' Mr. Clarke seems to mean in this passage that Shelley,
_before_ starting for Italy, invited Keats to accompany him thither--a
fact, if such it is, of which I find no trace elsewhere. It is however
just possible that Clarke was only referring to the earlier invitation,
previously mentioned, for Keats to visit at Great Marlow; or he may most
probably, with some confusion as to dates and details, be thinking of
the message which Shelley, when already settled in Italy for a couple of
years, addressed to his brother-poet--of which more anon.
Shelley and his family--including for the most part Miss
Clairmont--wandered about a good deal in Italy. They were in Milan,
Leghorn, the Bagni di Lucca, Venice and its neighbourhood, Rome, Naples,
Florence, Pisa, the Bagni di Pisa, and finally (after Shelley had gone
to Ravenna by himself) in a lonely house named Casa Magni, between
Lerici and San Terenzio, on the Bay of Spezzia. Their two children died;
but in 1819 another was born, the Sir Percy Florence Shelley who lived
on till November 1889. They were often isolated or even solitary. Among
their interesting acquaintances at one place or another were, besides
Byron, Mr.
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