He does not comprehend them, nor does he wish to comprehend them. Nature is more near to his wild soul; but even with her it is not modest nature bounded by locality and reality, but a wild and gorgeous composition of tropical beauties and glowing color and awful desolation-the features of many regions caught up and blurred together in a splendid muddle, like one of Turner's weird pictures. But with all these lamentable wants, he has a wealth and lavish flow of melody which may well bewilder and intoxicate the reader. Never was poet so sweetly garrulous. There seems no stint or limit to the torrent of melodious lines which he is ever ready to pour forth, nor any reason why the delightsome strain should ever come to an end. The most of it is pure music, undistracted and unbroken by any definite meaning. We glide along the starlight flood without effort, without note of time or progress. Flow on, thou shining river, is the only slumbrous sentiment of our admiration. From nothing we float on to nothing, lulled by an endless sweetness. This is, to our thinking, Shelley's great and chief distinction. Mr. Rossetti, himself a poet, claims for him the position of "the greatest English poet since Milton, or possibly since Shakspeare," the "greatest Englishman of his time," and one of the ultimate glories of our race and planet." We are incapable of comprehending even the grounds upon which this verdict is given. To us Shelley is a wandering voice, wildly sweet, with powers of utterance perhaps unequaled, certainly unsurpassed-but a voice without any message, a lovely thing astray, a messenger perhaps dropped into the wrong planet, endowed with the language and the emotions proper to Venus or Jupiter rather than the homely Earth. Humanity is not in him or with him. He has the pity of a warm heart for its misery, and wild indignation for its wrongs, but no comprehension of it, nor sense of its many-sided variety. We can never divest ourselves of the feeling that he looks at it with curious, eager, but impotent eyes-how bright yet how impotent! from without. He, with all his strange and thick-coming fancies and bewildering sweetness of song, is a spirit of another sphere. The flowers he understands, and the clouds, and the "blythe spirit" winging its way, singing and soaring, into the blue deep; but man he

knows not, and has no power to comprehend.

We need not linger upon the too well known conclusion of the poet's career. Probably, had he been permitted to choose, it was the end which would have pleased his fancy most; and though, to our own mind, a human grave even upon the seasands, under the sweet Italian sky, with that melodious sea marking its measured cadence at his feet, and incapable of rude intrusion upon the poet's rest, would have been better and sweeter than the theatrical folly of incremation, and the dark and gloomy stone under the old Roman walls where his heart of hearts reposes; yet probably Shelley himself would have thought otherwise. He enjoyed such happiness as was possible for him for some years in Italy, moving now here, now there, according to his habitual impulse of restlessness; and if even his Mary could not give him perfect bliss, neither could any one else have done it in her place. In the soft decaying calm of gettle Pisa, in the more exciting atmosphere of Rome, in noiseless Venice, which he loved, and in the brilliant sunshine of Naples, he wandered, ever wayward, making to himself romances within romances of which no one can tell whether they were false or true of lovelorn ladies following him far off, and imprisoned maidens whom he cherished with the love of his soul. These fancies, whether real or imaginary, were enough to cross his life with many clouds of deep dejection and fantastic melancholy. But yet this wild spirit, so unearthly in its intellectual qualities, and with so strange a dream of life woven through the web, was to the end open as the day to all the charities of tenderness, and beloved to the extent of devotion by a closely-clinging circle of friends. With some of the most intimate of these he settled on the lovely bay of Spezzia, a scene as entrancing in its real beauty as any that ever could have dawned even on a poet's dream, for the scene which was to be his last. The boatin which he was lost was pronounced a "perfect plaything" by the companion who died with him-so little do we know what is before us.

Shelley was but entering the real maturity of manhood when he died. He had not completed his thirtieth year. What that maturity might have done for him, none can tell. His intellectual progress, however,

had been so great during the last five years of his life, that were such a speculation reasonable, we might well have looked for an advance at once in true manhood and creative power which would have turned all comment into foolishness. But this development was never to come on earth. Whether the wandering soul has found out now the true planet to which he had his celestial credentials, and

whether, lost on earth and wildered with constant straying after that destination which he could not recover, he has had better fortune on the other side of the great sea, is a more useless speculation still.

