wisest tenderness. 
    You will see Hogg; and I cannot express
    His virtues, though I know that they are great,
    Because he locks, then barricades the gate
    Within which they inhabit.  Of his wit
    And wisdom, you’ll cry out when you are bit. 
    He is a pearl within an oyster-shell,
    One of the richest of the deep.  And there
    Is English Peacock, with his mountain fair,—­
    Turn’d into a Flamingo, that shy bird
    That gleams in the Indian air.  Have you not heard
    When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,
    His best friends hear no more of him.  But you
    Will see him, and will like him too, I hope,
    With the milk-white Snowdownian antelope
    Match’d with this camelopard.  His fine wit
    Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it;
    A strain too learned for a shallow age,
    Too wise for selfish bigots; let his page
    Which charms the chosen spirits of the time,
    Fold itself up for the serener clime
    Of years to come, and find its recompense
    In that just expectation.  Wit and sense,
    Virtue and human knowledge, all that might
    Make this dull world a business of delight,
    Are all combined in Horace Smith.  And these,
    With some exceptions, which I need not tease
    Your patience by descanting on, are all
    You and I know in London.

Captain Medwin, who came late in the autumn of 1820, at his cousin’s invitation, to stay with the Shelleys, has recorded many interesting details of their Pisan life, as well as valuable notes of Shelley’s conversation.  “It was nearly seven years since we had parted, but I should have immediately recognized him in a crowd.  His figure was emaciated, and somewhat bent, owing to near-sightedness, and his being forced to lean over his books, with his eyes almost touching them; his hair, still profuse, and curling naturally, was partially interspersed with grey; but his appearance was youthful.  There was also a freshness and purity in his complexion that he never lost.”  Not long after his arrival, Medwin suffered from a severe and tedious illness.  “Shelley tended me like a brother.  He applied my leeches, administered my medicines, and during six weeks that I was confined to my room, was assiduous and unintermitting in his affectionate care of me.”  The poet’s solitude and melancholy at this time impressed his cousin very painfully.  Though he was producing a long series of imperishable poems, he did not take much interest in his work.  “I am disgusted with writing,” he once said, “and were it not for an irresistible impulse, that predominates my better reason, should discontinue so doing.”  The brutal treatment he had lately received from the “Quarterly Review”, the calumnies which pursued him, and the coldness of all but a very few friends, checked his enthusiasm for composition.  Of this there is abundant proof in his correspondence.