Mrs. Shelley Part 7

But the person of most moment at this time was undoubtedly the Contessina Emilia Viviani, whom, accompanied by Pacchiani, Claire, then Mary, and then Sh.e.l.ley, visited at the Convent of Sant' Anna.

This beautiful girl, with profuse black hair, Grecian profile, and dreamy eyes, placed in the convent till she should be married, to satisfy the jealousy of her stepmother, became naturally an object of extreme interest to the Sh.e.l.leys. Many visits were paid, and Mary invited her to stay with them at Christmas. Sh.e.l.ley was convinced that she had great talent, if not genius. Sh.e.l.ley and Mary sent her books, and Claire gave her English lessons at her convent, while she was taking a holiday from the Bojtis. Many letters are preserved from the beautiful Emilia to Sh.e.l.ley and Mary, letters which, translated into English, seem overflowing with sentiment and affection, but which to Italians would indicate rather the style cultivated by Italian ladies, which, to this day, seems one of their chief accomplishments if they are not gifted with a voice to sing. To Mary she complains of a certain coldness, but certainly this could not be brought to the charge of Sh.e.l.ley, who was now inspired to write his _Epipsychidion_. To him Emilia was as the Skylark, an emanation of the beautiful; but to Mary for a time, during Sh.e.l.ley's transitory adoration, the event evidently became painful, with all her philosophy and belief in her husband. She could not regard the lovely girl who took walks with him as the skylark that soared over their heads; and the _Epipsychidion_ was evidently not a favourite poem of Mary.

Surely we may ascribe to this time, in the spring of 1821, the poem written by Sh.e.l.ley to Lieutenant Williams, whose acquaintance he had made in January. There is no month affixed to--

The Serpent is cast out from Paradise....

and it might well apply, with its reference to "my cold home," to the time when Mary, in depression and pique, did not always give her likewise sensitive husband all the welcome he was accustomed to, and Sh.e.l.ley took refuge in a poem by way of letter; for this is the time referred to by Mary in her letter to Claire as their seventh unfortunate spring--a mixture of Emilia and a Chancery suit! It was not till the next spring that Emilia was married, and led her husband and mother-in-law, as Mary puts it, "a devil of a life." _We_ have only to be grateful to Emilia for having inspired one of the most wondrous poems in any language.

The Williamses, to whom Sh.e.l.ley's poem is addressed, were met by them in January. Mary writes of the fascinating Jane (Mrs. Williams) that she is certainly very pretty, but wants animation; while Sh.e.l.ley writes that she is extremely pretty and gentle, but apparently not very clever; that he liked her much, but had only seen her for an hour.

Mary, among her multifarious reading, notes an article by Medwin on Animal Magnetism, and Sh.e.l.ley, who suffered severely at this time, shortly afterwards tried its effect through Medwin. The latter bored Mary excessively; possibly she found the magnetising a wearisome operation, although Sh.e.l.ley is said to have been relieved by it. His highly nervous temperament was evidently impressed. When Medwin left, Mrs. Williams undertook to carry on the cure.

The Chancery suit referred to by Mary was an attempt between Sir Timothy's attorney and Sh.e.l.ley's to throw their affairs into Chancery, causing great alarm to them in Italy, till Horace Smith came to their rescue in England, and with indignant letters settled the inconsiderate litigation.

Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, in her Notes to Poems in 1821, recounts how Sh.e.l.ley was nearly drowned, by a flat boat which he had recently acquired being overturned in the ca.n.a.l near Pisa, when returning from Leghorn.

Williams upset the boat by standing up and holding the mast. Henry Reveley, Mrs. Gisborne's son, rescued Sh.e.l.ley and brought him to land, where he fainted with the cold. At this same time, at Pisa, Mary had to consider with Sh.e.l.ley a matter of great importance to Claire.

