188 



SHELLEY 



Julian and Maddalo. He contemplated a tragedy 

 of Tiuto, but this was Bet aside in favour of Ing 

 great lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound, the first 

 act of which was written at Elite, September-Octo- 

 ber 1818. Seeking a warmer climate for the winter. 

 he journeyed to Homo, and thence to Naples. His 

 letters descriptive of Southern Italy are full of 

 radiance and luminous beauty. In the spring 

 (1819) he was again in Rome, and found great 

 delight in its classical sculpture and architectural 

 remains. Among the ruins of the Baths of Cara- 

 calla he wrote the second and third acts of Prome- 

 theus. The fourth act not originally conceived aa 

 part of the poem was added before the close of 

 the year at Florence. On 7th June 1819 Shelley's 

 beloved son William died at Rome. The afflicted 

 parents sought the neighbourhood of kind friends 

 near Leghorn, and here at the Villa Valsovano 

 Shelley wrote the greater part of his dark and 

 pathetic tragedy The Cenci. At Leghorn the first 

 edition was printed in quarto. The other works 

 of this memorable year were written at Florence 

 a prose treatise called A Philosophical View of 

 Reform (still unpublished in its entirety ); a poet- 

 ical appeal to his countrymen on the occasion of 

 the ' Peterloo ' affair, entitled The Math of A narchy; 

 a grotesque satire suggested by the supposed failure 

 of Wordsworth's poetic powers under the blight of 

 Toryism Peter Bell the Third; a translation of 

 The Cyclops of Euripides ; and in addition to these 

 some of his noblest lyrical poems, among them the 

 magnificent Ode to the West Wind. 



On 12th November 1819 a son was born to 

 comfort his father and mother, Percy Florence 

 ( died 5th December 1 889). The climate of Florence 

 was found trying, and in January the Shelley 

 household niovecf to Pisa, where was spent the 

 greater part of the poet's remaining days. The 

 year 1820 was less ^productive than 1819. The 

 charming poetical Letter to Maria Gisborne, a 

 spirited translation of the Homeric Hymn to Mer- 

 cury, the brilliant fantasy of The Witch of Atlas, 

 the satirical drama (Edipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot 

 the Tyrant, which deals not very hamrily with the 

 affair of Queen Caroline, are the chief writings of 

 1820. As the year was closing the Shelleys made 

 the acquaintance of a beautiful girl, Emilia Viviani, 

 who was confined in the convent of St Anna. To 

 Shelley's imagination for a brief time she became 

 the incarnation, as it were, of all that is most 

 perfect, all that is most radiant in the universe. 

 At such a moment he wrote his Epipsychidion, 

 which is rather a homage to the ideal as seen in 

 womanhood than a poem addressed to an indi- 

 vidual woman. It was followed by a remarkable 

 piece of prose the critical study entitled A Defence 

 of Poetry. 



A small circle of interesting friends had gathered 

 aliout Shelley at Pisa. Among these were Edward 

 Williams, a young lieutenant of dragoons, and his 

 wife Jane, to whom many of Shelley s latest lyrics 

 were addressed. In the summer of 1821 the Shelleys 

 aii'l Williamson had much pleasant intercouse at 

 the Baths of San Giuliano. The elegy Adonais, 

 suggested by the death of Keats, was here written ; 

 it i~ Shelley'^ most finished piece of art. In the 

 late summer or autumn he swiftly compose*! lii- 

 //> Urn, a lyrical drama suggested by passing events 

 in Greece. Early next year Byron was settled in 

 Pisa, and Shelley had also an interesting new com- 

 panion in Trelawnv, a young man of ardent and 

 romantic temper. Shelley worked somewhat tenta- 

 tively at his unfinished historical drama Charles I. 

