A subterranean portal for the river,
It fled—the circling sunbows did upbear
Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,
Lighting it far upon its lampless way.’
This we conceive to be the very height of wilful extravagance and mysticism. Indeed it is curious to remark every where the proneness to the marvellous and supernatural, in one who so resolutely set his face against every received mystery, and all traditional faith. Mr. Shelley must have possessed, in spite of all his obnoxious and indiscreet scepticism, a large share of credulity and wondering curiosity in his composition, which he reserved from common use, and bestowed upon his own inventions and picturesque caricatures. To every other species of imposture or disguise he was inexorable; and indeed it is only his antipathy to established creeds and legitimate crowns that ever tears the veil from his ideal idolatries, and renders him clear and explicit. Indignation makes him pointed and intelligible enough, and breathes into his verse a spirit very different from his own boasted spirit of Love.
The Letter to a Friend in London shows the author in a pleasing and familiar, but somewhat prosaic light; and his Prince Athanase, a Fragment, is, we suspect, intended as a portrait of the writer. It is amiable, thoughtful, and not much overcharged. We had designed to give an extract, but from the apparently personal and doubtful interest attached to it, perhaps it had better be read altogether, or not at all. We rather choose to quote a part of the Ode to Naples, during her brief revolution,—in which immediate and strong local feelings have at once raised and pointed Mr. Shelley’s style, and made of light-winged “toys of feathered cupid,” the flaming ministers of Wrath and Justice.
· · · · ·
‘Naples! thou Heart of men which ever pantest
Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven!
Elysian City which to calm enchantest