The even current of Shelley’s life was not often broken by such adventures.  Trelawny gives the following account of how he passed his days:  he “was up at six or seven, reading Plato, Sophocles, or Spinoza, with the accompaniment of a hunch of dry bread; then he joined Williams in a sail on the Arno, in a flat-bottomed skiff, book in hand, and from thence he went to the pine-forest, or some out-of-the-way place.  When the birds went to roost he returned home, and talked and read until midnight.”  The great wood of stone pines on the Pisan Maremma was his favourite study.  Trelawny tells us how he found him there alone one day, and in what state was the manuscript of that prettiest lyric, “Ariel, to Miranda take”.  “It was a frightful scrawl; words smeared out with his finger, and one upon the other, over and over in tiers, and all run together in most ‘admired disorder;’ it might have been taken for a sketch of a marsh overgrown with bulrushes, and the blots for wild ducks; such a dashed-off daub as self-conceited artists mistake for a manifestation of genius.  On my observing this to him, he answered, ’When my brain gets heated with thought, it soon boils, and throws off images and words faster than I can skim them off.  In the morning, when cooled down, out of the rude sketch as you justly call it, I shall attempt a drawing.”

A daily visit to Byron diversified existence.  Byron talked more sensibly with Shelley than with his commonplace acquaintances; and when he began to gossip, Shelley retired into his own thoughts.  Then they would go pistol-shooting, Byron’s trembling hand contrasting with his friend’s firmness.  They had invented a “little language” for this sport:  firing was called tiring; hitting, colping; missing, mancating, etc.  It was in fact a kind of pigeon Italian.  Shelley acquired two nick-names in the circle of his Pisan friends, both highly descriptive.  He was Ariel and the Snake.  The latter suited him because of his noiseless gliding movement, bright eyes, and ethereal diet.  It was first given to him by Byron during a reading of “Faust”.  When he came to the line of Mephistopheles, “Wie meine Muhme, die beruhmte Schlange,” and translated it, “My aunt, the renowned Snake,” Byron cried, “Then you are her nephew.”  Shelley by no means resented the epithet.  Indeed he alludes to it in his letters, and in a poem already referred to above.

Soon after Trelawny’s arrival the party turned their thoughts to nautical affairs.  Shelley had already done a good deal of boating with Williams on the Arno and the Serchio, and had on one occasion nearly lost his life by the capsizing of their tiny craft.  They now determined to build a larger yacht for excursions on the sea; while Byron, liking the project of a summer residence upon the Bay of Spezia, made up his mind to have one too.  Shelley’s was to be an open boat carrying sail, Byron’s a large decked schooner.  The construction of both was entrusted to a Genoese builder, under the direction