spot where the fire glowed the brightest.  His torpor was generally profound, but he would sometimes discourse incoherently for a long while in his sleep.  At six he would suddenly compose himself, even in the midst of a most animated narrative, or of earnest discussion; and he would lie buried in entire forgetfulness, in a sweet and mighty oblivion, until ten, when he would suddenly start up, and, rubbing his eyes with great violence, and passing his fingers swiftly through his long hair, would enter at once into a vehement argument, or begin to recite verses, either of his own composition or from the works of others, with a rapidity and an energy that were often quite painful.”

Shelley’s moral qualities are described with no less enthusiasm than his intellectual and physical beauty by the friend from whom I have already drawn so largely.  Love was the root and basis of his nature:  this love, first developed as domestic affection, next as friendship, then as a youth’s passion, now began to shine with steady lustre as an all-embracing devotion to his fellow-men.  There is something inevitably chilling in the words “benevolence” and “philanthropy.”  A disillusioned world is inclined to look with languid approbation on the former, and to disbelieve in the latter.  Therefore I will not use them to describe that intense and glowing passion of unselfishness, which throughout his life led Shelley to find his strongest interests in the joys and sorrows of his fellow-creatures, which inflamed his imagination with visions of humanity made perfect, and which filled his days with sweet deeds of unnumbered charities.  I will rather collect from the page of his friend’s biography a few passages recording the first impression of his character, the memory of which may be carried by the reader through the following brief record of his singular career:—­

“His speculations were as wild as the experience of twenty-one years has shown them to be; but the zealous earnestness for the augmentation of knowledge, and the glowing philanthropy and boundless benevolence that marked them, and beamed forth in the whole deportment of that extraordinary boy, are not less astonishing than they would have been if the whole of his glorious anticipations had been prophetic; for these high qualities, at least, I have never found a parallel.”

“In no individual perhaps was the moral sense ever more completely developed than in Shelley; in no being was the perception of right and of wrong more acute.

“As his love of intellectual pursuits was vehement, and the vigour of his genius almost celestial, so were the purity and sanctity of his life most conspicuous.”

“I never knew any one so prone to admire as he was, in whom the principle of veneration was so strong.”

“I have had the happiness to associate with some of the best specimens of gentlemen; but with all due deference for those admirable persons (may my candour and my preference be pardoned), I can affirm that Shelley was almost the only example I have yet found that was never wanting, even in the most minute particular, of the infinite and various observances of pure, entire, and perfect gentility.”