Her well-shaped, golden-haired head, almost always a little bent and drooping; her marble-white shoulders and arms statuesquely visible in the perfectly plain black velvet dress, which the customs of that time allowed to be cut low, and which her own taste adopted (for she never wore the conventional “widow’s weeds” and “widow’s cap”); her thoughtful, earnest eyes; her short upper lip and intellectually curved mouth, with a certain close-compressed and decisive expression while she listened, and a relaxation into fuller redness and mobility while speaking; her exquisitely formed, white, dimpled, small hands, with rosy palms, and plumply commencing fingers, that tapered into tips as slender and delicate as those in a Vandyck portrait--all remain palpably present to memory. Another peculiarity in Mrs. Shelley’s hand was its singular flexibility, which permitted her bending the fingers back so as almost to approach the portion of her arm above her wrist. She once did this smilingly and repeatedly, to amuse the girl who was noting its whiteness and pliancy, and who now, as an old woman, records its remarkable beauty. Very sweet and very encouraging was Mary Shelley to her young namesake, Mary Victoria, making her proud and happy by giving her a presentation copy of her wonderful book, ‘Frankenstein,’ and pleasing her girlish fancy by the gift of a string of cut-coral graduated beads from Italy.... Her mode of uttering the word “Lerici,” dwells upon our memory with peculiarly subdued and lingering intonation, associated as it was with all that was most mournful in connection with that picturesque spot where she learned she had lost her “beloved Shelley” forever from this fair earth. [Sidenote: Love of Music.] She was never tired of asking Francesco [Mr. Francis Novello] to sing Mozart’s “Qui Sdegno,” “Possenti Numi,” “Mentre ti Lascio,” “Tuba Mirum,” “La Vendetta,” “Non piu Andrai,” or “Madamina;” so fond was she of his singing her favorite composer. MARY (VICTORIA NOVELLO) COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’ New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. * * * * * [Sidenote: A portrait.] If the reader desires a portrait of Mary, he has one in the well-known antique bust sometimes called “Isis,” and sometimes “Clytie”; a woman’s head and shoulders rising from a lotus-flower. It is most probably the portrait of a Roman lady: is in some degree more elongated and “classic,” than Mary; but, on the other hand, it falls short of her, for it gives no idea of her tall and intellectual forehead, nor has it any trace of the bright, animated, and sweet expression that so often lighted up her face. THORNTON HUNT: ‘Shelley.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: A criticism.]