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 Shelley; the man and the poet. 
 
 3 1924 013 549 971 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013549971 
 
SHELLEY: 
 
 THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 FELIX RABBE. 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY. 
 
 1888. 
 
 ® 
 
UlMlVEhSITYi 
 \UBRAR V 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, 
 CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. 
 
 
TO MADAME E. DE C- 
 
 In the name of our old friendship I venture to dedicate 
 to you this Monograph on Shelley, as to one whom 
 the poet himself would have loved, and whom he 
 would have recognised as one of those souls which 
 are sisters through their love of the True and the 
 Beautiful; members of 
 
 " All that band of sister spirits known 
 To one another by a voiceless tone. '' 
 
 F. RABBE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION I 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY— FIELD PLACE— BRENT- 
 FORD— 1 792-1805 12 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 SHELLEY AT ETON— I 804-1809 ,30 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMANCE— " ZASTROZZI " 
 
 —"ST. IRVYNE"— 1809-1810 42 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 FIRST POETICAL ESSaVS AND FIRST LOVE— 1809-1810 59 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SHELLEY AT OXFORD— " NECESSITY OF ATHEISM"— 
 
 1810-181I , , 70 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SHELLEY IN LONDON, AT FIELD PLACE, AND AT 
 CWM ELAN— ELOPEMENT WITH HARRIET WEST- 
 BROOK— 181I 92 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH, YORK, AND KESWICK— 
 MOMENTARY RUPTURE WITH HOGG— SHELLEY 
 AND SOUTHEY— 181I-1812 Ill 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SIIF'T.LEY AND GODWIN— SHELLEY IN IRELAND- 
 IRISH PAMPHLETS— 1812 132 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SHELLEY IN WALES— AT NANTGWILT— IN NORTH 
 DEVON— IN LONDON— AT TANYRALT— AT LYN- 
 TON— LETTERS TO GODWIN — "QUEEN MAB "— 
 1812-1813 158 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SHELLEY IN DUBLIN— IN LONDON— AT BRACKNELL 
 EDINBURGH, WINDSOR— HIS SEPARATION FROM 
 HARRIET— 1813-1814 180 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 "HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS TOUR" — JOURNAL OF 
 
 SHELLEY AND MARY — 1814 .... 309 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FAGS 
 
 shelley in london and at bishopsgate — 
 
 "alastor"— 1814-1816 .... 225 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 JOURNEY TO AND SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND — 
 
 SHELLEY AND BYRON 240 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SHELLEY AT BATH — SUICIDE OF HARRIET AND 
 MARRIAGE OF SHELLEY — THE HERMIT OF 
 MARLOW — " LAON AND CYTHNA" — " PRINCE 
 ATHANASIUS " — ADDRESS TO THE ENGLISH 
 PEOPLE— 1816-1818 263 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY— MILAN, LEGHORN, LUCCA, VENICE, 
 THE CAPUCHINS, FLORENCE, AND PADUA — 
 "ROSALIND AND HELEN," AND "JULIAN AND 
 MADDALO" — 1818 284 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY — ROME AND NAPLES— 1818-1819 . 302 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY— LEGHORN AND FLORENCE— 
 "the CENCI" — "peter BELL THE THIRD" — 
 "PROMETHEUS UNBOUND "—1819 . . . 317 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY— PISA— LEGHORN— THE BATHS 
 OF ST. GIULIANO— LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE — 
 "HYMN TO MERCURY"— "THE WITCH OF ATLAS" 
 —SHELLEY AND KEATS— " ADONAIS"—l820 . 339 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY — PISA AND RAVENNA — EMILIA 
 VIVIANI AND THE " EPIPSYCHIDION " — "A DE- 
 FENCE OF POETRY "— " HELLAS "— " CHARLES I." 
 — 1821 357 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SHELLEY AT PISA AND AT CASA MAGNI— HIS DEATH 
 AND FUNERAL PYRE— " THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE" 
 —1822 379 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 FRAGMENT OF " ST. IRVYNE" 4^3 
 
 LETTER TO GODWIN ON CLASSICAL EDUCATION. . 407 
 
 LAST SCENE OF THE FIRST ACT OF "THE HAIR OF 
 
 ABSALOM," BY CALDERON 4IO 
 
SHELLEY: 
 
 THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Byron, conversing with Shelley in literary mood> 
 admitted frankly that until that time he had 
 written for wonrien readers only, but that when 
 he should have reached the age of forty he 
 intended to change his tactics, and to show man- 
 kind what he was capable of doing. Shelley 
 replied : " Do it at once ; write nothing but with 
 conviction of its truth. You should teach the 
 wise, not learn from the foolish. Time will 
 reverse the verdict of the crowd. Contemporary 
 criticism merely represents the amount of igno- 
 rance that must be encountered by genius." 
 
 Time has proved Shelley to be in the right ; 
 the verdict of the crowd has been reversed, and 
 Shelley's poetry will endure while the English 
 language lasts. 
 
 More than thirty years ago an English critic 
 testified to the profound influence of his genius 
 on contemporary poets. " Imitation ^of Shelley 
 is obvious," wrote one of his biographers in 
 1850, "in the majority of the eminent poets, of 
 this century." That his influence has become 
 
 B 
 
2 SHELLEY- THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 even more marked since then is sufficiently proved 
 by naming Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne. 
 
 While the name of Shelley was growing great 
 in his native land and becoming a synonym for 
 Poetry, while his verse was translated in Germany, 
 Italy, and Spain, and found its way into America, 
 France remained almost in ignorance of his 
 powers ; or if he sometimes received a passing 
 tribute in periodical literature, such superficial 
 articles contained little beyond a more or less 
 .romantic biography of the poet, or vague com- 
 monplaces concerning his genius.* His works 
 remained all but unknown and unappreciated, 
 and one of the deepest thinkers of the age was 
 looked upon as a second or third-class Chatterton, 
 an extravagant and unproductive dreamer, capable 
 at the utmost of supplying a few trivialities to 
 the keepsake literature of the day. 
 
 But the moment seems to have arrived for 
 France to do justice to the author of " Alastor," 
 " Prometheus Unbound," " Hellas," " The Cenci," 
 and so many other magnificent poems, a single 
 one of which would suffice to establish a poet's 
 fame for ever. From every quarter of the 
 literary world attention is at length aroused to a 
 poet greater than Byron, but who had npt found 
 translation into French, when renderings of 
 " Childe Harold " and " Don Juan " were already 
 innumerable.t It must be admitted that at the 
 
 * An exception must be made in favour of M. Odysse 
 Barot's " Etude," in the Revue Contemporaine, November and 
 December, 1867. That article, notwithstanding its inac- 
 curacies and omissions, is the most appreciative work on 
 Shelley that has as yet been published in France. 
 
 t Now that French critics are more appreciative of Shelley 
 and his works, some excellent essays on his character and 
 genius, and on some of his poems, have appeared, viz. : An 
 article from the pen of M. Schure in the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes, for ist February, 1877 ; an excellent chapter by 
 M. Darmesteter, in his "Essais de Littdrature Anglaise;" 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 present time the design of making such a poet 
 as Shelley known in France may seem some- 
 what rashj and that the editor of a Traduction 
 Complete of his poems must possess a certain 
 amount of boldness and courage. Setting aside 
 his title of poet, he is so exceptional a genius, 
 30 completely at variance with his epoch, so 
 far removed from the positive, utilitarian, and , 
 realistic ideas by which it is absorbed, that the ' 
 question may be fairly put : What have we 
 to do with such dreamers ? What good end 
 can be served by a revolutionary and humani- 
 tarian Milton or Shakespeare ? Intellectual and 
 moral progress, the reign of Justice and Right, 
 love towards all who suffer and weep on earth, 
 the Beautiful, the Good, the Divine, the Ideal in 
 Nature, in Art, and in Society — we have abolished 
 all such follies ! 
 
 Clearly it is not to these Boeotians of the 
 nineteenth century that Shelley speaks. More 
 than any other human being he belongs to that 
 race of mankind (living anachronisms) who, find- 
 ing nothing around them worthy of their song, 
 elevate themselves, by one superhuman stroke of 
 their wings, above the conditions and conventions 
 of the visible world. Their eyes are fixed ex- 
 clusively on a world of thought and spirit, on 
 eternal ideas that are infinitely more real and true 
 to them than the ephemeral phantasmagoria of the 
 phenomena of space and time, because they are 
 the primordial laws of humanity, the divine 
 spark in man, and guide him, in spite of him- 
 self, to his mysterious ends. Happier than other 
 
 and a thoughtful and appreciative study of '.' The Cenci " in 
 M. Sarrazin's work, "Poetes Modernes de I'Angleterre." From 
 M. Taine, in his " Histoire de la Littdrature Anglaise," we 
 might have expected criticism more worthy of the genius 
 of Shelley, and of his very great influence on EngHsh poetry 
 in this century. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 SHELLEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 poets, perchance no less gifted than he had they 
 likewise possessed his, faith, he never suffered 
 shipwreck on the rocks of doubt and despair; 
 he stands at the antipodes of scepticism, misan- 
 thropy, and solitary, fruitless melancholy — a 
 clarion-voice of faith, hope, and love. "Give 
 me but a lever," he exclaims with Archimedes, 
 "and I will move the world." And as he was 
 convinced that such a lever could never be 
 found among fragile and perishable things, he 
 sought it in the only faculty which escapes the 
 attacks of circumstance and time — the unconquer- 
 able strength of man's spirit and his will, 
 emanating from that universal spirit in Nature 
 which is God. In this sense he may be termed 
 the most spiritual, the most ideal, the most 
 religious of poets. His atheism, or pantheism, 
 whichever we may choose to call it, is but an 
 act of faith in that divine something that his 
 soul felt within herself when communing with 
 Nature. If, in this high sense, he is the most 
 religious of poets, he is also, in the strongest 
 acceptation of the term, the most inspired ; and 
 it is to him, if to any one among modern poets, 
 we may apply the name of vates. He sees, 
 perceives, and feels what he sings ; and the 
 spirit, as he was wont to repeat, becoming 
 like unto the object of its contemplation, he is 
 transformed into his own conceptions ; the spirit 
 of Nature becomes incarnate within him; he is 
 like unto a seer and a prophet; at times he is 
 an echo of Job, Isaiah, and Christ. 
 
 When thus inspired, the abstract becomes 
 visible; allegory is real; metaphysics are trans- 
 formed into a living mythology, "a splendid. 
 Pantheon," as Macaulay says. An impassioned 
 and living idealism is the keynote of the poetry 
 of Shelley. 
 
 He possesses in a more marked degree than 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5. 
 
 any other poet of our time a warmth and ten- 
 derness of heart, a love of mankind, unequalled 
 in expression save by Shakespeare ; it is a love 
 that attains to heroism, to self-sacrifice, to 
 martyrdom. ' 
 
 It has been well remarked by one of our 
 young French poets,* who has more than one 
 point of resemblance to Shelley : " Both Shake- 
 speare and Shelley have sucked the milk of human 
 kindness, their wide sympathies embrace all ages 
 and every people ; no form of religion can contain 
 them, they overflow with nature and humanity." 
 
 1 All Shelley's morality and philosophy may be 
 summed up in one word — Love i but it is love 
 in its highest and most ideal acceptation, as it 
 was understood by Plato, Jesus, and Dante, the 
 love that consists in the universal attraction of 
 all beings, the shining of the Everlasting Beauty 
 in the soul of man, the explanation of. life ; it 
 is love as set forth not long ago by one of the 
 fevf Platonists of this century, when he wrote 
 concerning a dialogue not understood by the 
 Pharisees^ of our day, and being filled with 
 the spirit of Phmdrus . and the Banquet, ex- 
 claimed : " Love is the real Orpheus I am 
 
 convinced it will hold an important place in the 
 philosophy of the future." When the day shall 
 have come for Shelley's poems to be, I do not 
 say popular, but understood and appreciated by 
 delicate and pure minds, M. Renan's desideratum 
 will not be far from realisation. 
 
 Michelet, in his fine work, " La Mer," describes 
 two kinds of melancholy or sadness : the one ap- 
 pertaining to women, the other to strong men — 
 the one peculiar to sensitive souls who weep 
 for themselves, and the other to the unselfish 
 
 * Maurice Bouchor, " Notice sur Shelley " {Revue des 
 Chefs-d'ceuvre, 10 F^vrier, 1884) ; also an article in the 
 Passant, 5th January, 1887. 
 
6, SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 hearts who accept their own lot and always bless 
 Nature, but who, at the same time, are pained 
 by the evils in the world, and draw strength tO' 
 resist and act from their very sufferings. 
 
 It may be affirmed that the soul of Shelley 
 was stricken by both these forms of sadness, but 
 that which dominates is the second, the heroic 
 melancholy which is born of sympathy with all 
 the sorrows of humanity, and of despair at being 
 unable to apply a remedy. 
 
 Like all great souls who are devoted to the ' 
 progress and happiness of the human race, Shelley 
 dreamed of a new golden age, of a universal 
 regeneration, whose dawn will appear when man 
 shall cast off his borrowed nature, and become 
 once more his true self. 
 
