Altogether there is a curious contrast between the two aspects, hitherto revealed, of Mary Shelley’s literary activities. It is as if the pulse which had been beating so wildly, so frantically, in _Frankenstein_ (1818), had lapsed, with _Valperga_ (1823) and the rest, into an increasingly sluggish flow. The following pages may be held to bridge the gap between those two extremes in a felicitous way. A more purely artistic mood, instinct with the serene joy and clear warmth of Italian skies, combining a good deal of youthful buoyancy with a sort of quiet and unpretending philosophy, is here represented. And it is submitted that the little classical fancies which Mrs. Shelley never ventured to publish are quite as worthy of consideration as her more ambitious prose works. For one thing they give us the longest poetical effort of the writer. The moon of _Epipsychidion_ never seems to have been thrilled with the music of the highest spheres. Yet there were times when Shelley’s inspiration and example fired her into something more than her usual calm and cold brilliancy. One of those periods—perhaps the happiest period in Mary’s life—was during the early months in Italy of the English ‘exiles’. ‘She never was more strongly impelled to write than at this time; she felt her powers fresh and strong within her; all she wanted was some motive, some suggestion to guide her in the choice of a subject.’[2] Shelley then expected her to try her hand at a drama, perhaps on the terrible story of the Cenci, or again on the catastrophes of Charles the First. Her _Frankenstein_ was attracting more attention than had ever been granted to his own works. And Shelley, with that touching simplicity which characterized his loving moments, showed the greatest confidence in the literary career of his wife. He helped her and encouraged her in every way. He then translated for her Plato’s _Symposium_. He led her on in her Latin and Italian studies. He wanted her—probably as a sort of preliminary exercise before her flight into tragedy—to translate Alfieri’s _Myrrha_. ‘Remember _Charles the First_, and do you be prepared to bring at least some of _Myrrha_ translated,’ he wrote; ‘remember, remember _Charles the First_ and _Myrrha_,’ he insisted; and he quoted, for her benefit, the presumptuous aphorism of Godwin, in _St. Leon_, ‘There is nothing which the human mind can conceive which it may not execute’.[3]