patibility the author has sought to establish between dogma and progress-between the obligations of the pontiff and those of the temporal prince. Have social order and divine order become antagonistic? The means are worth no more than the principles. Accomplished facts are solely a revolutionary argument, and the Congress is not omnipotent. The object, finally, is the ruin of the Papacy, reduced to a maintenance and to the Vatican, with its gardens. 'Napoleon I. dragged the Pope away from Rome: it brought him no good fortune; you seek to stifle him there.'" The "Siècle" says: "We cannot but approve of this double solution. It is in accord with the spirit of the French Revolution as well as with political necessities. In order to save the Pope's temporal power, it is to be transformed--to be placed in a sphere inaccessible to human passions. The question of reforming the Roman administration is solved by the same Act. We shall see no more children forced away from their parents, no more punishments in flicted in the name of one who ought never to intervene, except to grant mercy and pardon. With a Roman admin. istration altogether municipal, alone responsible, and the Pope no longer combining in himself two personages contrary to each other, no man would any longer have cause to curse him. The Pope would only make his appearance to give and receive benedictions. All politicians, who think every religion should be respected, and that it is impossible to place too high in men's esteem the chief of a faith professed by two hundred millions of souls--all sincere Roman Catholics--will rejoice with us at such a transformation, which will save the Papacy. We expect to hear the lamentations of the Ultramontanes, the complaints of those who understand the interests of religion so ill, as to expose it to the fierce strife of political passions; but the good sense of the public will prove the stronger." Widely different from this is the sentiment of the "Univers:" "So much for this famous piece of writing. Its importance does not consist in the intrinsic force and in the novelty of the reasons which it sets forth. If these reasons were subjected to discussion, they would not resist it; his tory, the right of Christian nations, and the honour of crowns, equally reject them. If it be decided that they shall dominate in the congress. we are on the eve of the greatest and the most formidable events which men can witness; and the nineteenth century will bequeath much uneasiness to posterity. Whoever may be the author of this pam phlet his authority will be null and void on Catholics. All our bishops, with the exception of two or three, have spoken; and the Holy Father has replied to them. We know the sentiments of Pius IX. on these faits accomplis which are brought forward against his sacred rights. The kiss which he now receives will neither deceive him nor any one else." es The following article from an teemed correspondent, was received too late to be inserted in the body of the work; aud in giving it a place in our "Table," it is proper to state, that we dissent from some of its views. KINGSLEY ON SHELLEY.-The Rev. Charles Kingsley is, we know, an able and distinguished writer; and we believe him to be a thoroughly sincere man and Christian. We believe, that most of his readers have felt the honesty of his character as exhibited in his writings; and any opinion of his carries with it, in addition to its intrinsic value, the great weight of his strong convictions. Every one can understand how vast must be the influence of such a writer, whether for good or for evil. To ask that he should not commit errors, would be the part of ignorance alone, but we are entitled to demand of him, that he shall not commit palpable injustice; that if he deals harshly with names venerated and venerable, he shall, at least, offer some plausible reason for so dealing with them. It is not enough to say, that such are Mr. Kingsley's preju'dices of constitution or education, that he is not aware of the injustice he displays. Mr. Kingsley has accustomed his readers to believe in his fairness of thought and freedom from prejudice. In a volume of New Miscellanies," lately re-published in this country, Mr. Kingsley puts forth some "Thoughts on Shelley and Byron," in which Shelley's name and character are treated in a way to move the indignation of every right-minded man. What he says of Byron is, in the main, fair enough-though, we think, it would be difficult to prove that Byron was ever "brutal.” The dissertation on English poetry and its decline, with which the article begins, is neither more nor less valuable than hundreds of similar dissertations written, and to be written, by those who will never learn that there is no stereotyped style of poetry; that Homer does not render Dante impossible; that there is room for Milton, even though Dante lived before him; that Pope did not exhaust the genius of England; that Wadsworth is no less natural than Spenser. With this dissertation we have, at present, no peculiar concern, further than to point out Mr. Kingsley's want of appreciation of Shelley as a poet necessarily resulting from his confessed inability to understand the drift of nearly all modern English poetry. Our immediate object is to examine the charges brought against Shelley in these "Thoughts." Mr. Kingsley quotes Byron's letter to Murray, of Janury 23d, 1819: "Read Pope-most of you don't-but do....and the inevitable consequence would be, that you would burn all that I have ever written. and all your other wretched Claudians of the day, (except Scott and Crabbe,) into the bargain".... "And here," says Mr. Kingsley, "arises a new question. Is Shelley among the Claudians?" And straightway decides that he is. We think no man could desire to see more flimsy reasoning. Because Byron writes of Claudians to be burned, not naming Shelley, be it observed, therefore, the Claudians are burned; Byron's written opinion of the matter placing it beyond question. Byron was a great poet, and a man of strong sense, but his opinions are hardly entitled to this deference. Mr. Kingsley would probably allow that Waller was a respectable poet and a man of some intellectual acumen; would he, therefore, subscribe to Waller's written opinion of "Paradise Lost:"--"The blind old school-master, John Milton, hath writ a long rambling poem, full of angels and devils?"