"O world! O life! O time! On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before, When will return the glory of your prime ? No more-oh, never more!"

I.

governmental action.

When people are equally educated, equally tempered, and when there are few differences in station, (by the way, what a dull world it would then be!) that which is personal will not require to be so much considered. But we are a long way off from that state of things; and personal influence, which is the result of differences

[The author of " Thoughts upon Government" some time since gave the public a conditional promise that he would favor them with a second volume; and it will be seen from the following pages that he is beginning to fulfill his promise. He states that subsequently to publishing his first volume, he has received from persons of experience much information, many suggestions, and several corrections relating to the various subjects treated in that volume, and that it would have been a great advantage to the work if he had received these communications before the publication of it. He has therefore thought that in the

of all kinds, must now be admitted to be a great power; sometimes a preponderating power.

icate thinking to whatever subject he De Quincey, who brought nice and deltouched upon, considered the results of English politics as the resultants of a series of political forces, thus treating the matter somewhat mathematically. I have the pleasure of finding myself substantially in agreement with that eminent writer; only, where he speaks of forces, I should be inclined to speak of persons, considered both individually and in the aggregate.

I will take an illustration from what goes on in the theatrical world. However different may have been the case in Shakspeare's time, it is now found ne

cessary

plays with much consideration of what for playwrights to write their the actors can act. This may be a very unfortunate circumstance for the "drama," but it is one that must be taken into political life and governmental action, it account; and in the greater drama of certainly must not be neglected. Those performances will not go well on that stage in which the parts have not been

case of the second volume he might avail himself of the advantage referred to, by putting forth portions of his forthcoming work in the pages of this Magazine. As he justly remarks, "In writing upon so large and varied a subject as Government, it is impossible for any one man to possess sufficient experience to enable him to write with the fullness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness, which such a subject demands." He has accordingly adopted this means, by which, in his own characteristic and modest words, "he hopes to make his second volume more worthy of the subject than his first volume has been."-ED. MACMILLAN'S Magazine.]

set forth with some consideration of the peculiar powers and merits of the ac

tors.

I especially wish it to be noted that I do not mean by the word "actors" to allude to the principal performers only, but intend to include in it those who form the choruses and the whole phalanx of supernumeraries.

To bring the matter home. It is no good, for instance, to bring forward political measures which are totally at discord with the personal feelings of the majority of the people. It is very hazardous even to bring forward measures which are totally at variance with the views and wishes of any very important section of the community. At any rate, the time for producing such measures must be most carefully chosen; for, if premature, it almost censures defeat. See, therefore, how, in this instance, that which is "personal" has to be considered.

Scores of other instances may be adduced. There is a very striking one, that ought to be mentioned. In these busy times of ours, when new questions relating to politics and government are rising up every day, it is absolutely impossible for any man-even for the man who is very fond of his own thoughts, and who would like to form an independent judgment upon every thing that comes before him-to arrive at solutions of all these questions for himself. He must put some faith in others. He must, to a certain extent, rely upon authority. Here, therefore, enters the personal element in one of its most determining forms. How it comes to prevail is thus. A man can form, and always will form, some notion of the personal character of those who come prominently before the world; and he finds it easier, and sometimes imperatively necessary, from want of time and other means, to adopt their views rather than to attempt to work out conclusions for himself.

The foregoing remarks lead us naturally to the consideration of parties in the State. Here, again, the personal element enters very largely indeed. It is a dream of vain dreamers to suppose that parties can be done away with in States that are governed by what are called Constitutional Governments. In such States, parties must exist. Hence arise the gravest and most difficult questions, many of them re

lating very closely to that which is purely personal. I suppose that there are very few matters which have occasioned more trouble to the nice consciences of men, who wish to act rightly in all they do, than the questions connected with party action. Take, for instance, one of the highest forms of this difficulty-namely, how far a Cabinet Minister should go, and where he should stop in going, if his colleagues are proceeding in a path which is distasteful for him to take, and from the taking of which he perceives future serious evil. How much enters here that is personal! How much he has to consider that relates to the characters of those he is at present acting with. The argument that is generally addressed to him, and which often prevails with him, perhaps too often, is this: If you resign, you run the chance of breaking up the party; this one will follow you; that one will follow him; and so, this great party, with whom in the main you agree, may lose its power, and, for the present, come to nought.

