that the author is superior to his subject, and that he has too much impatience to check and rein the exuberance of his fancy. And accordingly we find that he never writes with that severe and simple majesty, which is a far greater beauty than a reckless profusion. We see that this vast profusion of ornament and illustration, this magnificent garniture of words, is wasted and thrown away on designs incurably bad. Often we have to read over a fine and high sounding passage several times, before we can discover its meaning,