pittance. After a visit to Italy, where he formed a friendship with lord Byron, and composed his Rosalind and Helen, and Ode to the Euganean Hill, he returned to England, and married the daughter of Mr. Godwin, with whom he resided for some time at Great Marlow, in Buckinghamshire. Here he was remarkable for his unostentatious charity; and he not only administered pecuniary relief to the poor, but visited them when sick in their beds, having previously gone the round of the hospitals, on purpose to be able to practice on occasion. At Marlow, he composed the Revolt of Islam, his introduction to which, addressed to his wife, is, perhaps, one of the most beautiful and touching pieces of poetry ever composed. About this time he was deprived of the guardianship of his two children, in consequence of his alleged sceptical notions, and of certain peculiar opinions respecting the intercourse of the sexes. After his separation from them, which deeply affected him, and increased his disgust towards the institutions of his country, he returned, with his family by his second wife, to Italy, where he joined lord Byron and Leigh Hunt in a periodical called The Liberal. In June, 1822, he visited the former, at Pisa, and, on the 7th of July, set off, in a boat, on his return to his own family, at Lerici, in the bay of Spezzia; when a tremendous storm came on, and, in a week afterwards, the body of Shelley, with those of Mr. Williams and a seaman, his only companions, were washed on shore near Villa Reggio. Their remains, after having been interred by the Italian authorities, were, at the request of their respective friends, dug up, and reduced to ashes, when those of Shelley were deposited in the Protestant burial ground at Rome, near the grave of Keats.
In person, Mr. Shelley was tall and slight, of a consumptive constitution, and subject to spasmodic pains, the violence of which would sometimes force him to lie on the ground till they were over. The marks of premature thought and trouble were more visible in his frame than his countenance, which, says the writer from whom we have before quoted, 'had a certain seraphical character, that would have suited a portrait of John the Baptist, or the angel whom Milton describes as "holding a reed tipped with fire."' He had a small, but well-shaped face, with a fair and delicate complexion, cheeks not devoid of color, and large animated eyes, that had almost an appearance of wildness. His voice was weak and shrill, and had a peculiar effect on those who heard it for the first time. He passed a solitary and temperate life; rising early in the morning, and retiring to bed at ten o'clock, having, in the meantime written, studied, and read to his wife, and taken sparingly of his meals, which consisted, at dinner, of vegetables, as he partook neither of meat nor wine. His purse, though he possessed but a very limited income, was at the service of all who needed it; it was not uncommon with him, says our previous authority, to give away all his ready money, and be compelled to take a journey on foot, or on the top of a stage, no matter during what weather. He allowed to a literary acquaintance a pension of £100 per annum; but says Mr. Leigh Hunt, 'the princeliness of his disposition was seen most in his behavior to myself, who am proud to relate, that Mr. Shelley once made me a present of £1,400 to extricate me from debt, and his last sixpence was ever at my service, had I chosen to share it.' The following anecdote is told of lord Byron, and some of his cotemporaries; Shelley, at the time, being on a visit to his house at Hampstead:—'As I approached my door,' said Mr.
