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"Mary" there must lurk a feeling of a still stronger kind toward that element which he, next to herself, had of all things most passionately loved--which he trusted as a parent -to which he exposed himself, defenceless (he could not swim--he could only soar)—which he had sung in many a strain of matchless sweetness, but which betrayed and destroyed him-how can she, without horror, hear the boom of its waves, or look without a shudder, either at its stormy or its smiling countenance? What a picture she presents to our imagination, running with dishevelled hair, along the seashore, questioning all she met if they could tell her of her husband-nay, shrieking out the dreadful question to the surges, which, like a dumb murderer, had done the deed, but could not utter the confession!

Mrs. Shelley's genius, though true and powerful, is monotonous and circumscribed-more so than even her father'sand, in this point, presents a strong contrast to her husband's, which could run along every note of the gamut-be witty or wild, satirical or sentimental, didactic or dramatic, epic or lyrical, as it pleased him. She has no wit, nor humor -little dramatic talent. Strong, clear description of the gloomier scenes of nature, or the darker passions of the mind, or of those supernatural objects which her fancy, except in her first work, somewhat laboriously creates, is her forte. Hence her reputation still rests upon "Frankenstein;" for her "Last Man," "Perkin Warbeck," &c., are far inferior, if not entirely unworthy of her talents. She unquestionably made him; but, like a mule or a monster, he has had no progeny.

Can any one have forgot the interesting account she gives of her first conception of that extraordinary story, when she had retired to rest, her fancy heated by hearing ghost tales; and when the whole circumstances of the story appeared at once before her eye, as in a camera obscura? It is ever thus, we imagine, that truly original conceptions are produced. They are cast-not wrought. They come as wholes, and not in parts. It was thus that "Tam O'Shanter pleted, along Burns' mind, his weird and tipsy gallop in a single hour. Thus Coleridge composed the outline of his "Ancient Marinere," in one evening walk near Nether Stowey. So rapidly rose "Frankenstein," which, as Moore

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well remarks, has been one of those striking conceptions which take hold of the public mind at once and for ever.

The theme is morbid and disgusting enough. The story is that of one who finds out the principle of life, constructs a monstrous being, who, because his maker fails in forming a female companion to him, ultimately murders the dearest friend of his benefactor, and, in remorse and despair, disappears amid the eternal snows of the North Pole. Nothing more preposterous than the meagre outline of the story exists in literature. But Mrs. Shelley deserves great credit, nevertheless. In the first place, she has succeeded in her delineation; she has painted this shapeless being upon the imagination of the world for ever; and beside Caliban, and Hecate, and Death and Life, and all other weird and gloomy creations, this nameless, unfortunate, involuntary, gigantic unit stands. To succeed in an attempt so daring, proves at once the power of the author, and a certain value even in the original conception. To keep verging perpetually on the limit of the absurd, and to produce the while all the effects of the sublime, takes and tasks very high faculties indeed. Occasionally, we admit, she does overstep the mark. Thus the whole scene of the monster's education in the cottage, his overhearing the reading of the "Paradise Lost," the "Sorrows of Werter," &c., and in this way acquiring knowledge and refined sentiments, seems unspeakably ridiculous. A Caco-demon weeping in concert with Eve or Werter is too ludicrous an idea-as absurd as though he had been represented as boarded at Capsicum Hall. But it is wonderful how delicately and gracefully Mrs. Shelley has managed the whole prodigious business. She touches pitch with a lady's glove, and is not defiled. From a whole forest of the "nettle danger" she extracts a sweet and plentiful supply of the "flower safety." With a fine female footing, she preserves the narrow path which divides the terrible from the disgusting. She unites, not in a junction of words alone, but in effect, the "horribly beautiful." Her monster is not only as Caliban appeared to Trinculo-a very pretty monster, but somewhat poetical and pathetic withal. You almost weep for him in his utter insulation. Alone! dread word, though it were to be alone in heaven! Alone! word hardly more dreadful if it were to be alone in hell!

"Alone, all, all, alone.

Alone on a wide, wide sea;

And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony."

Wrapt around by his loneliness, as by a silent burning chain, does this gigantic creature run through the world, like a lion who has lost its mate, in a forest of fire, seeking for his kindred being, but seeking for ever in vain. He is not only alone, but alone because he has no being like him throughout the whole universe. What a solitude within a solitude!—solitude comparable only to that of the Alchemist in St. Leon, when he buries his last tie to humanity in his wife's grave, and goes on his way, "friendless, friendless, alone, alone."

