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the same crimes that brought to Socrates the bowl of hemlock, and to Jesus, probably, the death of the cross.

Let one who confesses himself to have been once so strongly prejudiced against Shelley, as to have refused even to visit him, sketch his character. We quote from LANDOR, the well-known author of "Imaginary Conversations."

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Shelley, at the gates of Pisa, threw himself between Byron and a dragoon, whose sword in his indignation was lifted and about to strike. Byron told a common friend sometime afterwards, that he could not conceive how any man living should act so. Do you know, he might have been killed? and there was every appearance that he would be!" The answer was: Between you and Shelley there is but little similarity, and perhaps but little sympathy; yet what Shelley did then, he would do again, and always.— There is not a human creature, not even the most hostile, that he would hesitate to protect from injury at the imminent hazard of his life. And yet life, which he would throw forward so unguardedly, is somewhat more with him than with others; it is full of hopes and aspirations, it is teeming with warm feelings, and it is rich and overrun with its own native, simple enjoyments. In him, every thing that ever gave pleasure gives it still, with the same freshness, the same exuberance, the same earnestness to communicate and share it.' By heaven! I cannot understand it!' cried Byron; a man to run upon a naked sword for another! Innocent and careless as a boy, Shelley possessed all the delicate feelings of a gentleman, all the discrimination of a scholar, and united in just degrees the ardour of the poet with the patience and forbearance of the philosopher. His generosity and charity went far beyond those of

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any man, I believe, at present in existence. He was never known to speak evil of an enemy, unless that enemy had done some grievous injustice to another: and he divided his income of only one thousand pounds, with the fallen and afflicted. This is the man against whom much clamor has been raised by poor prejudiced fools, and by those who live and lap under their tables. This is the man whom, from one false story about his former wife, I had refused to visit at Pisa! I blush in anguish at my prejudice and injustice, and ought hardly to feel it as a blessing or a consolation, that I regret him less than I should have done if I had known him personally."

As a poet, Shelley has been greatly and justly admired, There is much of original and sterling beauty in all his poetical works. He may, indeed, with some reason, be taxed, in common with many of the most admired among poets, with obscurity and overstraining of the imagination. But there is so much of redeeming in the beautiful thoughts, chaste images, and noble sentiments scattered through his productions, that one forgets to dwell upon their blemishes,

Yet, it is not as poet that Shelley's character appears in its fairest light. It is as a high-minded reformer, as an unbending lover of truth, as an enthusiastic friend of human improvement. He was one of those pure beings who seem to be born some ages before their time; whose high aspirations after excellence scarcely belong to this generation. His poetic dreams had reference to that future-to use his own beautiful words

When reason's voice,

Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked
The nations and mankind perceive, that vice
Is discord, war, and misery: that virtue

Is peace, and happiness, and harmony;

When man's maturer nature shall disdain
The playthings of its childhood: kingly glare
Shall lose its power to dazzle: its authority
Shall silently pass by: the gorgeous throne
Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall,
Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade
Shall be as hateful and unprofitable

As that of truth is now.

He sought to make a Heaven of Earth; and truly if such as he only were the earth's inhabitants, we might have one.

The little poem now republished, is especially valuable on account of the notes affixed to it. It has borne all the virulence of servile criticism; and has come from the ordeal with even an increased popularity. Yet posterity alone will do ample justice to its merits.

QUEEN MAB.

I.

How wonderful is Death!
Death and his brother Sleep!
One, pale as yonder waning moon
With lips of lurid blue;
The other, rosy as the morn
When throned on ocean's wave
It blushes o'er the world;
Yet both so passing wonderful!

Hath then the gloomy Power
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres
Seized on her sinless soul?

Must then that peerless form
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, those azure veins
Which steal like streams along a field of snow,
That lovely outline, which is fair

As breathing marble, perish?
Must putrefaction's breath

Leave nothing of this heavenly sight
But loathsomeness and ruin?
Spare nothing but a gloomy theme,
On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it only a sweet slumber

Stealing o'er sensation,

Which the breath of roseate morning
Chaseth into darkness?

Will Ianthe wake again,

And give that faithful bosom joy

Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch

Light, life, and rapture from her smile?

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Yes! she will wake again,

Although her glowing limbs are motionless,
And silent those sweet lips,

Once breathing eloquence

That might have soothed a tiger's rage,
Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror.
Her dewy eyes are closed,

And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillowed:

Her golden tresses shade

The bosom's stainless pride, Curling like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column.

Hark! whence that rushing sound?
"Tis like the wond'rous strain
That round a lonely ruin swells,
Which, wandering on the echoing shore,
The enthusiast hears at evening:
"Tis softer than the west wind's sigh:

"Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
Of that strange lyre whose strings
The genii of the breezes sweep:

Those lines of rainbow light

Are like the moonbeams when they fall
Through some cathedral window, but the teints
Are such as may not find
Comparison on earth.

Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!
Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air;
Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light:
These the Queen of Spells drew in.
She spread a charm around the spot,
And leaning graceful from the ethereal car,
Long did she gaze, and silently,

Upon the slumbering maid.

Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams,

When silvery clouds float through the wildered brain,

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