breast his uncompanioned spirit; for, while its central depths know only solitude, over its surface are always passing to and fro the life and the fortunes of humanity."

Matthew Arnold thus contrasts Shelley and Byron: "As a man, Shelley is, at a number of points, immeasurably Byron's superior; he is a beautiful and enchanting spirit, whose vision, when we call it up, has far more loveliness, more charm, for our soul than the vision of Byron. But all the personal charm of Shelley cannot hinder us from discovering, in his poetry, the incurable want, in general, of a sound subject matter, and the incurable fault, in consequence, of unsubstantiality."

Symonds regards Shelley "as the loftiest and most spontaneous singer of our language. Not only did he write the best lyrics, but the best tragedy, the best translations, and the best familiar poems, of his century."

Mary Shelley returned to England in 1823, and died eighteen years afterward, February 21, 1851. Shelley's son, Percy, succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of Timothy, in 1844, and died December 5, 1889, at Boscombe Manor, Bournemouth. He left no children. Mrs. Williams returned to England, and, in 1826, married Thomas Jefferson Hogg. Miss Clairmont died unmarried, in 1879.

Had Shelley lived, what might the world not have received from his pen! There can be no question as to his transcendent genius, or his sublime faith in the nobility and brotherhood of man. He was unselfish. "He loved everything better than himself," says Trelawney. "He never complained of the world's neglect,

or expressed any other feeling than surprise at the rancorous abuse wasted on an author who had no readers." Dead before thirty, and so much accomplished!

"Death has set his mark and seal

On all we are and all we feel,
On all we know and all we fear.

All things that we love and cherish,
Like ourselves, must fade and perish;
Such is our rude mortal lot -

Love itself would, did they not."

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX TILBEN FOUNDATIONE

THOMAS CARLYLE.

THOMAS CARLYLE was born December 4, 1795,

in Ecclefechan, Scotland, about sixteen miles north from Carlisle. His father, James Carlyle, was a mason, earning, at best, only one hundred pounds a year, for his wife and nine children, of whom Thomas was the eldest.

James had married, in his youth, his cousin, Janet, who died early, leaving one son, John; his second wife, Margaret Aitken, "a woman of to me the fairest descent," says Carlyle, "that of the pious, the just, and the wise," was the mother of four sons and five daughters, one of whom was called Janet, after the fair first wife. This girl died when an infant.

The barefooted children were fed on oatmeal, milk, and potatoes; the mother taught them to read, not being able to write this she learned afterwards, that she might correspond with her idolized son, Thomas; the father taught them arithmetic.

In "Sartor Resartus," in the semi-autobiography of Carlyle, under the name of Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, we see the child Thomas: "My first short-clothes were of yellow serge; or rather, I should say, my first short cloth, for the vesture was one and indivisible, reaching from neck to ankle, a mere body with four limbs. . . . Among the rainbow colors that glowed on my horizon lay, even in childhood, a dark ring of care, as yet no thicker than a thread, and often quite overshone; yet always it re