• SHELLEY ' S COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS.

EITHER Mr. MOXON must be a daring speculator in such literature as his taste approves of, or there must be a steady under-current demand in the British public for works of merit, without regard to style, age, character, or mode. To say nothing of the many various authors he has published, here is another edition of SHELLEY, in a single volume, within a few months after the completion of' an ex- pensive edition in another form. The present, however, is an entire edition, containing the 'sass:1;es of Queen Mal) which were sup- pressed in the former, as well as the whole of the notes.* There are also some new poems. in the volume ; the most it»portant of which are a drama called " Swellfoot the Tyrant," and "Peter Bell the Third."

And very remarkable productions both of these poems are. Crude and unfinished, it is true, as wholes; temporary its their general topics, if not in their entire subjects ; and therefore re- quiring to be read with some consideration of the times in which they were written ; but possessing in their happier parts a loftier spirit than belongs to most modern satires—penetrating to the very marrow of things—presenting them stript of all the disguises which pretence or flattery throws over them—and vindicating the right of genius permanently to embody truth, no matter what it assails or whom it displeases. Of the two poems, " Peter Bell the Third" is by far the best

Its object is to attack Woanswowrit in his poetical and political capacity ; and, though sometimes apparently shooting wide of the mark, it is for the most part satirically bitter or profoundly critical. The poem is heralded by a prose dedication to Tuomas BaowN the Younger, (Mooste,) its which the changes of WORDSWORTH are commented on with a lightning-like stroke. " Peter is a polyhedric Peter, or a Peter with many sides. Ile changes colours like a ca- meleon, and his coat like a snake." The poem then begins repre- senting Peter Bell the Third as a sinner converted.

" And Peter Bell, when be had been With fresim-imported hell-fire warmed, Grew serious: from his dress and mien.

'Twas very plainly to he seen Peter was quite reformed.

His eyes turned up, his month turned down ; Ilis accents caught a nasal twang ; Ile oiled his hair; there might be heard The grace of God in every word.

Which Peter said or sang.

But Peter now grew old, and had An ill no doctor could unravel; His torments almoq drove hint mad ; Some said it was a i;vcr bad, Some swore it was the gravel.

ills holy fiends then came about, And smith lOng preaching and persuasion, Convinced the ',fitment that, without The smallest shadow of a doubt, Ile Was predestined to damnation."

Peter eventually dies ; and is carried away by the Devil, who comes in a atom-mu to the Lakes for that express purpose. The Prince of Darkness is elaborately described in a brief canto, with more philosophy perhaps, but with less point, than in the celebrated " Devil's Walk ; " and the reader is then introduced to Hell ; which

* We have understood that the notes marked with a hand were by a friend. of SHELLEY'S, but we do not see that Mrs. SHELLEY notices it.

is painted as a counterpart of London, sueh as London appeared

to the eyes of SHELLEY and his friends in 1819. Hell is a city much like London—

A populous and a smoky city; There are all sorts of people undone, Amid there is little or no fun done; Small justice shown, and still less pity.

There is a Castles rind a Canning„ A Cobbett and a Castlereagh ;' All sorts of caitiff cerpses planning, All sorts of cozening Mr trepanning, Corpses less corrupt than they."

Here Peter takes service with the Devil—who lives in Grosvenor

Square ; and with this properly commences the estimate of WORDS.

WORTH, Which may challenge comparison with any thing of the kind produced its our generation. IlynoN, taking SOUTHEY for

his subject, but heightening and generalizing the features of' the

original, has, in Dun Joan, sketched the fortunes of a venal and

apostate writer, with extraordinary acidity, humour, and knowledge of the ‘vorld. In these qualities, the career and character of

" Peter Bell" fulls somewhat short ; but it exhibits a critical acu-

men such as Braox never displayed, if he possessed it ; with a terseness and mastery of langtrere ■vhich may compete with any thing that Bvitox ever wrote. The following passages convey the truest, though about the stermst estimate of Wonuswoulat's

poetical character, which has yet appeared, expressed in diction

more pointed and enduring than prose can ever attain.

1DIOSYNCRACY OF WORDSWORTH.

Ile had a mind which was, somehow-,

At once eiremnference and centre

Of all he might or feel or know :

Nothing went over out, although Something did ever enter.

Ile had as much ine,,;ination As a pint-pot : he ;lever could. Fancy another situ:: ti mum, From which to dart his contemplation, Than that wherein he stood.

Yet his was individual mind, And new-created all he saw, In a new manner, and relined Those new creations, and combined Them, by a master-spirit's law.

Thus—though unimag,inative- A n apprehension dear. inteaS1',

Of his mind's Work 11,1 MAC alive

The things it wrou:dif on I believe Wakening a sort of thought in sense.

CHARACTER, OF WORD:MORT/CS BETTER ronns.

. . .lie began In a wild measure songs to Make On moor, and glen, and rocky lake, And on the heart of man; And on the universal sky, And the wide earth's bosom green; And the sweet, strange mystery Of what beyond these things may lie, And yet remain unseen.

For in his thought he visited The spots in which, ,-me dead and danmed, Ile his wayward life lied lumI; Yet knew not whence the thoughts were fed Which thus his limey crammed.

