Of Shelley, having spoken before, what | them like fire, and even at death was not more can we say? He seems to us as decided. though the most beautiful of beings had It is not at all to be wondered at, that been struck blind. Mr De Quincey, in two such spirits as Shelley and Mary unconscious plagiarism from ourselves, Godwin, when they met, should become compares him to a "lunatic angel." But instantly attached. On his own doctrine perhaps, after all, his disease might be of a state of pre-existence, we might say better denominated blindness. It was not that the marriage had been determined because he saw falsely, but as if, seeing long before, while yet the souls were waitand delaying to worship the glory of ing in the great antenatal antechamber! Christ and his religion, that delay was They met at last, like two drops of water punished by a swift and sudden darkness. —like two flames of fire-like two beauImagine the Apollo Belvidere animated tiful clouds which have crossed the moon, and fleshed, all his dream-like loveliness the sky, and all its stars, to hold their of form retained, but his eyes remaining midnight assignation over a favourite and shut! Thus blind and beautiful stood lonely river. Mary Godwin was an enShelley on his pedestal, or went wander- thusiast from her childhood. She passed, ing, an inspired sleep-walker, among his she tells us, part of her youth at Broughty fellows, who, alas! not seeing his melan- Ferry, in sweet and sinless reverie among choly plight, struck and spurned, instead its cliffs. The place is to us familiar. It of gently and soothingly trying to lead possesses some fine features-a bold prohim into the right path. We still think, montory crowned with an ancient castle notwithstanding Mr De Quincey's elo- jutting far out the Tay, which here quent strictures in reply, that if pity and broadens into an arm of the ocean-a kind-hearted expostulation had been em- beach, in part smooth with sand, and in ployed, they might have had the effect, part paved with pebbles-cottages lying if not of weaning him from his errors, at artlessly along the shore, clean as if least of modifying his expressions and washed by the near sea-sandy hillocks feelings if not of opening his eyes, at rising behind-and westward, the river, least of rendering him more patient and like an inland lake, stretching around hopeful under his eclipse. What but a Dundee, with its fine harbour and its partial clouding of his mind could have surmounting Law, which, in its turn, is prompted such a question as he asked surmounted by the far-blue shapes of the upon the following occasion?-Haydon gigantic Stuicknachroan and Benvoirlich. the painter met him once at a large din- Did the Bay of Spezzia ever suggest to ner party in London. During the enter- Mrs Shelley's mind the features of the tainment, a thin, cracked, shrieking voice Scottish scene? That scene, seen so often, was heard from the one end of the table, seldom fails to bring before us her image "You don't believe, do you, Mr Haydon, the child, and soon to be the bride, of in that execrable thing, Christianity?" The voice was poor Shelley's, who could not be at rest with any new acquaintance till he ascertained his impressions on that one topic. Poets, perhaps all men, best understand themselves. Thus no word so true has been spoken of Shelley, as where he says of himself, that "an adamantine veil was built up between his mind and heart." His intellect led him in one directionthe true impulses of his heart in another. The one was with Spinoza; the other with John. The controversy raged between genius. Was she ever, like Mirza, overheard in her soliloquies, and did she bear the shame, accordingly, in blushes which still rekindle at the recollection? Did the rude fishermen of the place deem her wondrous wise, or did they deem her mad, with her wandering eye, her rapt and gleaming countenance, her light step moving to the music of her maiden meditation? The smooth sand retains no trace of her young feet-to the present race she is altogether unknown; but we have more than once seen the man of genius, and its lover, turn round and look at the spot, with warmer interest and with brightening eye, as we told them that she had been there. out horror, hear the boom of its waves, or look without a shudder either at its stormy or its smiling countenance? What running with dishevelled hair along the sea-shore, questioning all she met if they could tell her of her husband-nay, shrieking out the dreadful question to the surges, which, like a dumb murderer, had done the deed, but could not utter the confession! dramatic talent. Strong, clear description of the gloomier scenes of nature, or the darker passions of the mind, or of those supernatural objects which her fancy, except in her first work, somewhat laboriously creates, is her forte. Hence her reputation still rests chiefly upon "Frankenstein." She unquestionably made him; but, like a mule or a monster, he has had no progeny. We have spoken of Mrs Shelley's simi-a picture she