hat he was indefatigable in his
attentions to the poor cottagers of his neighborhood; and that he
suffered severely from an attack of opthalmia, which was originated
in one of his benevolent visits. Nearly the first of Shelley's poems was
his "Queen Mab," in which (having in vain struggled to devote himself
to metaphysics apart from poetry), he blended his metaphysical
speculation with his poetical aspirations. The following quotations
are taken from that poem, in which his wonderful command of language is
well shown:--

"There's not one atom of yon earth
But once was living man;
Nor the minutest drop of rain,
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,
But flowed in human veins;

And from the burning plains
Where Lybian monsters yell,
From the most gloomy glens
Of Greenland's sunless clime,
To where the golden fields
Of fertile England spread
Their harvest to the day,
Thou canst not find one spot
Whereon no city stood.

How strange is human pride!
I tell thee that those living things,
To whom the fragile blade of grass,
That springeth in the morn
And perishes ere noon.

In an unbounded world;
I tell thee that those viewless beings.
Whose mansion is the smallest particle
Of the impassive atmosphere,
Think, feel, and live, like man:
That their affections and antipathies,
Like his, produce the laws
Ruling their mortal state;
And the minutest throb.

That through their frame diffuses
The slightest, faintest motion,
Is fixed and indispensable
As the majestic laws
That rule yon rolling orbs.

.....

How bold the flight of passion's wandering wing,
How swift the step of reason's firmer tread,
How calm and sweet the victories of life.
How terrorless the triumph of the grave!
How powerless were the mightiest monarch's arm,
Vain his loud threat and impotent his frown!
How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar!
The weight of his exterminating curse,
How light! and his affected charity,
To suit the pressure of the changing times,
What palpable deceit!--but for thy aid,
Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend,
Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men,
And heaven with slaves!

Thou taintest all thou look'st upon!--The stare,
Which on thy