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 corpse of Shelley was burned on the
beach under the direction of Trelawny. In the pocket of his jacket had
been found two books--a Sophocles, and the _Lamia_ volume, doubled back
as if it had at the last moment been thrust aside. His ashes were
collected, and, with the exception of the heart which was delivered to
Mrs. Shelley, were buried in Rome, in the new Protestant Cemetery. The
corpse of Shelley's beloved son William had, in 1819, been interred hard
by, and in 1821 that of Keats, in the old Cemetery--a space of ground