 At an age when, generally speaking, life pre- 
 sents itself in smiling garb, Shelley was deeply 
 moved at the sight of the evil in the world, and 
 told himself that all the active forces of the human 
 intellect should tend to lessen if not to eliminate 
 it altogether from the face of the earth, to turn, 
 as he often said, this world into a heaven ; that 
 if religions, traditional philosophy, and political 
 institutions are incapable of obtaining this result, 
 it is because they systematically deviate from 
 those great moral and natural principles which 
 are the foundation of every truly human and 
 progressive idea ; that to Poetry alone, therefore, 
 belongs the duty of creating anew, as it were,, 
 the understanding and the heart of man, which 
 have been misled and disfigured by prejudice,, 
 habit, and servile obedience, each and all the 
 tainted fruits of egotism. Poetry alone, that is 
 to say Inspiration (which is but the echo of the 
 great voice of Nature in the soul of the poet) 
 can mount to the pure and single source whence 
 flow the ideas of Truth, Justice, and Love, they 
 only being capable of directing humanity towards 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 happiness, and if the spirit of good in the world 
 has been able to resist the incessant attacks of 
 the spirit of evil (viz. tyranny, authority in all 
 its forms of faith, custom, education), ■ if, in a 
 word, human nature is entitled not to despair 
 of itself, it is owing to the poets alone, to the 
 true teachers who, rising above their age, above 
 the ephemeral institutions of religion and policy, 
 have from time to time led humanity back to the 
 contemplation of the natural, indestructible, and 
 eternal order of things, in which are contained 
 the only laws that can bring forth improvement 
 and happiness to mankind. Such have been the 
 inventors of language, of music, and of all the arts. 
 Such were Job and the Prophets, Homer, ^schylus 
 and Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, and Rousseau. 
 " Such shall I be if I am a poet," Shelley said 
 to himself. And he kept his word. 
 
 His poems are full of modern revolutionary 
 ideas, but still more full of the wisdom' of the 
 ancients, echoing, as it were, every great poet 
 and every great thinker of all the ages ; he is 
 their brother and successor. His poetry, accord- 
 ing to a definition of Byron's which might be 
 Shelley's own, is, in truth, "the consciousness' 
 of a past and future world," that "before and 
 after" which he has sung. 
 
 The history of Shelley's life is inseparable 
 from his works, which, for the most part, are 
 the moral autobiography of his soul ; and we 
 have sought it above all in Shelley himself, in 
 his poems, in his numerous prose writings or 
 fragments,* and especially in his letters, of which 
 
 * H. B. Forman, "The Prose Works of P. Shelley," 4 vols., 
 
 1880. Mr. Forman has also edited " The Poetical Works of 
 Shelley," 4 vols., 1882. Besides this magnificent edition, 
 M. Rossetti has edited " Shelley's Poetical Works," 3 vols., 
 
 1881, with the latest philological criticisms on the poet. 
 
8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 we regret we can only offer a few extracts ; 
 finally in the recollections and memoirs written 
 by his wife and the few friends who knew him 
 intimately. We have also made use of more 
 recent biographies, especially when, as is the 
 case with those by MacCarthy* and Rossetti.f 
 the most scrupulous historical accuracy is com- 
 bined with reverence for their subject and im- 
 partial criticism. 
 
 But what are we to say of a dull and spiteful 
 composition in two enormous quarto volumes of 
 nearly a thousand pages, in which Mr. Jeaffreson 
 has chosen, under the title of "The Real Shelley," J 
 to make himself the mouthpiece of every calumny, 
 of every grudge, of every enmity harboured 
 against the great poet by Anglican cant t Two 
 volumes as thick as his own would be required 
 for his refutation, and who would care to read 
 them .' We shall content ourselves by giving 
 an occasional specimen of this puerile yet 
 elephantine criticism, while we regret that real 
 talent should have been wasted on such an un- 
 grateful task. Mr. Jeaffreson's big book proves 
 but one thing : that Shelley struck home when 
 he attacked the intolerant hypocrisy of Anglican 
 fanaticism, which has never been capable either 
 of*learning or forgetting. 
 
 If there are some shadows or stains on 
 Shelley's character and life, they fade away and 
 disappear in the resplendent light of his genius, 
 and we may give him the benefit of his own 
 wise reflections on the great poets who preceded 
 him. Mr. Jeaffreson would have done well to 
 
 * " Shelley's Early Life, from Original Sources," by Denis 
 Florence MacCarthy, 1872. 
 
 t " Memoir of Shelley," at the beginning of the first vol. of 
 his edition of Shelley's, poems. 
 
 I "The Real Shelley," by J. C. Jeaffreson, author of 
 " The Real Lord Byron," 2 vols., 1885. 
 
INTRODUCTION. g 
 
 meditate on these words before taking up his 
 pen : 
 
 Let us for the moment stoop to the arbitration of popular 
 breath, and usurping and uniting in our own persons the 
 incompatible characters of accusel-, witness, judge, and exe- 
 cutioner, let us decide without trial, testimony, or form, that 
 certain motives of those who are "there sitting. where we 
 dare not soar" are reprehensible. Let us assume that 
 Homer was a drunkard, that Virgil was a flatterer, that 
 Horace was a coward, that Tasso was a madman, that Lord 
 Bacon was a peculator, that Raphael w^s a libertine, that 
 Spenser was a poet laureate. It is inconsistent with this divi- 
 sion of our subject to cite living poets, but posterity has done 
 ample justice to the great names now referred to. Their 
 errors have been weiglied and found to have been dust 
 in the balance ; if their sins " were as scarlet, they are now 
 white as snow ; " they have been washed in the blood of the 
 mediator and redeemer, time. . . "Judge not, lest ye be 
 judged." 
 
 To Shelley may b: applied, more fitly than 
 to any other, the noble words used by Berlioz 
 regarding himself: 
 
 There are among men certain beings endowed with a 
 peculiar sensitiveness. They do not feel either in the same 
 manner or the same degree as other men, and in their regard 
 the exception becomes the rule. Their peculiar nature gives 
 the key to their extraordinary life, which in its turn affords an 
 explanation of their fate. Now it is exceptional natures who 
 lead the world ; and it is well that it should be so, for by 
 their struggles and their pain they purchase light and 
 movement for humanity. 
 
 Mr. Jeaffreson's book increased our eager 
 expectation of Mr. Dowden's " Life of Shelley," 
 which promised to contain the latest historical 
 criticism of the poet.* Nor were we disappointed. 
 Thanks to his work, we have been able to fill 
 up more than one gap in our earlier labours, and 
 
 * " The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley," by Edward Dowden, 
 Professor of English Literature in the University of Dtiblin, 
 in 2 vols. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1886. 
 
lo SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 to form a more decided opinion on certain points 
 in the poet's life that were open to doubt and 
 controversy. The numerous and important origi- 
 nal sources whence Mr. Dowden has derived new 
 material of all kinds render his " Life of Shelley " 
 a crowning work, which supplies the place of all 
 others, and must necessarily be consulted by any 
 future student of the poet. In perusing it, we' 
 could not but regret that we might not substitute 
 for our own work a simple translation of its 
 admirable pages. But, at any rate, we have given 
 in substance all the valuable information he has 
 added to the story of Shelley and of Shelley's 
 genius. In addition to the above sources, so 
 various and numerous that of themselves they 
 supply sufficient matter for an ample biography, 
 we must acknowledge the reception of documents- 
 of all kinds from the zealous and enthusiastic 
 Shelley Society in London. This Society, rank- 
 ing worthily with those devoted to Shakespeare 
 and Spenser, omits no means of adding daily 
 some fresh revelation to the poet's history, some 
 new ray to his aureole. 
 
 Shelley believed that poets could only be 
 rendered in another language by their equals, 
 and in the same rhythm as the original verse; 
 and following these rules, he has himself translated 
 into English verse favourite passages from his 
 great models. Homer, Euripides, Dante, Calderon, 
 and Goethe. 
 
 Until a French poet worthy of Shelley shall 
 translate his poems into verse, following in the 
 track of some few shining footsteps,* we have 
 
 * We allude to some excellent renderings of detached 
 poems which have lately been published, and have served 
 us as models, viz., " The Cenci " and " Hellas," translated 
 by Madame Tola Dorian ; " Alastor," by M. Sarrazin ; part 
 of " Queen Mab," by F. V. Hugo ; and a few short pieces by 
 M. Maurice Bouchor. 
 
INTROD UCTION. 1 1 
 
 endeavoured to render into dull and ungrateful 
 prose, not perhaps the untranslatable music and 
 harmony, but at least the movement, the warmth, 
 the delicacy of his' thought, and something of 
 the brightness, the power, the strangeness, and 
 the daring originality of his expression. Shelley 
 himself would, doubtless, have pardoned us for 
 thus destroying his divine music, for the reason 
 that by means of our translation a greater number 
 of human souls would share in the treasures of 
 wisdom and tenderness that he would fain have 
 spread before the whole world. 
 
 We are glad to express our gratitude to those 
 who, in order to render our work less imperfect, 
 have , lent us, with a zeal beyond all praise, the 
 help of their judgment and advice. They have 
 kindly consented to accept the dedication of some 
 of Shelley's masterpieces ; but we are conscious 
 that their best reward will be the knowledge 
 that they have helped to popularise a poet who 
 cannot be read without being loved, and who 
 cannot be loved without exciting among men a 
 longing to become like him, to be better, more 
 generous, and more human. 
 
 F. Rabbe. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY — FIELD PLACE — 
 BRENTFORD — 1792-180S. 
 
 On August 4th, 1792, at Field Place, near the 
 picturesque little town of Horsham, in Sussex 
 — the county which had already brought forth 
 Collins and Otway — a child was born who was 
 destined to become indisputably the greatest 
 English poet of the nineteenth century. In the 
 little chamber in which he first saw the light 
 the following inscription may now be read • 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 Was born in this room, 
 
 August 4tli, 1792. 
 
 Shrine of the dawning speech and thought 
 
 Of Shelley sacred be, 
 To all who bow where Time has brought 
 
 Gifts to Eternity. 
 
 Two spirits, that of Plato and that of the 
 French Revolution, met, wondering at each other, 
 over the cradle of this marvellous child. The 
 Spirit of Revolution had found her Poet. Through 
 a strange combination of destiny, she marked a 
 scion of England's cold and selfish aristocracy on 
 the forehead as her Pindar, as though she needed. 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. 13 
 
 while standing ankle-deep in blood, to cool her 
 brow in the mists of the North, and to take 
 sanctuary in the virginal and noble soul, where 
 her purest and sublimest accents should reverberate 
 for ever. 
 
 Without retracing, with certain of his biogra- 
 phers, the poet's ancestors to the fabulous Sir 
 Guyon de Shelley, the contemporary of Roland 
 and Charlemagne, we can, nevertheless, thanks 
 to the genealogical tree provided by Mr. Forman, 
 follow the direct line of ascent of the Shelleys 
 of Goring Castle, to which branch Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley belonged, so far as the year 1623. We 
 will not delay over the arguments by which 
 Mr. Jeaffreson endeavours in a long chapter of 
 his bulky protest to prove that the Castle Goring 
 branch had nothing in common with the m'ore 
 aristocratic branch of the Michaelsgrove Shelleys, 
 that it owned qo remarkable name, no illustrious 
 member, and that the poet's family has, in fact, 
 no right to be called patrician. What matters 
 it to Shelley's fame that the nobility of his family 
 should be more or less authenticated, or his coat 
 of arms more or less ancient .' His nobility 
 consists in his genius, and, as he himself proudly 
 foretold. 
 
 What have we done 
 
 None shall dare vouch, though it be truly known ; 
 
 That record shall remain, when they must pass 
 
 Who built their pride on its oblivion ; 
 And fame in human hope which sculptured was, 
 Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass. 
 
 If there was in Shelley something of the aristocrat, 
 " the quintessence of a gentleman," as Hunt says, 
 it was the product of an exquisite combination 
 of sentiment, of moral grace, and of habitual 
 sympathy. 
 
 The first baronetcy in the family of the Castle 
 Goring Shelleys was bestowed on Bysshe Shelley, 
 
14 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 the poet's grandfather, a remarkable character, 
 with strange and striking traits of likeness to his 
 grandson, and yet strongly contrasting with him. 
 
 Of great personal beauty and charm of address, 
 he had succeeded, after a somewhat obscurely 
 ■passed youth, in winning successively the hands 
 and fortunes of two heiresses, whose wealth had 
 principally attracted him. The first, Mary 
 Catherine Mitchell, the only daughter of the 
 Rev. Theobald Mitchell, of Horsham, ran away 
 with him from her father's house when eighteen 
 years of age. They were married in I^ondon, 
 whence they proceeded to Paris. 
 
 This episode in the life of the grandfather 
 was to be reproduced in that of the grandson, 
 but with an essential difference. The poet, in 
 carrying off his successive brides, was not actuated 
 by cupidity, but by love. 
 
 Mary Bysshe Shelley died in 1760, leaving 
 three children, one of whom, Timothy Shelley, 
 was destined to be the father of the poet. Nine 
 years later, Bysshe, at the age of thirty-eight, 
 again eloped with an heiress, Miss Elizabeth Jane 
 Sidney Perry, the only daughter of William Perry, 
 and descending in a direct line from the Sidneys, 
 Earls of Leicester. Her fortune was one of the 
 largest in Kent. Five sons and two daughters 
 were the issue of this marriage. 
 
 With very pardonable weakness, and although 
 not one drop of Sidney blood ran in his veins, 
 Shelley liked to reckon the great Sir Philip 
 Sidney among his ancestors. In his " Adonai's " 
 he calls him "A spirit without spot." From an 
 intellectual and moral point of view, this indeed 
 is his true descent and legitimate aristocracy. 
 
