It is the too frequent occurrence of such examples as these, that has brought learning itself into disrepute with the active and practical portion of mankind, and more particularly those branches of it, which, cultivated in a truly liberal spirit, would yield the most important contributions to an enlarged philosophy of human nature,-theology, history, antiquities, and ancient literature. When religion is no longer confounded with the science, which investigates its nature, history, and manifestations, but is simply regarded as the spirit of faith and love, which should dwell in the hearts of all men,and when the studies which relate to it, are pursued with a sincere desire of truth, and a constant reference to the means of elevating the character and sentiments of society, the just and natural relation between the studious and the practical will be perceived at once; they will each be seen to fill their proper station in the wide system of social activity, as fellow-labourers in different ways for the common good; one imparting continually to the world fresh measures of speculative light, and the other giving back to the retreats of contemplation the results of his experience. Their intercourse will become pleasant, friendly, and profitable, from the consciousness of mutual advantage, embittered neither on the one hand by the expression of disdain, nor on the other by the imputation of uselessness. In the administration of civil and religious institutions, the men of practice will naturally consult the men of study, in all those cases, where the particular pursuits of the latter qualify them to give advice. Schools, Universities, and Academies, will rise to their just value among men. In the light diffused by general intelligence and universal education, men of learning will be respected, because their real utility will be clearly discerned. They will be looked up to, as the conservators of the best interests of humanity-the science, the literature, the philosophy of the world. From their studious retreats they will send forth well qualified men to undertake the highest and most responsible of all human vocations-that of INSTRUCTION, in its largest sense and in all its branches, from the pulpit and the professors' chair down to the elementary lessons of the Infants' school; and through this extended ramification of their moral power-this long subordination of dependent agencies-they will circulate the same refining influences through every part of society; and thus one great object of civilization will be accomplished,—the bringing of its material and its spiritual elements into harmony and steady co-operation.

Under such influences, which only an improved system of public instruction can universally diffuse,-but little difficulty

will attend the external organization of religious institutions, though embracing the most entire freedom and equality of religious profession. If the fundamental principle, that all ecclesiastical authority emanates from the will of a voluntary association of fellow-worshippers, be steadily kept in view, and can at any time be directly appealed to,-various forms and limitations of this principle may be beneficially adopted in practice, according to circumstances of sufficient force and cogency to secure the most complete decorum and stability in the conduct of public worship and instruction, and to prevent any outbreak of democratic rudeness and anarchy.

There seems no reason, why the principle, which has been found so beneficial in civil society,*-that of entrusting its most elementary combinations with the exercise of self government, should not prove equally so in religious; especially when the application of it shall have been rendered additionally easy by the expulsion of the old leaven of sectarianism, and the substitution of the true spirit of religious freedom. The realization of these views indeed be among may the remoter results of a progressive civilization; but the contemplation of an ideal of good facilitates and encourages our advance towards it. The principle of self-government counteracts the paralyzing effect of centralization, whether exercised by a chief magistrate or a bishop, by a presbytery or a civil tribunal; without, however, rendering it impossible, if deemed necessary for purposes of common advantage, to establish a connection between each separate nucleus of organization. Life in this case proceeds from the extremities of the body to its centre, and keeps up a temperate and uniform activity in all its members. The two great principles of human society,-the civil and the religious,whose union and separation, and just relation to each other, have excited such fierce controversy in every period of the world's history, are thus blended in their elementary operations, -morally and spiritually,—far more firmly than any laws could bind them; springing up together, side by side, from the same fresh soil of humanity, and nourished by the same popular influences. Religion no longer rests upon the surface of society, as a fixed and outward form, but circulates through it, like an animating principle,-its life and its soul-diversified and changing in its manifestations, as humanity itself.

I. I. T.

*Compare M. De Tocqueville's very instructive observations on the working of the municipalities established by the Puritans in New England, in his " Démocratie dans l'Amerique."

ART. II.-ON THE POETRY OF KEATS AND

SHELLEY. PART II.

SHELLEY.

We now pass on to Shelley: and in doing so we enter on the consideration of one of the most remarkable men that this country has produced. In the various interesting prefaces with which he introduces his several works, he continually appears anxious to rebut any charge of imitation: allowing, indeed, that resemblance may be discovered between the works of separate contemporaneous authors, but accounting for it by that mould of the time, that certain form and fashion in which minds of the same Age cannot but insensibly manifest themselves.

Never was the possibility of a charge more modestly anticipated; and never could there have been for advancing it less occasion and less ground. Shelley's mind is as clearly original and independent as any could possibly be; not indeed independent of its Age, but original and unique in being so exactly the embodiment of the higher spirit of that Age.

Byron, and Moore, and Scott, identified themselves with particular forms and modes of humanity, all real existences, sometimes, indeed, high, sometimes low, sometimes intermediate, but all real. Coleridge and Wordsworth had their love of Nature, their love of philosophy, and their flow of poetic imaginings, distinct from either of these, or made up of both. All brought great and powerful minds to deal with real life, and real nature, or with the pure realm of pure fancy. But Shelley took and kept a ground distinct from all his theme was "ideal humanity," and to sing it attractively and effectively, he dwelt upon man in all his chief real, and in all his chief possible relations.

