der dispute, and which men of unrivalled acquirements, penetrating genius, and stainless virtue, have spent, and at last sacrificed, their lives in combating!

"The time is rapidly approaching-I hope that you, my Lord, may live to behold its arrival — when the Mahometan, the Jew, the Christian, the Deist, and the Atheist, will live together in one community, equally sharing the benefits which arise from its association, and united in the bonds of charity and brotherly love. My Lord, you have condemned an innocent man; no crime was imputed to him, and you sentenced him to torture and imprisonment. I have not addressed this letter to you with the hope of convincing you that you have acted wrong. The most unprincipled and barbarous of men are not unprepared with sophisms to prove that they would have acted in no other manner, and to show that vice is virtue. But I raise my solitary voice, to express my disapprobation, so far as it goes, of the cruel and unjust sentence you passed upon Mr. Eaton to assert, so far as I am capable of influencing, those rights of humanity which you have wantonly and unlawfully infringed.

“My Lord, yours,” &c.

CHAPTER V.

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE: 1812.

IN the solitude of Lymouth, Shelley read much, projected many works, and addressed several letters on literary and social topics to his friends. These letters will, for the most part, speak for themselves, and will unfold, to a certain extent in an autobiographical form, some of the ensuing phases of the poet's life. The first of them. is addressed to Mr. Thomas Hookham, of Old Bond Street, a valued friend of Shelley, and runs as follows:

"DEAR SIR,

“Lymouth, Barnstaple, Aug. 18th, 1812.

"YOUR parcel arrived last night, for which I am much obliged. Before I advert to any other topic, I will explain the contents of mine in which this is enclosed. In the first place, I send you fifty copies of the Letter [to Lord Ellenborough]. I send you a copy of a work which I have procured from America, and which I am exceedingly anxious should be published. It develops, as you will perceive by the most superficial reading, the actual state of republicanized Ireland, and appears to me, above all things, calculated to remove the prejudices which have too long been cherished of that oppressed country. I enclose also two pamphlets which I printed and distributed whilst in Ireland some months ago (no bookseller daring to publish them). They were on that account

attended with only partial success, and I request your opinion as to the probable result of publishing them with the annexed suggestions in one pamphlet, with an explanatory preface, in London. They would find their way to Dublin.

"You confer on me an obligation, and involve a high compliment, by your advice. I shall, if possible, prepare a volume of essays, moral and religious, by November; but, all my MSS. now being in Dublin, and from peculiar circumstances not immediately obtainable, I do not know whether I can. I enclose also, by way of specimen, all that I have written of a little poem begun since my arrival in England. I conceive I have matter enough for six more cantos. You will perceive that I have not attempted to temper my constitutional enthusiasm in that poem. Indeed, a poem is safe; the iron-souled Attorney-General would scarcely dare to attack [it]. The Past, the Present, and the Future, are the grand and comprehensive topics of this poem. I have not yet half exhausted the second of them.*

"I shall take the liberty of retaining the two poems which you have sent me (Mr. Peacock's), and only regret that my powers are so circumscribed as to prevent me from becoming extensively useful to your friend. The poems abound with a genius, an information, the power and extent of which I admire, in proportion as I lament the object of their application. Mr. Peacock conceives that commerce is prosperity; that the glory of the British flag is the happiness of the British people; that George III., so far from having been a warrior and a tyrant, has been a patriot. To me it appears otherwise; and I have rigidly accustomed myself not to be seduced by the loveliest eloquence or the sweetest strains to regard with intellectual toleration that which ought not to be tolerated by those who love liberty, truth, and virtue. I mean not to say that Mr. Peacock does not love them; but I mean to say that he regards those means [as] intrumental to their progress, which I regard [as] instrumental to their destruction. (See

*The poem here alluded to is (I conceive) Queen Mab. — ED.

A.

Genius of the Thames, pp. 24, 26, 28, 76, 98.) At the same time, I am free to say that the poem appears to be far beyond diocrity in genius and versification, and the conclusion of Paine the finest piece of poetry I ever read. I have not had time to read the Philosophy of Melancholy, and of course am only half acquainted with that genius and those powers whose application I should consider my self rash and impertinent in criticizing, did I not conceive that frankness and justice demand it.

"I should esteem it as a favor if you would present the enclosed letter to the Chevalier Lawrence. I have read his Empire of the Nairs; nay, have it. Perfectly and decidedly do I subscribe to the truth of the principles which it is designed to establish.

"I hope you will excuse, nay and doubt not but you will, the frankness I have used. Characters of our liberality are so wondrous rare, that the sooner they know each other, and the fuller and more complete that knowledge is, the better. "Dear Sir, permit me to remain

"Yours, very truly,

"PERCY B. SHELLEY."

"I am about translating an old French work, professedly by M. Mirabaud not the famous one- La Système de la Nature. Do you know anything of it?

"To T. Hookham, Esq., Bond Street, London."

Although by this time several letters had passed between Shelley and Godwin, they had never met. The former therefore addressed to the latter a warm invitation to pay him and his wife a rural visit at their cottage, where, in the perusal of ancient authors, and the interchange of discourse on high social themes, they might become personally acquainted. Godwin, however, did not go immediately to Lymouth; and, in a letter dated

66

July 7th, 1812, Shelley declines to press the invitation, because, as his wife suggested to him, their wished-for guest was at that time in delicate health, and their rooms were complete servants' rooms." Allusion is made in the same letter to the Shelleys going up to London, and living with the Godwins. On the 18th of September, the author of Political Justice unexpectedly arrived at Lymouth only to find that the young couple had left since August 31st. This must have been a great vexation to Godwin; for, in a communication to his wife, written from Bristol, previous to embarking for Devonshire, he speaks of Shelley as "the young man who has so greatly excited my curiosity." A subsequent letter to Mrs. Godwin gives the details of the misadventure.

"Lymouth, Valley of Stones, Sept. 19th, 1812. "MY DEAR Love,

"THE Shelleys are gone! have been gone these three weeks. I hope you hear this first from me; I dread lest every day may have brought you a letter from them, conveying this strange intelligence. I know you would conjure up a thousand frightful ideas of my situation under this disappointment. I have myself a disposition to take quietly any evil, when it can no longer be avoided, when it ceases to be attended with uncertainty, and when I can already compute the amount of it. I heard this news instantly on my arrival at this place, and therefore walked immediately (that is, as soon as I had dined) to the Valley of Stones, that, if I could not have what was gone away, I might at least not fail to visit what remained.

"You advise me to return by sea. I thank you a thousand times for your kind and considerate motive in this; but certainly nothing more repulsive could be proposed to me at this