Break the dance, and scatter the song;

Let some depart, and some remain.

Semichorus I.-We, beyond heaven, are driven along :
Semichorus II.-Us the enchantments of earth retain:
Semichorus I.-Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free,

With the Spirits which build a new earth and sea,

And a heaven where yet heaven could never be.

Semichorus II-Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright,

Leading the Day and outspeeding the Night,

With the powers of a world of perfect light.

Semichorus I.-We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere,

Till the trees, and the beasts, and the clouds appear

From its chaos made calm by love, not fear.

Semichorus II-We encircle the ocean and mountains of earth,

And the happy forms of its death and birth

Change to the music of our sweet mirth.

Chorus of Hours and Spirits.

Break the dance, and scatter the song,
Let some depart, and some remain,

Wherever we fly we lead along

In leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong,

The clouds that are heavy with love's sweet rain.

Panthea. Ha! they are gone!

Ione. Yet feel you no delight

From the past sweetness?

Panthea. As the bare green hill

When some soft cloud vanishes into rain,

Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water

To the unpavilioned sky!

We close our review of Shelley's writings here. Many have been passed over unnoticed; and of those which have been adverted to, the merits have been canvassed hurriedly and incompletely. Our limits forbade a more exhaustive scrutiny. Something we would have said on Shelley's beautiful prose style-a rare quality in a poet-but, for the same reason, this topic must pass undiscussed. Our object has been to

criticise the poems of a real poet as such; to banish out of view, when doing this, all reference to his moral conduct, or to his speculative opinions. The intrusion of personal feelings, the attempt to insinuate unpopular opinions, under the disguise of poetry, are a fair object of remark for the critic, when they, in any way, blemish the poem as such; not otherwise. A poem is an object of contemplation; it addresses itself to our passive imagination; it is not intended, nor, in well-regulated minds, is it calculated to influence the opinion or the will. It is a babyish notion, that of acting in emulation of the heroes of a favourite poem, and unworthy of a mind sufficiently developed to taste the beauties of poetry. Human beings, worthy of the name, act from motives of justice or utility, not of vain theatrical parade. If those, who are so ready to cry out about the danger of corrupting youth, and to add, as a corollary, the propriety of misrepresenting all works which they fancy likely to have such a tendency, in order to frighten children from them, would train up the young in the light of truth, and in the habit of self-control, they might expose them fearlessly to all influences. Thus educated, the beauties of poetry would attract them, while any alloy of impurer metal would repel. This is a matter of no slight importance. The cultivation of the faculty which finds a pleasure in the simple contemplation of the beautiful is an object of no mean importance, and is only effectual by exercise. The wider the range of beautiful objects that can be subjected to its examination the better. No one dreams now that a young man may be turned to idolatry by the perusal of Homer. Why must he necessarily adopt Shelley's abstract opinions, because he admires his poetry? We repeat it, train the mind aright, then let it loose, to range among the world of books, as you must, to range through all the varieties of society. It may stagger, but it will steady at last. It is almost ludicrous to think, that, at this time of day, it should be necessary to insist upon such a truism, in order to procure a fair hearing for Shelley-for the subtlest, sweetest, most etherial, veriest poet of our age.

THE ROVER'S SONG.

HURRAH! hurrah! my ocean bird,
The sun's broad rays are flung
Across the cliff's majestic brow,

Where eagles oft have swung :
Spread thy white pinions to the gale,
Dash through the foaming spray
That sparkles with a thousand hues,

My bark-away-away! Hurrah! the monarch of the wild

May climb the mountain side, And gaze upon his fairest home

With freedom's conscious pride.

But liberty upon the waste

Of waters seems more free:
Fling to the sky thy heaving crest,
Thou bright and glorious sea!
Hurrah! again with joy I hear

The whirling of the wave,
In whose dread furrows are entombed
The reckless and the brave.
O when my life's last pulse is gone,
I ask no more than this;
My requiem be the light sea breeze
My grave the blue abyss!

