and who was to comfort his mother in her sorrows, Percy Florence, was born. As winter advanced Shelley, suffering from the severe climate, decided to migrate to Pisa, where the air was mild, the water singularly pure, and an eminent physician, Vaccà Berlinghieri, might be consulted. The greater part of his life, from January 1820 to the close, was spent in Pisa. The presence of Mr. Tighe and Lady Mountcashell (a former pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft) added to the attractions of the place. In the summer of 1820 a move was made to the Gisbornes' house at Leghorn, then unoccupied. And here was written that most delightful of poetical epistles, the letter to Maria Gisborne. Mary had in part recovered her spirits, and little Percy was "the merriest babe in the world." The mother was not wholly occupied with domestic cares, for she threw herself with spirit into the study of Greek, while Shelley occupied himself with the holiday task, so happily executed, of translating the Homeric "Hymn to Mercury" into ottava rima. As the heats grew more trying, they took refuge at the Baths of San Giuliano, some four miles distant from Pisa. During an expedition to Monte San Pellegrino, the resort of pilgrims at certain seasons of the year, Shelley conceived the idea of the "Witch of Atlas"; the poem was written in the three days which immediately succeeded his return to the Baths. It would have pleased Mary better if he had chosen a theme less remote from human sympathy; she playfully reproached him, and her fault-finding drew forth the graceful rejoinder which may be read in the introductory stanzas. When a little later he dealt in a grotesque manner with events of contemporary history, the result was by no means so fortunate; "Edipus Tyrannus, or Swellfoot the Tyrant," which dramatises, with satirical intention, the affair of Queen Caroline, is among the least happy of its author's efforts, yet it has a certain value as presenting a curious facet of his mind. "Swellfoot was published in London in 1820, but was almost immediately withdrawn from circulation by the publisher.

In the autumn (1820) Shelley, with his wife and infant son, returned to Pisa. They had been relieved of the presence of Miss Clairmont, who had taken a situation as governess at Florence; but Shelley corresponded with her, and took the kindest interest in all that concerned her. Friends and acquaintances gathered around him at Pisa-his cousin and former schoolfellow, Thomas Medwin, now a captain of dragoons, lately returned from India; the Irishman, Count Taaffe, who regarded himself as laureate of the city, and a learned critic of Italian literature; Sgricci, the celebrated improvvisatore; and Prince Mavrocordato, son of the ex-hospodar of Wallachia, young, ardent, cultured, who was to become the foremost statesman of the Greek Revolution.

Through a sometime Professor of Physics at the University of Pisa, Francesco Pacchiani, Shelley was introduced to Emelia, the daughter of Count Viviani, who had been confined for two years in the Convent of St. Anna. Mary and Shelley were both deeply interested in the beautiful Italian girl. Her youth, her charm, her sorrows awoke in Shelley all the idealising power of his imagination; she became to him, as it were, a symbol of all that is radiant and divine, all that is to be pursued and never attained-the absolute of beauty, truth, and love. While for the man she was a living and breathing woman, fascinating, and an object of tenderest solicitude, for the poet she rose into the avatar of the ideal. With such a feeling towards Emilia he wrote his "Epipsychidion; "It is," he tells Mr. Gisborne, "a mystery; as to real flesh and blood, you know I do not deal in these articles. . . I desired Ollier not to circulate this piece except to the ovveroí, and even they, it seems, are inclined to approximate me to the circle of a servant-girl and her sweetheart." As had happened so often before, Shelley in due time passed out of his idealising mood. “The Epipsychidion," he afterwards wrote, "I cannot look at; the person whom it celebrates was a cloud instead of a Juno; and poor Ixion starts from the centaur that was the offspring of his own embrace." The same idealising ardour which found poetical expression in "Epipsychidion," gave its elevated tone to Shelley's essay in criticism, the "Defence of Poetry," written in February and March 1821 as a reply to Peacock's "Four Ages of Poetry." It is perhaps the most admirable of his prose writings, and serves as an undesigned exposition of the processes of his own mind as an imaginative creator.

