IN connection with Shelley and his poetry, something still remains to be said; though when all has been uttered, a subject so richly suggestive must continue unexhausted. That the poet too frequently misapprehended his own capacity is proved by the tragedy of The Cenci. Here we have his only attempt in the pure, unmixed dramatic form, and in scarcely anything was Shelley more successful. The works which gave him most satisfaction to contemplate are those which posterity does not regard with general favour, chiefly for the reason that they are as far from its complete understanding as the Eleusinian mysteries; while this tragedy, which Shelley entered upon with so much distrust in his own powers, remains one of the most durable monuments of his genius. Its diction is noble, though its incident is limited. It is more dramatic than

any work by Lord Byron, for the latter poet was himself all too conspicuous in his creations,-Manfred, Cain, and the rest of his gallery of striking and powerful portraits. Shelley, on the contrary, gives us the Cencis severally as they might have lived. Especially is the character of Beatrice elaborated with a skill worthy of the great masters of the dramatic art. The poet depicts vividly all the stages of feeling towards her guilty father, through which she passed, down to the sublime attitude of resignation before her execution. The full details of the terrible story of the Cenci family are unutterable. Shelley has taken them, and has worked by suggestion; in his tragedy there is nothing to offend the sensibility, and yet the black and bloody story is charged with horror in the vigorous and nervous language of the poet. That profusion of imagery which distinguishes most of Shelley's lengthier poems is greatly subdued in The Cenci; the author has rightly deemed it of more importance for dramatic purposes that the imaginative and the descriptive should not predominate over the delineation of the passions; and in the fifth act he exclusively depends upon the simple expression of the emotions, and the native pathos and tragic grandeur of the situations. Hence his undoubted triumph, the drama being justly re

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garded as one of the greatest efforts since the time of Shakspeare. There are those, doubtless, who think that Shelley was unwise in selecting so repulsive a story for dramatic treatment; but he has answered this objection when he observes that "the highest moral purpose aimed at in the highest species of the drama is the teaching of the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself; in proportion to the possession of which knowledge, every human being is just, wise, sincere, tolerant, and kind. No person can be truly dishonoured by the act of another." It is scarcely possible to conceive that a perusal of The Cenci would lead any mind from a course of equity and goodness; on the contrary, an intense reflex light is cast upon these virtues by the very horrors which a contemplation of their opposites engenders. In the hands of some writers, such a subject might have been perilous: Shelley has not only encountered the ordeal, but has triumphed over it. Of all the passages representing the conflict of human sensation and passion in this drama, perhaps the following, which occurs towards the close of the fifth act, deserves to be best remembered :—

"Beatrice.

Worse than despair,

Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope:

It is the only ill which can find place
Upon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour
Tottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost
That it should spare the eldest flower of spring:
Plead with awakening earthquake, o'er whose couch
Even now a city stands, strong, fair, and free;
Now stench and blackness yawn, like death. O, plead
With famine, or wind-walking pestilence,

Blind lightning, or the deaf sea ;-not with man!
Cruel, cold, formal man; righteous in words,

In deeds a Cain! No, mother, we must die:
Since such is the reward of innocent lives,
Such the alleviation of worst wrongs.

And, whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold men,
Smiling and slow, walk through a world of tears
To death as to life's sleep, 'twere just the grave
Were some strange joy for us. Come, obscure Death,
And wind me in thine all-embracing arms!

Like a fond mother, hide me in thy bosom,

And rock me to the sleep from which none wake.

Live ye, who live, subject to one another,

As we were once, who now--

"Bernardo.

BERNARDO rushes in.

O, horrible!

That tears, that looks, that hope poured forth in prayer, Even till the heart is vacant and despairs,

Should all be vain! The ministers of death

Are waiting round the doors. I thought I saw
Blood on the face of one-what if 'twere fancy?
Soon the heart's blood of all I love on earth
Will sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off
As if 'twere only rain. O life! O world!

Cover me! let me be no more! To see
That perfect mirror of pure innocence
Wherein I gazed, and grew happy and good,
Shivered to dust! To see thee, Beatrice,
Who made all lovely thou didst look upon-
Thee, light of life—dead, dark! while I say, sister,
To hear I have no sister; and thou, mother,
Whose love was as a bond to all our loves-
Dead! The sweet bond broken."

One of the finest things also, in a dramatic sense, is that second scene of the fifth act, between the Judges, Beatrice, and her accuser Marzio, the assassin. The speech of Beatrice is eloquent and impassioned, but it excites our admiration in yet a superior degree by reason of its effect. Tenacious of life, with all the young and the beautiful, and afraid of the infamy, as well as the act of death, under circumstances so horrible, Beatrice thus pleads with her accomplice:

"Oh, thou who tremblest on the giddy verge
Of life and death, pause ere thou answerest me;
So mayst thou answer God with less dismay :
What evil have we done thee? I, alas!
Have lived but on this earth a few sad years,
And so my lot was ordered, that a father
First turned the moments of awakening life

To drops, each poisoning youth's sweet hope; and then
Stabbed with one blow my everlasting soul,

And my untainted fame; and even that peace