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contemplation of nature, in arduous study, or in acts of kindness and affection. We cannot conclude better than in the words of his best friend, Leigh Hunt, to whom we are indebted for the greater part of this sketch, and whom the poet's worshippers, and in its very ignorance, the prejudiced world itself (for want is a claim upon benevolence) petition for a Biography of Shelley; "The friends whom he loved may now bid his brave and gentle spirit repose; for the human beings whom he laboured for begin to know him."

THE CRUCIFIXION.

TO AN ILLUSTRIOUS TEACHER OF MEN; UPON HIS NON-VINDICATION OF
SHELLEY FROM THE ASPERSIONS OF A COMMON-PLACE BABBLER,

All his pain'd life was nail'd and crucified
By selfish men, of hearts conventional:

And since his death, he many deaths hath died
On dull men's tongues; his godhead full denied,
His memory scourged, and rudely vilified,
And pierced by ruffians in its holy side.
Then should'st thou not, thou Man Imperial!
Whose thoughts do govern thought amidst us all,
Be worse than Pilate; in not being the thrall
Of place, as he, and yet abandoning
The sacred name of Shelley, deified,

To vulgar mockery, without championing

His spirit divine. O, marvel, shame and loss:
Our Pilate is turn'd Jew, and strains the Cross!

*W*

Are we justified in delaying the assertion of great principles, from regard to the feelings or interests of those we love? In other words, Is it just to defer the public benefit for the gratification of our own partialities? The assertors of principles unrecognized by society must necessarily war against the hosts of prejudice: such conflict is not without pain and travail to the best champions of Truth, dismay and torture and oftentimes death to the weakly-armoured, and much sorrow to the consciencious defenders of the "established" Error. Which of the Apostles of Truth holds back, for all this? And shall the good of many ages be laid at the feet of the two or three of a man's kindred; and he, the betrayer of the Many, be esteemed a just man? Then was Brutus a sophist; then was Timoleon criminal, who preferred fratricide to the enslaving of his country. Would Christ have kept silence, though his whole family had been threatened with crucifixion?

*

Five hundred and fifty-seven years before Christ.-Do unto another as thou wouldst be dealt with thyself: thou only needest this law alone; it is the foundation and principle of all the rest.-Confucius.

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ly, than to lie, clasped by Corruption, dreaming of the wormy eyes.

They, who at God's throne would be the accusers, stand at the bar of human injustice the accused and prejudged: Nevertheless their pure thoughts, towering above the opposing Circumstance, refuse to sanction the false action; and as the spirits of the actors look upon each other, the outward show is reversed.

Tyranny hath suborned the bigots: "We ourselves have heard his blasphemy: away with this fellow from the earth!"

The Lady is si lent: she hath no words wherewith to express her great wrong.

But the Young Man pleadeth for them both.

He hath no ha tred, nor jealousy, nor contempt: but pitieth the unhappiness of the ty

rant.

The compelled sufferance of evil may not reproach the sufferer, who is justified in seek. ing redemption.

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There's a crowd within the judgment hall:
A monarch sitteth there,

Judge and accuser of his son
And one, surpassing fair,
Who standeth by the criminal,
His destiny to share.

Yet token none of guilty fear
Appeareth in their look;

And the stern judge, despite his power,
And pride, can hardly brook

His own rebuke writ in that calm,
As in a holy book.

Cold sneers and curses trample on
Their spirits' agony;

And execrations, like foul fiends,
Their pangs would multiply:

In vain-they are unbowed, nor wear
The false indignity.

Severe yet noble is the youth,
Dauntless his lofty mien;

And that impassioned One, though pale
Is tearless and serene:

Still as the moon, that quietly

Peereth the clouds between.

His steady gaze is on his sire;
He pleadeth tranquilly-
""Tis true I owe to thee my birth,
My name of infamy;

What more?-A heritage of scorn
And strife and injury.

"If pain is thine, my mother's wrongs
Are but avenged by me:

I glory not; nor have I cared

To wear thy sovereignty

In after years: but, thou didst pass
The bound of tyranny.

