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LETTERS.

[Letters I and II in the following series are by Mrs. Shelley, Letters III and IV by Shelley. The latter would seem to represent a considerably larger mass of Shelley's incomparable descriptive prose. In Thomas Love Peacock's important contribution to the poet's biography, viz. Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Part II, published in Fraser's Magazine for January, 1860, we read at pages 96, 98, 99 and 100 as follows: "After leaving England, in 1814, the newly affianced lovers took a tour on the Continent. He wrote to me several letters from Switzerland, which were subsequently published, together with a Six Weeks' Tour, written in the form of a journal by the lady with whom his fate was thenceforward indissolubly bound.... In the early summer of 1816, the spirit of restlessness again came over him, and resulted in a second visit to the Continent.... During his absence he wrote me several letters, some of which were subsequently published by Mrs. Shelley; others are still in my possession.... During his stay in Switzerland he became acquainted with Lord Byron. They made together an excursion round the Lake of Geneva, of which he sent me the detail in a diary. This diary was published by Mrs. Shelley, but without introducing the name of Lord Byron, who is throughout called 'my companion.' The diary was first published during Lord Byron's life; but why his name was concealed I do not know. Though the changes are not many, yet the association of the two names gives it great additional interest." The concealment of Byron's name in 1817 was of course part and parcel of the anonymous scheme of the whole book; and it is scarcely remarkable that Mrs. Shelley in 1840 should have abstained from filling in the names: at all events the term my companion is Shelley's, not his widow's; and for the rest, if we are to trust Peacock's memory, some of these inestimable Swiss letters are missing. The remarks from which extracts are given above are made in chronological order, and it was clearly intended to imply that Shelley wrote Peacock "several letters from Switzerland" in 1814, which were pub lished in the volume of 1817; but no such letters are there; nor are there any of the "several letters" of 1816, except the two extending from the 23rd of June to the 27th of July, which obviously constitute the "diary" referred to by Peacock. Moreover, with the exception of the two forming the diary, Mrs. Shelley did not publish any letters of Shelley's from Switzerland, nor did Peacock, when he issued Shelley's letters to him in Fraser's Magazine,—the earliest then printed being that of the 25th of July 1818 from the Bagni di Lucca. Furthermore, when Peacock's books and Shelley's letters to him were sold, there was but one from Switzerland beside those composing the diary; and that one was dated "Geneva, May 15th, 1816." It is to be hoped Peacock's memory was not inaccurate in this matter, because, if it was not, there will probably be found sooner or later, some letters of Shelley belonging to a most interesting period: if Peacock had them in 1860-several of 1814, and several of 1816-they are not likely to have perished since, one would think. Those who wish to read this series of papers concerning Shelley may perhaps refer to Vol. III of Peacock's Works (Bentley, 1875) more conveniently than to Fraser's Magazine.-H. B. F.]

LETTERS

WRITTEN

DURING A RESIDENCE OF THREE MONTHS IN

THE ENVIRONS OF GENEVA,

In the Summer of the Year 1816.

LETTER I.

Hôtel de Sécheron,' Geneva,

May 17, 1816.

8 May, 1816.

WE arrived at Paris on the 8th of this month, and were detained two days for the purpose of obtaining the various signatures necessary to our passports, the French government having become much more circumspect since the escape of Lavalette. We had no letters of introduction, or any friend in that city, and were therefore confined to our hotel, where we were obliged to hire apartments for the week, although when we first arrived we expected to be detained one night only; for in Paris there are no houses where you can be accommodated with apartments by the day.

1 Secheron in Shelley's edition.

PROSE.-VOL. II,

M

The manners of the French are interesting, although less attractive, at least to Englishmen, than before the last invasion of the Allies: the discontent and sullenness of their minds perpetually betrays itself. Nor is it wonderful that they should regard the subjects of a government which fills their country with hostile garrisons, and sustains a detested dynasty on the throne, with an acrimony and indignation of which that government alone is the proper object. This feeling is honourable to the French, and encouraging to all those of every nation in Europe who have a fellow feeling with the oppressed, and who cherish an unconquerable hope that the cause of liberty must at length prevail.

12 or

Our route after Paris, as far as Troyes, lay through the same uninteresting tract of country which we had traversed on foot nearly two years before, but on quitting Troyes we left the road leading to Neufchâtel, to follow that which was to conduct us to Geneva. We entered Dijon on the third evening after our departure from Paris, and passing through Dôle, arrived at 13 May, 1816. Poligny. This town is built at the foot of Jura, which rises abruptly from a plain of vast extent. The rocks of the mountain overhang the houses. Some difficulty in procuring horses detained us here until the evening closed in, when we proceeded, by the light of a stormy moon, to Champagnolles, a little village situated in the depth of the mountains. The road was serpentine and exceedingly steep, and was overhung on one side by half distinguished precipices, whilst the other was a gulph, filled by the darkness of the driving clouds. The dashing of the invisible mountain' streams announced to

1 Mrs. Shelley omits this word in her editions.

us that we had quitted the plains of France, as we slowly ascended, amidst a violent storm of wind and rain, to Champagnolles, where we arrived at twelve

14 or

o'clock, the fourth night after our departure 15 May, 1816.

from Paris.

The next morning we proceeded, still ascending among the ravines and vallies of the mountain. The scenery perpetually grows more wonderful and sublime: pine forests of impenetrable thickness, and untrodden, nay, inaccessible expanse spread on every side. Sometimes the dark woods descending, follow the route into the vallies, the distorted trees struggling with knotted roots between the most barren clefts; sometimes the road winds high into the regions of frost, and then the forests become scattered, and the branches of the trees are loaded with snow, and half of the enormous pines themselves buried in the wavy drifts. The spring, as the inhabitants informed us, was unusually late, and indeed the cold was excessive; as we ascended the mountains, the same clouds which rained on us in the vallies poured forth large flakes of snow thick and fast. The sun occasionally shone through these showers, and illuminated the magnificent ravines of the mountains, whose gigantic pines were some laden with snow, some wreathed round by the lines of scattered and lingering vapour; others darting their dark' spires into the sunny sky, brilliantly clear and azure.

As the evening advanced, and we ascended higher, the snow, which we had beheld whitening the overhanging

1 Mrs. Shelley omits the word dark in her editions.

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