is a little old Welshwoman, without the slightest education. She has got an Italian master, and has entered into the difficult part of the language, the singulars and plurals — the il's and the lo's, and is to turn masculines into feminines, and feminines into masculines; but she says she does not think she shall ever learn, for she cannot help mixing Welsh with her Italian and, besides, it spoils her French. She speaks the sweetest French, as you may judge by her telling her master, 'Je ne peut lire aucune plus.'

"The younger lady was a ward of one of Shelley's uncles. She is lively and unaffected. She sings well for an English debûtante, and, if she would learn the scales, would sing exceedingly well, for she has a sweet voice. So there is a great deal of good company for C, who is as busy as a bee among them all, serving as an interpreter to their masters. She has a most excellent singing master, and he now teaches several other young ladies who are here. One who had had a very cross master in England, when told to sing sol, burst into tears. The poor man was aghast. Non capisco questo effetto.'

“I do not know why I write all this gossip to you. Pray let us hear of you, and the steamboat, and the felucca.

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Affectionately yours,

"M. W. SHELLEY."

Writing to Mrs. Gisborne on December 15th, Mrs. Shelley says:

"You see, my dear friend, by the receipt of your crowns, that we have recovered 1007. of our money. There is still 1007. in jeopardy; but we must hope, and perhaps, by dint of giving it up as lost, we may find it again. . I have begun reading with Shelley the Conquesta di Mexico, by Solio. We have read very little yet. I send you something to amuse you the bane and antidote. The bane from the Quarterly, the antidote from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, a publication

as furious as the Quarterly, but which takes up arms (singularly enough) in Shelley's defence. We half think that it must be Walter Scott, the only liberal man of that faction."

Some days later, Mrs. Shelley again wrote to her friend, Mrs. Gisborne :

"MY DEAR MRS. GISBORNE,

"Florence, Dec. 28th, 1819.

“I AM glad you are pleased with the Prometheus. The last act, though very beautiful, is certainly the most mystic of the four. I am glad also that Spenser pleases you, for he is a favorite author of mine. In his days, I fancy, translations and plagiarisms were not considered so disgraceful as they are now. You have not all of him, and therefore perhaps you have not read the parts that I particularly admire * the snowy Florimel, Belphœbe, and her Squire lover (who are half meant for Queen Elizabeth and Lord Essex). Britomart is only an imitation; she is cold and dull; but the others, and the lovely Una, are his own creations, and I own I like them better than Angelica, although, indeed, the thought of her night scene with Madora † came across me, and made me pause as I wrote the opinion. But, perhaps, it is not in pathos, but in simple description of beauty, that Spenser excels. His description of the Island of Bliss is an exact translation of Tasso's Garden of Armida; yet how is it that I find a greater simplicity and spirit in the translation than in the original? Yet, so it is.

"I think of beginning to read again— study I cannot, for I have no books, and I may not call simple reading study, for papa is continually saying and writing, that to read one book without others beside you, to which you may refer, is mere child's play; but still I hope now to get on with Latin and Spanish. Do you know that, if you could borrow for us *In the Faëry Queene. — ED.

† See Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. - ED.

Rousseau's Emile, and Voltaire's Essai sur l'Esprit des Nations either or both - you would oblige us very much.

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Shelley has given up the idea of visiting Leghorn before the finishing of the steamboat. He is rather better these last two or three days, but he has suffered dreadfully lately from his side. He seems a changed man. His numerous weak

nesses and ailments have left him, and settled all in his side alone, for he never, any other winter, suffered such constant pain there.* It puts me in mind of the mountain of ills in the Spectator, where mankind exchange ills one with the other; then they all take up their old evils again as the most bearable. I do not know whether this is Shelley's case.

“Affectionately yours,

"M. W. SHELLEY."

* In another letter, Mrs. Shelley speaks of this pain having a rheumatic character. - ED.

CHAPTER X.

THE POET'S LIFE AT PISA AND LEGHORN.

On the 26th of January, 1820, the Shelleys removed to Pisa. At that city they had friends, and could consult the celebrated physician Vaccà on the subject of the poet's ailments, though they received from him no other advice than to abstain from all medicine, and leave the constitution to right itself. Vaccà was as much puzzled as the other medical men to assign any cause for Shelley's painful symptoms; but, whatever might have been the nature of the complaint, the air of Pisa agreed better with the patient than that of any other place, and it was therefore determined on to remain there. Under the best of circumstances, however, Shelley was never entirely free from pain and ill-health.

In walking, riding, and studying, some months passed pleasantly away. When evening had set in, Shelley, according to his usual custom, would read aloud. A few weeks in the spring were spent at Leghorn, in a villa lent to them by their friends the Gisbornes, who were then absent in England. From this house Shelley addressed his letter in verse to Mrs. Gisborne position of interwoven grace and humor, uttered in free

a com

and fluent heroic couplet, and containing a lovely picture of the scenery and influences by which the writer was surrounded:

"I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit

Built round dark caverns, even to the root

Of the living stems who feed them; in whose bowers
There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers.
Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn
Trembles not in the slumbering air, and, borne
In circles quaint and ever-changing dance,
Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance,
Pale in the open moonshine; but each one
Under the dark trees seems a little sun, —
A meteor tamed, a fix'd star gone astray

From the silver regions of the Milky Way.

Afar, the Contadino's song is heard,

Rude, but made sweet by distance; and a bird,
Which cannot be a nightingale, and yet

I know none else that sings so sweet as it

At this late hour; - and then all is still."

The date of this poem is July 1st. While staying at the same house, Shelley wrote his divine Ode to a Skylark. The poem was suggested to him one evening by the bird itself, whose song attracted his attention as he was wandering with Mrs. Shelley among lanes shut in by myrtle hedges, and spangled with the erratic glory of the fire-flies.

Being alarmed for the safety of their only child, who was affected by the extreme heat of the summer, the parents left Leghorn in August for the baths of San Giuliano, which are situated four miles from Pisa. The water of the baths soothed the nervous irritability of Shelley, and the time appears to have been very agree