_Tait's Edinburgh Magazine._

* * * * *


SHELLEY.

[We find the clever and curious sketches of Shelley, in the _New
Monthly Magazine_, concluded with the following interesting
anecdote.]

That Shelley gave freely, when the needy scholar asked, or in silent,
hopeless poverty seemed to ask, his aid, will he demonstrated most
clearly by relating shortly one example of his generosity, where the
applicant had no pretensions to literary renown, and no claim whatever,
except perhaps honest penury. It is delightful to attempt to delineate
from various points of view a creature of infinite moral beauty,--but
one instance must suffice; an ample volume might be composed of such
tales, but one may be selected, because it contains a large admixture of
that ingredient which is essential to the conversion of alms-giving into
the genuine virtue of charity--self-denial. On returning to town after
the long vacation, at the end of October, I found Shelley at one of the
hotels in Covent Garden. Having some business in hand he was passing a
few days there alone. We had taken some mutton chops hastily at a dark
place in one of the minute courts of the city, at an early hour, and we
went forth to walk; for to walk at all times, and especially in the
evening, was his supreme delight. The aspect of the fields to the north
of Somers-Town, between that beggarly suburb and Kentish-Town, has been
totally changed of late. Although this district could never be accounted
pretty, nor deserving a high place even amongst suburban scenes, yet