Byron, now at Ravenna, had placed Allegra, as already stated, in the convent of Bagnacavallo. He told Mrs. Hoppner that she had become so unmanageable by servants that it was necessary to have her under better care than he could secure, and he considered that it would be preferable to bring her up as a Roman Catholic with an Italian education, as in that way, with a fortune of five or six thousand pounds, she would marry an Italian and be provided for, whereas she would always hold an anomalous position in England. At this proposal Claire was extremely indignant; but Sh.e.l.ley and Mary took the opposite view, and considered that Byron acted for the best, as the convent was in a healthy position, and the nuns would be kind to the child. This idea of Mary would naturally be agreed with by some, and disapproved of by others; but at that time there was certainly no cause to indicate that Bagnacavallo would be more fatal to Allegra than any other place, although Claire's apprehensions were cruelly realised.

From this time Claire and Byron wrote letters of recrimination to each other, which, considering Byron's obduracy against the feelings of the mother, Sh.e.l.ley and Mary came to hold as tyrannically unfeeling.

In May, Sh.e.l.ley and his wife and son returned to the baths of San Giuliano, and while here Sh.e.l.ley's _Adonais_ was published. In 1820, when the Sh.e.l.leys heard of Keats's fatal illness from Mrs.

Gisborne, she having met him the day after he had received his death warrant from the doctor, they were the first to beg him to join them at Pisa. A small touch of poetical criticism, however, appears to have weighed more with the sensitive Keats than these friendly considerations for his health, and as he was about to accompany his friend Mr. Severn to Rome, he did not accept their kind offer, though in all probability Pisa would have been better for him.

During this summer at the baths Mary had finished her romance of _Valperga_, and read it to her husband, who admired it extremely.

He considered it to be a "living and moving picture of an age almost forgotten, a profound study of the pa.s.sions of human nature."

_Valperga_, published in 1823, the year after Sh.e.l.ley's death, is a romance of the 14th century in Italy, during the height of the struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, when each state and almost each town was at war with the other; a condition of things which lends itself to romance. Mary Sh.e.l.ley's intimate acquaintance with Italy and Italians gives her the necessary knowledge to write on this subject. Her zealous Italian studies came to her aid, and her love of nature give life and vitality to the scene. Valperga, the ancestral castle home of Euthanasia, a Florentine lady of the Guelph faction, is most picturesquely described, on its ledge of projecting rock, overlooking the plain of Lucca; the dependent peasants around happy under the protection of their good Signora. That this beautiful and high-minded lady should be affianced to a Ghibelline leader is a natural combination; but when her lover Castruccio, prince of Lucca, carries his political enthusiasm the length of making war on her native city of Florence, whose Republican greatness and love of art are happily described, Euthanasia cannot let love stand in the way of duty and grat.i.tude to all those dearest to her. The severe struggle is well described, for Euthanasia has loved Castruccio from their childhood. When they played about the mountain grounds of her home at Valperga, Castruccio learnt the secret paths to the Castle, which knowledge later helped him to take the fortress when Euthanasia refused to yield it to him. Castruccio's character is also well described: his devoted attachment to Euthanasia from which nothing could turn him, till the pa.s.sions of the conqueror and party faction are still stronger; and the irresistible force which impels him to make war and subdue the Guelphs, which by her is regarded as murder and rapine, disunites beings seemingly formed for each other. All these different emotions are portrayed with great beauty and simplicity.

The Italian superst.i.tions are well shown, as how the Florentines ascribed all good and evil fortune to conjunction of stars. The power of the Inquisition in Rome comes likewise into play, when the beautiful prophetess Beatrice (the child of the prophetess Wilhelmina) who had to be given to the Leper for protection, as even his filthy and deserted hut was safer for her than that it should be known to the Inquisition that she existed. She is rescued from the Leper by a bishop who heard her story from the deathbed of the woman to whom her mother when dying had confided her. She was then brought up by the bishop's sister. Her mother's spirit of prophecy was inherited by the daughter; and as the mother believed herself to be an emanation of the Holy Spirit, so Beatrice thought herself the Ancilla Dei. These mystical fancies and their working are depicted with much beauty and strength.

These Donne Estatiche first appear in Italy after the 12th century, and had continued to the time which Mary Sh.e.l.ley selected for her romance. After giving an account of their pretensions, Muratori gravely observes: "We may piously believe that some were distinguished by supernatural gifts and admitted to the secrets of heaven, but we may justly suspect that the source of many of their revelations was their ardent imagination filled with ideas of religion and piety."

