of it, if it did not enable me to show how this kind of suffering may be borne, and in what sort of way it terminates. I learnt to prevent it by violent exercise. All fits of nervousness ought to be anticipated as much as possible with exercise. Indeed, a proper healthy mode of life would save most people from these effeminate ills, and most likely cure even their inheritors.

It was now thought that I should dart out of my cage like a bird, and feel no end in the delight of ranging. But partly from ill-health, and partly from habit, the day of my liberation brought a good deal of pain with it. An illness of a long standing, which required very different treatment, had by this time been burnt in upon me by the iron that enters into the soul of the captive, wrap it in flowers as he may; and I am ashamed to say, that after stopping a little at the house of my friend Alsager, I had not the courage to continue looking at the shoals of people passing to and fro, as the coach drove up the Strand. The whole business of life seemed a hideous impertinence. The first pleasant sensation I experienced was when the coach turned into the New Road, and I beheld the old hills of my affection standing where they used to do, and breathing me a welcome.

It was very slowly that I recovered anything like a sensation of health. The bitterest evil I suffered

MORBID EFFECTS OF IMPRISONMENT.

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was in consequence of having been confined so long

in one spot. turn home, in a very extraordinary manner, and made, I fear, some of my friends think me ungrateful. They did me an injustice; but it was their fault; nor could I wish them the bitter experience which alone makes us acquainted with the existence of strange things. This weakness I outlived; but I have never thoroughly recovered the shock given my constitution. My natural spirits, however, have always struggled hard to see me reasonably treated. Many things give me exquisite pleasure, which seem to affect other men in a very minor degree; and I enjoyed, after all, such happy moments with my friends, even in prison, that in the midst of the beautiful climate which I afterwards visited, I was sometimes in doubt whether I would not rather have been in jail than in Italy.

The habit stuck to me on my re

CHAPTER XV.

FREE AGAIN.-SHELLEY IN ENGLAND.

Dignified neighbour and landlord.-Visits from Lord Byron and Mr. Wordsworth.-Infernal conduct of the angels in Paradise Lost.-Return of hypochondria.-Descent of liberty.-Story of Rimini.-United States.-Visits to Lord Byron.-History of Shelley while in England.

ON leaving prison, I went to live in the Edgwareroad, because my brother's house was in the neighbourhood. When we met, we rushed into each other's arms, and tears of manhood bedewed our cheeks.

Not that the idea of the Prince Regent had anything to do with such grave emotions. His Royal Highness continued to affect us with anything but solemnity, as we took care to make manifest in the Examiner. We had a hopeful and respectful word for every reigning prince, but himself; and I must say, that with the exception of the Emperor Alexander, not one of them deserved it.

The lodging which my family occupied (for the

The

fine, and the state of my health, delayed our resumption of a house) was next door to a wealthy old gentleman, who kept a handsome carriage, and spoke very bad grammar. My landlord, who was also a dignified personage after his fashion, pointed him out to me one day, as he was getting into this carriage; adding, in a tone amounting to the awful, "He is the greatest plumber in London." same landlord, who had a splendid turn for anticlimax, and who had gifted his children with names proportionate to his paternal sense of what became him, called out to one of them from his parlour window, "You, sir, there-Maximilian-come out of the gutter." He was a good-natured sort of domineering individual; and would say to his wife, when he went out, "Damn it, my love, I insist on having the pudding.”

In this house, Lord Byron continued the visits which he made me in prison. Unfortunately, I was too ill to return them. He pressed me very much to go to the theatre with him; but illness, and the dread of committing my critical independence, alike prevented me. His lordship was one of a management that governed Drury-lane Theatre at that time, and that were not successful. He got nothing by it, but petty vexations and a good deal of scandal.

Lord Byron's appearance at that time was the

VOL. II.

M

finest I ever saw it. He was fatter than before his marriage, but only just enough so to complete the elegance of his person; and the turn of his head and countenance had a spirit and elevation in it, which, though not unmixed with disquiet, gave him altogether a very noble look. His dress, which was black, with white trousers, and which he wore buttoned close over the body, completed the succinctness and gentlemanliness of his appearance. I remember one day, as he stood looking out of the window, he resembled in a lively manner the portrait of him by Phillips, by far the best that has appeared; I mean the best of him at his best time of life, and the most like him in features as well as expression. He sat one morning so long, that Lady Byron sent up twice to let him know she was waiting. Her ladyship used to go on in the carriage to Henderson's nursery-ground, to get flowers. I had not the honour of knowing her, nor ever saw her but once, when I caught a glimpse of her at the door. I thought she had a pretty, earnest look, with her "pippin" face; an epithet by which she playfully designated herself.

I had a little study overlooking the fields to Westbourne, a sequestered spot at that time embowered in trees. The study was draperied with white and green, having furniture to match; and as the noble poet had seen me during my imprisonment in a