tioned Shelley and Williams on the necessity for careful management, but seemed to think that, with two good seamen, all would be right. Shelley, however, only retained an English lad, about eighteen years of age.

Shelley's delight was now perfect. He was surrounded by friends whom he esteemed; he was expecting the arrival of another friend, for whom he entertained an affectionate regard; and he was enabled to spend a large part of his time in his favorite element. The weather became fine, and the whole party often passed their evenings on the water. Shelley and Williams sailed frequently to Massa; or, when the weather was unfavorable, amused themselves by altering the rigging, or by building a light boat of canvas and reeds, in which they might be enabled to float in waters too shallow for the "Don Juan." Thus aided, they explored a good deal of the coast of Italy. Shelley always had writing materials on board the larger vessel; and much of the Triumph of Life was composed as the poet glided down the purple seas of southern Europe, within sight of noble objects of natural scenery, made trebly glorious by the crowding memories of a splendid history and the golden halo of poetical associations. Sometimes, at night, when the sea was calm and the moon free from clouds, Shelley would go alone in his little shallop to some of the caves that opened from the rocky precipices on to the bay, and would sit weaving his wild verses to the measured beating of the waves as they crept up towards the shore. The stanza in which he was writing (the terza rima) has a strange affinity, in its endless and interlinked progres

sion, with the trooping of the sea waves towards the land; and a fanciful ear may please itself by hearing in the lines of the Triumph of Life, as in an ocean shell, the distant murmuring of the Bay of Spezzia.

The wildness of the objects by which he was constantly surrounded the solemnity of the solitude in which he had voluntarily placed himself, broken occasionally by the uproar of the half civilized men and women from the adjacent districts the abrupt transitions of his life from sea to land, and from land to sea the frequent recurrence of appalling storms, and the lofty, but weird, abstractions of the poem he was composing, contributed to plunge the mind of Shelley into a state of morbid excitement, the result of which was a tendency to see visions. One night, loud cries were heard issuing from the saloon. The Williamses rushed out of their room in alarm; Mrs. Shelley also endeavored to reach the spot, but fainted at the door. Entering the saloon, the Williamses found Shelley staring horribly into the air, and evidently in a trance. They waked him, and he related that a figure wrapped in a mantle came to his bedside, and beckoned him. He must then have risen in his sleep, for he followed the imaginary figure into the saloon, when it lifted the hood of its mantle, ejaculated, "Siete sodis fatto?"* and vanished. The dream is said to have been suggested by an incident occurring in a drama attributed to Calderon.

Another vision appeared to Shelley on the evening of

"Are you satisfied?"

May 6th, when he and Williams were walking together The story is thus recorded by the latter

on the terrace.

in his diary:—

"Fine. Some heavy drops of rain fell without a cloud being visible. After tea, while walking with S. on the terrace, and observing the effect of moonshine on the waters, he complained of being unusually nervous, and, stopping short, he grasped me violently by the arm, and stared steadfastly on the white surf that broke upon the beach under our feet. Observing him sensibly affected, I demanded of him if he was in pain; but he only answered by saying, 'There it is again! there!' He recovered after some time, and declared that he saw, as plainly as he then saw me, a naked child [Allegra, who had recently died] rise from the sea and clasp its hands as if in joy, smiling at him. This was a trance that it required some reasoning and philosophy entirely to wake him from, so forcibly had the visions operated on his mind. Our conversation, which had been at first rather melancholy, led to this, and my confirming his sensations by confessing that I had felt the same, gave greater activity to his ever-wandering and lively imagination."

Thus passed the first half of the year 1822. It was one of the happiest periods of Shelley's life; but it did. not produce much literary fruit. One of the poet's most perfect small productions, however, must be referred to this date: the address To a Lady with a Guitar. In that exquisite trifle, Shelley pictures himself as Ariel; and, addressing the lady, he says:

He little knew how soon the spirit was to be emancipated from its "grave" by the liberator, Death!

This

The very last verses written by Shelley took the form of a little poem welcoming Leigh Hunt to Italy. has, unfortunately, been lost.

CHAPTER XIII.

SHELLEY'S DEATH AND OBSEQUIES.

LEIGH HUNT arrived at Genoa on the 14th of June, and was heartily welcomed by Shelley, in a letter which he wrote to him. But so desirous was the latter of seeing his friend personally, that he determined to go in his boat with Williams to Leghorn, where Hunt had speedily proceeded, to arrange with Lord Byron the final preliminaries of the Liberal. Shelley at this time was in high spirits; Mrs. Shelley, on the contrary, was exceedingly depressed (owing, no doubt, to ill-health), and was haunted by a profound presentiment of coming evil, which had saddened her during the whole time she had lived in the Bay of Spezzia. The weather was now intensely hot, though the breeze which sprang up from the sea at noon cooled the air for a while, and set the waters sparkling. A great drought had prevailed for some time; prayers for rain were put up in the churches, relics were paraded through the towns; and the unusual character of the weather seemed to betoken that any change would be ushered in by a violent storm. Shelley, however, was not the man to be deterred by such portents from his contemplated journey; nor was his friend and com