 After the death of his elder brother,, who died 
 childless in 1790, Bysshe Shelley devoted himself 
 to the embellishment of Field Place, of which he 
 was the only representative. With advancing 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. 15 
 
 years he had become more and more eccentric. 
 While spending eighty thousand pounds in building 
 the seat of the new baronets of Castle Goring, he 
 spent the last thirty years of his life poorly enough 
 in a little cottage on the Arun. He was assiduous 
 in frequenting the Horsham public-houses, where 
 he laboured inter pocula (without drinking, how- 
 ever) for the electoral successes of the Whigs, and 
 thus succeeded in obtaining a baronetcy in 1806, 
 through his patron, the Duke of Norfolk. On 
 his death in 1815, he left a large fortune of 
 ;^300,ooo in the funds, and ;^2o,ooo a year, with- 
 out counting ;^io,ooo in bank-notes hidden in his 
 sofa cushions or between the pages of the few 
 books that he possessed. 
 
 With all these eccentricities of a gentleman of 
 the olden time, Sir Bysshe displayed a great in- 
 dependence of character. He was profoundly 
 sceptical in philosophy, and entirely without 
 speculative opinions of his own ; but he professed 
 an extreme tolerance for the opinions of others. 
 Shelley speaks of him in one of his letters as an 
 atheist, who looked forward to annihilation only 
 at the close of life. 
 
 Both his unbelief and his tolerance drew him 
 towards his grandson in the same measure that 
 they estranged him from his own son, who was 
 far from sharing those sentiments. 
 
 Shelley, who was always on affable and cour- 
 teous terms with his grandfather, although there 
 was no great familiarity between them, spoke of 
 him without either affection or dislike ; but he 
 could not forgive his indifference to the progress 
 of humanity, his want of generosity and heart, 
 and, more than all, his lust for gold, that " curse 
 of man," as he calls it. Some traces of his grand- 
 father may perhaps be recognised in one of the 
 characters in "Rosalind and Helen," who dies 
 *' pale with a quenchless thirst of gold." 
 
l6 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 The poet's father, Timothy Shelley, had 
 received the usual education of a gentleman of 
 the period. After an undistinguished career at 
 Oxford, he had made the customary grand tour 
 of Europe. According to Medwin, all- he brought 
 back with him was a very superficial acquaintance 
 with France, a claim to knowledge of the world, 
 and an extremely bad painting of Vesuvius in 
 eruption. He was a thorough English gentle- 
 man of the school of Chesterfield; he reduced 
 politeness to outward formalities, and morality 
 to expediency. He was proud of his name and 
 wealth, and was ready to forgive his son any 
 and everything except a marriage beneath him. 
 , His religious opinions were extremely broad, 
 although he professed to accept the Thirty-Nine 
 Articles and the Established form of worship ; 
 but in philosophy he held with noism, to use 
 Shelley's word. His moral sense was some- 
 what dull, though he was servile in his con- 
 formity to rules and conventionalities, in a word, 
 to cant, that social hypocrisy which Byron de- 
 clares to be "the only homage paid to virtue 
 in England." He would sacrifice the most im- 
 perious sentiments of nature to the respect due 
 to established forms, yet he understood perfectly 
 how to take care of the material interests and 
 comforts of life. A brilliant sportsman, a vain 
 man, although without any kind of talent ; proud 
 of his son's genius, provided it should shed some 
 political lustre on his name and family ; play- 
 ing rather a poor part in politics, merely voting 
 with his party as a thorough-going partisan of the 
 Duke of Norfolk ; such a man, we may agree with 
 Mr. Rossetti, "was ill-adapted to be the father of 
 so divine a phenomenon as Percy Bysshe Shelley." 
 In 1 79 1, at the age of 'chirty-eight, he had 
 married a young lady of good family and rare 
 loveliness — Miss Elizabeth Pilfold, the daughter 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. 17 
 
 of Charles Pilfold, Esq., of Effingham, Surrey. 
 Of her the poet says, " She was gentle and 
 tolerant, but narrow-minded." She was in- 
 telligent, a good letter-writer, and yet with very 
 little liking for literature, especially poetry. Her 
 yielding disposition caused her always to take 
 the side of paternal authority between her hus- 
 band and her son, while her orthodox feelings 
 were readily alarmed at the influence the j'oung 
 free-thinker might exercise over his sisters' minds, 
 to the prejudice of their salvation. 
 
 Two sons and five daughters, all of rare beauty, 
 were the issue of this marriage. Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley was the eldest. 
 
 His early and altogether feminine education 
 among his young sisters at Field Place left an 
 indelible mark on his mind. His childish love 
 for his sisters, for those angelically beautiful 
 creatures who constituted all his world, became 
 the type of the Platonic love he laid at the feet 
 of women, when they seemed to him to realise 
 in part the pure ideal he had beheld in the 
 unconscious visions of his childhood. 
 
 All his life he recalled with delight his 
 awakening as a child to the joys of home, to 
 innocent aff"ectionj to untroubled and passionless 
 love, and at the same time to the first revela- 
 tions of Nature's magic. He has described these 
 impressions of his childhood, these primitive ele- 
 ments of reflection and imagination, in the second 
 canto of "The Revolt of Islam": 
 
 The star-light smile of children, the sweet looks 
 Of women, the fair breast from which I fed, 
 The murmur of the unreposing brooks, 
 And the green light which, shifting overhead, 
 Some tangled bower of vines around me shed, 
 The shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers, 
 The lamp-light through the rafters cheerly spread, 
 And on the twining flax — in life's young hours 
 These sights and sounds did nurse my spirit's folded powers. 
 
 C 
 
i8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 That delightful life, spent in the companion- 
 ship of lovely, refined, and pure beings, beneath 
 the tender eyes of a mother, "that innocent 
 Paradise" did not last long for Shelley. The 
 sensitive plant, whom the first contact with the 
 rude realities of the world vi^ould wound for 
 ever, was soon transplanted from the maternal 
 Eden to the rough fields of life and social conflict. 
 At the age of six he began to learn the rudi- 
 ments of Latin from the Rev. Mr. Edwards, the 
 vicar of Warnham, a good old man whom he- 
 remembered with esteem. No doubt the regard 
 and esteem felt by Shelley for country clergy- 
 men, whose sublime mission of sacrifice and self- 
 devotion, apart from all religious dogmatism, he 
 could not but admire, is due to this recollection.- 
 Is it paradoxical to say that there was the 
 making of a "Vicaire Savoyard" in the author 
 of " Queen Mab " .? 
 
 At one moment of his life he had a passing 
 thought of entering the Church. 
 
 The following narrative shows us the pro- 
 foundly Christian side of Shelley's character 
 whenever he came in contact with a purely 
 human and moral Christianity : 
 
 "We were walking in the early summer,'' relates Peacock, 
 "through a village where there was a good vicarage house 
 with a nice garden, and the front wall of the vicarage was 
 covered with corchorus in full flower. He stood some time 
 admiring the vicarage wall. The extreme quietness of the 
 scene, the pleasant pathway through the village churchyard, 
 and the brightness of the summer morning, apparently 
 concurred to produce the impression under v/hich he sud- 
 denly said to me : ' I feel strongly inclined to enter the 
 Church. ... Of the moral doctrines of Christianity I am a 
 more decided disciple than many of its more ostentatious 
 professors. And consider for a moment how much good 
 a good clergyman may do. . . . It is an admirable institution 
 that admits the possibility of diffusing such men over 
 the surface of the land.' I replied that in practice he would 
 meet with too many obstacles to his aspirations. We' 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. 19 
 
 walked on in thoughtful silence for a few minutes, and then 
 conversed on other subjects." 
 
 However imperfect may have been the early- 
 schooling he received from the vicar of Warn- 
 ham, it nevertheless bore precocious fruit in the 
 marvellous boy, whose feats of memory were 
 prodigious. His sister Helen describes the 
 astonishm.ent with which the elders of Field 
 Place would listen to this baby of six or seven 
 repeating Gray's lines on " The Cat and the Gold- 
 fish," word for word, without missing a syllable, 
 after only once reading the verses. 
 
 At the age of eight he began to emulate 
 Gray, and to try his strength in verse. The 
 earliest English verses that we possess by him 
 are entitled " Lines to a Cat," and were written, 
 it is believed, in 1800. 
 
 At ten years . old Shelley left the parental 
 roof for the school at Sion House, Isleworth, 
 near Brentford. His cousin Medwin was already 
 there, and has given us precious recollections of 
 that period of his life : 
 
 This school, though not a " Dotheboys Hall," was con- 
 ducted with the greatest regard for economy. A slice of 
 bread, with an " idee " of butter smeared on the surface and 
 " thrice skimmed sky-blue," to use an expression of Bloomfield 
 the poet, was miscalled a breakfast. The supper, a repetition 
 of the same frugal repast ; and the dinner, at which it was 
 never allowed to send up the plate twice without its eliciting 
 an observation from the distributor that effectually prevented 
 a repetition of the offence, was made up generally of in- 
 gredients that were anonymous. The Saturday's meal, a 
 sort of pie, a collect from the plates during the week. This 
 fare, to a boy accustomed to the delicacies of the table, was 
 not the most attractive. . . . 
 
 Exchanging for the caresses of his sisters, an association 
 with boys, mostly the sons of London shopkeepers, of rude 
 habits and coarse manners, who made game of his girlish- 
 ness, and despised him because he was not " one of them," 
 nor disposed to enter into their sports, to wrangle, or fight ; 
 confined between four stone walls, in a playground of very 
 
 C 3 
 
30 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 lirp.ted dimensions — a few hundred yards — (with a single 
 treuan it, and that the Bell tree, so called from, its having 
 suspended in its Dranches the odious bell, whose din, wlien I 
 think of it, yet jars in my ears), instead of breathing the pure 
 air of his native fields, and rambling about the plantations 
 and flower gardens of his father's country seat — the suffer- 
 ings he underwent at his first outset in this little world 
 were most acute. Sion House was indeed a perfect Hell 
 to him. Fagging, that " vestige of barbarous times," reigned 
 supreme. Shelley was the victim and the scapegoat of these 
 petty despots, who used to vent on him their ill-humours 
 in harsh words, and sometimes even in blows. Poor Shelley ! 
 he was always the martyr, and it was under the smart of this . 
 oppression that he wrote : 
 
 A fresh May-dawn it was. 
 When I walked forth upon the glittering grass, 
 And wept, I knew not why ; until there rose 
 
 From the near school-room voices that, alas !_ 
 Were but one echo from a world of woes — 
 The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 
 
 And then I clasped my hands and looked around ; 
 
 But none were near to mock my streaming eyes, 
 Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground, 
 
 So without sham I spake : " I will be wise. 
 
 And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies 
 Such power ; for I grow weary to behold 
 
 The selfish and the strong still tyrannise 
 Without reproach or check." I then controlled 
 My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold. 
 
 We were about sixty schoolfellows. I well remember 
 the day when he was added to the number. A new arrival 
 is always a great excitement to the other boys, who pounce 
 upon z. fresh man with the boldness of birds of prey. All 
 tormented him with questionings. There was no end to 
 their mockery when they found that he was ignorant of peg- 
 top, or marbles, or leap-frog, or hop-scotch, much more 
 of fives or cricket. One wanted him to spar, another to 
 run a race with him. He was a t^TO in both these 
 accomplishments, and the only welcome of the neophyte 
 was a general shout of derision. To all these impertinences 
 he made no reply, but with a look of disdain written in his 
 Countenance, turned his back on his new associates, and 
 when he was alone found relief in tears. 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. 21 
 
 Shelley was at this time tall for his age, slightly and 
 delicately built, and rather narrow-chested, with a complexion 
 fair and ruddy, a face rather long than oval. His features, 
 not regularly handsome, \vere set off by a profusion of silky 
 brown hair, that curled naturally. The expression of coun- 
 tenance was one of extreme sweetness and innocence. His 
 blue eyes were very large and prominent, considered by 
 phrenologists to indicate a great aptitude for verbal memory. 
 They were at times, when he was abstracted as he often 
 was in contemplation, dull, and as it were insensible to 
 external objects ; at others they flashed with fire and in- 
 telligence. His voice was soft and low, but broken in its 
 tones — when anything much interested him, harsh and 
 unmodulated; and this peculiarity he never lost. As is 
 recorded of Thomson, he was naturally calm, but when 
 he heard of, or read of some flagrant act of injustice, oppres- 
 sion, or cruelty, then indeed the sharpest marks of horror 
 and indignation were visible in his countenance. 
 
 As his port had the meekness of a maiden, the heart of 
 a young virgin who had never crossed her father's threshold 
 to encounter the rude world could not be more susceptible 
 of all the sweet charities than his. In this respect, Shelley's 
 disposition would happily illustrate the innocence and vir- 
 ginity of the Muses. He possessed a most affectionate regard 
 for his relations, particularly for the females of his farhily. 
 It was not without manifest joy that he received a letter from 
 his mother and sisters — for the two eldest he had a special 
 fondness, and I will here observe that one, unhappily 
 removed from the world before her time, possessed a talent 
 for oil-painting that few artists have acquired, and that the 
 other bore a striking resemblance in her beauty and amia- 
 bility to his cousin, Harriet Grove, of whom I shall have to 
 speak. . . . The dead languages were to him as bitter a pill 
 •as they had been to Byron, but he acquired them, as it were, 
 intuitively, and seemingly without study, for during school- 
 hours he was wont to gaze at the passing clouds — all that 
 could be seen from the lofty windows which his desk fronted 
 — or watch the swallows as they flitted past, with longing for 
 their wings ; or would scrawl in his school-books — a habit 
 he always continued — rude drawings of pines and cedars, 
 in memory of those on the lawn of his native home. On 
 these occasions, our master would sometimes peep over his 
 shoulder, and greet his ears with no pleasing salutation. 
 
