LETTERS FROM ITALY.

from VOL. II. of the 1840 edition of ESSAYS, LETTERS FROM ABROAD, TRANSLATIONS AND FRAGMENTS, BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, edited by Mary Shelley

LETTER XLVII.

To MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.
Bagni, Tuesday Evening,
(June 5th, 1821.)

MY DEAR FRIENDS,

WE anxiously expect your arrival at the Baths; but as I am persuaded that you will spend as much time with us as you can save from your necessary occupations before your departure, I will forbear to vex you with importunity. My health does not permit me to spend many hours from home. I have been engaged these last days in composing a poem on the death of Keats, which will shortly be finished; and I anticipate the pleasure of reading it to you, as some of the very few persons who will be interested in it and understand it. It is a highly wrought piece of art, and perhaps better, in point of composition, than anything I have written.

I have obtained a purchaser for some of the articles of your three lists, a catalogue of which I subjoin. I shall do my utmost to got more; could you not send me a complete list of your furniture, as I have had inquiries made about chests of drawers, &c.

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My unfortunate box! it contained a chaos of the elements of Charles I. If the idea of the creator had been packed up with them, it would have shared the same fate; and that, I am afraid, has undergone another sort of shipwreck.

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Very faithfully and affectionately yours,

S.