Write to me as soon as you can on this subject, because it is necessary

that I should present it, or, if rejected by the theatre, print it this

coming season; lest somebody else should get hold of it, as the story,

which now exists only in manuscript, begins to be generally known

among the English. The translation which I send you, is to be prefixed

to the play, together with a print of Beatrice. I have a copy of her

picture by Guido, now in the Colonna palace at Rome--the most beautiful

creature you can conceive.

Of course, you will not show the manuscript to any one--and write to me

by return of post, at which time the play will be ready to be sent.

* * * * *

I expect soon to write again, and it shall be a less selfish letter. As

to Ollier, I don’t know what has been published, or what has arrived at

his hands.--My “Prometheus,” though ready, I do not send till I know

more.

Ever yours, most faithfully,

P. B. S.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] We had lost our eldest, and, at that time, only child, the

preceding month at Rome.--[_Note by Mrs. Shelley._]

[24] This refers of course (as the sequel shows still more fully) to

_The Cenci_.--Ed.

[25] Coleridge’s tragedy of _Remorse_, performed at Drury Lane in

1813.--Ed.

TO LEIGH HUNT.[26]

_Livorno, Sept. 27th, 1819._

My dear Friend,

We are now on the point of leaving this place for Florence, where we

have taken pleasant apartments for six months, which brings us to the

first of April, the season at which new flowers and new thoughts spring

forth upon the earth and in the mind. What is then our destination

is yet undecided. I have not yet seen Florence, except as one sees

the outside of the streets; but its _physiognomy_ indicates it to be

a city, which, though the ghost of a republic, yet possesses most

amiable qualities. I wish you could meet us there in the spring, and

we would try to muster up a “lièta brigata,” which, leaving behind

them the pestilence of remembered misfortunes, might act over again

the pleasures of the Interlocutors in Boccaccio. I have been lately

reading this most divine writer. He is, in a high sense of the word,

a poet, and his language has the rhythm and harmony of verse. I think

him not equal certainly to Dante or Petrarch, but far superior to Tasso

and Ariosto, the children of a later and of a colder day. I consider

the three first as the productions of the vigour of the infancy of a

new nation--as rivulets from the same spring as that which fed the

greatness of the republics of Florence and Pisa, and which checked the

influence of the German emperors; and from which, through obscurer

channels, Raffaelle and Michael Angelo drew the light and the harmony

of their inspiration. When the second-rate poets of Italy wrote, the

corrupting blight of tyranny was already hanging on every bud of

genius. Energy, and simplicity, and unity of idea, were no more. In

vain do we seek, in the finest passages of Ariosto and Tasso, any

expression which at all approaches in this respect to those of Dante

and Petrarch. How much do I admire Boccaccio! What descriptions of

nature are those in his little introductions to every new day! It is

the morning of life stripped of that mist of familiarity which makes

it obscure to us. Boccaccio seems to me to have possessed a deep sense

of the fair ideal of human life, considered in its social relations.

His more serious theories of love agree especially with mine. He often

expresses things lightly too, which have serious meanings of a very

beautiful kind. He is a moral casuist, the opposite of the Christian,

stoical, ready-made, and worldly system of morals. Do you remember one

little remark, or rather maxim of his, which might do some good to the

common narrow-minded conceptions of love,--“Bocca bacciata non perde

ventura; anzi rinnuova, come fa la luna”?

We expect Mary to be confined towards the end of October. The birth

of a child will probably retrieve her from some part of her present

melancholy depression.

It would give me much pleasure to know Mr. Lloyd. Do you know, when I

was in Cumberland, I got Southey to borrow a copy of Berkeley from him,

and I remember observing some pencil notes in it, probably written by

Lloyd, which I thought particularly acute. One, especially, struck me

as being the assertion of a doctrine, of which even then I had long

been persuaded, and on which I had founded much of my persuasions, as

regarded the imagined cause of the universe--“Mind cannot create, it

can only perceive.” Ask him if he remembers having written it. Of Lamb

you know my opinion, and you can bear witness to the regret which I

felt, when I learned that the calumny of an enemy had deprived me of

his society whilst in England.--Ollier told me that the Quarterly are

going to review me. I suppose it will be a pretty ----,[27]

and as I am acquiring a taste for humour and drollery, I confess I am

curious to see it. I have sent my “Prometheus Unbound” to P.; if you

ask him for it he will show it you. I think it will please you.

Whilst I went to Florence, Mary wrote, but I did not see her

letter.--Well, good b’ye. Next Monday I shall write to you from

Florence. Love to all.

Most affectionately your friend, P. B. S.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Only a mutilated fragment of this letter was published by Leigh

Hunt: it is accordingly given here as printed for the first time in its

entirety by Mrs. Shelley.--Ed.

[27] The word here left blank was either illegible in the manuscript;

or, what is more probable, Mrs. Shelley, for whatever reason,

designedly withheld it.--Ed.

TO MRS. GISBORNE.

_Florence_, [_October 13th or 14th, 1819_.]

My dear Friend,

The regret we feel at our absence from you persuades me that it is a

state which cannot last, and which, so long as it must last, will be

interrupted by some intervals, one of which is destined to be, your

all coming to visit us here. Poor Oscar! I feel a kind of remorse to

think of the unequal love with which two animated beings regard each

other, when I experience no such sensations for him, as those which he

manifested for us. His importunate regret is, however, a type of ours,

as regards you. Our memory--if you will accept so humble a metaphor--is

for ever scratching at the door of your absence.

About Henry and the steam-engine[28] I am in torture until this

money comes from London, though I am sure that it will and must come;

unless, indeed, my banker has broke, and then it will be my loss,

not Henry’s--a little delay will mend the matter. I would then write

instantly to London an effectual letter, and by return of post all

would be set right--it would then be a thing easily set straight--but

if it were not, you know me too well not to know that there is no

personal suffering or degradation, or toil, or anything that can be

named, with which I do not feel myself bound to support this enterprise

of Henry. But all this rhodomontade only shows how correct Mr. Bielby’s

advice was about the discipline necessary for my imagination. No doubt

that all will go on with mercantile and common-place exactness, and

that you will be spared the suffering, and I the virtue, incident to

some untoward event.

I am anxious to hear of Mr. Gisborne’s return, and I anticipate the

surprise and pleasure with which he will learn that a resolution has

been taken which leaves you nothing to regret in that event. It is

with unspeakable satisfaction that I reflect that my entreaties and

persuasions overcame your scruples on this point, and that whatever

advantage shall accrue from it will belong to you, whilst any reproach

due to the imprudence of such an enterprise, must rest on me. I shall

thus share the pleasure of success, and bear the blame and loss, (if

such a thing were possible,) of a reverse; and what more can a man, who

is a friend to another, desire for himself? Let us believe in a kind of

optimism, in which we are our own gods. It is best that Mr. Gisborne

should have returned; it is best that I should have over-persuaded

you and Henry; it is best that you should all live together, without

any more solitary attempts; it is best that this one attempt should

have been made, otherwise, perhaps, one thing which is best might

not have occurred; and it is best that we should think all this for

the best, even though it is not; because Hope, as Coleridge says, is

a solemn duty, which we owe alike to ourselves and to the world--a

worship to the spirit of good within, which requires, before it sends

that inspiration forth, which impresses its likeness upon all that it

creates, devoted and disinterested homage.

A different scene is this from that in which you made the chief

character of our changing drama. We see no one, as usual. Madame M----

is quiet, and we only meet her now and then, by chance. Her daughter,

not so fair, but I fear as cold, as the snowy Florimel in Spenser, is

in and out of love with C---- as the winds happen to blow; and C----,

who, at the moment I happen to write, is in a high state of transitory

contentment, is setting off to Vienna in a day or two.

My £100, from what mistake remains to be explained, has not yet

arrived, and the banker here is going to advance me £50, on my bill at

three months--all additional facilitation, should any such be needed,

for the steam-boat. I have yet seen little of Florence. The gallery I

have a design of studying piece-meal; one of my chief objects in Italy

being the observing in statuary and painting, the degree in which, and

the rules according to which, that ideal beauty, of which we have so

intense yet so obscure an apprehension, is realised in external forms.

Adieu--I am anxious for Henry’s first letter. Give to him, and take to

yourself those sentiments, whatever they may be, with which you know

that I cannot cease to regard you.

Most faithfully and affectionately yours, P. B. S.

I had forgotten to say that I should be very much obliged to you, if

you would contrive to send the Cencis, which are at the printer’s, to

England, by the next ship. I forgot it in the hurry of departure.--I

have just heard from Peacock, saying, that he don’t think that my

tragedy will do, and that he don’t much like it. But I ought to say, to

blunt the edge of his criticism, that he is a nursling of the exact and

superficial school in poetry.

If Mr. G. is returned, send the “Prometheus” with them.

[28] Shelley set on foot the building of a steam-boat, to ply between

Marseilles, Genoa, and Leghorn. Such an enterprise promised fortune

to his friend who undertook to build it, and the anticipation filled

him with delight. An unforeseen complication of circumstances caused

the design to be abandoned, when already far advanced towards

completion.--[_Note by Mrs. Shelley._]

An extract from a letter of Mrs. Gisborne to Mrs. Shelley is perhaps

necessary to explain further some portion of Shelley’s letter:--

“Now, I will tell you the news of the steam-boat. The contract was

drawn and signed the day after your departure; the vessel to be

complete, and launched, fit in every respect for the sea, excepting

the finishing of the cabin, for 260 sequins. We have every reason

to believe that the work will be well executed, and that it is an

excellent bargain. Henry and Frankfort go on not only with vigour, but

with fury; the lower part of the house is filled with models prepared

for casting, forging, &c. We have procured the wood for the frame from

the shipbuilder on credit, so that Frankfort can go on with his work;

but I am sorry to say, that from this time the general progress of

the work will be retarded for want of cash. The boilers might now be

going on contemporaneously with the casting, but I know that at present

there is no remedy for this evil. Every person concerned is making

exertions, and is in a state of anxiety to see the quick result of this

undertaking. I have advanced about 140 crowns, but prudence prohibits

me from going any farther.

“Henry will write to Mr. Shelley when the works are in a greater state

of forwardness: in the mean time, he sends his best love to his good

friends, patron and patroness.”

TO HENRY REVELEY.

_Florence, Oct. 28, 1819._

My dear Henry,

So it seems _I_ am to begin the correspondence, though I have more to

ask than to tell.

