CHAPTER XV. The "Witch of Atlas "-" Ode to Liberty " "Ode to Sensitive Naples ""Edipus Tyrannus "The ley's letter to Southey-Its result-Effect upon Shelley's mind. THE scenery around Shelley's home on the banks of the Serchio invited many a delightful ramble, but that which most deserves mention was a solitary journey, performed on foot, during some of the hottest days of August, to the summit of Monte San Pelegrino. During this journey, which occasioned considerable fatigue and lassitude, indulging in one of his airiest and wildest flights of imagination, he conceived, and in the three days following wrote, the "Witch of Atlas." This poem, as it has been truly observed, can only be admired by poets and very poetical readers, and even these must be prepared to enter into the most subtle abstractions, and to follow its author through the most remote regions of idealism. It is a bright and dazzling day-dream, woven into splendid and harmonious verse, having no other object than the indulgence, while it lasted, of the brilliant imagination that conceived and composed it. But events were stirring in the south of Europe which attracted Shelley's muse to themes of higher import. Spain was revolutionized by the armed assertors of freedom, and the temporary success of the Liberals called forth, in a moment of burning enthusiasm, the glorious "Ode to Liberty." The news of the triumph of the Spanish revolution soon spread like contagious fire, and the cry of liberty awakened the nations :— "As with its thrilling thunder, Vesuvius wakens Etna." Naples was the first to follow the example, and again, as with pen steeped in flame, he sat down to his inspired "Ode to Naples," which for its surpassing excellence stands above all praise. These two odes, full of extraordinary energy and dithyrambic wildness, must for ever hold a pre-eminent position among the few, properly so called, that our language boasts of. That the noble spirit they breathed was not prophetic, may be regretted by every lover of liberty; but while the awful tide of desolation and bloodshed which followed, both in Spain and Italy, the first brief successes that inspired them, is a sad comment upon their exalted aspirations, they must still remain the most perfect specimens of poetic art. Strangely enough, the "Ode to Liberty gave rise to a composition of a very opposite character; but the manner of it shews that if Shelley's mind was capable of soaring into the sublimest regions of poetry, it not the less entertained a keen relish and sense of the ridiculous. A friend came to visit him at the Baths of San Giuliano, at a time when a fair was held in the square, close under his window. He undertook to read his ode, just completed, and was ludicrously accompanied by the grunting of a number of pigs brought for sale to the fair. Shelley compared this to the chorus of frogs in the satiric drama of Aristophanes. It being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting another, the poet conceived a mock tragedy, reflecting on the political disturbances of the day, to which the pigs might serve as chorus; and the burlesque drama of "Edipus Tyrannus" was the result. This undoubtedly is not in Shelley's best style, and whatever ephemeral interest its connection. with the politics of the day might have excited at the time of its composition, has long since faded away. It can but excite a smile, however, to learn that the Society for the Suppression of Vice was seriously alarmed at the appearance of this drama, and, immediately on its publication, threatened a prosecution if not withdrawn. It was withdrawn in consequence, but Mrs. Shelley has wisely included it in the edition of her husband's collected works. The world is naturally curious to possess all he wrote, for though such things as these can add but little to his fame, they afford an insight into the lighter moods of his mind; and shew that even then his hatred of oppression and his strong sympathies for the sorows of his race could lose nothing of their vitality. The "Sensitive Plant" belongs also to the literary labours of this year, a poem of exquisite beauty, exhibiting some of the best features of Shelley's genius in a high degree, full of graceful thought and delicate expression, together with minute and elaborate description; it has likewise the additional charm of contributing another luminous page in the development of the poet's peculiar system of philosophy; glittering throughout with the most spiritual imagery, the concluding stanzas endeavour to convey one of those subtilties of thought which require a mind as clear and as penetrating as his own to comprehend : "In this life Of error, ignorance, and strife, And we the shadow of a dream. It is a modest creed, and yet |