"Now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprison'd, for some fault of his,
In a body like a grave:

From you he only dares to crave,
For his service and his sorrow,

A smile to-day, a song to-morrow."

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

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

This

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

panion, Williams. They accordingly disregarded the warning which Mr. Trelawny had given them some months before, with respect to the difference between the waters of the land-locked bay and those of the open sea beyond.

On the 1st of July, they left the Villa Magni, never to return. Mrs. Shelley was to have accompanied them, but her ill-health prevented her. They reached Leghorn in safety, and Shelley proceeded with Leigh Hunt to Pisa, where the two friends were accommodated with a floor in Lord Byron's palace, the furnishing of which, however, was done by Shelley. Byron had by this time been persuaded by Moore and some of his other friends in London that the projected magazine, about which he had been very anxious at first, would be injurious to his fame and interests; and Shelley now found him so desirous of making any possible retreat from his engagements, that, had he not feared he might damage his friend's interests, he would have quarrelled outright with the noble poet.* He was very much out of spirits when he left him; and that was the last interview they ever had.

Shelley appeared to Leigh Hunt to be far less hopeful than in former days, though otherwise unchanged. The two spent a delightful afternoon together during the brief stay of Shelley at Pisa, visiting the objects of note, and more especially the cathedral. Here the noble music of the organ deeply affected Shelley, who warmly

* See Trelawny's Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, p. 109.

assented to a remark of Leigh Hunt, that a divine religion might be found out, if charity were really made the principle of it, instead of faith.

He left for Leghorn on the night of the same day. His departure from that place seems to have been hastened by a gloomy letter which he received from Mrs. Shelley, who was probably still trembling under that "shadow of coming misery" which she describes as moving her to agony, and as making her scarcely able to let her husband go from her side on the expedition which ultimately caused his death. For himself, he disregarded these ghostly presentiments, and had recently remarked that the only warning he had found infallible was that, whenever he felt peculiarly joyous, he was certain that some disaster was about to ensue.

On Monday, July 8th, Shelley and Williams set sail in the “Don Juan" for Serici. Trelawny was to have gone with them in Byron's vessel, the "Bolivar," but was detained for want of some necessary legal permit. They left about three P. M., when the Genoese mate of the "Bolivar" observed to Mr. Trelawny that they would soon have too much breeze. Black, ragged clouds were by this time coming up from the southwest; and the mate, pointing to what he called "the smoke on the water," observed that "the devil was brewing mischief." The waves were speedily covered with a sea-fog, in which Shelley's boat was hidden from the view of Mr. Trelawny. It was intensely hot; the atmosphere was heavy and moveless to an oppressive degree, and a profound silence spread far over the ocean. By half-past

six o'clock it was almost dark; the sea looked solid and lead-colored; an oily scum was on the surface; the wind was beginning to wake, in short, panting gusts; and big drops of rain struck the water, rebounding as they fell. "There was a commotion in the air," says Mr. Trelawny, who records these particulars, "made up of many threatening sounds, coming upon us from the sea." The vessels in the harbor were all in hurried movement, and the tempest soon came crashing and glaring, in the fury of thunder, wind, rain, and lightning, over the port and the open waters. The storm only lasted about twenty minutes, and during its progress Captain Roberts watched Shelley's vessel with his glass from the top of the Leghorn lighthouse. The yacht had made Via Reggio when the storm began. "When the cloud passed onward,” writes Mrs. Shelley, "Roberts looked again, and saw every other vessel sailing on the ocean, except the little schooner, which had vanished." Mr. Trelawny thought for some time that his friends would return to port; but he waited for them in vain.

The night was somewhat tempestuous. At daybreak Mr. Trelawny inquired of the crews of the various boats which had returned to harbor if they had seen anything of the missing vessel. They said they had not; though the Genoese mate of the "Bolivar " pointed out, on board a fishing-boat, an English-made oar, which he thought he recognized as belonging to the "Don Juan." The crew protested it was not so; but it seems that in Italy the fact of rendering assistance to a drowning stranger entails a long and rigorous quarantine at the