CHAPTER XVI.
ITALY REVISITED.
In Mary Shelley's Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840-42-43, published in 1844, we have not only a pleasing account of herself with her son and friends during a pleasure trip, but some very interesting and charming descriptions of continental life at that time.
Mary, with her son and two college friends, decided in June 1840 to spend their vacation on the banks of the Lake of Como. The idea of again visiting a country where she had so truly lived, and where she had passed through the depths of sorrow, filled her with much emotion. Her failing health made her feel the advantage that travelling and change of country would be to her. After spending an enjoyable two months of the spring at Richmond, visiting Raphael's cartoons at Hampton Court, she went by way of Brighton and Hastings. On her way to Dover she noticed how Hastings, a few years ago a mere fishing village, had then become a new town. They were delayed at Dover by a tempest, but left the next morning, the wind still blowing
