hand, fertility of faculty and quantity of lyric product, and that product comprising as it does a series of pictures typical of a vaster number of the various phases of human passion and character than is to be found in any other songsters be considered—and many eminent critics appear to think that these ought on such an occasion to be considered—then it would be a question if Burns had not as just a claim as either Shelley or Shakespeare themselves to the contested laurel. This is a question on which critics, in all likelihood, will at all times differ, and on which the mass of readers will exercise their own judgment, whatever critics may think; but of this we may rest assured, whatever the prevailing opinion as to the relative position as lyrists these bards ought to occupy, that just as the intrinsic value of their songs will remain untouched by such opinion, so just will that intrinsic value cause these songs through all time to be cherished as among the brightest, the purest, the richest, the rarest, and if in size the smallest, in quality the most precious of all the precious jewels that sparkle in the crown of British song. Then to think of some of the larger jewels that were placed in that crown by the same three bards! Of the addresses to "The Mouse," to "The Deil," "The Mare Maggie," and the "Tam O'Shanter" of the one;

the "Epipsychidion," the "Prometheus," the "Julian and Maddalo," and the "Cenci" of the other; the "Tempest," the "Romeo and Juliet," and of "Macbeth," the "Hamlet" and many more of the highest value of the third! and then, as a compliment to our national vanity to think that all these three, among others, were of British blood! But I must conclude, and shall only add that the lyrics, the lesser poems, and the more perfect of the narrative poems of Shelley are contained in our present volume, and that it is in view on some fitting future occasion to also issue the dramas in the same series.

JOSEPH SKIPSEY.

THE poem entitled Alastor may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius, led forth, by an imagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications a variety not to be exhausted. So long as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous and tranquil and self-possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened, and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. He images to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in which he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderful or wise or beautiful which the poet, the philosopher, or the lover, could depicture. The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the functions of sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of corresponding powers in other human beings. The Poet is

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represented as uniting these requisitions and attaching them to a single image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave.

The

The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the Furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin. But that power which strikes the luminaries of the world with sudden darkness and extinction, by awakening them to too exquisite a perception of its influences, dooms to a slow and poisonous decay those meaner spirits that dare to abjure its dominion. Their destiny is more abject and inglorious, as their delinquency is more contemptible and pernicious. They who, deluded by no generous error, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful knowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving nothing on this earth, and cherishing no hopes beyond, yet keep aloof from sympathies with their kind, rejoicing neither in human joy nor mourning with human grief; these, and such as they, have their apportioned curse. They languish, because none feel with them their common nature. They are morally dead. They are neither friends, nor lovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of the world, nor benefactors of their country. Among those who attempt to exist without human sympathy, the pure and tenderhearted perish, through the intensity and passion of their search after its communities when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly makes itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and torpid, are those unforseeing multitudes who constitute, together with their own, the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. Those who love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and prepare for their old age a miserable grave.

EARTH, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood!

If our great Mother has imbued my soul

With aught of natural piety to feel

Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;

If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns
Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs-
If Springs voluptuous pantings when she breathes
Her first sweet kisses-have been dear to me;
If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast,
I consciously have injured, but still loved
And cherished these my kindred-then forgive
This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw
No portion of your wonted favour now!

Mother of this unfathomable world,
Favour my solemn song! for I have loved
Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched
Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
And my heart ever gazes on the depth
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
In charnels and on coffins, where black Death
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee;
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render up the tale

Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
Like an inspired and desperate alchemist
Staking his very life on some dark hope,
Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks

With my most innocent love; until strange tears,
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
Such magic as compels the charmed night
To render up thy charge. And, though ne'er yet
Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
Enough from incommunicable dream,

And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,