(1)--Of Shelley’s regard for Byron in that year (1816), it is enough, for the present, to say that, after making Byron’s acquaintance under remarkable circumstances, and spending some weeks in close intimacy with him in Switzerland, Shelley was at much pains from that time till the opening of 1822, to cultivate and preserve his friendship:--a fact which may, at least, be regarded as conclusive evidence that their intercourse on the marge of Lake Leman was not fruitful of disappointment in the younger poet. Admiring the author of _Childe Harold_, whilst he was living in Free Love with Mary’s sister-by-affinity, Shelley admired him none the less for dismissing Claire, and in later times worshipt him with a sentiment of idolatry that will ever remain one of the most remarkable examples of hero-worship in literary annals. (2)--It is no slight indication of Shelley’s esteem for Byron in 1817,--when, according to Mr. Froude, he must have regarded the author of _Childe Harold_ with repugnance, as Claire’s seducer,--that he left Byron a legacy of 2000_l._ by his will (dated 18th Feb., 1817), and also appointed him to be an executor of the will, and a trustee for the performance of its trusts. In the same year, 1817, when the discarded mistress had given birth to Allegra, Shelley wrote in the preface to the _Six Weeks’ Tour_ these words:-- ‘Those whose youth has been past as their’s (with what success it imports not) in pursuing, like the swallow, the inconstant summer of delight and beauty which invests this visible world, will perhaps find some entertainment in following the author, with her husband and sister, on foot, through part of France and Switzerland, and in sailing with her down the castled Rhine, through scenes beautiful in themselves, but which, since she visited them, _a great Poet has clothed with the freshness of a diviner nature_. They will be interested to hear of one who has visited Meillerie, and Clarens, and Chillon, and Vevai,--classic ground, peopled _with tender and glorious imaginations of the present and the past_.’ Thus at a time when, according to Mr. Froude, he secretly revolted from Byron as a libertine and seducer, Shelley extolled him for clothing the beauties of the Rhineland with ‘the freshness of a diviner nature,’ and appointed him an executor and trustee of his will. (3)--In 1818, in the prefatory note to _Julian and Maddalo_, Shelley wrote thus of Byron, the original of Count Maddalo:--