the shore, all of which he at once recognised as belonging to the boat.

He proceeded to Spezia, where nothing was heard of the missing boat. Mrs. Shelley, unable longer to endure this agony of suspense, rose from her sick bed and proceeded to Pisa.

"I never can forget," says Byron," the night when she rushed into my room at Pisa, with a face pale as marble, and terror impressed on her brow, demanding, with all the impetuosity of grief and alarm, where was her husband?

"Vain," he says, " were all our efforts to calm her; a desperate sort of courage seemed to give her energy to confront the horrible truth that awaited her; it was the courage of despair.

"I have seen nothing," he adds, "in tragedy on the stage, so powerful or so affecting as her appearance, and it often presents itself to my memory. I knew nothing then of the catastrophe, but the vividness of her terror communicated itself to me, and I feared the worst, which fears were, alas ! too fearfully realized."*

On Trelawny's return to Via Reggio, he was * Lady Blessington's Conversations with Lord Byron.

informed that two bodies had been washed on shore, one that night very near the town, the other near a tower on the Tuscan shore, about four miles distant, which he soon recognised to be those of Shelley and Williams.

Both bodies were greatly decomposed, fourteen days having elapsed between the loss of the schooner and the time of their being cast on shore. They were identified, however, beyond all doubt.

On the part of Williams, it did not appear that he had gone down without a struggle, for he was half undressed, and being an expert swimmer, it seemed probable that he made an effort to swim for his life.

The case was different with Shelley; with all his fondness for the water, he could never be taught to swim, and when found, his dress was complete, his right hand locked in his bosom, and in it was found a volume of Keats' poems, open at the "Eve of St. Agnes," which he appeared to have been reading till the last moment, when, suddenly surprised by the storm, he probably resigned himself to his fate and went down without a struggle.

Some time after the recovery of the bodies, the vessel itself was discovered by Captain Roberts, off Via Reggio, where it had gone down in ten fathoms of water with all her sails set. She was in no way injured, and every thing was found on board precisely as it must have been left.

At a later period, an attempt was made to render her again sea-worthy, but it was found impracticable, and perhaps even now, poor Shelley's yacht may be seen rolling on the shore of one of the Ionian Islands, near which she was wrecked.*

It was very natural that the friends of the departed should wish to possess their remains to bear them to such a spot as they might have desired for their last resting place, but even this consolation seemed denied them, by the quarantine laws of the coast, by which it was regulated, that everything cast on shore from the sea should be burned, to prevent any possibility of bringing the plague into Italy.

Every exertion was made with the Lucchese and Tuscan governments, to obtain some abate* Mrs Shelley's Notes.

ment of this regulation in the present instance, but without effect.

Through the unwearied exertions, however of Mr. Dawkins, our Chargé d'Affaires at Florence, permission was at length gained to receive the remains after they had been reduced to ashes by fire.

These arrangements were not completed till upwards of a month after the wreck; in the meantime, the bodies had been partially buried in the sand on the sea shore, where they had been cast by the waves.

On the 13th of August, Mr. Trelawny and Captain Shenley, on board the Bolivar, sailed to Via Reggio, where they were joined by Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt, and such persons as were necessary to assist in the melancholy duty of burning the dead. Two days were spent in the performance of these rites, a separate funeral pyre being raised for each on the spot where they had been cast.

There was a peculiar fitness in the place which destiny seemed to have allotted for the solemn and sublime ceremony they were now about to fulfil.

To the right was the magnificent bay of Spezia, at an equal distance from Leghorn on the left; in front, was the tideless sea, dotted with islands, now calm and glassy as a mirror, rippling at their feet over the yellow sands which stretched far away, scorching under the intense heat of an Italian sun; above, was the unclouded canopy of heaven, in all its purity and brightness; behind, was the rugged grandeur of the Apennines, whose white summits gave to them the semblance of being capped with snow, and all along the coast, at equal distances, stood high square towers, used either to guard against smuggling or to enforce the quarantine laws, which added a picturesque beauty to the scene; and the deep silence that reigned around, was rendered still more palpable at this moment, by the shrill scream of a solitary curlew, which, attracted probably by the scent of death, hovered around the pyre so near, that it might almost be struck by the hand, and so fearlessly, that it could not be driven away.

Frankincense and wine, and such other things as could be procured, to give to the ceremony a more classical character, were thrown upon the