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 porchlamp."

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 anatomise 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 honour 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

* 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.

their minuteness by their mischief-for their want of point, by their profanity—for their stupidity, by their licentiousness-absolutely monopolising 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 "a firebrand, not a luminary-the Polyphemus of the mob-the one-eyed monarch of the blind." Hall, we imagine, however, was too different a man from Cobbett to appreciate him entirely— too attentive to the construction of his sentences to relish Cobbett's easy, rambling style-too fastidious in his taste to bear with Cobbett's blunt picturesque expressions-too fond of the elegant abstractions of thought to sympathise with Cobbett's passion for, and power over, facts; still he must have often admired his vigorous dissections of character, and often chuckled, and even roared, over his rough native humour. Another attempt to contain Cobbett in a crown-piece was made by Lockhart, in what, we think, was the last “Noctes” he contributed to "Blackwood," appearing somewhere about the close of the year 1832. It is put into the mouth of Jeffrey, and is very smart, snappish, and pointed, pouring out as briskly as bottled beer, but is not peculiarly characteristic. It is rather an inventory than a picture; and such an inventory of this modern" man Mountain" as the Lilliputians made of Gulliver when they

emptied his pockets. It is not such a masterly full-length as Lockhart could have executed, and as he has executed of a kindred spirit, John Clerk. The third and best character is by Hazlitt in his "Table-Talk," and is written with all his wonted discrimination. We remember that he calls him a "very honest man, with a total want of principle,” speaks of his "Register" as a "perpetual prospectus," and draws a striking parallel between him and Paine. Our object is somewhat more minutely and in detail to bring this brawniest of men before our readers.

And, first, of his personal appearance. That was, as generally happens, a thorough, though not an ostentatious index to his character. Those who expected to find in Cobbett a rude truculent barbarian, were, as they deserved to be, disappointed. They found, instead, a tall, stout, mild-faced, broad-shouldered, farmer-looking man, with a spice of humour lurking in his eye, but without one vestige of fierceness or malignity either in his look or demeanour. His private manners were simple, unaffected—almost gentlemanly. His mode of addressing an audience was quiet, clear, distinct, and conversational; and the fury and the fervour of the demagogue alike were wanting. The most sarcastic and provoking things oozed out at his lips like milk or honey. Add to this, perfect self-possession, his usual vein of humour somewhat subdued into keeping with his audience, and a certain cajolery in his manner, as the most notable features in his mode of public address. We heard him repeatedly in Edinburgh, during his visit in 1832. He came to the Modern Athens with as much fear and trembling as could befall a man of his sturdy temperament. He expected, he said, ere he arrived, that the Edinburgh people would "throw him into a ditch," but went away highly gratified with his reception. The truth is, they welcomed him as a curiosity, and went to see and hear him as a rarée show. They showed no genuine appreciation of his talents; and if they did not lift from the dirt and pelt

him with the common calumnies, it was because they thought it not worth while. He came, tickled their midriffs -they laughed, applauded, and forgot him, as soon as his back was turned.

It is dangerous to seek to include a whole character in a single epithet, otherwise we might call William Cobbett "the genius of common sense." Common sense, possessed in an uncommon degree, and backed by powerful passion, often verges, in its effects and in its nature, on genius. Like genius, it works by intuition; it does not creep nor walk, but leaps to its conclusion. It is to genius an inferior system of shorthand-as swift, but not so beautiful; or it may be called, genius applied to meaner subjects, and guided by impulses as free but less lofty. Such a homespun but masculine spirit had perched upon the shoulder of Swift, and came directly from him to Cobbett.

If ever man deserved, in a subordinate acceptation, the name of "seer," it was the author of the "Register." He did not ratiocinate or inquire; he saw, and saw at the first opening of his sagacious eye. Sometimes his sight was true, and sometimes false-sometimes healthy, and sometimes jaundiced-but it was always sight, and not hearsay; and as well argue with the testimony of the eye as dispute with him his convictions. This was at once his power and his weakness; it accounted for his true and strong perception of public characters, and of the tendency and issues of public events; it accounted for his dogmatism, his inconsistency, and his caprice. It was this strong personal sight which made Cobbett maintain his ground against his many far more accomplished and learned rivals. While they were reading, reflecting, deflecting, and circumspecting, he was looking straight forward and right down into the very heart and marrow of his theme. Whilst they were wasting time in trying on pairs of spectacles belonging to others, he was using his own piercing pair of eyes. Thus, though taken at tremendous odds, the