§ MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in the correspondence respecting the proposed expropriation of the old Protestant Cemetery at Rome [C.—5717], any provision has been made for the preservation of the spot where the poet Shelley was buried; whether any attempt has been made, in the course of the negotiations with the Syndic of Rome, for the said expropriation, to identify the spot alluded to in the statement in the "Shelley Memorials," that "the ashes of Shelley were deposited in the Protestant burial ground at Rome by the side of his son William, and of his brother poet Keats. An inscription in Latin simply setting forth the facts was written by Leigh Hunt, and Mr. Trelawny planted eight cypresses round the spot;" why no mention of the poet Shelley's burial place is made in the correspondence, Mr. J. G. Kennedy writing under date Rome, 8th October, 1888, to Lord Salisbury—
I hope within a few days to report to your Lordship the opinion of the acting Syndic as to the feasibility of sparing the tombs of Keats and Severn,but saying nothing about Shelley; and 547 whether he will now take steps to see that Shelley's tomb is preserved along with those of Keats and Severn?
§ J. FERGUSSONNo provision was necessary for the preservation of the spot where the poet Shelley is buried, because his remains lie in the so called new cemetery, shown on the map opposite page 2 of the Blue Book (Italy No. 1, 1889), for which a clear title has been permanently secured (page 9), and this is why no mention is made of his burial place in the correspondence. The cemetery in which the remains of Mr. Keats and Mr. Severn were placed was the old Protestant Cemetery, an adjoining burial ground, the greater part of which has been taken up for a municipal improvement.