alive. Shelley's influence did not at that time count at all. He could not have lifted a straw off the ground. Later on, when the panic was over—when the process of reorganisation was begun—his purer personality began to act. But it is not as a pioneer of the Cause, as a protagonist of liberty and progress, that he can be put beside Byron, not to say in front of him.
What final claim, then, can we make for Shelley? What shall we give as the lasting result of his life and labours? Firstly and chiefly—the purity of his personality. No other man of his time was so disinterested, none other so ingenuous. He loved the light and continually sought for it, fearing nothing, with one heart and with one face for all. His courage was peerless. His curiosity was unbounded. He had no respect for anything or for any one except such as he conceived they were able to justify. Superstition had no place in him. Selfishness, meanness, ignobility were unknown to him. His generosity was of the sort which instantaneously forgives everything to the vanquished. The woe he would have dealt out was for the conquerors alone. Finally, his capacity for happiness, for childlike trustfulness and love, was immense. Left to himself, he was as one of the kingdom of heaven. Ah, truly we do well to blame him for his faults, excellently well, we commonplace people of
