ment of the subject was the same as that of Paulus and Strauss, with the exception that he approached it with more reverence than either.

In all the domestic relations of life, there are few men who will not lose in comparison with Shelley. As a husband, he appears before us in the most amiable light. His letters, adorned as they are by simplicity, tenderness, and generosity, are monuments of his affection for his wife, who says herself: "Any one, once attached to Shelley, must feel all other affections, however true and fond, as wasted on barren soil in comparison."

As a father, the gentler qualities of his heart were developed to a remarkable degree. His love for his children was something akin to idolatry.

But the hand of man and the hand of death alike bereaved the poet of his children; one by one, they fell from him, and our sympathies are irresistibly drawn towards Shelley, when we find him engaged in the melancholy task of raising a monument over the grave of his little William, the child that died at Rome. On this subject

he consulted Miss Curran, daughter of the celebrated Irish Advocate, who supplied him with drawings to select from, and concluded a somewhat lengthy correspondence with the statement that he "strongly inclined to an ornamental pyramid of white marble, as one of the most durable form and the simplest appearance."

Among Shelley's works we find some unfinished stanzas, intended probably for an inscription on this monument, which breathe all a parent's tenderness :-

"My lost William, thou in whom
Some bright spirit lived, and did
That decaying robe consume
Which its lustre faintly hid.

Here its ashes find a tomb,

But beneath this pyramid

Thou art not-if a thing divine

Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine
Is thy mother's grief and mine."

As a friend, Shelley was, perhaps, of all men the most single-hearted, always in earnest and

generous to excess.

he asked freely of his

When he needed assistance

friends, and he was ever

ready to share his own substance with those who had won his esteem; his house, his furniture, his books, his purse, were at their disposal With such qualities, it is not difficult to understand why his memory should still keep fresh with those who were admitted to his friendship.

At the period of the poet's death, he was within a month of completing his thirtieth year. His wife amiably says, " he had but one defectwhich was his leaving his life incomplete by an early death;" but young as he was, the burden of thought and feeling, of sorrow and suffering, had left traces sufficient for twice his years. "If I die to-morrow," he said of himself, "I shall have lived to be older than my grandfather."

His existence had been one entire struggle, from the beginning even unto the close. Born to high expectations, he yet became early acquainted with grief, and some of the saddest vicissitudes that beset humanity. Nor did these cease to follow him till those treacherous waves had closed over him for ever.

In his face and figure, as in his general demeanour, age and youth were strangely blended.

From the most youthful buoyancy and gaiety of heart, when his face would be lighted up with all the vivacity and freshness of boyhood, he would not unfrequently charge, often without any visible reason, to the most staid and solemn seriousness; a sudden gloom would pass over him, and the weight of care and sorrow that seemed to oppress him was most touching to witness.

In his attenuated frame you read the physical suffering to which he was a constant prey. In his smooth and ample forehead, animated countenance, and brilliant eyes, you saw the impress of youth, strangely contrasted with the streaks of gray that fretted his wavy locks.

Something of his height, which was above the average, was lost by a stoop in the shoulders, contracted, probably, by his near-sightedness, and a constant application to study.

In the foregoing pages, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to illustrate Shelley's character and genius. To the latter his claim is now no longer denied; and, of the former, it may be said, that he possessed qualities

as rare as they are admirable, and that his errors mostly sprang from an over-sanguine temperament, and a too unqualified faith in the inherent goodness of his species. He judged the motives, the actions of others, too much by the strong impulses that governed his own.

"One simple line will all his errors tell

He felt too deeply, and he meant too well."

THE END.

J. Billing, Printer and Stereotyper, Guildford, Surrey.