Towards half-past six in
the evening a sudden and tremendous squall sprang up. The Ariel sank,
either upset by the squall, or (as some details of evidence suggest) run
down near Viareggio by an Italian fishing-boat, the crew of which had
plotted to plunder her of a sum of money. The bodies were eventually
washed ashore; and on 16 August the corpse of Shelley was burned on the
beach under the direction of Trelawny. In the pocket of his jacket had
been found two books--a Sophocles, and the _Lamia_ volume, doubled back
as if it had at the last moment been thrust aside. His ashes were
collected, and, with the exception of the heart which was delivered to
Mrs. Shelley, were buried in Rome, in the new Protestant Cemetery. The
corpse of Shelley's beloved son William had, in 1819, been interred hard
by, and in 1821 that of Keats, in the old Cemetery--a space of ground
which had, by 1822, been finally closed.
The enthusiastic and ideal fervour which marks Shelley's poetry could
not possibly be simulated--it was a part, the most essential part, of
his character. He was remarkably single-minded, in the sense of being
constantly ready to do what he professed as, in the abstract, the right
thing to be done; impetuous, bold, uncompromising, lavishly generous,
and inspired by a general love of humankind, and a coequal detestation
of all the narrowing influences of custom and prescription.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49