heaven and earth filled him with deep emotion. He made his study and
reading-room of the shadowed copse, the stream, the lake, and the
waterfall. Ill health and continual pain preyed upon his powers; and the
solitude in which we lived, particularly on our first arrival in Italy,
although congenial to his feelings, must frequently have weighed upon
his spirits; those beautiful and affecting "Lines written in Dejection
near Naples" were composed at such an interval; but, when in health, his
spirits were buoyant and youthful to an extraordinary degree.

Such was his love for Nature that every page of his poetry is
associated, in the minds of his friends, with the loveliest scenes of
the countries which he inhabited. In early life he visited the most
beautiful parts of this country and Ireland. Afterwards the Alps of
Switzerland became his inspirers. "Prometheus Unbound" was written among
the deserted and flower-grown ruins of Rome; and, when he made his home
under the Pisan hills, their roofless recesses harboured him as he
composed the "Witch of Atlas", "Adonais", and "Hellas". In the wild but
beautiful Bay of Spezzia, the winds and waves which he loved became his
playmates. His days were chiefly spent on the water; the management of
his boat, its alterations and improvements, were his principal
occupation. At night, when the unclouded moon shone on the calm sea, he
often went alone in his little shallop to the rocky caves that bordered
it, and, sitting beneath their shelter, wrote the "Triumph of Life", the
last of his productions. The beauty but strangeness of this lonely
place, the refined pleasure which he felt in the companionship of a few
selected friends, our entire sequestration from the rest of the world,
all contributed to render this period of his life one of continued
enjoyment. I am convinced that the two months we passed there were the
happiest which he had ever known: his health even rapidly improved, and
he was never better than when I last saw him, full of spirits and joy,