will be face to face, in fancy, with the great powers that are dead,
sun, and ocean, and the illimitable azure of the heavens. In
Shelley's poetry, while Man endures, all those will survive; for
your "voice is as the voice of winds and tides," and perhaps more
deathless than all of these, and only perishable with the perishing
of the human spirit.



LETTER--To Monsieur de Moliere, Valet de Chambre du Roi



Monsieur,--With what awe does a writer venture into the presence of
the great Moliere! As a courtier in your time would scratch humbly
(with his comb!) at the door of the Grand Monarch, so I presume to
draw near your dwelling among the Immortals. You, like the king
who, among all his titles, has now none so proud as that of the
friend of Moliere--you found your dominions small, humble, and
distracted; you raised them to the dignity of an empire: what Louis
XIV. did for France you achieved for French comedy; and the baton of
Scapin still wields its sway though the sword of Louis was broken at
Blenheim. For the King the Pyrenees, or so he fancied, ceased to
exist; by a more magnificent conquest you overcame the Channel. If
England vanquished your country's arms, it was through you that
France ferum victorem cepit, and restored the dynasty of Comedy to
the land whence she had been driven. Ever since Dryden borrowed
"L'Etourdi," our tardy apish nation has lived (in matters
theatrical) on the spoils of the wits of France.