of mankind. Yet it is easy to calculate the degree of moral and intellectual improvement which the world would have exhibited had they never lived. A little more nonsense would have been talked for a century or two; and perhaps a few more men, women, and children burnt as heretics. We might not at this moment have been congratulating each other on the abolition of the Inquisition in Spain. But it exceeds all imagination to conceive what would have been the moral condition of the world if neither Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Shakspeare, Calderon, Lord Bacon, nor Milton, had ever existed; if Raphael and Michael Angelo had never been born; if the Hebrew poetry had never been translated; if a revival of the study of Greek literature had never taken place; if no monuments of ancient sculpture had been handed down to us; and if the poetry of the religion of the ancient world had been extinguished together with its belief. The human mind could never, except by the intervention of these excitements, have been awakened to the invention of the grosser sciences, and that application of analytical reasoning to the aberrations of society, which it is now attempted to exalt over the direct expression of the inventive and creative faculty itself." The

contemplative mind, which views these questions

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solely from an unbiassed stand-point, will be much more likely to arrive at the same conclusion as Shelley in regard to the position and influence of poetry upon society and human progress, than it will be ready to adopt a lower estimate. Few there are who will not at once recognise the excellence of the definition that "poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds." Many intuitive and noteworthy things have been said respecting the poetic art, but the one I have just quoted is sufficiently cosmopolitan to touch the sympathies of all, though it may not embrace the perfect fulness of the theme. Take Shelley's treatise as a whole, and rarely has utterance been given to so convincing and eloquent a defence of his race. Though manifestly tinged by the enthusiasm of the writer, this sentiment is not apparent in such a degree as to interfere with sound judgment, or to prevent him from laying down principles which may be useful to the student of the art of poetry.

Captain Medwin published some of Shelley's prose writings in a mutilated form, probably with the best intentions towards his friend, but also with some little lack of discretion. Fortunately, all that the poet left behind him in this respect has now assumed a permanent shape. The influence upon

Shelley's mind of a thorough knowledge of Plato is apparent; no prose author of ancient or modern times had the same power over the poet that he wielded. He drank largely at the fount of his inspiration, and few are acknowledged to have either so thoroughly comprehended the spirit of the original, or so happily to have reproduced it into an alien language. Shelley's translations are remarkable for their flow, melody, and vivacity, and his version of The Banquet is a marvel of power and elegance. Unfortunately, other writings which succeeded his efforts in this direction were mostly fragments. Such is the case with two papers on Love and the Coliseum; and with that striking prose idyll known as The Assassins. Shelley always had an affection for the weird legend of The Wandering Jew, and we find it occupying a portion of the story forming the basis of the fragment just cited; it is an untoward circumstance that he never had an opportunity of dealing completely with this singular and startling subject. Two other papers by Shelley are of considerable importance as throwing light upon his views on morals. In the Essay upon Life, he demonstrates that at one time, at any rate, he was a firm believer in the Immaterial Philosophy of Berkeley. The theory in question, however it may lack accord with the

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later tendencies of thought, doubtless gave the poet many sublime ideas, and permitted him to revel in that grand and immense exercise of the imagination which must always have a strange attraction for a mind constituted like his. With regard to his views upon religion and immortality, and the paper upon a future state, lest those who have done him injustice hitherto should persist in the same course, it may be as well to refer to what Mrs. Shelley says respecting his theories. She distinctly affirms that he certainly regarded the existence beyond the grave as one by no means foreign to our interests and hopes. Yet many of Shelley's biographers have failed to discover in his writings any clear and unmistakable proof that he believed in the immortality of the soul. This is a point of some importance, and traces of such belief are to be found over and over again in his works. Mrs. Shelley observes-and her knowledge is much more trustworthy than the random assertions of inaccurate biographers-that, “ considering his individual mind as a unit, divided from a mighty whole, to which it was united by restless sympathies and an eager desire for knowledge, he assuredly believed that hereafter, as now, he would form a portion of that whole, and a portion less imperfect, less suffering, than the shackles insepar

able from humanity impose on all beneath the moon." Such was Mrs. Shelley's expressed belief; but in Shelley's own words we find such reflections as the following: "The destiny of man can scarcely be so degraded that he was born only to die;" and again, on the occasion of his being in imminent danger at sea-"I had time at that moment to reflect and come to reason on death; it was rather a thing of discomfort and disappointment than terror to me. We should never be separated, but in death we might not know and feel our union as now. I hope, but my hopes are not unmixed with fear for what will befall this inestimable spirit when we appear to die." There is nothing here pointing to annihilation, but strongly to the contrary, in accordance with some previous references I have made to the subject of immortality. In Shelley, of course, there was not the slightest tinge of religious terrorism, and he was precisely the kind of being to defy his Creator if he thought the universe was being conducted upon tyrannical principles; but an intimate knowledge

of his character will reveal the presence of an undercurrent of deep religious faith that was never disturbed by the occurrences which agitated his outward life. On many occasions he appeared unconscious of the existence of this sentiment

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