DISCOVERY 



185 



this town, is the village of San Terenzo. Our house, 

 Casa Magni, was close to this village ; the sea came up 

 to the door, a steep hill sheltered it from behind." 

 The proprietor of the estate, who was insane, had 

 rooted up the olives and planted forest trees on the 

 hillside. " These were mostty young," continues Mrs. 

 Shelley, " but the plantation was more in English taste 

 than I ever elsewhere saw in Italy ; some fine walnut 

 and ilex trees intermingled their dark mossy foliage, 

 and formed groups which still haunt my memory, as 

 then they satiated the eve with a sense of loveliness. 

 The scene w'as indeed of unimaginable beauty. The blue 

 extent of waters, the almost landlocked bay, the near 

 castle of Lerici shutting it in to the east, and distant 

 Porto Venero to the west ; the \-aried forms of the 

 precipitous rocks that bound in the beach, over which 

 there was only a winding rugged footpath towards 

 Lerici, and none on the other side ; the tideless sea 

 leaving no sands nor shingle, formed a picture such as 

 one sees in Salvator Rosa's landscapes onl^^ Some- 

 times the sunshine vanished when the sirocco raged. 

 . . . The gales and squalls that hailed our first arrival 

 surrounded the baj' with foam ; the howling wind swept 

 round our exposed house, and the sea roared un- 

 remittingly, so that we almost fancied ourselves on 

 board ship." This must certainly have been the case, 

 for the porch and terrace open on to the sea, which 

 frequently penetrates the first floor. 



But as the days wore on into summer the heat 

 became intense, and the sea and the cool breezes 

 rising off it were more than welcome. Shelley and 

 Williams spent most of their time on the bay in the 

 Ariel. Some whUe before their departure from Pisa 

 the two friends had commissioned Captain Roberts 

 (already mentioned) to have a boat built for them at 

 Genoa, where B\Ton was building his yacht, the 

 Bolivar. The Ariel^ arrived on May 12th, and the jo\- 

 with which the ill-fated boat was received may be 

 aptly paralleled to that with which the wooden horse 

 was greeted by the Trojans. She was twenty-eight 

 feet long by eight feet wide, deckless, ketch-rigged, 

 strongly built, and carrying plenty of sail. But she 

 had some dangerous defects, notably the lack of decks. 

 Professor Dowden- has pointed out: "The model, 

 obtained from one of the royal dockyards, liad been 

 brought by Williams from England, and he had insisted 

 against Trelawny's advice and that of the builder at 

 Genoa, that his model should be closely followed. . . . 

 ' It took,' saj's Trelawny, ' two tons of iron ballast to 

 bring her down to her bearings, and then she was ver}^ 

 crank in a breeze, though not deficient in beam.' " 



1 Byron had had the name Don Juan," in his contemptible 

 vanity." as Williams called it in his journal, painted on the 

 mainsail. The name was eventually cut out of the canvas, and 

 the boat rechristened the Ariel. - Ref. IV. P. 549. 



Ill 



It was on the Ariel, floating over the sultry waters 

 of the Mediterranean, that Shelley wrote most of his 

 last long poem. The Triumph of Life. The uncom- 

 pleted fragment mirrors a restless and uncertain state 

 of mind, and it will not be irrelevant here to consider 

 the psj'chological change which was beginning to 

 affect the poet, for the questions have often been asked, 

 " Would Shelley, had he lived, have produced greater 

 poetry than even the work of his twenties ? Or was 

 his genius on the wane ? " External circumstances 

 must have played their part in this change. Foremost 

 amongst these was the death of AUegra (B\T0n's natural 

 daughter by Claire Clairmont), to whom Shelley was 

 devoted, in the Roman Catholic convent of the 

 Romagna ; a growing dislike for B\TOn on account 

 of the circumstances under which the child had died. 



Eraeiy Walker Ltd. sc. 



MAP OF THE GULF OF SPEZIA. 



and for several other reasons ; the dangerous state 

 of Mary Shelley's health ; a strong attachment to 

 Jane Williams, which he had to check by reason of 

 his loyalty to his wife and his friend. 



During the last few months of his life he was con- 

 stantly troubled by dreams and visions. On May 6th, 

 a few nights after Allegra's death, he was walking on 

 the terrace of Casa Magni, " observing " in company 

 with Williams = "the effect of moonshme on the 

 waters," when he became very agitated and " declared 

 that he saw as plainly as he then saw me [Williams], 

 a naked child . . . rise from the sea and clap its hands 

 as in joy smiling at him." Again, on the night of June 

 22-23 he had a nightmare in which " he dreamt 

 that, lying as he did in bed, Edward and Jane Williams 

 came in to him ; they were in the most horrible 

 condition — their bodies lacerated, their bones starting 

 through their skin, the faces pale yet stained with blood ; 



3 Ref. IX. Entry for May 6th. 



