“Shelley was actually offended, and indeed more indignant than would appear to be consistent with the singular mildness of his nature, at a coarse and awkward jest, especially if it were immodest, or uncleanly; in the latter case his anger was unbounded, and his uneasiness pre-eminent; he was, however, sometimes vehemently delighted by exquisite and delicate sallies, particularly with a fanciful, and perhaps somewhat fantastical facetiousness—­possibly the more because he was himself utterly incapable of pleasantry.”

“I could never discern in him any more than two fixed principles.  The first was a strong irrepressible love of liberty; of liberty in the abstract, and somewhat after the pattern of the ancient republics, without reference to the English constitution, respecting which he knew little and cared nothing, heeding it not at all.  The second was an equally ardent love of toleration of all opinions, but more especially of religious opinions; of toleration, complete, entire, universal, unlimited; and, as a deduction and corollary from which latter principle, he felt an intense abhorrence of persecution of every kind, public or private.”

The testimony in the foregoing extracts as to Shelley’s purity and elevation of moral character is all the stronger, because it is given by a man not over-inclined to praise, and of a temperament as unlike the poet’s as possible.  If we were to look only upon this side of his portrait, we should indeed be almost forced to use the language of his most enthusiastic worshippers, and call him an archangel.  But it must be admitted that, though so pure and gentle and exalted, Shelley’s virtues were marred by his eccentricity, by something at times approaching madness, which paralyzed his efficiency by placing him in a glaringly false relation to some of the best men in the world around him.  He possessed certain good qualities in excess; for, though it sounds paradoxical, it is none the less true that a man may be too tolerant, too fond of liberty:  and it was precisely the extravagance of these virtues in Shelley which drove him into acts and utterances so antagonistic to society as to be intolerable.

Of Shelley’s poetical studies we hear but little at this epoch.  His genius by a stretch of fancy might be compared to one of those double stars which dart blue and red rays of light:  for it was governed by two luminaries, poetry and metaphysics; and at this time the latter seems to have been in the ascendant.  It is, however, interesting to learn that he read and re-read Landor’s “Gebir”—­stronger meat than either Southey’s epics or the ghost-lyrics of Monk Lewis.  Hogg found him one day busily engaged in correcting proofs of some original poems.  Shelley asked his friend what he thought of them, and Hogg answered that it might be possible by a little alteration to turn them into capital burlesques.  The idea took the young poet’s fancy; and the friends between them soon effected a metamorphosis