 Our pedagogue, when he was in one of his good humours, 
 dealt also in what he called facetia, and when we came 
 to the imprisonment of the winds in the Cave of Eolus, 
 as described in the ".iCneid," used, to the merriment of the 
 
22 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 school, who enjoyed the joke much, to indulge in Cotton's * 
 parody on the passage, prefacing it with an observation that 
 his father never forgave him for the Travestie. . . . Shelley 
 afterwards expressed to me his disgust at this bad taste, for 
 he never could endure obscenity in any form. 
 
 A scene that to poor Shelley, who, instead of laughing, 
 had made a face at the silly attempt at wit, and which his 
 preceptor had probably observed, has often recurred to me. 
 A few days after this, he had a theme set him for two Latin 
 lines on the subject of Tempestas. He came to me to 
 assist him in the task. Shelley, acting on a hint from me, 
 made use of the following distich from Ovid's " Tristibus," 
 (the doctor was acquainted onlywith the "Metamorphoses"): 
 
 Me miserum ! quanti monies volvuntur aquarum ! 
 Jam jam tacturos sidera celsa putes. 
 
 When Shelley's turn came to carry up his exercise, my 
 eyes were turned on the Dominie. There was a peculiar 
 expression in his features, which, like the lightning before 
 the storm, portended what was coming. When he came 
 to the lines, he read them with a loud voice, laying a 
 sarcastic emphasis on every word, and suiting the action 
 to the word by boxes on each side of Shelley's ears. 
 Then came the comment : "Jam, jam ! Pooh, pooh, boy ! 
 raspberry jam! Do you think you are at your mother's?" 
 Here a burst of laughter echoed through the listening 
 tenches. " Don't you know that I have a sovereign objec- 
 tion to those two monosyllables with which schoolboys 
 cram their verses ? Haven't I told you so a hundred times 
 already ? Tacturos . . . sidera . . . celsa . . . putes — -what, do 
 the waves on the coast of Sussex strike the stars, eh ? — celsa 
 sidera — who does not know that the stars are high ? Where 
 did you find that epithet ? In your ' Gradus ad Parnassum,' 
 I suppose. You will never mount so high" (another box 
 on the ears which nearly felled him to the ground). " Putes ! 
 you may think this very fine, but to me it is all balder- 
 dash, hyperbolical stuff" (another cuff), after which he 
 
 * Charles Cotton (1630-1687), known by his burlesque 
 poems and translations. He brought out Scarron's works in 
 .English, with the title of " Scarronides; or, Virgil Travestied," 
 and " Lucian Burlesqu'd ; or, the Scoffer ScofiPd." He also 
 translated Montaigne's Essays, 1759, 3 vols. 
 
 Cotton's parodies were very popular in England ; we 
 have a copy of the fifth edition of his Virgil (1756). 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. 23 
 
 tore up the verses, and said in a fury: ''There, go now, 
 sir, and see if you can't write something better." 
 
 Shelley passed among his schoolfellows as a strange and 
 unsocial being, for when a holiday relieved us from our 
 tasks, and the other boys were engaged in such sports as 
 the narrow limits of our prison-court allowed, Shelley, who 
 entered into none of them, would pace backwards and for- 
 wards — I think I see him now — along the southern wall, 
 indulging in various vague and undefined ideas, the chaotic 
 elements, if I may say so, of what afterwards produced so 
 beautiful a world. I very early learned to penetrate into this 
 soul sublime — why may I not say divine, for what is there 
 that comes nearer to God than genius in the heart of a 
 child .'' I, too, was the only one at the school with whom he 
 could communicate his sufferings or exchange ideas. I was, 
 indeed, some years his senior, and he was grateful to me for 
 so often singling him out for a companion, for it is well 
 known that it is considered in some degree a condescension 
 for boys to make intimates of those in a lower form than 
 themselves. Then we used to walk together up and down 
 his favourite spot, and there he would outpour his sorrows 
 to me, with observations far beyond his years, and which, 
 .according to his after ideas, seemed to have sprung from 
 an antenatal life. I have often thought that he had these 
 walks of outs in mind, when in describing an antique 
 group he says : " Look, the figures are walking with a 
 ■sauntering and idle pace, and talking to each other as 
 they walk, as you may have seen an elder and a younger 
 boy at school, walking in some grassy spot of the play- 
 ground, with that tender friendship for each other which 
 the age inspires." 
 
 If Shelley abominated one task more than another it 
 was a dancing lesson. At a ball at Willis's Rooms, where, 
 among other pupils of Sala, I made one, an aunt of mine, 
 to whom the letter No. i in the Appendix was addressed, 
 asked the dancing master why Bysshe was not present, 
 to which he replied in his broken English-: " Mon Dieu, 
 madarae, what should he do here ? Master Shelley will 
 not learn anyting— he is so gauche." In fact, he contrived 
 to abscond as often as possible from the dancing lessons, 
 and when forced to attend, suffered inexpressibly. 
 
 Meanwhile, careless and idle as he appeared, 
 Shelley was outstripping all his schoolfellows. 
 His imagination was fed on wonderful tales and 
 stories. He devoured every book that came in 
 
24 SHELLEY-THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 his way, especially the little sixpenny .volumes 
 bound in blue wrappers telling of fairies, giants, 
 monsters, bandits, assassins, and magicians; 
 amongst others was the story of " Peter Wilkins 
 and His Flying Wives," which had a singular 
 charm for him. For want of a school library 
 the boys used to go secretly to a small circulating 
 library at Brentford, and there lay in a provision of 
 forbidden goods, including the works of Richardson, 
 Fielding, and Smollett. But these were too tame, 
 too sober, too realistic for the soaring imagination 
 of Shelley. He liked tales of thrilling adventure, 
 of heroic and superhuman passion. The romances 
 of Mrs. Radcliffe and of Rosa Matilda (Mrs. Byrne) 
 were more to his taste. One of the latter, " Zofloya, 
 or the Moor,"* influenced him much as Byron 
 was influenced by John Moore's " Zeluco." From 
 "Zeluco" came " Childe Harold," and "Zofloya" 
 inspired the romances written by Shelley in his 
 sixteenth year. 
 
 As was the case with Milton, Schiller, and 
 Goethe, this constant dwelling on the marvellous 
 had a decisive influence in directing the bent of 
 his imagination. The harsh realities of life had 
 already driven him to the realms of fiction, where 
 he found the realisation of his youthful ideals, and 
 we must not be surprised if at that period he had 
 faith in prodigies, in apparitions, in the evocation 
 of the dead. To this, indeed, he often alludes in 
 his later works, although such childish superstitions 
 had then lost their hold on him. But to Shelley, 
 Poetry always remained the great enchantress, who 
 by a touch of her wand creates another earth, 
 another heaven, and other men, and produces at 
 will a supernatural spell that lifts us above the 
 dull and prosaic realities of life. 
 
 Such a state of poetical excitement, at a time 
 
 * Translated into French by Madame de Viterne, 4 vols., 
 1812. 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. 25 
 
 ■when his constitution was still unformed, neces- 
 sarily affected his organisation and engendered, as 
 it were, a second intellectual life, resembling 
 hallucination or waking dreams. 
 
 "He was subject," says Medwin, "to strange 
 and sometimes frightful dreams, and was haunted 
 by apparitions that bore all the semblance of 
 reality. ... He was given to waking dreams, a 
 sort of lethargy and abstraction that became 
 habitual to him, and after the fit was over, his 
 eyes flashed, his lips quivered, his voice was 
 tremulous with emotion, a sort of ecstasy came 
 over him, and he talked more like a spirit or an 
 angel than a human being." 
 
 During Shelley's second or third year at Sion 
 House, Adam Walker, a learned astronomer, de- 
 livered some lectures and exhibited his orrery in 
 the large hall of the academy. This was a new 
 revelation to Shelley; he was startled at the 
 calculations of astronomy, and delighted with the 
 idea of the plurality of Worlds. 
 
 The infinite spaces of the heavens became full 
 of new meanings, they were peopled by him with 
 wonderful and superhuman beings ; and his imagi- 
 nation began to build up, partly on scientific bases 
 and partly on his own conceptions, that strange 
 and wonderful cosmography which played so 
 important a part in the greater number of his 
 poetical creations. " Saturn," says Medwin, 
 " which was then visible, and which we after- . 
 wards looked at through a telescope, particularly 
 interested him, its atmosphere seeming to him an 
 irrefragable proof of its being inhabited like our 
 globe. He dilated on some planets being more 
 favoured than ourselves, and was enchanted with 
 the idea that we should, as spirits, make the grand 
 tour through the heavens. . . . He was equally 
 charmed with chemical experiments, particularly 
 with the fact that earth, air, and water are not 
 
26 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 simple elements. This course of lectures ended 
 with the solar microscope, which .... constituted 
 to most of us ... . the most attractive part of 
 
 the exhibition and afterwards he made a 
 
 solar microscope his constant companion." The 
 noblest use to which he put it was, doubtless, ' 
 when one day it was pawned by him in order 
 to pay the debts of some poor fellow.* 
 
 Towards the end of his stay at Brentford 
 (i8oS) Shelley met with one of those exquisite 
 natures towards which he was attracted by his 
 own pure and affectionate heart. It is not un- 
 common — especially in England, where, owing 
 to the system of education, family ties are easily 
 broken, or, at the least, but little fostered — for 
 boys to seek a substitute for home affections in 
 school friendships, which, in such cases, become 
 fervent. Byron, too, had been enthusiastic in 
 such attachments. In one of his note-books 
 he had copied the following sentence from 
 Marmontel : 
 
 " Friendship which in the world is barely a 
 sentiment, amounts to a passion in the cloister." f 
 
 Shelley was even more adapted than Byron 
 to taste the exquisite happiness of impassioned 
 friendship, and for a short while he enjoyed 
 that happiness at Brentford. An affection of 
 this ideal nature sprang up between himself and 
 a boy of the same age, whose name we do not 
 know. , 
 
 Shortly -before his death he put in writing 
 
 * An ingenuous and touching testimony to Shelley's 
 generosity and tenderness of heart, is given us by his father's 
 serving-man, Lucas, whose duty it was to accompany the 
 boy in his rides about Field Place, and to put out his candle 
 when he had been reading in bed. " He was so generous, 
 that if he met with any one in distress he would give lavishly, 
 and if he had no money of his own, he used to borrow of me." 
 Nor did this kind-hearted generosity ever diminish. 
 ■ i Moore's " Memoirs of Lord Byron," Vol. L, p. 76. 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. vj 
 
 a recollection of this romantic episode of his 
 school-days at Brentford : * 
 
 The nature of love and friendship is very little under- 
 stood, and the distinctions between them ill-established. 
 This latter feeling — at least a profound and sentimental 
 attachment to one of the same sex — often precedes the 
 former. It is not right to say, merely, that friendship is 
 •exempt from the smallest alloy of sensuality. It rejects 
 with disdain all thoughts but those of an elevated and 
 imaginative character. I remember forming an attach- 
 ment of this kind at school. . . . 
 
 The object of these sentiments was a boy about my own 
 -age, of a character eminently generous, brave, and gentle ; 
 and the elements of human feeling seemed to have been, from 
 Tiis birth, genially compounded within him. There was a deli- 
 cacy and a simplicity in his manners inexpressibly attractive. 
 It has never been my fortune to meet with him since 
 my schoolboy days ; but, either I confound my present 
 recollections with the delusions of past feelings, or he is 
 now a source of honour and utility to every one around 
 Jiim. The tones of his voice were so soft and winning 
 that every word pierced into my heart ; and their pathos 
 •was so deep, that in listening to him the tears have 
 involuntarily gushed from my eyes. Such was the being 
 for whom I first experienced the sacred sentiments of 
 friendship. I remember in my simplicity, writing to my 
 mother a long account of his admirable qualities, and my 
 own devoted attachment. I suppose she thought me out 
 of my wits, for she returned no answer to my letter. I 
 remember we used to walk the whole play-hours up and 
 down by some moss-covered palings, pouring out our 
 hearts in youthful talk. We used to speak of the ladies 
 with whom we were in love, and I remember that our 
 usual practice was to confirm each other in the everlasting 
 fidelity in which we had bound ourselves towards them 
 and towards each other. I recollect thinking my friend 
 exquisitely beautiful. Every night when we parted to go 
 to bed we kissed each other like children, as we still were. 
 
 * " Fragment of an Essay on Friendship." Forman, 
 Shelley's Prose Works, II., p. 407. Mr. Dowden names as 
 the friend to whom Shelley possibly alludes, a schoolfellow 
 named Tredcroft, who, like Shelley, was thought a peculiar 
 character, was possessed of considerable poetical talent, and 
 ■died young. 
 
28 SHELLEY-THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Up to this period in his life, tenderness, 
 delicacy, especially moral delicacy, predominated 
 in Shelley, together with a love of the marvellous, 
 a tendency to reverie, and an ecstatic sense of 
 poetry. But he was far from being, as Mr. 
 Jeaffreson would imply, an enervated, doll-like 
 creature, regretting his mother's apron-strings.* 
 Endowed with feminine delicacy and sensibility, 
 he also displayed, from earliest childhood, an 
 unconquerable will, an unusual manliness and 
 strength of character, and he showed a perfect 
 consciousness of these two sides of his nature 
 when, after shedding tears at the sight of human 
 misery, he predicted of himself: "I will be meek 
 and bold ! " It is just because those two minds, 
 those two sides of human nature, were united 
 in him that he was a perfect poet. If, on the 
 one hand, he is the poet of woman through his 
 charm, his sweetness, and his morbidezsa, on the 
 other he is still more the poet of great thoughts, 
 of strong passions, of all that is most energetic 
 and masculine in man. To him we may apply 
 the allegory of the mysterious Hermaphrodite, 
 symbol of Art and Beauty kneaded and shaped 
 by the hands of his Witch of Atlas, this Herma- 
 phrodite being none other than himself : f 
 
 Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow 
 Together, tempering the repugnant mass 
 
 With Hquid love — all things together grow- 
 Through which the harmony of love can pass ; 
 
 And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow, 
 
 A living Image which did far surpass 
 In beauty that bright shape of vital stone 
 Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion. 
 