Then look at the action of the personal in comparatively minor matters. The longer one lives, the more one learns to believe in the singular powers, of individual men. Take, for instance, a matter which may appear at first sight to be somewhat remote from the subject we are considering-namely, the organization of a government department. You shall put one man at the head of such an office, and he can do nothing without at once re-organizing. No tools but his own, fashioned exactly to his liking, will serve his purpose. You put another man, not supposed to be of greater capability than the former, into the same seat of power, and he sets to work to do his work with the tools that are given to him; and a better organization grows up almost insensibly round him, created by the mode in which he accomplishes the work that he has to do. He is skilled in dealing with persons.

I have already dwelt so much upon the necessity of choosing fit men for political and governmental offices, that I fear to pursue the subject further. But all I can say is, that those men, or bodies of men, who have to choose representatives and public servants, should enter very much into purely personal considerations, having relation to the characters and nature

of individuals. There can hardly be a greater error than supposing that a man will do the work you want him to do, merely because he happens at a certain moment to hold, or that he affects to hold, opinions exactly coincident with your own.

I would not have it imagined, for a moment, that I suppose that personal feelings-which, by the way, are often created in their strongest form by personal interests are not frequently a great hindrance to the attainment of good and important objects. We may frankly admit that. At the same time, however, we must also admit that very great and good objects are often attained by means of personal influence. Men who are respected, and justly respected, because they take more pains in forming their opinions than their fellow-citizens do, enjoy a peculiar influence on that account. Their opinions ultimately prevail, not exactly by the process of argument, but simply by the personal influence which, in their respective circles, they command. If we could know the secret history of how any opinion came to prevail in the world, I suspect we should find that the weight of personal influence had, in almost all instances, been the prevailing means of preponderance.

Such considerations as the foregoing tend to limit our apprehension of the ill effects which must sometimes be admitted to exist in party connections and in party spirit.

To the philosophic mind it may be an uncomfortable reflection to think that all matters, political and governmental, are not settled by the pure force of argumentation. I confess, however, that I am thankful that human beings are so constituted as to be able to shake themselves free from the weight of arguments, however imposing those arguments may be; and that the world is largely governed by its affections, which, after all, include the greater part of our nature, and that part which is perhaps best worth cultivating.

Besides-and this is no light matter these personal affections give stability to a State. If we were more amenable to argument than we are, the affairs of the world would be in a state of continually rapid fluxion; and good growth would not come out of that. There would be a series of wooden edifices rapidly succeeding one another; for when you disturbed a post,

or a girder, of one of these frail constructions, the whole edifice would give way, to be succeeded by a similar construction of frailty. What rapid changes we have known in our own time even in scientific conclusions; and it would not have been well to have had the practical affairs of this life so rapidly disturbed. Whereas, on the contrary, those affairs in human life which are "stuff," to use a Shakspearian phrase, of the affections, the passions, the prejudices of mankind, of all indeed that is personal, are like forest trees in their growth and stability, very tiresome to uproot sometimes when they are ill-grown and you want to uproot them; but which may afford some abiding shade, shelter, and fruit.

There are some persons who may take an objection to our giving much thought to studying the personal in politics, because they would contend that the effect of this personality is absorbed by those large and general movements of the human mind which prevail in any particular era. In short, they would say, "Study the age, and not the man." There is a remarkable Arabic proverb which tends to support their views—namely, that "a man is more the child of the age in which he lives, than of his own father." But, in the world's history, we find that there are many exceptional children-and those are the children who make the most noise in the world, and lead the other children. Quitting, however, all metaphor, let us ask ourselves whether Macchiavelli, or any other profound thinker upon politics, would advise us to be content with studying solely our own age, its peculiar movements of thought, and its prejudices, to the exclusion of studying the peculiar characters of the individual men who will have especial sway in our age.

