“ Only by the public voice being loudly and clamourously raised against it; or more effectually still, by prohibiting all sea insurances, when, take my word for it, there will not be one wreck for four that take place at present; and this would be more effectual than any interference of the Legislature, which the ingenuity of man might contrive means to evade."

- But if sea insurances were prohibited, would not that check commerce ?”

« On the contrary, it would very much increase it. There is no difference of opinion, that if sea insurances were prohibited, vessels would be made very much stronger and safer, and at least a half of the shipwrecks which will otherwise take place would be prevented."

“ But would not that be too great a risk for the merchant and shipowner?'

“No. They would then have their property preserved in fact and in reality, instead of paying a tax upon it in an insurance office, which does not preserve it, and which is borne by the public. Indeed, if we look upon merchant shipping in its true light, as a bridge connecting distant countries together, it is evident the stronger and safer we can make that bridge, the less tax there will be required to be levied from passengers and goods; and on the other hand, the weaker and more insecure the bridge is, and the more repairs it requires, the greater tax must be levied from passengers and goods, to keep it up, and to pay for the repairs ; and which expenses must just be paid for again by the consumers of the commodities, so that a stronger bridge would very much facilitate and increase, instead of checking commerce."

« By your reasoning, then, it seems to be a pity that ever sea insur. ance was invented ?".

" It is chargeable with the loss of hundreds of thousands of human lives, and hundreds of millions of property.”

“ I always thought it was a good thing before.”

« And so many who have not considered the subject think yet. But so much are the best institutions of men liable to be abused and perverted, that there is no doubt that the cause of three-fourths of the wrecks and damages to goods which take place in the world is owing to Insurance ! Insurance ! Insurance !"

The conversation being here ended, the clerks rose and walked away.

THE TORY HEARTS OF ENGLAND. THE Tory hearts of England

Monopolists of England How wofully they quail !

You soon shall have your due ! Each brazen brow is clouded now, We fear you not-for we have got Each cheek is deadly pale

A vengeful rod for you. The eyes that for the people's wo

That rod you brandished in the west, Would never shed a tear,

Till blood in torrents ran Are quenched and dim. Right well they You reared your Mammon's dragon crest know

O'er outraged Hindostan.
The reckoning hour is near.
The pampered priests of England

The Tory Peers of England -
What dismal tales they tell !

How wrathfully they frown! Now let them sing their sorrowing

Their hateful yoke we burst-we broke With candle, book, and bell,

Their rotten boroughs down, For we will lay their idols low,

And all who thwart our patriot band, And give their pride a fall

From England's shores may fly, We'll turn their scarlet and their show And seek some more congenial land To sackcloth and to gall.

Beneath a fd

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

( Continued from No. VII.)

Our attention is next claimed by Shelley's lyrical poetry: Under this head we include a numerous and rather miscellaneous class of poems. Strictly speaking, lyrical poetry means such as, from its brevity, or from the structure of its versification, is susceptible of being set to music. It may be narrative, descriptive, even didactic; or it may be the involun. tary utterance, in one or two melodious lines, of a random thought. The exquisite delicacy of sentiment, and varied melody of versification which characterize Shelley's poetry, rendered him better adapted to excel in this kind of composition than any poet of the day. Poor Keates, in his ode to the nightingale, evinced a kindred power, but he has left us little in this way. Wordsworth wants varied melody, and Byron wrote with too manifest an exertion. Moore has got a high character as a lyrist, simply because his songs have been set to music, without refer. ence to the merits of his versification, and without reference to his eternal conceits. In the examples we are about to subjoin, the reader must not be startled by the introduction of some pieces which would scarcely harmonize with some of his drawing-room and harpsichord associations. We speak not of what is, but of what is susceptible of being enhanced in value by musical intonation. The Germans, more musical, give a wider range to the subject of their songs, and would understand us better. This is our only apology for introducing here

.

THE CLOUD
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet birds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,

As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,

And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,

And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,

Lightning my pilot sits
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,

It struggles and howls at fits;
O ver earth and ocean, with gentle motion,

This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move

In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,

Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,

The Spirit he loves remains ;
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,

Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,

And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea ben cath,

Its ardours of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,
With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest,

As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,

Whom mortals call the moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,

By the midnight breezes strewn ;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,

Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,

Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,

And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,

Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march

With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-coloured bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ;

I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,

Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again. The following exquisite lines will be acknowledged by all to belong to the class under which we have ranked them. There is something drowsy in the versification, like the hum of a distant waterfall, heard between sleeping and waking ; and the images borne in succession across the languid fancy, the low breathing winds and twinkling stars, the odours of flowers and the dying song of the nightingale, the fainting beneath kisses, half-stifle us in an atmosphere over-impregnated with bliss. « The spirit in the feet,” which leads the lover to his mistress's window, is in harmony with all the rest-it is the yearning advance of the sleep-walker. But let the song speak for itself.

LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR. I arise from dreams of thee

The nightingale's complaint, In the first sweet sleep of night,

It dies upon her heart, When the winds are breathing low, As I must upon thine, And the stars are shining bright:

Beloved as thou art ! I arise from dreams of thee,

O lift me from the grass ! And a spirit in my feet

I die, I faint, I fail! Has led me who knows how ?

Let thy love in kisses rain To thy chamber window, sweet!

On my lips and eyelids pale. The wandering airs they faint

My cheek is cold and white, alas! On the dark, the silent stream

My heart beats loud and fast, The champak odours fail

Oh I press it close to thine again, Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

Where it will break at last. Change the measure. Here is tempest and rage conjured up by impassioned words.

THE FUGITIVES.

III. The waters are flashing,

“ And fears't thou, and fear'st thou ? The white hail is dashing,

And see'st thou, and hear'st thou? The lightnings are glancing,

And drive we not free
The hoar-spray is dancing-

O'er the terrible sea,
Away!

I and thou?"
The whirlwind is rolling,

One boat cloak did cover The thunder is tolling,

The loved and the loverThe forest is swinging,

Their blood beats one measure,
The minster bells ringing

They murmur proud pleasure
Come away!

Soft and low ;-
The earth is like ocean,

While around the lashed ocean, Wreck-strewn and in motion :

Like mountains in motion, Bird, beast, man, and worm,

Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Have crept out of the storm

Sunk, shattered and shifted
Come away!

To and fro.
11.
“ Our boat has one sail, .

In the court of the fortress And the helmsman is pale;

Beside the pale portress, A bold pilot I trow,

Like a blood-hound well beaten,
Who should follow us now,"

The bridegroom stands, eaten
Shouted He-

By shame;
And she cried : “ Ply the oar!

On the topmost watch-turret, Put off gaily from shore !"

As a death-boding spirit, As she spoke, bolts of death

Stands the grey tyrant father, Mixed with hail, specked their path To his voice the mad weather, O'er the sea.

Seems tame; And from isle, tower and rock,

And with curses as wild The blue beacon cloud broke,

As ere clung to child, And though dumb in the blast,

He devotes to the blast
The red cannon flashed fast

The best, loveliest and last
From the lee.

Of his name?
Beauty comes most fitly after terror, like sunshine after storm.

THE ISLE.
There was a little lawny islet,
By anemone and violet,

Like mosaic, paven;
And its roof was flowers and leaves
Which the summer's breath enweaves,
Where nor sun, nor shower, nor breeze,
Pierce the pines and tallest trees,

Each a gem engraven.
Girt by many an azure wave
With which the clouds and mountains pave

A lake's blue chasm.
NO, IX, VOL. II.

IV.

Amid the rich variety which the poet has left us, it is difficult to choose, but opening the book at random we select

THE HYMN OF PAN.

From the forests and highlands

We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb

Listening to my sweet pipings.
The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,
The cigale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,

Listening to my sweet pipings
Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.
The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,

And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and fo}low
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

With envy of my sweet pipings.
I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the dædal Earth,
And of Heaven--and the giant wars,
And Love, and Death, and Birth,

And then I changed my pipings-
Singing how down the vale of Menalus

I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed ;
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed:
All wept, as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood,

At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

Leaving those of Shelley's poems, of which the matter rather than the form, constitutes the value, or which are valuable in despite of an un. propitious form, we turn to such as, by their claims upon our admiration, both on account of their form and matter, stamp him with the character of the complete poet. A niche must here be allotted for his translations from the Greek poets, and especially for his translation of the Cyclops, a work almost entitled to rank as an original for the exquisite divination with which he has entered into the feelings of so distant a state of society, and the unaccountable power with which he has given to an accurate translation all the easy flow and beauty of an original. This undertaking calls more imperatively for notice that it is conterminous with, and possibly aided in the development of that power which enabled him to collect his wandering fancies into majestic structures, which are organic wholes-all in all, and all in every part. For this new in. sight into the nature and power of the Greek poets and his own genius, he was not improbably indebted to the writings of Schiller and Göthe, with the spirit of which it is perfectly in accordance. Schiller's trans. lation of “the Phænicians," and Shelley's of the “ Cyclops,” are the