147 CHAPTER XI. SHELLEY AND BYRON AT PISA. EARLY in the year 1821, the Shelleys made the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the former of whom was drowned with the poet. Mrs. Shelley says of him that no man "ever existed more gentle, generous, and fearless." Like his illustrious friend, he was a great lover of boating, and the two were frequently on the water together, before the day which proved fatal to both. Shelley, indeed, enjoyed a good deal of his favourite recreation during this year. The shallow waters of the Arno, on which no ordinary vessel can float, did not prove any obstacle to him: he contrived a boat "such as the huntsmen carry about with them in the Maremma to cross the sluggish but deep streams that intersect the forest—a boat of laths and pitched canvas." In this he frequently took little trips on the Arno, though his Italian friends, seeing the peril which he ran, used to remonstrate with him, and to prophesy with too much truth-that the amusement would lead to his death. On one occasion, when * Mrs. Shelley. he had been with a friend down the Arno and round the coast to Leghorn, he returned by the canal, when the skiff got entangled amongst some weeds, and was upset. The intense cold made Shelley faint; but no further harm was done. "Once," writes Mrs. Shelley, "I went down with him to the mouth of the Arno, where the stream, then high and swift, met the tideless sea, and disturbed its sluggish waters. It was a waste and dreary scene: the desert sand stretched into a point surrounded by waves that broke idly, though perpetually, around." But the water was far from engrossing Shelley's thoughts at this time. The south of Europe had awakened from its lethargy into a state of high political excitement, and it seemed as if the age of liberty were dawning in several places. Spain and Naples had been revolutionized in the previous year; and the northern and central parts of Italy now endeavoured to follow the example. Several insurrectionary movements were attended by temporary success : Tuscany alone, owing to the benevolent rule of its prince, remained tranquil; but, in the end, the patriots were crushed beneath the weight of Austrian armies. At the same period, however, a revolution began in a country farther east, which was destined to result, to a certain extent, in success, though Shelley did not live long enough to behold the issue. Greece declared itself independent of Ottoman domination; and these combined attacks on the general foe filled Shelley with the utmost enthusiasm. Several Greeks were at that time at Pisa; and amongst them was Prince Mavrocordato, to whom Hellas is dedicated. On the 1st of April, this gentleman called on the Shelleys, and told them that his cousin, Prince Ipsilanti, had issued a proclamation (a copy of which he brought with him), and that Greece thenceforward would be free. The emotions of joy and hope kindled by this intelligence in the mind of the poet produced the lyrical drama of Hellas, of which Shelley records, in his preface, that it was "written at the suggestion of the events of the moment, is a mere improvise, and derives its interest (should it be found to possess any) solely from the intense sympathy which the author feels with the cause he would celebrate." Nevertheless, it contains passages of great power, and lyrics of the utmost sweetness. In the same year, Shelley wrote that piece of radiant mysticism and rapturous melody, Epipsychidion. The subject of this poem-" the noble and unfortunate Lady Emilia V," was the daughter of an Italian count, and was shut up in a convent by her father until such time as he could find for her a husband of whom he approved. In this dreary prison Shelley saw her and was struck by her amazing beauty, by the highlycultivated grace of her mind, and by the misery which she suffered in being debarred from all sympathy. She was subsequently married to a gentleman chosen for her by her father; and after pining in his society, and in the marshy solitudes of the Maremma, for six years, she left him, with the consent of her parent, and died of consumption in a dilapidated old mansion at Florence. This occurred long after the death of Shelley, who used frequently to visit her while she was living in the convent, and to do his utmost to ameliorate her wretched condition. In return, she was in the habit of sending him bouquets of flowers; and one of these presents he thus acknowledged: Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me Embleming love and health, which never yet Alas! and they are wet! Is it with thy kisses or thy tears? For never rain or dew Such fragrance drew From plant or flower. The very doubt endears My sadness ever new, The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed, for thee. Another of Shelley's compositions belonging to the year 1821 is his Adonais. This is a monody on the death of Keats, who expired at Rome on the 24th of February, 1821, of consumption. He was attended in his last illness by his friend Mr. Severn, who devoted himself to the dying man. They were alone, and were overtaken by poverty; and Mr. Severn (who was an artist) not only watched by the bedside of the young poet day and night, soothing him in the midst of his frightful paroxysms of mental and bodily anguish, but painted small pictures during his leisure moments, and, sallying forth unobserved, sold them to procure the necessary funds. Yet even this beautiful devotion could not save Keats from death; and he now lies in the Protestant burial-ground, whither the ashes of him who has celebrated his genius in verse lasting as his own were destined shortly to follow him. Adonais abounds in passion and poetry; in bursts of eloquent grief; in profound glimpses into the divine mystery of the universe and of the soul of man; and of keen, arrowy flashes of scorn directed against those hirelings of party who endeavoured to crush the genius of Keats, simply because he was known to be the friend of men who dared to speak on behalf of freedom when to do so was considered an eighth deadly sin. Shelley was mistaken in supposing that the death of Keats was accelerated by the contemptible treatment he had met with. He regarded such things with indifference, and died from causes of a much deeper kind. But Of the funeral of Keats, Shelley records in the preface to Adonais, that he "was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." On the 29th of November, 1821, Shelley wrote to Mr. Severn, from Pisa, on the subject of the death of Keats : |