I had no opportunity to send you a second No. of the Liberal; we only received it a short time ago, and then you were on the wing: the third number has come out, and we had a copy by post. It has little in it we expected, but it is an amusing number, and L. B. is better pleased with it than any other....
I trust that I shall see you soon, and then I shall hear all your news. I shall see you—but it will be for so short a time—I fear even that you will not go to Switzerland; but these things I must not dwell upon,—partings and separations, when there is no circumstance to lessen any pang. I must brace my mind, not enervate it, for I know I shall have much to endure.
I asked Hunt’s opinion about your epitaph for Keats; he said that the line from Adonais, though beautiful in itself, might be applied to any poet, in whatever circumstances or whatever age, that died; and that to be in accord with the two-stringed lyre, you ought to select one that alluded to his youth and immature genius. A line to this effect you might find in Adonais.
Among the fragments of my lost Shelley, I found the following poetical commentary on the words of Keats,—not that I recommend it for the epitaph, but it may please you to see it.
Here lieth one, whose name was writ in water,
But, ere the breath that could erase it blew,
Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,
Death, the immortalising winter, flew
Athwart the stream, and time’s mouthless torrent grew
A scroll of crystal, emblazoning the name
Of Adonais.
I have not heard from Jane lately; she was well when she last wrote, but annoyed by various circumstances, and impatient of her lengthened stay in England. How earnestly do I hope that Edward’s brother will soon arrive, and show himself worthy of his affinity to the noble and unequalled creature she has lost, by protecting one to whom protection is so necessary, and shielding her from some of the ills to which she is exposed.
Adieu, my dear Trelawny. Continue to think kindly of me, and trust in my unalterable friendship.
Mary Shelley.
Albaro, 10th May.
On his journey to Genoa, Trelawny stayed a night at Lerici, and paid a last visit to the Villa Magni. There, “sleeping still on the mud floor,” its mast and oars broken, was Shelley’s little skiff, the “Boat on the Serchio.”