resemblance to some of the descriptions of the massacre of the patriots
in the "Revolt of Islam".) The tone of the composition is calmer and
more majestic, the poetry more perfect as a whole, and the imagination
displayed at once more pleasingly beautiful and more varied and daring.
The description of the Hours, as they are seen in the cave of
Demogorgon, is an instance of this--it fills the mind as the most
charming picture--we long to see an artist at work to bring to our view
the

'cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before,
And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all
Sweep onward.'

Through the whole poem there reigns a sort of calm and holy spirit of
love; it soothes the tortured, and is hope to the expectant, till the
prophecy is fulfilled, and Love, untainted by any evil, becomes the law
of the world.

England had been rendered a painful residence to Shelley, as much by the
sort of persecution with which in those days all men of liberal opinions
were visited, and by the injustice he had lately endured in the Court of
Chancery, as by the symptoms of disease which made him regard a visit to