* It is not enough to bring forward the authority of a great name in order to establish a verdict. Intelligent men will desire to be informed of the facts in the case; and it is quite superfluous to point out that the verdict of the world in regard to the poets alluded to by Byron completely sets aside his judgment. Mr. Kingsley revives the exploded notion of the "Satanic" poetry, in order to lay the responsibility of it at Shelley's door. "Neither of the men," he says, "was a devil; but there is this moral difference between them....Byron has the most intense and awful sense of moral law--of law external to himself. Shelley has little or none; less, perhaps, than any writer who has ever meddled with moral questions." And then he writes of Shelley's "lewdness and worship of uncleanness." Now, we quite agree with Mr. Kingsley about Byron's sense of moral law; and we find the cause of this keen sense of law to consist in the fact, that Byron had positively violated and outraged all morality. His cry of agony, terrible and but too real, was the cry of a lofty spirit conscious of sin; sin which might have been resisted, though the impulses which drove him to it were very mighty. Byron's poetry reflects Byron's life; as the one terrible thought of his life was the defilement of his sin; so in his writings the woe, and misery and self-torture of the sinner are never long forgotten. We do not find the same element in Shelley's poetry. How should we? Mr. Kingsley calls Shelley lewd and unclean; but the unanimous testimony of all who knew the man, gives the lie to such terms. Men, no ways sentimental, cool, incredulous men of the world, have left it on record, that Shelley was one of the purest of human beings. Many divines have written of Shelley; but Mr. Kingsley is the first and only person, so far as we know, who has ever dared to bring such a monstrous charge against this amiable, pure-hearted poet. No man is permitted to falsify history, as Mr. Kingsley does in this instance. Shelley's life was the life of a spiritual, pure-minded, enthusiastic man; it would, indeed, be remarkable if his writings revealed phases of experi ence utterly impossible to such a character. When we inquire for the evidence on which Mr. Kingsley founds this astounding charge, we find only that Shelley lived with a woman, whom he acknowledged as his wife before all the world, although their union was never sanctified by the church. This is the single evidence against the purity of his life; it is not even pretended that he was ever unfaithful to his wife. What if Shelley had concealed this connection and been ashamed of it? Would that have made him moral? It is well to remember that there is, at least, one Christian country in which,† at the present day, a man and woman living as Shelley lived with his wife, are regarded as man and wife, assume all the responsibilities and are entitled to all the benefits of that condition. We are not excusing such laxity in regard to the sacredness of marriage; none can look upon that condition with deeper reverence than we. But we submit, that faithfulness and purity in a relation openly acknowledged cannot justly be characterized as lewdness. And the great justification of Shelley's conduct in this matter has been wholly-we do not like to say wilfully-overlooked by Mr. Kingsley. Marriage is one of the sacraments of the Christian Church; We quote from memory; the above is, in substance, correct. † Scotland. and to Shelley the whole scheme of Christian society, simply as Christian, was hateful and abhorrent. Shelley violated what he firmly believed to be the laws of a monstrous and wicked theocracy. To his distempered but sincere mind, the farthest removal from Christian observances was the nearest approach to morality and true religion. We may deplore, we may condemn such vital errors of belief; but we surely are not at liberty to be unjust to him who is so fatally mistaken. His own mistake entails upon him more than enough of suffering; and when we find this same individual living a life of practical virtue and innocence, honestly using his powers for what he believed to be the good of his fellow-men, and winning the affectionate respect of all brought into personal relations with him, do we not feel that our duty is rather charity and sympathy than denunciation and hatred. to rouse all men by every means in his power to shake off the deadly influence that lay upon them. Christianity, he argued, was an evil superstition; the influence of it, therefore, must be unmixed evil. Every institution, then, which formed part of such a system was to be overthrown without pity or mercy; for liberty and virtue were otherwise impossible. Christianity sanctified marriage; but the reformed world would utterly put away marriage. Christianity drew men together under organized governments; but the reformed world would have no need of governments or laws, for the light of nature would guide men in the right way. Christianity was the cause of wickedness and vice; the reformed world would be pure and virtuous, because all good was implanted in man originally. These were, surely, very fantastic visions; but how many pure and good men have dreamed such dreams, and endeavoured to reduce similar theories to practice? Shelley's sincerity was shown, in his personal adoption of the new life, so far as such adoption was possible in a Christian country. That he did not go farther, and found a new society, was owing partly, no doubt, to the want of means, but, in a far greater degree, to this belief, that he laboured