Hence it is in the vague, unearthly, and mysterious, that the peculiar power of his mind is displayed. Like the Goule in the Arabian Tales, he leaves the ordinary food of men, to banquet among the dead, and revels with a melancholy delight in the gloom of the churchyard and the cemetery. He is in poetry what Sir Thomas Browne is in prose, perpetually hovering on the confines of the grave, prying with a terrible curiosity into the secrets of mortality, and speculating with painful earnestness on every thing that disgusts or appals mankind.

But when, abandoning these darker themes, he yields himself to the description of the softer emotions of the heart, and the more smiling scenes of Nature, we know no poet who has felt more intensely, or described with more glowing colours the enthusiasm of love and liberty, or the varied aspects of Nature. His descriptions have a force and clearness of painting which are quite admirable; and his imagery, which he accumulates and pours forth with the prodigality of genius, is, in general, equally appropriate and original. How forcible is this Italian sunset, from the first poem in the present collection, entitled Julian and Maddalo, a piece of a very wild, and not a very agreeable cast, but rich in eloquent and fervid painting!

Between the east and west; and half the sky

Was rooff'd with clouds of rich emblazonry,

Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew Down the steep west into a wondrous hue

rent

scent

Brighter than burning gold, even to the Where the swift sun yet paus'd in his deAmong the many-folded hills, they were Those famous Euganean hills, which bear,

As seen from Lido through the harbour piles,

The likeness of a clump of peaked isles-
And then, as if the earth and sea had been
Dissolv'd into one lake of fire, were seen
Those mountains tow'ring, as from waves
of flame,
Around the vaporous sun, from which
The inmost purple spirit of light, and made
Their very peaks transparent. "Ere it

there came

Darkness and odours, and a pleasure
hid

In melancholy gloom, the pinnace past,
By many a star-surrounded pyramid
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathom-
ably.

The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest
tops,
Temper'd like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that
which drops

From folded lilies in which glowworms dwell,

When earth over her face night's mantle wraps;

Between the severed mountains lay on high, Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray, Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

By far the greater number of the pieces which the present volume contains are fragments, some of them in a very unfinished state indeed; and though we approve the feeling which led the friends of Mr Shelley to collect them all, we question whether a selection, from the more finished pieces, would not have been a more prudent measure, as far as his fame is concerned. It dissolves entirely the illusion which we wish to cherish as to the intuitive inspiration-the estro of poetry-to be thus admitted, as it were, into the workshop of Genius, and to see its materials confused and heaped together, before they have received their last touches from the hand of the poet, and been arranged in their proper order. And it is wonderful how much the effect of the finest poem depends on an attention to minutiæ,

and how much it may be injured by a harsh line, an imperfect or forced rhyme, a defective syllable, or, as is often the case here, an unfortunate [ occurring in the middle of a stanza. Others, however, are fortunately in a more finished state; and though even in these it is probable that much is wanting, which the last touches of the author would have given, we have no fear but that, imperfect as they are, they will bear us out in what we have said of the powers of the poet.

What a quiet stillness breathes over this description of

The Pine Forest

OF THE CASCINE, NEAR PISA!

We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean's foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the woods, and on the deep,
The smile of Heaven lay.

It seemed as if the day were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which shed to earth above the sun
A light of Paradise.

We paused amid the Pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude,
With stems like serpents interlaced.
How calm it was !-the silence there

By such a chain was bound,
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound.
The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew, With its soft motion made not less

The calm that round us grew.

It seemed that from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain's waste,
To the bright flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced ;-

A spirit interfused around,
A thinking, silent life,
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal Nature's strife.-

For still it seemed the centre of

The magic circle there, was one whose being filled with love The breathless atmosphere. Were not the crocusses that grew Under that ilex tree, As beautiful in scent and hue As ever fed the bee?

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest,
The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possest.
O, Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee As the storms rock the ravens on high: Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave the naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.

