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that subject. Tita is with me, and I suppose will go with you in the schooner to Leghorn. We are very impatient to see you, and although we cannot hope that you will stay long on your first visit, we count upon you for the latter part of the summer, as soon as the novelty of Leghorn is blunted. Mary desires her best regards to you, and unites with me in a sincere wish to renew an intimacy from which we have already experienced so much pleasure.

Believe me, my dear Trelawny,

Your very sincere friend,

P. B. SHELley.

LERICI, June 18, 1822.

MY DEAR TRELAWNY,

I have written to Guelhard, to pay you 154 Tuscan crowns, 'the amount of the balance against me according to Roberts's calculation, which I keep for your satisfaction, deducting sixty, which I paid the aubergiste at Pisa, in all 214. We saw you

about eight miles in the offing this morning; but the abatement of the breeze leaves us little hope that you can have made Leghorn this evening. Pray write us a full, true, and particular account of your proceedings, etc.-How Lord Byron likes the vessel; what are your arrangements and intentions for the summer; and when we may expect to see you or him in this region again; and especially whether there is any news of Hunt. Roberts and Williams are very busy in refitting the “Don Juan;" they seem determined that she shall enter Leghorn in style. I am no great judge of these matters; but am excessively obliged to the former, and delighted that the latter should find amusement, like the sparrow, in educating the cuckoo's

young.

You, of course, enter into society at Leghorn; should you meet with any scientific person, capable of preparing the Prussic Acid, or essential oil of bitter almonds, I should regard it as a great kindness if you could procure me a small quantity It requires the greatest caution in preparation, and ought to be highly concentrated; I would give any price for this medicine; you remember we talked of it the other night, and we both

expressed a wish to possess it; my wish was serious, and sprung from the desire of avoiding needless suffering. I need not tell you I have no intention of suicide at present, but I confess it would be a comfort to me to hold in my possession that golden key to the chamber of perpetual rest. The Prussic Acid is used in medicine in infinitely minute doses; but that preparation is weak, and has not the concentration necessary to medicine all ills infallibly. A single drop, even less, is a dose, and it acts by paralysis.

I am curious to hear of this publication about Lord Byron and the Pisa circle. I hope it will not annoy him, as to me I am supremely indifferent. If you have not shown the letter I sent you, don't, until Hunt's arrival, when we shall certainly meet. Your very sincere friend,

P. B. SHELLEY.

Mary is better, though still excessively weak.

SHELLEY'S SEAMANSHIP.

Not long after, I followed in Byron's boat, the "Bolivar" schooner. There was no fault to find with her; Roberts and the builder had fashioned her after their own fancy, and she was both fast and safe. I manned her with five able seamen, four Genoese and one Englishman. I put into the Gulf of Spezzia, and found Shelley in ecstasy with his boat, and Williams as touchy about her reputation as if she had been his wife. They were hardly ever out of her, and talked of the Mediterranean as a lake too confined and tranquil to exhibit her sea-going excellence. They longed to be on the broad Atlantic, scudding under bare poles in a heavy sou'wester, with plenty of sea room. I went out for a sail in Shelley's boat to see how they would manage her. It was great fun to witness Williams teaching the Poet how to steer, and other points of seamanship. As usual, Shelley had a book in hand, saying he could read and steer at the same time, as one was mental, the other mechanical.

"Luff!" said Williams.

Shelley put the helm the wrong way. Williams corrected him.

"Do you see those two white objects a-head? keep them in a line, the wind is heading us." Then turning to me, he said : "Lend me a hand to haul in the main-sheet, and I will show you how close she can lay to the wind to work off a lee-shore." "No," I answered; “I am a passenger, and won't touch a rope."

"Luff!" said Williams, as the boat was yawning about. "Shelley, you can't steer, you have got her in the wind's eye; give me the tiller, and you attend the main-sheet. Ready about!" said Williams. "Helms down-let go the fore-sheet -see how she spins round on her heel--is not she a beauty? Now, Shelley, let go the main-sheet, and boy, haul aft the jibsheet!"