You know our bargain; you are to write me _uncorrected_ letters,

just as the words come, so let me have them--I like coin from the

mint--though it may be a little rough at the edges;--clipping is penal

according to our statute.

In the first place listen to a reproach; you ought to have sent me an

acknowledgment of my last billet. I am very happy to hear from Mr.

Gisborne, and he knows well enough how to interest me himself, not to

need to rob me of an occasion of hearing from you. Let you and I try if

we cannot be as punctual and business-like as the best of them. But no

clipping and coining, if you please.

Now take this that I say in a light just so serious as not to give

you pain. In fact, my dear fellow, my motive in soliciting your

correspondence, and that flowing from your own mind, and clothed in

your own words, is, that you may begin to accustom to discipline

yourself in the only practice of life in which you appear deficient.

You know that you are writing to a person persuaded of all the

confidence and respect due to your powers in those branches of science

to which you have addicted yourself; and you will not permit a false

shame with regard to the mere mechanical arrangement of words to

over-balance the advantage arising from the free communication of

ideas. Thus you will become day by day more skilful in the management

of that instrument of their communication, on which the attainment of a

person’s just rank in society depends. Do not think me arrogant. There

are subjects of the highest importance in which you are far better

qualified to instruct me, than I am qualified to instruct you on this

subject.

Well, how goes on all? The boilers, the keel of the boat, and the

cylinder, and all the other elements of that soul which is to guide

our “monstruo de fuego y agua” over the sea? Let me hear news of their

birth, and how they thrive after they are born. And is the money

arrived at Mr. Webb’s? Send me an account of the number of crowns you

realise; as I think we had better, since it is a transaction in this

country, keep our accounts in money of this country.

We have rains enough to set the mills going, which are essential to

your great iron bar. I suppose it is at present either made or making.

My health is better so long as the scirocco blows, and, but for my

daily expectation of Mary’s confinement, I should have been half

tempted to have come to see you. As it is, I shall wait till the boat

is finished. On the subject of your actual and your expected progress,

you will certainly allow me to hear from you.

Give my kindest regards to your mother and Mr. Gisborne--tell the

latter, whose billet I have neglected to answer, that I did so, under

the idea of addressing him in a post or two on a subject which gives

me considerable anxiety about you all. I mean the continuance of your

property in the British funds at this crisis of approaching revolution.

It is the business of a friend to say what he thinks without fear of

giving offence; and, if I were not a friend, argument is worth its

market-price anywhere.

Believe me, my dear Henry,

Your very faithful friend,

P. B. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

_Florence, Oct. 28, 1819._

My dear Friends,

I receive this morning the strange and unexpected news, that my bill of

£200 has been returned to Mr. Webb protested. Ultimately this can be

nothing but delay, as I have only drawn from my banker’s hands so much

as to leave them still in possession of £80, and this I positively

know, and can prove by documents. By return of post, for I have not

only written to my banker, but to private friends, no doubt Henry will

be enabled to proceed. Let him meanwhile do all that can be done.

Meanwhile, to save time, could not money be obtained temporarily, at

Livorno, from Mr. W----, or Mr. G----, or any of your acquaintance, on

my bills at three or six months, indorsed by Mr. Gisborne and Henry, so

that he may go on with his work? If a month is of consequence, think of

this.

Be of good cheer, Madonna mia, all will go well. The inclosed is for

Henry, and was written before this news, as he will see; but it does

not, strange as it is, abate one atom of my cheer.

Accept, dear Mr. G., my best regards.

Yours faithfully,

P. B. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

_Florence, Nov. 6, 1819._

My dear Friends,

I have just finished a letter of five sheets on Carlile’s affair,[29]

and am in hourly expectation of Mary’s confinement, you will imagine an

excuse for my silence.

I forbear to address you, as I had designed, on the subject of your

income as a public creditor of the English government, as it seems

you have not the exclusive management of your funds; and the peculiar

circumstances of the delusion are such that none but a very few persons

will ever be brought to see its instability but by the experience of

loss. If I were to convince you, Henry would probably be unable to

convince his uncle. In vindication, however, of what I have already

said, allow me to turn your attention to England at this _hour_.

In order to meet the national expenses, or rather that some approach

towards meeting them might seem to be made, a tax of £3,000,000 was

imposed. The first consequence of this has been a _defalcation_ in

the revenue at the rate of £3,600,000 a-year. Were the country in the

most tranquil and prosperous state, the minister, in such a condition

of affairs, must reduce the interest of the national debt, or add to

it; a process which would only insure the greater ultimate reduction

of the interest. But the people are nearly in a state of insurrection,

and the least unpopular noblemen perceive the necessity of conducting

a spirit, which it is no longer possible to oppose. For submitting to

this necessity--which, be assured, the haughty aristocrats unwillingly

did--Lord Fitzwilliam has been degraded from his situation of Lord

Lieutenant. An additional army of 11,500 men has received orders to be

organised. Everything is preparing for a bloody struggle, in which, if

the ministers succeed, they will assuredly diminish the interest of the

national debt, for no combination of the heaviest tyranny can raise the

taxes for its payment. If the people conquer, the public creditor will

equally suffer; for it is monstrous to imagine that they will submit to

the perpetual inheritance of a double aristocracy. They will perhaps

find some crown and church lands, and appropriate the tithes to make a

kind of compensation to the public creditor. They will confiscate the

estates of their political enemies. But all this will not pay a tenth

part of their debt. The existing government, atrocious as it is, is

the surest party to which a public creditor may attach himself. He may

reason that _it may last my time_, though in the event the ruin is more

complete than in the case of a popular revolution. I know you too well

to believe you capable of arguing in this manner; I only reason on how

things stand.

Your income may be reduced from £210 to £150, and then £100, and then

by the issue of immense quantities of paper to save the immediate cause

of one of the conflicting parties, to any value however small; or the

source of it may be cut off at once. The ministers had, I doubt not,

long since determined to establish an arbitrary government; and if

they had not determined so, they have now entangled themselves in that

consequence of their instinct as rulers, and if they recede they must

perish. They are, however, not receding, and we are on the eve of great

actions.

Kindest regards to Henry. I hope he is not stopped for want of money,

as I shall assuredly send him what he wants in a month from the date of

my last letter. I received his letter from Pistoia, and have no other

criticism to make on it, except the severest--that it is too short. How

goes on Portuguese--and Theocritus? I have deserted the odorous gardens

of literature, to journey across the great sandy desert of politics;

not, as you may imagine, without the hope of finding some enchanted

paradise. In all probability, I shall be overwhelmed by one of the

tempestuous columns which are forever traversing, with the speed of

a storm, and the confusion of a chaos, that pathless wilderness. You

meanwhile will be lamenting in some happy oasis that I do not return.

This is out-Calderonizing Muley. We have had lightning and rain here

in plenty. I like the Cascini very much, where I often walk alone,

watching the leaves, and the rising and falling of the Arno. I am full

of all kinds of literary plans.

Meanwhile, all yours most faithfully,

P. B. S.

[29] A letter (to Leigh Hunt) on the Trial of Richard Carlile for

publishing Paine’s _Age of Reason_, intended for insertion in the

_Examiner_.--Ed.

TO MRS. GISBORNE.

_Florence, Nov. 16, 1819._

Madonna,

I have been lately voyaging in a sea without my pilot, and although

my sail has often been torn, my boat become leaky, and the log lost,

I have yet sailed in a kind of way from island to island; some of

craggy and mountainous magnificence, some clothed with moss and

flowers, and radiant with fountains, some barren deserts. _I have been

reading Calderon without you._ I have read the “Cisma de Ingalaterra,”

the “Cabellos de Absolom,” and three or four others. These pieces,

inferior to those we read, at least to the “Principe Constante,”

in the splendour of particular passages, are perhaps superior in

their satisfying completeness. The “Cabellos de Absolom” is full of

the deepest and tenderest touches of nature. Nothing can be more

pathetically conceived than the character of old David, and the tender

and impartial love, overcoming all insults and all crimes, with which

he regards his conflicting and disobedient sons. The incest scene of

Amon and Tamar is perfectly tremendous. Well may Calderon say in the

person of the former--

Si sangre sin fuego hiere,

que fara sangre con fuego?

Incest is, like many other incorrect things, a very poetical

circumstance. It may be the excess of love or hate. It may be the

defiance of everything for the sake of another, which clothes itself in

the glory of the highest heroism, or it may be that cynical rage which,

confounding the good and the bad in existing opinions, breaks through

them for the purpose of rioting in selfishness and antipathy. Calderon,

following the Jewish historians, has represented Amon’s action in

the basest point of view--he is a prejudiced savage, acting what he

abhors, and abhorring that which is the unwilling party to his crime.

Adieu, Madonna, yours truly, P. B. S.

I transcribe you a passage from the Cisma de Ingalaterra--spoken by

“Carlos, Embaxador de Francia, enamorado de Ana Bolena.” Is there

anything in Petrarch finer than the second stanza?

Porque apenas el Sol se coronaba

de nueva luz en la estacion primeva,

quando yo en sus umbrales adoraba

segundo Sol en abreviada esfera;

la noche apenas tremula baxaba,

à solos mis deseos lisonjera,

quando un jardin, republica de flores,

era tercero fiel de mis amores.

Alli, el silencio de la noche fria,

el jazmin, que en las redes se enlazava.

el cristal de la fuente que corria,

el arroyo que à solas murmurava,

El viento que en las hojas se movia,

el Aura que en las flores respirava;

todo era amor’; què mucho, si en tal calma

aves, fuentes, y flores tienen alma!

No has visto providente y oficiosa,

mover el ayre iluminada aveja,

que hasta beber la purpura a la rosa

ya se acerca cobarde, y ya se alexa?

No has visto enamorada mariposa,

dar cercos a la luz, hasta que dexa,

en monumento facil abrasadas

las alas de color tornasoladas?

Assi mi amor, cobarde muchos dias,

tornos hizo a la rosa y a la llama;

temor che ha sido entre cenizas frias,

tantas vezes llorado de quien ama;

pero el amor, que vence con porfias,

y la ocasion, que con disculpas llama,

me animaron, y aveja y mariposa

quemè las alas, y lleguè a la rosa.

TO MR. JOHN GISBORNE.

