which it was natural to believe would be prosecuted, as throwing down the gauntlet which summons all the feelings of the age to mortal combat. The burning of atheists, (a terrible method of purifying their sentiments) with the natural horror he must have entertained at the idea of such tortures being inflicted upon men for holding opinions which he deemed similar to his own, seems to have taken deep hold upon his fancy. His introduction to the startling declaration, is perhaps the most genuine poetry in the volume. It is simple, affecting, and animated, in a superlative degree. He makes the spirit of Ianthe say—
"I was an infant when my mother went
To see an atheist burned. She took me there!
The dark-robed priests were met around the pile,
The multitude was gazing silently;
And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,
Tempered disdain in his unaltered eye,
Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth:
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs!
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon;
His death-pang rent my heart! The insensate mob
Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.
Weep not, child? cried my mother, for that man
Has said, There is no God!"
Upon this, Mr. Shelley rushes to the avowal of his faith:—and, because no God could have commanded the sacrifice of a human being, for
