The Shelley Papers; Memoir of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833 edition. Excerpt: ...duty to perform, to visit the country house, where they had passed their Villegiatura. From Sarzana to Lerici, there is only a cross (and that a narrow) carriage road. After a somewhat difficult ascent of three miles, the caleche set me down at a bye foot-path, which conducts to San Lorenzo. The sky was perfectly cloudless, and not a breath of air relieved the intense heat of an Italian August sun. The day had been unusually oppressive, and there was a mistiness in the atmosphere, or rather a glow which softened down the distances into those mellow tints in which Claude delighted to bathe his landscapes. I was little in a mood to enjoy the beauties which increased every moment during this walk. I followed mechanically a pathway overhung with trellised vines, and bordered with olive trees, contrasted here and there vyith the massy hroad dark foliage of the fig tree. For a mile or two I continued to ascend, till on a sudden a picture burst on my view, that no pen could describe. Before me was the broad expanse of the Mediterranean, studded with islands and a few fishing boats, with their lattine sails, the sun's broad disk just dipping in the waves; thick groves of fruit trees, interspersed with cottages and villas sloped down to the shores of the gulph of Spezia: and safely land-locked, a little to the left, Lerici, with its white flat-roofed houses almost in the sea, stood in the centre, and followed the curve of this bay; the two promontories projecting from which were surmounted with castles for the protection of the coast, and the enforcing of the quarantine laws. The descent now became rapid and broken, and, deeply worn into the rock, only offered occasional glimpses of the sea, the two islets in front, and the varied coast of Porto Venere to...