 * " He was a gentle English girl rather than a gentle 
 English boy."— Vol. I., p. 68. 
 
 t "The Witch of Atlas," xxxv. — xxxvii. 
 
EARLY YEARS OF SHELLEY. 29 
 
 A sexless thing it was, and in its growth 
 It seemed to have developed no defect 
 
 Of either sex, yet all the grace of both, — 
 
 In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked ; 
 
 The bosom lightly swelled with its full youth. 
 The countenance was such as might select 
 
 Some artist that his skill should never die. 
 
 Imaging forth such perfect purity. 
 
 From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings, 
 Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere, 
 
 Tipt with the speed of liquid lightenings. 
 Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SHELLEY AT ETON — 1804-1809. 
 
 Shelley entered Eton in July, 1804, and re- 
 mained there until the end of 1809. 
 
 There was then at Eton a man whose severity 
 has become proverbial, and old Keate's time is 
 still spoken of in the school. Compared- with 
 him, Dr. Greenlaw's yoke was light. The boys, 
 declared that his name was derived from x^'^t 
 I shed ; ot"), woe. Hogg, with his habitual 
 humour, has sketched for us the portrait of this 
 modern Orbilius : 
 
 Dr. Keate, the head master of Eton School, was a short, 
 short-necked, short-legged man ; thick-set, powerful, and 
 very active. His countenance resembled that of a bull- 
 dog ; the expression was not less sweet and bewitching ; 
 his eyes, his nose, and especially his mouth, were exactly 
 like that comely and engaging animal, and so were his 
 short, crooked legs. It was said in the school, that old 
 Keate could pin and hold a bull with his teeth. His iron 
 sjyay was the more unpleasant and shocking, after the 
 long, mild, Saturnian reign of Dr. Goodall, whose temper, 
 character, and conduct corresponded precisely with his 
 name, and under whom Keate had been master of the 
 lower school. Discipline, wholesome and necessary in 
 moderation, was carried by him to an excess ; it is re- 
 ported, that on one morning he flogged eighty boys. Al- 
 though he was rigid, coarse, and despotical, some affirm 
 that, on the whole, he was not unjust, nor altogether devoid 
 
SHELLEY AT ^'rOiV- 1804- 1809. 31 
 
 of kindness. His behaviour was accounted vulgar and un- 
 gentlemanlike, and therefore he was peculiarly odious to 
 the gentlemen of the school, especially to the refined and 
 aristocratical Shelley. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding all his peculiarities, Dr. 
 Keate was an excellent teacher and an upright 
 man. "We must not hold lightly," writes one 
 of his pupils, ;'the man who has flogged half 
 the ministers, secretaries, bishops, generals, and 
 dukes of the present century." 
 
 The scholars were worthy of the master. 
 Fagging was a.; institution at Eton as well as 
 at Sion Hou=e. Shelley, not satisfied «with re- 
 fusing to obey liis fag-master, Matthews,* declared 
 war on the system, and stood apart from the 
 whole school, for by declining to submit to 
 tyranny from one, he drew on himself the hatred 
 and vengeance of all ; and the boy-tyrants, when 
 their dearest prerogatives were assailed, made use 
 of the same arguments against the rebel as did 
 the privileged classes at a later date, when 
 Shelley lifted up his voice against their hypocrisy 
 and prejudice, and endeavoured to combat the 
 social fagging, from which he would fain have 
 delivered his country and all mankind, by 
 reason. 
 
 At Eton his schoolfellows jeered at him, hooted 
 him, pelted him with mud ; afterwards grown 
 men to whom he spoke of liberty, peace, and love, 
 derided, cursed, and banished him. 
 
 " I have seen him," wrote an eye-witness of 
 these daily scenes of cruelty, " surrounded, hooted, 
 baited like a maddened bull, and at this distance 
 of time (forty years after), I seem to hear ringing 
 
 * Matthews obtained some popularity through his "Diary 
 of an Invalid." Among his older schoolfellows were Milman, 
 John Colei'idge, Summer, and Nassau Senior, the great 
 interviewer of the men of the Second Empire. 
 
32 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE PO£T. 
 
 in my ears the cry which Shelley was wont to 
 utter in his paroxysm of revengeful anger." 
 
 He was nicknamed Mad Shelley. 
 
 But his couragj;.and constancy were rewarded. 
 His tormentors were sooner weariezi^of their cruelty 
 than he of enduring and resisting St^ The Eton 
 boys recognised at last the strength anM gentleness 
 of his nature, the incontestable suprerftacy of his 
 character and talents.* They u'naniirfcusly be- 
 stowed on him the title of Lord High Atheist, as 
 signifying he was the chief of the ij^ffjpendents 
 and contemners of the Eton gods, Dfr. Keate and 
 the higher powers of the school, l^his title made 
 him still more odious to the authorirties. 
 
 Happily at Windsor he met with a Mentor 
 worthy of him, in the imja ^Yate neighbourhood of 
 Eton. Dr. James LiflS^ a- learned physician and 
 chemist, who was popularly considered a kind of 
 conjuror, became his protector, guide, and friend. 
 Ariel had found his Prospero, and Shelley lavished 
 on the good old man all the tenderness and 
 affection his father had failed to win from him. 
 He writes of him : 
 
 This man is exactly what an old man ought to be, freei 
 cahn-spirited, full of benevolence, and even of youthful 
 ardour ; his eye seemed to burn with supernatural spirit 
 beneath his brow, shaded by his venerable white locks ; he 
 was tall, vigorous, and healthy in his body; tempered, as it 
 had ever been, by his amiable mind. I owe to that man far, 
 zh ! far more than I owe to my father ; he loved me, and 
 I shall never forget our long talks, where he breathed tlie 
 spirit of the kindest tolerance and the purest wisdom. 
 
 Far from forgetting him, as Mr. Jeaffreson 
 hints, Shelley has enshrined Dr. Lind in his 
 verse; and has depicted him as that type of old 
 age in which all ancient virtue and knowledge 
 
 * At Oxford Shelley used to exhibit with pride the books 
 his schoolfellows had given him on his leaving Eton. Their 
 names were duly inscribed therein. 
 
SHELLEY AT ETON— i8o\-i8og. 33. 
 
 are incarnate, as well as every lovable quality 
 which formed Shelley's ideal sage. Zonaras, in 
 " Prince Athanase," and the aged hermit delivering 
 Laon from prison, are but more or less idealised 
 portraits of the poet's Eton Mentor. It is not 
 surprising that this gentle, tolerant old man 
 should have met with the severe censure of 
 Shelley's enemies. In Zonaras, Mr. Jeaffreson 
 sees only a wicked and blaspheming person, 
 a bitter buffoon, an apothecary, a lost soul. It 
 is thus that our French Jeaffresons have treated 
 our great Littre. Dr. Lind's worst crime in the 
 eyes of this critic seems to be that he did not 
 profess so much esteem and affection for " poor old 
 George III." as Mr. Jeaffreson considers his due ! 
 
 Dr. Lind's sharp onslaughts on the royal 
 personages of the time found, no doubt, a readjr 
 echo in the boyish, generous heart. Through a 
 bitter experience of life Shelley's innate hatred 
 of tyranny under whatever form — even when 
 assuming the venerable name of father — had 
 grown and strengthened. That this hatred may 
 have gone so far as to make him forget the 
 respect due to Mr. Timothy Shelley, and to 
 allow his name to become the laughing-stock 
 of his schoolfellows, we will not attenipt to 
 deny ; but we may be allowed to offer an ex- 
 planation of so singular a circumstance, and one 
 which seems to reflect on his goodness of heart. 
 One of the most characteristic marks of Shelley 
 is the logical absolutism of his moral ideas. The 
 principles of philosophy, and still more the 
 principles of morality, ruled his mind so strongly, 
 and his intellect was so completely swayed by 
 their logical consequences and deductions, that 
 he was incapacitated from taking note of the 
 finer gradations of thought or sentiment that 
 would have modified the rigidity and diminished 
 the harshness of a less logical mind. Shelley 
 
34 
 
 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 could never have understood Pascal's aphorism : 
 "The heart has reasons that Reason does not 
 acknowledge." 
 
 But Shelley's grievances were not merely 
 philosophical or general. If we may believe 
 him, Mr. Timothy Shelley incurred his hatred 
 by endeavouring to place him in a madhouse. 
 Even if this were a pure hallucination, as some 
 of the poet's biographers have believed, it is 
 certain that the idea produced a state of terror, 
 and that it was one of the motives he habitually 
 alleged to his friends for a frequent change of 
 residence. 
 
 Hogg gives us Shelley's own words on the 
 subject : 
 
 Once, when I was very ill during the holidays, as I was 
 recovering from a fever which had attacked my brain, a 
 servant overheard my father consult about sending me to a 
 private madhouse. I was a favourite among all our servants, 
 so this feUow came and told me as I , lay sick in bed. My 
 horror was beyond words, and I might soon have been mad 
 indeed, if they had proceeded in their iniquitous plan. I 
 had one hope. I was master of three pounds in money, arid, 
 with the servant's help, I contrived to send an express to 
 Dr. Lind. He came, and I shall never forget his manner on 
 that occasion. His profession gave him authority ; his love 
 for me ardour. He dared my father to execute his purpose, 
 and his menaces had the desired effect. 
 
 The most important result of Dr. Lind's 
 influence over Shelley was his initiation into the 
 love of scientific research and the true appre- 
 ciation of the fine works of antiquity. Under 
 his guidance the young Etonian read " The 
 Banquet" of Plato, whose "words of light" he 
 was destined to translate at a later period, and 
 the works of Pliny the Elder, " clear-sighted and 
 benevolent Pliny," as he called him. The chapter 
 " De Deo " came to him as a revelation, and 
 doubtless sowed in his intellect the first germs 
 of atheism. In his notes on "Queen Mab" we 
 
SHELLEY AT ETON— iSo4-iSog. 35 
 
 shall find it cited in the front rank of the 
 authorities he brings forward. He also trans- 
 lated part of the ''Natural History/' but was 
 stopped by the chapters on Astronomy. 
 
 In his passionate pursuit of science Shelley 
 did not confine himself to reading. His thirst 
 for the unknown and the marvellous led him 
 to seek by practical experiment for the key of 
 the mysteries of alchemy, to which he felt strongly 
 attracted. Being in the ' enjoyment of greater 
 liberty than at Brentford, he devoted himself to 
 making all the experiments that were in his 
 power, and for which he could find an oppor- 
 tunity. With his solar microscope he set fire to 
 a train of gunpowder, and set ablaze an old 
 tree-stump ; * at night he disturbed the whole 
 house by upsetting a frying-pan full of chemical 
 explosives into his fire ; or he might be found in a 
 state of ecstasy over the beautiful coloured flames 
 •of which chemistry had taught him the secret. 
 
 One of the Eton tutors, Mr. Bethell, nick- 
 named "Botch Bethell," in whose house Shelley 
 boarded — " one of the dullest fellows in the place," 
 says Packe — coming one day to Shelley's room, 
 found him entranced before the exquisitely 
 beautiful blue flames in which he delighted. 
 Mr. Bethell inquired what he was about. 
 Shelley replied he was raising the devil ! The 
 tutor thereupon seizing hold of a mysterious- 
 looking apparatus on the table, was suddenly 
 and violently thrown back against the wall. He 
 had touched the handle of a highly-charged 
 electric battery. 
 
 Shelley continued his various experiments 
 during the holidays at Field Place, to the wonder- 
 
 * Mr. JeafFreson expends many pages in deploring with 
 much pathos the fate of the owner of the old stump, the 
 responsibility incurred by Shelley's masters, and the risk of 
 fire to the college buildings. Excellent Mr. Jeaffreson ! 
 
 D 2 
 
36 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 ing terror of his sisters. Helen, in one of her 
 letters, gives the following interesting account : 
 
 I confess my pleasure was entirely negatived by terror. 
 .... Whenever he came to me with his piece of folded 
 brown packing-paper under his arm, and a bit of wire and 
 a bottle (if I remember right), my heart would sink with fear 
 at his approach ; but shame kept me silent, and, with as 
 many others as he could collect, we were placed hand-in- 
 hand round the nursery table to be electrified ; but when 
 a suggestion was made that chilblains were to be cured 
 by this means, my terror overwhelmed all other feelings, and 
 the. expression of it released me from all future annoyance. 
 ... His hands and clothes were constantly stained and 
 corroded by mineral acids, and it seemed but too probable 
 that in the rash ardour of experiment he would set the house 
 on fire, or that he would blind, maim, or kill himself by the 
 explosion of combustibles. He himself used to speak with 
 horror of the consequences of having inadvertently swallowed 
 through accident some mineral poison, I think arsenic, at 
 Eton, which he declared had not only seriously injured his 
 health, but that he feared he should never entirely recover 
 the shock it had inflicted on his constitution. 
 