_Florence, Nov. 16, 1819._

My dear Sir,

I envy you the first reading of Theocritus. Were not the Greeks a

glorious people? What is there, as Job says of the Leviathan, like

unto them? If the army of Nicias had not been defeated under the walls

of Syracuse; if the Athenians had, acquiring Sicily, held the balance

between Rome and Carthage, sent garrisons to the Greek colonies in

the south of Italy, Rome might have been all that its intellectual

condition entitled it to be, a tributary, not the conqueror of Greece;

the Macedonian power would never have attained to the dictatorship of

the civilized states of the world. Who knows whether, under the steady

progress which philosophy and social institutions would have made,

(for, in the age to which I refer, their progress was both rapid and

secure,) among a people of the most perfect physical organization,

whether the Christian religion would have arisen, or the barbarians

have overwhelmed the wrecks of civilization which had survived the

conquest and tyranny of the Romans? What, then, should we have been?

As it is, all of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in

unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth. We are

stuffed full of prejudices; and our natural passions are so managed,

that if we restrain them we grow intolerant and precise, because we

restrain them not according to reason, but according to error; and if

we do not restrain them, we do all sorts of mischief to ourselves and

others. Our imagination and understanding are alike subjected to rules

the most absurd;--so much for Theocritus and the Greeks.[30]

In spite of all your arguments, I wish your money were out of the

funds. This middle course which you speak of, and which may probably

have place, will amount to your losing not all your income, nor

retaining all, but have the half taken away. I feel intimately

persuaded, whatever political forms may have place in England, that

no party can continue many years, perhaps not many months, in the

administration, without diminishing the interest of the national

debt.--And once having commenced--and having done so safely--where will

it end?

Give Henry my kindest thanks for his most interesting letter, and bid

him expect one from me by the next post.

Mary and the babe continue well.--Last night we had a magnificent

thunder-storm, with claps that shook the house like an earthquake. Both

Mary and C---- unite with me in kindest remembrances to all.

Most faithfully yours obliged,

P. B. S.

[30] “I subjoin here,” says Mrs. Shelley, “a fragment of a letter, I

know not to whom addressed:--

“It is probable that you will be earnest to employ the sacred

talisman of language. To acquire these you are now necessitated to

sacrifice many hours of the time, when, instead of being conversant

with particles and verbs, your nature incites you to contemplation

and inquiry concerning the objects which they conceal. You desire

to enjoy the beauties of eloquence and poetry--to sympathise in the

original language with the institutors and martyrs of ancient freedom.

The generous and inspiriting examples of philosophy and virtue you

desire intimately to know and feel; not as mere facts detailing names,

and dates, and motions of the human body, but clothed in the very

language of the actors,--that language dictated by and expressive of

the passions and principles that governed their conduct. Facts are not

what we want to know in poetry, in history, in the lives of individual

men, in satire, or in panegyric. They are the mere divisions, the

arbitrary points on which we hang, and to which we refer those delicate

and evanescent hues of mind, which language delights and instructs us

in precise proportion as it expresses. What is a translation of Homer

into English? A person who is ignorant of Greek need only look at

Paradise Lost or the tragedy of Lear translated into French, to obtain

an analogical conception of its worthless and miserable inadequacy.

Tacitus, or Livius, or Herodotus, are equally undelightful and

uninstructive in translation. You require to know and to be intimate

with those persons who have acted a distinguished part to benefit,

to enlighten, or even to pervert and injure humankind. Before you

can do this, four years are yet to be consumed in the discipline of

the ancient languages, and those of modern Europe, which you only

imperfectly know, and which conceal from your intimacy such names

as Ariosto, Tasso, Petrarch, and Macchiavelli; or Goethe, Schiller,

Wieland, &c. The French language you, like every other respectable

woman, already know; and if the great name of Rousseau did not redeem

it, it would have been perhaps as well that you had remained entirely

ignorant of it.”

TO HENRY REVELEY.

_Florence, Nov. 17th, 1819._

My dear Henry,

I was exceedingly interested by your letter, and I cannot but thank

you for overcoming the inaptitude of a long disuse at my request, for

my pleasure. It is a great thing done, the successful casting of the

cylinder--may it be a happy auspice for what is to follow! I hope, in a

few posts, to remit the necessary money for the completion. Meanwhile,

are not those portions of the work which can be done without expense,

saving time in their progress? Do you think you lose much money or time

by this delay?

All that you say of the alteration in the form of the boat strikes me,

though one of the multitude in this respect, as improvement. I long

to get aboard her, and be an unworthy partaker in the glory of the

astonishment of the Livornese, when she returns from her cruise round

Melloria. When do you think she will be fit for sea?

Your volcanic description of the birth of the cylinder is very

characteristic of you, and of it.[31] One might imagine God, when he

made the earth, and saw the granite mountains and flinty promontories

flow into their craggy forms, and the splendour of their fusion filling

millions of miles of the void space, like the tail of a comet, so

looking, so delighting in his work. God sees his machine spinning round

the sun, and delights in its success, and has taken out patents to

supply all the suns in space with the same manufacture. Your boat will

be to the ocean of water, what this earth is to the ocean of ether--a

prosperous and swift voyager.

When shall we see you all? _You_ not, I suppose, till your boat is

ready to sail--and then, if not before, I must, of course, come to

Livorno. Our plans for the winter are yet scarcely defined; they

tend towards our spending February and March at Pisa, where our

communications will not be so distant, nor so epistolary. C---- left

us a week ago, not without many lamentations, as all true lovers

pay on such occasions. He is to write me an account of the Trieste

steam-boat, which I will transmit to you.

Mrs. Shelley and Miss C---- return you their kindest salutations, with

interest.

Most affectionately yours,

P. B. S.

[31] The passage in Mr. Reveley’s letter referred to by Shelley was as

follows:--

“_Friday, 12th Nov._

“The event is now past--both the steam cylinder and air-pump were cast

at three o’clock this afternoon. At two o’clock this morning I repaired

to the mill to see that the preliminary operations, upon which the

ultimate success of a _fount_ greatly depends, were conducted with

proper attention. The moulds are buried in a pit, made close, before

the mouth of the furnace, so that the melted metal, when the plug is

driven in, may run easily into them, and fill up the vacant space left

between the core and the shell, in order to form the desired cylinders.

The fire was lighted in the furnace at nine, and in three hours the

metal was fused. At three o’clock it was ready to cast, the fusion

being remarkably rapid, owing to the perfection of the furnace. The

metal was also heated to an extreme degree, boiling with fury, and

seeming to dance with the pleasure of running into its proper form.

The plug was struck, and a massy stream of a bluish dazzling whiteness

filled the moulds in the twinkling of a shooting star. The castings

will not be cool enough to be drawn up till to-morrow afternoon; but,

to judge from all appearances, I expect them to be perfect.

“_Saturday, 13th Nov._

“They have been excavated and drawn up. I have examined them and found

them really perfect; they are massive and strong to bear any usage and

sea-water, in _sæcula sæculorum_ I am now going on gently with the

brass-work, which does not require any immediate expenses, and which I

attend to entirely myself. I have no workmen about me at present.”

TO HENRY REVELEY.

_Florence, 18th Dec., 1819._

My dear Henry,

You see, as I said, it only amounts to delay, all this abominable

entanglement. I send you 484 dollars, or ordinary francesconi, I

suppose, but you will tell me what you receive in Tuscan money, if they

are not--the produce of £100. So my heart is a little lightened, which,

I assure you, was heavy enough until this moment, on your account. I

write to Messrs. Ward to pay you.

I have received no satisfactory letter from my bankers, but I must

expect it every week--or, at least, in a month from this date, when I

will not fail to transmit you the remainder of what may be necessary.

Every body here is talking of a steam-ship which is building at

Leghorn; one person said, as if he knew the whole affair, that he was

waiting in Tuscany to take his departure to Naples in it. Your name

has not, to my knowledge, been mentioned. I think you would do well to

encourage this publicity.

I have better health than I have known for a long time--ready for

any stormy cruise. When will the ship be ready to sail? We have been

feeding ourselves with the hope that Mr. Gisborne and your mother would

have paid us their promised visit. I did not even hope, perhaps not

even wish, that you should, until the engine is finished. My regret

at this failure has several times impelled me to go to Leghorn--but

I have always resisted the temptation. Ask them, entreat them, from

me, to appoint some early day. We have a bed and room, and every thing

prepared.

I write in great haste, as you may see. Ever believe me, my dear Henry,

your attached friend,

P. B. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

_Florence, Dec. 23d, 1819._

My dear Friends,

I suffered more pain than it would be manly to confess, or than you

can easily conceive, from that wretched uncertainty about the money.

At last, however, it is certain that you will encounter no further

check in the receiving supplies, and a weight is taken from my spirits,

which, in spite of many other causes of discomfort, makes itself known

to have been a heavy load, by the lightness which I now feel in writing

to you.

So the steam-boat will take three months to finish? The vernal equinox

will be over by that time, and the early wakening of the year have

paved the Mediterranean with calm. Among other circumstances to regret

in this delay, it is so far well that our first cruise will be made in

serene weather.

I send you enclosed a mandate for 396 francesconi, which is what M.

Torlonia incorrectly designates a hundred pounds--but as we count in

the money of the country, that need make no difference to us.

I have just finished an additional act to “Prometheus,” which Mary

is now transcribing, and which will be enclosed for your inspection

before it is transmitted to the bookseller. I am engaged in a political

work--I am busy enough, and if the faculties of my mind were not

imprisoned within a mind, whose bars are daily cares and vulgar

difficulties, I might yet do something--but as it is--

Mary is well--but for this affair in London I think her spirits would

be good. What shall I--what can I--what ought I to do? You cannot

picture to yourself my perplexity.

Adieu, my dear friends.

Ever yours, faithfully attached,

P. B. S.

TO MR. JOHN GISBORNE.

_Florence, Jan. 25th, 1820._

My dear Sir,

We have suddenly taken the determination to avail ourselves of this

lovely weather to approach you as far as Pisa. I need not assure

you--unless my malady should violently return--you will see me at

Leghorn.

We _embark_; and I promise myself the delight of the sky, the water,

and the mountains. I must suffer at any rate, but I expect to suffer

less in a boat than in a carriage. I have many things to say, which let

me reserve till we meet.

I sympathise in all your good news, as I have done in your ill. Let

Henry take care of himself, and not, desiring to combine too many

advantages, check the progress of his recovery, the greatest of all.

