at all events, she had received "a present supply, so that much good at least has been accomplished by my journey." She felt quite lost in London, and Percy had not yet learnt English. She had seen Lamb, but he did not remark on her being altered. She would then have returned to Italy, but her lather did not like the idea.
Among other work at this time Mary Shelley attempted a drama, but in this her father did not encourage her, as he writes to her in February 1824 that her personages are mere abstractions, not men and women. Godwin does not regret that she has not dramatic talent, as the want of it will save her much trouble and mortification.
This disappointment did not discourage Mary, for in the next year she published, with Henry Colburn of New Burlington Street, her novel The Last Man, of which a second edition appeared in the succeeding year. This must have been a great help to Mary's limited means: she had received four hundred pounds for her previous romance.
During this year we find Mrs. Shelley living in Kentish Town, as she writes from that address to Trelawny in July 1824. She is much cheered by finding her old friend still remembers her. She speaks of him as her warm-hearted friend, the remnant of the happy days of her vagabond life in beloved Italy, and now, shortly before writing, she had seen another link in her past life disappear ; for the hearse containing the body of Lord Byron had passed her window going up Highgate Hill, on his last journey to the seat of his ancestors. Mary had been much interested in the account Trelawny had sent her of Byron's latest moments. She had been to see the poet's remains at
