as a goddess, yet misinterpreting her oracles, cut off from life just as thou wert beginning to read it aright; O, most musical, most melancholy singer; who that has a soul to feel genius, a heart to grieve over misguided nobleness, can forbear watering the profuse blossoms of thy too early closed spring with tears of sympathy, of love, and (if we may dare it for one so superior in intellect) of pity? Although the struggles of Shelley's mind destroyed that serenity of tone which is essential to the finest poetry, and his tenderness has not always that elevation of hope which should hallow it; although in no one of his productions is there sufficient unity of purpose and regulation of parts to entitle it to unlimited admiration, yet they all abound with passages of infinite beauty, and in two particulars, he surpasses any poet of the day. First, in fertility of Fancy. Here his riches, from want of arrangement, sometimes fail to give pleasure, yet we cannot but perceive that they are priceless riches. In this respect parts of his " Adonais," "Marianne's Dream," and "Medusa," are not to be excelled, except in Shakspeare. Second, in sympathy with Nature. To her lightest tones his being gave an echo; truly she spoke to him, and it is this which gives unequalled melody to his versification; I say unequalled, for I do not think either Moore or Coleridge can here vie with him, though each is in his way a master of the lyre. The rush, the flow, the delicacy of vibration, in Shelley's verse, can only be paralleled by the waterfall, the rivulet, the notes of the bird and of the insect world. This is a sort of excellence not frequently to be expected now, when men listen less zealously than of old to the mystic whispers of Nature; when little is understood that is not told in set phrases, and when even poets write more frequently in curtained and carpeted rooms, than "among thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees and flowery glades," as Shelley did. " It were a curious piece of work enough," to run a parallel between the Skylark of Shelley and that of Wordsworth, and thus illustrate mental processes so similar in dissimilitude. The mood of mind, the ideas, are not unlike in the two. Hear Wordsworth. "Up with me, up with me, into the clouds," etc. "Lift me, guide me, till I find The spot which seems so to thy mind, I have walked through wildernesses dreary, And to-day my heart is weary, Had I now the wings of a Fairy Up to thee would I fly; There is madness about thee, and joy divine In that song of thine: Joyous as morning, thou art laughing and scorning; Happy, happy liver, With a soul as strong as a mountain river, Joy and jollity be with us both." Hear Shelley. Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run Like an unbodied joy, whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour, With music sweet as love which overflows her bower. Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew Scattering unbeholden Its serial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view; Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deniowered; Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet, those heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphant chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be ; Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety." I do not like to omit a word of it: but it is taking too much room. Should we not say from the samples before us that Shel ley, in melody and exuberance of fancy, was incalculably superior to Wordsworth? But mark their inferences. Shelley. "Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen, then, as am listening now." Wordsworth. "What though my course be rugged and uneven, If Wordsworth have superiority then, it consists in greater maturity and dignity of sentiment. While reading Shelley, we must surrender ourselves without reserve to the magnetic power of genius; we must not expect to be satisfied, but rest content with being stimulated. He alone who can resign his soul in unquestioning simplicity to the descant of the nightingale or the absorption of the sea-side, may hope to receive from the mind of a Shelley the suggestions which, to those who know how to receive, he can so liberally impart. I cannot leave Shelley without quoting two or three stanzas, in which he speaks of himself, and which are full of his peculiar beauties and peculiar faults. "A frail form, A phantom among men, companionless, |