172 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 
fallen. He was a mighty Prophet sitting on his grave, which 
gaped and took him in before the full burthen of his inspira- 
tion had been sung. Therefore should he be dealt with in 
charity, which forgiveth and hopeth much. 
Every thorough student of Shelley smiles at his ravings 
against Eeligion, because he perceives that, simply, they are 
monomaniac. He had dwelt upon the fixed idea of its 
abuses^ which he so keenly deplored until he had come to 
place them for the thing itself: while he had, in reality — 
calling it by another name to himself— taken more of its es- 
sence into his heart than many who have born a better name. 
That all his morality — ^apart from those vagaries with re- 
gard to social organization and perfectability which he, in com- 
mon with Coleridge, Southey, and other bright and true souls, 
was misled by in early life — was of a Christian spirit, is per- 
fectly transparent ; though he was unconscious of this himself 
He was working his way up through clouds of error, made 
splendid by his genius, to the clearer atmosphere of Faith^ — • 
glimpses of which he had already been visited by through 
the rifts. Had he lived, we have no question, he would have 
mounted to a realization of Faith, and calmly settled with 
folded wings upon the " Eock of Ages." 
We see indications, towards the last, that he might have 
even reached the opposite extreme of high Conservatism in 
Christianity. Students who cannot get beyond the " notes 
to Queen Mab," in their appreciation of Shelley as a Man 
and a Poet, had better have had nothing to do with him. 
His works are dangerous play -things for children of any age ! 
But we have not room — in the repletion of a philosophic 
mood — to say all in this connection we should be glad to say 
about Shelley. This we intend to make a future occasion to 
do. We have seen that never were Bird and Poet so mated. 
Let but the impulse of some holy, even though miscalcu- 
lated, purpose be presented — of some deed of loyal chivalry 
to Her he knew as Truth, come to him in the humble walks 
he chose, and 