What many writers have made their ends, he never admitted but as illustrations and means. Nature, the dramatic in history, the passions, were all with him subsidiary to a development of principles. Exact delineations of beauty, or thrilling representations of the workings of the human heart, are by many poets recognized as enough of object or purpose-but Shelley, though he used these means, always made them subservient to an ulterior object.

He found man the subject of government, of faith, of feeling of custom, and of anticipation. In all of these he thought him an obedient subject to a bad power. He thought that the power

to which he was thus actually subjected in government was bad, in faith was bad, in feeling was bad, in custom was bad, in anticipation was miserable. He saw him, as a futurity and a possibility, released from this subjection, and no longer suffering, therefore, from its accompanying evil. He saw him free, enlightened, independent, virtuous, hopeful, and happy. He wished to awaken him to the consciousness of the one state, to a desire of the other. And here was the labour of our Poet's life, here is the interpretation of himself.

There is a painful acknowledgment to be made, that in the accomplishment of this labour he employed (but chiefly in earlier life,) means and sentiments whose character was of most dubious good, and the employment of which he afterwards himself regretted. This is one of the mysteries which the world's philosophy cannot penetrate. And those who fancy they have penetrated it, are still distressed that in that world's estimation they should appear to admire and approve writers to whose door are traced irreligion and immorality. The fact, that their admirers receive only the good, while they reject, and finally almost forget, the bad, does not in the slightest degree solve the mystery of so strange a union existing in the minds of the admired themselves. To us the explanatory problem (however long be the full and detailed working of it out,) is simply this, that what would be irreligious in one mind, becomes the means of the only religion it can receive to another; and what would be grossness to one set of feelings, is strangely allied with principles of the highest and most genuine refinement to another,—that, in fact, Shelley's rejection of the popular religion was owing to an intenser, and as it seemed to him, a truer religion within himself, and his opposition to some received canons of morality, (an opposition, no doubt, immensely qualified if not annihilated in after life,) to a fancied discernment of higher and purer good than those canons could ever have secured. In some of these respects he will, no doubt, be thought to have made the most dread mistakes that ever a pure mind could have fallen into, or a mature mind be called upon to retract.*

To return to our allusion to the use which Shelley made of the machinery of Poetry, as a means, not as an end. He was as acutely alive to the physical as any man, but he was never

The allusion here is chiefly to the notes on Queen Mab, a poem composed by Shelley at seventeen, published without his consent, and to his lasting regret, and now suppressed in the Edition of his Works, the first volumes of which have just appeared, by Mrs. Shelley. We regret that we cannot speak from actual examination of the merits of this edition, which we understand to be a very excellent one. to be completed in 4 volumes, at 5s. each.

It is

limited by it, he always made it subservient to the mental. He loved a beautiful scene in Nature, with an intenseness that amounted to affection, and yet he would have been amazed at a mere description of that scene passing for a thing complete in itself; it was valueless to him unless it ministered to some real interest of man.

He wandered through the Palaces and Galleries of Rome, and who will say that that sensitive nature did not bow before the majesty of the Aristides, and the mournful interest of the Ariadne, and the power of the Apollo ?

He climbed the walls and strolled through the courts, and lay upon the grassy stones of the Baths of Caracalla; and who will say he did not think of the World's Emperors, of ancient days and ancient deeds, of ruins and realities? But with simple romance he was never satisfied. Things must speak of human interests in their vast importance, or human experiences in their dreadful truth, or they were nought to him. And in the Galleries of Rome his heart smote him at the sight of the Cenci's red eye-and amid the ruins of past Despotism he meditated the Prometheus Unbound.

It is rare that you meet in any one mind with the combinations that existed in Shelley. Their existence, however, was indispensable to the adequate execution of his designs. His love and observation and knowledge of nature would have constituted him anywhere and at any time a Poet. His stern and glowing feelings on government would have made him a leading Politician. His sorrow at the sight of human suffering, and craving to remove it, would have alone been sufficient to constitute him a Philanthropist. His acute subtlety of disquisition made him, what he was, a most able metaphysician. And his deep shame and grief at vice, his conviction that man never could be properly happy unless he were temperate, pure, and benevolent, in fact a high and holy being, would have made of him under other circumstances, and in another age, a most valuable Theologian, or rather Teacher of Righteousness. Now that his constitution, his education, his position in life, did not make him any one of these exclusively, is the reason that, all united, they made him a Poet.

Some men write, and other men act, and it is said, that if either be well done, all that is to be expected, is done. . Because the habits of seclusion of thought, and of superinduced bodily temperament, that enable a man to examine thoroughly, and develope richly the principles of action, so as to stimulate and to guide others to action itself, incapacitate him for an effective or a happy prosecution of detail: while, on the other