e reader, in the act of reading, had hastily thrust it away."
The other, found near the tower of Migliarino, at about four miles'
distance, was that of Williams. The sailor-boy, Charles Vivian, though
cast up on the same day, the 18th of July, near Massa, was not heard of
by Trelawny till the 29th.

Nothing now remained but to tell the whole dreadful truth to the two
widowed women, who had spent the last days in an agony of alternate
despair and hope at Villa Magni. This duty Trelawny discharged
faithfully and firmly. "The next day I prevailed on them," he says, "to
return with me to Pisa. The misery of that night and the journey of the
next day, and of many days and nights that followed, I can neither
describe nor forget." It was decided that Shelley should be buried at
Rome, near his friend Keats and his son William, and that Williams's
remains should be taken to England. But first the bodies had to be
burned; and for permission to do this Trelawny, who all through had
taken the lead, applied to the English Embassy at Florence. After some
difficulty it was granted.

What remains to be said concerning the cremation of Shelley's body on
the 6th of August, must be told in Trelawny's own words. Williams, it
may be stated, had been burned on the preceding day.

"Three white wands had been stuck in the sand to mark the poet's grave,
but as they were at some distance from each other, we had to cut a
trench thirty yards in length, in the line of the sticks, to ascertain
the exact spot, and it was nearly an hour before we came upon the grave.

"In the meantime Byron and Leigh Hunt arrived in the carriage, attended
by soldiers, and the Health Officer, as before. The lonely and grand
scenery that surrounded us, so exactly harmonized with Shelley's genius,
that I could imagine his spirit soaring over us. The sea, with the
islands of Gorgona, Capraja, and Elba, was before us; old battlemented
watch-towers stretched along the coast, backed by the marble-crested
Apennines glistening in the sun, picturesque from their diversified
outlines, and not a human dwelling was in sight.

"As I thought of the delight Shelley felt in such scenes of loneliness
and grandeur whilst living, I felt we were no better than a herd of
wolves or a pack of wild dogs, in tearing out his battered and naked
body from the pure yellow sand that lay so lightly over it, to drag him
back to the light of day; but the dead have no voice, nor had I power to
che