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SHELLEY'S NOTES ON SCULPTURES &c. 
 
The issue of this booh is confined to twenty-five copies on Wltat- 
 tnaris hand-made paper and fifty on ordinary paper. All are 
 numbered. This is No, /[% . 
 
NOTES ON SCULPTURES IN ROME AND 
 FLORENCE TOGETHER WITH A LU- 
 CIANIC FRAGMENT AND A CRITI- 
 CISM OF PEACOCK'S POEM "RHO- 
 DODAPHNE >> BY PERCY BYSSIIE 
 SHELLEY EDITED BY HARRY BUX- 
 TON FORM AN 
 
 LONDON PRINTED FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBU- 
 TION MDCCCLXXIX 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Of the following Notes on Sculptures in Rome and 
 Florence, though only eight were given in the Essays &c. 
 (1840), eleven have already appeared in print. The 
 rest are from a MS. Note-book, the order of which is 
 here preserved in preference to that adopted by Med- 
 win in The Shelley Papers and followed by Mrs. Shelley. 
 In the preface to the 1840 collection, Mrs. Shelley says 
 of certain of the Fragments, " Small portions of these and 
 other Essays were published by Captain Medwin in a 
 newspaper. Generally speaking, his extracts are incor- 
 rect and incomplete. I must except the Essay on Love, 
 and Remarks on some of the Statues of the Gallery of 
 Florence, however, as they appeared there, from the blame 
 of these defects." My own impression is that the reason 
 for this exception was negative, that Mrs. Shelley had 
 not the original Note-books by her. Medwin was 
 notoriously incapable of perfect accuracy ; but beyond 
 the results of that incapacity, we discern in the versions 
 given by him, and generally adopted implicitly by Mrs. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 Shelley, signs of tampering, as any student of Shelley 
 will judge by noting the variations given in the follow- 
 ing pages. The variations between The Shelley Papers 
 and the Essays, in regard to the eight Notes printed in 
 both, affect only five words and some dozen and a half 
 stops, as far as I can find ; and only one change is other 
 than the printer would be likely to make. Med win says 
 (Shelley Papers, page 55), " Shelley, while at Florence, 
 passed much of his time in the gallery, where, after his 
 severe mental labours, his imagination reposed and 
 luxuriated amid the divine creations of the Greeks. The 
 Niobe, the Venus Anadyomine, the group of Bacchus and 
 Ampelus, were the subjects of his inexhaustible and in- 
 satiable admiration. On these I have heard him expatiate 
 with all the eloquence of poetic enthusiasm. He had 
 made ample notes on the wonders of art in this gallery, 
 from which, on my leaving Pisa, he allowed me to make 
 extracts, far surpassing in eloquence anything Winkelman 
 has left on this subject." In his life of Shelley ^Vol. I, 
 page 351), Med win records that these notes were " thrown 
 off in the gallery, in a burst of enthusiasm." He does 
 not say that he made extracts from a similar Note-book 
 on statues at Eome ; but most likely he did ; and the 
 two books were probably continuous ; as the Notes at the 
 opening of the book in my possession are Eoman, and 
 those on the Arch of Titus and the Laocoon, given by 
 Medwin, are of course also Eoman. For convenience of 
 identification, the particular printed sources are indicated 
 in separate foot-notes in this volume. All the Notes on 
 Sculptures not so distinguished are from the MS. book. 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 Tlie Elysian Fields is printed from a MS. in Shelley's 
 writing, so headed, in my possession ; I presume it 
 belongs to about the same period as the Marlow Pam- 
 phlets. In a letter dated the 20th of January, 1821 
 (SMley Memorials, page 136), Shelley thus refers to a 
 paper by Archdeacon Hare in Oilier 's Literary Miscellany : 
 " I was immeasurably amused by the quotation from 
 Schlegel, about the way in which the popular faith is 
 destroyed — first the Devil, then the Holy Ghost, then 
 God the Father. I had written a Lucianic essay to prove 
 the same thing." Mr. Rossetti (Poetical Works, 1878, 
 Vol. I, page 150) thinks the reference is to the Essay on 
 Devils, withdrawn after being prepared for publication 
 with the Essays, Letters &c. (1840), and never yet pub- 
 lished. It does not seem to me certain that Shelley 
 alludes to that essay ; but I feel pretty confident that 
 The Elysian Fields is a portion of a Lucianic epistle 
 — from some Englishman of political eminence, dead 
 before* 1820, to, perhaps, the Princess Charlotte. The 
 exposition foreshadowed in the final paragraph might well 
 have included a view of the decay of popular belief. 
 Those who are intimately familiar with the political his- 
 tory and literature of England will probably be able to 
 identify the person represented. It is not unlikely to 
 be Charles Fox, judging from the juxtaposition of his 
 name, in the Address to the Lrish People, with sentiments 
 much the same as those set forth in the third paragraph 
 of The Elysian Fields. Compare that paragraph with 
 the relative passage in the Address as reprinted by Mr. 
 MacCarthy (Shelley s Early Life, page 198). 
 
Viil PEEFACE. 
 
 In writing to Peacock on the 20th of April, 1818, 
 Shelley says, " You tell me nothing of Khododaphne, a 
 book from which, I confess, I expected extraordinary 
 success." Mr. Eossetti (Poetical Works, 1878, Vol. I; 
 page 150) mentions as a minor work of 1818, " now 
 perhaps lost/' a criticism by Shelley of that poem ; and 
 I presume it was written in the early part of the year. 
 It seems to have been meant for a newspaper or maga- 
 zine article, and sent to Leigh Hunt, among whose papers 
 it was found by Mr. Townshend Mayer— not, unfor- 
 tunately, quite complete. It was either dictated to or 
 transcribed by Mrs. Shelley ; but the MS., mainly in her 
 writing, has been carefully revised and interpolated by 
 Shelley. It is headed, in review fashion, Elwdodaph7ie 
 or the Thessalian Spell : a Poem — Hookhams* That book 
 though published anonymously in 1818, is acknowledged 
 in the Collected Works of Thomas Love Peacock, pub- 
 lished in 1875, in three volumes, by Messrs. R Bentley 
 & Sons. 
 
 H. Buxton Forman. 
 
 38, Marlbohouou Hill, 
 
 St. John's Wood, December 1879. 
 
NOTES ON SCULPTURES IN ROME 
 AND FLORENCE. 
 
NOTES ON SCULPTURES IN ROME AND 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 EOME. 
 
 THE ARCH OF TITUS. 1 
 
 On the inner compartment of the Arch of Titus, is 
 sculptured, in deep relief, the desolation of a city. On 
 one side, the walls of the Temple, split by the fury of 
 conflagrations, hang tottering in the act of ruin. The 
 accompaniments of a town taken by assault, matrons 
 and virgins and children and old men gathered into 
 groups, and the rapine and licence of a barbarous and 
 enraged soldiery, are imaged in the distance. The 
 
 1 The Arch of Titus appealed in this and the Laocoon Note were 
 
 The Athmonm for the 29th of Sep- copied by Medwin from a Note- 
 
 tember, 1832, and afterwards in book which Shelley used in Rome ; 
 
 The Shelley Papers. Mrs. Shelley and they must of course have pre- 
 
 reprinted it (Essays &c, 1840, Vol. ceded the three Notes which in the 
 
 11, p. 208), as a note to a passage book in my possession precede the 
 
 about the same arch in a letter to Florentine series. 
 Peacock. We may presume that 
 
12 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 foreground is occupied by a procession of the victors, 
 bearing in their profane hands the holy candlesticks and 
 the tables of shewbread, and the sacred instruments of 
 the eternal worship of the Jews. On the opposite side, 
 the reverse of this sad picture, Titus is represented 
 standing in a chariot drawn by four horses, crowned with 
 laurel, and surrounded by the tumultuous numbers of 
 his triumphant army, and the magistrates, and priests, 
 and generals, and philosophers, dragged in chains beside 
 his wheels. Behind him stands a Victory eagle- winged. 
 
 The arch is now mouldering into ruins, and the 
 imagery almost erased by the lapse of fifty generations. 
 Beyond this obscure monument of Hebrew desolation, is 
 seen the tomb of the Destroyer's family, now a mountain 
 of ruins. 
 
 The Flavian amphitheatre has become a habitation for 
 owls and dragons. The power, of whose possession it was 
 once the type, and of whose departure it is now the 
 emblem, is become a dream and a memory. Kome is no 
 more than Jerusalem. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE LAOCOON. 1 
 
 The subject of the Laocoon is a disagreeable one, but 
 whether we consider the grouping, or the execution, 
 
 1 Surely Mrs. Shelley would literally and no more : it will then 
 
 have given this Note had the be observed that the excellences 
 
 Roman Note-book of her husband dwelt upon are maiuly technical, — 
 
 not been lost or mislaid. We are the "execution," the "grouping," 
 
 indebted for it to Med win, who the "anatomical fidelity and 
 
 printed it in Vol. I, pp. 352-4 of force." Note the significant quali- 
 
 his Life of Shelley. It is essential to fication at p. 34, at the close of the 
 
 take Shelley's praises of this group Note on two Statues of Marsyas. 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 13 
 
 nothing that remains to us of antiquity can surpass it. 
 it consists of a father and his two sons. Byron thinks 
 that Laocoon's anguish is absorbed in that of his children, 
 that a mortal's agony is blending with an immortal's 
 patience. Not so. Intense physical suffering, against 
 which he pleads with an upraised countenance of despair, 
 and appeals with a sense of its injustice, seems the 
 predominant and overwhelming emotion, and yet there is 
 a nobleness in the expression, and a majesty that dignifies 
 torture. 
 