 The marvellous played an important part in 
 the games invented by Shelley for the amusement 
 of his sisters. He used to dress them up as 
 angels, or fiends, and would entertain them with 
 tragical and fantastic stories about the " Great 
 Tortoise " that had lived for ages in Warnham 
 Pond, or the " Old Snake " that for three hundred 
 years had inhabited the gardens of Field Place 
 But that which appealed most vividly to the 
 imagination of the little girls, was the story of 
 the alchemist Cornehus Agrippa himself. Ac- 
 cording to Shelley, this old magician lived in 
 the flesh in a large garret, which communi- 
 cated with the playroom. When his sisters' 
 impatience to behold this mysterious being with 
 the long beard became most eager, Shelley would 
 calm them by promising they should see him on the 
 day when he left the garret for the subterranean 
 cavern they were to dig for him in the orchard. 
 
SHELLEY AT £'7'0A^— 1804- 1809. 37 
 
 Shelley's experiments ended by causing such 
 anxiety to the Eton authorities, that the study of 
 chemistry was strictly prohibited. 
 
 There is little doubt that our poet's ardour for 
 natural and chemical science was but a superficial 
 passion, fed, for the most part, by his love of 
 the unknown and marvellous, but it would be 
 unjust to attribute it with Mr. Jeaffreson solely 
 to the "moral perversity" that attracted him 
 to forbidden fruit, and in which Shelley himself 
 seems to take pride when he says, in " Laon and 
 Cythna":* 
 
 And from that hour did I with earnest thought 
 Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore; 
 
 Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught, 
 1 cared to learn. . . . 
 
 He was perfectly aware of the absence of 
 any culture of science in the classical curricu- 
 lum of Oxford; his intuitive and perspicacious 
 genius perceived the immense field open to 
 students of positive science, that " unjealous 
 heiress" of the secrets of alchemy, and he 
 was especially interested in the benefits that it 
 must necessarily procure for the human race. We 
 shall find him afterwards enthusiastic in the pro- 
 jnotion of a scheme for steamers, and he would 
 have been delighted to launch the first of these 
 ■on the Mediterranean. 
 
 If Shelley is often found during his education 
 in opposition to the teachings or the spirit of 
 his teachers, the reason is that their spirit and 
 ■those teachings appeared to him narrow, retro- 
 gressive, and inimical to all real progress. His 
 only error was to have set up too high and too 
 sublime a moral standard, and to have insisted, 
 in spite of all opposition, on conforming his life 
 and conduct to that ideal. In so far he was like 
 
 * Dedication, Stanza v. 
 
38 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Milton, who also had revolted against the Cam- 
 bridge rules, and had refused to bear a yoke 
 which was to him intolerable : 
 
 Nee duri libet usque minas perferre magistri, 
 CcEteraque ingenio non subeunda meo. 
 
 No diatribe of Shelley's enemies will, however? 
 convince, when contrasted with the formal testi- 
 mony in his favour offered by many of his school- 
 fellows, and in particular by W. G. Hajliday, in 
 the following letter, which we quote as containing 
 the most complete portrait of the Eton boy that 
 has come to us : * 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 
 Your letter has taken me back to the sunny time of 
 boyhood, "when thought is speech, and speech is truth ;" 
 when I was the friend and companion of Shelley at Eton. 
 What brought us together in that small world was, I 
 suppose, kindred feelings and the predominance of fancy 
 and imagination. Many a long and happy walk have I 
 had with him in the beautiful neighbourhood of dear old 
 Eton. We used to wander for hours about Clewer, Frog- 
 more, the Park at Windsor, the Terrace ; and I was a 
 delighted and willing listener to his marvellous stories of 
 faif yland, and apparitions, and spirits, and haunted ground ;. 
 and his speculations were then (for his mind was far more 
 developed than mine) of the world beyond the grave. 
 Another of his favourite rambles was Stoke Park, and the 
 picturesque churchyard where Gray is said to have written 
 his Elegy, of which he was very fond. I was myself far 
 too young to form any estimate of character, but I loved 
 Shelley for his kindliness and affectionate ways ; he was- 
 not made to endure the rough and boisterous pastime at 
 Etoii, and his shy and gentle nature was glad to escape 
 far away to muse over strange fancies, for his mind was 
 reflective and teeming with deep thought. His lessons 
 were child's play to him, and his power of Latin versifica- 
 tion marvellous. I think I remember some long work he 
 had even then commenced, but I never saw it. His love 
 of nature was intense, and the sparkling poetry of his 
 mind shone out of his speaking eye, when he was dwelling 
 
 * The letter is dated 1857. 
 
SHELLEY AT ETON—i%o\-\%o<). 39 
 
 on anything good or great. He certainly was not happy 
 at Eton, for his was a disposition that needed especial 
 personal superintendence, to watch, and cherish and direct 
 all his noble aspirations, and the remarkable tenderness 
 of his heart. He had great moral courage, and feared 
 nothing but what was base, and false, and low. He never 
 joined in the usual sports of the boys, and what is remark- 
 able, never went out in a boat on the river. . . . When 
 leaving Oxford under a cloud, he said to me : " Halliday, 
 1 am come to say good-bye to you, if you are not afraid 
 to be seen with me ! " I saw him once again in the 
 autumn of 1814, in London, when he was glad to intro- 
 duce me to his wife. 
 
 In the midst of his philosophy and scientific 
 pursuits, the young Etonian did not neglect 
 literature, and he manifested^ in an uncommon 
 degree, every aptitude for becoming an eminent 
 scholar. At fourteen he knew Latin sufficiently 
 well to write the language elegantly in prose and 
 verse ; in fact, in Latin verse he was unrivalled. 
 Medwin has preserved for us some specimens of 
 his talent in this line, and among others a transla- 
 tion of the epitaph in Gray's well-Tcnown " Elegy 
 written in a Country Churchyard." Shelley must 
 have written these verses with delight.* He 
 
 * Hie sinu fessum caput hospitali 
 Cespitis dormit juvenis ; nee illi 
 Fata ridebant, popularis ille 
 Nescius auras. 
 
 Musa non vultu genus arroganti 
 Rustici natum grege despicata ; 
 Et suum tristis puerum notavit 
 SoUicitudo. 
 
 Indoles illi bene larga ; pectus 
 Veritas sedem sibi vindicavit ; 
 Et pari tantis meritis beavit 
 Munere coelum. 
 
 Omne quod moestis habuit misero 
 Corde largivit, lacrymam ; recepit 
 Omne quod ccelo voluit, fidelis 
 Pectus amici. 
 
40 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 recognised himself in more than one line of that 
 epitaph. A youth on whom Fortune would not 
 smile, because he despised popularity ; a poet led 
 by the Muses away from the crowd, and marked 
 by Melancholy from childhood ; a soul the abode 
 of Sincerity ; a heart whose large bounty gave to 
 Misery all he had — a tear, and gained from heaven 
 all he wished — a friend ; this description fits 
 Shelley to perfection, and as he penned those 
 lines, the Eton boy must have foreseen a similar 
 epitaph for himself. 
 
 To the study of the dead languages Shelley 
 added that of his own, and practised himself in 
 the composition of English prose and verse. He 
 and his schoolfellow Amos wrote some little plays 
 together, which they acted before another boy 
 of the same age, who was their sole audience ; and 
 once during his holidays he and his eldest sister 
 wrote a play and sent it to Matthews the comedian, 
 who returned the manuscript with the courteous 
 reply that it would not do for acting. 
 
 It might not have been easy to predicate from 
 these childish attempts the future author of " The 
 Cenci," but it is certain that even then he loved 
 and appreciated the "tender wisdom" of one whom 
 he looked upon as without a rival, and set above 
 all poets of all time — the author of Ki7ig Lear, 
 " the most perfect specimen of dramatic art in the 
 world." 
 
 His mind was full of Shakespeare, and as he 
 lightly ran up or down the stairs in Mr. Hexter's 
 
 Longius sed tu fuge curiosus 
 Cffiteras laudes fuge suspicari ; 
 Casteras culpas fuge velle tractas 
 Sede tremenda. 
 
 Spe tremescentes recubant in illi 
 Sede virtutes pariterque culpje, 
 In sui Patris gremio, tremenda 
 Sede Deique. 
 
SHELLEY AT ETOJV-~i8o4.-iSog. 41 
 
 house, he would be gaily singing the rhyme of 
 the witches in Macbeth: 
 
 Double, double, toil and trouble, 
 Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 
 
 Besides verse-making during his holidays from 
 Eton, he tried to initiate his sisters into the 
 mysteries of poetry and versification.* A good 
 many specimens of his verse at that time have 
 come down to us. We shall find them hereafter 
 in one of his romances. 
 
 These romances were Shelley's most important 
 ■work while at Eton. His biographers and critics 
 have, to our mind, passed over too lightly these 
 imaginative and romantic effusions of the youthful 
 Shelley. They cannot be ignored without leaving 
 a blank in the history of his mental development. 
 
 The Eton romance-writer is an explanation of 
 the Oxford atheist and the poet of " Queen Mab ; " 
 and the germ of Shelley as poet, philosopher, and 
 moralist, is contained in novels written by him in 
 his sixteenth year. 
 
 Some years ago a subscription was begun by 
 Mr. Oscar Browning, then a master at Eton, 
 to set up a bust of Shelley among the Eton 
 celebrities. The Provost of Eton forbade it, and 
 the subscription list, which had already reached a 
 considerable sum, was suspended. The name of 
 that Provost of Eton deserves to be recorded. It 
 Tvas Dr. Goodford. 
 
 * " His first lesson to me," writes his sister Helen, " I 
 perfectly remember. There were several short poems, I 
 think, of which he gave me the subject, and one line about 
 ' an old woman in her bonny gown ' (even the rhyme to which 
 I forget) ehcited the praise for which I wrote. Subsequently 
 he hid them printed, and the mistake I made about sending 
 one of my heroes or heroines out by night and day in the 
 same stanza he would not alter, but excused it by quoting 
 something from Shakespeare." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMANCE — 
 "ZASTROZZi" — "ST. IRVYNE" — 1809-181O. 
 
 With Shelley to conceive was to execute, whether 
 in literature and poetry or in life. He felt an 
 imperious need of communicating his ideal- of 
 beauty and goodness to his fellow-men ; in what 
 form mattered not so long as it conveyed his 
 impressions faithfully. Hence his thirst for 
 publication during the years at Eton, hence his 
 longing that no spark of beauty or of love should 
 be lost to the world ; and endowed as he was 
 with the faculty of appropriating everything in 
 harmony with his own attraction towards the 
 marvellous, the gigantic, and the supernatural, 
 it is not surprising that he chose his models among 
 the authors of the sublime horrors, the extravagant 
 tales, the romantic and sentimental ballads that 
 were just then produced in profusion in England. 
 He had shuddered and grown pale in reading 
 them, and while still full of his conceptions and 
 still palpitating with divine emotion, he attempted 
 to make others shudder and grow pale in their 
 turn. 
 
 In April, 18 lo, Messrs. Wilkie & Robinson 
 brought out a novel entitled " Zastrozzi/' * by 
 P. B. S. 
 
 * " Zastrozzi " was unfavourably reviewed in tlie Critical 
 Review for November, 1810. The only interesting point 
 
SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMANCE. 43 
 
 Mr. Rossetti wonders how any real live 
 publisher was found to give forty pounds for 
 the privilege of publishing such a rhapsody, or 
 reviewers to criticise and expose its alleged im- 
 morality. It is, no doubt, far from being a 
 masterpiece; it is in the blood-and-thunder style 
 of Mrs. Radcliffe and of Lewis, and while 
 exaggerating the defects of their style, it betrays 
 in every line the most ingenuous inexperience of 
 literary composition, without sequence, or variety, 
 or probability. But in judging it we must not forget 
 that the author, when he wrote it,* was a youth 
 of seventeen or eighteen, and on a near inspection, 
 it is possible to discern in many passages germs 
 of the brilliant qualities as well as of the defects 
 that mark his early poetical works. The characters 
 sketched out in the novel reappear in after years 
 transfigured by the magic pen of the poet; the 
 hero of " Zastrozzi " becomes the hero of " Laon 
 and Cythna," and more than one episode of the 
 novel is repeated in the poem. 
 
 After all, one feels a human heart beating 
 through it, one hears the voice of true, strong 
 passion, something of the stirring and tragic 
 eloquence that bursts forth in " The Cenci." 
 
 "Though quite uncharacteristic of me as I 
 now am," wrote Shelley three years after the 
 appearance of "Zastrozzi," "nevertheless these 
 romances serve to mark the state of my mind 
 at the period of their composition." f 
 
 in the article is that Shelley is even then denounced as 
 the monster of perversity who subsequently was so bitterly 
 attacked by the Quarterly Review and the Literary Gazette. 
 " The narrative itself, as well as the style in which it 'is 
 written, is so contemptible that we should have passedit 
 over in silence, only for the indignation excited by its 
 gross and barefaced immorality. . . . We cannot too strongly 
 reprobate the author. His absurd and stupid jargon can- 
 not redeem him from infamy, or his book from the flames." 
 
 * "Zastrozzi" was written in 1808 and 1809. 
 
 t Letter to Godwin, 1812. He thus describes his mental 
 state : " It is to you and to your works that I owe my restora- 
 
44 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 We may describe this state of mind from a 
 moral and philosophic point of view by noting 
 that just then Shelley was, as it were, divided 
 between a certain admiration for the fatalism of 
 the great passions, and the worship of heroism, 
 or of the human will made subservient to that 
 fatality. The sovereign principle of the moral 
 life, self-control, he has made incarnate in 
 his hero Zastrozzi. 
 