Beatrice, on prophesying the Ghibelline rule in Ferrara, is seized by the emissaries of the Pope, and has to undergo the ordeal of the white hot ploughshares, through which she pa.s.ses unscathed, there having apparently been connivance to help her through. Her exultation and enthusiasm become intense, and it is only after a great shock that she grows conscious of the falseness of her position; for, having met Castruccio on his mission to Ferrara, she is irresistibly attracted by him, and, mixing up her infatuation with her mystical ideas, does not hesitate to make secret appointments with him, never doubting that her love is returned, and that they are one at heart. When at length Castruccio has to return to Lucca, and to his betrothed, Euthanasia, the shock to the poor mystical Beatrice is terrible. Finally she is met as a pilgrim wending her weary way to Rome. a.s.suredly, Sh.e.l.ley was justified in admiring this character. There is a straightforwardness in the plot into which the stormy history of the period is clearly introduced, which gives much interest to this romance, and it is a decided advance upon _Frankenstein_, though her age when that was written must not be forgotten. A book of this kind shows forcibly the troubles to which a lovely country like Italy is exposed through disunion, and must fill the hearts of all lovers of this beautiful land with grat.i.tude to the n.o.ble men who willingly sacrificed themselves to help in the cause of united Italy; those whose songs roused the people, and carried hope into the hearts of even the prisoners in the pozzi of Venice; for the man of idea who can rouse the nation by his songs does not help less than the brave soldier who can aid with his arms, though alas! he does not always live to see the triumph he has helped to achieve. [Footnote: Gabriele Rossetti, whom Mary Sh.e.l.ley knew, and to whom she referred for information while writing her lives of Italian poets, has been said to have been the first who in modern times had the idea of a united Italy under a const.i.tutional monarch, for which idea and for his rousing songs he was forced to leave Italy by Ferdinand I. of Naples in 1821, and remained an exile in England till his death in 1854, at the age of 71.

How Mary Sh.e.l.ley, with her husband, must have sympathised in these ideas with their love of Italy can be understood, although it was the climate and beauty of Italy more than the people that charmed Sh.e.l.ley; but then was he not also an exile from his native land?]

This work, when completed, was sent to her father by Mary, for it had been a labour of love, and the sum of four hundred pounds which G.o.dwin obtained for it was devoted to help him in his difficulties.

Unhappily, the romance was not published till the year after her husband's death.

CHAPTER XII.

LAST MONTHS WITH Sh.e.l.lEY.

IN July 1821, Sh.e.l.ley left his wife at the baths while he went to seek a house at Florence for the winter; but he returned in three days unsuccessful. He then received a letter from Byron begging him to go straight to Ravenna, various matters having to be talked over. Sh.e.l.ley left at two in the afternoon, on his birthday, August 4th. Here he had to go through the Paolo-Hoppner scandal, which we have referred to.

Sh.e.l.ley had to write letters to Mary on the subject, and Mary wrote the most indignant and decisive denial of the imputation, on her husband and Claire. She writes: "I swear by the life of my child, by my blessed beloved child, that I know the accusations to be false." If more were needed, the clear exposition by Mr. Jeaffreson and later Professor Dowden, leave nothing to be said. Sh.e.l.ley wrote to Mary describing his visit to Allegra at the convent, where he found her prettily dressed in white muslin with an ap.r.o.n of black silk. She was a most graceful, airy child; she took Sh.e.l.ley all over the convent, and began ringing the nun's call-bell, without being reprimanded--although the prioress had considerable trouble to prevent the nuns a.s.sembling dressed or undressed--which struck Sh.e.l.ley as showing that she was kindly treated. Before leaving Ravenna, about August 17th, he wrote to thank his wife for her promise of her miniature, done by Williams, which he received a few days later from her at the Baths of Pisa. Mary and Sh.e.l.ley both were of those who, wherever they found a friend, found also a pensioner, or person to be benefited by them; as they did not seek their friends for personal advantage, and were among those who hold it more blessed to give than to receive. In January 1821, Mrs. Leigh Hunt wrote to Mary Sh.e.l.ley, begging her to help her husband and family to come to Italy--he was ill and depressed, and surrounded by all his children sick and suffering. While Sh.e.l.ley was at Ravenna he brought up this subject with Byron, who proposed that he, Sh.e.l.ley, and Leigh Hunt should start a periodical for their joint works, and share the profits. Sh.e.l.ley did not agree to this for himself, as he was not popular, and could only gain advantage from the others; but for Hunt it was different, and Sh.e.l.ley joyfully wrote to him from Pisa, on his return from Ravenna, to join them as soon as possible. Delays occurred in Hunt's departure, and Byron received letters from England warning him against joining with Sh.e.l.ley and Hunt. Byron arrived in Pisa with the Countess Guiccioli and her brother Pietro Gamba, on November the 1st, at the Lanfranchi Palace, and the Sh.e.l.leys had apartments at the top of I Tre Palazzi di Chiesa, opposite. Claire, who had been staying with them, and accompanied them on a trip to Spezzia, had now returned to Professor Bojti's at Florence.

