ose the yoke which Spain had not been able
to maintain."

[Sidenote: Death of Shelley]

At the time that Canning made British liberalism respected abroad, literary
England suffered another irreparable loss by the death of Percy Bysshe
Shelley. The last few weeks had been spent by Shelley in Italy in the
company of Trelawney, Williams and Lord Byron. Before this Maurokordatos,
now battling in Greece, had been their constant companion. In June Leigh
Hunt arrived. Shelley and Williams set out in a boat to meet him at
Leghorn. The long parted friends met there. On July 8, Shelley and Williams
set sail for the return voyage to Lerici. Their boat was last seen ten
miles out at sea off Reggio. Then the haze of a summer storm hid it from
view. Ten days later Shelley's body was washed ashore near Reggio. It was
identified by a volume of Sophocles and of Keats's poems found on his
person. In the presence of Byron, Trelawney and Leigh Hunt, Shelley's
remains were cremated on the shore. His ashes were buried in the same
burial ground with Keats, hard by the pyramid of Caius Cestius in Rome.

[Sidenote: Lyric quality of his work]

[Sidenote: Shelley's career]

[Sidenote: Shelley's threnody]

Shelley's poetry belongs primarily to the Revolutionary epoch in modern
history. Though he wrote several long narrative poems and one great
tragedy, he was above all a lyric poet--according to some the greatest
lyric poet of England. His life, like his poetry, was almost untrammelled
by convention. Both gave great offence to the stricter elements of English
society. In some respects Shelley was peculiarly unfortunate. At the age of
eighteen, after his expulsion from Oxford University, he married Harriet
Westbrook, a girl of sixteen, and then found himself unable to support
her. Later he abandoned her and eloped with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.
Within a year his first wife committed suicide, and, three weeks later,
Shelley married Mary Godwin. The tragedy stirred up much feeling among his
friends. Among others the poet-laureate, Southey, remonstrated with
Shelley. Shelley replied: "I take God to witness, if such a Being is now
regarding both you and me, and I pledge myself, if we meet, as perhaps you
expect, before Him after death, to repeat the same in His presence--that
you accuse me wrongfully. I am innocent of ill, either done or intended."
Next came Shelley's trouble with the Chancery. Lord-Chancellor Elden
refused to give to Shelley t