need be said; in originality of conception, depth and vigor of thought, boldness of imagination, and power of expression, he is unrivaled. His most sublime performances are Manfred, Childe Harold, Heaven and Earth, and Cain; the first of these pieces has been highly commended by Goëthe, who pronounces some parts of it superior to some of the productions of Shakspeare. His great and favorable art lies in his portraiture of the human character, thrown back upon itself by satiety, conscious of its own wreck, yet disdaining penitence for the vices it acknowledges, unable to find relief in itself, and scorning to derive consolation from others. In this respect, he surpasses Milton, who has only depicted the horrors of remorse; a far less difficult task. Satan has an end in view, to which he is driven by despair and hate: Manfred has none, yet, in the stern apathy of his soul, he appears to us more terribly sublime even than Lucifer himself. Don Juan is lord Byron's most remarkable production; and contains some of his finest and most common-place passages, and shows a command of language and versatility of style that have never been equaled. The tendency, however, of this and some other of his poems, cannot be too explicitly condemned. In Don Juan, sensuality has one of its most powerful and accomplished advocates; the sting by which it is followed he calls the misfortune of nature, instead of the consequence of vice; and, thus, instead of exalting our notions of virtue, makes us regard the exercise of it as a melancholy and irksome duty.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Baronet, of
Castle Goring, Sussex, was born in that county, on the 4th of August, 1792.
At the age of thirteen he was sent to Eton, where he was distinguished
from his schoolfellows by a melancholy and reserved disposition, and an abstinence
from every amusement natural to youth. He soon began to develop
a rigid, unconventional tenacity of character, in relation to what he
deemed the reason and justice of things, and he was in consequence, at an
earlier period than usual, removed to the University of Oxford. Here his
penetrating and inquisitive mind displayed more fully that pertinacious but
conscientious eccentricity, which forbade his assent to the most common
truths without investigation; and, in consequence of publishing a pamphlet,
in which he attacked the ordinarily received notions of the being of God, he
was expelled from the university, on his refusal to retract his opinions. This
step drew upon him the displeasure of his family, whose total discountenance
of him soon after followed, on his marriage, at the age of about seventeen
or eighteen, with a lady equally young. The union ended in misery
to both; after the birth of two children they separated by mutual consent,
and Mrs. Shelley subsequently destroying herself, the subject of our memoir
was looked upon as her murderer, and spoken of with proportionate
obloquy.
A perusal of Mr. Godwin's Political Justice, had first induced Shelley to adopt the systematic rule of conduct, by which he subsequently squared all his actions, at the sacrifice of every worldly interest. His conduct was, in consequence, equally noble and extraordinary; and though, it is said, 'he had only to become a yea and nay man in the house of commons, to be one of the richest men in Sussex,' he declined it to live upon a comparative