 Pietro Zastrozzi is the son of a certain Verezzi, 
 an Italian count, and of Olivia Zastrozzi, who 
 at fifteen has been seduced by him, and is after- 
 wards cruelly deserted. Olivia on her death-bed 
 exacts an oath of vengeance from her son. Not 
 satisfied with driving a poniard into his father's 
 heart, Zastrozzi vindictively pursues the young 
 Count Verezzi, heir to that detested name, and 
 in order to enjoy all the delights of revenge at 
 his leisure, he employs every refinement of moral 
 torture suggested by the most infernal ingenuity 
 for inflicting suffering on his victim without 
 depriving him of life. The same situation occurs 
 in Godwin's celebrated novel, "Caleb Williams," 
 in which the hero is persecuted after a similar 
 fashion by Mr. Falkland. 
 
 Zastrozzi seeks above all to strike Verezzi 
 through his love. Two women are in love with 
 him : one is Julia, Marchesa di Strobazzo, to 
 whom Verezzi has devoted his heart and life ; 
 the other is Matilda, Contessa di Laurentini, an 
 enchanting and hateful siren. Both are beautiful 
 and wealthy, and burn with the same jealous 
 and irresistible passion. 
 
 The romance opens with Verezzi on his jour- 
 ney to Naples, where Julia awaits him. He is 
 
 tion from the state of intellectual lethargy in which I was 
 plunged two years ago. ' St. Irvyne ' and ' Zastrozzi ' repre- 
 sented my boyish visions, which were wild without being 
 original." 
 
SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMANCE. 45 
 
 at an inn at Munich, where Zastrozzi gives him 
 a drink by which he is thrown into a heavy 
 sleep. Two sbirri, named Ugo and Bernardo, 
 creatures of Zastrozzi, carry the sleeping man to 
 a carriage, and deposit him in a cavern, in a 
 dense forest in the depths of a gloomy valley. 
 So also, in " Laon and Cythna," Laon, separated 
 from Cythna, as Verezzi from Julia, is borne 
 swooning to the mysterious cavern surmounted by 
 a pillar, where he suffers unimaginable tortures.* 
 
 Verezzi awakes from his stupor face to face 
 with his foe, who orders him to follow him. 
 They come to the iron gate of a dungeon in 
 the rock, where the unhappy Verezzi is bound 
 to the wall, as Laon is to the pillar. " With chains 
 which eat into the flesh, alas ! with brazen links 
 my naked limbs they bound." Laon says : 
 
 I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever 
 Its adamantine links that I might die.f 
 
 Verezzi has no support but his own reflections, 
 which are his greatest torment, and he implores 
 death from his tormentors. Silence is the only 
 answer. " Days and nights seemingly countless " 
 are passed "in the same monotonous uniformity 
 of horror and despair. He scarcely now shuddered 
 when the slimy lizard crossed his naked and 
 motionless limbs. The large earth-worms, which 
 twined themselves in his long and matted hair, 
 almost ceased to excite sensations of horror. 
 Days and nights were undistinguishable from 
 each other, and .... were lengthened by his 
 perturbed imagination into so many years." _ 
 
 Prometheus, too, bound to the rock by iron, 
 chains, counts the moments, "divided by keen 
 pangs, till they seemed years." 
 
 * "Laon and Cythna," Canto III., Stanza 11, et seq. 
 t "Laon and Cythna," Stanzas 14 and 19. 
 
46 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Verezzi succeeds, however, in eluding the 
 watchfulness of his keepers, and flies by moon- 
 light across the heathj pursued- by Zastrozzi. 
 He is miraculously saved . by a gigantic pine- 
 tree, that shelters him while sleeping, and at last 
 reaches Passau, where he falls asleep on some 
 stone steps in the deserted streets. He is awoke 
 by an old woman carrying a basket of flowers 
 to sell in the market.* Claudine (for that is 
 her name), having just lost her son, takes pity 
 on the unfortunate youth, and leads him home 
 to her humble cottage, "a pleasant and culti- 
 vated spot, on a little hill overlooking the majestic 
 Danube." 
 
 "What induced you," said he to Claudine, as in the 
 evening they sat before the cottage door, "what induced 
 you to make that offer this morning to me ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said the old woman, " it was but last week that 
 I lost my dear son, who was everything to me ; he died 
 by a fever which he caught by his too great exertions 
 in obtaining a livelihood for me ; and I came to the 
 market yesterday, for the first time since my son's death, 
 hoping to find some peasant who would fill his place, 
 when chance threw you in my way. I had hoped that he 
 would have outlived me, as I am quickly hastening to the 
 grave, to which I look forward as to the coming of a friend, 
 who would relieve me from those cares which, alas ! but 
 increase with my years." 
 
 Verezzi compassionately assures her that he 
 will not forsake her, and that it shall not be 
 his fault if she remains in poverty. 
 
 The first part of Shelley's narrative shows us 
 one of his favourite devices in composition : a 
 contrast between the darkest and most terrible 
 imaginings of a mind almost in a state of delirium, 
 and the sweet and tender conceits of a childlike 
 and ingenuous nature. The use of. such contrasts, 
 sometimes strained but always effective, is one of 
 the most striking features of his genius. 
 
 * This episode is borrowed f om " Zofloya." 
 
SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMANCE. 47 
 
 Moreover, a careful attention to the scene of 
 the action is ah-eady apparent ; a description of 
 nature is mingled with the narrative ; the young 
 writer knows when to deduce a moral, evincing 
 a depth of thought very uncommon at his age. 
 After describing the, anger" of Zastrozzi on learning 
 that his victim has escaped, and his mad pursuit 
 of the fugitive, he brings him before us worn out 
 with hunger, thirst, and fatigue, but thirsting yet 
 more for vengeance, and describes a great forest 
 whose gigantic tree-tops intercept the burning 
 rays of the sun, while the moss-grown slopes 
 beneath invite to repose. 
 
 " The sun began to decline ; at last it sank beneath the 
 ■western mountain, and the forest tops were tinged by its 
 departing ray. The shades of night rapidly thickened. 
 
 Zastrozzi sat awhile upon the decayed trunk of a scathed 
 oak. 
 
 The sky was serene, the blue ether was spangled with 
 countless myriads of stars ; the tops of the lofty forest trees 
 waved mournfully in the evening wind ; and the moonbeams 
 penetrating at intervals, as they moved, through the matted 
 branches, threw dubious shades upon the dark underwjsod 
 beneath. 
 
 Ugo and Bernardo, conquered by irresistible torpor, sank 
 to rest upon the dewy turf. 
 
 A scene so fair, a scene so congenial to those who can 
 reflect upon their past lives with pleasure, and anticipate 
 the future with the enthusiasm of innocence, ill accorded 
 with the ferocious soul of Zastrozzi,. which, at one time 
 agitated by revenge, at another by agonising remorse or 
 contending passions, could derive no pleasure from the 
 past — anticipate lio happiness in futurity." 
 
 Still pursuingVerezzi, Zastrozzi finds himself 
 on a sudden, and as if by enchantment, in front 
 of a fantastic Gothic palace, which seems to be 
 deserted. He enters with his followers, climbs a 
 wide staircase, and reaches a long corridor, at 
 the end of which is a woman in white draperies 
 who leans on a lamp-lighted balustrade. He 
 recognises Matilda, Contessa di Laurentini. 
 
48 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Just as Zastrozzi is the incarnate fiend of* 
 revenge, so is Matilda that of wild and relentless' 
 passion. She reveals herself at once, and entreats 
 Zastrozzi to rid her of her hateful rival. 
 
 "I almost shudder," exclaimed Matilda, "at the sea 
 of wickedness on which I am about to embark ! But 
 still, Verezzi — ah ! for him would I even lose my hopes 
 of eternal happiness. In the sweet idea of calling him, 
 mine, no scrupulous delicacy, no mistaken superstitious 
 fear, shall prevent me from deserving him by daring acts. 
 — No ! I am resolved," continued Matilda, as recollecting 
 his graceful form, her soul was assailed by tenfold love ." 
 
 Zastrozzi desires nothing better ; the infernal 
 passion of the furious woman will accomplish his 
 vengeance; he departs from Italy while Matilda 
 flies in pursuft of Verezzi. 
 
 Careless of modesty and decorum, she wanders 
 solitary at night through the streets of Passau 
 seeking for her beloved. 
 
 " A gloomy silence reigned through the streets of the city; 
 it was past midnight, and every inhabitant seemed to be sunk 
 in sleep — sleep which Matilda was almost a stranger to. 
 Her white robes floated on the night air — her shadowy 
 and dishevelled hair flew over her form, which, as she 
 passed the bridge, seemed to strike the boatmen below 
 with the idea of some supernatural and ethereal form." 
 
 Attracted by the waters of the Danube, which 
 "reflect her symmetrical form," she is about to 
 drown herself, when the arms of a stranger hold 
 her back. It is Verezzi ! Verezzi, whom she recog- 
 nises after a. brief swoon, "bending in anxious 
 solicitude over her elegantly proportioned form." 
 
 Verezzi follows Matilda into the mysterious 
 Gothic palace. The coldness and indifference with 
 ■which he at first listens to her protestations of love, 
 and his unchanging fidelity to Julia, only intensify 
 the Countess's passion. Zastrozzi brings a false 
 
SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMANCE. 49 
 
 report of Julia's death, and Verezzi falls a prey 
 to fever and delirium, which endanger his life. 
 Meanwhile Zastrozzi and Matilda have frequent 
 interviews, in which Zastrozzi endeavours to up- 
 root every moral and religious feeling from her 
 mind. He puts before her in the crUtiest terms 
 a system of complete Epicureanism. Matilda 
 readily accepts his theories. "Thy words," she 
 says, " are a balm to my soul." She has but one 
 remaining doubt — on the immortality of the soul. 
 
 "Answer me. Do you believe that the soul decays with 
 the body ; or if you do not, when this perishable form 
 mingles with its parent earth, where goes the soul which 
 now actuates its movements ? Perhaps, it wastes its fervent 
 energies in tasteless apathy or lingering torments." 
 
 " Matilda," returned Zastrozzi, " think not so ; rather 
 suppose, that by its own innate and energetical exertions 
 this soul must endure for ever, that no fortuitous occur- 
 rence, no incidental events, can affect its happiness ; but, 
 by daring boldly, by striving to verge from the beaten path, 
 whilst yet trammelled in the chains of mortality, it will 
 gain superior advantages in a future state." 
 
 " But religion ! Oh, Zastrozzi ! " 
 
 " I thought thy soul was daring,'' replied Zastrozzi, " I 
 thought thy mind was towering ; and did I then err ? . . . . 
 Oh, yield not yourself, Matilda, thus to false, foolish, and 
 vulgar prejudices ! . . . . " 
 
 The foregoing passage, one of those, no doubt, 
 taxed by the reviewers with immorality, is 
 important as regards the genesis of the theology 
 and philosophy of the poet. It contains germs 
 of the atheism of Oxford, and the theories of 
 ■"Queen Mab." If on the one hand Shelley 
 reproves the coarse Epicureanism of Zastrozzi, 
 he has no word of blame for his metaphysical and 
 religious teachings; and Zastrozzi's theory of 
 the immortality of the soul is quite the same 
 as his own at the time. He looked upon im- 
 mortality as a state of happiness which would 
 be proportioned to the degree of energy and 
 
so SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 courage exhibited while on earth. We shall find 
 this theory again in "Hellas." 
 
 Meanwhile Verezzi remains a prey to despair, 
 and is near death. A physician declares that a 
 warmer climate is his only chance of life. Matilda 
 proposes that of Venetia, where her castle of 
 Laurentini is situated, amid such fantastic 
 scenery as our poet loves to depict, a mysterious 
 forest, with overhanging granite rocks and foam- 
 ing cataracts. Thither does Matilda carry her 
 lurid passion, and there she nurses it to the soft 
 breathings of the zephyrs and the murmuring 
 of the pine-trees, or to the mournful music of 
 nuns chanting their requiem for a departed sister 
 in the neighbouring convent. The soft warmth 
 of the climate, the impassioned attentions of 
 Matilda, the heaveijly sweetness of her voice 
 when she sings to the accompaniment of her 
 harp, soften and melt Verezzi's heart. 
 
 But the irrepressible passion "that beats in 
 Matilda's veins," could not be satisfied with the 
 sweet sympathy of feeling and thought which 
 constitutes the love ideal of Verezzi-Sheliey, and 
 which "calms his violent emotions." Thereupon 
 Zastrozzi again comes to her help, and suggests 
 an infallible means of attaining her end, and of 
 for ever effacing the image of Julia in Verezzi's 
 heart. This romantic plan is a feigned attack on 
 Verezzi in the forest ; Matilda throws herself before 
 him so as to receive the blow, and is wounded. 
 
 Matilda's snowy arm was tinged with purple 
 gore ; the wound was painful, the blood streamed 
 fast from her arm and tinged the rock . . . with 
 a purple stain. 
 
 The stratagem succeeds to admiration; the 
 sight of Matilda's blood melts the icy heart of 
 Verezzi, and the lovers (still in the forest) swear 
 eternal fidelity. " Love like ours wants not the 
 vain ties of human laws." 
 
SHELLEY 4S A WRITER OF ROMANCE. 51 
 
 This is the first appearance of the doctrine 
 of free love, and of that of the immorality of 
 legal sanctions ; a doctrine which the poet was 
 afterwards to practise in his own life, and which 
 formed his most unpardonable offence in the eyes 
 of England. 
 
 The crisis occurs at Venice. During an 
 evening f^te on the Canal, Verezzi recognises in 
 a gondola, whose "innumerable flambeaux . . . 
 rivalled the meridian sun," the ethereal form 
 of his forgotten Julia. 
 