AUSTIN'S LECTURES ON JURISPRUDENCE.*

If we could anticipate early a brilliant success for this work, we should think more highly of the wisdom of the book-buying public than we fear there are grounds for. This is a reading age; and precisely because it is so reading an age, any book which is the result of profound meditation, is perhaps less likely to be duly and profitably read than at a former period. The world reads too much, and too quickly, to read well. When books were few, to get through one was a work of time and labour: what was written with thought was read with thought, and with a desire to extract from it as much of the materials of knowledge as possible. But when almost every person who can spell, can and will write, what is to be done? It is difficult to know what to read, except by reading every thing; and so much of the world's business is now transacted through the press, that it is necessary to know what is printed if we desire to know what is going on. Opinion weighs with so vast a weight in the balance of events, that ideas of no value in themselves, are of importance from the mere circumstance that they are ideas, and have a bona fide existence as such anywhere out of Bedlam. The world, in consequence, gorges itself with intellectual food of all qualities, and in order to swallow the more, bolts it. Nothing is now read slowly, or twice over. Books are run through with no less rapidity, and scarcely leave a more durable impression than a newspaper article. It is for this, among other causes, that so few books are produced of any value. The lioness in the fable boasted that though she produced only one at a birth, that one was a lion. But if each lion only counted for one, and each leveret for one, the advantage would all be on the side of the hare. When every unit is individually weak, it is only multitude that tells. Who wonders that the newspapers should carry all before them? A book produces no greater effect than an article, and there can be three hundred and sixty-five of these in one year. He, therefore, who should and would write a book, and write it in the proper manner of writing a book, now dashes down his first hasty thoughts, or what he mistakes for thoughts, in a periodical. And the public is in the predicament of an indolent man, who cannot bring himself to apply his mind vigorously to his own affairs; and over whom, therefore, not he who speaks most wisely, but he who speaks most frequently, obtains the influence.

At such a period, any person who once more gives to mankind a philosophical work, which he has conscientiously endeavoured to make as good as he could, by unsparing labour and meditation, make it, performs an act the more meritorious, as it is the less likely to meet with any reward; and if, like Mr. Austin, he is qualified for the more successful and profitable kinds of literary composition, yet deliberately prefers the more instructive, the greater is his deserving. There are passages in the volume before us, which shew that if the author chose, he could excel as a popular writer; and the mere clippings and parings of a work like this, would be material enough to be wrought up into more than one popular book. But Mr. Austin knows, that in order to make an impression upon careless, rapid, and impatient readers, it is necessary

The Province of Jurisprudence Determined. By John Austin, Esq., Barrister at Law.

to avoid calling upon them for a vigorous effort of attention, and that without such an effort, no ideas can be imbibed but such as are loose and vague. And knowing that there are many persons who are competent to explain popularly, all that can be popularly explained; for one who can follow out a long train of thought, and conceive and express it at once with clearness and with precision; that the former may teach the people, but it belongs to the latter only to teach the teachers of the people. Our author has chosen for himself the higher, and more difficult, though less conspicuous and less honoured part.

He has accordingly produced a work which requires to be read, in the antique sense of that term, not as we read a novel, but rather as men read for honours at the University. But the work will repay those who shall so read it. As all know who have ever really learnt any thing, real knowledge never comes by easy reading. Nobody ever set about learning Latin by running through the Latin Grammar. Mr. Austin's work is part of the grammar of a science. As such, it is not a book for any but persons who are really anxious to learn; but to them, it is such a book as they delight in. The author's style is a model of perspi cuity the concatenation of his propositions is free from all obscurity; and the reader will find no difficulty but that which is inseparable from the attempt to communicate precise ideas.

The volume consists of the preliminary lectures of a course delivered by Mr. Austin at the University of London, and which we had the good fortune of hearing. An outline of the entire course is annexed to the present publication.

We shall endeavour to give as sufficient a conception as can be given in a few words, of what our author understands by Jurisprudence, as distinguished from the philosophy of Legislation.

Both these sciences are conversant with laws; namely, laws in the strict sense, laws set to man by man, in the character of a political superior. But though the subject-matter of both sciences be the same, both do not look at it under the same aspect.

The philosophy of legislation is conversant with laws, as a contrivance for accomplishing certain ends. It considers what are the purposes of law; and judges of the means, according as they are well or ill adapted to the accomplishment of those purposes. It teaches the requisites of a good law; and what particular laws would be good or bad, either universally, or under any supposable set of circumstances.

Jurisprudence, on the other hand, does not take any direct cognizance of the goodness or badness of laws, nor undertake to weigh the motives which lead to their establishment: it assumes their existence as a fact, and treats of their nature and properties, as a naturalist treats of any natural phenomenon. It furnishes an analytical exposition, not indeed of any particular system of existing laws, but of what is common to all or most systems of law.

In the first place, the very notion of a law is an extremely complex idea that of a body of laws, still more so. These ideas have to be analyzed. The component elements of a law, and of a body of laws, and the suppositions which they involve, must be precisely determined and cleared up. For instance, a law supposes a political superior from whom the law emanates: what is a political superior? All laws create obligations, and are clothed with sanctions; all laws (certain peculiar cases excepted) create rights: but what is meant by an obligation, a sanction, a right? Every body of laws recognises a distinction between