 We now come to his children. 1 Their features and 
 attitudes indicate the excess of the filial love and 
 devotion that animates them, and swallows up all other 
 feelings. In the elder of the two, this is particularly 
 observable. His eyes are fixedly bent on Laocoon- — his 
 whole soul is with — is a part of that of his father. His 
 arm extended towards him, not for protection, but from 
 a wish as if instinctively to afford it, absolutely speaks. 
 Nothing can be more exquisite than the contour of his 
 form and face, and the moulding of his lips, that are 
 half open, as if in the act of — not uttering any unbe- 
 coming complaint, or prayer or lamentation, which he is 
 conscious are alike useless — but addressing words of 
 consolatory tenderness to his unfortunate parent. The 
 intensity of his bodily torments is only expressed by the 
 uplifting of his right foot, which he is vainly and 
 impotently attempting to extricate from the grasp of the 
 mighty folds in which it is entangled. 
 
 In the younger child, surprise, pain, and grief seem to 
 contend for mastery. He is not yet arrived at an age 
 
 ' This mode of transition seems suspiciously unlike Shelley. 
 
14 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 when his mind has sufficient self-possession, or fixedness 
 of reason, to analyse the calamity that is overwhelming 
 himself and all that is dear to him. He is sick with 
 pain and horror. We almost seem to hear his shrieks. 
 His left hand is on the head of the snake, that is burying 
 its fangs in his side, and the vain and fruitless attempt 
 he is making to disengage it, increases the effect. Every 
 limb, every muscle, every vein of Laocoon expresses, with 
 the fidelity of life, the working of the poison, and the 
 strained girding round of the inextricable folds, whose 
 tangling sinuosities are too numerous and complicated to 
 be followed. No chisel has ever displayed with such 
 anatomical fidelity and force, the projecting muscles of 
 the arm, whose hand clenches the neck of the reptile, 
 almost to strangulation, and the mouth of the enormous 
 asp, and his terrible fangs widely displayed, in a moment 
 to penetrate and meet within its victim's heart, make 
 the spectator of this miracle of sculpture turn away 
 with shuddering and awe, and doubt the reality of what 
 he sees. 
 
 III. 
 
 VASA BORGHESE A PARIGI. 
 
 A Bronze cast of the Bas relief — a bacchanalian subject 
 — a beautiful reference to Unity. Bacchus with a counte- 
 nance of calm and majestic beauty surrounded by the 
 tumultuous figures whom the whirlwinds of his Deity 
 are tossing into all attitudes, like the sun in the midst 
 of his planets ; power calm amid confusion. — He leans on 
 a Woman with a lyre within her arms, on whom he looks 
 with grand yet gentle love. On one side is a Silenus 
 who has let fall the cup and hangs heavily his vine- 
 crowned head, supported by another Bacchanal. The 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 15 
 
 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. 
 
 V. 
 
 A BACCHANAL 
 
 in a state of priapism, holding a lion's skin in one 
 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. 1 
 [PROBABLY THE SIDES OF A SARCOPHAGUS.] 
 
 The lady is lying on a rouch, supported by a young 
 woman, and looking extremely exhausted and thin ; her 
 hair is flowing* 2 about her shoulders, and she is half- 
 covered 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 
 
 1 So headed in the MS. note- 22nd of September, 1832 ; and it 
 
 book. Medwin and Mrs. Shelley was re-printed in The Shelley Papers 
 
 headed it "A Bas-relief probably and the Essays, Letters &c. 
 
 the Sides of a Sarcophagus"; and a In previous editions, extremely 
 
 Medwin added a remark that " this exhausted; her dishevelled hair is 
 
 bas-relief is not antique. It is of floating; in the next line on for 
 
 the Cinquecento." He first gave orcr; and in the next but one 
 
 this Note in The Athenosum for the chemise for shift. 
 
16 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 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 1 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 2 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 woman 3 is sitting on the ground, nursing the child, 
 which is swaddled. 4 Behind her is a woman 5 who 
 appears to be in the act of rushing in, with dishevelled 
 hair and violent gestures, and in one hand either 6 a whip 
 or a thunderbolt. She is probably some emblematic 
 person, whose 7 personification would be a key to the 
 whole. What they are all wailing at, I don't 8 know ; 
 whether the lady is dying, or the father has ordered 9 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 10 second scene of the drama 
 
 ' In previous editions, matron. 5 Med win and Mrs. Shelley read 
 
 2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read, female. 
 
 resolution that it was a correct thing 6 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read 
 
 to do so. Behind her is a gossip, of brandishing instead of either, 
 
 the most ludicrous ugliness, crying, 7 In previous editions, This h 
 
 I suppose, or praying, for her arms probably some emblematic person, the 
 
 are crossed upon her neck. There is messenger of death, or a fury, whose 
 
 also a fifth setting up a wail. &c. 
 
 3 In previous editions, nurse. 8 In former editions, I know not. 
 
 4 In previous editions, dandling 9 We read directed for ordered in 
 the child in her arms, and wholly other editions. 
 
 occupied in so doing. The infant is l0 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley printed 
 swaddled. in the instead of or. 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 17 
 
 tells the story of the presentation of the child to its 
 father. An old nurse has it in her 1 arms, and with pro- 
 fessional and mysterious officiousness is holding it out to 
 the father. 2 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 3 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 uncon- 
 cerned. 4 It is altogether an admirable piece quite in 
 the spirit of the comedies of Terence, 5 though I confess 
 I am totally at a loss to comprehend the cause of all 
 that tumult visible in the first scene. 
 
 VII. 
 
 A MERCURY. 
 
 A bronze Mercury standing on the wind. 
 
 1 In previous editions An old clasped, and he is gathering up be- 
 
 man has it in his. tween his arms the folds of his 
 
 2 The rest of this paragraph varies cloak ; an emblem of his gathering 
 
 considerably from the chastened up all his faculties to understand 
 
 text of Med win : "The father, a the tale the gossip is bringing." 
 middle-aged and very respectable- 3 In former editions beside. 
 
 looking man, perhaps not long 4 Med win and Mrs. Shelley here 
 
 married, is looking with the ad- read of whom the youngest, a ho ml - 
 
 miration of a bachelor on his first some girl, seems the least concerned. 
 child, and perhaps thinking, that 5 In previous editions the final 
 
 he was once such a strange little confession is wanting, 
 creature himself. His hands are 
 
18 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 VIII. 
 
 AN OX. 
 
 A most admirable ox in bronze. 1 
 IX. 
 
 AN URN. 
 
 An urn whose ansae 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 
 
 TGN ArAGQN H MNHMH AEI 0AAHS. 
 
 " 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, 3 
 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- 
 
 1 This note is followed in the this sketch (Life of Shelley, Vol. 
 MS. Note-book by one on the I, p. 314). His transcript appears 
 Demon of Socrates — a memoran- to have been at least as careless as 
 dum of a thought which would usual. I have only noted the more 
 seem to have occurred to Shelley significant variations. 
 
 while in the Gallery among the 3 Medwin omits the rest of this 
 
 statues. sentence, to clouds, and, further 
 
 2 Not from the Boboli Gardens, on, the words now full with the 
 as stated by Medwin in introducing winter rains. 
 
IN HOME AND FLORENCE. 19 
 
 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 1 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 2 occupy the pinnacles and the abutments of those 
 hills, over which is seen at intervals the a3therial moun- 
 tain line 3 hoary with snow and intersected by clouds. 
 The vale below is eovered with cypress groves whose 
 obeliskine forms of intense green pierce the grey shadow 
 of the wintry hill that overhangs 4 them. — The cypresses 
 too of the garden form a magnificent foreground of ac- 
 cumulated verdure ; pyramids of dark leaves and shining 
 cones 5 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 
 
 XL 
 
 VICTORY. 
 
 Lips of wisdom and arch yet sublime tenderness, a 
 simple yet profound expression of . . . 
 
 1 In Med win's version, snewy green and omits leaves and shining 
 
 heights of the Apennines. On the cones, 
 
 right &c. 6 The final sentence is omitted 
 
 8 Not Caacini and other villages, in Medwin's version, 
 
 as in Medwin's book. 7 Between this Note and the next 
 
 3 Med win gives aerial mown,- in the MS. Note-book occur the 
 
 tains. following poetic jottings : — 
 
 * Not overlooks, as printed by Hi8 love and Byinpathy> his ^jish love 
 
 Medwin. His enmity with Life 
 
 Med win reads pyramids of dark Hi« admiration of the bidden energies. 
 