Mary had the task of furnishing the ground floor of Byron's Lanfranchi Palace for the Hunts, although Byron insisted on paying for it. Hunt, meanwhile, was unable to proceed beyond Plymouth that winter, where they were obliged to stay by stress of weather and Mrs. Hunt's illness. Thus some months pa.s.sed by, during which time Byron lost the first ardour of the enterprise, and became very lukewarm. It must have been when Mary had good reason to foresee this result that she wrote to Hunt thus:--

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I know that S. has some idea of persuading you to come here. I am too ill to write the reasonings, only let me entreat you let no persuasions induce you to come; selfish feelings you may be sure do not dictate me, but it would be complete madness to come. I wish I could write more. I wish I were with you to a.s.sist you. I wish I could break my chains and leave this dungeon. Adieu, I shall hear about yon and Marianne's health from S.

Ever your M.

Sh.e.l.ley was forced to apply to Byron to help him with money to lend Hunt, and Byron had ceased to care about the _Liberal_, the projected magazine.

While staying near Byron the Sh.e.l.leys came in for a large influx of visitors, often much to Sh.e.l.ley's annoyance, and Mary wrote of their wish, if Greece were liberated, of settling in one of the lovely islands.

The middle of January brought one visitor to the Sh.e.l.leys, who, introduced by the Williams, became more than a pa.s.sing figure in Mary's life. In Edward John Trelawny she found a staunch friend ever after. Trelawny, who had led a wild life from the time he left the navy in mere boyhood, was a conspicuous character wherever known. With small reverence for the orthodox creeds, he must have had some of the traits of the ancient Vikings, before meeting Sh.e.l.ley; but from that time he became his devoted admirer, or, as one has observed who knew him, as Ahab at Elijah's feet, so Trelawny at Sh.e.l.ley's was ready to humble himself for the first time; nor did he afterwards, to the end of a long life, ever speak of him without veneration. Sh.e.l.ley's exalted ideas touched a chord in the strong man's heart, and within a few weeks of his death he rejoiced in hearing of a crowded a.s.sembly in Glasgow, enthusiastic in hearing a lecture on Sh.e.l.ley, and a.s.serted it is the "spirit of poetry which needs spreading now; science is popular to the exclusion of poetry as a regenerator."

The day after their first meeting with Trelawny, Mary notes in her diary how Trelawny discussed with Williams and Sh.e.l.ley about building a boat which they desired to have, and which Captain Roberts was to build at Genoa without delay. A year later Mary added a note to this entry, to the effect how she and Jane Williams then laughed at the way their husbands decided without consulting them, though they agreed in hating the boat. She adds: "How well I remember that night! How short-sighted we are! And now that its anniversary is come and gone, methinks I cannot be the wretch I too truly am." This winter, at Pisa, Mary, with popular and strong men to protect her, was not neglected so much as. .h.i.therto. She went to Mrs. Beauclerc's ball with Trelawny; but she refers to a strange feeling of depression in the midst of a gay a.s.sembly.

