and read carefully, before the full idea can be taken in. We shall first select one or two passages, not as illustrative of the poem, but for their poetic beauty. Here is a vivid picture :

"The rocks are cloven, and through purple night

I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,

As if the thing they loved fled on before,

And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all

Sweep onward.

These are the immortal Hours

Of whom thou didst demand."

The following are very beautiful:—

THE MOON.

"The shadow of white death has past
From my path in heaven at last,
A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep;
And through my newly-woven bowers
Wander happy paramours,

Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep
Thy vales more deep."

THE EARTH.

"I spin beneath my pyramid of night,

Which points into the heavens dreaming delight,
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep:

As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing,
Under the shadow of his beauty lying,

Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep."

The following strange verse is descriptive of Prometheus's curse. A voice from the springs thus answers his inquiry :

:

"Never such a sound before
To the Indian waves we bore;
A pilot asleep on the howling sea
Leaped up from the deck in agony,
And heard, and cried, 'Ah! woe is me!'
And died as mad as the wild waves be."

Perhaps anything like humorous writing would be the last thing one would expect to find in the works of Shelley. Life was with him so real a tragedy, that the natural joyousness of his heart but seldom found utterance. Yet in "Peter Bell" there is much genuine laughter-exciting humour. That description at the end of the poem of a thoroughly dull author is admirable. It is a strange fact that this poem of "Peter Bell" was written at the period of Shelley's greatest sufferings; at the time when his uniformly gentle nature was roused into most passionate indignation by that unnecessarily cruel decree which robbed him of his children.

We cannot conclude this very imperfect notice of Shelley's poetry without drawing attention to one point in his character, which remarkably distinguished him from the most of the poets of his own age, and still more remarkably distinguishes him from the majority of the poets of our own. Shelley never made merchandise of his sorrows. He felt the sacredness of that truth, "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," and ever shrank with a morbid sensitiveness from exposing to the vulgar gaze the secret sorrows that weighed upon him. It is remarkable that there is scarcely a single allusion in the whole of his poetry to any private wrong that he had suffered, to any private grief that embittered his life. What he wrote on such subjects was not for the world. "They were not written," as Mrs. Shelley observes, "to exhibit the pangs of distress to the public; they were the spontaneous outbursts of a man brooding over his wrongs and woes." The few poems of this description which we have now were not published until after his death. This one fact shows the character of Shelley in a better light than anything he has written. In truth, the character of the ideal Prometheus was not nobler, grander, or more heroic than that of the poet who conceived it.

Byron could

But it was a part in life as

What a contrast is Shelley in this respect to Byron! not exist without fame; it was the breath of his life. vulgar fame he loved. He could not live and act his Shelley did, content with the consciousness of doing well. He delighted to have the world talking of him, whether for good or ill.

Hence his poetry is too often disfigured by allusions to himself; he valued too much the opinions of those whose opinions were valueless, and was content to barter immortality for the paltry wonder of the mob. A still greater contrast does Shelley afford to that school of poets in our time, appropriately termed the "spasmodic." The disciples of this school, without Byron's genius, ape and exaggerate his faults.

They appear to think that the world cannot get on without a knowledge of their history.

When you take up the books of any of these men, you are entertained with a full, true, and particular account of the author's thoughts and experiences from his earliest infancy. How, after much thought, he was unable to make out the origin of evil-how unhappy he was in consequence; how, after many years of unutterable agony, he falls in love with his cousin Polly,-how Polly made it a case of rejected addresses by marrying a "baby-faced lord," or wealthy mill-owner, who is of course a fool, and is ironically called a "pale-eyed slave of Mammon"-how the author, notwithstanding, expresses a firm determination to embrace the soul of Polly somewhere in eternity (time and place not generally specified); how, by way of keeping up his spirits in the meantime, he "tears at all the creeds"-(poor Athanasius! to be treated thus after mystifying the world so long); how, moreover, he habitually breaks the third commandment for the remainder of his natural life; and how, finally, he feels imperatively called upon to inflict on his fellow mortals a volume of intolerable nonsense. This style is very popular just now, particularly with emancipated school-girls, who believe in it. We do not object very strongly to it, as, if it does nothing else, it affords amusement. We look forward without alarm to Mr. Tennyson's next nursery rhyme, not doubting that it will be as moral, excellent, and suitable for our children as his last.

His

Very differently from our spasmodic friends did Shelley act. sufferings were real, and, therefore, could not be exposed. It would be well if the poets of our time would remember that silence is the true poetry of grief: would observe that this noble, uncomplaining fortitude makes Shelley a far grander character than if he had been constantly proclaiming his wrongs to the world. Yet Shelley wrote very beautifully of himself, sorrowfully, as might be expected, but with a tone of patient resignation :

"Yet now despair itself is mild,

Even as the winds and waters are:
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care

Which I have borne, and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air

My cheek fever cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony."

"Some might lament that I were cold,
As I when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;
They might lament-for I am one

Whom men love not-and yet regret,
Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,

Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet."

One might almost think that Shelley foresaw his own early death. Among the latest things he wrote occurs this verse:—

"O World! O Life! O Time!

On whose last steps I climb,

Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime ?
No more, oh! never more!

It was about a year after this that the spirit of this great and good man fled, amid storm and darkness, from this world of sorrow. The last earthly sound that fell upon his ear was the thunder, and the rushing of the mighty ocean waters that in life he had loved so well.

DEATH.

As when two clouds at even,

When day's long race is done,
Voiceless, unheard the crash,
Viewless the lightning flash,

Blend into one:

So into heaven,

Quitting its ashes,

When Now with what Shall be

Forms one eternity,

Forth the soul flashes.

LYCANTHROPY AND LYCANTHROPES.

THE subject to which we are about to direct the attention of our readers is one of which very little appears to be known by the world at large, though from its extraordinary nature it is by no means devoid of interest: we propose, therefore, to give a brief historical sketch of it, drawing our information from every available source, and offering such remarks as may from time to time occur to us.

The etymology of the word "Lycanthrope" partly explains its application: it means in the original Greek a wolf-man, and is identical in signification with the Saxon were-wolf, and the German wehr-wölf: the French use the term loup-garou in the same sense. The accounts we have of Lycanthropy arrange themselves under two heads: firstly, those which either in whole or in part appear worthy of little credence; and secondly, those of whose general authenticity we can entertain no reasonable doubt. The latter are few in number, but they serve to show us that we are not necessarily to look upon the former as mere groundless fables, even though the truth on which they are founded may be completely obscured amid the exaggerations and additions resulting from the superstitious terror of either the writers themselves, or their informants.

The first author, we believe, who gives any account that might be connected with Lycanthropy is the venerable Herodotus. He informs us that the Neurians, a Scythian tribe, were reported to change themselves into wolves at certain periods of the year. What the exact facts in this case may have been, it is difficult to conjecture; but it is remarkable that the Livonians, who in succeeding ages occupied the same territory that was supposed to have been formerly inhabited by the Neurians, were accused of Lycanthropy by comparatively recent authors. In the eighth Eclogue of Virgil we find allusion made to one Mæris, who was said to have the power of transforming himself at pleasure into a wolf, by the use of certain herbs: this leads us to observe, that in some cases, as in this instance, the transformation was represented as voluntary, while in others it was involuntary; and also that the means by which it was said to be effected varied considerably, sometimes herbs being used, sometimes ointments, and other things which we shall mention as we proceed.

It could scarcely be expected that Pliny should forbear from noticing