Remember me affectionately to him and to Mrs. Gisborne, and accept for

yourself my unalterable sentiments of regard. Meanwhile, _consider well

your plans_, which I only half understand.

Ever most faithfully yours,

P. B. Shelley.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

_Pisa, Feb. 9th, 1820._

Pray let us see you soon, or our threat may cost both us and you

something--a visit to Livorno. The stage direction on the present

occasion is, “exit Moonshine and enter Wall;” or rather four walls, who

surround and take prisoners the Galan and Dama.

Seriously, pray do not disappoint us. We shall watch the sky, and the

death of the Scirocco must be the birth of your arrival.

Mary and I are going to study mathematics. We design to take the most

compendious, yet certain methods of arriving at the great results. We

believe that your right-angled Triangle will contain the solution of

the problem of how to proceed.

Do not write but _come_. Mary is too idle to write, but all that she

has to say is _come_. She joins with me in condemning the moonlight

plan. Indeed we ought not to be so selfish as to allow you to come at

all, if it is to cost you all the fatigue and annoyance of returning

the same night. But it will not be--so adieu.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

_Pisa, April 23, 1820._

My dear Friends,

We were much pained to hear of the illness you all seem to have been

suffering, and still more at the apparent dejection of your last

letter. We are in daily expectation this lovely weather of seeing

you, and I think the change of air and scene might be good for your

health and spirits, even if _we_ cannot enliven you. I shall have some

business at Livorno soon; and I thought of coming to fetch you, but

I have changed my plan, and mean to return with you, that I may save

myself two journeys.

I have been thinking, and talking, and reading Agriculture this last

week. But I am very anxious to see you, especially now as instead of

six hours, you give us thirty-six, or perhaps more. I shall hear of the

steam-engine, and you will hear of _our_ plans, when we meet, which

will be in so short a time that I neither inquire nor communicate.

Ever affectionately yours,

P. B. Shelley.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

(LONDON).

_Pisa, May 26th, 1820._

My dear Friends,

I write to you thus early, because I have determined to accept of your

kind offer about the correction of “Prometheus.” The bookseller makes

difficulties about sending the proofs to me, and to whom else can I

so well entrust what I am so much interested in having done well;

and to whom would I prefer to owe the recollection of an additional

kindness done to me? I enclose you two little papers of corrections

and additions;--I do not think you will find any difficulty in

interpolating them into their proper places.

Well, how do you like London, and your journey; the Alps in their

beauty and their eternity; Paris in its slight and transitory colours;

and the wearisome plains of France--and the _moral_ people with

whom you drank tea last night? Above all, _how_ are you? And of the

last question, believe me, we are now most anxiously waiting for a

reply--until which I will say nothing, nor ask anything. I rely on the

journal with as much security as if it were already written.

I am just returned from a visit to Leghorn, Casciano, and your old

fortress at Sant’ Elmo. I bought the vases you saw for about twenty

sequins less than Micale asked, and had them packed up, and, by the

polite assistance of your friend, Mr. Guebhard, sent them on board. I

found your Giuseppe very useful in all this business. He got me tea

and breakfast, and I slept in your house, and departed early the next

morning for Casciano. Everything seems in excellent order at Casa

Ricci--garden, pigeons, tables, chairs, and beds. As I did not find

my bed sealed up, I left it as I found it. What a glorious prospect

you had from the windows of Sant’ Elmo! The enormous chain of the

Apennines, with its many-folded ridges, islanded in the misty distance

of the air; the sea, so immensely distant, appearing as at your feet;

and the prodigious expanse of the plain of Pisa, and the dark green

marshes lessened almost to a strip by the height of the blue mountains

overhanging them. Then the wild and unreclaimed fertility of the

foreground, and the chesnut trees, whose vivid foliage made a sort

of resting-place to the sense before it darted itself to the jagged

horizon of this prospect. I was altogether delighted. I had a respite

from my nervous symptoms, which was compensated to me by a violent cold

in the head. There was a tradition about you at Sant’ Elmo--_An English

family that had lived here in the time of the French_. The doctor, too,

at the Bagni, knew you. The house is in a most dilapidated condition,

but I suppose all that is curable.

We go to the Bagni next month--but still direct to Pisa as safest. I

shall write to you the _ultimates_ of my commission in my next letter.

I am undergoing a course of the Pisan baths, on which I lay no singular

stress--but they soothe. I ought to have peace of mind, leisure,

tranquillity; this I expect soon. Our anxiety about Godwin is very

great, and any information that you could give a day or two earlier

than he might, respecting any decisive event in his law-suit, would be

a great relief. Your impressions about Godwin (I speak especially to

Madonna mia, who had known him before,) will especially interest me.

You know that added years only add to my admiration of his intellectual

powers, and even the moral resources of his character. Of my other

friends I say nothing. To see Hunt is to like him; and there is one

other recommendation which he has to you, he is my friend. To know

H----, if any one can know him, is to know something very unlike, and

inexpressibly superior, to the great mass of men.

Will Henry write me an adamantine letter, flowing, not like the words

of Sophocles, with honey, but molten brass and iron, and bristling with

wheels and teeth? I saw his steam-boat asleep under the walls. I was

afraid to waken it, and ask it whether it was dreaming of him, for the

same reason that I would have refrained from awakening Ariadne, after

Theseus had left her--unless I had been Bacchus.

Affectionately and anxiously yours,

P. B. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE

(LONDON).

My dear Friends,

I am to a certain degree indifferent as to the reply to our last

proposal, and, therefore, will not allude to it. Permit me only on

subjects of this nature to express one sentiment, which you would have

given me credit for, even if not expressed. Let no considerations of

_my_ interest, or any retrospect to the source from which the funds

were supplied, modify your decision as to returning and pursuing or

abandoning the adventure of the steam-engine. My object was solely

your true advantage, and it is when I am baffled of this, by any

attention to a mere form, that I shall be ill requited. Nay, more,

I think it for your interest, should you obtain almost whatever

situation for Henry, to accept Clementi’s proposal, and remain in

England;--not without accepting it, for it does no more than balance

the difference of expense between Italy and London; and if you have

any trust in the justice of my moral sense, and believe that in what

concerns true honour and virtuous conduct in life, I am an experienced

counsellor, you will not hesitate--these things being equal--to accept

this proposal. The opposition I made, while you were in Italy, to the

abandonment of the steam-boat project, was founded, you well know, on

the motives which have influenced everything that ever has guided,

or ever will guide, anything that I can do or say respecting you.

I thought it against Henry’s interest. I think it now against his

interest that he and you should abandon your prospects in England. As

to us--we are uncertain people, who are chased by the spirits of our

destiny from purpose to purpose, like clouds by the wind.

There is one thing more to be said. If you decide to remain in England,

assuredly it would be foolish to return. Your journey would cost you

between £100 and £200, a sum far greater than you could expect to save

by the increased price by which you would sell your things. Remit the

matter to me, and I will cast off my habitual character, and attend to

the minutest points. With Mr. G----’s, devil take his name, I can’t

write it--you know who’s, assistance, all this might be accomplished in

such a manner as to save a very considerable sum. Though I shall suffer

from your decision in the proportion as your society is delightful

to me, I cannot forbear expressing my persuasion, that the time, the

expense, and the trouble of returning to Italy, if your ultimate

decision be to settle in London, ought all to be spared. A year, a

month, a week, at Henry’s age, and with his purposes, ought not to

be unemployed. It was the depth with which I felt this truth, which

impelled me to incite him to this adventure of the steam-boat.

TO MRS. SHELLEY

(LEGHORN).

_Casa Silva, Sunday morning, July, 1820._

My dear Love,

I believe I shall have taken a very pleasant and spacious apartment at

the Bagni for three months. It is as all the others are--dear. I shall

give forty or forty-five sequins for the three months, but as yet I do

not know which. I could get others something cheaper, and a great deal

worse; but if we would write, it is requisite to have space.

To-morrow evening, or the following morning, you will probably see

me. T---- is planning a journey to England to secure his property in

the event of a revolution, which, he is persuaded, is on the eve of

exploding. I neither believe that, nor do I fear that the consequences

will be so immediately destructive to the existing forms of social

order. Money will be delayed, and the exchange reduced very low,

and my annuity and ****, on account of these being _money_, will be

in some danger; but land is quite safe. Besides, it will not be so

rapid. Let us hope we shall have a reform. T---- will be lulled into

security, while the slow progress of things is still flowing on, after

this affair of the Queen may appear to be blown over. There are bad

news from Palermo: the soldiers resisted the people, and a terrible

slaughter, amounting, it is said, to four thousand men, ensued. The

event, however, was as it should be. Sicily, like Naples, is free. By

the brief and partial accounts of the Florence paper, it appears that

the enthusiasm of the people was prodigious, and that the women fought

from the houses, raining down boiling oil on the assailants.

I am promised a bill on Vienna on the 5th, the day on which my note

will be paid, and the day on which I purpose to leave Leghorn. *** is

very unhappy at the idea of T.’s going to England, though she seems to

feel the necessity of it. Some time or other he must go to settle his

affairs, and they seem to agree that this is the best opportunity. _I_

have no thought of leaving Italy. The best thing we can do is to save

money, and, if things take a decided turn, (which I am convinced they

will at last, but not perhaps for two or three years,) it will be time

for me to assert my rights, and preserve my annuity. Meanwhile, another

event may decide us.

Kiss sweet babe, and kiss yourself for me--I love you affectionately.

P. B. S.

_Sunday evening._

I have taken the house for forty sequins for three months--a good

bargain, and a very good house as things go--this is about thirteen

sequins a month. To-morrow I go to look over the inventory; expect me

therefore on Tuesday morning.

TO MRS. SHELLEY

(BAGNI DI SAN GIULIANO).

_Casa Ricci_ [_Leghorn_],

_Sept. 1st, 1820_.

I am afraid, my dearest, that I shall not be able to be with you so

soon as to-morrow evening, though I shall use every exertion. Del Rosso

I have not seen, nor shall until this evening. Jackson I have, and he

is to drink tea with us this evening, and bring the _Constitutionnel_.