On February 8 Sh.e.l.ley started, with Williams, to seek for houses in the neighbourhood of Spezzia; the idea being that the Sh.e.l.leys, the Williamses, Trelawny and Captain Roberts, Byron, Countess Guiccioli and her brother, should all spend the summer there, although Mary feared the party would be too large for unity. Only one suitable house could be found; but Sh.e.l.ley was not to be stopped by such a trifle, and the house must do for all.

In the early spring of this year, Mary wrote to Mrs. Hunt how she and Mrs. Williams went violet-hunting, while the men went on longer expeditions. The Sh.e.l.leys and their surroundings must have kept the English a.s.sembled in Pisa in a pleasing state of excitement. At one time Mary caused a commotion by attending Dr. Nott's Sunday service, which was held on the ground floor of her house. On one occasion he preached against Atheism, and, having specially asked Mary to attend, it was taken as a marked attack on Sh.e.l.ley, and it was considered that Mary had taken part against her husband.

Mary wrote a pathetic letter to Mrs. Gisborne that she had only been three times to church, and now longed to be in some sea-girt isle with Sh.e.l.ley and her baby, but that Sh.e.l.ley was entangled with Byron and could not get away. She was longing for the time by the sea when she would have boats and horses.

While Mary was yearning for sympathy with her kind, or solitude with Sh.e.l.ley, he for a time was wasting regrets that she did not sympathise with or feel his poetry. It was the old story of the Skylark. While he was seeking inspiration at some fresh source, Mary did not become equally enthusiastic about the new idea. But most probably, in spite of Trelawny's later notion and her own self-reproaches of not having done all possible things to sympathise with Sh.e.l.ley, Mary's behaviour was really the best calculated for his comfort. A man who did not like regular meals and conventional habits in this respect, would not have liked his wife to worry him constantly on the subject, and the plate of cold meat and bread placed on a shelf, as his table was probably covered with papers--which Trelawny found there forgotten, towards the end of a "lost day" as Sh.e.l.ley called it--was not inappropriate for one who forgot his meals and did not like being teased. Mary was not of the nature to make, nor Sh.e.l.ley of the nature to require, a docile slave; and during the time at Naples, for which Mary felt most regret, Sh.e.l.ley wrote of her as "a dear friend with whom added years old intercourse adds to my appreciation of its value, and who would have more right than anyone to complain that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness."

During this time the English visitors believed and manufactured all kinds of stories about the eccentric English then at Pisa. Trelawny had been murdered--Byron wounded--and Taaffe was guarded by bulldogs in Byron's house! These rumours were laughed over by the people concerned.

On one occasion Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, with the Countess Guiccioli, witnessed from their carriage the affair with the dragoon Masi, when he jostled against Taaffe. Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, and Gamba pursued him; Sh.e.l.ley, coming up with him first, was knocked down, but was rescued by Captain Hay.

The dragoon was finally wounded by one of Byron's servants, under the idea that he had wounded Byron.

During this exciting time at Pisa, Claire was eating her heart at Florence with longings and regrets for Allegra; and Mary and Sh.e.l.ley were trying to calm her by letters, and growing themselves more and more dissatisfied at Byron's treatment of the mother. There are entries in Claire's diary as to her cough, and the last entry before the day she left Florence for Pisa--April l3--is erased. Then there is one of her ominous blanks from April till September.

While Claire travelled with Williams and his wife to Spezzia to look for a house, news came from Bagnacavallo which verified her worst fears. Typhus fever had ravaged the convent and district, and the fragile blossom had succ.u.mbed. Sh.e.l.ley and Mary determined to keep this "evil news," as Mary calls it, from Claire till she is away from the neighbourhood of Byron. So, on her return from the unsuccessful visit to Spezzia, they have to conceal their sorrow and their feelings. Sh.e.l.ley, ever anxious for Claire's distress, persuaded her to accompany Mary to Spezzia, saying they must take any house they could get. Claire had thought of returning to Florence, but was overruled by Sh.e.l.ley, who, as Mary wrote to Mrs. Gisborne, carried all like a torrent before him and sent Mary and Claire with Trelawny to Spezzia. Sh.e.l.ley followed with their furniture in boats; and so, on April 26, they were hurried by Sh.e.l.ley, or fate, from misfortune to misfortune, in taking Claire to a haven where she might be helped to bear her sore trouble. Mary, with her companions, secured the only available house--Casa Magui, at San Terenzio, near Lerici--in which it was settled that they and the Williamses must find room and bring their furniture. Difficulties of all kinds had to be overcome from the dogana. The furniture arrived in boats, and they were told the dues upon it would amount to three hundred pounds, but the harbour-master kindly allowed it to be removed to the villa as to a depot till further orders arrived. Then there were the difficulties of Mrs.

