think it very fine. His other poems are worth little; but, if the
_Hyperion_ be not grand poetry, none has been produced by our
contemporaries.' There is also a phrase in a letter to Mr. Ollier,
written on 14 May, 1820, before the actual publication of the _Lamia_
volume: 'Keats, I hope, is going to show himself a great poet; like the
sun, to burst through the clouds which, though dyed in the finest
colours of the air, obscured his rising.'

Keats died in Rome on 23 February, 1821. Soon afterwards Shelley wrote
his _Adonais_. He has left various written references to _Adonais_, and
to Keats in connexion with it: these will come more appropriately when I
speak of that poem itself. But I may here at once quote from the letter
which Shelley addressed on 16 June, 1821, to Mr. Gisborne, who had sent
on to him a letter from Colonel Finch[10], giving a very painful account
of the last days of Keats, and especially (perhaps in more than due
proportion) of the violence of temper which he had exhibited. Shelley
wrote thus: 'I have received the heartrending account of the closing
scene of the great genius whom envy and ingratitude[11] scourged out of
the world. I do not think that, if I had seen it before, I could have
composed my poem. The enthusiasm of the imagination would have
overpowered the sentiment. As it is, I have finished my Elegy; and this
day I send it to the press at Pisa. You shall have a copy the moment it
is completed, I think it will please you. I have dipped my pen in
consuming fire for his destroyers: otherwise the style is calm and
solemn[12].

As I have already said, the last residence of Shelley was on the Gulf of
Spezzia. He had a boat built named the Ariel (by Byron, the Don Juan),
boating being his favourite recreation; and on 1 July, 1822, he and
Lieut. Williams, along with a single sailor-lad, started in her for
Leghorn, to welcome there Leigh Hunt. The latter had come to Italy with
his family, on the invitation of Byron and Shelley, to join in a
periodical to be called _The Liberal_. On 8 July Shelley, with his two
companions, embarked to return to Casa Magni. Towards half-past six in
the evening a sudden and tremendous squall sprang up. The Ariel sank,
either upset by the squall, or (as some details of evidence suggest) run
down near Viareggio by an Italian fishing-boat, the crew of which had
plotted to plunder her of a sum of money. The bodies were eventually
washed ashore; and on 16 August the cor