 B 2 
 
20 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 XII. 
 
 A BOY. 1 
 
 A graceful boy with the skin of a wild beast hanging 
 
 on his shoulders and a bunch of grapes in his hand. He 
 
 is crowned with a vine wreath and buds and grapes : 
 
 the legs are modern, and the face has not an antique 
 
 but it expresses cheerful and earnest . . . 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A PRIESTESS. 
 
 The drapery beautifully expressed, the face bad. 
 XIV. 
 
 AN ATHLETE. 
 
 (Curse these fig leaves ; why is a round tin thing more 
 decent than a cylindrical marble one ?) An exceedingly 
 fine statue — full of graceful strength; the countenance 
 full of sweetness and strength. Its attitude with a staff 
 lifted in one hand and some in the other, 
 
 expresses serene dignity and power ; a personification in 
 the firmness and lightness of its form of that perfection 
 of manhood when the will can be freely communicated to 
 every fibre of the body. The muscles are represented 
 how differently from a statue since anatomy has cor- 
 rupted it. 
 
 XV. 
 
 A POMONA. 
 
 A woman in the act of lightly advancing — much care 
 
 1 The word Staircase is written the statues on the staircase extends, 
 above this Note in the MS. Note- I do not know, 
 book : how far the description of 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 21 
 
 has been taken to render the effect of the drapery as 
 thrown back by the wind of her motion. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 AN ATHLETE 
 
 in every respect different from and inferior to the first. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 AN URANIA 
 
 holding a globe in one hand and compasses in the other : 
 her countenance though not of the highest beauty, is 
 beautiful : her drapery drawn closely round shews the 
 conformation of her left side and falls in graceful folds 
 over the right arm. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 A VESTAL. 
 
 Probably a portrait. This face, which represented a 
 real person, denotes an admirable disposition and mind, 
 and is not beautiful but wise and gentle although with 
 some mixture of severity. Her office might have contri- 
 buted to this expression. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 A VENUS GENITRIX. 
 
 Remarkable for the voluptuous effect of her finely pro- 
 portioned form being seen through the folds of a 
 drapery, the original of which must have been the 
 
22 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 "woven wind" of Chios. There is a softness in the 
 attitude and upper part of the statue — the restoration of 
 the arms and hand truly hideous. 
 
 XX. 
 
 A CALLIOPE. 
 
 Half modern — the drapery rather coarse. 
 XXI. 
 
 A HERCULES ON AN EMBLEMATIC BASE. 
 
 The arms probably restored, for the right hand espe- 
 cially is in villainous proportion. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 A MUSE. 
 
 A statue they call the Muse Polyhymnia — poor Muse — 
 the head which may be a misapplication is of the family 
 likeness of those shrewish and evil-minded Eoman women 
 of rank with the busts of whom the Capitol overflows. 
 The form otherwise is too thin and spare for the ideal 
 beauty in which the Muses were clothed. The drapery 
 is very remarkable and very admirable ; it is arranged 
 in such large and unrestrained folds as the motions and 
 the shape of a living form naturally forces a form into. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 MERCURY. 
 
 Another glorious creature of the Greeks. His coun- 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 23 
 
 tenance expresses an imperturbable and god-like self- 
 possession ; he seems in the enjoyment of delight which 
 nothing can destroy. His figure nervous yet light, ex- 
 presses the animation of swiftness emblemed by the 
 plumes of his sandalled feet. Every muscle and nerve of 
 his frame has tranquil and energetic life. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 A VENUS 
 
 with villanous modern arms — this figure is rather too 
 slight and weak — the body is correctly but feebly ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 ANOTHER VENUS. 
 
 A very insipid person in the usual insipid attitude of 
 this lady. The body and hips and where the lines of 
 the fade into the thighs is exquisitely imagined 
 
 and executed. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 with his serpent crawling round a trunk of laurel on 
 which his quiver is suspended. It probably was, when 
 complete, magnificently beautiful. The restorer of the 
 head and arms following the indications' 2 of the 
 muscles of the right side, has lifted the right arm, as if 
 
 1 The Note on an Apollo appeared given with the following opening — 
 
 in The A thenceum for the 22nd of with serpents twining round a wreath 
 
 September, 1832, and was reprinted of laurel on which the quiver is sus- 
 
 in The Shelley Papers and in Mrs. pended. 
 
 Shelley's volumes of 1840. In all 8 In former editions, indication. 
 
 these cases it was unsuspectingly 
 
24 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 in triumph 1 at the success of an arrow ; imagining to 
 imitate the Lycian Apollo, or that 2 so finely described by 
 Apollonius Rhodius when the dazzling radiance of his 
 beautiful limbs suddenly 3 shone over the dark Euxine. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 ANOTHER APOLLO. 
 
 In every respect a coarse statue, with a goose or swan 
 who has got the end of his pallium in his bill. Seen on 
 one side the intense energy and god -like animation of those 
 limbs, the spirit which seems as if it would not be 
 contained. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 A CUPID. 
 
 Apparently part of a group — as in laughing defiance 
 of those which are lost. It seeks to express what cannot 
 be expressed in sculpture — the coarser and more violent 
 effects of comic feeling cannot be seized by this art. 
 Tenderness, sensibility, enthusiasm, terror, poetic inspira- 
 tion the profound, the beautiful, Yes. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 BACCHUS AND AMPELUS. 4 
 
 Le&b beautiful than that in the royal collection of 
 
 1 In former editions, the arm, as the coarse statue with the great 
 
 in triumph. work seen beside it. 
 
 9 Not in that, as printed by Med- 4 This Note also would hardly 
 
 win and Mrs. Shelley. have been omitted by Mrs. Shelloy 
 
 3 Med win and Mrs. Shelley omit had it been at hand. Medwin gave 
 
 suddenly, and add after Euxine it, not in The Shelley Papers, but 
 
 what seems a revised transfer from in the Life (Vol. I, pp. 355-6). His 
 
 the next note : The action, energy, version is apparently much mani- 
 
 and godlike animation of those pulated. The opening comparison 
 
 limbs speak a spirit which seems as if is omitted, and he starts with the 
 
 it could not be consumed. The in- improbable form of words, Look! 
 
 tcntion was apparently to contrast the figures arc walking &c. 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 25 
 
 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 ex- 
 pressed in the motions of their delicate and flowing 1 
 forms. One arm of Bacchus rests on the shoulder of 
 Ampelus, and the other, the fingers being gently curved 
 as with the burning 2 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, 3 which gracefully divided on his fore- 
 head falls in delicate wreaths upon his neck and breast. 4 
 Ampelus with a beast skin 5 over his shoulder holds a cup 
 in his right hand, and with his left half embraces the 
 waist of Bacchus. 6 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. 7 — 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 
 
 1 Not glowing as in Medwin's the breast. 
 
 version. 5 Medwin reads a young lion's or 
 
 2 Not living as printed by Med- lynx's skin. 
 
 win. 6 Medwin reads encircles Bacchus, 
 
 3 Medwiu reads hang with the and omits the interesting paren- 
 inertness of a fadnl leaf over his thesis just below. 
 
 neck and massy, profuse, down-hang- 7 Medwin reads for the other that 
 
 ing hair. the age inspires. 1 notice he con- 
 
 4 In Medwin's version, wreaths on stantly has that For Shelley's which. 
 each side his nc<k, and curls upon 
 
26 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 supernatural beauty, as one who walks through the world 
 untouched by its corruptions, 1 its corrupting cares ; it 
 looks like one who unconsciously yet with delight 
 confers pleasure and peace. 2 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. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 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 counte- 
 nance 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 
 
 1 Medwin omits its corruptions, respects boyish and inferior, that of Bac- 
 «d «« »Uh Mght in the next lino. ^^SSJS^SS^t^^ 
 
 2 Instead of the remainder of this men t of a calm delight, that nothing can 
 Note, Medwin has the following : destroy. His is immortal beauty." 
 
 " The countenance of Ampelus is in some 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 27 
 
 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. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 LEDA. 
 
 A dull thins, 
 
 ©■ 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE. 1 
 
 She seems to have just issued from the bath, and yet to 
 be animated 2 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 3 
 of sweetness. Her face expresses a breathless yet passive 
 and innocent voluptuousness without affectation, without 
 doubt ; 4 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 5 the grandeur of enthusiastic imagination like 
 the Apollo of the Capitol, or an union 6 of both like the 
 
 1 So headed in the Note-book, * Instead of the words without 
 not On the Venus, called Anadyo- affectation, without doubt, and the 
 mene as in former editions. This whole of the sentence following, 
 Note appeared in TheAthenceum for Med win and Mrs. Shelley have 
 the 22nd of September 1832, before simply free from affectation. 
 being printed in '1 he Shelley Papers 8 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley dis- 
 and the Essays, Letters &c. guise the incompleteness by elimi- 
 
 2 In former editions has issued nating like and or. 
 
 and is animated. 6 Not the union as in previous 
 
 3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read editions. 
 sinuosity. 
 