presents to our imagination, larity in genius to her husband-we by no means think her his equal. She has not his subtlety, swiftness, wealth of imagination, and is never caught up into the same rushing whirlwind of inspiration. She has much, however, of his imaginative and of his speculative qualities-her tendency, like his, is to the romantic, the ethereal, Mrs Shelley's genius, though true and and the terrible. The tie detaining her, as powerful, is monotonous and circumscribed well as him, to the earth is slender; her more so than even her father's—and, protest against society is his, copied out in in this point, presents a strong contrast a female hand; her style is carefully and to her husband's, which could run along successfully modelled upon his; she bears, every note of the gamut-be witty or in brief, to him the resemblance which wild, satirical or sentimental, didactic or Laone did to Laon, which Astarte did to dramatic, epic or lyrical, as it pleased Manfred. Perhaps, indeed, intercourse him. She has no wit, nor humour-little with a being so peculiar, that those who came in contact with, either withdrew from him in hatred, or fell into the current of his being, vanquished and enthralled, has somewhat affected the originality and narrowed the extent of her own genius. Indian widows used to fling themselves upon the funeral pyre of their husbands; she has thrown upon that of hers her mode of thought, her mould of style, her creed, her heart, her all. Her admiration of Can any one have forgot the interestShelley was an idolatry. Can we wonder ing account she gives of her first concepat it? Separated from him in the prime tion of that extraordinary story, when she of life, with all his faculties in the finest had retired to rest, her fancy heated by bloom of promise, with peace beginning to hearing ghost tales; and when the whole build in the crevices of his torn heart, and circumstances of the story appeared at with fame hovering ere it stooped upon his once before her eye, as in a camera obhead-separated, too, in circumstances so scura? It is ever thus, we imagine, that sudden and cruel-can we be astonished truly original conceptions are produced. that from the wounds of love came forth They are cast-not wrought. They come the blood of worship and sacrifice? Words- as wholes, and not in parts. It was thus worth speaks of himself as feeling for "the that "Tam o' Shanter" completed, along Old Sea some reverential fear." But in Burns's mind, his wild race in a single the mind of "Mary" there must have hour. Thus Coleridge composed the lurked a feeling of a still stronger kind outline of his "Ancient Mariner," in toward that element which he, next to one evening walk near Nether Stowey. herself, had of all things most passionately So rapidly rose "Frankenstein;" which, loved-which he trusted as a parent-to as Moore well remarks, has been one which he exposed himself, defenceless (he of those striking conceptions which take could not swim-he could only soar) hold of the public mind at once and for which he had sung in many a strain of ever. matchless sweetness, but which betrayed The theme is morbid and disgusting and destroyed him-how can she, with- enough. The story is that of one who VOL. I.-U "Alone, all, all alone, Wrapped around by his loneliness, does this gigantic creature run through the world like a lion who has lost his mate in a forest, seeking for his kindred being, but seeking for ever in vain. He is not only alone, but alone because he has no being like him throughout the whole universe. finds out the principle of life, constructs a monstrous being, who, because his maker fails in forming a female companion to him, ultimately murders the dearest friend of his benefactor, and, in remorse and despair, disappears amid the eternal snows of the North Pole. Nothing more preposterous than the meagre outline of the story exists in literature. But Mrs Shelley deserves great credit, nevertheless. In the first place, she has succeeded in her delineation; she has painted this shapeless being upon the imagination of the What a scene is the process of his creaworld for ever; and beside Caliban and tion, and especially the hour when he first Hecate, and Death and Life, and all other began to breathe, to open his ill-favoured wierd and gloomy creations, this nameless, eyes, and to stretch his ill-shapen arms unfortunate, involuntary, gigantic Unit toward his terrified author, who, for the stands. To succeed in an attempt so first time, becomes aware of the enormity daring, proves at once the power of the of the mistake he has committed-who author, and a certain value even in the has had a giant's strength, and used it original conception. To keep verging per- tyrannously like a giant, and who shudpetually on the limit of the absurd, and ders and shrinks back from his own horto produce the while all the effects of the rible handiwork! It is a type, whether sublime, takes and tasks very high facul- intended or not, of the fate of genius, ties indeed. Occasionally, we admit, she