as cows had taken possession of the stream, which only covered their
hoofs, the party had perforce to return, still contemplating
proceeding by canal and river, even as far as the Clyde, the poet ever
yearning forwards. But this, money and prudence forbade, as twenty
pounds was needed to pass the first canal; so they returned to their
pleasant furnished house at Bishopsgate. On this trip Mary saw
Shelley's old quarters at Oxford, where they spent a night, and they
must have lingered in Lechlade Churchyard, as the sweet verses there
written indicate. Shelley and Mary were now settled for the first time
in a home of their own: she was making rapid progress with Latin,
having finished the fifth book of the Aeneid, much to Shelley's
satisfaction, as recounted in a letter to Hogg. Hogg was expected to
stay with them in October, and in the meanwhile, under the green
shades of Windsor Forest, Shelley was writing his _Alastor_, and,
as his wife describes in her edition of his poems, "The magnificent
woodland was a fitting study to inspire the various descriptions of
forest scenery we find in the poem." She writes:--

None of Shelley's poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn
spirit that exists throughout, the worship of the majesty of nature,
and the breedings of a poet's heart in solitude--the mingling of the
exulting joy which the various aspects of the visible universe inspire
with the sad and trying pangs which human passion imparts--give a
touching interest to the whole. The death which he had often
contemplated during the last months as certain and near, he here
represented in such colours as had, in his lonely musings, soothed his
soul to peace. The versification sustains the solemn spirit which
breathes throughout; it is peculiarly melodious. The poem ought rather
to be considered didactic than narrative; it was the outpouring of his
own emotions, embodied in the purest form he could conceive, painted