"I am thy son: is this my crime?
The shame be thine alone!-

And she, the partner of my doom,
My own betrothed One,

Whom thou by force didst make thy bride,-
What evil hath she done?

"Thy avarice coveted her dower,

Thy lust her loveliness:

What right hadst thou to whelm her life

'Neath thy foul selfishness?—

The captive sinneth not that flees

From tyrant loathsomeness.

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An old man leaneth o'er a tomb,

In silent agony;

No graven name or date preserves
Its inmates' memory:

But he could tell, who broodeth there
Like sculptured effigy.

Stoopeth he like a burdened man;
His locks are thin and
grey;

His eyes are lustreless; his brows
Are white, and bent alway:
Quaileth he, like the Twilight dim
Lamenting for the Day.

The Fury of a dark reproach

About his Life doth wait;

Aye graving, with the sword of Right,
Wild words of wrongful hate,
In venomed lines upon his heart,
Goading him desperate.

The Lady asketh what death is hired to be her assassin:

She witnesseth the parting of her spirit's Lord; and is answered. Their lives were one.

The epitaph

of the Murdered dwelleth in the unsatisfied conscience of the injurer: a worm that dieth not; a fire that is not quenched.

The Avenger of Wrong hath armed a Fury, which perpetually haunteth the Old Man: is about his path, and about his bed, and companioneth bim in all his ways.

The world's continual praise grateth upon his ear-a fierce sarcasm. He feeleth

that he hath sown sorrow, and ever silently he reapeth his harvest of remorse.

And praise is wreathed around his soul,
Even a corroding thing;
Like ivy round a goodly tree
Untimely tottering:

Sorrow within the old man's heart

Is ever ministering.

Z. May, 1837.

DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY.

THE world subsists either by its own nature, by its physical laws, or a Supreme Being has formed it by his primitive laws. In either case these laws are immutable; in either case every thing is necessary. Heavy bodies gravitate towards the centre of the earth, and cannot tend to remain in the air; peartrees can never bear pine-apples; the instinct of a spaniel can never be the instinct of an ostrich: every thing is arranged, set in motion and limited. Man can have but a certain number of teeth, hairs, and ideas; and a time comes when he necessarily loses them. It is a contradiction that what was yesterday has not been, and what is to-day should not be: no less a contradiction is it that a thing which is to be should not come to pass. If thou couldst give a turn to the destiny of a fly, I see no reason why thou mightest not as well determine the destiny of all other flies, of all other animals, of all men, and of all nature; so that at last thou wouldst be more powerful than God himself. It is common for weak people to say, such a physician has cured a person of a dangerous illness; he has added to his life ten years. Others as weak, but in their own opinion very wise, say, the prudent man owes his fortune to himself. But the prudent man oftentimes is crushed by his destiny, instead of making it: it is their destiny that renders men prudent. The physician has saved a person; allowed: but herein he certainly did not reverse the order of nature; he conformed to it. It is evident that the person could not hinder his being born in such a town, and having a certain illness at such a time; that the physician could be no where but in the town where he was; that the person was to send for him; and that he was to prescribe those medicines which effected the cure. A peasant imagines that the hail which has fallen in his ground is purely matter of chance, but the philosopher knows that there is no such thing as chance; and that by the constitution of the world, it must necessarily have hailed that day in that very place.

Some, alarmed at this truth, say that there are necessary events, and others which are not so: but it would be odd indeed if one part of this world were fixed, and not the other; that some things which happen were to happen, and that others which happen were not necessarily to happen. On a close examination, the doctrine which opposes that of destiny must appear loaded with absurdities, and contrary to the idea of an eternal Providence. But many are destined to reason wrongly; others not to reason at all; and others to persecute those who do reason.-Voltaire.

OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY.

CONTRIVANCE, if established, appears to me to prove every thing which we wish to prove. Amongst other things, it proves the personality of the Deity, as distinguished from what is sometimes called nature, sometimes called a principle: which terms, in the mouths of those who use them philosophically, seem to be intended to admit and express an efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a personal agent. Now that which can contrive, which can design, must be a person. These capacities constitute personality, for they imply consciousness and thought.

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