found with one hand locked in his waistcoat where he had in haste thrust a volume of Keats that he was reading. Owing to a law peculiar to Italy-which enjoins that bodies thus cast on shore should be burned as a precaution against plague—the families of the lost men were compelled to consent to their cremation, and the dead were burned with much solemnity in the presence of Mr. Trelawney, Capt. Shenley, Lord Byron, and Leigh Hunt. Shelley's remains were taken to Rome, and deposited near those of his little son and of Keats in the Protestant cemetery. With regard to his genius there is no longer a dissentient voice. We may regret that he ever wrote "Queen Mab" and "The Revolt of Islam," but "Prometheus" is unrivalled in the language; and his minor poems have proved what perfect music English may become in the hand of a master. Shelley was much beloved by his friends in spite of the eccentricities and peculiarities of his character; he was, we learn, very liberal, even generous, and full of a desire to promote (as well as he knew how) the welfare of humanity. His imagination preponde→ rated over judgment and reason; and he even imagined events to have occurred to himself, which, according to the testimony of his dearest friends, had never happened. Such a life offers much ground for reflection and regret; but we cannot think that Shelley lived wholly in vain when we remember that to him his nation owes the glorious dramatic poem of "Prometheus," and lyrics unequalled in beauty in any modern language. The following curious ghost story respecting Shelley was related by Byron to Captain Medwin, after his death : 66 Shortly before his fatal voyage to Leghorn, the inhabitants of the country house at San Lorenzo were alarmed, at midnight, by piercing shrieks. They rushed out of their bedrooms, and found Shelley in the saloon with his eyes wide open, and gazing on vacancy, as though he beheld some spectre. On waking him, he related that he had had a vision. He thought that a figure wrapped in a mantle came to his bedside, and beckoned to him. He got up and followed it; when in the hall, the phantom lifted up the hood of his cloak, showed Shelley the phantasm of himself-and saying, 'Siete satisfatto?-vanished. "Shelley had been reading a strange drama, which is supposed to have been written by Calderon, entitled, 'El embozado, ó el encapotado.' It is so scarce, that Washington Irving told me he had sought for it without success in several of the public libraries of Spain. The story is--that a kind of Cipriano or Faust is through life thwarted in all his plans for the acquisition of wealth, or honour, or happiness, by a masked stranger, who stands in his way like some Alastor or evil spirit. He is at length in love-the day is fixed for his marriage, when the unknown contrives to sow dissension between him and his betrothed, and to break off the match. Infuriate with his wrongs, he breathes nothing but revenge, but all his attempts to discover his mysterious foe prove abortive: at length his persecutor appears of his own accord. When about to fight, the Embozado unmasks, and discovers the phantasm of himself, saying, 'Are you satisfied?" The hero of the play dies with horror. "This play had worked strongly on Shelley's imagination, and accounts for the awful scene at San Lorenzo." THE POETICAL WORKS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 1813. QUEEN MAB. THIS poem is re-printed from the edition of 1821-the first published. It was surreptitiously printed by a bookseller in the Strand (W. Clark) from one of the copies which Shelley had printed in 1813 for private distribution only. The poet sought an injunction against it. He never published Queen Mab" himself, and his gifted wife doubted whether he would have allowed it a place in his collected poems. Probably he would not, as he had already published a portion of it (much altered) under the title of the Demon of the World," which appeared with "Alastor" in 1816, as a Fragment. We have placed it at the end of Queen Mab" in this edition. It will be seen that several of the alterations made in it have been inserted in the ordinary editions of the poem. " TO HARRIET * " WHOSE is the love that, gleaming through the world, Whose is the warm and partial praise Virtue's most sweet reward? Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow? Harriet on thine :-thou wert my purer mind; Thine are these early wilding flowers, Though garlanded by me. Then press unto thy breast this pledge of love; And know, though time may change and years may roll, Each floweret gathered in my heart It consecrates to thine, 1 I. How wonderful is Death, Hath then the gloomy Power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres Seized on her sinless soul? Must then that peerless form Which love and admiration cannot view As breathing marble, perish? Leave nothing of this heavenly sight Stealing o'er sensation, Which the breath of roseate morning Will Ianthe wake again, And give that faithful bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life, and rapture from her smile? Yes! she will wake again, Although her glowing limbs are motionless, Once breathing eloquence That might have soothed a tiger's rage, And on their lids, whose texture fine The baby Sleep is pillowed: Her golden tresses shade The bosom's stainless pride, Curling like tendrils of the parasite Hark! whence that rushing sound? |