And these olkzeure remembrances Stirred such harmony in Peter, That whensoever he should please Ile could speak of rocks and trees In poetic metre.

For though it MIS With011t ml sense Of memory, yet he remembered well Many a ditch and quiek-set fence; Of lakes he had intelligence, Ile knew somethiniof heath and fell.

Ile had also dim recollections Of pedlars traniping on their rounds ; Milk pans and pails ; and odd collections Of saws and proverlr; ; and reflections Old ',arsons make in intrying-g,rounds.

But Peter's verse Nies clear, and came Announcing from time frozen hearth Of a cold age, that Hone might tune The soul of that diviner flame It augured to the Earth.

Inflated with having gotten twenty pounds front a bookseller, Peter gives his master warning; fir which impertinence he swears revenge : and on the appearance of' Isis next volume, " The Devil to all the first reviews, A copy of it slily sent, With tive-pound-nuto as compliment, And this short notice— Pray abuse.'" The reviews, in consequence, were all done in the style of the

Quarterly and Blackwood, twenty years ago; but more like what SHELLEY himself experiencecl than. what befell Woliuswourn. However, their criticisms and a copy of KANT's book, %licit the

Devil sends him anonymously, work a wontl change in Peter. Ile grows cruel, selfish, and melanelmly. " As troubled skies stain waters clear, The storm in Peter's heart and mind Now mule his ver dark and queer : They were the ghnas of what they Were, Shaking dim grase -clothes mi the For he now raved enormous folly, Of haptisms, &today-schools, and graves: "Pwould make George col man melancholy To have heard him, like a male Molly, Chanting those stupid staves. Yet the reviews, who heaped abuse On Peter while he wrote for Freedom, So soon as in his song they spy The folly which soothes Tyranny, Praise him, for those who feed 'ern.

Ile was a man too great to scan— A planet lost in truth's keen rays— Ills virtue, awful and prodigious ;

Ile was the most sublime, religious, Pure-minded poet of these days." As soon as he read that. cited Peter, " Eureka I have found the way To nethe a better thing of metre

Than e'er was made by living creature

tp to this blessed elay." Then Peter wrote odes to the Devil ; In one of which he meekly said- " May Caniage and Shoighter, Thy niece tool thy daughter, May Rapine and Famine,

Thy gorge ever cramming, Glut thee with living and dead.!

" May death and damnation And consternation Flit up from hell with pure intent Sksli thorn at Manchester,

Oltygoty, Leeds and Chester ;

Dootell all with Mood frovu Avon to Trent."

The reward of this change is a place, NvItich the Devil procures him, to " feed front the superi:uous taxes."

" When Peter heard or his promotion,

ills eyes grew like two stars for bliss : There was a bow of sleek devotion Engendering in his back ; each motion Seemed a lord's shoe to kiss.

Be hired a hou,e, bought plate, and made

A genteel drive up to his door,

With sifted gravel neatly laid,— As if defying all who sell

Peter was ever poor."

There is much more of a similar spirit, if less pithily expressed ;

but Mrs. Snut.t.ur tells us—" I need scarcely observe, that noikiog pc/smut/ to the author of Peter Bell' is intended in this poem.

No man ever admired Wordsworth's poetry more: he read it per- petually, and taught others to appreciate its beauties. This poem

is, like all others written by Shelley, itle«1." There is, however, a good deal of the rea/ as well.

The subject of " Swellfbot the Tyrant" is the prosecution of Queen CAROLINE by GEORGE the Fourth. Throughout, the author imitates Ant STOP1Lt NES, not only in the introduction of animals, as swine, bulls, a gadfly, a leech, &c., but in style and daring manner, lint he has attained little more than the coarseness and extravagance, without the wit that flashed or the fire that burned in the burlesques of the great Athenian. There are frequently deep though not very popular thoughts; some of the choruses are poetical; and the song of the Gadfly, announcing the result of his missioe, is :Nristophanic : but the whole is forced. We have treated " Peter Bell the Third" as Sur.m.ny's, because his widow, no doubt, possesses ample proof of the titet. judging by internal evidence, we should have suspected By toss participation, not merely in suggesting but executing. SHELLEY is represented to have entertained great admiration of Won Ds- WORTH BYRON missed no opportunity of ridiculing the poet or attacking the man. SHELLEY, as his widow observes, was " ideal,"

and often mystical: "Peter Bell the Third," though not devoid

of mysticism, is often real, satirical, and with a worldly know- ledge, in which We conceive SHELLEY to have been deficient.

If, however, it is entirely his own composition, there seems little doubt as to the source of the inspiration: and this adds another instance to the evidence already existing, that SHELLEY was de- ficient in the first quality of first-class genius—a self-dependent mind, which forms its judgment and pursues its course without regard to the assaults of tbes or the influences of friends or companions. But Sam.i.Ey was affected by every thing he came in contact with. GODWIN anti the writers on the French Revo- lution incited him to " Queen Mab ;" the Cocknies and the Lakeists drove hint into mysticism ; and when he tr Lt By aoN, it is possible that his example induced him to attempt tragedy, and

more than probable that his hortations caused hint to attack a poet

lie is said to have admired, with the severity of truth its:ell, and almost in the manner of lampoon.