You will have seen the papers, but I doubt that they will not contain

the latest and most important news. It is certain, by private letters

from merchants, that a serious insurrection has broken out at Paris,

and the _reports_ last night are, that an attack made by the populace

on the Tuileries still continued when the last accounts came away. At

Naples the constitutional party have declared to the Austrian minister,

that if the Emperor should make war on them, their first action would

be to put to death _all_ the members of the royal family--a necessary

and most just measure, when the forces of the combatants, as well as

the merits of their respective causes, are so unequal. That kings

should be everywhere the hostages for liberty were admirable.

What will become of the Gisbornes, or of the English, at Paris? How

soon will England itself, and perhaps Italy, be caught by the sacred

fire? And what, to come from the solar system to a grain of sand,

_shall we do_?

Kiss babe for me, and your own self. I am somewhat better, but my side

still vexes me--a little.

Your affectionate S.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE “QUARTERLY REVIEW.”[32]

Sir,

Should you cast your eye on the signature of this letter before

you read the contents, you might imagine that they related to a

slanderous paper which appeared in your Review some time since. I

never notice anonymous attacks. The wretch who wrote it has doubtless

the additional reward of a consciousness of his motives, besides the

thirty guineas a sheet, or whatever it is that you pay him. Of course

you cannot be answerable for all the writings which you edit, and _I_

certainly bear you no ill-will for having edited the abuse to which I

allude--indeed, I was too much amused by being compared to Pharaoh, not

readily to forgive editor, printer, publisher, stitcher, or any one,

except the despicable writer, connected with something so exquisitely

entertaining. Seriously speaking, I am not in the habit of permitting

myself to be disturbed by what is said or written of me, though, I dare

say, I may be condemned sometimes justly enough. But I feel, in respect

to the writer in question, that “I am there sitting, where he durst not

soar.”

The case is different with the unfortunate subject of this letter,

the author of Endymion, to whose feelings and situation I entreat you

to allow me to call your attention. I write considerably in the dark;

but if it is Mr. Gifford that I am addressing, I am persuaded that in

an appeal to his humanity and justice, he will acknowledge the _fas

ab hoste doceri_. I am aware that the first duty of a Reviewer is

towards the public, and I am willing to confess that Endymion is a poem

considerably defective, and that, perhaps, it deserved as much censure

as the pages of your Review record against it; but, not to mention

that there is a certain contemptuousness of phraseology from which it

is difficult for a critic to abstain, in the review of Endymion, I

do not think that the writer has given it its due praise. Surely the

poem, with all its faults, is a very remarkable production for a man

of Keats’s age, and the promise of ultimate excellence is such as has

rarely been afforded even by such as have afterwards attained high

literary eminence. Look at book ii. line 833, &c., and book iii. line

113 to 120--read down that page, and then again from line 193. I could

cite many other passages, to convince you that it deserved milder

usage. Why it should have been reviewed at all, excepting for the

purpose of bringing its excellences into notice, I cannot conceive, for

it was very little read, and there was no danger that it should become

a model to the age of that false taste, with which I confess that it is

replenished.

Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state of mind by this review,

which, I am persuaded, was not written with any intention of producing

the effect, to which it has, at least, greatly contributed, of

embittering his existence, and inducing a disease from which there are

now but faint hopes of his recovery. The first effects are described to

me to have resembled insanity, and it was by assiduous watching that

he was restrained from effecting purposes of suicide. The agony of his

sufferings at length produced the rupture of a blood-vessel in the

lungs, and the usual process of consumption appears to have begun. He

is coming to pay me a visit in Italy; but I fear that unless his mind

can be kept tranquil, little is to be hoped from the mere influence of

climate.

But let me not extort anything from your pity. I have just seen a

second volume, published by him evidently in careless despair. I have

desired my bookseller to send you a copy, and allow me to solicit your

especial attention to the fragment of a poem entitled “Hyperion,”

the composition of which was checked by the Review in question. The

great proportion of this piece is surely in the very highest style of

poetry. I speak impartially, for the canons of taste to which Keats has

conformed in his other compositions are the very reverse of my own.

I leave you to judge for yourself: it would be an insult to you to

suppose that from motives, however honourable, you would lend yourself

to a deception of the public.

* * * * *

[32] This letter was never sent.--[_Note by Mrs. Shelley._]

TO MR. JOHN GISBORNE

(AT LEGHORN).

_Pisa, oggi [November, 1820]._

My dear Sir,

I send you the Phædon and Tacitus. I congratulate you on your conquest

of the Iliad. You must have been astonished at the perpetually

increasing magnificence of the last seven books. Homer there truly

begins to be himself. The battle of the Scamander, the funeral of

Patroclus, and the high and solemn close of the whole bloody tale in

tenderness and inexpiable sorrow, are wrought in a manner incomparable

with any thing of the same kind. The Odyssey is sweet, but there is

nothing like this.

_I_ am bathing myself in the light and odour of the flowery and

starry Autos. I have read them all more than once. Henry will tell

you how much I am in love with Pacchiani. I suffer from my disease

considerably. Henry will also tell you how much, and how whimsically,

he alarmed me last night.

My kindest remembrances to Mrs. Gisborne, and best wishes for your

health and happiness.

Faithfully yours,

P. B. S.

I have a new Calderon coming from Paris.

TO HENRY REVELEY.

_Pisa, Tuesday, 1 o’clock,

April 17th, 1821._

My dear Henry,

Our ducking last night has added fire, instead of quenching the

nautical ardour which produced it; and I consider it a good omen in

any enterprise, that it begins in evil: as being more probable that it

will end in good. I hope _you_ have not suffered from it. I am rather

feverish, but very well as to the side, whence I expected the worst

consequences. I send you directions for the complete equipment of our

boat, since you have so kindly promised to undertake it. In putting

into execution, a little more or less expense in so trifling an affair,

is to be disregarded. I need not say that the approaching season

invites expedition. You can put her in hand immediately, and write the

day on which we may come for her.

We expect with impatience the arrival of our false friends, who have so

long cheated us with delay; and Mary unites with me in desiring, that,

as _you_ participated equally in the crime, you should not be omitted

in the expiation.

All good be with you.--Adieu.

Yours faithfully,

S.

Williams desires to be kindly remembered to you, and begs to present

his compliments to Mr. and Mrs. G., and--heaven knows what.

TO HENRY REVELEY.

_Pisa, April 19th [1821]._

My dear Henry,

The rullock, or place for the oar, ought not to be placed where the

oar-pins are now, but ought to be nearer to the mast; as near as

possible, indeed, so that the rower has room to sit. In addition let

a false keel be made in this shape, so as to be four inches deep at

the stern, and to decrease towards the prow. It may be as thin as you

please.

Tell Mr. and Mrs. G---- that I have read the Numancia, and after wading

through the singular stupidity of the first act, began to be greatly

delighted, and, at length, interested in a very high degree, by the

power of the writer in awakening pity and admiration, in which I hardly

know by whom he is excelled. There is little, I allow, in a strict

sense, to be called _poetry_ in this play; but the command of language,

and the harmony of versification, is so great as to deceive one into an

idea that it is poetry.

Adieu.--We shall see you soon.

Yours ever truly,

S.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

_Bagni, Tuesday Evening,

(June 5th, 1821.)_

My dear Friends,

We anxiously expect your arrival at the Baths; but as I am persuaded

that you will spend as much time with us as you can save from your

necessary occupations before your departure, I will forbear to vex you

with importunity. My health does not permit me to spend many hours

from home. I have been engaged these last days in composing a poem on

the death of Keats, which will shortly be finished; and I anticipate

the pleasure of reading it to you, as some of the very few persons who

will be interested in it and understand it. It is a highly-wrought

_piece of art_, and perhaps better, in point of composition, than

anything I have written.

I have obtained a purchaser for some of the articles of your three

lists, a catalogue of which I subjoin. I shall do my utmost to get

more; could you not send me a complete list of your _furniture_, as I

have had inquiries made about chests of drawers, &c.

* * * * *

My unfortunate box! it contained a chaos of the elements of Charles I.

If the idea of the _creator_ had been packed up with them, it would

have shared the same fate; and that, I am afraid, has undergone another

sort of shipwreck.

* * * * *

Very faithfully and affectionately yours,

S.

TO MR. JOHN GISBORNE.

_Pisa, Saturday,

(June 16, 1821.)_

My dear Friend,

I have received the heart-rending account of the closing scene of the

great genius whom envy and ingratitude scourged out of the world.[33]

I do not think that if I had seen it before, I could have composed my

poem. The enthusiasm of the imagination would have overpowered the

sentiment.

As it is, I have finished my Elegy;[34] and this day I send it to the

press at Pisa. You shall have a copy the moment it is completed. I

think it will please you. I have dipped my pen in consuming fire for

his destroyers; otherwise the style is calm and solemn.

Pray, when shall we see you? Or are the streams of Helicon less

salutary than sea-bathing for the nerves? Give us as much as you can

before you go to England, and rather divide the term than not come soon.

Mrs. * * * wishes that none of the books, desk, &c., should be packed

up with the piano; but that they should be sent, one by one, by

Pepi. Address them to _me_ at her house. She desired me to have them

addressed to _me_, why I know not.

A droll circumstance has occurred. Queen Mab, a poem written by me

when very young, in the most furious style, with long notes against

Jesus Christ, and God the Father, and the king, and bishops, and

marriage, and the devil knows what, is just published by one of the low

booksellers in the Strand, against my wish and consent, and all the

people are at loggerheads about it. H. S.[35] gives me this account.

You may imagine how much I am amused. For the sake of a dignified

appearance, however, and really because I wish to protest against all

the bad poetry in it, I have given orders to say that it is all done

against my desire, and have directed my attorney to apply to Chancery

for an injunction, which he will not get.

I am pretty ill, I thank you, just now; but I hope you are better.

Most affectionately yours,

P. B. S.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] John Keats.

[34] Adonais.

[35] Horace Smith.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

_Bagni, Friday Night_,

(_July 13th, 1821._)

My dear Friends,

I have been expecting every day a writ to attend at your court at

Guebhard’s, whence you know it is settled that I should conduct you

hither to spend your last days in Italy. A thousand thanks for your

maps; in return for which I send you the only copy of Adonais the

printer has yet delivered. I wish I could say, as Glaucus could, in the

exchange for the arms of Diomed,--ἑκατόμβιοι ἐννεαβοίων.

* * * * *

I will only remind you of Faust; my desire for the conclusion of which

is only exceeded by my desire to welcome you. Do you observe any traces

of him in the poem I send you? Poets--the best of them, are a very

cameleonic race; they take the colour not only of what they feed on,

but of the very leaves under which they pass.

