LAST DAYS OF SHELLEY AND BYRON. | 9 |
Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake
With the wide world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me with its stillness to forsake
Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.
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Shortly after I went to Geneva. In the largest country-house (Plangeau) near that city lived a friend of mine, a Cornish baronet, a good specimen of the old school; well read, and polished by long intercourse with intelligent men of many nations. He retained a custom of the old barons, now obsolete,—his dining-hall was open to all his friends; you were welcomed at his table as often as it suited you to go there, without the ceremony of inconvenient invitations.
At this truly hospitable house, I first saw three young men, recently
returned from India. They lived together at a pretty villa (Maison aux Grénades,
10 | RECOLLECTIONS OF THE |
Human animals can only endure a limited amount of pain or pleasure, excess
of either is followed by
LAST DAYS OF SHELLEY AND BYRON. | 11 |
When I left them by the malle
poste, on my way to Paris, I felt as a man should feel when, stranded on
a barren rock, he seizes the only boat and pushes off to the nearest land, leaving his
forlorn comrades to perish miserably. After a course of spare diet of soupe maigre,
bouilli, sour wine, and solitary confinement had restored their senses, they departed in
the spring for the south, and never looked behind them until they had crossed the Alps.
They went
12 | RECOLLECTIONS OF THE |
We purpose wintering in Florence, and sheltering ourselves from the summer heat at a castle of a place, called Villa Poschi, at Pugnano, two leagues from hence, where, with Shelley for a companion, I promise myself a great deal of pleasure, sauntering in the shady retreats of the olive and chesnut woods that grow above our heads up the hill sides. He has a small boat building, only ten or twelve feet long, to go adventuring, as he calls it, up the many little rivers and canals that intersect this part of Italy; some of which pass through the most beautiful scenery imaginable, winding among the terraced gardens at the base of the neighbouring mountains, and opening into such lakes as Beintina, &c.
Shelley is certainly a man of most
astonishing genius in appearance, extraordinarily young, of manners mild and
amiable, but withal full of life and fun. His wonderful command of language,
and the ease with which he speaks on what are generally
LAST DAYS OF SHELLEY AND BYRON. | 13 |
I commenced this letter yesterday morning, but was prevented
from continuing it by the very person of whom I am speaking, who, having heard
me complain of a pain in my chest since the time of our ducking, brought with
him a doctor, and
14 | RECOLLECTIONS OF THE |
In a subsequent letter he gave me a foretaste of what I might expect to find in Lord Byron.
LAST DAYS OF SHELLEY AND BYRON. | 15 |
Why, how is this? I will swear that yesterday was Christmas
Day, for I celebrated it at a splendid feast given by Lord Byron to what I call his Pistol Club—i.e. to
Shelley, Medwin, a Mr. Taaffe,
and myself, and was scarcely awake from the vision of it when your letter was
put into my hands, dated 1st of January, 1822. Time
flies fast enough, but you, in the rapidity of your motions, contrive to
outwing the old fellow; rather take a plume or two from your mental pinions,
and add them, like Mercury to your heels, and let us see you before another
year draws upon us. Forty years hence, my lad, you will treat the present with
more respect than to ante-date the coming one. But I
hope that time with you will always fly as unheeded as it now appears to do.
Lord Byron is the very spirit of this
place,—that is, to those few to whom, like Mokannah, he has lifted his veil. When you asked me, in your
last letter if it was probable to become at all intimate with him, I replied in
a manner which I considered it most prudent to do, from motives which are best
16 | RECOLLECTIONS OF THE |
I shall reserve all that I have to say about the boat until we
meet at the select committee, which is intended to be held on that subject when
you arrive here. Have a boat we must, and if we can get Roberts to build her, so much the better. We
are settled here for the winter, perhaps many winters, for we have taken
apartments and furnished them. This is a step that anchors a man at once, nay,
moors him head and stern: you will find us at the Tre Palazzi, 349, Lung’
Arno. Pray, remember me to Roberts; tell him he must be
content to take me by the hand, though he should
LAST DAYS OF SHELLEY AND BYRON. | 17 |
Bring with you any new books you may have. There is a Mrs. B. here, with a litter of seven daughters, she is the gayest lady, and the only one who gives dances, for the young squaws are arriving at that age, when as Lord Byron says, they must waltz for their livelihood. When a man gets on this strain, the sooner he concludes his letter the better. Addio. Believe me,
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