— 72—

Shelley, whose wretched career and early end present so many points of comparison with that of his grander, but perhaps morally less noble brother in art. This mind too, restlessly worn out in the perpetual struggle of ideal with reality was deeply moved by the great mental strife of France and Germany, the magnificent echo of which resounds in„Alaster“,„Prometheus unbound“ and„Hellas“. Nor can it be denied that the noble, much to be lamented, youthful author of„Hyperion“ and of the exquisitely sweet verses„To a Grecian urn“ took lasting impressions from the pure and beautiful creation that our great German poets drew forth from the models of classical Antiquity.

From the Faust of Göthe. PROLOGNE IN HEAVEN.

Raphael. Michael. The Sun makes music as of old And tempests in contention roar Amid the rival spberes of Heaven, From land to sea, from sea to land; On its predestined circle roll'd And, reaching, wear a chain of power, With thunder speed: the Angels even Which girds the Earth, as with a band.

Draw strength from gazing on its glance, Though none its meaning fathom may:

A flashing desolation there, Flames before the Thunder's way,

The world's unwither'd countenance But thy servants, Lord, revere Is bright as at creation's day. The gentle changes of thy day. Gabriel. Chorus of the Three. And swift, and swift with rapid lightness, The angels draw strength from thy glance The adorned Earth spins silently, Though no one comprehend thee may; Alternating Elysian brightness Thy world's unwither'd countenance With deep and dreadful night; the sea Is bright as on creation's day. Foams in broad billows to the deep— Up to the rocks, and rocks and ocean,(It is impossible to represent in another language Onwards with spheres which never sleep, the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength Are hurried in eternal motion. and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of trans- lation, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum). Shelleg's note.

II.

The poetical literature of England towards the end of the eighteenth century and in the beginning of the ninteenth, as we have seen, has in many respects, in wild geniality, impetuous developement, animation and energy perhaps only one rival in the history of Englisch civilization, under the reign of Elizabeth; at the period, of which we are now treating the spirit of the age was very much more affectel by Germany than by any other country and brought forth exquisite and fast-ripening