Mary is just on the verge of finishing her novel; but it cannot be in

time for you to take to England.--Farewell.

Most faithfully yours,

P. B. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

_Bagni, July 19th_ [_1821_].

My dearest Friends,

I am fully repaid for the painful emotions from which some verses of

my poem sprung, by your sympathy and approbation--which is all the

reward I expect--and as much as I desire. It is not for me to judge

whether, in the high praise your feelings assign me, you are right

or wrong. The poet and the man are two different natures; though they

exist together, they may be unconscious of each other, and incapable

of deciding on each other’s powers and efforts by any reflex act. The

decision of the cause, whether or no _I_ am a poet, is removed from

the present time to the hour when our posterity shall assemble; but

the court is a very severe one, and I fear that the verdict will be,

“Guilty--death!”

I shall be with you on the first summons. I hope that the time you have

reserved for us, “this bank and shoal of time,” is not so short as you

once talked of.

In haste, most affectionately yours,

P. B. S.

TO MRS. SHELLEY

(BAGNI DI PISA).

_Lione Bianco, Florence_,

(_Tuesday, August 1st, 1821_.)

My dearest Love,

I shall not return this evening; nor, unless I have better success,

to-morrow. I have seen many houses, but very few within the compass

of our powers; and, even in those which seem to suit, nothing is more

difficult than to bring the proprietors to terms. I congratulate myself

on having taken the season in time, as there is great expectation

of Florence being full next winter. I shall do my utmost to return

to-morrow evening. You may expect me about ten or eleven o’clock, as I

shall purposely be late, to spare myself the excessive heat.

The Gisbornes (four o’clock, Tuesday,) are just set out in a

diligence-and-four, for Bologna. They have promised to write

from Paris. I spent three hours this morning principally in the

contemplation of the Niobe, and of a favourite Apollo; all worldly

thoughts and cares seem to vanish from before the sublime emotions such

spectacles create; and I am deeply impressed with the great difference

of happiness enjoyed by those who live at a distance from these

incarnations of all that the finest minds have conceived of beauty, and

those who can resort to their company at pleasure. What should we think

if we were forbidden to read the great writers who have left us their

works? And yet to be forbidden to live at Florence or Rome, is an evil

of the same kind, of scarcely less magnitude.

I am delighted to hear that the W.’s are with you. I am convinced

that Williams must persevere in the use of the doccia. Give my most

affectionate remembrances to them. I shall know all the houses in

Florence, and can give W. a good account of them all. You have not

sent my passport, and I must get home as I can. I suppose you did not

receive my note.

I grudge my sequins for a carriage; but I have suffered from the sun

and the fatigue, and dare not expose myself to that which is necessary

for house-hunting.

Kiss little babe, and how is he? but I hope to see him fast asleep

to-morrow night. And pray, dearest Mary, have some of your novel

prepared for my return.

Your ever affectionate,

S.

TO MRS. SHELLEY

(BAGNI DI PISA).

_Bologna, Agosto 6_ [_1821_].

Dearest mine,

I am at Bologna, and the caravella is ordered for Ravenna. I have been

detained, by having made an embarrassing and inexplicable arrangement,

more than twelve hours; or I should have arrived at Bologna last night

instead of this morning.

Though I have travelled all night at the rate of two miles and a half

an hour, in a little open calesso, I am perfectly well in health. One

would think that I were the spaniel of Destiny, for the more she knocks

me about, the more I fawn on her. I had an overturn about daybreak; the

old horse stumbled, and threw me and the fat vetturino into a slope of

meadow, over the hedge. My angular figure stuck where it was pitched;

but my vetturino’s spherical form rolled fairly to the bottom of the

hill, and that with so few symptoms of reluctance in the life that

animated it, that my ridicule (for it was the drollest sight in the

world) was suppressed by my fear that the poor devil had been hurt. But

he was very well, and we continued our journey with great success.

* * * * *

My love to the Williams’s. Kiss my pretty one, and accept an

affectionate one for yourself from me. The chaise waits. I will write

the first night from Ravenna at length.

Yours ever,

S.

TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_Ravenna, August 7, 1821._

My dearest Mary,

I arrived last night at ten o’clock, and sat up talking with Lord Byron

until five this morning. I then went to sleep, and now awake at eleven,

and having despatched my breakfast as quick as possible, mean to devote

the interval until twelve, when the post departs, to you.

Lord Byron is very well, and was delighted to see me. He has in fact

completely recovered his health, and lives a life totally the reverse

of that which he led at Venice. He has a permanent sort of liaison with

Contessa Giuccioli, who is now at Florence, and seems from her letters

to be a very amiable woman. She is waiting there until something

shall be decided as to their emigration to Switzerland or stay in

Italy; which is yet undetermined on either side. She was compelled

to escape from the Papal territory in great haste, as measures had

already been taken to place her in a convent, where she would have

been unrelentingly confined for life. The oppression of the marriage

contract, as existing in the laws and opinions of Italy, though less

frequently exercised, is far severer than that of England. I tremble to

think of what poor Emilia is destined to.

Lord Byron had almost destroyed himself in Venice: his state of

debility was such that he was unable to digest any food, he was

consumed by hectic fever, and would speedily have perished, but for

this attachment, which has reclaimed him from the excesses into which

he threw himself from carelessness and pride, rather than taste. Poor

fellow! he is now quite well, and immersed in politics and literature.

He has given me a number of the most interesting details on the former

subject, but we will not speak of them in a letter. Fletcher is here,

and as if like a shadow, he waxed and waned with the substance of his

master: Fletcher also has recovered his good looks, and from amidst the

unseasonable grey hairs, a fresh harvest of flaxen locks put forth.

We talked a great deal of poetry, and such matters last night; and as

usual differed, and I think more than ever. He affects to patronize a

system of criticism fit for the production of mediocrity, and although

all his fine poems and passages have been produced in defiance of this

system, yet I recognise the pernicious effects of it in the Doge of

Venice; and it will cramp and limit his future efforts however great

they may be, unless he gets rid of it. I have read only parts of it,

or rather he himself read them to me, and gave me the plan of the whole.

* * * * *

Lord Byron has also told me of a circumstance that shocks me

exceedingly; because it exhibits a degree of desperate and wicked

malice for which I am at a loss to account. When I hear such things my

patience and my philosophy are put to a severe proof, whilst I refrain

from seeking out some obscure hiding-place, where the countenance of

man may never meet me more.

* * * * *

Imagine my despair of good, imagine how it is possible that one of

so weak and sensitive a nature as mine can run further the gauntlet

through this hellish society of men. _You_ should write to the Hoppners

a letter refuting the charge, in case you believe, and know, and can

prove that it is false; stating the grounds and proofs of your belief.

I need not dictate what you should say; nor, I hope, inspire you with

warmth to rebut a charge, which you only can effectually rebut. If you

will send the letter to me here, I will forward it to the Hoppners.

Lord Byron is not up, I do not know the Hoppners’ address, and I am

anxious not to lose a post.

TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_8th August_ [_1821_].

My dearest Mary,

I wrote to you yesterday, and I begin another letter to-day, without

knowing exactly when I can send it, as I am told the post only goes

once a week. I dare say the subject of the latter half my letter gave

you pain, but it was necessary to look the affair in the face, and the

only satisfactory answer to the calumny must be given by you, and could

be given by you alone. This is evidently the source of the violent

denunciations of the _Literary Gazette_, in themselves contemptible

enough, and only to be regarded as effects, which show us their cause,

which until we put off our mortal nature, we never despise--that is the

belief of persons who have known and seen you, that you are guilty of

crimes.

* * * * *

After having sent my letter to the post yesterday, I went to see some

of the antiquities of this place, which appear to be remarkable. This

city was once of vast extent, and the traces of its remains are to

be found more than four miles from the gate of the modern town. The

sea, which once came close to it, has now retired to the distance of

four miles, leaving a melancholy extent of marshes, interspersed with

patches of cultivation, and towards the sea shore with pine forests,

which have followed the retrocession of the Adriatic, and the roots of

which are actually washed by its waves. The level of the sea and of

this tract of country correspond so nearly, that a ditch dug to a few

feet in depth is immediately filled up with sea water. All the ancient

buildings have been choked up to the height of from five to twenty feet

by the deposit of the sea, and of the inundations, which are frequent

in the winter. I went in Lord Byron’s carriage, first to the Chiesa

San Vitale, which is certainly one of the most ancient churches in

Italy. It is a rotunda supported upon buttresses and pilasters of white

marble; the ill effect of which is somewhat relieved by an interior

row of columns. The dome is very high and narrow. The whole church, in

spite of the elevation of the soil, is very high for its breadth, and

is of a very peculiar and striking construction. In the section of one

of the large tables of marble with which the church is lined, they

showed me the _perfect figure_, as perfect as if it had been painted,

of a capuchin friar, which resulted merely from the shadings and the

position of the stains in the marble. This is what may be called a pure

anticipated cognition of a Capuchin.

I then went to the tomb of Theodosius, which has now been dedicated

to the Virgin, without however any change in its original appearance.

It is about a mile from the present city. This building is more than

half overwhelmed by the elevated soil, although a portion of the lower

story has been excavated, and is filled with brackish and stinking

waters, and a sort of vaporous darkness, and troops of prodigious

frogs. It is a remarkable piece of architecture, and without belonging

to a period when the ancient taste yet survived, bears nevertheless a

certain impression of that taste. It consists of two stories; the lower

supported on Doric arches, and pilasters, and a simple entablature.

The other circular within, and polygonal outside, and roofed with one

single mass of ponderous stone, for it is evidently one, and Heaven

alone knows how they contrived to lift it to that height. It is a sort

of flattish dome, rough-wrought within by the chisel, from which the

Northern conquerors tore the plates of silver that adorned it, and

polished without, with things like handles appended to it, which were

also wrought out of the solid stone, and to which I suppose the ropes

were applied to draw it up. You ascend externally into the second story

by a flight of stone-steps, which are modern.

The next place I went to was a church called _la Chiesa di Sant’

Appollinare_, which is a Basilica, and built by one, I forget whom,

of the Christian Emperors; it is a long church, with a roof like a

barn, and supported by twenty-four columns of the finest marble, with

an altar of jasper, and four columns of jasper and giallo antico,

supporting the roof of the tabernacle, which are said to be of immense

value. It is something like that church (I forget the name of it) we

saw at Rome, _fuore delle mure_. I suppose the emperor stole these

columns, which seem not at all to belong to the place they occupy.

