ABSTRACT
18th August, 1822.—On the occasion of Shelley’s melancholy fate I revisited Pisa, and on the day of my arrival learnt that Lord Byron was gone to the sea-shore, to assist in performing the last offices to his friend. * We came to a spot marked by an old and withered trunk of a fir-tree; and near it, on the beach, stood a solitary hut covered with reeds. The situation was well calculated for a poet’s 21grave. A few weeks before I had ridden with him and Lord Byron to this very spot, which I afterwards visited 22more than once. In front was a magnificent extent of the blue and windless Mediterranean, with the Isles of Elba 23and Gorgona,—Lord Byron’s yacht at anchor in the offing: on the other side an almost boundless extent of sandy 24wilderness, uncultivated and uninhabited, here and there interspersed in tufts with underwood curved by the sea 25breeze, and stunted by the barren and dry nature of the soil in which it grew. At equal distances along the coast 26stood high square towers, for the double purpose of guarding the coast from smuggling, and enforcing the quarantine 27laws. This view was bounded by an immense extent of the Italian Alps, which are here particularly picturesque 28from their volcanic and manifold appearances, and which being composed of white marble, give their summits the resemblance of snow.