28 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 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 botli sides into that 
 sweet swelling and then 1 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 2 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. 3 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. 4 
 This perhaps is the finest personification of Venus, the 
 
 1 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read 3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read 
 thin for then, and, after eye, omit animated for embued, omit the 
 and prolongs itself to the cheek, sub- whole of the next sentence, down 
 stituting in the mode for in that to astonishing, and open the sen- 
 mode. tence after with The position of the 
 
 2 Not panting as with the ayrira- arms. 
 
 tin a, as in former editions. 4 In previous editions, easy. 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 29 
 
 Deity of superficial desire, in all antique statuary. Her 1 
 pointed and pear-like bosom ever virgin — the virgin 
 Mary might have this beauty, but alas ! poor girl, she has 
 all the pain and none of the pleasure. 
 
 THIED 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 
 uplifted 3 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, 4 which is, in living 
 beings, the seat of the expression of a simplicity and 
 integrity of nature. Her face uplifted 5 to Heaven is 
 animated with a profound, sweet and impassioned melan- 
 choly, 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 6 not only the possessor but the 
 
 1 Instead of this closing sentence 22nd of September, 1832, before 
 Medwin and Mrs Shelley have its issue in 'I he Shelley Papers and 
 "Her pointed and pear-like per- the Essays &c. 
 
 son, ever virgin, and her attitude 3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read 
 
 modesty itself.' ' attitude for face uplifted. 
 
 2 So in the Note-book, where 4 In previous editions mouth for 
 however, there is nothing to shew the jaw. 
 
 the division between first day and 5 In previous editions, up-rained. 
 
 second day. Medwin and Mrs. 6 Not through a feeling which 
 
 ShelleyheadthisNote7'Ae3/in«rra makes, as in former edicions : that 
 
 and omit Th .e arm restored. The Note must surely be Med win's way of 
 
 Appeared in The Atktnamm for the perfecting Shelley's work. 
 
30 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 spectator of it prefer it to what is called pleasure, in 
 which all is not pleasure. It is difficult to think that 
 the head, though of the highest ideal beauty, is the head 
 of Minerva, although the attributes and attitude of the 
 lower part of the statue, certainly suggest that idea. 
 The Greeks rarely in their representations of the Divin- 
 ities 1 (unless we call the poetic enthusiasm of Apollo, a 
 mortal passion) expressed the disturbance of human feel- 
 ing ; and here is deep and impassioned grief, animating a 
 divine countenance. It is indeed divine, as Wisdom which 
 as Minerva it may be supposed to emblem, pleading 3 
 earnestly with Power, and invested with the expression 
 of that grief because it must ever plead so vainly. An 
 owl is sitting at her feet. 3 The drapery of the statue, 
 the gentle beauty of the feet and the grace of the atti- 
 tude are what may be seen in many other statues 
 belonging to that astonishing era which produced it ; — 
 such a countenance is seen in few. 
 
 This statue happens to be placed on an altar, the sub- 
 ject of the reliefs of which are 4 in a spirit wholly the 
 reverse. It was probably an altar to Bacchus, possibly a 
 funerary urn. It has this inscription : D. M. M. 
 ULPIUS. TEKPNUS. FECIT. SIBI ET 
 ULPI^E SECUNDILL.E LIBERTY. B. M. 5 
 Under the festoons of fruits and flowers at 
 
 the corners of the altar with the skulls of goats and in 
 the middle with an inverted flower suspended from a 
 
 1 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley have 3 This sentence was not given 
 instead of Divinities, the words by Medwin and Mrs. Shelley. 
 characters of their Gods. 4 In previous editions, a pedestal, 
 
 2 In former editions we read It the subject of whose reliefs is. 
 
 is, indeed, divine. Wisdom {which 5 The sentence with the inscrip- 
 
 Minerva may be supposed to em- tion was not given by Medwin and 
 blem,) is pleading kc. Mrs Shelley. 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 31 
 
 twisted stem are sculptured in moderate relief four 1 
 figures of Maenads under the inspiration of the God. 
 Nothing can be imagined 2 more wild and terrible than 
 their gestures, touching as they do upon the verge of 
 distortion, in which their fine limbs and lovely forms are 
 thrown. There is nothing however that exceeds the 
 possibility of Nature, although it borders on its utmost 
 line. 
 
 The tremendous spirit of superstition aided by drunken- 
 ness and producing something beyond insanity, seems to 
 have caught them in its whirlwinds, and to bear them 
 over the earth as the rapid volutions of a tempest bear 3 
 the ever-changing trunk of a water-spout, as the torrent 
 of a mountain river whirls the leaves in 4 its full eddies. 
 Their hair loose and floating seems caught in the tempest 
 of their own tumultuous motion, their heads are thrown 
 back leaning with a strange inanity 5 upon their necks, 
 and looking up to Heaven, while they totter and stumble 
 even in the energy of their tempestuous dance. One — 
 perhaps Agave 6 with the head of Pentheus, has a human 
 head in one hand and in the other a great knife; 
 another 7 has a spear with its pine cone, which was their 
 thyrsus ; another dances with mad voluptuousness ; the 
 fourth is dancing to a kind of tambourine. 
 
 1 In previous editions flowers autumnal leaves resistlessly along in 
 that grace the pedestal, the corners &c. 
 
 of which are ornamented with the s Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read 
 
 sktdls of goats, are sculptured some delirium instead of inanity, 
 
 figures &c. The filling of the blank 6 In previous editions we read, 
 
 with grace the pedestal is little cal- One represents Agave with the head 
 
 culated to inspire confidence in the of Pentheus, and the words has 
 
 genuineness of the text of Medwin. a human head are left out. 
 
 2 In former editions, conceived. 7 In former editions, a second ; 
 : Not have, as given by Medwin in the next line, the Thyrsus ; and 
 
 and Mrs. Shelley. in the next but one beating for 
 
 4 In former editions, whirls the dancing to. 
 
32 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 This was indeed a monstrous superstition only capable 
 of existing in Greece because there alone 1 capable of com- 
 bining ideal beauty and poetical and abstract enthusiasm 
 with the wild errors from which it sprung. In Eome it 
 had a more familiar, wicked and dry appearance — it was 
 not suited to the severe and exact apprehensions of the 
 Romans, and their strict morals once violated by it, sus- 
 tained 2 a deep injury little analogous to its effects upon 
 the Greeks who turned all things, superstition, prejudice, 
 murder, madness — to Beauty. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 A TRIPOD. 
 
 Said to be dedicated to Mars — three winged figures with 
 emblematic instruments. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 A FAUN. 
 
 A pretty thing but little remarkable. A lynx is 
 slily peeping round the stem covered with vines on which 
 he leans and gnawing the grapes. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 A GANYMEDE. 
 
 A statue of surpassing beauty. One of the Eagle's 
 wings is half-enfolded round him and one of his arms is 
 
 1 In previous editions we read, 2 In Medwin's and Mrs. Shelley's 
 
 a monstrous superstition, even in editions, were violated by it, and 
 Greece, where it was alone, &c. sustained. &o. 
 
IN - ROME AND FLORENCE. 33 
 
 placed round the Eagle and his delicate hand lightly 
 touches the wing ; the other holds what I imagine to be 
 a representation of the thunder. These hands and fingers 
 are so delicate and light that it seems as if the spirit of 
 pleasure, of light, life and beauty that lives in them half 
 lifted them, and deprived them of the natural weight of 
 mortal flesh. The roundness and fulness of the flowing 
 perfection of his form is strange and rare. The attitude 
 and form of the legs and the relation borne to each other 
 by his light and delicate feet is peculiarly beautiful. The 
 calves of the legs almost touching each other, one foot is 
 placed on the ground, a little advanced before the other 
 which is raised, the knee being a little bent as those who 
 are slightly, but slightly fatigued with standing. The 
 face though innocent and pretty has no ideal beauty. It 
 expresses inexperience and gentleness and innocent 
 wonder, such as might be imagined in a rude and lovely 
 shepherd-boy and no more. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 A VENUS. 
 
 A beautiful Venus, sculptured with great accuracy but 
 without the feeling and the soft and flowing proportions 
 of the Anadyomene. It has great perfection and beauty 
 of form ; it is a most admirable piece of sculpture, but 
 hard, angular and with little of the lithe suppleness or 
 light of life. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 A TORSO OF FAUNUS. 
 
 (Why I don't know.) The sculpture remarknUy 
 good. 
 
34 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 XL. 
 
 TWO STATUES Of MARSYAS. 
 
