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detail, and their harmony as a whole, to discover what tends to form a beautiful or sublime work.

The loss of our beloved child at Rome, which drove us northward in trembling fear for the one soon after born, and the climate of Florence disagreeing so exceedingly with Shelley, he ceased at Pisa to be conversant with paintings and sculp- ́ ture; a circumstance he deplores in one of his letters, and in many points of view to be greatly regretted.

His letters to Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne, and to Mr. Reveley, the son of the latter by a former marriage, display that helpful and generous benevolence and friendship which was Shelley's characteristic. He set on foot the project of a steam-boat to ply between Marseilles and Leghorn, for their benefit, as far as pecuniary profit might accrue; at the same time that he took a fervent interest in the undertaking, for its own sake. It was not puerile vanity, but a nobler feeling of honest pride, that made him enjoy the idea of being the first to introduce steam navigation into the Gulf of Lyons, and to glory in the consciousness of being in this manner useful to

his fellow-creatures. Unfortunately, he was condemned to experience a failure. The prospects and views of our friends drew them to England, and the boat and the engine were abandoned. Shelley was deeply disappointed; yet it will be seen how generously he exculpates our friends to themselves, and relieves them from the remorse they might naturally feel for having thus wasted his money and disappointed his desires. It will be remembered that Shelley addressed a poetical letter to Mrs. Gisborne, when that lady was absent in England; and I have mentioned, and in some measure described her, in my notes to the poems. "Mrs. Gisborne had been a friend of my father in her younger days. She was a lady of great accomplishments, and charming from her frank affectionate nature. She had a most intense love of knowledge, a delicate and trembling sensibility, and preserved freshness of mind after a life of considerable adversity. As a favourite friend of my father, we had sought her with eagerness, and the most open and cordial friendship subsisted between us.”

The letters to Leigh Hunt have already been published. They are monuments of the friendship

which he felt for the man to whom he dedicated his tragedy of "The Cenci," in terms of warm and just eulogium. I have obtained but few to other friends. He had, indeed, not more than one or two other correspondents. I have added such letters as, during our brief separations in Italy, were addressed to myself; precious relics of love, kindness, gentleness, and wisdom. I have but one fault to find with them, or with Shelley, in my union with him. His inexpressible tenderness of disposition made him delight in giving pleasure, and, urged by this feeling, he praised too much. Nor were his endeavours to exalt his correspondent in her own eyes founded on this feeling only. He had never read "Wilhelm Meister," but I have heard him say that he regulated his conduct towards his friends by a maxim which I found afterwards in the pages of Goethe-"When we take people merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved." This rule may perhaps admit of dispute, and it may be argued that truth and frankness produce better fruits than the most generous deceit. But when we

consider the difficulty of keeping our best virtues free from self-blindness and self-love, and recollect the intolerance and fault-finding that usually blots social intercourse; and compare such with the degree of forbearance and imaginative sympathy, se to speak, which such a system necessitates, we must think highly of the generosity and self-abnegation of the man who regulated his conduct undeviatingly by it.

Can anything be more beautiful than these letters? They are adorned by simplicity, tenderness, and generosity, combined with manly views, and acute observation. His practical opinions may be found here. His indignant detestation of political oppression did not prevent him from deprecating the smallest approach to similar crimes on the part of his own party, and he abjured revenge and retaliation, while he strenuously advocated reform. He felt assured that there would be a change for the better in our institutions; he feared bloodshed, he feared the ruin of many. Wedded as he was to the cause of public good, he would have hailed the changes that since his time have so signally ameliorated our institutions and opinions, each acting on the other, and which still, we may hope,

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are proceeding towards the establishment of that liberty and toleration which he worshipped. "The thing to fear," he observes, "will be, that the change should proceed too fast-it must be gradual to be secure."

I do not conceal that I am far from satisfied with the tone in which the criticisms on Shelley are written. Some among these writers praise the poetry with enthusiasm, and even discrimination; but none understand the man. I hope these volumes will set him in a juster point of view. If it be alleged in praise of Goethe that he was an artist as well as a poet; that his principles of composition, his theories of wisdom and virtue, and the ends of existence, rested on a noble and secure basis; not less does that praise belong to Shelley. His Defence of Poetry is alone sufficient to prove that his views were, in every respect, congruous and complete; his faith in good firm, his respect for his fellow-creatures unimpaired by the wrongs he suffered. Every word of his letters displays that modesty, that forbearance, and mingled meekness and resolution that, in my mind, form the perfection of man. "Gentle, brave, and generous," he describes the Poet in Alastor: such he was

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