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contrast between the flowing robe which wraps the lower part of his form, and the soft but more defined outline of the leg of the Bacchanal who supports him, is in the true harmony of Art.

IV.

A BRONZE.

A child riding on a swan with a dart in his hand.

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hand, and a flaming torch in the other, with his muscles starting through his skin, and his hair dishevelled.

VI.

AN ACCOUCHEMENT; A BAS RELIEF.'

[PROBABLY THE SIDES OF A SARCOPHAGUS.]

The lady is lying on a couch, supported by a young woman, and looking extremely exhausted and thin; her hair is flowing about her shoulders, and she is halfcovered with drapery which falls over the couch.

Her tunic is exactly like a shift, only the sleeves are longer, coming half way down the upper part of the arm. An old wrinkled woman, with a cloak over her head, and an enormously sagacious look, has a most professional

So headed in the MS. notebook. Medwin and Mrs. Shelley headed it "A Bas-relief probably the Sides of a Sarcophagus"; and Medwin added a remark that "this bas-relief is not antique. It is of the Cinquecento." He first gave this Note in The Athenæum for the

22nd of September, 1832; and it was re-printed in The Shelley Papers and the Essays, Letters &c.

2 In previous editions, extremely exhausted; her dishevelled hair is floating; in the next line on for over; and in the next but one chemise for shift.

appearance, and is taking hold of her arm gently with one hand, and with the other is supporting it. I think she is feeling her pulse. At the side of the couch sits a woman as in grief, holding her head in her hands. At the bottom of the bed is another old woman' tearing her hair, and in the act of screaming out most violently, which she seems, however, by the rest of her gestures, to do with the utmost deliberation, as having come to the conclusion that it was a correct thing to do. Behind is another old woman of the most ludicrous ugliness, crying I suppose, with her hands crossed upon her neck. There is a young woman also lamenting. To the left of the couch a woman3 is sitting on the ground, nursing the child, which is swaddled.* Behind her is a woman who appears to be in the act of rushing in, with dishevelled hair and violent gestures, and in one hand either a whip or a thunderbolt. She is probably some emblematic person, whose personification would be a key to the whole. What they are all wailing at, I don't know; whether the lady is dying, or the father has ordered the child to be exposed: but if the mother be not dead, such a tumult would kill a woman in the straw in these days.

The other compartment or second scene of the drama

In previous editions, matron. Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read, resolution that it was a correct thing to do so. Behind her is a gossip, of the most ludicrous ugliness, crying, I suppose, or praying, for her arms are crossed upon her neck. There is also a fifth setting up a wail.

3 In previous editions, nurse. 4 In previous editions, dandling the child in her arms, and wholly occupied in so doing. The infant is swaddled.

5 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read female.

6 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read brandishing instead of either.

7 In previous editions, This is probably some emblematic person, the messenger of death, or a fury, whose &c.

8 In former editions, I know not. 9 We read directed for ordered in other editions.

10 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley printed in the instead of or.

tells the story of the presentation of the child to its father. An old nurse has it in her arms, and with professional and mysterious officiousness is holding it out to the father." The father, a middle-aged and very respectable-looking man, perhaps not married above nine months, is looking with the wonder of a bachelor upon the strange little being which once was himself; his hands are clasped, and his brow wrinkled up with a kind of inexperienced wonder, and he has gathered up between his arms the folds of his cloke, an emblem of the gathering up of all his faculties to understand so unusual a circumstance.

An old man is standing behind him, probably his own father, with some curiosity and much tenderness in his looks, and around are collected a host of his relations, of whom the youngest seem the most unconcerned.' It is altogether an admirable piece quite in the spirit of the comedies of Terence, though I confess I am totally at a loss to comprehend the cause of all that tumult visible in the first scene.

VIL

A MERCURY.

A bronze Mercury standing on the wind.

In previous editions An old man has it in his.

2 The rest of this paragraph varies considerably from the chastened text of Medwin: "The father. a middle-aged and very respectablelooking man, perhaps not long married, is looking with the admiration of a bachelor on his first child, and perhaps thinking, that he was once such a strange little creature himself. His hands are

PROSE. VOL. III.

clasped, and he is gathering up between his arms the folds of his cloak; an emblem of his gathering up all his faculties to understand the tale the gossip is bringing."

3 In former editions beside.

4 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley here read of whom the youngest, a handsome girl, seems the least concerned.

5 In previous editions the final confession is wanting.

E

VIII.

AN OX.

A most admirable ox in bronze.1

IX.

AN URN.

An urn whose ansæ are formed of the horned faces of Ammonian Jove, and oversculptured with labyrinth work of leaves and flowers and buds and strange looking insects, and a tablet with this inscription

ΤΩΝ ΑΓΑΘΩΝ Η ΜΝΗΜΗ ΑΕΙ ΘΑΛΗΣ.

"The memory of the good is ever green."

And art thou then forgotten?

X.

VIEW FROM THE PITTI GARDENS.2

You see below, Florence a smokeless city, its domes and spires occupying the vale; and beyond to the right the Apennines, whose base extends even to the walls," and whose summits were intersected with ashen-coloured clouds. The green vallies of these mountains which gently unfold themselves upon the plain, and the interven

This note is followed in the MS. Note-book by one on the Demon of Socrates-a memorandum of a thought which would seem to have occurred to Shelley while in the Gallery among the statues. This will be found among the Platonic fragments.

2 Not from the Boboli Gardens, as stated by Medwin in introducing

this sketch (Life of Shelley, Vol. I, p. 314). His transcript appears to have been at least as careless as usual. I have only noted the more significant variations.

3 Medwin omits the rest of this sentence, to clouds, and, further on, the words now full with the winter rains.

ing hills covered with vineyards and olive plantations are occupied by the villas which are as it were another city; a Babylon of palaces and gardens. In the midst of the picture rolls the Arno, now full with the winter rains, through woods, and bounded by the aerial snow and summits of the Lucchese Apennines. On the left' a magnificent buttress of lofty craggy hills, overgrown with wilderness, juts out in many shapes over a lovely vale, and approaches the walls of the city. Cascini and Ville occupy the pinnacles and the abutments of those hills, over which is seen at intervals the ætherial mountain line hoary with snow and intersected by clouds. The vale below is covered with cypress groves whose obeliskine forms of intense green pierce the grey shadow of the wintry hill that overhangs' them.-The cypresses too of the garden form a magnificent foreground of accumulated verdure; pyramids of dark leaves and shining cones rising out of a mass, beneath which were cut like caverns recesses which conducted into walks. The Cathedral with its grey marble Campanile and the other domes and spires of Florence were at our feet.

XI.

VICTORY.

7

Lips of wisdom and arch yet sublime tenderness, a simple yet profound expression of . . .

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