In the delineation of the more evanescent feelings and uncommon instances of strong and delicate passion we conceive the author to have exhibited new and unparalleled powers. He has noticed some peculiarities of female character with a delicacy and truth singularly exquisite. We think that the interesting subject of sexual relations requires for its successful development the application of a mind thus organised and endowed. Yet even here how great the deficiencies; this mind must be pure from the fashionable superstitions of gallantry, must be exempt from the sordid feelings which with blind idolatry worship the image and blaspheme the deity, reverence the type, and degrade the reality of which it is an emblem. We do not hesitate to assert that the author of this volume is a man of ability. His great though indisciplinable energies and fervid rapidity of conception embody scenes and situations, and passions affording inexhaustible food for wonder and delight. The interest is deep and irresistible. A moral enchanter seems to have conjured up the shapes of all that is beautiful and strange to suspend the faculties in fascination and astonishment. FOOTNOTES: [45] From _The Critical Review_, December 1814, vol. vi. pp. 566-574. [46] This pseudonymous romance, as wild in its conception and execution as Shelley’s own romances of _Zastrozzi_ and _St. Irvyne_, was the work of Shelley’s college-friend and biographer, Thomas Jefferson Hogg. To Professor Dowden of Dublin, Shelley’s latest biographer, is due the credit of disinterring and drawing public attention to Shelley’s curious critical notice of it.--Ed. [47] From Edinburgh, Nov. 26, 1813. Shelley had written to Hogg:--“Your novel is now printed. Write more like this. Delight us again with a character so natural and energetic as Alexy: but do not persevere in writing after you grow weary of your toil. _Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus_; and the swans and the Eleutherarchs are proofs that you were a little sleepy.” (See Hogg’s Life of Shelley, vol. ii. p. 481.)--Ed. BIBLIOGRAPHY ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS IN VERSE AND PROSE OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SHELLEY. 1810. Zastrozzi. A Romance. By P. B. S. London: Printed for G. Wilkie and J. Robinson, 57 Paternoster Row. 1810. 12mo, pp. 252. ----That their God May prove their foe, and with repenting hand Abolish his own works--This would surpass Common revenge.--_Paradise Lost._ Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson. Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that noted Female, who attempted the Life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor. Oxford: Printed and sold by J. Munday. 1810. 4to, pp. 29. 1811. St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian. A Romance. By a Gentleman of the University of Oxford. London: Printed for J. J. Stockdale, 41 Pall Mall. 1811. 12mo, pp. 236.