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Naples and yet infinitely lovely. The figures are walking as it were with a sauntering and idle pace, and talking to each other as they walk, and this is expressed in the motions of their delicate and flowing' forms. One arm of Bacchus rests on the shoulder of Ampelus, and the other, the fingers being gently curved as with the burning spirit which animates their flexible joints, is gracefully thrown forward corresponding with the advance of the opposite leg. He has sandals and buskins clasped with two serpent heads, and his leg is cinctured with their skins. He is crowned with vine leaves laden with their crude fruit, and the crisp leaves fall as with the inertness of a lithe and faded leaf over his rich and over-hanging hair, which gracefully divided on his forehead falls in delicate wreaths upon his neck and breast.* Ampelus with a beast skin' over his shoulder holds a cup in his right hand, and with his left half embraces the waist of Bacchus. Just as you may have seen (yet how seldom from their dissevering and tyrannical institutions do you see) a younger and an elder boy at school walking in some remote grassy spot of their play-ground with that tender friendship towards each other which has so much of love. The countenance of Bacchus is sublimely sweet and lovely, taking a shade of gentle and playful tenderness from the arch looks of Ampelus, whose cheerful face turned towards him, expresses the suggestions of some droll and merry device. It has a divine and

Not glowing as in Medwin's

version.

2 Not living as printed by Medwin.

3 Medwin reads hang with the inertness of a faded leaf over his neck and massy, profuse, down-hanging hair.

In Medwin's version, wreaths on each side his neck, and curls upon

the breast.

5 Medwin reads a young lion's or lynx's skin.

6 Medwin reads encircles Bacchus, and omits the interesting parenthesis just below.

7 Medwin reads for the other that the age inspires. I notice he constantly has that for Shelley's which.

supernatural beauty, as one who walks through the world untouched by its corruptions,' its corrupting cares; it looks like one who unconsciously yet with delight confers pleasure and peace. The flowing fulness and roundness of the breast and belly, whose lines fading into each other, are continued with a gentle motion as it were to the utmost extremity of his limbs. Like some fine strain of harmony which flows round the soul and enfolds it, and leaves it in the soft astonishment of a satisfaction, like the pleasure of love with one whom we most love, which having taken away desire, leaves pleasure, sweet pleasure. The countenance of the Ampelus is in every respect inferior; it has a rugged and unreproved appearance; but the Bacchus is immortal beauty.

ΧΧΧ.

A BACCHANTE WITH A LYNX,

The effect of the wind partially developing her young and delicate form upon the light and floating drapery, and the aerial motion of the lower part of her limbs are finely imagined. But the inanimate expression of her countenance and the position of her arms are at enmity with these indications.

XXXI.

APOLLO WITH A SWAN.

The arms restored. The same expression of passionate.

Medwin omits its corruptions, and yet with delight in the next line.

2 Instead of the remainder of this Note, Medwin has the following:

"The countenance of Ampelus is in some

respects boyish and inferior, that of Bacchus expresses an imperturbable and godlike self-possession-he seems in the enjoy ment of a calm delight, that nothing can destroy. His is immortal beauty."

and enthusiastic tenderness seems to have created the intense and sickening beauty, by which it is expressed, the same radiance of beauty, arising from lines only less soft and more sublimely flowing than those of Bacchus. This has some resemblance with the Apollo of the Capitol.

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She seems to have just issued from the bath, and yet to be animated with the enjoyment of it. She seems all soft and mild enjoyment, and the curved lines of her fine. limbs flow into each other with never-ending continuity" of sweetness. Her face expresses a breathless yet passive and innocent voluptuousness without affectation, without doubt; it is at once desire and enjoyment and the pleasure arising from both.-Her lips which are without. the sublimity of lofty and impetuous passion like

or the grandeur of enthusiastic imagination like the Apollo of the Capitol, or an union of both like the

So headed in the Note-book, not On the Venus, called Anadyomene as in former editions. This Note appeared in The Atheneum for the 22nd of September 1832, before being printed in The Shelley Papers and the Essays, Letters &c.

2 In former editions has issued and is animated.

3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read sinuosity.

4 Instead of the words without affectation, without doubt, and the whole of the sentence following, Medwin and Mrs. Shelley have simply free from affectation.

5 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley disguise the incompleteness by eliminating like and or.

6 Not the union as in previous editions.

Apollo Belvedere, have the tenderness of arch yet pure and affectionate desire, and the mode in which the ends are drawn in yet opened by the smile which for ever circles round them, and the tremulous curve into which they are wrought by inextinguishable desire, and the tongue lying against the lower lip as in the listlessness of passive joy, express love, still love.

Her eyes seem heavy and swimming with pleasure, and her small forehead fades on both sides into that sweet swelling and then' declension of the bone over the eye, and prolongs itself to the cheek in that mode which expresses simple and tender feelings.

The neck is full and swollen as with the respiration of delight, and flows with gentle curves into her perfect form.

Her form is indeed perfect. She is half sitting on and half rising from a shell, and the fulness of her limbs, and their complete roundness and perfection, do not diminish the vital energy with which they seem to be embued. The mode in which the lines of the curved back flow into and around the thighs, and the wrinkled muscles of the belly, wrinkled by the attitude, is truly astonishing. The attitude of her arms which are lovely beyond imagination, is natural, unaffected and unforced.* This perhaps is the finest personification of Venus, the

1 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read thin for then, and, after eye, omit and prolongs itself to the cheek, substituting in the mode for in that mode.

2 Not panting as with the aspiration, as in former editions.

3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read animated for embued, omit the whole of the next sentence, down to astonishing, and open the sentence after with The position of the

arms.

4 In previous editions, easy.

Deity of superficial desire, in all antique statuary. Her1 pointed and pear-like bosom ever virgin-the virgin Mary might have this beauty, but alas!

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*

**

*

THIRD DAY.2

XXXIV.

A STATUE OF MINERVA.

The arm restored. The head is of the very highest beauty. It has a close helmet, from which the hair delicately parted on the forehead, half escapes. The face uplifted3 gives entire effect to the perfect form of the neck, and to that full and beautiful moulding of the lower part of the face and the jaw,' which is, in living beings, the seat of the expression of a simplicity and integrity of nature. Her face uplifted to Heaven is animated with a profound, sweet and impassioned melancholy, with an earnest, fervid and disinterested pleading against some vast and inevitable wrong: it is the joy and the poetry of sorrow, making grief beautiful, and giving to that nameless feeling which from the imperfection of language we call pain, but which is not all pain, those feelings which make not only the possessor but the

1 Instead of this closing sentence Medwin and Mrs. Shelley have "Her pointed and pear-like person, ever virgin, and her attitude modesty itself."

2 So in the Note-book, where however, there is nothing to shew the division between first day and second day. Medwin and Mrs. Shelley head this Note The Minerva and omit The arm restored. The Note appeared in The Athenæum for the

22nd of September, 1832, before its issue in The Shelley Papers and the Essays &c.

3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read attitude for face uplifted.

In previous editions mouth for the jaw.

5 In previous editions, up-raised. 6 Not through a feeling which makes, as in former editions: that must surely be Medwin's way of perfecting Shelley's work.

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