whenever it dares either to revile or to does overstep the mark. Thus the whole resist the common laws, obligations, and scene of the monster's education in the conditions of man and the universe. cottage, his overhearing the reading of Scarcely second to her description of the "Paradise Lost," the "Sorrows of the moment when, at midnight, and under Werter," &c., and in this way acquiring the light of a waning moon, the monster knowledge and refined sentiments, seems was born, is his sudden apparition upon unspeakably ridiculous. A Caco-demon a glacier among the high Alps. weeping in concert with Eve or Werter scene strikes us the more, as it seems is too ludicrous an idea. But it is won- the fulfilment of a fear which all have derful how delicately and gracefully Mrs felt, who have found themselves alone Shelley has managed the whole prodigious among such desolate regions. Who has business. She touches pitch with a lady's not at times trembled lest those ghastglove, and is not defiled. From a whole lier and drearier places of nature, which forest of the "nettle danger," she extracts abound in our own Highlands, should bear a sweet and plentiful supply of the "flower a different progeny from the ptarmigan, safety." With a fine female footing, she the sheep, the raven, or the eagle; lest preserves the narrow path which divides the mountain should suddenly crown itthe terrible from the disgusting. She self with a Titanic spectre, and the mist, unites, not in a junction of words alone, but in effect, the "horribly beautiful." Her monster is not only, as Caliban appeared to Trinculo, a very pretty monster, but somewhat poetical and pathetic withal. You almost weep for him in his utter insulation. Alone! dread word, though it were to be alone in heaven! Alone! word hardly more dreadful, if it were to be alone in hell! This disparting, reveal demoniac forms, and the lonely moor discover its ugly dwarf, as if dropped down from the overhanging thunder-cloud; and the forest of pines show unearthly shapes sailing among their shades; and the cataract overboil with its own wild creations? Thus fitly, amid scenery like that of some dream of nightmare, on a glacier as on a throne, stands up before the eye of his own maker, the Miscreation, and he cries out, "Whence and what art thou, execrable shape?" In darkness and distance, at last, the being disappears, and the imagination dares hardly pursue him as he passes amid those congenial shapes of colossal size, terror, and mystery, which we fancy to haunt those outskirts of existence, with, behind them at midnight, "all Europe and Asia fast asleep, and before them the silent immensity and palace of the Eternal, to which our sun is but a porch-lamp." Altogether, the work is wonderful as the work of a girl of eighteen. She has never since fully equalled or approached its power. One distinct addition to our | original creations must be conceded her -and it is no little praise; for there are few writers of fiction who have done so much out of Germany. What are they in this respect to our painters—to Fuseli, with his quaint brain, so prodigal of unearthly shapes-to John Martin, who has created over his head a whole dark, frowning, but magnificent world-or to David Scott, our late dear friend, in whose studio, while standing surrounded by pictured poems of such startling originality, such austere selection of theme, and such solemn dignity of treatment (forgetting not himself, the grave, mild, quiet, shadowy enthusiast, with his slow, deep, sepulchral tones), you were almost tempted to exclaim, "How dreadful is this place!" * *Since writing this, we have read more carefully the "Last Man." Though the gloomiest, most improbable, and most hopeless of books, it abounds in beautiful descriptions, has scenes of harrowing interest, and depicts delicately the character of Shelley, inform our readers that Mrs Shelley has, who is the hero of the story.-We need not since this sketch was written, departed this life. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. BYRON, Southey, Macaulay, and Lock- Greek, and has not read Pope's or Cowhart, are all, amid their variety of gifts, per's translation. And though he talked distinguished by an intense Anglicanism of writing his magnum opus in Italian, of spirit and style. Byron-spurned by after he had fully mastered the language, England, and spurning England in re- it was easy to perceive that to his "land's turn-yet bore with him into his banish-language" he in reality desired to comment all the peculiarities of his country's mit the perpetuity of his fame, and that literature: its directness, its dogmatism, England was the imaginary theatre before its clearness, and its occasional caprice. which he went through his attitudes of And never is he so heartily and thoroughly enthusiasm, and assumed his postures of English as when he is denouncing or ridi- despair. Southey, again, in creed, in chaculing the land of his fathers. It is im- racter, in purpose, in genius, and in dicpossible to conceive of him, in