The poet also paid a visit to the source of the Arveiron, and it was, says Mrs. Shelley, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve, on his way through the valley of Chamouni, that the poem on Mont Blanc was inspired.

The poet himself tells us it was composed under the immediate impressions of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects it attempts to describe; and as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untameable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which these feelings sprang.

The thoughts that these scenes gave rise to are in keeping with the grandeur of the subject, and the poet's abstract theories are advanced with wonderful energy:

"The everlasting universe of things

Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark-now glittering-now reflecting gloom-
Now lending splendour, when from secret springs
The source of human thought, its tribute brings
Of waters-with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume

In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,

VOL. II.

D

Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.

Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep; that death is slumber,
And that it shapes the busy thoughts outnumber}
Of those who wake and live. I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled
The veil of life and death? or do I lie

In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep
Speed far around, and inaccessibly

Its circles? For the very spirit fails,

Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep,
That vanishes among the viewless gales."

Any praise that I might bestow on this must seem superfluous, so undeniable is the grandeur and sublimity of its character. In such language, as has been truthfully remarked, Prometheus might have apostrophised on the Caucasus.

CHAPTER V.

Return to Mont Alegre-Monk Lewis and ghost stories -Strange effect on Shelley's imagination-" Frankenstein"-The "Vampire"-Shelley's return to England.

RETURNING from this short excursion, which lasted about a week, Shelley again took up his abode at Mont Alegre; but a valuable addition was now made to their small circle, in the person of the celebrated Monk Lewis, who at this period visited Lord Byron at Diodati, where the noble poet had for some time past taken up his abode.

Lewis's love of the wild and marvellous, which he had imbibed from the legends of Ger

many, while travelling in early life, introduced a novelty into their small circle, which soon proved to be very contagious.

During a week of incessant rain, which confined them in-doors, they amused themselves by, each in turn, reading or narrating a ghost story, an accomplishment in which Lewis so particularly excelled. Many were the strange tales of terror thus conjured up, and Shelley has given us specimens of those told by Lewis, in a short journal kept at the time; but one evening a singular scene arose out of this mode of pastime.

After one of the party had been perusing a German work called Phantasmagoria, they began relating ghost stories as usual, and Lord Byron recited the beginning of Christabel, then unpublished, when Shelley suddenly started up and ran out of the room, followed soon after by Byron and the physician; he was discovered leaning against a mantle-piece, in a terrible state of agitation, with cold drops of perspiration trickling down his face.

When they had succeeded in calming him, they inquired the cause of his alarm, and it was

found that his wild imagination had conjured up the vision of a beautiful woman, who was leaning over the balustrade of a staircase, and looking down on him with four eyes, two of which were in the centre of her uncovered breast; and he had realized this picture so vividly to his own mind, that he was obliged to rush from the room in order to destroy the impression.

*

But the most notable result of this story-telling system, was the far-famed novel of " Frankenstein," written by the gifted daughter of William Godwin, and pronounced by Byron "a wonderful book for a girl of nineteen," though Mary Godwin had scarcely attained that age when she produced this work.

The manner in which this novel was commenced is well known. Byron and the fair authoress agreed to write something in imitation of the German ghost stories they had been reading together, and they each sat down to their task. Byron's " Vampire" was then commenced, but being a prose narrative, was soon cast aside and forgotten. The poet, however,

See Moore's Life of Byron.