Within the city, near the church of San Vitale, there is to be seen the

tomb of the Empress Galla Placidia, daughter of Theodosius the Great,

together with those of her husband Constantius, her brother Honorius,

and her son Valentinian--all Emperors. The tombs are massy cases of

marble, adorned with rude and tasteless sculpture of lambs, and other

Christian emblems, with scarcely a trace of the antique. It seems

to have been one of the first effects of the Christian religion, to

destroy the power of producing beauty in art. These tombs are placed in

a sort of vaulted chamber, wrought over with rude mosaic, which is said

to have been built in 1300. I have yet seen no more of Ravenna.

_Friday._

We ride out in the evening, through the pine forests which divide this

city from the sea. Our way of life is this, and I have accommodated

myself to it without much difficulty:--Lord Byron gets up at two,

breakfasts; we talk, read, &c., until six; then we ride, and dine at

eight; and after dinner sit talking till four or five in the morning.

I get up at twelve, and am now devoting the interval between my rising

and his, to you.

Lord Byron is greatly improved in every respect. In genius, in

temper, in moral views, in health, in happiness. The connexion with

la Guiccioli has been an inestimable benefit to him. He lives in

considerable splendour, but within his income, which is now about

£4000 a year, £100 of which he devotes to purposes of charity. He

has had mischievous passions, but these he seems to have subdued,

and he is becoming, what he should be, a virtuous man. The interest

which he took in the politics of Italy, and the actions he performed

in consequence of it, are subjects not fit to be _written_, but are

such as will delight and surprise you. He is not yet decided to go to

Switzerland--a place, indeed, little fitted for him: the gossip and

the cabals of those anglicised coteries would torment him, as they did

before, and might exasperate him into a relapse of libertinism, which

he says he plunged into not from taste, but despair. La Guiccioli and

her brother (who is Lord Byron’s friend and confidant, and acquiesces

perfectly in her connexion with him) wish to go to Switzerland; as Lord

Byron says, merely from the novelty of the pleasure of travelling. Lord

Byron prefers Tuscany or Lucca, and is trying to persuade them to adopt

his views. He has made _me_ write a long letter to her to engage her to

remain--an odd thing enough for an utter stranger to write on subjects

of the utmost delicacy to his friend’s mistress. But it seems destined

that I am always to have some active part in everybody’s affairs whom

I approach. I have set down in lame Italian the strongest reasons I

can think of against the Swiss emigration--to tell you the truth, I

should be very glad to accept, as my fee, his establishment in Tuscany.

Ravenna is a miserable place; the people are barbarous and wild, and

their language the most infernal patois that you can imagine. He would

be, in every respect, better among the Tuscans. I am afraid he would

not like Florence, on account of the English there.

* * * * *

There is Lucca, Florence, Pisa, Siena, and I think nothing more. What

think you of Prato, or Pistoia, for him?--no Englishman approaches

those towns; but I am afraid no house could be found good enough for

him in that region.

He has read to me one of the unpublished cantos of Don Juan, which is

astonishingly fine. It sets him not only above, but far above, all the

poets of the day--every word is stamped with immortality. I despair of

rivalling Lord Byron, as well I may, and there is no other with whom

it is worth contending. This canto is in the style, but totally, and

sustained with incredible ease and power, like the end of the second

canto. There is not a word which the most rigid assertor of the dignity

of human nature would desire to be cancelled. It fulfils, in a certain

degree, what I have long preached of producing--something wholly new

and relative to the age, and yet surpassingly beautiful. It may be

vanity, but I think I see the trace of my earnest exhortations to him

to create something wholly new. He has finished his _life_ up to the

present time, and given it to Moore, with liberty for Moore to sell

it for the best price he can get, with condition that the bookseller

should publish it after his death. Moore has sold it to Murray for

_two thousand pounds_. I have spoken to him of Hunt, but not with a

direct view of demanding a contribution; and, though I am sure that

if asked it would not be refused--yet, there is something in me that

makes it impossible. Lord Byron and I are excellent friends, and were

I reduced to poverty, or were I a writer who had no claims to a higher

station than I possess--or did I possess a higher than I deserve, we

should appear in all things as such, and I would freely ask him any

favour. Such is not the case. The demon of mistrust and pride lurks

between two persons in our situation, poisoning the freedom of our

intercourse. This is a tax and a heavy one, which we must pay for being

human. I think the fault is not on my side, nor is it likely, I being

the weaker. I hope that in the next world these things will be better

managed. What is passing in the heart of another rarely escapes the

observation of one who is a strict anatomist of his own.

Write to me at Florence, where I shall remain a day at least, and

send me letters, or news of letters. How is my little darling? And

how are you, and how do you get on with your book? Be severe in your

corrections, and expect severity from me, your sincere admirer. I

flatter myself you have composed something unequalled in its kind, and

that, not content with the honours of your birth and your hereditary

aristocracy, you will add still higher renown to your name. Expect me

at the end of my appointed time. I do not think I shall be detained.

Is C. with you, or is she coming? Have you heard anything of my poor

Emilia, from whom I got a letter the day of my departure, saying, that

her marriage was deferred for a _very short_ time, on account of the

illness of her sposo. How are the Williamses, and Williams especially?

Give my very kindest love to them.

Lord Byron has here splendid apartments in the house of his mistress’s

husband, who is one of the richest men in Italy. _She_ is divorced,

with an allowance of 1200 crowns a-year, a miserable pittance from a

man who has 120,000 a-year.--Here are two monkeys, five cats, eight

dogs, and ten horses, all of whom (except the horses) walk about the

house like the masters of it. _Tita_ the Venetian is here, and operates

as my valet; a fine fellow, with a prodigious black beard, and who

has stabbed two or three people, and is one of the most good-natured

looking fellows I ever saw.

We have good rumours of the Greeks here, and a Russian war. I

hardly wish the Russians to take any part in it. My maxim is with

Æschylus:--τὸ δυσσεβὲς--μετὰ μὲν πλείονα τίκτει, σφετέρᾳ

δ’ ἐίκοτα γεννᾷ. There is a Greek exercise for you. How should slaves

produce anything but tyranny--even as the seed produces the plant?

Adieu, dear Mary,

Yours affectionately,

S.

TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_Saturday--Ravenna [Aug. 11, 1821]._

My dear Mary,

You will be surprised to hear that Lord Byron has decided upon coming

to _Pisa_, in case he shall be able, with my assistance, to prevail

upon his mistress to remain in Italy, of which I think there is

little doubt. He wishes for a large and magnificent house, but he has

furniture of his own, which he would send from Ravenna. Inquire if any

of the large palaces are to be let. We discussed Prato, Pistoia, Lucca,

&c., but they would not suit him so well as Pisa, to which, indeed, he

shows a decided preference. So let it be! Florence he objects to, on

account of the prodigious influx of English.

I don’t think this circumstance ought to make any difference in our own

plans with respect to this winter in Florence, because we could easily

reassume our station, with the spring, at Pugnano or the baths, in

order to enjoy the society of the noble lord. But do you consider this

point, and write to me your full opinion, at the Florence post-office.

I suffer much to-day from the pain in my side, brought on, I believe,

by this accursed water. In other respects, I am pretty well, and my

spirits are much improved; they had been improving, indeed, before I

left the baths, after the deep dejection of the early part of the year.

I am reading Anastasius.[36] One would think that Lord Byron had taken

his idea of the three last cantos of Don Juan from this book. That, of

course, has nothing to do with the merit of this latter, poetry having

nothing to do with the invention of facts. It is a very powerful and

very entertaining novel, and a faithful picture, they say, of modern

Greek manners. I have read Lord Byron’s letter to Bowles--some good

things--but he ought not to write prose criticism.

You will receive a long letter, sent with some of Lord Byron’s, express

to Florence.

I write this in haste.--Yours most affectionately,

S.

[36] _Memoirs of a Greek_ [by Thomas Hope], 3 vols. Murray, 1819.--Ed.

TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_Ravenna, Tuesday, August 14th, 1821._

My dearest Love,

I accept your kind present of your picture, and wish you would get it

prettily framed for me. I will wear, for your sake, upon my heart this

image which is ever present to my mind.

I have only two minutes to write, the post is just setting off. I shall

leave this place on Thursday or Friday morning. You would forgive me

for my longer stay, if you knew the fighting I have had to make it so

short. I need not say where my own feelings impel me.

It still remains fixed that Lord Byron should come to Tuscany, and, if

possible, Pisa; but more of that to-morrow.

Your faithful and affectionate,

S.

TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_Ravenna, Wednesday [Aug. 15, 1821]._

My dearest Love,

I write, though I doubt whether I shall not arrive before this letter;

as the post only leaves Ravenna once a week, on Saturdays, and as

I hope to set out to-morrow evening by the courier. But as I must

necessarily stay a day at Florence, and as the natural incidents of

travelling may prevent me from taking my intended advantage of the

couriers, it is probable that this letter will arrive first. Besides,

as I will explain, I am not _yet_ quite my own master. But that by and

bye. I do not think it necessary to tell you of my impatience to return

to you and my little darling, or the disappointment with which I have

prolonged my absence from you. I am happy to think that you are not

quite alone.

Lord Byron is still decided upon Tuscany; and such is his impatience,

that he has desired me--as if I should not arrive in time--to write to

you to inquire for the best unfurnished palace in Pisa, and to enter

upon a treaty for it. It is better not to be on the Lung’ Arno; but, in

fact, there is no such hurry, and as I shall see you so soon, it is not

worth while to trouble yourself about it.

I told you I had written by Lord Byron’s desire to la Guiccioli, to

dissuade her and her family from Switzerland. Her answer is this moment

arrived, and my representation seems to have reconciled them to the

unfitness of that step. At the conclusion of a letter, full of all the

fine things she says she has heard of me, is this request, which I

transcribe;--“_Signore--la vostra bontà mi fa ardita di chiedervi un

favore--me lo accorderete voi? Non partite da Ravenna senza Milord._”

Of course, being now, by all the laws of knighthood, captive to a

lady’s request, I shall only be at liberty on _my parole_, until Lord

Byron is settled at Pisa. I shall reply, of course, that the _boon_ is

granted, and that if her lover is reluctant to quit Ravenna, after I

have made arrangements for receiving him at Pisa, I am bound to place

myself in the same situation as now, to assail him with importunities

to rejoin her. Of this there is, fortunately, no need; and I need not

tell you there is no fear that this chivalric submission of mine to

the great general laws of antique courtesy, against which I never

rebel, and which is my religion, should interfere with my quick

returning, and long remaining with you, dear girl.