The summer of 1821 like that of the preceding year was spent at the Baths of San Giuliano. A friendship had sprung up in Pisa between Shelley and a young half-pay lieutenant of dragoons, Edward Williams, who, with his wife, had been attracted to Italy partly by Medwin's promise that he should be introduced to Shelley. The Williamses had taken a charming villa four miles from Shelley's residence at the Baths, and communication was easy and delightful by means of a boat on the canal which was fed by the waters of the Serchio. Edward Williams was frank, simple, kind-hearted, and not without a lively interest in literature; Jane had a sweet insinuating grace, and could gratify Shelley's ear with the melodies of her guitar. The days passed happily, and might have passed without a memorable incident save for an event not immediately connected with the dwellers at the Baths. In February 1821 occurred the death of Keats at Rome; but tidings did not reach Shelley until April. He had known Keats, but had never felt a deep personal affection for him. The genius of the young poet, however, was

honoured by Shelley, who, on hearing of his illness in the summer of 1820, had invited him to Pisa. Deeply moved, through his imagination rather than his affections, by the story of the death of Keats, Shelley did homage to his memory in the elegy of “Adonais,” which takes its place in literature beside the laments of Moschus for Bion and of Milton for Lycidas. Before its close the poem rises into an impassioned hymn not of death but of immortal life.

The pleasure of a visit to Byron at Ravenna in August was more than marred by Byron's sudden disclosure of certain shocking accusations which had been brought against Shelley in his domestic life. An ardent letter of vindication, to be forwarded by Byron to the English Consul at Venice, was written by Mary; but it never reached Mr. Hoppner, for whom it was intended, and was found among Byron's papers after his death. "That my beloved Shelley should stand thus slandered in your minds,”-so Mary wrote "he the gentlest and most humane of creatures-is more painful to me, oh! far more painful than words can express." If they could but escape to some solitude far from the world and its calumnies! Or, since this was impossible, if they could gather around them in their Pisan home a little circle of true and loyal friends! Of these Byron-it was hoped-might be one, for he was about to quit Ravenna, and he desired them to hire a house for himself and the Countess Guiccioli at Pisa. Leigh Hunt, at home in England, had for some time past been seriously ill; he also might form one of their company, and the new periodical, The Liberal, of which there had been talk, might be started for his benefit by the literary coalition.

"I am full of thoughts and plans,” Shelley wrote to Hunt in August 1821. Not one of his larger designs was achieved, but in the summer or early autumn of that year he rapidly produced his "Hellas," remarkable as an idealised treatment of contemporary events. In the "Persæ " of Eschylus he found a precedent and to some extent a model for his poetic dealing with current facts. The phantom of Mahomet II is suggested by the figure of Darius in the "Persians"; but instead of the ode of lamentation which closes the Greek play, the lyrical prophecy with which "Hellas" ends is a song of joy and love for the whole world.

"Lord Byron is established here," Shelley wrote from Pisa in January 1822, "and we are constant companions." They rode together; practised pistol-shooting or played billiards; interchanged their views on literary and social questions. Shelley felt towards Byron as towards a great creative power, which subdued him to admiration; yet there were times when he was repelled by proofs of the coarser fibre of Byron's moral nature. The opening year brought a new acquaintance to Pisa-Edward

John Trelawny, a young Cornish gentleman, who had led a life of various adventure by sea and land. Trelawny, "with his knight-errant aspect, dark, handsome, and mustachioed," interested Shelley and Mary more than any acquaintance whom they had made since the departure of Mavrocordato. How Shelley charmed Trelawny may be read in the delightful Recollections of the latter, which give us the most vivid image of the poet in the closing months of his life. Trelawny, Williams, and Shelley were lovers of the sea. It was agreed that a boat should be built, and that a seaside house should be taken for the summer at Spezzia. Meanwhile Shelley worked now and again at his historical play of "Charles I.," and wrote some of those exquisite lyrical poems inspired by the grace and subtle attraction of Jane Williams, the wife of his young and bright-tempered companion.

