creduta morta, e come tale sepolta in un tumolo di sua Famiglia sul cimitero del Duomo presso al campanile. La tomba si è mostrata a dito fino a' di nostri; e dice Leopoldo del Migliore, che innanzi che ella fosse restaurata, e passasse nella famiglia de' Bracci, aveavi sopra un G. ed un A., iniziali del nome della Ginevra degli Amieri, per contrassegno del fatto.

La morte però della Ginevra non fu reale, ma apparente, ed una di quelle Asfissie, di cui i moderni Fisici anno trovato in tante diverse malattie l'esistenza, e ne an raccolti numerosi esempj fortuitamente venuti a notizia. Forse l'essere avvenuto il caso della Ginevra nel tempo della gran moria, detta de' Bianchi, nel 1400, affrettò ancor dipiù la tumulazione della medesima.

Checchè siasi di ciò restata finalmente, nella notte susseguente all' interramento, libera la donna, o alquanto riavuta dal grave suo assopimento, si accorse di quel che era successo, e però volto l'animo a sottrarsi da quel miserabil luogo, meglio che potè si disciolse le mani e i piedi, ed errampicandosi sali la piccola scala della sepoltura illuminata da qualche raggio di Luna, e dato di cozzo alla lapida, se n'usci fuora. Quindi per la più corta via, cioè per quella che rasenta la Compagnia della Misericordia, e che poi prese il nome della Morte, o della Morta da ques

to her husband's house in the Corso degli Adimari; but, not being received by him, who from her feeble voice and white dress believed her to be a spectre, she went to the house of Bernardo Amieri, her father, who lived in the Mercato Vecchio behind S. Andrea, and then to that of an uncle who lived close by, where she received the same repulse.

"Giving in to her unhappy fate, it is said that she then took refuge under the loggia of S. Bartolommeo in the Via Calzaioli, where, while praying that death would put an end to her misery, she remembered her beloved

Rondinelli, who had always proved faithful to her. To him she found her way, was kindly received and cared for, and in a few days restored to her former health.

"Up to this point the story has nothing incompatible with truth, but that which is difficult to believe is the second marriage of Ginevra with Antonio Rondinelli, while her first husband was still living, and her petition to the Ecclesiastical Tribunals, who decided, that the first marriage having been dissolved by death, the lady might legitimately accept another husband."

to caso, se n' andò a casa del marito, che rispondeva nel Corso degli Adimari. Ma non essendo ricevuta da lui, che dalla fioca Voce е dalla bianca veste la credette uno spettro, o com' egli se l'immaginò, il ritorno dell' anima della medesima; s'incamminò alla casa di Bernardo Amieri suo padre, che abitava in Mercato Vecchio dietro S. Andrea, e poi a quella d' un Zio li vicino, donde ebbe ripetutamente la stessa repulsa.

Abbandonatasi allora alla sua mala sorte, dicesi che si refugiasse sotto la loggia di S. Bartolomineo nella via de' Calzaioli, dove chiedendo che morte o mercè desse fine al suo dolore, si sovvenne dell' amato suo Rondinelli, che se l'era sempre mostrato fedele. A lui dunque portatasi come il meglio potè, ne fu benignamente accolta, ristorata, e in pochi di ristabilita nella primiera salute.

Fin qui l'istoria, che è passata tradizionalmente sino ai nostri giorni, non à niente d'inverosimile. Ciocchè è malagevole a credere, è lo sposalizio della Ginevra in seconde nozze con Antonio Rondinelli, vivente ancora il primo marito, e reclamante al tribunale Ecclesiastico davanti al Vicario, il quale sentenziò, che per essere stato disciolto il primo matrimonio dalla morte, poteva la donna legittimamente passare ad altro marito. Non veggo altra ragione per creder possibile una sentenza così stravagante, che l'ignoranza del tempo.

Del rimanente, quanto al fatto, oltre la tradizione costante per tre secoli e mezzo, avvi l'asserzione di due nostri Storici, quantunque non molto antichi, cioè di Ferdinando del Migliore nella Firenze Illustrata, e di Francesco Rondinelli, che era della famiglia medesima dello sposo di Ginevra, nella Relazione del Contagio; dipiù una ricordanza di quegli anni stessi, ritrovata già in casa di Zanobi Mazzinghi, ed il nome di una strada che dall' avvenuto caso conserva il nome. Arroge che nel 1546, il

NN 2

martedì del Carnevale a' 10. di marzo, si narra nel Diario MS. di Antonio da S. Gallo essersi recitata nel Palazzo di abitazione del Duca Cosimo una bellissima Commedia intitolata Ginevra morta dal campanile, la quale sendo morta e sotterrata, resuscitò.

