The Witch of Atlas. It was not only that I wished him to acquire popularity as redounding to his fame; but I believed that he would obtain a greater mastery over his own powers, and greater happiness in his mind, if public applause crowned his endeavours. The few stanzas that precede the poem were addressed to me on my representing these ideas to him. Even now I believe that I was in the right. Shelley did not expect sympathy and approbation from the public; but the want of it took away a portion of the ardour that ought to have sustained him while writing. He was thrown on his own resources and on the inspiration of his own soul, and wrote because his mind overflowed, without the hope of being appreciated. I had not the most distant wish that he should truckle in opinion, or submit his lofty aspirations for the human race to the low ambition and pride of the many, but I felt sure that if his poems were more addressed to the common feelings of men, his proper rank among the writers of the day would be acknowledged; and that popularity as a poet would enable his countrymen to do justice to his character and virtues; which, in those days, it was the mode to attack with the most flagitious calumnies and insulting abuse. That he felt these things deeply cannot be doubted, though he armed himself with the consciousness of acting from a lofty and heroic sense of right. The truth burst from his heart sometimes in solitude, and he would write a few unfinished verses that showed that he felt the sting; among such I find the following:

Alas! this is not what I thought life was.

I knew that there were crimes and evil men,

Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass

Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen.
In mine own heart I saw as in a glass

The hearts of others.

. . . And when

I went among my kind, with triple brass
Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed,
To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!

I believed that all this morbid feeling would vanish, if the

chord of sympathy between him and his countrymen were touched. But my persuasions were vain; the mind could not be bent from its natural inclination. Shelley shrunk instinctively from portraying human passion, with its mixture of good and evil, of disappointment and disquiet. Such opened again the wounds of his own heart, and he loved to shelter himself rather in the airiest flights of fancy, forgetting love and hate and regret and lost hope, in such imagination as borrowed their hues from sunrise or sunset, from the yellow moonshine or paly twilight, from the aspect of the far ocean or the shadows of the woods; which celebrated the singing of the winds among the pines, the flow of a murmuring stream, and the thousand harmonious sounds which nature creates in her solitudes. These are the materials which form The Witch of Atlas; it is a brilliant congregation of ideas, such as his senses gathered, and his fancy coloured, during his rambles in the sunny land he so much loved.

Our stay at the baths of San Giuliano was shortened by an accident. At the foot of our garden ran the canal that communicated between the Serchio and the Arno. The Serchio overflowed its banks, and breaking its bounds, this canal also overflowed; all this part of the country is below the level of its rivers, and the consequence was, that it was speedily flooded. The rising waters filled the square of the baths, in the lower part of which our house was situated. The canal overflowed in the garden behind; the rising waters on either side at last burst open the doors, and meeting in the house, rose to the height of six feet. It was a picturesque sight at night, to see the peasants driving the cattle from the plains below, to the hills above the baths. A fire was kept up to guide them across the ford; and the forms of the men and the animals showed in dark relief against the red glare of the flame, which was reflected again in the waters that tilled the square.

We then removed to Pisa, and took up our abode there for the winter. The extreme mildness of the climate suited Shelley, and his solitude was enlivened by an intercourse with several intimate friends. Chance cast us, strangely nough, on this quiet, half-unpeopled town; but its very peace

suited Shelley,-its river, the near mountains, and not distant
sea, added to its attractions, and were the objects of many
delightful excursions. We feared the south of Italy, and a
hotter climate, on account of our child; our former bereave-
ment inspiring us with terror. We seemed to take root here,
and moved little afterwards; often, indeed, entertaining pro-
jects for visiting other parts of Italy, but still delaying. But
for our fears on account of our child, I believe we should
have wandered over the world, both being passionately fond
of travelling. But human life, besides its great unalterable
necessities, is ruled by a thousand Liliputian ties, that shackle
at the time, although it is difficult to account afterwards for
their influence over our destiny.

a

1.72

The longer poem. I accive should not be considered as

own : indeed, in a certain sense, it is the

as my

it is the production of a portion of me already dead _ and, in this case, the advertisement" is no fiction. It is to be publishing for the pastère few; make its author a secret, to avoid the

their

^

and I hose who

malignity of ture scout food into poison, branfmang all thy touch wit the commption of own reatures. My wish with expect to it in that it should be pruited immediality in the simplect from, hundred copies. Those who are capable of judging with respect to a compritiue of to alebine зрадаў

and

merely

one

feeling rightly with respect to a

among

a natura certasily do not arrive at that number
least, who would ever be excited to read an obseme

anonymone production:

and it would gue

that the velger should wad it. The repipsgcbidion is a m Hood, you know that:

mystery.

Those at

and

pleasure

Shelley to Mr. Ollier, Bot. 16, 1821

As to real fleck

do not deal in those article. gin-chip for a leg 7

anything

ал

earthly from me.

I desired Ollier not to

thy,

a

urmulate this pièce except to the ourrion; and even mulues to approximate one to the circle her swat heart. But I intend to write a Sponfaina

: servant girl

of my own,

own,

and

to eet all this right. _ Shelley to Mr. Gisborne, Och, 1821. The word repipsy chidion may

on the soul: W. M. Roetti.

be understood.

to the loving

soul launcher begoud treation; and createe for itself

in the reffuite a would all its own, for different from this obscure

"L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nel infinito un mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro."-Her own words. *

and

My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning,

Of such hard matter dost thou entertain;

Whence, if by misadventure chance should bring
Thee to base company (as chance may do)
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,

I prithee comfort thy sweet self again,

My last delight! tell them that they are dull,
And bid them own that thou art beautiful.

The composition from which this motto was taken is
Medwin's Life of Shelley, ii. 67

pintor [after she has been there about and we abrunch by her amazing

grave of her mind,

The nas

which the cuffures in being actores from all sympathy. subre sealt movies to a gentleman chven for her by her fathe

a

ennent by her father husband of

amazing heal by the mikey

a A quotation from Maute, ergrifying: Great were his shame who works should rhyme anything

rbelovical colour,

and then,

under

as that

then, being acker, chole The gost

to mespable of stripping his words whey might have

a veritable

of meaning. – Raelli

after pining

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE writer of the following lines died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to have realized a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates; and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that, gran vergogna sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico: e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero veroce intendimento.ʻ

The present poem appears to have been intended by the writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the preceding page is almost a literal translation from Dante's famous canzone

Voi ch' intendendo, il terzo ciel movete, &c.

The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his
own composition will raise a smile at the expense of my
unfortunate friend: be it a smile not of contempt, but pity.

in his society;

aud

S.

in the reachy politudes of the Maremma, In six years, she left him,

parent,

with the incrent

of consumptione in a delapidates old

Montime at Florence. This recurre s

Shelley

who used

in the convent

long after the death.

to visit her while the war

and to do his utmost to amaborate her