Page:Studies in Letters and Life (Woodberry, 1890).djvu/170

160 power, as it will be differently named just as one believes the given picture to lack or possess what Shelley saw in it, lends such passages not only surpassing beauty, but a real value as interpretations of art. Much as Ruskin would differ from Shelley's judgments, the two are essentially similar in their mode of treatment, and in their faculty of giving the equivalent of form and color in eloquence.

The description of landscape, which is another principal topic, possesses even more plainly classic beauty. Whether Shelley writes of nature in her wild and picturesque scenes, or where the presence of man has added pathos or dignity to her loveliness; whether he flashes the view upon us in one perfect line, or unfolds it slowly in unconfused detail, he displays the highest power in this field of literature. This view from the Forum of Pompeii, which, instead of being robed with "the gray veil of his own words," seems filled with "the purple noon's transparent light," cannot be surpassed as speech at once familiar and noble:—

"At the upper end, supported on an elevated platform, stands the temple of Jupiter. Under the colonnade of its portico we