Shelley's beautiful imagery and idealistic drapery is sometimes so accumulated in his poems, that it is difficult to follow him in his thinkings. In his verse he wishes to stand high as a philosophical reasoner, and this, together with his devotion to the cause, which even men of De Quincey's stamp call "Insolent Infidelity," has prevented Shelley from becoming so popular as he might have been.
Shelley lived a life of strife, passed his boyhood and youth in struggling to be free—misunderstood and misinterpreted: and when at last in his manhood happier circumstances were gathering around him, a blast of wind came, and the waves of the sea washed away one who was really and truly "a man and a poet."
On Monday. July 8th, 1822, being then in his 29th year, Shelley was returning from Leghorn to his home at Lerici, in a schooner-rigged boat of his own, with one friend and an English servant; when the boat had reached about four miles from the shore, the storm suddenly rose, and the wind suddenly shifted. From excessive smoothness, all at once the sea was foaming, and breaking, and getting up in a heavy swell. The boat is supposed to have filled to leeward, and (carry-ins: two tons of ballast) to have sunk instantaneously—all on board were drowned. The body of Shelley was washed on shore eight days afterwards, near Via Reggio, in an advanced state of decomposition, and was therefore burned on a funeral pyre in the presence of Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron, Mr. Trelawney, and a Captain Shenley.
Thus died Shelley in the mid day of life, and ere the warm sun of that mid-day could dispel the clouds that had gathered round the morning of his career. The following comparison made between the personal appearance of Shelley and of Byron, by Gilfillan, has been called by De Quincey "an eloquent parallel," and we therefore conclude the present number by quoting it:—
"In the forehead and head of Byron there is more massive power and breadth: Shelley has a smooth, arched, spiritual expression; wrinkle there seems none on his brow; it is as if perpetual youth had there dropped its freshness. Byron's eye seems the focus of pride and lust: Shelley's is mild, pensive, fixed on you, but seeing you through the mist of his own idealism. Defiance curls on Byron's nostril, and sensuality steps his full large lips. The lower features of Shelley's face are frail, feminine, flexible.—Byron's head is turned upwards as if having risen proudly above his contemporaries, he were daring to claim kindred, or demand a contest with a superior order of beings. Shelley's is half bent, in reverence and humility, before some vast vision seen by his own eye alone. Misery erect, and striving to cover its retreat under an aspect of contemptuous fury, is the permanent and pervading expression of Byron's countenance. Sorrow, softened and shaded away by hope and habit, lies like a 'holier day' of still moonshine upon that of Shelley. In the portrait of Byron, taken at the age of nineteen, you see the unnatural age of premature passion; his hair is young, his dress is youthful, but his face is old. In Shelley you see the eternal child, none the less that his hair is grey, and that sorrow seems half his immortality."
CLAUD ARIAN HELVETIUS.
If France, at the present day, has not reason to be proud of its "leading man," it has in former times produced those minds that shed lustre upon the country, and who, by their literature, add immortality to its renown. During the eighteenth century, when religious persecution and intolerance were rampant throughout Europe, France furnished men to check oppression and expose superstition, while others followed to lay the foundation of excellence and greatness in the examination and cultivation of its true source—the mind. Heivetius sought to direct men's attention to self-examination, and to show how many disputes might be avoided if each person understood what he was disputing about. "Helvetius on the Mind" is a work that ought to be read widely, and studied attentively, especially by "rising young men," as it is one of those Secular works too rarely found among our literature.
Claud Arian Helvetius was born in Paris in the year 1715. After his preparatory studies, he was sent to the College of Louis le Grand, having for his tutor the famous Poree, who bestowed additional attention upon Heivetius, perceiving in him great talent and genius. Early in life Heivetius formed the friendship of some of the leading minds of France, Montesquieu being his intimate friend. Voltaire, too, sought his correspondence when at the age of twenty-three, calling him his "Young Apollo," and his "Son of Parnassus." The first literary attempts of Helvetius consisted of poetry—"Epistles on Happiness," which appeared as a posthumous production, with the "lavish commendations" of Voltaire. After ten years' thought and study Helvetius in 1758, published a work entitled "De L'Esprit," which brought upon him a great amount of persecution. The Parliament of Paris condemned it, and Helvetius was removed from the office he held of "Maitre d'Hotel to the Queen." Voltaire remarks:—"it is a little extraordinary that they should have persecuted, disgraced, and harassed, a much respected philosopher of our days, the innocent, the good Helvetius, for having said that if men had been without hands they could not have built houses, or worked in tapestry. Apparently those who have condemned this proposition, have a secret for cutting stones and wood, and for sewing with the feet.... I have no doubt that they will soon condemn to the galleys the first who shall have the insolence to say, that a man cannot think without his head; for, some bachelor will tell him, the soul is a pure spirit, the head is nothing but matter: God can place the soul in the nails, as well as in the skull, therefore I proscribe you as impious."
During the persecution raised against him, Helvetius visited England in 1764. In 1765 he visited Prussia, being well received by Frederick, in whose place he lodged. Voltaire strongly advised Helvetius to leave France in these words:—"In your place, I should not hesitate a moment to sell all that I have in France; there are some excellent estates in my neighborhood, and there you might cultivate in peace the arts you love." About this period Hume became acquainted with Helvetius, whom he styles, in writing to Dr. Robertson, "a very fine genius and worthy man." In 1765, Helvetius returned from Prussia, and retired to his estate at Vore. The sight of misery much affected him; and when relieving distress, he enjoined strict secrecy. Sometimes, when told he relieved those undeserving his aid, he would say, "If I were a king I would correct them, but as I am only rich and they are poor, I do my duty in relieving them." An attack of gout in the head and stomach terminated his life in December, 1771, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.