Notes to The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley | Page 4

I can hereafter add
to or take away a word or line.
Putney, November 6, 1839.
PREFACE BY MRS. SHELLEY
TO THE VOLUME OF POSTHUMOUS POEMS PUBLISHED IN

1824.
In nobil sangue vita umile e queta,
Ed in alto intelletto un puro core

Frutto senile in sul giovenil fibre,
E in aspetto pensoso anima
lieta.--PETRARCA.
It had been my wish, on presenting the public with the Posthumous
Poems of Mr. Shelley, to have accompanied them by a biographical
notice; as it appeared to me that at this moment a narration of the
events of my husband's life would come more gracefully from other
hands than mine, I applied to Mr. Leigh Hunt. The distinguished
friendship that Mr. Shelley felt for him, and the enthusiastic affection
with which Mr. Leigh Hunt clings to his friend's memory, seemed to
point him out as the person best calculated for such an undertaking. His
absence from this country, which prevented our mutual explanation,
has unfortunately rendered my scheme abortive. I do not doubt but that
on some other occasion he will pay this tribute to his lost friend, and
sincerely regret that the volume which I edit has not been honoured by
its insertion.
The comparative solitude in which Mr. Shelley lived was the occasion
that he was personally known to few; and his fearless enthusiasm in the
cause which he considered the most sacred upon earth, the
improvement of the moral and physical state of mankind, was the chief
reason why he, like other illustrious reformers, was pursued by hatred
and calumny. No man was ever more devoted than he to the endeavour
of making those around him happy; no man ever possessed friends
more unfeignedly attached to him. The ungrateful world did not feel his
loss, and the gap it made seemed to close as quickly over his memory
as the murderous sea above his living frame. Hereafter men will lament
that his transcendent powers of intellect were extinguished before they
had bestowed on them their choicest treasures. To his friends his loss is
irremediable: the wise, the brave, the gentle, is gone for ever! He is to
them as a bright vision, whose radiant track, left behind in the memory,
is worth all the realities that society can afford. Before the critics
contradict me, let them appeal to any one who had ever known him. To
see him was to love him: and his presence, like Ithuriel's spear, was

alone sufficient to disclose the falsehood of the tale which his enemies
whispered in the ear of the ignorant world.
His life was spent in the contemplation of Nature, in arduous study, or
in acts of kindness and affection. He was an elegant scholar and a
profound metaphysician; without possessing much scientific
knowledge, he was unrivalled in the justness and extent of his
observations on natural objects; he knew every plant by its name, and
was familiar with the history and habits of every production of the earth;
he could interpret without a fault each appearance in the sky; and the
varied phenomena of 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