Casa Magni, the house taken for the summer migrants, stands on the margin of the sea, near the fishing-village of San Terenzo on the eastern side of the Bay of Spezzia. The first days were saddened by a grief to all, but in a special degree a grief to Miss Clairmont-the death at the convent of Bagnacavallo of little Allegra, Mary was in delicate health, and found the lonely house by the sea oppressive to her spirits. Shelley's overwrought nerves conjured up visionary forms: on one occasion the figure of Allegra rose smiling upon him from the moonlit sea, clapping its hands for joy. But when the long-expected boat rounded the point of Porto Venere all was gladness and bustle of expectation. "We have now," wrote Williams, who with Jane occupied a part of Casa Magni, "a perfect plaything for the summer." While during the heats of the June days Shelley rested in his boat, or gazed from shore on the splendours of the sea, or on moonlight nights sat among the rocks, he wrote the noble fragments of his last great unfinished poem, "The Triumph of Life." It contains perhaps the wisest thoughts of his whole life; it expresses a mood of pathetic renunciation, with insight reached after error, and serenity attained through passion. In its general design and in the form of verse it follows Petrarch's "Triumph of Love"; in the details of its imagery it sometimes approaches the manner of Dante.

The return to Casa Magni of Claire, after a couple of weeks' absence, was almost immediately followed by a calamity which threatened serious risk to Mary's life—a dangerous miscarriage. By Shelley's energy and promptitude her life was saved; but the strain upon his nerves again caused him to be troubled by frequent visions. On 19th June news came which rejoiced his heart-Leigh Hunt and his family had arrived in Italy. It was glorious midsummer weather; the boat, with Shelley and Williams on board, was put to sea, and after a prosperous run anchor was cast in the port of Leghorn. Next morning the long-parted friends,

Hunt and Shelley, met. "you cannot think how inexpressibly happy it makes me." looking better," wrote Hunt, "than I had ever seen him; we talked of a thousand things- -we anticipated a thousand pleasures." On Monday, 8th July, the aspect of the sky seemed to portend a change of weather; but the breeze was favourable for a return to Lerici. Between one and two o'clock the boat left the harbour. It was observed about ten miles out at sea, off Via Reggio; then the haze of a summer storm hid it from view.

"I am inexpressibly delighted," cried Shelley, "He was

Meanwhile Mary, who had been loath to allow Shelley to leave her, and Jane Williams watched and waited. Days of misery and dreadful suspense went by. At length the widowed women could endure it no longer, and posted to Pisa to make inquiries of Byron and Hunt. Even then all hope was not extinct; the boat might have been blown to Corsica or Elba. Mary and Jane hastened back to Lerici, Trelawny having undertaken to renew the search in the direction of Leghorn. On the evening of 19th July he returned; "All was over," writes Mary; “all was quiet now; they had been found washed on shore."

Two bodies had been thrown upon the beach, one near Via Reggio, the other in Tuscan territory. The tall, slight figure, the volume of Sophocles, and Keats's poems, identified the body of Shelley. According to the strict laws of Italian quarantine, the corpses should have remained under quicklime in the sands. But by special permission arrangements were made for their cremation. Trelawny, Byron, and Hunt were present. The heart of Shelley was snatched by Trelawny from the flames; the ashes were reverently collected. In the old Protestant burial-ground at Rome, where lay the body of Shelley's son, hard by the tomb of Caius Cestius, the casket containing the ashes was committed to the ground.

Mary Shelley survived her husband for nearly thirty years; she died on 21st February 1851. Charles Bysshe, the son of Shelley's first wife, died in early life. Shelley's last-born son, Percy Florence, succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his grandfather in April 1844. He died on 5th December 1889. A monument to Shelley, by Weekes, is erected in the parish church of Christchurch, Hants. The relics, portraits, journals, manuscripts, and letters of Shelley and Mary, duly ordered by Lady Shelley's hands, are preserved at Boscombe Manor, near Bournemouth.

All who love Shelley's poetry are under inexpressible obligations to Mary Shelley, who gave to the world the great body of his posthumous writings, edited his works with loving care, though not with infallible accuracy, and added the inestimable memorials of his life, which may be read in