St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-01-01
COR CoRDIUM.


liable. 1t breaks out at intervals, and
the manifestations of the distemper III
writing make queer reading for the
specialist interested III such cases, who
preserves the numerous specimens of
the analogous prediSposition of certain
persons to write in the same vein when
exposed to the same cause and in
fluence.
This vein has, for example, become
varicOSe-too full for enjoyment, and,
in fact, veracity-when that subject is.
say, the Protestant cemetery in Rome
handled by women to unearth memo
ries of Shelley and Keats. Whoever
will compare the emotional outpourfng
from the young day of Grace Green
wood to this of Mis-. Frances Hodgson
Burnett will be ready to say with
Laurence Sterne when he was enriching
his pages from Burton: SIT is all like
pouring out Of one bottle into another"
The assertion is made that one OF
every three American women writers
visiting Rome has the darling mission
to describe the graves of Shelley and
Keats, with guide book touch about
TIC pl VI AdluS OSSIluS.
Among the "stanzas written in dejec-
ton near Naples" Shelley wished that
he might "hear the sea breathe DER my
dying brain its last monotony."
lis well he cannot hear the eyerlast-
ing wake of Scribblers for seventy-twol
yealS. MonOtony would be satisfied.
In sorting some magazines for the
hinhDr tho 1urnH IN rnod Mrc
Burnett'S description of visit to the
famous Roman burial ground. 1t is
spun out to a tenuity SO fiue that there
seems little betwiXt it and nothingness,
like the murmur heard by the distem-
pered ear of Virginius.
However. Mrs. Burnett has worked so
much Of her own pervasive personality
into the sheer dolafulness Of her de-
scription that the gauzlness has stay
Ing quality to keep interest from break
Ing. With egotism, inaccuracies and
lapses in statement. Mrs. Burnett quite
distances all other competitors in sim
liar writing.
Her article was published in a maya
zine for children, and she naiyely tells
them that all she remembers of the sin
scriptlon (Which was, think. in Latin)
was 'Percy Bysshe Shelley" What a
blessed lapse of memory! Suppose for
one wild moment that she took in that
Cor Cordium on the slab and spun 1t out
for all she felt to be in it! Our feelings,
in the words of Mrs. Carlyle, would be
battered to fiddlestrings.
She moves OH this "heart of hearts, ~
however, by declaring that in the crema-s
ton of Sheley's body ''I5 would not
burn, and it is his heart only which lies
under the stone slab in that shady
corner outside of Rome-this strange,
wild. ardent, often troubled poets
heart" AS matter of faet.the heart
was gorged with blood and did not burn.
Moreover. it was not left to burn, for
Edward John Trelawney snatched it
from the flames, and gave it to Mrs.
Shelley, who gave it to Leigh Hunt.
Years after the Hunts gave it TO Sir
Percy Shelley. 1t never was in Rome,
and is now presumably at BoScOmbe.
So far 'freiawney-th one chief actor
at the funeral pyre seventy-three years
ago, who died in August 1875; and with
visual and actual impression of the re-
covery of Shelley's body and that of his
friend Capt, Edward Williams. who was
drowned with him.
Three coast guards. Byron and Ire.
Iawney and. at distance, Leigh Hunt,
were the only persons on the spot when
the bodies of Shelley and Williams were
burned. The ashes of Shelley were
buried in the Protestant cemetery cut
side of Rome-not even near Keats
grave, as the constant assertion would
have us believe-but isolated; and later
the ashes were secretly carried off and
given 10 his wife.
With all TreIawney's intimate aSSocia-
ton with Shelley for long time before
his drowning, and with his absolute and
unimpeachable knowledge of his death
and the burning of his body, lie had
throughout his life many newspaper
controversies with writer's who disputed
facts and questioned his statements.
Among the notes of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti'S talks with Mr.. Trelawney is
one of interest in this connection: ITO
my intense satisfaction. he gave me a
little piece (not before seen by me) of
Shelley's skull, taken from the brow.
1t is wholly blackened-no like the
Jaw, bone whitened by the fire. He has
two bits of Jaw bone and three (at
LEAST of the skull, including this one in
my possession. | must consider how
best TO preserve it.
With SO many pieces of his anatomy
passed around as gifts to admirers, and
his ashes secretly removed to England,
there is nothing left of Shelley I'm that
shady corner outside of Romeo for Mrs.
Burnett's long-drawn-out lugubrions-
ness. =
But what of that, when the popular
writer could interweave her own charm
ing personality into the description
which is assuredly much more interest
ing reading than all the gush and swirl.
of words over an empty grave. o. Of
The little guide to the cemetery adj,
mired, and even caressed that garment
ia long black plush mantle. bordered.
with soft black fox fur, and which had
very long sleeves OF a rich, heayy
brocade, which fell from my shoulders
to the bottom of the cloak" &c q
What picture of rich, IL amletsh
mourning posing beside that empty
graveyard. as if to give it the finishing
touch, the sum otuous raiment enwrapr
a generous heart, which is not very
often found inside of such ultra fine
drapery. p
Lest there might be some natural and
even pardcnable incredulity about the
matter, Mrs. Burnett has it down in
black and white that she ''put some
pieces of silver in the {guide's) little
hand. One always gives money to a
custodian, and it pleased me to put
more in the small hand than l should
have placed in the larger one"
Perhaps, however, the browning be-
neficence is the translation of such
bewildering intricacies of Italian as
'molta bella, un tossa nervosa. 'etc., for