e best works, and chiefly
the frescoes of the great masters of Florence and Rome."

The next day Hogg pays a visit to Shelley's rooms. The furniture was
new and the walls were freshly papered, but everything in the room was
in confusion. "Books, boots, papers, shoes, philosophical instruments,
clothes, pistols, linen, crockery, ammunition, and phials innumerable,
with money, stockings, prints, crucibles, bags, and boxes, were
scattered on the floor in every place, as if the young chemist, in
order to analyze the mystery of creation, had endeavored first to
reconstruct the primeval chaos. The tables, and especially the carpet,
were already stained with large spots of various hues, which
frequently proclaimed the agency of fire. An electrical machine, an
air pump, the galvanic trough, a solar microscope, and large glass
jars were conspicuous amidst the mass of matter. Upon the table by his
side were some books lying open, several letters, a bundle of new
pens, and a bottle of japan ink, that served as an ink-stand, a piece
of deal, lately part of the lid of a box, with many chips, and a
handsome razor that had been used as a knife. There were bottles of
soda-water, sugar, pieces of lemon, and the traces of an effervescent
beverage. Two piles of books supported the tongs, and these upheld a
small glass retort above an argand lamp. I had not been seated many
minutes before the liquor in the vessel boiled over, adding fresh
stains to the table, and rising in fumes with a disagreeable odor.
Shelley snatched the glass quickly, and dashing it in pieces among
ashes under the grate, increased the unpleasant and penetrating
effluvium."

Hogg and Shelley soon became fast friends and met every evening. "I
was enabled," writes Hogg, "to continue my studies in the evening in
consequence of a very remarkable peculiarity. My young and energetic
friend was then overcome by extreme drowsiness, which speedily and
completely vanquished him; he would sleep from two to four hours,
often so soundly that his slumbers resembled a deep lethargy; he lay
occasionally upon the sofa, but more commonly stretched upon the rug
before a large fire, like a cat, and his little round head was
exposed to such fierce heat, that I used to wonder how he was able to
bear it. Sometimes I have interposed some shelter, but rarely with any
permanent effect, for the sleeper usually contrived to turn himself,
and to roll again into the spot where the fire glowed the