weakens not one verse only, but makes the rest comparatively feeble and pointless, even if it can be said to leave them any meaning at all; and why any such word should be struck out upon revision of the text by any fool or coward who might so dare, none surely can guess; for such words recur at every turn as terms of reproach. Then comes the question whether Shelley in 1820 would have used so bitter and violent a phrase to express his horror and hatred of the evil wrought in the world by the working of the Christian religion. It may help us to decide if we take into account with how terrible and memorable a name he had already branded it in the eighth stanza of this very poem. That he did to the last regard it as by all historical evidence the invariable accomplice of tyranny—as at once the constant shield and the ready spear of force and of fraud—his latest letters show as clearly as that he did no injustice to "the sublime human character" of its founder. The word "Christ," if received as the true reading, would stand merely as equivalent to the word "Christianity;" the blow aimed at the creed would imply nothing of insult or outrage to the person. Next year indeed Shelley wrote that famous chorus in the "Hellas" which hails the rising of "the folding star of Bethlehem," as with angelic salutation, in sweeter and more splendid words than ever fell from any Christian lyrist. But when that chorus was written Shelley had not changed or softened his views of history and theology. His defence of Grecian cross against Turkish crescent did not imply that he took for a symbol of liberty the ensign of the Christian faith, the banner of Constantine and of Torquemada, under which had fought and conquered such