The comparative solitude in which Mr. Shelley lived was the occasion that he was personally known to few; and his fearless enthusiasm in the cause which he considered the most sacred upon earth, the improvement of the moral and physical state of mankind, was the chief reason why he, like other illustrious reformers, was pursued by hatred and calumny.  No man was ever more devoted than he to the endeavour of making those around him happy; no man ever possessed friends more unfeignedly attached to him.  The ungrateful world did not feel his loss, and the gap it made seemed to close as quickly over his memory as the murderous sea above his living frame.  Hereafter men will lament that his transcendent powers of intellect were extinguished before they had bestowed on them their choicest treasures.  To his friends his loss is irremediable:  the wise, the brave, the gentle, is gone for ever!  He is to them as a bright vision, whose radiant track, left behind in the memory, is worth all the realities that society can afford.  Before the critics contradict me, let them appeal to any one who had ever known him.  To see him was to love him:  and his presence, like Ithuriel’s spear, was alone sufficient to disclose the falsehood of the tale which his enemies whispered in the ear of the ignorant world.

His life was spent in the contemplation of Nature, in arduous study, or in acts of kindness and affection.  He was an elegant scholar and a profound metaphysician; without possessing much scientific knowledge, he was unrivalled in the justness and extent of his observations on natural objects; he knew every plant by its name, and was familiar with the history and habits of every production of the earth; he could interpret without a fault each appearance in the sky; and the varied phenomena of heaven and earth filled him with deep emotion.  He made his study and reading-room of the shadowed copse, the stream, the lake, and the waterfall.  Ill health and continual pain preyed upon his powers; and the solitude in which we lived, particularly on our first arrival in Italy, although congenial to his feelings, must frequently have weighed upon his spirits; those beautiful and affecting “Lines written in Dejection near Naples” were composed at such an interval; but, when in health, his spirits were buoyant and youthful to an extraordinary degree.

Such was his love for Nature that every page of his poetry is associated, in the minds of his friends, with the loveliest scenes of the countries which he inhabited.  In early life he visited the most beautiful parts of this country and Ireland.  Afterwards the Alps of Switzerland became his inspirers.  “Prometheus Unbound” was written among the deserted and flower-grown ruins of Rome; and, when he made his home under the Pisan hills, their roofless recesses harboured him as he composed the “Witch of Atlas”, “Adonais”, and “Hellas”.  In the wild but beautiful Bay of Spezzia, the winds and waves which he loved became his playmates.