stand in fairer and brighter light than that of any contemporary.
Whatever faults he had ought to find extenuation among his fellows,
since they prove him to be human; without them, the exalted nature of
his soul would have raised him into something divine.

The qualities that struck any one newly introduced to Shelley
were,--First, a gentle and cordial goodness that animated his
intercourse with warm affection and helpful sympathy. The other, the
eagerness and ardour with which he was attached to the cause of human
happiness and improvement; and the fervent eloquence with which he
discussed such subjects. His conversation was marked by its happy
abundance, and the beautiful language in which he clothed his poetic
ideas and philosophical notions. To defecate life of its misery and its
evil was the ruling passion of his soul; he dedicated to it every power
of his mind, every pulsation of his heart. He looked on political
freedom as the direct agent to effect the happiness of mankind; and thus
any new-sprung hope of liberty inspired a joy and an exultation more
intense and wild than he could have felt for any personal advantage.
Those who have never experienced the workings of passion on general and
unselfish subjects cannot understand this; and it must be difficult of
comprehension to the younger generation rising around, since they cannot
remember the scorn and hatred with which the partisans of reform were
regarded some few years ago, nor the persecutions to which they were
exposed. He had been from youth the victim of the state of feeling
inspired by the reaction of the French Revolution; and believing firmly
in the justice and excellence of his views, it cannot be wondered that a
nature as sensitive, as impetuous, and as generous as his, should put
its whole force into the attempt to alleviate for others the evils of
those systems from which he had himself suffered. Many advantages
attended his birth; he spurned them all when balanced with what he