What a scene is the process of his creation, and especially the hour when he first began to breathe, to open his illfavored eyes, and to stretch his ill-shapen arms toward his terrified author, who, for the first time, becomes aware of the enormity of the mistake he has committed; who has had a giant's strength, and used it tyrannously like a giant, and who shudders and shrinks back from his own horrible handiwork! It is a type whether intended or not, of the fate of genius, when it dares either to revile or to resist the common laws and obligations and conditions of man and the universe. Better, better far be blasted with the lightnings of heaven, than by the recoil, upon one's own head, of one false, homeless, returning, revenging thought.

Scarcely second to her description of the moment when, at midnight, and under the light of a waning moon, the monster was born, is his sudden apparition upon a glacier among the high Alps. This scene strikes us the more, as it seems the fulfilment of a fear which all have felt, who have found themselves alone among such desolate regions. Who has not at times trembled lest those ghastlier and drearier places of nature, which abound in our own Highlands, should bear a different progeny from the ptarmigan, the sheep, the raven, or the eagle-lest the mountain should suddenly crown itself with a Titanic sceptre, and the mist, disparting, reveal demoniac forms, and the lonely moor, discover its ugly dwarf, as if dropped down from the overhanging thunder cloud -and the forest of pines show unearthly shapes sailing

among their shades-and the cataract overboil with its own wild creations? Thus fitly, amid scenery like that of some dream of nightmare, on a glacier as on a throne, stands up before the eye of his own maker, the miscreation, and he cries out," Whence and what art thou, execrable shape?"

In darkness and distance, at last, the being disappears, and the imagination dares hardly pursue him as he passes amid those congenial shapes of colossal size, terror, and mystery, which we fancy to haunt those outskirts of existence, with, behind them at midnight, "all Europe and Asia fast asleep, and before them the silent immensity and palace of the Eternal, to which our sun is but a porch-lamp."

Altogether the work is wonderful as the work of a girl of eighteen. She has never since fully equalled or approached its power, nor do we ever expect that she shall. One distinct addition to our original creations must be conceded her and it is no little praise; for there are few writers of fiction who have done so much out of Germany. What are they, in this respect, to our painters-to Fuseli, with his quaint brain, so prodigal of unearthly shapes-to John Martin, who has created over his head a whole dark, frowning, but magnificent world-or to David Scott, our late dear friend, in whose studio, while standing surrounded by pictured poems of such startling originality, such austere selection of theme, and such solemn dignity of treatment (forgetting not himself, the grave, mild, quiet, shadowy enthusiast, with his slow, deep, sepulchral tones), you were almost tempted to exclaim, "How dreadful is this place!"

Of one promised and anticipated task we must, ere we close, respectfully remind Mrs. Shelley; it is of the life of her husband. That, even after Captain Medwyn's recent work, has evidently yet to be written. No hand but hers can write it well. Critics may anatomize his qualities-she only can paint his likeness. In proclaiming his praise, exaggeration in her will be pardoned; and in unveiling his faults, tenderness may be expected from her; she alone, we believe, after all, fully understands him; she alone fully knows the particulars of his outer and inner history; and we hope and believe, that her biography will be a monument to his memory, as lasting as the Euganean hills; and her lament over his loss as sweet as the everlasting dirge, sung

in their "late remorse of love," by the waters of the Italian sea.*

WILLIAM COBBETT.

WILLIAM COBBETT, we may, without fear of contradiction, call the father of cheap literature. His self-styled "twopenny trash "" was the strong seed whence a progeny has sprung, manifold and thick as the "leaves of Vallambrosa ;" and a portion of whatever honor or shame attaches to our present cheap publications must redound to his credit or to his disgrace. And although he was by no means a timid or a squeamish man, we are certain that, could he now raise his head from the dust, it were to look with withering scorn and pity, not unmingled with remorse, upon those myriads of low and loathsome publications at present pouring from the English press-making up for their minuteness by their mischief -for their want of point, by their profanity-for their stupidity, by their licentiousness-absolutely monopolizing millions of readers, and reminding us of that plague of frogs which swept Egypt, "till the land stank, so numerous was the fry."

William Cobbett has been often ably, but never, we think, fully or satisfactorily criticised. We do not refer merely to his political creed and character: these topics we propose to avoid, permitting ourselves, however, the general remark that he was just as able and just as consistent a politician as some of his most formidable opponents (such as Peel, Burdett, and Brougham) have since proved themselves to be. Of his literary merits, we remember only three striking pictures, all of which, however, slide into his political aspects. The first is that very eloquent, though somewhat sketchy and one-sided character by Robert Hall, ending with the words

* Since writing this, we have read more carefully the "Last Man." Though the gloomiest, most improbable, and most hopeless of books, it abounds in beautiful descriptions, has scenes of harrowing interest, and depicts delicately the character of Shelley, who is the hero of the

story.

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