“Mont Blanc” was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni.  Shelley makes the following mention of this poem in his publication of the “History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, and Letters from Switzerland”:  ’The poem entitled “Mont Blanc” is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai.  It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.’

This was an eventful year, and less time was given to study than usual.  In the list of his reading I find, in Greek, Theocritus, the “Prometheus” of Aeschylus, several of Plutarch’s “Lives”, and the works of Lucian.  In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny’s “Letters”, the “Annals” and “Germany” of Tacitus.  In French, the “History of the French Revolution” by Lacretelle.  He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne’s “Essays”, and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful and instructive books in the world.  The list is scanty in English works:  Locke’s “Essay”, “Political Justice”, and Coleridge’s “Lay Sermon”, form nearly the whole.  It was his frequent habit to read aloud to me in the evening; in this way we read, this year, the New Testament, “Paradise Lost”, Spenser’s “Faery Queen”, and “Don Quixote”.

Note on poems of 1817, by Mrs. Shelley.

The very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appear to have kindled to yet keener life the Spirit of Poetry in his heart.  The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse.  Much was composed during this year.  The “Revolt of Islam”, written and printed, was a great effort—­“Rosalind and Helen” was begun—­and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours.

In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence.  As he never wandered without a book and without implements of writing, I find many such, in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley’s mind, and desire to trace its workings.

He projected also translating the “Hymns” of Homer; his version of several of the shorter ones remains, as well as that to Mercury already published in the “Posthumous Poems”.  His readings this year were chiefly Greek.  Besides the “Hymns” of Homer and the “Iliad”, he read the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the “Symposium” of Plato, and Arrian’s “Historia Indica”.  In Latin, Apuleius alone is named.  In English, the Bible was his constant study; he read a great portion of it aloud in the evening.  Among these evening readings I find also mentioned the “Faerie Queen”; and other modern works, the production of his contemporaries, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore and Byron.