Bringing the matter home to political thought, I contend that all those, from the highest to the lowest, who desire to take an earnest part in politics, should carefully consider the nature and characters of their leaders. I do not mean to limit this consideration to the characters of the great leaders only of political thought and action. Nine out of ten of us have some political leader-some person whose opinion we greatly regard, or whose influence we feel, in political matters

and it becomes us to consider, much and closely, what is the nature and character

of the person whom we have thus exalted into leadership.

▸ Here enters a very important view of human character, as bearing upon human action, which I believe is hardly ever sufficiently considered. In fact, the error arising from this want of consideration, is one of those which most infests human action. It is in considering a character not ad hoc -not in respect to those matters in which the character is significant as regards the purpose for which you investigate the character. Now, apply this thought to very humble instances. You want to have good bricks made. You must look, at any rate in the first instance, to the qualities that make a man a good brickmaker. His religion, his political opinions, his social conduct, many even of his personal merits or failings, have nothing whatever to do with the question of his being good or bad brickmaker. A similar train of thought may be applied to the highest matters; and whenever any man chooses for himself a political leader or representative, one of the chief things he ought to make up his mind about is the character of that leader, or representative, in so far as it bears upon the particular function for which he is chosen. Reuben may have had every virtue under the sun, except stability; but it being pronounced by his father that "unstable as water, he should not excel," it would not have been advisable to choose a leader, or representative, from a tribe which partook of that hereditary vice of instability.

I now venture to put forth something which may be considered somewhat too subtle, but it is nevertheless worthy of observation. It often happens that a man has certain views and objects, which, for the moment, are your views and objects; but this man's ultimate designs, and also his nature and character, are thoroughly foreign to yours. And, strange to say, his present agreement with you may signally foreshadow future disagreement-as, for example, when a very young man agrees with a very old and experienced man. Even the way in which he advocates his present views (which are yours also) may indicate how wide is the difference between yourself and himself upon essentials. It will be a great question for you, how far you should support that man. Or, take the exactly opposite case. Suppose that the man in question differs

from you, even materially, as respects certain present objects. Is it wise to depose him as your leader or representative, when you are able to detect that in essentials, that in his ultimate views, that in the deeper signs of character, he is with you

?

The above are altogether personal questions, requiring nice and careful thought; and they go some way to support the main purpose of this chapter, which is to show the value of what is personal in politics, and the need for studying it on the part of any person who wishes to fulfill his political duties, as a citizen, to his own satisfaction, and to his country's welfare.

A just consideration of the personal would tend to prevent much waste of thought in the discussion of governmental questions. Observe what has been the case as regards the writers in former ages, who have directed their minds to these questions. How little does one get, that is useful, from men who have devoted themselves to abstract questions relating to the origin of government, or from those of the Abbé Sièyes kind, who have been eminently skillful in framing Constitutions upon paper. The phrases" Social Contract," "Divine Right," "Greatest happiness of greatest number," buzz about our ears; but when we come to translate them into action, they mostly elude our grasp. One doctrinaire responds to another, and all is haziness for the poor practical man who is inclined to take things as they are, and to endeavor to evolve some good out of them. I would not say that the labors of philosophic men, who have devoted themselves to abstract questions of government, are wholly useless; but you enter quite a different atmosphere of thought when you approach the minds of Bacon, Macchiavelli, and Goethe-men who have been largely conversant with other men, as superiors, inferiors, or equals-and throughout whose works you will find that much of what is strictly personal has entered into all their considerations upon governmental questions. The reason is, that such men have been men of the world in the best sense, whereas the others have for the most part been but students.

I am not a Positivist; in fact, I agree with Carlyle in a certain distaste for all "ists and isms;" but there must be something of deep meaning and attraction in Comte's works, which has made so many earnest disciples for that remarkable man.