t
beautiful parts of this country and Ireland. Afterwards the Alps of
Switzerland became his inspirers. "Prometheus Unbound" was written among
the deserted and flower-grown ruins of Rome; and, when he made his home
under the Pisan hills, their roofless recesses harboured him as he
composed the "Witch of Atlas", "Adonais", and "Hellas". In the wild but
beautiful Bay of Spezzia, the winds and waves which he loved became his
playmates. His days were chiefly spent on the water; the management of
his boat, its alterations and improvements, were his principal
occupation. At night, when the unclouded moon shone on the calm sea, he
often went alone in his little shallop to the rocky caves that bordered
it, and, sitting beneath their shelter, wrote the "Triumph of Life", the
last of his productions. The beauty but strangeness of this lonely
place, the refined pleasure which he felt in the companionship of a few
selected friends, our entire sequestration from the rest of the world,
all contributed to render this period of his life one of continued
enjoyment. I am convinced that the two months we passed there were the
happiest which he had ever known: his health even rapidly improved, and
he was never better than when I last saw him, full of spirits and joy,
embark for Leghorn, that he might there welcome Leigh Hunt to Italy. I
was to have accompanied him; but illness confined me to my room, and
thus put the seal on my misfortune. His vessel bore out of sight with a
favourable wind, and I remained awaiting his return by the breakers of
that sea which was about to engulf him.

He spent a week at Pisa, employed in kind offices toward his friend, and
enjoying with keen delight the renewal of their intercourse. He then
embarked with Mr. Williams, the chosen and beloved sharer of his
pleasures and of his fate, to return to us. We waited for them in vain;
the sea by its restless moaning seemed to desire to inform us of what we
would not learn:--but a veil may well be drawn over such misery. The
real anguish of those moments transcended all the fictions that the most
glowing imagination ever portrayed; our seclusion, the savage nature of
the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, and our immediate vicinity
to the troubled sea, combined to imbue with strange horror our days of
uncertainty. The truth was at last known,--a truth that made our loved
and lovely Italy appear a tomb, its sky a pall. Every heart echoed the
deep lament, and my