embark for Leghorn, that he might there welcome Leigh Hunt to Italy. I
was to have accompanied him; but illness confined me to my room, and
thus put the seal on my misfortune. His vessel bore out of sight with a
favourable wind, and I remained awaiting his return by the breakers of
that sea which was about to engulf him.

He spent a week at Pisa, employed in kind offices toward his friend, and
enjoying with keen delight the renewal of their intercourse. He then
embarked with Mr. Williams, the chosen and beloved sharer of his
pleasures and of his fate, to return to us. We waited for them in vain;
the sea by its restless moaning seemed to desire to inform us of what we
would not learn:--but a veil may well be drawn over such misery. The
real anguish of those moments transcended all the fictions that the most
glowing imagination ever portrayed; our seclusion, the savage nature of
the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, and our immediate vicinity
to the troubled sea, combined to imbue with strange horror our days of
uncertainty. The truth was at last known,--a truth that made our loved
and lovely Italy appear a tomb, its sky a pall. Every heart echoed the
deep lament, and my only consolation was in the praise and earnest love
that each voice bestowed and each countenance demonstrated for him we
had lost,--not, I fondly hope, for ever; his unearthly and elevated
nature is a pledge of the continuation of his being, although in an
altered form. Rome received his ashes; they are deposited beneath its
weed-grown wall, and 'the world's sole monument' is enriched by his
remains.

I must add a few words concerning the contents of this volume. "Julian
and Maddalo", the "Witch of Atlas", and most of the "Translations", were
written some years ago; and, with the exception of the "Cyclops", and
the Scenes from the "Magico Prodigioso", may be considered as having