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a journal which he kept: "The will has been opened, and I am referred to Whitton " (Sir Timothy's legal adviser). "My father would not allow me to enter Field Place." Shelley Sidney-a half-brother of Sir Timothy — expressed his opinion that the will was a most extraordinary one. The death of the old baronet, however, placed the young poet in a better pecuniary position than he had ever yet occupied. Being now the direct heir to the estates, he could the more readily raise money for his immediate necessities; besides which, his father, yielding to the pressure of advice, allowed him 1,000l. a year. He was thus relieved from the painful

stringency of his former condition.

In the winter months, at the commencement of this year, Shelley walked a hospital, for the purpose of acquiring some slight knowledge of surgery, which might enable him to alleviate the sufferings of the poor. Yet, at the very time he subjected himself to these painful and often harrowing experiences, he was himself in the most delicate state of health. In the spring he was said by an eminent physician to be in a rapid consumption; and so far had the malady progressed that abscesses were formed on his lungs. His fragile nature was shaken by frequent paroxysms of pain, during which he was often obliged to lie on the ground, or to have recourse to the perilous sedative of laudanum. He was at this time living in London. The symptoms of pulmonary disorder subsequently left him with a suddenness and completeness which seem to be unaccountable. A thorough change in his system supervened, and he was never again threat

ened with consumption; though he was at no time healthy, or free from the assaults of pain. This change, however, did not take place until some few years after the present date.

The summer of 1815 was partly occupied by a tour along the southern coast of Devonshire and a visit to Clifton. On the completion of these trips, Shelley rented a house on Bishopsgate Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, the air of which neighborhood did his health considerable service. The conclusion of the summer was very fine, and all things contributed to afford the worn spirits of Bysshe a brief interspace of happiness and calm. He visited the source of the Thames, together with a few friends, and on this occasion again indulged in the pleasure of boating — that pleasure which was in the end to lure him to his death. The party proceeded from Windsor to Cricklade in a wherry. "His beautiful stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade," says Mrs. Shelley, in her collected edition of the poems, 66 were written on that occasion. Alastor was composed on his return. He spent his days under the oak shades of Windsor Great Park; and the magnificent woodland was a fitting study to inspire the various descriptions of forest scenery we find in the poem." This was the first production in verse which Shelley gave openly to the world.

In 1816, he again visited Switzerland, and made the acquaintance of Lord Byron, for the first time, at Sécheron's hotel at Geneva, where the former was staying when the latter arrived there. Both poets being ardent

lovers of boating, they joined in the purchase of a small craft, in which, evening after evening, they made sailing excursions on the lake of Geneva, accompanied by Signor Polidori, a friend of Byron, though by no means of Shelley, who disliked him on account of the morbid vanity he was constantly exhibiting. Bysshe afterwards rented a house on the banks of the lake, and passed many days alone in the boat, reading or meditating, and resigning himself to the summer influences of winds and waters. On one occasion, when Shelley and Byron were sailing from Meillerie to St. Gingoux, a storm came on; the vessel was injured, and shipped a good deal of water; and, to make matters still worse, one of the boatmen stupidly mismanaged the sail. The loss of the boat seemed inevitable; and Shelley, being unable to swim, made up his mind that he should have to meet that death for which he was in fact only reserved until a later period. But the vessel righted, and got safely to the shore.

Mrs. Shelley has recorded that her husband's lines on Mont Blanc, and his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, were written at this time. She thinks, however, that the genius of Shelley was in some measure checked by his association with Byron, "whose nature was utterly dissimilar to his own;" but that, at the same time, Shelley had a corresponding influence on Byron, as evinced in the abstractions of Childe Harold, then flowing from its author's pen.

The period was, indeed, rich in the production of works of genius. The famous "Monk" Lewis, as he is

called, joined the society of the two English poets, and during some rainy weather he set them talking about ghost stories. Each was to write one of these fascinating toys of the imagination; and Mrs. Shelley's extraordinary romance of Frankenstein was the result, as far as herself was concerned, and indeed the only one of the proposed narratives which was completed. One evening, the recital by Lord Byron of the commencement of Coleridge's spectral poem, Christabel, conjured up in Shelley's mind, by an association of ideas, a vision of a beautiful woman with four eyes, two of which were glancing at him from out of her breast; and he rushed from the room in an agony of horror.

On the 30th of December, 1816 (after his return to England), Shelley's second marriage took place. She who was thenceforward the companion of his existence has left us some of the most interesting particulars which we possess of his brief remnant of life, and of his lamentable end. Her influence over him was of an

important kind. His anxiety to aid the intelligence of the less instructed, and his efforts to promote the well-being of the poorer classes of his fellow-creatures, were as vivid and as strenuous as before; yet his mind, by gradually bending to milder influences, divested itself of much of that hostile bitterness of thought and expression with which he had hitherto attacked those political and social abuses which had seemed to him to be the principal obstacles to the progressive development of mankind.

His pecuniary struggles, his father's persevering anger,

and the calumnies of his unscrupulous enemies, had no longer the same power to embitter his existence, and to rouse his darker passions. From them he had now a sure refuge. Evil might be without; but by his hearth were sympathy, and encouragement, and love.

They had fixed upon the neighborhood of Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, for their winter quarters. While Shelley was looking out in this locality for a suitable residence, he received the following letter to aid him in his researches:

"In the choice of a residence, dear Shelley, pray do not be too quick, or attach yourself too much to one spot. A house with a lawn, near a river or lake, noble trees or divine mountains that should be our little mouse-hole to retire to; but never mind this. Give me a garden, and I will thank my love for many favors. If you go to London, you will perhaps try to procure me a good Livy; for I wish very much to read it. I must be more industrious, especially in learning Latin, which I neglected shamefully last summer at intervals; and those periods of not reading at all put me back very far. Adieu! Love me tenderly, and think of me with affection whenever anything pleases you greatly."

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On the 22d of March, Shelley wrote as follows to Godwin:

"MY DEAR GODWIN,

"It was spring when I wrote to you, and winter when your answer arrived. But the frost is very transitory; every bud is ready to burst into leaf. It is a nice distinction you make between the development and the complete expansion of the leaves. The oak and the chestnut, the latest and the earliest parents of foliage, would afford you a still subtler sub

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