Shelley's time was therefore passed in study and composition.

In the previous summer he had translated the "Symposium" of Plato, and begun an essay on the Ethics of the Greeks, which remains unluckily a fragment.

Together with Mary he read much Italian literature, and his observations on the chief Italian poets form a valuable contribution to their criticism.

While he admired the splendour and invention of Ariosto, he could not tolerate his moral tone.

Tasso struck him as cold and artificial, in spite of his "delicate moral sensibility." Boccaccio he preferred to both; and his remarks on this prose-poet are extremely characteristic.