did it merit all the malevolence it seemed to excite in Southey's mind.

When Shelley was in Switzerland, after a visit to Montanvert, and the Mer de Glace, he had, as is the custom, signed his name in the book at the Chalet; and, after it, had added the word αθεος.

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His fatal propensity for shocking people has been already noticed; and it is one sincerely to be regretted. He injured and misrepresented himself thereby; for never was there reverent believer in the existence of a Supreme. Being than Shelley; and if such a signature meant anything, it was an unbelief in what he considered the vulgar notion of a God, which appeared to him too often that of a Jupiter seated on Olympus, rather than that of an allwise, All-beneficent Being, such as Shelley loved in his loftiest aspirations to contemplate him, the pervading Spirit of the universe.

CHAPTER XVI.

A romantic picture-Removal to Pisa-Nature of the Poet's studies at this period-His continued ill-health --Captain Medwin at Pisa-Animal magnetism-Its effect on Shelley-The Poet's youthful appearance— His intimacy with Vacca.

THE baths of San Giuliano being but a summer resort, Shelley returned into the town of Pisa, to pass the winter; to this, however, he was impelled earlier than he had intended, by an accident.

His house, situated immediately on the banks of the Serchio, was suddenly inundated by the overflowing of the river; its waters rose rapidly, and the square of the baths was soon flooded, the doors of his house were burst open, and the next morning, the inundation having still

increased, the whole of the first floor was under water.

The poet was repaid for the destruction of his household goods by the picturesque scene which followed this not uncommon occurrence in a mountainous country.

The peasants were constrained to remove their cattle from the plains to the hills above the baths, and, it being night-time, a fire was kept up and the Contadine bore torches to guide them across the ford. Shelley watched this proceeding from his window with intense delight.

The groups of cattle, the shouts of the drivers, the picturesque dresses of the women, half immersed in water, on which the red glare of the lights reflected, the dark mountains in the back ground, standing out in bold relief, formed an animated and most romantic picture.

The next morning he, together with his wife and family, was obliged to get out of the window, that being the only egress, into a boat, and proceeded at once to Pisa, where, it appears, he had already taken an apartment.

The more stationary mode of life Shelley now

followed had the great advantage of gathering round him by degrees an esteemed circle of friends, who knew how to appreciate his exalted talents, and to admire his character. Such associations became more and more necessary to dispel the clouds of melancholy that sometimes darkened his fine intellect.

The persevering malice of his detractors could not but have its due effect; and constant ill health, and the terrible languor and exhaustion, both to mind and body, which it naturally produces, was gradually telling upon his constitution. It had already obliterated much of the buoyancy of his more vigorous youth.

His hitherto multifarious studies were considerably relaxed, and were now almost limited to a few favourite authors, whose productions he continued to read with still increasing delight.

Since his mastery of the Spanish language, which seemed to throw open to him the portals of a new intellectual paradise, Calderon had become his constant companion. In a letter of this period he says—

"I am bathing myself in the light and odour

VOL. II.

L

of the flowery and starry Autos. I have read hem all more than once."

Besides Calderon, his limited library consisted of the Greek Plays, Plato, Lord Bacon's Works, Shakspeare, the Old Dramatists, Milton, Goethe and Schiller, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, and last, though not least, the Bible.

The careful and attentive reading of such a collection the poet rightly conceived to be more advantageous than the superficial knowledge of a longer list of books.

Such, then, was the storehouse which continually recruited his mind with expansive thought and rich, glowing imagery, and enabled him for ever to preserve the same lofty and elevated tone, and that classical purity for which his style is so eminently distinguished.

In a

This winter, he seems to have suffered more than his usual depression, aggravated, no doubt, by the circumstances already narrated. letter written the following summer, he thus refers to it in speaking of himself:—

"I suffer much to-day from the pain in my side. In other respects I am pretty well, and