person before I quitted New England. Forthwith up rose before my
mind's eye that same little whitewashed room, with the iron-grated
window,--strange that it should have been iron-grated!--where, in
too easy compliance with the absurd wishes of my relatives, I have
wasted several good years of my life. Positively it seemed to me
that I was still sitting there, and that the keeper--not that he
ever was my keeper neither, but only a kind of intrusive devil of a
body-servant--had just peeped in at the door. The rascal! I owe
him an old grudge, and will find a time to pay it yet. Fie! fie!
The mere thought of him has exceedingly discomposed me. Even now
that hateful chamber--the iron-grated window, which blasted the
blessed sunshine as it fell through the dusty panes and made it
poison to my soul-looks more distinct to my view than does this my
comfortable apartment in the heart of London. The reality--that
which I know to be such--hangs like remnants of tattered scenery
over the intolerably prominent illusion. Let us think of it no
more.

You will be anxious to hear of Shelley. I need not say, what is
known to all the world, that this celebrated poet has for many years
past been reconciled to the Church of England. In his more recent
works he has applied his fine powers to the vindication of the
Christian faith, with an especial view to that particular
development. Latterly, as you may not have heard, he has taken
orders, and been inducted to a small country living in the gift of
the Lord Chancellor. Just now, luckily for me, he has come to the
metropolis to superintend the publication of a volume of discourses
treating of the poetico-philosophical proofs of Christianity on the
basis of the Thirty-nine Articles. On my first introduction I felt
no little embarrassment as to the manner of combining what I had to