“Notwithstanding the enormous fire, we had ample time e’er it was consumed to contemplate the singular beauty and romantic wildness of the scenery and objects around us.  Via Reggio, the only seaport of the Duchy of Lucca, built and encompassed by an almost boundless expanse of deep, dark sand, is situated in the centre of a broad belt of firs, cedars, pines, and evergreen oaks, which covers a considerable extent of country, extending along the shore from Pisa to Massa.  The bay of Spezia was on our right, and Leghorn on our left, at almost equal distances, with their headlands projecting far into the sea, and forming this whole space of interval into a deep and dangerous gulf.  A current setting in strong, with a N.W. gale, a vessel embayed here was in a most perilous situation; and consequently wrecks were numerous:  the water is likewise very shoal, and the breakers extend a long way from the shore.  In the centre of this bay my friends were wrecked, and their bodies tossed about—­Captain Williams seven, and Mr. Shelley nine days, e’er they were found.  Before us was a most extensive view of the Mediterranean, with the isles of Gorgona, Caprera, Elba, and Corsica in sight.  All around us was a wilderness of barren soil with stunted trees, moulded into grotesque and fantastic forms by the cutting S.W. gales.  At short and equal distances along the coast stood high, square, antique-looking towers, with flagstaff’s on the turrets, used to keep a look-out at sea and enforce the quarantine laws.  In the background was the long line of the Italian Alps.

“...  After the fire was kindled ... more wine was poured over Shelley’s dead body than he had consumed during his life.  This, with the oil and salt, made the yellow flames glisten and quiver....  The only portions that were not consumed were some fragments of bones, the jaw and the skull; but what surprised us all was that the heart remained entire.  In snatching this relic from the fiery furnace my hand was severely burnt; and had anyone seen me do the act I should have been put in quarantine.”  Shelley’s ashes were taken to Rome, and buried in the English cemetery there, a place he loved, that is perhaps the most beautiful of the beautiful graveyards of Italy.

Of Viareggio itself there is little to be said.  It is a town by the seaside, full in summer of holiday-making Tuscans from Florence and the cities round about.  A pretty place enough, it possesses an unique market-place covered in by ancient twisted plane trees, where the old women chaffer with the cooks and contadine.  But nothing, as it seems to me, and certainly not so modern a place as Viareggio, will keep you long from Pisa.  Even on the dusty way from Pietrasanta, at every turn of the road one has half expected to see the leaning tower and the Duomo.  And it is really with an indescribable impatience you spend the night in Viareggio.  Starting at dawn, still without a glimpse of Pisa, you enter the Pineta before the