Williams, of whom Sh.e.l.ley wrote that she was pining for her saucepans.

Claire felt the necessity of returning to Florence, the s.p.a.ce being so small. This, however, was not to be thought of. Claire still had to have the news of her child's death broken to her, and Mrs. Williams's room had to be used for secret consultations. Claire, entering the room and seeing the agitated silence on her approach, at once realised the state of the case. She felt her Allegra was dead, and it only devolved on Sh.e.l.ley to tell the sad tale of a fever-ravaged district, and a fever-tossed child dying among the kind nuns, who are ever good nurses. Claire's grief was intense; but all that she now wanted was a sight of her child's coffin, a likeness of her, and a lock of her golden hair (a portion of which last is now in the writer's possession). The latter Sh.e.l.ley helped to obtain for her; but Claire never after forgave him who had consigned her child to the convent in the Romagna, nor allowed her another sight of her little one.

On May 21 Claire left for Florence, and Mary remained with her husband and the Williamses at Casa Magni. These rapidly succeeding troubles, together with Mary's being again in a delicate state of health, left the circle in an unhinged and nervous state of apprehension. Sh.e.l.ley saw visions of Allegra rising from the sea, clapping her hands and smiling at him. Mrs. Williams saw Sh.e.l.ley on the balcony, and then he was nowhere near, nor had he been there. Sh.e.l.ley ranged from wild delight with the beauty around him, to such fits of despondency as when he most culpably proposed to Mrs. Williams, while in a boat with him and her babies, in the bay--"Now let us together solve the great mystery." But she managed to get him to turn sh.o.r.ewards, and escaped at the first opportunity from the boat.

Mary was not without her prophetic periods--a deep melancholy settled on her amid the lovely scenery. Generally at home with mountain and water, she now only felt oppressed by their proximity. Sh.e.l.ley was at work on the _Triumph of Life_, one of his grandest poems; but Mary was always apprehensive except when with her husband, least so when lying in a boat with her head on his knees. If Sh.e.l.ley were absent, she feared for Percy, her son, so that, in spite of the oasis of peace and rest and beauty around them, she was weak and nervous; and Sh.e.l.ley, for fear of hurting her, had to conceal such matters as might trouble her, especially the again critical state of the affairs of her father, who was in want of four hundred pounds to compound with his creditors. These alarms for Mary's health and tranquillity of mind, and the consequent necessity of keeping any trying subject from her, may have induced Sh.e.l.ley in writing to Claire to adopt a confidential tone not otherwise advisable.

While at Casa Magni, the fatal boat which had been discussed on the first evening Trelawny spent with the Sh.e.l.leys, arrived. The "perfect plaything for the summer" had been built against the advice of Trelawny, by a Genoese ship-builder, after a model obtained by Lieutenant Williams from one of the royal dockyards in England.

Originally it was intended to call it the _Don Juan_, but recent circ.u.mstances had caused a break in the intimacy of Sh.e.l.ley with Byron, and Sh.e.l.ley felt that this would be eternal. He, therefore, no longer wished any name to remind him of Byron, and gave the name _Ariel_, proposed by Trelawny, to the small craft. With considerable difficulty the name _Don Juan_ was taken from the sail, where Byron had manoeuvred to have it painted.

Towards the end of May, Mary was seriously suffering; the difficulties of housekeeping for the Williamses as well as themselves were no trifle. Provisions had to be fetched from a distance of over three miles. Sh.e.l.ley writes to Claire, hoping she will be able to find them a man-cook. As Mary was somewhat better when Sh.e.l.ley wrote, he feared he should have to speak to her about G.o.dwin's affairs, but put off the evil day.

