vion! may thy languid wing
Wave gently o'er my dying bed.

"No band of friends or heirs be there
To weep, or wish the coming blow;
No maiden with dishevelled hair
To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

"But silent let me sink to earth,
With no officious mourners near;
I would not mar one hour of rest
Or startle friendship with a tear."

Never was wish more literally fulfilled than this. There were none but
servants about him in his last hours:--

"In all these attendants," says Parry, "there was an
over-officiousness of zeal; but as they could not understand each
other's language their zeal only added to the confusion. This
circumstance, and the want of common necessaries, made Byron's
apartment such a picture at distress and even anguish during the
last two or three days of his life as never before beheld, and have
no wish to witness again."

His remains were taken to England and interred in the family vault in
the Church of Hucknall. His poems are his imperishable monument.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

SHELLEY.

The beautiful face of Shelley is one that is familiar to all students of
literary biography, and contends with that of Byron for the distinction
of being the handsomest among the men of letters of his day. Burns was
also a picture of manly beauty, whose features have long been familiar
in engravings; but Byron and Shelley look the ideal poet far more than
their sturdier Scottish brother. The face of Schiller was also one of
great charm, and Tennyson and Longfellow in their youth were also
beautiful; but the world is more familiar with the representations of
their later years, and has almost forgotten the alluring eyes and the
flowing locks of the youthful bards.

Shelley always had a girlish look, caused perhaps by a feeble
constitution, and he suffered much from poor health, which added to the
delicacy of his face. But there was a wonderful charm about his
countenance even in childhood, and his eyes seemed like wells into which
one might fall. There was rare sweetness in his smile, too. He was a
tall man and very slender, with a certain squareness of shoulder, and
great bodily litheness and activity. He had an oval face and delicate
features. His forehead was high. His fine dark-brown hair disposed
itself in beautiful curls over his brow and around the back of his neck.
The eyes were brown, and the coloring of his face as so