KEATS was the martyr of poetry, but Shelley was the martyr of opinion. Keats dared to write in a new vein, to disregard all the old canons of criticism, to pour out his heart, and all his fancies, in that way only which seemed naturally to belong to them, and this was cause enough to bring down upon him the vengeance of all the rule-and-line men of literature. But besides this, Keats kept suspicious company. Hunt and Shelley were notorious Radicals; and Hunt and Shelley were his friends. "Tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you what you are," is an old proverb, and was, in John Keat's case, most promptly applied. But Shelley was perhaps the most daring, as he was the most splendid offender of modern times. Born of a good family, educated in the highest schools of orthodoxy, it was to the public, which looked for a new champion of the old state of things, a most exasperating circumstance that, in his very teens, he should set all these expectations, and all the prospects of his own worldly advantage, at

defiance, and boldly avow himself the champion of atheism. The fact is every way to be deplored. It became the source of blight and misery to himself through his whole life. It alienated his friends and family; it occasioned an excitement of fiery bigotry and party wrath, which, in their united virulence, were poured upon his head, and, destroying the sale of his works, greatly dispirited him, and so diminished the amount, and perhaps, in no slight degree, the joyous and buoyant spirit of what he did write. Who shall say, wonderful as are the works of Shelley, all accomplished amid ill health and the bitterest persecutions, before the age of thirty, and most of them before the age of twenty-six, what he would have produced had he written with the encouraging feeling of a generous public with him! And when we regard the whole affair impartially, it was the public which was really the greatest offender after all. On the part of Shelley, it was a rash and boyish action. It was the act of a really fine and noble spirit led away, and so far led wrong, by its impetuous indignation against popular delusions and impositions. He was not the first man, nor will he be the last, whom the spirit of a virtuous zeal precipitates into an offense against virtue itself. In him it was meant to be no such thing. He was honest as he was zealous, and the world ought to have respected his honesty, if it could not his opinions. It should have endeavored to show him, by calm and sound reason, that he was wrong as to the existence of a God, and by its charity and forbearance, that Christianity was true. There can be little doubt what effect a wise conduct like this would have had on a nature like his. As it was, spite of all the outrageous cries of infidel, blasphemer, and atheistic wretch with which he was pursued, time showed a wonderful change in his opinions on these matters.

The world should have recollected that it professed to be a Christian world, and it should not have let the spirit and conduct of the infidel put it to shame by its superior liber

ality and goodness. Our Savior nowhere preached or commanded persecution, but to bless those who curse us, and do good to those who hate us and despitefully use us. The world did not do thus: it left poor Shelley to show this conduct to it. Christ left a glorious example to all time-why is the Christian world blind to it? He declared a glorious doctrine on the treatment of unbelievers-why is the world deaf to it? He declared that he was come to seek and save that which was lost, and to die for the conversion of those who mocked and denied him. He nowhere left us the whip, the gag, or the sword of extermination. He brought no such things with him out of heaven, but the great corrector-patience; the great weapon-charity. When his disciples ran and called upon him to silence those who performed miracles, and yet did not follow him, he gave a reply which never should be forgotten while the sun rises and sets: "Let them alone; ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of."

It was Shelley who showed the spirit of the Christian, and the so-called Christian world the spirit of the infidel. It was infidel. It did not trust to the sublime toleration of Christ, but fell to the dark, bitter paganism of curses and hatred.

There was another particular, too, which the virtuous world should here bear in mind. It was priestcraft, which had so disguised Christianity with the trappings of gentileism that it had reduced it to the level of a pagan system. It had introduced so much mummery, so many pagan fables, so many false doctrines, that it had taught thousands and millions, and does still, to confound it with the selfish impostures of heathenism itself. No man who does not go much among the people can tell the extent to which infidelity, and even atheism, has spread among them from this cause. They see the great and groaning oppressions which are done under the sun, and which endure from age to age, and they begin to doubt a Providence which can permit

this. They see the selfish arts, the pride and luxury of pastors, and the misery of the many, and they say, these men do not believe what they teach-they know it to be a fable. When our countrymen travel into Catholic countries, and see millions of deluded wretches streaming up from all quarters to adore the so-called coat of Christ at Metz, or to have a cross touched with the Virgin Mary's chemise, the swaddling clothes, and the grave-clothes of Jesus, hoisted aloft in the Cathedral of Aix la Chapelle, they say, what is this Christianity but old paganism under another name? These are the things which make infidels. These are the men who, by their impious greed mocking God and man at once, under the garb of teachers, stab religion to the heart, murder faith, strangle charity, and spread moral death from end to end of Christendom. These are

they against whom the holy anger of the zealous should be turned. The mocking devils in the tabernacle, who, for the bread and wine of the hour, scatter perdition through descending centuries. These are the men and things who convert the most beautiful spirits into apostles of unbelief -who make Shelleys, ay, and far worse men.

Shelley, indeed, was a good and noble creature. He had, spite of his skepticism, clearly and luminously stamped on his front the highest marks of a Christian; for the grand distinction appointed by Christ was-love. Shelley was a Christian spite of himself. We learn from all who knew him that the Bible was his most favorite book. He venerated the character of Christ, and no man more fully carried out his precepts. His delight was to do good, to comfort and assist the poor. It was his zeal for truth and for the good of mankind which led him, in his indignation against those who oppressed them and imposed upon them, to leap too far in his attack on those enemies, and pass the borders which divide truth from error. For his conscientious opinon he sacrificed ease, honor, the world's esteem, fortune, and friendship. Never was there so generous a friend, so

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truly and purely poetical a nature. Others are poets in their books and closets; the poet's soul in him was the spirit of all hours and all occasions. His conduct to his friend Hunt was a magnificent example of this. Mr. Hunt himself tells us that he at once presented him with fourteen hundred pounds to free him from embarrassments, and he meant to do more, an intention which his son has nobly remembered. Where are the censorious zealots who can show like deeds? He was," says Mr. Hunt, "pious toward his friends, toward the whole human race, toward the meanest insect of the forest. He did himself an injustice with the public in using the popular name of the Supreme Being inconsiderately. He identified it solely with the vulgar and tyrannical notions of a God, made after the worst human fashion, and did not sufficiently reflect that it was often used by a juster devotion to express a sense of the great Mover of the universe."

The same generous, enthusiastic spirit was the living and glowing principle of his poetry. With an imagination capable of soaring into the highest and most ethereal regions, and drawing thence most gorgeous colors, and most sublime, spiritual, and beautiful imagery, he preached love and tenderness to the whole family of man, except to tyrants and impostors. For liberty of every kind he was ready to die. For knowledge, and truth, and kindness, he desired only to live. He was a rare instance of the union of the finest moral nature and the finest genius. If he erred, the world took ample vengeance upon him for it; while he conferred, in return, his amplest blessing on the world. It was long a species of heresy to mention his name in society; that is passing fast away. It was next said that he never could become popular, and therefore the mischief he could do was limited. He is become popular, and the good that he is likely to do will be unlimited. The people read him: though we may wonder at it, they comprehend him—at least so far as the principles of free