end of the eighteenth century, governments were so bad that an
immense increase of wealth, intelligence, and happiness was
bound to come merely from making a clean sweep of obsolete
institutions. Shelley's Radicalism was not of this drab hue.
He was incapable of soberly studying the connections between
causes and effects an incapacity which comes out in the
distaste he felt for history--and his conception of the ideal
at which the reformer should aim was vague and fantastic. In
both these respects his shortcomings were due to ignorance of
human nature proceeding from ignorance of himself.

And first as to the nature of his ideals. While all good men
must sympathise with the sincerity of his passion to remould
this sorry scheme of things "nearer to the heart's desire," few
will find the model, as it appears in his poems, very
exhilarating. It is chiefly expressed in negatives: there will
be no priests, no kings, no marriage, no war, no cruelty--man
will be "tribeless and nationless." Though the earth will teem
with plenty beyond our wildest imagination, the general effect
is insipid; or, if there are colours in the scene, they are
hectic, unnatural colours. His couples of lovers, isolated in
bowers of bliss, reading Plato and eating vegetables, are poor
substitutes for the rich variety of human emotions which the
real world, with all its admixture of evil, actually admits.
Hence Shelley's tone irritates when he shrilly summons us to
adore his New Jerusalem. Reflecting on the narrowness of his
ideals we are apt to see him as an ignorant and fanatical
sectary, and to detect an unpleasant flavour in his verse. And
we perceive that, as with all honest fanatics, his narrowness
comes from ignorance of himself. The story of Mrs. Southey's