more effectually in the good cause, by his writings, than he could ever hope to do by a new foundation. a Every one knows by what persecutions Shelley's early, ignorant revolt from Christianity was hardened into an inveterate hostility. That sad story need not here be repeated; but it is very necessary that it should be present in the minds of all who undertake to read for themselves the meaning of Shelley's life. For years did but systematize his hostility. It may, perhaps, be objected by some, that Shelley's early hatred of the Christian name should have yielded to the influence of years and a more matured intellect. We are Whatever name we may give to such not sustaining Shelley in his error; man-enthusiast, visionary, fanaticwe do but state the truth of his case as we cannot hold any man justified in deit appears to us, and dealing with him, nouncing him as a hypocrite. This Mr. so far as we know how, in a spirit of Kingsley does; sneering at Shelley's charity. Doubtless, it had been well cant, at his gentleness, at his very diet if his mind and heart had so far re- of vegetables. That Shelley was gentle, covered from the first shock of his grie- is true; but not Lancelot himself was a vous wrongs as to enable him to look sterner knight to his mortal foe. And with impartial eyes on the power under if we understand the term "sentiwhich he suffered; to separate the mentalist," as applied reproachfully, to priests of religion--fallible men like him- no man is such a term less applicable self--from the doctrines and spirit of than to Shelley. A sentimentalist, we their religion. This he could not do; take it, is one who utters fine sentiaud few men, even in advanced life, are ments purely as a matter of display; possessed of the philosophical calmness but the very slightest acquaintance with necessary for such impartiality. We Shelley's writings will convince every must also remember, that to Shelley's fair-minded reader that this writer bemind, this evil influence of Christianity, lieved everything he uttered. One is as he conceived it, was the one great almost ashamed to notice such very cause of all the ills which afflicted small criticism as Mr. Kingsley's obhuman society, so far as his experience servations on Shelley's diet. of society was concerned. Law, "external law," to which Mr. Kingsley would have had Shelley bend, was the creation of this same religion; and the poet, feeling most acutely for the sufferings of his fellow-man, (sufferings often existing only in his fevered brain,) became an enthusiastic, uncompromising reformer. For him, the first work was Shelley believed vegetable diet to be the only healthful, pure diet for man. Mr. Kingsley believes the same of a meat diet. In each case the belief had its foundation, no doubt, in personal experience. For our own part, we cannot see that the one diet is more respecta ble than the other; and it does seem to us that a grown man is fully adequate to decide for himself what food he will eat. No doubt Mr. Kingley's reference to this matter of diet was intended to assist the impression of Shelley's feebleness and sentimentalism; yet he can hardly be supposed ignorant of the fact, that the most formidable warriors of antiquity lived upon a vegetable diet; while the finest models of physical strength and beauty, in the modern world, are the Lazzaroni of Naples, whose sustenance is maccaroni and fruits. We should be loth to retort upon Mr. Kingsley the charge of cant, which he makes so decidedly against Shelley; but, we must say, that he gives us quite too much of beef and boxing. Both are wholesome in their way, and in moderation; but we really are unable to see that they imply, per se, gallantry, intelligence and all excellence. As we said in the beginning, we believe Mr. Kingsley to be a thoroughly honest man; and we ascribe the somewhat offensive prominence of muscle and bone, in his writings, to the excellence of his health, and the exaggerated materialism of the age. After quoting the beautiful "Stanzas, written in dejection," Mr. Kingsley interprets their sadness of tone in the way most favourable to his severe judgment. This is hard measure. What thoughtful man, aspiring perpetually to realize lofty conceptions, and perpetually failing-with the daily spectacle before his eye of miseries he can only hope to relieve-outraged in his best affections; reviled by the very men he would elevate and purify-what man, so baffled and exiled, would not sometimes give utterance to heavy and mournful thoughts? We confess to a feeling of warm indignation at the entire want of feeling displayed by Mr. Kingsley in his few remarks on these pathetic words. What can we think of the man who can find no better terms than "empty and sentimental," for words like these, wrung from the heart? 'Yet, now, despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down, like a tired child, And weep away this life of care, Which I have borne and still must bear, Till death, like sleep, might seize on me, And I might feel, in the warm air, My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony !" We are told by Mr. Kingsley that "Shelley's range of vision is very narrow, his subjects few, his reflections still fewer..... he has a deep heart, but not a wide one; an intense eye, but not a catholic one. And, therefore, he never wrote a real drama; for, in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, Beatrice Cenci is really none other than Percy Bysshe Shelley himself, in petticoats." We have quoted this passage to show what pitiful logic a man of sense and ability is driven to use, when he writes merely to make out a case, and with no desire to be impartial. We do Mr. Kingsley the justice to suppose him persuaded, in his own mind, that Shel ley ought to be hateful, and must be feeble; but truth compels us to say that what are offered as arguments in the "Thoughts," are specious and flaccid to the last degree. After the style of the last passage quoted, it