IV.

SHELLEY'S LETTER TO THE EXAMINER" CONCERNING “QUEEN MAB."1

To the Editor of THE EXAMINER.

SIR, Having heard that a poem, entitled Queen Mab, has been surreptitiously published in London, and that legal proceedings have been instituted against the publisher, I request the favour of your insertion of the following explanation of the affair as it relates to me.

A poem, entitled Queen Mab, was written by me at the age of eighteen,2 I dare say in a sufficiently intemperate spirit but even then was not intended for publication, and a few copies only were struck off, to be distributed among my personal friends. I have not seen this production for several years: I doubt not but that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition; and that in all that concerns moral and political speculation, as well as in the subtler discriminations of metaphysical and religious doctrine, it is still more crude and immature. I am a devoted enemy to religious, political, and domestic oppression; and I regret this publication, not so much.

1 This letter appeared in The Examiner for the 15th of July, 1821, and was reprinted by Mrs. Shelley at the

end of her note to Queen Mab.

2 Concerning this statement, see note at p. 380.

from literary vanity, as because I fear it is better fitted to injure than to serve the cause of freedom. I have directed my solicitor to apply to Chancery for an injunction to restrain the sale; but after the precedent of Mr. Southey's Wat Tyler (a poem, written, I believe, at the same age, and with the same unreflecting enthusiasm), with little hopes of success.

Whilst I exonerate myself from all share in having divulged opinions hostile to existing sanctions, under the form, whatever it may be, which they assume in this poem, it is scarcely necessary for me to protest against the system of inculcating the truth of Christianity and the excellence of Monarchy, however true or however excellent they may be, by such equivocal arguments as confiscation, and imprisonment, and invective, and slander, and the insolent violation of the most sacred ties of nature and society.

Sir, I am,

Your obliged and obedient servant,

PERCY B. SHELLEY.

Pisa, June 22, 1821.1

1 In a letter to Mr. Gisborne dated the 16th of June, 1821 (Essays &c., 1840, Vol II, p. 296), Shelley says:"A droll circumstance has occurred. Queen Mab, a poem written by me when very young, in the most furious style, with long notes against Jesus Christ, and God the Father, and the King, and bishops, and marriage, and the devil knows what, is just published by one of the low booksellers in the Strand, against my wish and consent, and all the people are at loggerheads about it. H. S. [Horace Smith] gives me this account.

You may imagine how much I am amused. For the sake of a dignified appearance, however, and really because I wish to protest against all the bad

poetry in it, I have given orders to say that it is all done against my desire, and have directed my attorney to apply to Chancery for an injunction, which he will not get." In a letter to Horace Smith, dated the 14th of September, 1821 (Essays &c., 1840, Vol II, p. 331), Shelley says :-" If you happen to have bought a copy of Clarke's edition of Queen Mab for me, I should like very well to see it.-I really hardly know what this poem is about. I am afraid it is rather rough." Notwithstanding this ignorance as to what Queen Mab was about, Shelley had characterized it as " villainous trash in a letter to Mr. Ollier, dated the 11th of June, 1821, quoted in the Shelley Memorials, at pp. 53 and 160-1.

The curious fragment appended as a note to the words Ahasuerus, rise! (pages 503-6), and described by Shelley as "the translation of part of some German work” which he "picked up dirty and torn,... in Lincoln's-Inn Fields," appears to be an adaptation from Der Ewige Jude (a “rhapsody") of Christian D. F. Schubart, to which fact attention. was called in a letter signed "Joannes," published in The Pall Mall Gazette for 21 December, 1866. "Joannes," says:"Down to the words in the note: Fire dripped upon me from the trees, but the flames only singed my limbs; alas! it could not consume them,' Schubart's words are followed with tolerable accuracy, though not so closely as is possible when a composition in verse is rendered into prose. But much that follows is a mere interpolation, and to the passage beginning with 'I now mixed with the butchers of mankind,' and ending with the giant's steel rebounded from my body,' there is nothing corresponding in Schubart. With the words 'the executioner's hand could not strangle me,' we return to the rhapsody,' and keep pretty close to it, till we have completed the interrogatory Avenger in heaven, hast thou in thy armoury of wrath a punishment more dreadful?' The following words, with which the fragment concludes, are added by the translator: Then let it thunder upon me; command a hurricane to sweep me down to the foot of Carmel, that I may there lie extended; may pant and writhe and die."" "Joannes" also translates the last seven lines of