"Our villa," she says, "was situated in the midst of a podere; the peasants sang as they worked beneath our windows, during the heats of a very hot season, and at night the water-wheel creaked as the process of irrigation went on, and the fire-flies flashed from among the myrtle hedges:--nature was bright, sunshiny, and cheerful, or diversified by storms of a majestic terror, such as we had never before witnessed." _The Cenci_ and several other poems were written here. The summer of 1818 they passed at the Baths of Lucca, and in the autumn went to a villa belonging to Lord Byron, near Venice, whence they proceeded to Naples, where the winter was spent; after which they visited Florence, and in the fall of 1820 took up their residence at Pisa. The next year--in July--Shelley's death occurred: he was drowned in the gulf of Lerici. The details must be familiar to all readers of literary history. Mrs. Shelley wrote of the time: "This morn thy gallant bark Sailed on a sunny sea, 'Tis noon, and tempests dark Have wrecked it on the lee, Ah woe! Ah woe! By spirits of the deep Thou'rt cradled on the billow, To thy eternal sleep. Thou sleep'st upon the shore Beside the knelling surge, And sea-nymphs evermore Shall sadly chant thy dirge. They come! they come, The spirits of the deep, While near thy sea-weed pillow My lonely watch I keep. From far across the sea I hear a loud lament, By echo's voice for thee, From ocean's caverns sent. O list! O list, The spirits of the deep; They raise a wail of sorrow, While I for ever weep." Mrs. Shelley returned to England, and for nearly twenty years supported herself by writing. In the last ten years--more especially since 1844, when her son succeeded to the Shelley estates--she had no need to write for money, and it is understood that she devoted the time to the composition of _Memoirs of Shelley_.