 Two of those hideous St. Sebastians 1 of Antiquity oppo- 
 site each other, — Marsyas : one looks as if he had been 
 flayed, and the other as if he was going to be flayed. 
 This is one of the few abominations of the Greek religion. 
 This is as bad as the everlasting damnation and hacking 
 and hewing between them of Joshua and Jehovah. And 
 is it possible that there existed in the same imagination 
 the idea of that tender and sublime and poetic and life- 
 giving Apollo and of the author of this deed as the 
 same person ? 2 It would be worse than confounding 
 Jehovah and Jesus in the same Trinity, which to those 
 who believe in the divinity of the latter is a pretty piece 
 of blasphemy in any intelligible sense of the word. As 
 to the sculpture of these pieces, it is energetic, especially 
 that of the one already flayed, and moderate. If he knew 
 as much as the moderns about anatomy, which I hope to 
 God he did not, he, at least, abstained from taking advan- 
 tage of his subject for making the same absurd display of 
 it. These great artists abstained from overstepping in 
 this particular, except in some cases, as perhaps in the 
 Laocoon, what Shakespeare calls the modesty of nature. 
 
 1 Shelley was not, it would seem, tins case could scarcely be other 
 
 as familiar with the history of the than a slip of the pen. 
 
 Christian Martyrs as with the 2 Students of mythology will 
 
 mythology of the Greeks, or he doubtless answer No. This vari- 
 
 would of course have written " Two able and contradictory creation was 
 
 of those hideous St. Bartholomews." the offspring of many imagina- 
 
 One would think, however, that he tions ; and no single imagination 
 
 must have seen so many pictures in worth the name mixed up these 
 
 Italy of both martyrdoms that, two particular conceptions as an 
 
 even if he did not, as he would article of religious belief, 
 not, study them much, the slip in 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 35 
 
 XLI. 
 
 THETIS. 
 
 Thetis on a sea-horse — -the face far from idealism seems 
 to be a real face of much energy and goodness. She sits 
 on the curved bask of the monster, and holds in one hand 
 something like a sponge, in the other the ears of the head 
 of the sharp beast. 1 
 
 XLII. 
 
 HYGIEIA. 
 
 An Hygieia with a serpent. A resemblance of the 
 famous Dis — a copy. The forms are soft and flowing 
 but not the most perfect proportion. The head and 
 countenance is of great beauty. There is the serene 
 sweetness of expectation, the gathered firm and yet the 
 calm and gentle lip. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 JUPITER. 
 
 A Jupiter in every respect of a very ordinary character. 
 XLIV. 
 
 A MINERVA. 
 
 Evidently a production of very great antiquity. 
 
 : It was doubtless inteuded to erase some words here. 
 
 C 2 
 
36 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 XLV. 
 
 A JUNO. 1 
 
 A statue of great merit. The countenance expresses 
 a stern and unquestioned severity of dominion, with a 
 certain sadness. The lips are beautiful — susceptible of 
 expressing scorn — but not without sweetness in their 
 beauty. 2 Fine lips are never wholly bad, and never 
 belong to the expression of emotions completely 3 selfish — 
 lips being the seat of imagination. The drapery is finely 
 conceived, and the manner in which the act of throwing 
 back one leg is expressed in the diverging folds of the 
 drapery of the left breast, fading in bold yet graduated 
 lines into a skirt of it which descends from the right 4 
 shoulder is admirably imagined. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 A WOUNDED SOLDIER. 
 
 An unknown figure. His arms are folded within his 
 mantle. — His countenance which may be a portrait is sad 
 but gentle. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 A YOUTH. 
 
 A youth playing on a lyre — one arm and leg is a 
 restoration and there is no appearance of the head or arm 
 belonging to it. The body and the right leg are of the 
 most consummate beauty. It may or may not be an Apollo. 
 
 1 Medwin first gave this Note in in their beauty, and begin the next 
 The Athenceum for the 22nd of sentence thus — With fine lips a 
 September, 1832. Like the others person is. 
 
 so given, it was reprinted in The 3 In previous editions, wholly. 
 
 Shelley Papers and Assays, Letters 4 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read, 
 
 &.c. a skirt, as it descends from the left 
 
 2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley omit shoulder. 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 37 
 
 t 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 THE FIGURE OF A YOUTH SAID TO BE APOLLO. 
 
 It was difficult to conceive anything more delicately 
 beautiful than the Ganymede ; but the spirit-like lightness, 
 the softness, the flowing perfection of these forms, surpass 
 it. The countenance though exquisite lovely and gentle 
 is not divine. There is a womanish vivacity of winning 
 yet passive happiness and yet a boyish inexperience 
 exceedingly delightful. Through the limbs there seems 
 to flow a spirit of life which gives them tightness. 
 Nothing can be more perfectly lovely than the legs and 
 the union of the feet with the ancles, and the fading 
 away of the lines of the feet to the delicate extremities. 
 It is like a spirit even in dreams. The neck is long yet 
 full and sustains the head with its profuse and knotted 
 hair as if it needed no sustaining. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 AN AESCULAPIUS. 
 
 A Statue of iEsculapius — the same as in the Borghese 
 Gardens in the temple there. 
 
 L. 
 
 AN ;ESCULAriUS. 
 
 A Statue of ^Esculapius far superior. It is leaning 
 forward upon a knotty staff imbarked and circled by a 
 viper, — with a bundle of plants in one hand and the 
 other with the forefinger in an attitude of instruction. 
 The majestic head, its thick beard and profuse hair bound 
 
38 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 by a fillet leans forward, and the gentle smile of its 
 benevolent lips seems a commentary on his instructions. 
 The upper part of the figure with the exception of the 
 right shoulder is naked, but the rest to the feet is involved 
 in drapery, whose folds flow from the point where the 
 staff confines them sustaining the left arm. 
 
 LI. 
 
 OLINTHUS 
 
 (as they call a youth seated). Another of those sweet 
 and gentle figures of adolescent youth in winch the Greeks 
 delighted. 
 
 LII. 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 A Statue of Marcus Aurelius which is rather without 
 faults than with beauties. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 BACCHUS AND AMPELUS. 
 
 A lovely group. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 LEDA; 
 
 Leda with a very ugly face. I should be a long time 
 before I should make love with her. 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 4V 
 
 LV. 
 
 A MUSE. 
 
 A most hideous thing they call a Muse — evidently the 
 production of some barbarian and of a barbarous age. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 AN OLD CUIRASS 
 
 with all the frogs and fringe complete — a fine piece 
 of antique dandyism. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 A BACCHUS BY MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 The countenance of this figure is the most revolting 
 mistake of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. It looks 
 drunken, brutal, and narrow-minded, and has an expression 
 of dissoluteness the most revolting. The lower part of the 
 figure is stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are 
 united to the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly 
 inharmonious. It is altogether without unity, as was the 
 idea of the Deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic- 
 On the other hand, considered merely 2 as a piece of 
 workmanship, it has great merits. The arms are executed 
 in the most perfect 3 and manly beauty ; the body is 
 conceived with great energy, 4 and the lines which describe 
 
 1 So headed in the Note-book, editions we read from here as fol- 
 
 but Michael Ant/do's Bacchus in lows — and the manner in which 
 
 former editions. the lines mingle into each other, of 
 
 1 In former editions, only. the highest boldness and truth. It 
 
 3 Not in a ttofU of the most perfect, wants unity as a work of art — as a 
 &c, as in previous editions. representation of Bacchus it u-auts 
 
 4 In Medwin's and Mrs. Shelley's everything. 
 
40 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 the sides and thighs, and the manner in which they 
 mingle into one another are of the highest order of 
 boldness and beauty. It wants as a work of art unity 
 and simplicity ; as a representation of the Greek Deity 
 of Bacchus it wants every thing. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 A remarkable figure of Sleep as a winged child 
 supine on a lion's skin, sleeping on its great half unfolded 
 wing of black obsidian stone. One hand is lightly placed 
 on a horn, with which it might be supposed to call 
 together its wandering dreams, the horn of dreams, and 
 in the other a seedy poppy. The hardness of the stone 
 does not permit the arriving at any great expression. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 COPY OF THE LAOCOON. 
 
 An admirable copy of the Laocoon in which is ex- 
 pressed with fidelity the agony of the poison and the 
 straining round of the angry serpents. The left hand 
 child seems sick with agony and horror, and the vain and 
 feeble attempt he makes to disentangle himself from its 
 grasp increases the effect. (See Borne. 1 ) 
 
 1 This is of course a reference the Note on the Laocoon standing 
 to the missing Note-book from second in this series. See pp. vi. 
 which Med win seems to have copied and 12. 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 41 
 
 LX. 
 
 THE NIOBE. 1 
 
 This figure is probably the most consummate personifi- 
 cation of loveliness with regard to its countenance, as that 
 of the Apollo of the Vatican is with regard to its entire 
 form, that remains to us of Greek Antiquity. It is a 
 colossal figure ; the size of a work of art rather adds to its 
 beauty, because it allows the spectator the choice of a 
 greater number of points of view, in which to catch a 
 greater number of the infinite modes of expression of 
 which any form approaching ideal beauty is necessarily 
 composed, of a mother in the act of sheltering from some 
 divine and inevitable peril, the last, we will 2 imagine, of 
 her surviving children. 
 