 His fast great poem, also unfinished, The Triumph 

 of Life, was written in his boat near Casa Magni, 



On 19th June Shelley heard of the arrival in Italy 

 of Leigh Hunt and his family. He and William-, 

 some days later, set sail for Leghorn. The inert ing 

 with Hunt was full of joy and hope. On Monday, 

 8th July. Shelley iiml Williams left the port of 

 Leghorn with a favourable breeze ; the boat was 

 observed at ten miles distance ; then it was lost in 

 sudden storm and mist. Dreadful uncertainty for 

 a time came upon the two widow. i women at Casa 

 Magni. On 19th July the bodies were found upon 

 the shore near Via Reggio. By special permission 

 thev were consumed by fire in the presence of 

 Trelawny, Hunt, and Byron. The ashes of Shelley 

 were placed in a casket, and were afterwards in- 

 terred in the Protestant burial-ground at Rome. 



In person Shelley was tall and slight, and if not 

 of exact formal beauty of face had a countenance 

 full of spiritual beauty, fadiant with its luminous 

 blue eyes. His portrait, painted in Rome by 

 Miss Curran, is the only likeness of Shelley in 

 manhood. His poetry is inspired by an ardent 

 passion for truth, an ardent love of humanity ; it 

 expresses desires and regrets with ]>ecii)iar intensity, 

 liut also sets forth a somewhat stoical i.leal of 

 self-possession, as if to balance the excessive sen-i- 

 tiveness of its author. The earlier poetry is ag- 

 gressive and doctrinaire, embodying the views and 

 visions of Godwin's philosophy ; the later is more 

 purely emotional. Shelley s creed, which passed 

 at an early stage from deism to atheism, rested in 

 his mature years on a spiritual conception of the 

 universe. 



MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHEI.LEY, daughter of 

 William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and 

 wife of the poet Shelley, was born August 30, 17H7. 

 Her life from 1814 to 1822 was bound up with that 

 of Shelley. Her first and most impressive novel, 

 Frankenstein, had its origin in a proposal of 

 Byron's made in 1816 at his villa on the Lake of 

 Geneva, that Mary and Shelley, Polidori ( Byron's 

 young physician), and Byron himself should write 

 each a ghost story. Frankenstein (q.v. ) was pub- 

 lished in 1818. The influence of Godwin's ro- 

 mances is apparent throughout. Her second tale, 

 Valperga, or the Life and Adventures of Cn.it- 

 ruccio. Prince of Lucca (1823), is a historical 

 romance of mediaeval Italy. In 1823 she returned 

 to England with her son. Her husband's father, 

 in granting her an allowance, insisted on the 

 suppression of the volume of Shelley's Posthumous 

 Poems, edited by her ; and she was obliged to sub- 

 mit. The Last Man (1826), a romance of the ruin 

 of human society by pestilence, fails to attain sub- 

 jimity, but we can trace in it with interest ideal- 

 ised portraits of some of the illustrious persons 

 most intimately known to her. In Lodore (1835) 

 we read under a disguise the story of Shelley's 

 alienation from his first wife. Her last novel, 

 Falkner, appeared in 1837. She published several 

 short tales in the annuals, some of which have 

 been collected and edited by MrGarnett. Of her 

 occasional pieces of verse the most remarkable is 

 The Choice. She wrote also many of the lives of 

 Italian and Spanish literary men in Lardner's 

 Cabinet Cyclopaedia. Her Journal of a Six Weeks' 

 Tmir (partly l>y Shelley) tells of the excursion to 

 Switzerland in 1814; Ramble* in Germany and 

 Italy describes a series of tours in her Inter years. 

 She will be remembered by Frankenstein and her 

 admirable notes in large part biographical to her 

 husband's poems. Those who knew her intimately 

 valued Mary Shelley for her nobility of character, 

 even more than for her fine intellect. She died 

 February 21, 1851, ami was buried in Bournemouth. 



The best edition of Shelley's work* in verw and prom 

 is Mr H. B. Forman's (8 vols. 1876-80). Mr Forman 

 hu (duo given an admirable text of the poetical works 

 in two volume*. Mr Rometti'f edition of the poetical 