any circum- tion, was English to exclusiveness. Macstances, sinking down to the level of an aulay's writings, starred so richly with Italian improvisatore, or subliming into a allusions to every other part of every German mystic, or of being aught but other literature, do not, we are positive, what he was a strange compound of above half-a-dozen times recognise the English blackguard, English peer, and existence of the German-a single sneer English poet. His knowledge of German is all he vouchsafes to our modern Gerwas limited; and even when he stole from manised English authors; his strongest it, it was what it had stolen from the sympathies are with our native literature; elder authors of England. His admira- and his sharp, succinct, and nervous mantion of Goethe was about as genuine and ner, is the exact antithesis of that which profound as a schoolboy's of Homer, who is the rage of the Continent. And Lockhas read a few pages of the "Iliad" in | hart, the subject of this notice, though he is versant with foreign tongues-though | vigorous rather than a copious imaginahe has translated from the Spanish, has tion, thorough rather than profound learntravelled in Germany, and gazed on the ing, and a style, destitute, indeed, of Jove-like forehead of the author of "Faust," grace or elegance, but native, nervous, was, is, and is likely to continue, a Saxon to the backbone. and powerful. He has, withal, no great subtlety of view, or width of comprehenWe had almost called Lockhart the sion, or generosity of feeling, and not a Dryden of his day. Certainly, he has particle of that childlike simplicity, earmuch of glorious John's robust and care- nestness, and abandonment, which are so less strength of style, and of his easy and often the accompaniments of genius. Invaulting vigour of versification. Like deed, if genius be, as we deem it is, a Dryden, too, whether lauding his friends, voice from the depths of the human spior vituperating his foes-whether apply- rit; the utterance, native and irresistible, ing the caustic of satire, or inditing the of one possessed by an influence which, fiery lyric-whether bursting into brief like the wind, bloweth where it listeth; and chary raptures, or sneering behind comes, he knows not whence, and goes, the back of his own enthusiasm, he is al- he knows not whither; a lingering echo ways manly, measured, disdainful alike of that infinite ocean from which we have of petty faults and petty beauties. Like all come; the bright limit between the Dryden, he is never greater than when, highest form of the intellectual, and the in translation or adaptation, he is rekind- lowest form of the divine-if the man ling the embers of other writers. Like under its influence be a "maker," workDryden, he is never or rarely caught into ing out, in imitation of the great demithe "seventh heaven of invention;" he is urgic Artist, certain creations of his own; sometimes majestic, but never sublime; a "declarer," more or less distinctly, of and has little pure passion, no dramatic the awful will of the unseen Lawgiver, vein, and but occasional command over seated within his soul-a string to an inthe fountain of tears. From Dryden, how-visible harper-a pen guided by a superever, he differs in this, that while he is human hand-a trumpet filled with a equally good at reasoning in rhyme, or voice which is as the sound of many expressing didactic truth, as at painting waters:-if this definition of genius be character or scenery, Lockhart's great admitted, we question if he possesses it strength lies in picturesque and power- at all; if it be not, in truth, only high ful description of the oddities of charac- talent which sharpens his keen nostril, ter, of the darker vagaries of the human and animates the vigorous motions of his heart, or of the broader or more general understanding. features of Nature. As a novelist, his first production was The two main characteristics of this "Valerius," which he read, Willis tells us, writer's mind are, we think, sympathy sheet after sheet, as it was written, to with the sterner passions, and scorn for Christopher North, and was encouraged the lighter foibles and frailties of man. by his approbation to put it to press. It From the first have sprung those ener- is a stern and literal reproduction of the getic, though somewhat overcharged, pic- classical periods. Its style has, in genetures which startle and appal us in "Adam | ral, the coldness and chasteness of a tranBlair" and "Matthew Wald." To the slation from the Latin. Its best passage latter we owe the sparkling humour, the is that descriptive of the amphitheatre, bitter satire, and the brilliant badinage which is written with a rugged power of "Peter's Letters," "Reginald Dalton," worthy of the scene, in which the and all his splendid sins in the pages of "Blackwood." Besides those master features, he possesses, beyond all question, a strong and sagacious intellect, a clear discriminating vein of criticism, a 'Buzz of eager nations ran In murmur'd pity or outroar'd applause, |