from out the void, than a bowing down to stone images or reverence for a false prophet. Critics are still to be found who look upon a modern poet—in his lifetime almost an outlaw—as a splendid lyrical genius gone far astray. Of course I refer to Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley.The world is slowly learning that Shelley' s office, if any need be ascribed to him save that of charming the afterworld with song, was ethical. As an iconoclast, he rebelled against tyranny and dogma. His mistakes were those of poetic youth and temperament, and he grew in love, justice, pity, according to his light. He groped in search of some basis for construction, but died in The false standards of criticism applied to his life and works.what was still his formative period. Yet we see sage and elderly moralists applying to Shelley the tests of their own mature years and modern enlightenment, and holding a sensitive and passionate youth to account as if he were an aged philosopher.[1] Even Matthew Arnold, despite his fine recognition of that transcendent lyrist, did not quite avoid this attitude. Professor Shairp assumed it altogether. With respect to the poetry of nature, I can refer you to no more sugges-
- ↑ Some reviewer, alluding to the discussion of Hawthorne's career, has said with much intelligence that the romancer was first of all, by choice and genius, an artist, and that his politics, ethics, etc., are matters quite subordinate in any estimate of him. It is well, then, to aver that Shelley was, before all else and marvellously, a poet, and that the rapid experiences of his young life—which ended, indeed,, before the age of mature convictions—are of importance merely as they affected what we have inherited of his beautiful lyric and dramatic creations.