The following appear to us very much in the style of our okl English lyric poets of the age of Charles I. Song

Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now

Many a day and night ?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt seoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.

As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;

Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.

Let me set my mournful ditty

To a merry measure,
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure ;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh Earth in new leaves drest,

And the starry night; Autumn evening, and the morn When the golden mists are born.

I love snow, and all the forms

Of the radiant frost ;

I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Every thing almost
Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.

I love tranquil solitude,
And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good;
Between thee and me

VOL. XV,

What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.

I love Love-though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee-
Thou art love and life! O come,
Make once more my heart thy home!

Mutability.

The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay,

Tempts and then flies; What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!

Friendship too rare !
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy and all
Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou-and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.

Swifter far than summer's flight,
Swifter far than youth's delight,
Swifter far than happy night,

Art thou come and gone:
As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.

Lilies for a bridal bed,
Roses for a matron's head,
Violets for a maiden dead,

Pansies let my flowers be:

On the living grave I bear,
Scatter them without a tear,
Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

The longer poems, from which we have made no extracts, we think less interesting, though some of them, and particularly the Triumph of Life, an imitation of Petrarch's Trionfi, are written with very peculiar power and originality. Some translations are also included in this volume, of which the Scenes from Goethe's Faust, and Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso," are the most interesting.

C

THE public are aware that the present system of the forms of administering justice in Scotland has been almost entirely regulated, since the Union, by Acts of Sederunt. It is undeniable that great abuses now exist. They have been forced upon the attention of the Legislature by the extraordinary number of appeals from Scotland, in comparison with those from England and Ireland. Some think that all the evils which have arisen are to be traced to the Bench; others, that "the principal point is, that Government shall do its duty by giving us learned, experienced, and conscientious Judges, who have not to learn their law on the Bench." (Opinion of Mr Forsyth, Advocate, p. 146.) All are agreed that our forms of process "stand in need of some improvement, or at least of soine alteration," and that " there never can be a better opportunity than the present, for discussing and ascertaining what are the improvements or alterations most proper to be adopted, and how they can be most effectually carried into execution." - (Opinion of Mr Swinton, W. S.)

This subject originated in the Report of a Committee of the House of Lords. Afterwards, the Act of 4 Geo. IV. c. 85, "to the intent that salutary regulations should be made and established," authorised his Majesty to appoint Commissioners to inquire into the forms of process in the Courts of Scotland, and appeals in the House of Lords. The Presidents of the Session, Exchequer, and Jury Courts, two Ordinary Judges of the Court of Session, -one of the Barons of Exchequer, -the Lord Advocate and Solicitor-General,-two Masters in' Chancery, -two English Barrisers,-two Scots Advocates, -and one

Principal Clerk of Session, were appointed Commissioners; and Royal instructions were issued to those Commissioners. The opinions of several eminent and learned persons in Scotland were taken. Those opinions, in an Appendix, and the Report of the Commissioners, have been printed. An Act of Parliament has been since introduced, which, after a considerable struggle, was got postponed till next Session, in order to afford the people of Scotland an opportunity of expressing their opinions. This liberality on the part of the Legislature, although nothing more than what the people were entitled to expect, will, no doubt, be duly appreciated by the public. It is, indeed, more liberal than any measure established by the Acts of Sederunt of the Scotch Judges since the Union, as to any of which it was never thought necessary to take the opinion of the country.

It has been truly observed, that no measure since the Union has been set on foot, which is likely to be attended with more important results to Scotland than this Commission; and no Scotsman can await the resolutions which may be adopted, without the most anxious solicitude." - (Opinion of Mr Pat. Robertson, Advocate.)

While appeals are competent to the House of Lords, and decided by an English Judge, it is not difficult to anticipate, that, in the progress of time, the Scotch forms and principles of law must be assimilated to those in England. From a conviction that the English system, upon the whole, is better adapted for dispatch, and the impartial administration of justice, than the Scots system, and that the mode of administering justice in England has been attended with