firms all the inhuman and unsocial impulses of men. It is almost a proverbial remark, that those nations in which the penal code has been particularly mild, have been distinguished from all others by the rarity of crime. But the example is to be admitted to be equivocal. A more decisive argument is afforded by a consideration of the universal connexion of ferocity of manners, and a contempt of social ties, with the contempt of human life. Governments which derive their institutions from the existence of circumstances of barbarism and violence, with some rare exceptions perhaps, are bloody in proportion as they are despotic, and form the manners of their subjects to a sympathy with their own spirit.

The spectators who feel no abhorrence at a public execution, but rather a self-applauding superiority, and a sense of gratified indignation, are surely excited to the most inauspicious emotions. The first reflection of such a one is the sense of his own internal and actual worth, as preferable to that of the victim, whom circumstances have led to destruction. The meanest wretch is impressed with a sense of his own comparative merit. He is one

of those on whom the tower of Siloam fell not-he is such a one as Jesus Christ found not in all Samaria, who, in his own soul, throws the first stone at the woman taken in adultery. The popular religion of the country takes its designation from that illustrious person whose beautiful sentiment I have quoted. Any one who has stript from the doctrines of this person the veil of familiarity, will perceive how adverse their spirit is to feelings of this

nature.

ON LIFE.

[Three fragments on Life, Death, and Love, included by Medwin under the general title of Reflections, appeared in The Athenæum for the 29th of September, 1832, and subsequently in The Shelley Papers. They are all included in larger fragments (that on Life in the following compo. sition) in the Essays Letters &c., 1840. In the Preface Mrs. Shelley says (page xii) à propos of this Fragment, "Shelley was a disciple of the Immaterial Philosophy of Berkeley. This theory gave unity and grandeur to his ideas, while it opened a wide field for his imagination. The creation, such as it was perceived by his mind-a unit in immensity, was slight and narrow compared with the interminable forms of thought that might exist beyond, to be perceived perhaps hereafter by his own mind; or which are perceptible to other minds that fill the universe, not of space in the material sense, but of infinity in the immaterial one. Such ideas are, in some degree, developed in his poem entitled 'Heaven :' and which makes one of the interlocutors exclaim,

'Peace! the abyss is wreathed in scorn

Of thy presumption, atom-born,'

he expresses his despair of being able to conceive, far less express, all of variety, majesty, and beauty, which is veiled from our imperfect senses in the unknown realm, the mystery of which his poetic vision sought in vain to penetrate." This fragment also Mr. Rossetti assigns to the year 1815.-H. B. F.]

ON LIFE.1

LIFE and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration3 at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle. What are changes of empires, the wreck of dynasties, with the opinions which supported them; what is the birth and the extinction of religious and of political systems, to life? What are the revolutions of the globe which we inhabit, and the operations of the elements of which it is composed, compared with life? What is the universe

of stars, and suns, of which this inhabited earth is one,*

The portion referred to on the preceding page as having been given by Medwin begins with the beginning. While adopting Mrs. Shelley's text as obviously of higher authority than Medwin's, I do not think it safe to assume that every variation arises from the inaccuracy justly brought to his charge, and have therefore noted most of the variations on the chance of his

PROSE.-VOL. II.

having transcribed from a different MS. from that used by Mrs. Shelley.

2 Medwin reads and.

3 Medwin reads astonishment.

4 In Medwin's version, "What is the universe of stars and suns, and their motions, and the destiny of those that inhabit them, compared with life?"

and their motions, and their destiny, compared with life? Life, the great miracle, we admire not, because it is so miraculous.1 It is well that we are thus shielded by the familiarity of what is at once so certain and so unfathomable, from an astonishment which would otherwise absorb and overawe the functions of that which is its object.

If any artist, I do not say had executed, but had merely conceived in his mind the system of the sun, and the stars, and planets, they not existing, and had painted to us in words, or upon canvas, the spectacle now afforded by the nightly cope of heaven, and illustrated it by the wisdom of astronomy, great would be our admiration. Or had he imagined the scenery of this earth, the mountains, the seas, and the rivers; the grass, and the flowers, and the variety of the forms and masses of the leaves of the woods, and the colours which attend the setting and the rising sun, and the hues of the atmosphere, turbid or serene, these things not before existing, truly we should. have been astonished, and it would not have been a vain boast to have said of such a man, "Non merita nome di creatore, sennon Iddio ed il Poeta." But now these things are looked on with little wonder, and to be conscious of them with intense delight is esteemed to be the distinguishing mark of a refined and extraordinary person.

The next sentence, down to object, is omitted by Medwin.

2 Medwin reads right of the for nightly.

3 Medwin omits the wisdom of, and reads what would have been our admiration!

According to Medwin, varieties. 5 Medwin omits the words these things not before existing, and goes

on, "truly we should have been wonder-struck, and should have said, what it would have been a vain boast to have said, Truly, this creator deserves the name of a God."

6 Medwin reads "and who views them with delight, is considered an enthusiast or an extraordinary person."