When the landward breeze brings the odours of alien lands
through the open scuttle one closes the book, and if one is a
normal and rational kind of chap and the quarantine regulations
permit, goes ashore."
Gruesome as anything in any seafaring pirate yarn is Trelawny's
description (in "Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and
Byron") of the burning of Shelley's body on the seashore near Via
Reggio. The other day, in company with two like-minded innocents, we
visited a bookshop on John Street where we found three battered
copies of this great book, and each bought one, with shouts of joy.
The following day, still having the book with us, we dropped in to
see the learned and hospitable Dr. Rosenbach at his new and
magnificent thesaurus at 273 Madison Avenue. We showed him the book,
because every time one shows the doctor a book he can startle you by
countering with its original manuscript or something of that sort.
We said something about Shelley and Trelawny, in the hope of
starting him off. He smiled gently and drew out a volume from a
shelf. It was the copy of "Prometheus Unbound" that Shelley had
given Trelawny in July, 1822, with an inscription. As the poet was
drowned on July 8, 1822, it probably was the last book he ever gave
away.
One wonders what may have become of the log of the American clipper
that Shelley and Trelawny visited in the harbour of Leghorn shortly
before Shelley's death.
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