On June 6 we find Sh.e.l.ley setting out with Williams in the _Ariel_ to meet Claire on her way from Florence to Casa Magni. A calm having delayed them till the evening, they were too late to meet Claire, who travelled on by land for Via Reggio. Sh.e.l.ley and Williams, returning by sea, arrived home a short time before her. Their return and her arrival were none too soon; for, on the 8th or 9th, Mary fell dangerously ill, as she wrote in August to Mrs. Gisborne: "I was so ill that for seven hours I lay nearly lifeless--kept from fainting by brandy, vinegar, eau-de-cologne, &c. At length ice was brought to our solitude; it came before the doctor, so Claire and Jane were afraid of using it; but Sh.e.l.ley over-ruled them, and, by an unsparing application of it, I was restored. They all thought, and so did I at one time, that I was about to die."

Sh.e.l.ley, equal to the occasion, felt the strain on his nerves afterwards, and a week after his wife was out of danger he alarmed her greatly, as she relates: "While yet unable to walk, I was confined to my bed. In the middle of the night I was awoke by hearing him scream, and come rushing into my room; I was sure that he was asleep, and tried to waken him by calling on him; but he continued to scream, which inspired me with such a panic that I jumped out of bed and ran across the hall to Mrs. Williams's room, where I fell through weakness, though I was so frightened that I got up again immediately.

She let me in, and Williams went to Sh.e.l.ley who had been wakened by my getting out of bed. He said that he had not been asleep, and that it was a vision that he saw that had frightened him. But as he declared that he had not screamed, it was certainly a dream, and no waking vision." And so the lovely summer months pa.s.sed by with all these varying emotions, with thoughts soaring to the highest pinnacles of imagination as in the _Triumph of Life_, and with the enjoyment of the high ideals of others, as in reading the Spanish dramas: music also gave enchantment when Jane Williams played her guitar. With the intense beauty of the scenery, and the wildness of the natives who used sometimes to dance all night on the sands in front of their house; the emotions of life seemed compressed into this time, spent in what would be considered by many great dulness, in the company of Trelawny and the Williamses. And now an event, long hoped for, arrived, for the Hunts were in the harbour of Genoa, and Sh.e.l.ley was to meet them at Leghorn, as Hunt's letter, which reached them on June 19, had been delayed too long to allow of Sh.e.l.ley joining them at Genoa. On July I intelligence came of the Hunts' departure from Genoa; and at noon a breeze rising from the west decided the desirability of at once starting for Leghorn. Sh.e.l.ley, with Captain Roberts who had joined him at Lerici, arrived by nine in the evening, after the officers of health had left their office. The voyagers were thus unable to land that evening, but spent the time alongside of Byron's yacht, the _Bolivar_, from which they received coverings for the night.

The next morning news arrived from Byron's villa, which already began to verify Mary's forebodings in her letter to Hunt, and proved the clear-sightedness of her forecast. Disturbances having taken place at his house at Monte Nero, Count Gamba and his family were banished by the Government from Tuscany, and there were rumours that Byron might be leaving immediately for America or Switzerland. This was indeed trying news for Sh.e.l.ley to have to break to the Hunts on their first meeting in the hotel at Leghorn, where, after four years, the two friends again met. The encounter was most touching, as remembered years later by Thornton Hunt. Sh.e.l.ley had plenty of work on hand for a few days; he procured Vacca, the physician, for Mrs. Hunt; and had to sustain his friend during his anxiety as to his wife's health and the uncertainty as to Byron's conduct. Sh.e.l.ley would not think of leaving him till he had seen him comfortably installed in the Lanfranchi Palace, in the rooms which Mary had prepared for him at Byron's request. The still more difficult task of fixing Byron to some promise of a.s.sistance with regard to the _Liberal_ was likewise carried out; and after one or two days of dejection, during which Sh.e.l.ley wrote to Mrs. Williams on July 4 to relieve his own despondency, and to his wife to relieve hers, as her depression of spirits required more cheering than adding to, he wrote:--"How are you, my best Mary?

Write especially how is your health and how your spirits are, and whether you are not more reconciled to staying at Lerici, at least during the summer. You have no idea how I am hurried and occupied. I have not a moment's leisure, but will write by the next post."