The recollection of her delicate and unremitting attention to his conscience-stricken soul, the complacency with which she listened to his tempestuous wailings, without so much as the faintest murmur of her own sufferings, crowd upon him, and sicken his soul to the last faint echoes of moral death. He mourns her loss in all the terrible bitterness of his soul. BOOTH's recitation of the following beggars description:

"She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle,
Life's but a waking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing-

We know full well that LADY MACBETH is not "a mere female fury," though we both hate and fear her. She has been compared to Medea and to Clytemnestra, but she is infinitely more terrible than either of them, because she has more intellect, more passion and more refinement. She is free from selfishness, and has no petty vices, no low and vulgar passions, no indelicacy or gross licentiousness of character. She sacrificed every womanly feeling for the aggrandisement of her husband. If she longed for the crown and sceptre, it was only that she might share them with him "to give all their days and nights sole. sovereign sway and masterdom." Great as was her crime, we feel that others have been more debasing, for, judge her as we may, there is something about her that must forever be associated with her sex and with humanity.

But we must hurry on to a conclusion. The combat scene is indescribable.

We behold indeed an awful grandeur in the conclusive throes and dying agonies of "valor's minion," of him who threw before his body his warlike shield, and would try the last, though "Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,” and being opposed by "none of woman born.”

But we would suppress the shouts of the victorious Scots over the fallen hero, for fate and metaphysical aid conspired against him.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

IT is almost impossible to think of SHELLEY without feelings of the deepest sorrow. The many sad incidents in his brief life, his wild and restless disposition, his insane ideas of the Christian religion, and his sudden and horrible death, crowd upon us in mournful and rapid succession.

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He was born on the 4th of August, 1792, at his father's residence, known as Field Place, in Sussex county, England. Through an imperfect knowledge of the facts of his birth, he has been represented as a descendant of Sir Philip Sidney. His grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, married (the last time) Miss Sidney Perry, who was a descendant of Sir Philip Sidney; but the poet's father, Timothy Shelley, sprang from a previous marriage. It is useless, however, to attempt to correct the error, for, like the mythical story of William Tell and the apple, it has passed into history. And, indeed, it seems almost a pity to spoil the fiction, for SHELLEY resembled Sidney - that "chiyalric warbler in poetic prose"- somewhat in personal appearance, in dignity and elegance of demeanor, in refinement and cultivation of taste, and in magnanimity and nobleness of soul.

At the age of thirteen, SHELLEY was sent to Eton to prepare for a course of study at the University of Oxford. At Eton he made much progress in Latin and Greek, but

at Oxford he neglected the regular course of study in order to gratify his taste in the science of metaphysics.

SHELLEY at this time had begun to compose in both prose and verse, and with some assistance, wrote several romances; but it was his misfortune to offend the dignity of the faculty of Oxford by writing a pamphlet in which he endeavored to prove the non-existence of a Deity. For this offence he was very foolishly expelled. The vain and weak judges attempted to justify his expulsion on the ground that it was in conformity with a statute which expressly provided that the presence of an atheist should not be tolerated within the walls of the University. This statute has, however, to the credit of this celebrated institution of learning, been repealed. It must have required the height of stupidity to suppose that the sublime teachings of the Christian religion, glittering, as it were, with all that is great and good since the world began, could be endangered by the erratic speculations of a youth scarcely eighteen years of age.

SHELLEY'S expulsion from college was a sad disappointment to his family. They believed that they were in some measure involved in his disgrace. His father refused to allow him to return home except on condition of his renunciation of his religious opinions. This he indignantly refused to do. He went to London, thoroughly convinced that he was a martyr to the most oppressive tyranny.

While in London, he formed the acquaintance of Harriet Westbrook, a lady young and beautiful, but who was beneath him in rank and social position, being the daughter of a tavern-keeper. Notwithstanding the most vehement opposition, he married her.

In 1812 SHELLEY went to Ireland. He immediately became interested in the cause of Irish freedom. He issued an address to the people, in which he deprecated

the prevalence of the Catholic religion. He said that "the Inquisition was set up, and in the course of one year thirty thousand people were burnt in Spain for entertaining a different opinion from the Pope and the priests. The bigoted monks of France massacred, in one night, eighty thousand Protestants." He warned the people of Ireland to take care that while one tyranny was destroyed, another be not allowed to spring up. He told them to think, talk and act for themselves, and to be free and happy, but first to be wise and good.

SHELLEY professed to have little respect for the marriage relation. In a letter to a friend he says: "I am a young man, not of age, and have been married for a year to a woman younger than myself. Love seems inclined to stay in prison, and my only reason for putting him in chains, whilst convinced of the unholiness of the act, was a knowledge that, in the present state of society, if love is not thus villainously treated, she who is most loved will be treated worst by a misjudging world."

His marriage proved an unhappy one. Domestic discord ensued, which soon ended in separation and divorce. Circumstances ere long brought them together, and they were again united. But the heart, once estranged from the object of its affections, is ever afterward cold and passionless. A faint light may glimmer for a while on the altar, but the sacred fire is never again renewed. The urn itself is polluted, and breaks as it were from very coldness, refusing even to hold the ashes of its former love. After the separation, SHELLEY traveled on the continent. with Mary Godwin, the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wolstonecraft. On his return to England he learned that his wife had committed suicide. This event tinged with sorrow the remainder of his life.

It is thought that he endeavored to describe his feelings