 The child 3 terrified we may conceive at the strange 
 destruction of all its kindred, has fled to its mother, and 4 
 hiding its head in the folds of her robe and casting up 6 
 
 1 TheNote on the Niobe appeared figure. In fact we are to read It 
 
 in The Athemeum for the 15th of is a colossal figure ... of a mother in 
 
 September, 1832, and afterwards the act &c., the remarks on size in 
 
 in The Shelley Papers and Mrs. sculpture being parenthetic. Had 
 
 Shelley's volumes of 1840. It Shelley used his rough note for one 
 
 seems to have been very consider- of the noble letters to Peacock, or 
 
 ably edited by Medwin, the open- for any literary purpose, he would 
 
 ing being rendered thus : doubtless have made it read more 
 
 •• Of all that remains to us of Greek ami- smoothly ; but his roughest work 
 
 quity, this figure is perhaps the moHt con- never fads to convey a perfectly 
 
 summate personification of loveliness with clear 8eu8e j ia of course pre . 
 
 reyard to its countenance, as that ot the e , , , „'. , . , ., * 
 
 Venus of the Tribune is with regard to its lerable to Medwin s smoothest 
 entire form of woman. It is colossal : a In former editions, viay. 
 
 the size adds to its value ; " 3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley put 
 
 and after the words poin ts of view, little creature for child. 
 we read and affords him a more 4 M edwin and Mrs. Shelley alter 
 
 analytical one. Further on there the construction by inserting is 
 
 is, in Medwin' s text, a period after here. 
 
 composed ; and a new sentence is 5 In previous editions, back in- 
 begun with the words, It is the stead of up. 
 
42 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 one arm as in a passionate appeal for defence from her, 1 
 where it never before could have been sought in vain,- 
 seems in the marble to have scarcely suspended the 
 motion of her terror ; as though conceived to be yet 
 in the act of arrival. The child 2 is clothed in a thin 
 tunic of delicatest woof, and her hair is gathered 3 on her 
 head into a knot, probably by that mother whose care 
 will never gather it again. Mobe is enveloped in 
 profuse drapery, a portion of which the left hand has 
 gathered up and is in the act of extending it over the child 
 in the instinct of defending 4 her from what reason knows 
 to be inevitable. The right 5 — as the restorer of it has 
 rightly comprehended, is gathering up her child to her 
 and with a like instinctive gesture is encouraging by its 
 gentle pressure the child to believe that it can give 
 security. — The countenance which is the consummation 
 of feminine majesty and loveliness, beyond which 
 the imagination scarcely doubts that it can conceive 
 anything, that 6 master-piece of the poetic harmony of 
 marble, expresses other feelings. There is embodied a 
 sense of the inevitable and rapid destiny which is con- 
 summating around her as if it were already over. It seems 
 
 1 Former editions omit from htr, Have we done this for one another; now 
 
 j iv« „„„4.^«^^ „„Ac —u.1. r. We shall not do it any more. My Lord, 
 
 and the sentence ends with a We are quite ready. Well, 'tis very well. 
 period at vam, the subtle passage 
 
 from seems in the marble to arrival, Even the tragic resignation of the 
 
 being left out. close corresponds with Shelley's 
 
 ■ Med win and Mrs. Shelley have piercing criticism of this group. 
 
 She for The child. 4 In former editions, shielding. 
 
 3 In former editions, fastened for 5 This passage is rendered thus 
 
 gathered, and fasten in the next by Medwin and Mrs. Shelley : 
 
 line instead of gather. As an ut- „ The ht (m the ^^ hag 
 
 terance contemporary with J he imagined), is drawing up her daughter to 
 
 Cenci this passage is peculiarly in- her ; and with that instinctive gesture, and 
 
 teresting. (Compare Act V, Scene b l&JS*Bti« pressure, is encouraging the 
 
 t\t i\-r i tt ioi e j-j.- \ child to believe that it can give security. 
 
 IV (\ ol. II, p. 131 of my edition) : lhe coutl teuance of Niobe is* &c" 
 
 Here, mother, tie 
 
 My girdle for me, and bind up this hair 6 This is not a fresh sentence as 
 
 In any simple knot ; aye, that does well. ; n f nrmpr Pr m-i n n« 
 
 And yours 1 see is coming down. How in t0rmer edltlons - 
 often 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 43 
 
 as if despair and beauty had combined and produced 
 nothing but the sublime loveliness 1 of grief. As the motions 
 of the form expressed the instinctive sense of the 
 possibility of protecting the child, and the accustomed 
 and affectionate assurance that she would find protection 2 
 within her arms, so reason and imagination speak in the 
 countenance the certainty that no mortal defence is of 
 avail. 
 
 There is no terror in the countenance — only grief — 
 deep 3 grief. — There is no anger — of what avail is 
 indignation against what is known to be omnipotent ? 
 There is no selfish shrinking from personal pain ; there 
 is no panic at supernatural agency — there is no adverting 
 to herself as herself — the calamity is mightier than to 
 leave scope for such emotion. 4 
 
 Every thing is swallowed up in sorrow. — Her counte- 
 nance in assured expectation of the arrow piercing its 
 victim 5 in her embrace, is fixed on her omnipotent enemy. 
 The 6 pathetic beauty of the mere expression of her 
 tender and serene despair, which is yet so profound and 
 so incapable of being ever worn away, is beyond any effect 
 of sculpture. — As soon as the arrow shall have pierced her 
 
 1 Med win and Mrs. Shelley read 6 This sentence is replaced in 
 sublimity instead of sublime love- T/te Athenceum and The Shelley 
 liness. Papers by the following : 
 
 2 In previous editions, an asylum. „„,. .. .. , , ... 
 
 , rr>u ]jv i J j -j " The pathetio beauty of the expression 
 
 3 The additional word remediless f her tender, and inexhaustible, and un- 
 is here inserted in previous editions. quenchable despair, is beyond the effect of 
 
 4 Not emotio7is, as given by Med- sculpture." 
 
 win and Mrs. Shelley, who insert Mrs. Shelley followed this, merely 
 
 after sorrow in the next line, she is iuserting any other before sculpture, 
 
 all tears. — conjecturally, I presume, for the 
 
 In previous editions, its last words are not in the Note-book. 
 victim. 
 
44 NOTES ON SCULPTURES 
 
 last child, the fable that she was dissolved 1 into a 
 fountain of tears, will be but a feeble emblem of the sad- 
 ness of despair, 2 in which the years of her remaining life, 
 we feel, must flow away. 
 
 It is difficult to speak of the beauty of her coun- 
 tenance, or to make intelligible in words the forms from 
 which 3 such astonishing loveliness results. The head, 
 resting somewhat backward, upon the full and flowing 
 contour of the neck, is in the act of watching an event 
 momently to arrive. The hair is delicately divided on 
 the forehead, and a gentle beauty gleams from the broad 
 and clear forehead, over which its strings are drawn. 
 The face is altogether broad 4 and the features conceived 
 with the daring harmony 5 of a sense of power. In this 
 respect it resembles the careless majesty which Nature 
 stamps upon those rare master-pieces of her creation, 
 harmonizing them as it were from the harmony of the 
 spirit within. Yet all this not only consists with but is 
 the cause of the subtlest delicacy of that clear and 
 tender beauty which is the expression at once of innocence 
 and sublimity of soul, of purity and strength, of all that 
 which touches the most removed and divine of the strings 6 
 of that which makes music within my thoughts, and which 
 
 1 In previous editions, shall fulness. 
 
 pierce her last tie upon earth, that 5 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley omit 
 
 fable (hat she was turned into stone, the word harmony. 
 
 or dissolved &c. 6 Instead of the strings &c. as in 
 
 2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read the text, former editions have the 
 hopelessness for despair and insert chords that make music in our 
 few and evil before years. thoughts, of that which shakes with 
 
 3 Previous editions read from astonishment even the most super- 
 what instead of the forms from ficial. The final sentence is 
 which. omitted. 
 
 4 In former editions, of an oval 
 
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 45 
 
 shakes with astonishment my most superficial faculties. 
 Compare for this effect the countenance as seen in 
 front and as seen from under the left arm, moving to 
 the right and towards the statue, until the line of the 
 forehead shall coincide with that of the wrist. 
 
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS, 
 
 A LUCIANIC FRAGMENT. 
 
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 
 
 I am not forgetful in this dreary scene of the country 
 which whilst I lived in the upper air, it was my 
 whole aim to illustrate and render happy. Indeed, 
 although immortal, we are not exempted from the enjoy- 
 ments and the sufferings of mortality. We sympathize in 
 all the proceedings of mankind, and we experience joy or 
 grief in all intelligence from them, according to our 
 various opinions and views. Nor do we resign those 
 opinions, even those which the grave 1 has utterly refuted. 
 Frederic of Prussia has lately arrived amongst us, and 
 persists in maintaining that " death is an eternal sleep," 
 to the great discomfiture of Philip the Second of Spain ; 
 who on the furies refusing to apply the torture, expects 
 the roof of Tartarus to fall upon his head, and laments 
 that at least in his particular instance the doctrine should 
 be false. — Religion is more frequently the subject of dis- 
 cussion among the departed dead, than any other topic, 
 for we know as little which mode of faith is true as you 
 do. Every one maintains the doctrine he maintained on 
 
 » Cancelled reading, even when the grave. 
 