may be proved, "in spite of all that is said to the contrary," that Shakspeare never wrote a drama; that Cæsar was destitute of intellect; that Newton did not understand geometry; or that nothing men receive as established, is to be believed. And, conscious of the absurdity of his dictum, Mr. Kingsley descends to the stage-trick of a poor vulgarity, intended for wit. We have written, perhaps, at greater length than the subject required; but, in the defence of one so good, so pure. so unhappy and so persecuted as Shelley, words come almost unbidden. That young life, with all its errors, all its noble aspirations, is at rest forever; and we, who read his tragical story, may never forget that we, also, are tempted; that we are not without sin; that not unto us is it given to sit in judgment upon one whose life was animated by a divine love. Washington Irving received for the English Edition of "Bracebridge Hall," published by Murray, 1000 guineas; for the "Conquest of Granada,” £2000, and for the Life of Columbus," 3000 guineas. It is reported of Campbell, the poet, that at a dinner given by a literary association, he proposed as a toast the health of Bonaparte, "because he shot a bookseller" and yet Mr. Campbell's own dealings with the guild exhibit a liberal ity on their part which deserved a better return. He sold the copy-right of The Pleasures of Hope" to Mundell & Co.. for £50, but they voluntarily added £25 sterling for every 1000 copies printed, and also allowed him to issue for his own benefit an edition by subscription, so that he received altogether for the poem about £4,500, ($20,000. Murray also contracted with him to edit the "Specimens of the English Poets" for £500, and on the completion of the work, of his own accord, doubled the sum. LITERARY NOTICES. History of Georgia, Vol. II. By Rev Wm. Bacon Stevens, M. D., D. D. Philadelphia. 1859. Since the publication of the first volume of this history, eleven years ago, the conclusion of the work has been constantly expected with eagerness, both from the interesting events to be narrated, and from the well-known ability and eloquence of the writer. Selected to be the historian of the State by the Historical Society at Savannah, in the year 1841, supplied with abundant materials, sustained and encouraged with unabated confidence, the author has, at last, completed his labours, and presents his second volume, with a preface, which excites more than ordinary anticipations; displaying the richness and authenticity of the materials submitted for his use, and assuring us, that his long delay has enabled him to bring to his pleasing task greater resources for the narrative, and greater maturity of mind, so that he has written "with more soberness, accuracy and propriety, than he could have done, had he finished the work ten years earlier." From the nature of such a history, several years are requisite for a final judgment on its truthfulness and permanent value-a judgmen which is the combined result of the opinions of those who, in different sections of Georgia, are acquainted with the particulars of local traditions, and cognizant of the consequences of the deeds and principles of preceding periods-a judgment the result also of the opinions of those who have investigated the same or similar records of the past. The merits of the history by Dr. Stevens must, therefore, await the slow, but unfailing verdict of the future. We design, at present, only to notice its recent completion, and mention such impressions as we have received from a rapid perusal. The volume is divided into three books relating to the Royal Government, the Revolution, and Georgia as an independent State down to the adoption of the Constitution of 1798. The previous volume began very far off from the real history of Georgia; the second terminates with the sixty-sixth year after the settlement, leaving the history of the last sixty-two years untouched. But historians have ever been charmed towards the mythical past, and have shrunk from the unplastic and incipient realities of the present. Georgia is now a powerful State. But from the time Oglethorpe landed at Yamacraw till the Revolution, it would be preposterous to say she was more than a feeble colony. To compose two large and interesting volumes on the brief period of such a colony, from 1732 to 1798, and that too without entering much into detail, is a literary performance which few would be able to accomplish with the spirit and elegance that characterize the history by Dr. Stevens. Much of the volume before us is now for the first time published in the form of a history, having been prepared from various and often discordant statements and records, public and private. No haste, no relaxation from research could be indulged; but there was demanded patient and continuous labour to produce from these a consistent narrative which all would receive as historic truth. The difficulty of the task should be borne in mind by the critical reader. But there may be critical readers indisposed to receive every account in the volume as the complete historic truth. Some future investigator might desire to examine the same sources of information which the historian has used. It is to be regretted, therefore, that Dr. Stevens purposely omits to make references to his authorities, because they are manuscript authorities, "and could not be referred to by the general reader." (Pref. p. 14.) Granting, as others must do to enjoy it, the general correctness of the narrative, we commend the description of the sieges of Savannah and Augusta as recounted with graphic power. The scene at the opening of the office for grants of land-the burning of the Act of 7th January, '95-the battles of Kettle Creek and Brier Creek, and other short descriptions, are worthy of the highest praise. With the same vividness are portrayed all the circumstances attending the Yazoo speculations, the demoralization of many of the inhabitants in the more sparsely settled |