nd, with their one sailor-boy, thought
themselves a match for the storms of the Mediterranean, in a boat which
they looked upon as equal to all it was put to do.

On the 1st of July they left us. If ever shadow of future ill darkened
the present hour, such was over my mind when they went. During the whole
of our stay at Lerici, an intense presentiment of coming evil brooded
over my mind, and covered this beautiful place and genial summer with
the shadow of coming misery. I had vainly struggled with these
emotions--they seemed accounted for by my illness; but at this hour of
separation they recurred with renewed violence. I did not anticipate
danger for them, but a vague expectation of evil shook me to agony, and
I could scarcely bring myself to let them go. The day was calm and
clear; and, a fine breeze rising at twelve, they weighed for Leghorn.
They made the run of about fifty miles in seven hours and a half. The
"Bolivar" was in port; and, the regulations of the Health-office not
permitting them to go on shore after sunset, they borrowed cushions from
the larger vessel, and slept on board their boat.

They spent a week at Pisa and Leghorn. The want of rain was severely
felt in the country. The weather continued sultry and fine. I have heard
that Shelley all this time was in brilliant spirits. Not long before,
talking of presentiment, he had said the only one that he ever found
infallible was the certain advent of some evil fortune when he felt
peculiarly joyous. Yet, if ever fate whispered of coming disaster, such
inaudible but not unfelt prognostics hovered around us. The beauty of
the place seemed unearthly in its excess: the distance we were at from
all signs of civilization, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its
roaring for ever in our ears,--all these things led the mind to brood
over strange thoughts, and, lifting it from everyday life, caused it to
be familiar with the unreal. A sort of spell surrounded us; and each
day, as the voyagers did not return, we grew restless and disquieted,
and yet, strange to say, we were not fearful of the most apparent
danger.

The spell snapped; it was all over; an interval of agonizing doubt--of
days passed in miserable journeys to gain tidings, of hopes that took
firmer root even as they were more baseless--was changed to the
certainty of the death that eclipsed all happiness for the survivors for
evermore.

There was something in our fate peculiarly harrowing. The remai