50 THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 
 
 Earth, and accommodates the appearances which surround . 
 us to his peculiar tenets. — 
 
 I am one of those who esteeming political science 
 capable of certain conclusions, have ever preferred it to 
 these airy speculations, which when they assume an 
 empire over the passions of mankind render them so mis- 
 chievous and unextinguishable, that they subsist even 
 among the dead. The art of employing the power en- 
 trusted to you for the benefit of those who entrust it, is 
 something more definite, and subject as all its details 
 must ever be to innumerable limitations and exceptions 
 arising out of the change in the habits, opinions of 
 mankind, is the noblest, and the greatest, and the most 
 universal of all. It is not as a queen, but as a human 
 being that this science must be learned ; the same disci- 
 pline which contributes to domestic happiness and indi- 
 vidual distinction secures true welfare and genuine glory 
 to a nation. — 
 
 You will start, I do not doubt, to hear the language of 
 philosophy. You will have been informed that those 
 who approach sovereigns with warnings that they have 
 duties to perform, that they are elevated above the rest 
 . of mankind simply to prevent their tearing one another to 
 pieces, and for the purpose of putting into effect all 
 practical equality and justice, are insidious traitors who 
 devise their ruin. But if the character which I bore on 
 earth should not reassure you, 1 it would be well to 
 recollect the circumstances under which you will ascend 
 the throne of England, and what is the spirit of the times. 
 
 1 After reassure you there is a dices of the age have not deprived you 
 cancelled reading in the MS — you of all that learning, 
 recollect yourself, & if the preju- 
 
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 51 
 
 There are better examples to emulate than those who 
 have only refrained from depraving or tyrannizing over 
 their subjects, because they remembered the fates of 
 Pisistratus 1 and Tarquin. If 2 generosity and virtue should 
 have dominion over your actions, my lessons can hardly 
 be needed ; but if the discipline 3 of a narrow education 
 may have extinguished all thirst of genuine excellence, 
 all desire of becoming illustrious for the sake of the 
 illustriousness of the actions which I would incite you to 
 perform. Should you be thus — and no pains have been 
 spared to make you so — make your account with holding 
 your crown on this condition : of deserving it alone. 
 And that this may be evident 4 I will expose to you the 
 state in which the nation will be found at your accession, 
 for the very dead know more than the counsellors by 
 whom you will be surrounded. 
 
 The English nation does not, as has been imagined, 
 inherit freedom from its ancestors. Public opinion rather 
 than positive institution maintains it 5 in whatever portion 
 it may now possess, which is 6 in truth the acquirement 
 of their own incessant struggles. As yet the gradations 
 by which this freedom has advanced have been contested 
 step by step. 
 
 1 Pisistratus is probably a slip for 4 Cancelled reading, evident to 
 the son* of Pisistratus. you. 
 
 2 Cancelled reading, But if these 5 In the MS. them is struck out 
 motive*. in favour of it. 
 
 ■ Cancelled readings, lessons for G Cancelled readings, and th is has 
 
 discipline; and is to prevent for been, and in the same line conquest 
 
 may have extinguished in the next for acquirement. 
 line. 
 
 D 2 
 
ON PEACOCK'S " RHODODAPHNE." 
 
ON " RHODODAPHNE, 
 
 OR 
 
 THE THESSALIAN SPELL," 
 
 A POEM BY THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 
 
 Rhododaphne is a poem of the most remarkable 
 character, and the nature of the subject no less than the 
 spirit in which it is written forbid us to range it under 
 any of the classes of modern literature. 1 It is a Greek 
 and Pagan poem. In sentiment and scenery it is essen- 
 tially antique. There is a strong religio loci throughout 
 which almost compels us to believe that the author wrote 
 from the dictation of a voice heard from some Pythian 
 cavern in the solitudes where Delphi stood. We are 
 transported to the banks of the Peneus and linger under 
 the crags of Tempe, and see the water lilies floating on 
 
 1 Shelley is not the only poet who By living streams, in sylvan shades, 
 
 i in , fVionrrht. wpII of Rhnrlnrtnnhns Where wind and wave symphonious make 
 
 has tnougtit; wen 01 Ktioaoaaptinc. Rich melod the ths ' and maida 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe in his Marginalia No more with choral music wake 
 
 (Mr. J. H. Ingram's edition, Edin- Lone echo from her tangled brake." 
 
 burgh, 1874-5, Vol. Ill, p. 443) In these lines, the opening of Canto 
 
 has this laconic criticism : — III, the right reading is vrinds and 
 
 "'Rhododaphne' (who wrote it?) is ««*« in line % *** Sweet for *W 
 brimful of music —e.g. in hue 3. 
 
56 ON " RHODODAPHNE, OR THE THESSALIAN SPELL." 
 
 the stream. We sit with Plato by old Ilissus under the 
 sacred Plane tree among the sweet scent of flowering 
 sallows ; and above there is the nightingale of Sophocles 
 in the ivy of the pine, who is watching the sunset so 
 that it may dare to sing ; it is the radiant evening of a 
 burning day, and the smooth hollow whirlpools of the 
 river are overflowing with the aerial gold of the level 
 sunlight. "We stand in the marble temples of the Gods, 
 and see their sculptured forms gazing and almost breath- 
 ing around. We are led forth from the frequent pomp 
 of sacrifice into the solitude of mountains and forests 
 where Pan, " the life, the intellectual soul of grove and 
 stream," 1 yet lives and yet is worshipped. We visit the 
 solitudes of Thessalian magic, and tremble with new 
 wonder to hear statues speak and move and to see the 
 shaggy changelings minister to their witch queen with 
 the shape of beasts and the reason of men, and move 
 among the animated statues 2 who people her inchanted 
 palaces and gardens. That wonderful overflowing of 
 fancy the Syria Dea of Lucian, and the impassioned and 
 elegant pantomime of Apuleius, have contributed to this 
 portion of the poem. There is here, as in the songs of 
 ancient times, music and dancing and the luxury of volup- 
 tuous delight. The Bacchanalians toss on high their 
 leaf -inwoven hair, and the tumult and fervour of the 
 chase is depicted ; we hear its clamour gathering among 
 the woods, and she who impels it is so graceful and so fear- 
 less that we are charmed — and it needs no feeble spell 
 to see nothing of the agony and blood of that royal sport. 
 
 •These words are quoted, not Of vale, and grove, and stream, has fled 
 
 quite accurately, from Cauto III of ^Z^StSSU^U^. 
 
 tihododaphne, pp. 48 — ;): „ „ .. ,,,,-, ,. , r 
 
 r * x z Cancelled Mb. reading, forms lor 
 
 The streams no sedge-crowned Genii roll etntnp* 
 
 From bounteous urn \ great Pan is dead bmt l(/tb - 
 The life, the intellectual soul 
 
ON " RIIODODAPIINE, OR THE TIIKSSALIAN SPELL." 57 
 
 This it is to be a scholar ; this it is to have read Homer 
 and Sophocles and Plato. 
 
 Such is the scenery and the spirit of the tale. The 
 story itself presents a more modern aspect, being made 
 up of combinations of human passion which seem to have 
 been developed since the Pagan system has been out- 
 worn. The poem opens in a strain of elegant but less 
 powerful versification than that which follows. It is 
 descriptive of the annual festival of Love 1 at his temple 
 in Thespia. Anthemion is among the crowd of votaries ; 
 a youth from the banks of Arcadian Ladon : 
 
 The flower of all Arcadia's youth 
 
 Was he : such form and face, in truth, 
 
 As thoughts of gentlest maidens seek 
 
 In their day-dreams : soft glossy hair 
 
 Shadowed his forehead, snowy-fair, 
 
 With many a hyacinthine cluster : 
 
 Lips, that in silence seemed to speak, 
 
 Were his, and eyes of mild blue lustre : 
 
 And even the paleness of his cheek, 
 
 The passing trace of tender care, 
 
 Still shewed how beautiful it were 
 
 If its own natural bloom were there. — Canto I, p. 11. 
 
 He comes to offer his vows at the shrine for the recovery 
 of his mistress Calliroe, who is suffering under some 
 strange, and as we are led to infer, magical disease. As 
 he presents his wreath of flowers at the altar they are 
 suddenly withered up. He looks and there is standing 
 near him a woman of exquisite beauty who gives him 
 another wreath which lie places on the altar and it does 
 not wither. She turns to him and bids him wear a 
 
 The word Uranian before Love stands cancelled in the MS. 
 
58 ON " RHODODAPHNE, OR THE THESSALIAN SPELL." 
 
 flower which she presents, saying, with other sweet 
 
 words — 
 
 Some meet for once and part for aye, 
 Like thee and me, and scarce a day- 
 Shall each by each remembered be : 
 But take the flower I give to thee, 
 And till it fades remember me. — Canto I, p. 22. 
 
