passion and
description that abound in the third Canto of Childe Harold, may be
discovered traces of that mysticism of meaning,--that sublimity, losing
itself in its own vagueness,--which so much characterised the writings
of his extraordinary friend; and in one of the notes we find Shelley's
favourite Pantheism of Love thus glanced at:--"But this is not all: the
feeling with which all around Clarens and the opposite rocks of
Meillerie is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive order
than the mere sympathy with individual passion; it is a sense of the
existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our
own participation of its good and of its glory: it is the great
principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less
manifested; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our
individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole."

Another proof of the ductility with which he fell into his new friend's
tastes and predilections, appears in the tinge, if not something deeper,
of the manner and cast of thinking of Mr. Wordsworth, which is traceable
through so many of his most beautiful stanzas. Being naturally, from his
love of the abstract and imaginative, an admirer of the great poet of
the Lakes, Mr. Shelley omitted no opportunity of bringing the beauties
of his favourite writer under the notice of Lord Byron; and it is not
surprising that, once persuaded into a fair perusal, the mind of the
noble poet should--in spite of some personal and political prejudices
which unluckily survived this short access of admiration--not only feel
the influence but, in some degree, even reflect the hues of one of the
very few real and original poets that this age (fertile as it is in
rhymers _quales ego et Cluvienus_) has had the glory of producing.

When Polidori was of their party, (which, till he found attractions
elsewhere, was generally the case,) their more elevated subjects of
conversation were almost always put to flight by the strange sallies of
this eccentric young man, whose vanity made him a constant butt for Lord
Byron's sarcasm and merriment. The son of a highly respectable Italian
gentleman, who was in early life, I understand, the secretary of
Alfieri, Polidori seems to have possessed both talents and dispositions
which, had he lived, might have rendered him a useful member of his
profession and of society. At the time, however, of which we are
speaking, his