few months he became the
neighbour of Lord Byron, who engaged the Palazzo Lanfranchi it order to
be near him; and here many English and Italian friends gathered round
them. Among these must be mentioned in the first place Captain Medwin,
whose recollections of the Pisan residence are of considerable value,
and next Captain Trelawny, who has left a record of Shelley's last days
only equalled in vividness by Hogg's account of the Oxford period, and
marked by signs of more unmistakable accuracy. Not less important
members of this private circle were Mr. and Mrs. Edward Elleker
Williams, with whom Shelley and his wife lived on terms of the closest
friendship. Among Italians, the physician Vacca, the improvisatore
Sgricci, and Rosini, the author of "La Monaca di Monza", have to be
recorded. It will be seen from this enumeration that Shelley was no
longer solitary; and indeed it would appear that now, upon the eve of
his accidental death, he had begun to enjoy an immunity from many of his
previous sufferings. Life expanded before him: his letters show that he
was concentrating his powers and preparing for a fresh flight; and the
months, though ever productive of poetic masterpieces, promised a still
more magnificent birth in the future.

In the summer and autumn of 1820, Shelley produced some of his most
genial poems: the "Letter to Maria Gisborne", which might be mentioned
as a pendent to "Julian and Maddalo" for its treatment of familiar
things; the "Ode to a Skylark", that most popular of all his lyrics; the
"Witch of Atlas", unrivalled as an Ariel-flight of fairy fancy; and the
"Ode to Naples", which, together with the "Ode to Liberty", added a new
lyric form to English literature. In the winter he wrote the "Sensitive
Plant", prompted thereto, we are told, by the flowers which crowded Mrs.
Shelley's drawing room, and exhaled their sweetness to the temperate
Italian sunlight. Whether we consider the number of these poems or their
diverse character, ranging from verse separated by an exquisitely subtle
line from simple prose to the most impassioned eloquence and the most
ethereal imagination, we shall be equally astonished. Every chord of the
poet's lyre is touched, from the deep bass string that echoes the
diurnal speech of such a man as Shelley was, to the fine vibrations of a
treble merging its rarity of tone in accents super-sensible to ordinary
ears. One passage from the "Letter to Maria Gisborne" may here be
quoted,