 As Anthemion passes from the temple among the sports 
 and dances of the festival " with vacant eye " 
 
 the trains 
 
 Of youthful dancers round him float, 
 
 As the musing bard from his sylvan seat 
 
 Looks on the dance of the noontide heat, 
 
 Or the play of the watery flowers, that quiver 
 
 In the eddies of a lowland river. — Canto II, p. 29. 
 
 He there meets an old man who tells him that the 
 flower he wears is the profane laurel-rose which grows 
 in Larissa's unholy gardens, that it is impious to wear it 
 in the temple of Love, and that he, who has suffered evils 
 which he dares not tell from Thessalian inchantments, 
 knows that the gift of this flower is a spell only to be 
 dissolved by invoking his natal genius and casting the 
 flower into some stream with the caution of not looking 
 upon it after he has thrown it away. Anthemion obeys 
 his direction, but so soon as he has . . . - 1 
 
 1 A portion of the MS. is here But through the solemn plane-trees past 
 won+in^r PrrthaV.lv if rnnrninpr] The pinions of a mightier blast, 
 wanting. Probably it contained A nd in its many-sounding sweep, 
 little more than an abstract or the Among the foliage broad and deep, 
 movement of the third and fourth Aerial voices seemed to sigh, 
 Cantos, illustrated by extracts, as As if the spirits of the grove 
 Z, ** u > i. v • 4.x Mourned in prophetic sympathy 
 the next fragment begins with a with some disastrous love.— 
 quotation from the fifth Canto. It Canto II, pp. 43 — 4. 
 will be useful to supply here the Canto III shews Anthemion, on his 
 thread of the story. As soon as way back to Thespia, repelled by 
 Anthemion has thrown the flower sounds of revelry, and seeking soli- 
 into the water he hears a sudden ^ude by "Aganippe's fountain- 
 cry, Calliroe's voice : wave." Musing on Calliroe, he 
 He turned to plunge into the tide, hears music, prelusive to the ap- 
 But all again was still: pearance of the " radiant maid " 
 
 JXSbffEi IWStaSSPiU. r h ™ **£ met » *» Thes P ian 
 
 Half-sunk behind the hill ; temple : he learns that her name is 
 
ON " KHODOD APHKB, OR THE TIIESSALIAN SPELL." 51> 
 
 — round his neck 
 Are closely twined the silken rings 
 Of Rhododaphne's glittering hair, 
 And round him her bright arms she flings, 
 And cinctured thus in loveliest bands 
 The charmed waves in safety bear 
 The youth and the enchantress fair 
 And leave them on the golden sands. — 
 
 Canto V, pp. 110-11. 
 
 They now find themselves on a lonely moor on which 
 stands a solitary cottage — ruined and waste ; this scene 
 is transformed by Thessalian magic to a palace surrounded 
 by magnificent gardens. Anthemion enters the hall of 
 the palace where, surrounded by sculptures of divine work- 
 manship, he sees the earthly image of Uranian Love. 
 
 Rhododaphne, and receives her de- 
 clarations of love. She utters the 
 words 
 
 These lips are mine ; the spells have won 
 
 them, 
 Which round and round thy soul I twine ; 
 And be the kiss I print upon them 
 Poison to all lips but mine ! — 
 
 Canto III, pp. 66—7. 
 
 Stung by the thought of Calliroe, 
 lie escapes this time from the en- 
 circling arms of Rhododaphne. 
 The fourth Canto sets forth that 
 "magic and mystery" have been 
 chased away by Reason ; but the 
 poet adds 
 
 Yet deem not so. The Power of Spells 
 Still lingers on the earth, but dwells 
 In deeper folds of close disguise, 
 That baffle Reason's searching eyes : 
 Nor shall that mystic Power resign 
 To Truth's cold sway his webs of guile, 
 Till woman's eyes have ceased to shine, 
 And woman's lips have ceased to smile, 
 And woman's voice has ceased to be 
 The earthly soul of melody. — 
 
 Camto IV, pp. 72—3. 
 
 This is introductory to the working 
 of the spell. Seeking Calling 1 , lie 
 finds her recovered, rejoices with 
 her one evening, kisses her, and sees 
 her fade and at once become as one 
 «k;ul. Fleeing aloug the shore, he 
 is seized by pirates (Canto V), on 
 board whoaeahiphe ia wi beside 
 
 a maiden similarly snatched away, 
 who turns out to be Rhododaphne. 
 By her incantations she raises a 
 storm ; the boat is wrecked, and 
 Anthemion is borne to shore by 
 the magic of Rhododaphne. Such 
 is the portion of the poem that the 
 missing leaves of the MS. doubtless 
 epitomize. Shelley would scarcely 
 have failed to quote the following 
 description of Rhododaphne pre- 
 paring for the storm : 
 
 She rose, and loosed her radiant hair, 
 And raised her golden lyre in air. 
 The lyre, beneath the breeze's wings, 
 As if a spirit swept the strings, 
 Breathed airy music, sweet and strange, 
 In many a wild phantastic change. 
 Most like a daughter of the Sun 
 She stood : her eyes all radiant shone 
 With beams unutterably bright ; 
 And her long tresses, loose and light, 
 As on the playful breeze they rolled, 
 Flamed with rays of burning gold.— 
 Canto V, p. 105. 
 
 The extract with which the next 
 leaf of the MS. opens is the conclu- 
 sion of Canto V; and the para- 
 graph beginning with Tkeff row 
 Jind thcmxtii'cs epitomizes Canto VI. 
 At the opening of the paragraph 
 there is a cancelled reading, The 
 •OMM in which they novo Jind thun- 
 selves is then described. 
 
60 ON " RHODODAPHNE, OR THE THESSALIAN SPELL." 
 
 Plato says, with profound allegory, that Love is not itself 
 beautiful, but seeks the possession of beauty ; this idea 
 seems embodied in the deformed dwarf who bids, with a 
 voice as from a trumpet, Anthemion enter. After feast 
 and music the natural result of the situation of the lovers 1 
 is related by the poet to have place. 
 
 The last Canto relates the enjoyments and occupations 
 of the lovers ; and we are astonished to discover that any 
 thing can be added to the gardens of Armida and Alcina, 
 and the Bower of Bliss : the following description among 
 many of a Bacchanalian dance is a remarkable instance 
 of a fertile and elegant imagination. 2 
 
 Oft, 'mid those palace-gardens fair, 
 
 The beauteous nymph (her radiant hair 
 
 With mingled oak and vine-leaves crowned) 
 
 Would grasp the thyrsus ivy-bound, 
 
 And fold, her festal vest around, 
 
 The Bacchic nebris, leading thus 
 
 The swift and dizzy thiasus : 
 
 And as she moves, in all her charms, 
 
 With springing feet and flowing arms, 
 
 'Tis strange in one fair shape to see 
 
 How many forms of grace can be. 
 
 The youths and maids, her beauteous train, 
 
 Follow fast in sportive ring, 
 
 Some the torch and mystic cane, 
 
 Some the vine-bough, brandishing ; 
 
 Some, in giddy circlets fleeting, 
 
 The Corybantic timbrel beating : 
 
 Maids, with silver flasks advancing, 
 
 Pour the wine's red-sparkling tide, 
 
 Which youths, with heads recumbent dancing, 
 
 Catch in goblets as they glide : 
 
 1 Cancelled reading, their situa- 2 Cancelled reading, it worthy 
 
 tion. remark. 
 
ON " RHODODAPHNE, OR TIIK THESSALIAN SPELL." 01 
 
 All upon the odorous air 
 Lightly toss their leafy hair, 
 Ever singing, as they move, 
 — " Io Bacchus ! son of Jove ! " 1 — 
 
 Canto VII, pp. 148—50. 
 
 1 There must have been another 
 leaf or two of the MS. The last 
 leaf I have ends without completing 
 the extract ; and I have added the 
 final couplet. Doubtless Shelley 
 followed his friend's narrative to 
 the catastrophe, — the slaying of 
 Rhododaphne by Uranian Love, 
 who, as he sends his shaft into her 
 breast, exclaims 
 With impious spells hast thou profaned 
 My altars ; and all-ruling Jove, 
 Though late, yet certain, has unchained 
 The vengeance of Uranian Love !— 
 
 Canto VII, p. 159. 
 
 How Anthemion finds himself with 
 
 the dead Rhododaphne near Cal- 
 liroe's door, how Calliroe comes 
 out, the spell of her trance being 
 broken, to greet her lover, Shelley 
 doubtless told in few words, and 
 perhaps concluded with verses that 
 must have commended themselves 
 to him— 
 
 But when the roaid Anthemion led 
 To where her beauteous rival slept 
 The long last sleep, on earth dispread, 
 And told her tale, Calliroe wept 
 Sweot tears for Khododaphne's doom; 
 For in her heart a voice was heard: 
 — "Twas for Anthemion's love she 
 erred !"— 
 
 Cahto VII, pp. 165-6. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED I1Y I1AI.I.ANTYNR AND HANSON' 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH 
 
42