I have seen Dante’s tomb, and worshipped the sacred spot. The building

and its accessories are comparatively modern, but, the urn itself,

and the tablet of marble, with his portrait in relief, are evidently

of equal antiquity with his death. The countenance has all the marks

of being taken from his own; the lines are strongly marked, far more

than the portraits, which, however, it resembles; except, indeed,

the eye, which is half closed, and reminded me of Pacchiani. It was

probably taken after death. I saw the library, and some specimens of

the earliest illuminated printing from the press of Fust. They are on

vellum, and of an execution little inferior to that of the present day.

We ride out every evening as usual, and practise pistol-shooting at a

pumpkin; and I am not sorry to observe that I approach towards my noble

friend’s exactness of aim. The water here is villainous, and I have

suffered tortures; but I now drink nothing but alcalescent water, and

am much relieved. I have the greatest trouble to get away; and Lord

Byron, as a reason for my stay, has urged, that without either me or

the Guiccioli, he will certainly fall into his old habits. I then talk,

and he listens to reason; and I earnestly hope that he is too well

aware of the terrible and degrading consequences of his former mode of

life, to be in danger from the short interval of temptation that will

be left him. Lord Byron speaks with great kindness and interest of you,

and seems to wish to see you.

_Ravenna, Thursday._

I have received your letter with that to Mrs. Hoppner. I do not

wonder, my dearest friend, that you should have been moved. I was at

first, but speedily regained the indifference which the opinion of

anything, or anybody, except our own consciousness, amply merits;

and day by day shall more receive from me. I have not recopied your

letter; such a measure would destroy its authenticity, but have given

it to Lord Byron, who has engaged to send it with his own comments to

the Hoppners. People do not hesitate, it seems, to make themselves

panders and accomplices to slander, for the Hoppners had exacted from

Lord Byron that these accusations should be concealed from _me_.

Lord Byron is not a man to keep a secret, good or bad; but in openly

confessing that he has not done so, he must observe a certain delicacy,

and therefore he wished to send the letter himself, and indeed this

adds weight to your representations. Have you seen the article in

the Literary Gazette on me? They evidently allude to some story of

this kind--however cautious the Hoppners have been in preventing the

calumniated person from asserting his justification, you know too much

of the world not to be certain that this was the utmost limit of their

caution. So much for nothing.

Lord Byron is immediately coming to Pisa. He will set off the moment I

can get him a house. Who would have imagined this? Our first thought

ought to be ----, our second our own plans. The hesitation in your

letter about Florence has communicated itself to me; although I hardly

see what we can do about Horace Smith, to whom our attentions are

so due, and would be so useful. If I do not arrive before this long

scrawl, write something to Florence to decide me. I shall certainly

not, without strong reasons, at present _sign_ the agreement for the

old codger’s house; although the extreme beauty and fitness of the

place, should we decide on Florence, might well overbalance the

objection of your deaf visitor. One thing--with Lord Byron and the

people we know at Pisa, we should have a security and protection, which

seems to be more questionable at Florence. But I do not think that this

consideration ought to weigh. What think you of remaining at Pisa? The

Williamses would probably be induced to stay there if we did; Hunt

would certainly stay, at least this winter, near us, should he emigrate

at all; Lord Byron and his Italian friends would remain quietly there;

and Lord Byron has certainly a great regard for us--the regard of such

a man is worth--_some_ of the tribute we must pay to the base passions

of humanity in any intercourse with those within their circle; he is

better worth it than those on whom we bestow it from mere custom. The

---- are there, and as far as solid affairs are concerned, are my

friends. * * * At Pisa I need not distil my water--if I _can_ distil it

anywhere. Last winter I suffered less from my painful disorder than the

winter I spent at Florence. The arguments for Florence you know, and

they are very weighty; judge (_I know you like the job_) which scale is

overbalanced.

My greatest content would be utterly to desert all human society. I

would retire with you and our child to a solitary island in the sea,

would build a boat, and shut upon my retreat the flood-gates of the

world. I would read no reviews, and talk with no authors. If I dared

trust my imagination, it would tell me that there are one or two

chosen companions beside yourself whom I should desire. But to this I

would not listen--where two or three are gathered together, the devil

is among them. And good, far more than evil impulses, love, far more

than hatred, has been to me, except as you have been its object, the

source of all sorts of mischief. So on this plan, I would be _alone_,

and would devote either to oblivion or to future generations, the

overflowings of a mind which, timely withdrawn from the contagion,

should be kept fit for no baser object. But this it does not appear

that we shall do.

The other side of the alternative (for a medium ought not to be

adopted) is to form for ourselves a society of our own class, as much

as possible in intellect, or in feelings; and to connect ourselves

with the interests of that society. Our roots never struck so deeply

as at Pisa, and the transplanted tree flourishes not. People who lead

the lives which we led until last winter, are like a family of Wahabee

Arabs, pitching their tent in the midst of London. We must do one thing

or the other--for yourself, for our child, for our existence. The

calumnies, the sources of which are probably deeper than we perceive,

have ultimately, for object, the depriving us of the means of security

and subsistence. You will easily perceive the gradations by which

calumny proceeds to pretext, pretext to persecution, and persecution

to the ban of fire and water. It is for this, and not because this or

that fool, or the whole court of fools, curse and rail, that calumny is

worth refuting or chastising.

TO HORATIO SMITH.

_Pisa, Sept. 14th, 1821._

My dear Smith,

I cannot express the pain and disappointment with which I learn the

change in your plans, no less than the afflicting cause of it. Florence

will no longer have any attractions for me this winter, and I shall

contentedly sit down in this humdrum Pisa, and refer to hope and to

chance the pleasure I had expected from your society this winter. What

shall I do with your packages, which have now, I believe, all arrived

at Guebhard’s at Leghorn? Is it not possible that a favourable change

in Mrs. Smith’s health might produce a corresponding change in your

determinations, and would it, or would it not, be premature to forward

the packages to your present residence, or to London? I will pay every

possible attention to your instructions in this regard.

I had marked down several houses in Florence, and one especially on the

Arno, a most lovely place, though they asked rather more than perhaps

you would have chosen to pay--yet nothing approaching to an English

price.--I do not yet entirely give you up.--Indeed, I should be sorry

not to hope that Mrs. Smith’s state of health would not soon become

such, as to remove your principal objection to this delightful climate.

I have not, with the exception of three or four days, suffered in the

least from the heat this year. Though, it is but fair to confess, that

my temperament approaches to that of the salamander.

We expect Lord Byron here in about a fortnight. I have just taken the

finest palace in Pisa for him, and his luggage, and his horses, and

all his train, are, I believe, already on their way hither. I dare

say you have heard of the life he led at Venice, rivalling the wise

Solomon almost, in the number of his concubines. Well, he is now quite

reformed, and is leading a most sober and decent life, as _cavaliere

servente_ to a very pretty Italian woman, who has already arrived

at Pisa, with her father and her brother (such are the manners of

Italy), as the jackals of the lion. He is occupied in forming a new

drama, and, with views which I doubt not will expand as he proceeds,

is determined to write a series of plays, in which he will follow the

French tragedians and Alfieri, rather than those of England and Spain,

and produce something new, at least, to England. This seems to me the

wrong road; but genius like his is destined to lead and not to follow.

He will shake off his shackles as he finds they cramp him. I believe

he will produce something very great; and that familiarity with the

dramatic power of human nature will soon enable him to soften down the

severe and unharmonising traits of his “Marino Faliero.” I think you

know Lord Byron personally, or is it your brother? If the latter, I

know that he wished particularly to be introduced to you, and that he

will sympathise, in some degree, in this great disappointment which I

feel in the change, or, as I yet hope, in the prorogation of your plans.

I am glad you like “Adonais,” and, particularly, that you do not think

it metaphysical, which I was afraid it was. I was resolved to pay some

tribute of sympathy to the unhonoured dead, but I wrote, as usual, with

a total ignorance of the effect that I should produce.--I have not

yet seen your pastoral drama; if you have a copy, could you favour me

with it? It will be six months before I shall receive it from England.

I have heard it spoken of with high praise, and I have the greatest

curiosity to see it.

The Gisbornes promised to buy me some books in Paris, and I had asked

you to be kind enough to advance them what they might want to pay for

them. I cannot conceive why they did not execute this little commission

for me, as they knew how very much I wished to receive these books by

the same conveyance as the filtering-stone. Dare I ask you to do me

the favour to buy them? _A complete edition of the works of Calderon_,

and the French translation of Kant, a German Faust, and to add the

Nympholept?[37]--I am indifferent as to a little more or less expense,

so that I may have them immediately. I will send you an order on Paris

for the amount, together with the thirty-two francs you were kind

enough to pay for me.

All public attention is now centred on the wonderful revolution in

Greece. I dare not, after the events of last winter hope that slaves

can become freemen so cheaply; yet I know one Greek of the highest

qualities, both of courage and conduct, the Prince Mavrocordato, and

if the rest be like him, all will go well.--The news of this moment is,

that the Russian army has orders to advance.

Mrs. S. unites with me in the most heartfelt regret,

And I remain, my dear Smith,

Most faithfully yours,

P. B. S.

If you happen to have brought a copy of Clarke’s edition of Queen Mab

for me, I should like very well to see it.--I really hardly know what

this poem is about. I am afraid it is rather rough.

[37] _Amarynthus the Nympholept_, by Horace Smith.--Ed.

TO MR. JOHN GISBORNE.

_Pisa, October 22, 1821._

My dear Gisborne,

At length the post brings a welcome letter from you, and I am pleased

to be assured of your health and safe arrival. I expect with interest

and anxiety the intelligence of your progress in England, and how far

the advantages there compensate the loss of Italy. I hear from Hunt

that he is determined on emigration, and if I thought the letter would

arrive in time, I should beg you to suggest some advice to him. But you

ought to be incapable of forgiving me the fact of depriving England of

what it must lose when Hunt departs.