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His description of the pursuits of horticulture, winter landscapes, and rustic pleasures, eloquently betray this peculiar fondness for the scenery and habits of rural life. Many of these pictures are unique, and constitute Cowper's best title to poetic fame.

"Was cradled into poetry by wrong,

And learned in suffering what he taught in song."

It is now about eighteen years since the waters of the Mediterranean closed over one of the most delicately organized and richly endowed beings of our era. A scion of the English aristocracy, the nobility of his soul threw far into the shade all conventional distinctions; while his views of life and standard of action were infinitely broader and more elevated than the narrow limits of caste. Highly imaginative, susceptible and brave, even in boyhood he reverenced the honest convictions of his own mind above success or authority. With a deep thirst for knowledge, he united a profound interest in his race. Highly philosophical in his taste, truth was the prize for which he most earnestly contended; heroical in his temper, freedom he regarded as the dearest boon of existence; of a tender and ardent heart, love was the grand hope and consolation of his being, while beauty formed the most genial element of his existence.

Of such a nature, when viewed in a broad light, were the elements of Shelley's character. Nor is it difficult to reconcile them with the details of his opinions and the tenor of his life. It is easy to imagine a state of society in which such a being might freely develope, and felicit. ously realize principles and endowments so full of promise; while, on the other hand, it is only necessary to look around on the world as it is, or back upon its past records, to lose all surprise that this fine specimen of humanity was sadly misunderstood and his immediate influence perverted. The happy agency which as an inde pendent thinker and humane poet might have been prophecied of Shelley, presupposed a degree of consideration and sympathy, not to say delicacy and reverence, on the part of society, a wisdom in the process of education, a scope of youthful experience, an entire integrity of treat. ment, to be encountered only in the dreams of the Utopian. To have elicited in forms of unadulterated good the characteristics of such a nature, "when his being overflowed," the world should have been to him,

"As a golden chalice to bright wine

Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust."*

Instead of this, at the first sparkling of that fountain, the teachings of the world, and the lessons of life, were calculated to dam up its free tide in the formal embankments of custom and power. What wonder, then, that it overleaped such barriers, and wound waywardly aside into solitude, to hear no sound "save its own dashings?"

* Prometheus Unbound.

The publication of the posthumous prose of Shelley, is chiefly interesting from the fact that it perfectly confirms our best impressions of the man. We here trace in his confidential letters, the love and philanthropy to which his muse was devoted. All his literary opinions evidence the same sincerity. His refined admiration of nature, his habits of intense study and moral independence, have not been exaggerated. The noble actions ascribed to him by partial friends, are proved to be the natural results of his native feelings. The peculiar sufferings of body and mind, of experience and imagination, to which his temperament and destiny subjected him, have in no degree been overstated. His generosity and high ideal of intellectual greatness and human excellence, are more than indicated in the unstudied outpourings of his familiar correspondence.

Love, according to Shelley, is the sum and essence of goodness. While listening to the organ in the Cathedral of Pisa, he sighed that charity instead of faith was not regarded as the substance of universal religion. Self be considered as the poisonous "burr" which especially deformed modern society; and to overthrow this "dark idolatry," he embarked on a lonely but most honorable crusade. The impetuosity of youth doubtless gave to the style of his enterprise an aspect startling to some of his well meaning fellow-creatures. All social reformers must expect to be misinterpreted ad reviled. In the case of Shelley, the great cause for regret is that so few

+ Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments. By Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley: London. 1840.

should have paid homage to his pure and sincere intentions; that so many should have credited the countless slanders heaped on his name; and that a nature so gifted and sensitive, should have been selected as the object of such wilful persecution. The young poet saw men reposing supinely upon dogmas, and hiding cold hearts behind technical creeds, instead of acting out the sublime idea of human brotherhood. His moral sense was shock. ed at the injustice of society in heaping contumely upon an erring woman, while it recognizes and honors the author of her disgrace. He saddened at the spectacle so of ten presented, of artificial union in married life, the en. forced constancy of unsympathizing beings, hearts dying out in the long struggle of an uncongenial bond. Above all, his benevolent spirit bled for the slavery of the massthe superstitious enthralment of the ignorant many. He looked upon the long procession of his fellow.creatures plodding gloomily on to their graves, conscious of social bondage, yet making no effort for freedom, groaning under self-imposed burdens, yet afraid to cast them off, con. ceiving better things, yet executing nothing. Many have felt and still feel thus. Shelley aspired to embody in action, and to illustrate in life and literature the reform which his whole nature demanded. He dared to lead forth at a public ball the scorned victim of seduction, and appal the hypocritical crowd by an act of true moral courage. As a boy, he gave evidence of his attachment to liberty by overthrowing a system of school tyranny; and this sentiment, in after life, found scope in his Odes to the Revolutionists of Spain and Italy. He fearlessly dis