account. On seeing the black silk handkerchief which the dead man had worn round his neck, Lord Byron (who was present, together with Leigh Hunt) observed "The entrails of a worm hold together longer than the potter's clay of which man is made." The relics were then cast into the furnace; which had been constructed, under the direction of Mr. Trelawny, of iron bars and strong sheet-iron. "Don't repeat this with me," said Byron: "let my carcase rot where it falls." Frankincense, salt, wine, and oil, were thrown on the pyre; a light was set to the materials; and, after a few hours' fierce burning, the remains were found to be reduced to dark-coloured ashes and some fragments of the larger bones. The relics were then screwed down in a box, and placed in Byron's carriage. This took place on the 15th of August. On the following day, the same ceremony was performed with regard to the corpse of Shelley, which lay near Via Reggio, and which, like that of Williams, had been temporarily buried in the sand. Mr. Trelawny, Lord Byron, and Leigh Hunt, were again present, and a guard of soldiers, as on the former occasion, stood by. The spot was wild, lonely, and inexpressibly grand. In front, lay the broad, bright waters of the Mediterranean, with the islands of Elba, Capraji, and Gorgona, in view; the white marble peaks of the Apennines closed the prospect behind, cooling the intense glare of the midday sun with the semblance of snow; and all between stretched the sands (yellow against the blue of the sea), and a wild, bare, uninhabited country, parched by the saline air, and exhibiting no other vegetation than a few stunted and bent tufts of underwood. A row of high, square watch-towers stood along the coast; and above, in the hot stillness, soared a solitary curlew, which occasionally circled close to the pile, uttering its shrill scream, and defying all attempts to drive it away. The body was placed entire in the furnace, and wine, frankincense, &c., as in the case of Williams, were cast on to the pyre. The flames, which were of a rich golden hue, broad and towering, glistened and quivered, and threw out, together with the sunlight, so intense a heat that the atmosphere became tremulous and wavy. Leigh Hunt witnessed the ceremony from Lord Byron's carriage, occasionally drawing back when he was too much overcome to allow his emotions to be seen; while Byron himself, finding his fortitude unequal to the occasion, left before the conclusion of the rites. The ashes of Shelley were deposited in the Protestant burial-ground at Rome, by the side of his son William, and of his brother-poet, Keats. An inscription in Latin, simply setting forth the facts, was written by Leigh Hunt, and Mr. Trelawny added a few lines from Shakpeare's Tempest (one of Shelley's favourite plays):: Nothing of him that doth fade, The same gentleman also planted eight cypresses round the spot, of which seven were flourishing in 1844, and probably are still. A view of the place faces the titlepage of this volume. And so the sea and the earth closed over one who was great as a poet, and still greater as a philanthropist; and of whom it may be said, that his wild, spiritual character seems to have prepared him for being thus snatched from life under circumstances of mingled terror and beauty, while his powers were yet in their spring freshness, and age had not come to render the ethereal body decrepit, or to wither the heart which could not be consumed by fire. * The facts, on which the foregoing description of the burning of the bodies is based, are derived from Captain Medwin's Conversations of Lord Byron; Mr. Trelawny's Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron; and Leigh Hunt's Autobiography. 205 CHAPTER XIV. MARY SHELLEY. A WIDOW at four-and-twenty years of age; left in a foreign land, with no certain income, and with a child to support; coldly regarded by her husband's family, and possessed of no influential friends in England ;Mrs. Shelley now entered on a struggle which she has described as " lonely" and "unsolaced," but which she encountered in the true spirit of heroism, and lived to see crowned with success and rewarded by happier days. The first emotions of horror at the death of her husband gave place to grief of a calmer, but more intense kind. It will be seen, in the ensuing letters, and in the journal which follows them, how deep was the agony which the young widowed heart endured; how abiding the sense of loss; how omnipresent the recollection of him whose genius now became associated with all sights and sounds of earth, sky, and ocean. Italy had been the chosen land of Shelley; and his widow, though meeting everywhere with some ghost of old companionship, some memory of that which had vanished for ever in this life, clung for a long while to the country which had witnessed her greatest joy and her wildest sorrow. She very speedily, however, left the Bay of Spezzia, and took up her residence at Pisa. But she was not without comforters in her grief. Foremost among the letters she received from England must be placed one from her father, who, on the 9th of August, 1822, writes :— My poor girl! What do you mean to do with yourself? You surely do not mean to stay in Italy? How glad I should be to be near you, and to endeavour by new expedients each day to make up for your loss! But you are the best judge. If Italy is a country to which in these few years you are naturalized, and if England is become dull and odious to you, then stay. I should think, however, that now you have lost your closest friend, your mind would naturally turn homewards, and [to] your earliest friend. Is it not so? Surely we might be a great support to each other, under the trials to which we are reserved. What signify a few outward adversities, if we find a friend at home? Above all, let me entreat you to keep up your courage. You have many duties to perform; you must now be the father, as well as the mother; and I trust you have energy of character enough to enable you to perform your duties honourably and well. Ever and ever most affectionately yours, W. GODWIN. From Mrs. Shelley to Miss Curran. MY DEAR MISS CURRAN, Pisa, July 26th, 1822. You will have received my letter concerning the pictures, and now I have another request to make. Your kindness to us when we were both so unhappy*-your great kindness—makes me do this without that feeling of unwillingness which I have in asking favours of any other person. Besides, you are unhappy, and therefore can better sympathise with and console the miserable *From the loss of their son William, at Rome.-ED. |