splendour whose internal surface may perform the same office to the processes of vital and material action on the body of the sun, as its external one does upon those of the planets. A certain degree of plausibility is conferred on this notion by the observation that the interior surface, as far as can be collected from a view of the sides of the chasm, is of an obscurer colour than the external one : what are called spots in the sun, being no more than immense rents produced probably by streams of wind in the incumbent mass of vapours, which disclose the opaque body of the sun itself. All this diminishes the probability of the sun being a Hell, by shewing that there is no reason for supposing it considerably hotter than the planets. Not to mention that the Devils may be like the animalculæ in mutton broth, whom you may boil as much as you please, but they will always continue alive and vigorous.

The idea of the sun being Hell, is an attempt at an improvement on the old-established idea of its occupying the centre of the earth. The Devils and the damned would be exceedingly crowded in process of ages, if they were confined within so inconsiderable a sphere.

The Devil and his Angels are called the Powers of the Air, and the Devil himself Lucifer. I cannot discover why he is called Lucifer, except from a misinterpreted passage in Isaiah, where that poet exults over the fall of an Assyrian king, the oppressor of his country:"How art thou fallen, Lucifer, king of Morning !"-The Devil after having gradually assumed the horns, hoof, tail, and ears of the ancient Gods of the woods, lost them again, although wings had been added. It is

inexplicable why men assigned him these additions as circumstances of terror and deformity. The Sylvans and Fauns, with their leader the great Pan, were most poetical personages, and were connected in the imagination of the Pagans with all that could enliven and delight. They were supposed to be innocent beings in habits, and not greatly different from the shepherds and herdsmen of whom they were the patron saints. But the Christians contrived to turn the wrecks of the Greek mythology, as well as the little they understood of their philosophy, to purposes of deformity and falsehood. I suppose the sting with which he was armed gave him a dragon-like and viperous appearance, very formidable.

I can sufficiently understand why the author of evil should have been typified under the image of a serpent; that animal producing merely by its sight so strong an associated recollection of the malignity of many of its species. But this was eminently a practice confined to the Jews, whose earliest mythology suggested this animal as the cause of all evil. Among the Greeks the Serpent was considered as an auspicious and favourable being. He attended on Esculapius and Apollo. In Egypt the Serpent was an hieroglyphic of eternity. Jewish account is, that the Serpent, that is the animal, persuaded the original pair of human beings to eat of a fruit, from which God had commanded them to abstain, and then in consequence God expelled them from the pleasant garden, where he had before permitted them to reside. God on this occasion, it is said, assigned a punishment to the Serpent, that its motion should be as it now is along the ground upon its belly. We are given to suppose, that before this misconduct it hopped along

The

upon its tail; a mode of progression which, if I was a Serpent, I should think the severer punishment of the two. ' The Christians have turned this Serpent into their Devil, and accommodated the whole story to their new scheme of sin and propitiation.

1 See note on Shelley's letter to Byron of the 13th of December

1821, given in Vol. IV of this edition.

FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY

ON FRIENDSHIP.'

I ONCE had a friend, whom an inextricable multitude of circumstances has forced me to treat with apparent neglect. To him I dedicate this essay. If he finds my own words condemn me, will he not forgive?

The nature of love and friendship is very little understood, and the distinctions between them ill-established This latter feeling—at least, a profound and sentimental attachment to one of the same sex, often precedes the former. It is not right to say, merely, that friendship is exempt from the smallest alloy of sensuality. It rejects, with disdain, all thoughts but those of an elevated and imaginative character. I remember forming an attachment of this kind at school. I cannot recal to my memory the precise epoch at which this took place; but. I imagine it must have been at the age of eleven or twelve.

1 Given in Hogg's Life of Shelley, Vol. I, pp. 22-4, as having been 66 written not long before his

death." Hogg takes to himself the dedication.

The object of these sentiments was a boy about my own age, of a character eminently generous, brave and gentle; and the elements of human feeling seemed to have been, from his birth, genially compounded within him. There was a delicacy and a simplicity in his manners, inexpressibly attractive. It has never been my fortune to meet with him since my schoolboy-days; but either I confound my present recollections with the delusions of past feelings, or he is now a source of honour and utility to every one around him. The tones of his voice were so soft and winning, that every word pierced into my heart; and their pathos was so deep, that in listening to him the tears have involuntarily gushed from my eyes. Such was the being for whom I first experienced the sacred sentiments of friendship. I remember in my simplicity writing to my mother a long account of his admirable qualities and my own devoted attachment. I suppose she thought me out of my wits, for she returned no answer to my letter. I remember we used to walk the whole play-hours up and down by some moss-covered palings, pouring out our hearts in youthful talk. We used to speak of the ladies with whom we were in love, and I remember that our usual practice was to confirm each other in the everlasting fidelity, in which we had bound ourselves towards them, and towards each other. I recollect thinking my friend exquisitely beautiful. Every night, when we parted to go to bed, we kissed each other like children, as we still were!

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END OF VOL. II.