is the acme of good taste. If there were space for a
long quotation from these letters, I should choose the description of
Pompeii (January 26, 1819), or that of the Baths of Caracalla (March 23,
1819). As it is, I must content myself with a short but eminently
characteristic passage, written from Ferrarra, November 7, 1818:--

"The handwriting of Ariosto is a small, firm, and pointed character,
expressing, as I should say, a strong and keen, but circumscribed energy
of mind; that of Tasso is large, free, and flowing, except that there is
a checked expression in the midst of its flow, which brings the letters
into a smaller compass than one expected from the beginning of the word.
It is the symbol of an intense and earnest mind, exceeding at times its
own depth, and admonished to return by the chillness of the waters of
oblivion striking upon its adventurous feet. You know I always seek in
what I see the manifestation of something beyond the present and
tangible object; and as we do not agree in physiognomy, so we may not
agree now. But my business is to relate my own sensations, and not to
attempt to inspire others with them."

In the middle of August, Shelley left his wife at the Bagni di Lucca,
and paid a visit to Lord Byron at Venice. He arrived at midnight in a
thunderstorm. "Julian and Maddalo" was the literary fruit of this
excursion--a poem which has rightly been characterized by Mr. Rossetti
as the most perfect specimen in our language of the "poetical treatment
of ordinary things." The description of a Venetian sunset, touched to
sadness amid all its splendour by the gloomy presence of the madhouse,
ranks among Shelley's finest word-paintings; while the glimpse of
Byron's life is interesting on a lower level. Here is the picture of the
sunset and the island of San Lazzaro:--

Oh!
How beautiful is sunset, when the glow
Of heaven descends upon a land like thee,
Thou paradise of exiles, Italy,
Thy mountains, seas, and vineyards, and the towers
Of cities they encircle!--it was ours
To stand on thee, beholding it: and then,
Just where we had dismounted, the Count's men
Were waiting for us with the gondola.
As those who pause on some delightful way,
Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood
Looking upon the evening, and the flood
Which lay between the city and the shore,
Paved with the image of the sky. The hoar
And airy Alps, towards the north,