The main-sheet was jammed, and the boat unmanageable, or as sailors express it, in irons; when the two had cleared it, Shelley's hat was knocked overboard, and he would probably have followed, if I had not held him. He was so uncommonly awkward, that when they had things ship-shape, Williams, somewhat scandalized at the lubberly manoeuvre, blew up the Poet for his neglect and inattention to orders. Shelley was, however, so happy, and in such high glee, and the nautical terms so tickled his fancy, that he even put his beloved “ Plato” in his pocket, and gave his mind up to fun and frolic.

"You will do no good with Shelley," I said, "until you heave his books and papers overboard; shear the wisps of hair that hang over his eyes; and plunge his arms up to the elbow in a tar-bucket. And you, captain, will have no authority, until you dowse your frock coat and cavalry boots. You see I am stripped for a swim, so please, whilst I am on board, to keep within swimming distance of the land."

The boy was quick and handy, and used to boats. Williams was not as deficient as I anticipated, but over-anxious and wanted practice, which alone makes a man prompt in emergency. Shelley was intent on catching images from the everchanging sea and sky, he heeded not the boat. On my sug

gesting the addition to their crew of a Genoese sailor accus tomed to the coast--such as I had on board the "Bolivar,"Williams, thinking I undervalued his efficiency as a seaman, was scandalized-" as if we three seasoned salts were not enough to manage an open boat, when lubberly sloops and cutters of fifty or sixty tons were worked by as few men on the rough seas and iron-bound coast of Scotland !"

"Yes," I answered, "but what a difference between those sea-lions and you and our water-poet! A decked cutter besides, or even a frigate is easier handled in a gale or squall, and out-and-out safer to be on board of than an open boat. If we had been in a squall to-day with the main-sheet jammed, and the tiller put starboard instead of port, we should have had to swim for it."

"Not I: I should have gone down with the rest of the pigs in the bottom of the boat," said Shelley, meaning the iron pigballast.

When I took my departure for Leghorn on board the "Bolivar," they accompanied me out of the bay, and then we parted.

SHELLEY, BYRON, AND THE HUNTS.

Shelley, with his friend Williams, soon came in their boat, scudding into the harbor of Leghorn. They went with the Hunts to Pisa, and established them in Lord Byron's palace, Shelley having furnished a floor there for them. In a few days Shelley returned to Leghorn, and found Williams eager to be off. We had a sail outside the port in the two boats. Shelley was in a mournful mood; his mind depressed by a recent interview with Byron.

Byron, at first, had been more eager than Shelley for Leigh Hunt's arrival in Italy to edit and contribute to the proposed new Review, and so continued until his English correspondents had worked on his fears. They did not oppose, for they knew his temper too well, but artfully insinuated that he was jeopardizing his fame and fortune, &c., &c., &c. Shelley found

Byron so irritable, so shuffling and equivocating, whilst talking with him on the fufilment of his promises with regard to Leigh Hunt,-that, but for imperilling Hunt's prospects, Shelley's intercourse with Byron would then have abruptly terminated; it was doomed to be their last meeting.

On Saturday, the 6th, Williams wrote the following letter to his wife at the Villa Magni:

"I have just left the quay, my dearest girl, and the wind blows right across to Spezzia, which adds to the vexation I feel at being unable to leave this place. For my own part, I should have been with you in all probability on Wednesday evening, but I have been kept day after day, waiting for Shelley's definitive arrangements with Lord B. relative to poor Hunt, whom, in my opinion, he has treated vilely. A letter from Mary, of the most gloomy kind, reached S. yesterday, and this mood of hers aggravated my uneasiness to see you; for I am proud, dear girl, beyond words to express, in the conviction, that wherever we may be together you could be cheerful and contented.

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"Would I could take the present gale by the wings and reach you to-night; hard as it blows I would venture across for such a reward. However, to-morrow something decisive shall take place; and if I am detained, I shall depart in a felúca, and leave the boat to be brought round in company with Trelawny in the Bolivar.' He talks of visiting Spezzia again in a few days. I am tired to death of waiting-this is our longest separation, and seems a year to me. Absence alone is enough to make me anxious, and indeed, unhappy; but I think if I had left you in our own house in solitude, I should feel it less than I do now. What can I do? Poor S. desires that I should return to you, but I know secretly wishes me not to leave him in the lurch. He too, by his manner, is as anxious to see you almost as I could be, but the interests of poor H. keep him here; in fact, with Lord B. it appears they cannot do anything, who actually said as much as that he did not wish (?) his name to be attached to the work, and of course to theirs.

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