 While he is gazing in an ecstasy Julia's gondola 
 speeds on, and, " indistinct from distance," mocks 
 " his straining eyeball." 
 
 Meanwhile, on their return to the little solitary 
 house in which they are dwelling, Matilda succeeds 
 in dispelling the despair which has seized on 
 Verezzi at the sight of Julia. 
 
 " And are you then mine — mine for ever 1 " 
 she rapturously exclaims. 
 
 " Oh ! I am thine — thine to all eternity," 
 returns Verezzi, as he raises to his lips the cup 
 Matilda has filled for him ; but on a sudden 
 the goblet falls from his hands, he seizes his 
 dagger. . . . Julia stands before him ! She tries 
 in vain to wrest the dagger from his grasp, he 
 plunges it into his heart and dies. 
 
 Matilda, who, until that moment, had pre- 
 served a terrible calm, throws herself on Verezzi's 
 breastj draws out the blood-stained poignard, and, 
 seizing the unhappy Julia by the hair as she 
 ; lies fainting on the ground near the corpse of 
 Verezzi, she stabs her rival in the breast over 
 and over again until not a breath remains. Ex- 
 hausted by passion, she flings away the weapon, 
 and, with fearful calmness, gazes gloomily on 
 the terrible spectacle. Julia's "head reclined on 
 Verezzi's bosom, and even in death her angelic 
 features were pervaded with a smile of affection." 
 
 E 2 
 
52 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 At this awful moment Matilda's religious fears 
 return to assail her, and restrain her from adding 
 suicide to her crimes* "And is it for this, for 
 horror, for torments such as these, that He whom 
 monks call All-Merciful has created me ? " 
 
 In spite of her atheism she trembles at the 
 thought of a future life, and a voice whispers 
 to her soul : " Thou canst never die I " 
 
 In contrast with the superstitious terrors of a 
 woman's soul, Shelley now shows us in Zastrozzi 
 the unshaken firmness of true atheism. While 
 Matilda, who has been summoned before the 
 Inquisition, acknowledges, in the presence of 
 approaching death, the falseness of Zastrozzi's 
 arguments, and urges him to join her in repent-" 
 ance, Zastrozzi proudly rejects all religious belief, 
 dies satisfied with having kept his oath, and 
 proclaims, before judges and executioners, the 
 negation of the Divinity. 
 
 " I intend," he says, "to meet death, to encounter annihi- 
 lation, with tranquillity. Am I not convinced of the non- 
 existence of a Deity ? Am I not convinced that death will 
 but render this soul more free, more unfettered ? Why need 
 I then shudder at death ? Why need any one whose mind 
 has risen above the shackles of prejudice, the errors of a 
 false and injurious superstition ? " 
 
 In " Laon and Cythna," f Laon, face to face 
 with the stake, speaks with more poetry and 
 eloquence j but the thought is the same. One 
 feels that Shelley in his heart applauds the 
 sentiments of Zastrozzi, and admires the martyr 
 to conscience who has for death only " a smile 
 of most disdainful scorn." Zastrozzi is the 
 prototype of Laon and of Prometheus. 
 
 In this same year (1809) Shelley was at work 
 
 * In " The Cenci " Beatrice in like manner shrinks from 
 suicide for the same reason. 
 
 t " Laon and Cythna,'' Canto XL, Stanzas 1 5-25. 
 
SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMANCE. 53 
 
 on a second romance, which was to be brought 
 out in three volumes. " If Jock," * he gaily 
 writes, "will not give me a devil of a price for 
 my new poem ('The Wandering Jew'), and at 
 least sixty pounds for my romance, the dog 
 shall not have them." 
 
 But " the dog " declined, and the novel passed 
 into the hands of Stockdale.f It was published 
 at the author's expense in December, 18 10, under 
 the title of "St. Irvyne ; or. The Rosicrucian. 
 By a Gentleman of Oxford University." (Shelley 
 had been at Oxford since the end of October.) 
 In spite of the attractiveness of the title, on 
 which the young novelist had reckoned, the 
 book had no success, and the edition- was still 
 on the publisher's hands in 1822. 
 
 This second novel also was suggested to 
 Shelley by a work of Godwin's called " St. 
 Leon," "which Shelley immensely admired. He 
 read it till he believed that there was truth in 
 alchymy, and the Elixir Vitae "... and he 
 believed also " in the ' Panacea.' He used to 
 cite the opinion of Dr. Franklin," and quote 
 Condorcet on the subject. 
 
 The hero of this novel is a fresh incarnation, 
 of Shelley himself, still more transparent than 
 the one we have discovered in " Zastrozzi." He 
 is a young and high-souled poet, the heir of a 
 wealthy and powerful German prince, who is 
 separated from his country by an insurmountable 
 barrier, and who lives only for freedom and inde- 
 pendence. Wolfstein, such is his name, is under 
 
 * John Robinson, publisher of " Zastrozzi." 
 t This was the beginning of the debt Shelley incurred to 
 his pubHsher, Stockdale, according to whom it had reached 
 ;£3oo in 1826. Stockdale has given an account of his 
 relations with Shelley in some curious notes, entitled 
 " Stockdale's Budget," which have been very impartially 
 noticed in an article by Mr. Richard Garnett in Macmillan's 
 Magazine, " Shelley in Pall Mall," II. p. 100. 
 
54 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 the mysterious influence of a kind of magician, 
 the Rosicrucian Ginotti, who is the personification 
 of conscience, and of the fatality of which 
 Wolfstein is the victim. 
 
 The action of the story is double and alternate, 
 and would be somewhat difficult to analyse ; there 
 is even less unity and sequence than in "Zastrozzi." 
 We are taken by enchantment from Italy to 
 Switzerland or Bohemia ; the characters appear 
 and disappear like puppets, according to the 
 caprice of the author. Stockdale, after printing 
 the book, discovered rather late that there was 
 no denouement, and that all the heroes of the story, 
 like those in some fantastic ballads, vanish without 
 leaving a trace behind. 
 
 The theories first enunciated in " Zastrozzi " 
 are more clearly formulated in "St. Irvyne." 
 
 Wolfstein, like Verezzi, loves a noble lady, 
 Megalena di Metastasio, whom he has saved from 
 the hands of Alpine brigands. He takes her to 
 Genoa, and there asks her to become his wife, 
 but without any religious or civil ceremony. 
 Megalena is easily persuaded by the eloquence 
 of her lover. 
 
 " Yes," exclaimed Megalena, " yes, prejudice avaunt ! 
 Once more reason takes her seat, and convinces me that to 
 
 be Wolfstein's is not criminal Be mine, then, and 
 
 let our affection end not but with our existence ! " 
 
 "Never, never shall it end !" enthusiastically exclaimed 
 Wolfstein. " Never ! What can break the bond formed by 
 congeniality of sentiment, cemented by an union of soul 
 which must endure till the intellectual particles which com- 
 pose it become annihilated ? Oh ! never shall it end ; for 
 when, convulsed by nature's latest ruin, sinks the fabric of 
 this perishable globe ; when the earth is dissolved away and 
 the face of heaven is rolled from before our eyes like a scroll, 
 then will we seek each other, and in eternal, indivisible, 
 although immaterial union shall we exist to all eternity." 
 
 As we peruse " St. Irvyne," we cannot help 
 tracing the history of the author written before- 
 
SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMANCE. 55 
 
 hand in mysterious presentiment. Shelley's Hfe 
 is httle more than the realisation of the principal 
 adventures of this strange romance. Like Wolf- 
 steinj he, too, is to save a young girl from the 
 prison of school and the prison of home ; he is to 
 expound to his chosen bride the metaphysics 
 of free and eternal love, and will lead her to 
 share his sentiments*. Like Wolfstein, he is to 
 weary of his first choice, and will seek elsewhere 
 for a worthier object of his love. It almost seems 
 to us that in depicting Wolfstein, he had either a 
 prescience of his own future, or he identified him- 
 self by the force of his imagination so entirely 
 with the hero of his creation, that he realised 
 the conception in his own life. He wrote about 
 this time to Godwin, saying : " After being a 
 reader, I am now a writer of novels ; " he might 
 have added, "and I am about to live one." 
 
 In " St. Irvyne " as in " Zastrozzi " Shelley 
 has contrasted the weakness of a soul terrified 
 ■ by superstition with the fearless serenity of a 
 soul truly enfranchised from all prejudice, and 
 from every religious creed. Ginotti seduces a 
 young orphan girl whose conventual education and 
 superstitious beliefs leave her defenceless before 
 the fascinations of the Rosicrucian. Ginotti's 
 theories on love and marriage are of course the 
 same as Wolfstein's, only he expounds them still 
 . more crudely : " Why are we taught to believe 
 that the union of two who love each other is 
 wicked, unless authorised by certain rites and 
 ceremonials which certainly cannot change the 
 tenour of sentiments which it is destined that 
 these two people should entertain for each 
 other?" 
 
 To this question Eloise de St. Irvyne ingenu- 
 ously replies that God has so willed it. Such 
 an. answer fills the Rosicrucian with indignation. 
 " Do not you think it an insult to two souls, united 
 
S6 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 to each other in the irrefragable covenants of 
 love and congeniality, to promise in the sight 
 of a Being whom they know not, that fidelity 
 which is certain otherwise ? " 
 
 Poor Eloise vainly exclaims : " But I do know 
 that Being, and when I cease to know Him, may 
 I die ! I pray to Him every morning and night ; 
 I love and adore Him ! " 
 
 She is overcome by the arguments of Ginotti, 
 and falls. 
 
 The unhappy girl, after paying dearly for her 
 weakness, and being infamously deserted by the 
 Rosicrucian, is sheltered by an Irishman, a pattern 
 of humane and chivalrous virtue. He too is 
 another incarnation of Shelley, and like him is 
 under the ban of a father's curse. He may not 
 return to England unless formally married. 
 
 How- will he act.? Like Shelley at a subse- 
 quent period, he will marry, but will maintain his 
 theory of marriage. 
 
 " I consider it a human institution ; I regard 
 it but as a chain for the body, that still leaves 
 the soul unfettered. It is not so with love." 
 
 Thus in "St. Irvyne" we find that the philo- 
 sophical theories of Zastrozzi have become accen- 
 tuated, and we approach the time when the 
 novelist, having become a poet, will proclaim 
 them under his own name. " Queen Mab " and 
 "Laon and Cythna" are but their poetical 
 development.* 
 
 Meanwhile it would appear that Shelley did 
 
 * "St. Irvyne" had also its reviewers. The British 
 Critic of January, 1811, concludes a brief summary thus ; 
 
 " Some readers will perhaps be satisfied, and will proceed 
 no farther. They who do, will find the cavern of Gil Bias- 
 with very little variation of circumstance, a profusion of 
 words which no dictionary explains, such as unevasible, 
 iandii, en-horrored, descriptions wilder than are to be found 
 in Radcliffe, and a tale more extravagant than the ' St. Leoa* 
 of Godwin." 
 
SHELLEY AS A WRITER OF ROMAkCE. 57 
 
 not attain to his definitive convictions without 
 a violent struggle. We see many traces in "St. 
 Irvyne" of the strife in the poet's soul between 
 faith and incredulity, before philosophy won the 
 battle for the god of Lucretius and of Pliny. The 
 pages that record this quasi-confession are marked 
 with so much individuality, with such fervour of 
 emotion, that it is difficult to discern nothing 
 more in them than an exercise in rhetoric. 
 Shelley's originality, besides, is so plainly marked, 
 his intellect and style are so clearly and strongly 
 revealed, that we have no hesitation in quoting 
 the passage as a remarkable specimen of his 
 earliest poetical prose.* 
 
 Poetical prose, however, no longer suffices 
 Shelley ; one of the curiosities of " St. Irvyne " 
 is the verse scattered throughout its pages. Every 
 character is a poet ; Wolfstein, Megalena, Stein- 
 dolph, a brigand, take it in turns to recite his 
 best compositions when at Eton. The verses 
 no doubt deserve severe criticism on the score 
 of technical perfection when compared even with 
 " Queen Mab," but they are none the less interest- 
 ing as being the first effusions of what may be 
 called the purely romantic period of Shelley's 
 genius. One of them, indeed, has a peculiar 
 interest, for we find Shelley, for the first time, 
 anxious to emulate the great poet who was des- 
 tined to become his friend — Lord Byron. " Hours 
 of Idleness " had appeared in 1807. Shelley read 
 the verses, and desired to emulate the young 
 poet whose first appearance in print had so ve- 
 hemently aroused public attention. Two lines ot 
 " Lachin-y-Gair " remained in his memory, and he 
 used them in the piece to which we allude. 
 Shelley could never have imagined that one day 
 he would be taunted with that innocent plagiarism 
 
 * Appendix I. 
 
S8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 as a dire offence * and that the conclusion would 
 be drawn that Byron's " Hours of Idleness " might 
 "be styled the 'horn-book' from which he had 
 acquired the rudiments of the art of poesy." 
 
 At a later period, Shelley more than once felt 
 a renewed attraction towards romantic prose. Un- 
 fortunately there remain of this only a few 
 sketches and some detached pieces, which excite 
 our regret that the demon of verse did not suffer 
 him to proceed farther. Those exquisite pages 
 are like marvellously sculptured stones, waiting 
 vainly for the master-hand that wrought them, to 
 give them their own place in the building that is 
 for ever suspended. 
 
 » "The Real Shelley," I., p. i66. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST POETICAL ESSAYS AND FIRST LOVE— 
 1809-181O. 
 
 T)URING the year 1809-18 10, the interval between 
 Eton and Oxford that Shelley passed under his 
 father's roof was full of a truly prodigious intel- 
 lectual activity. He occupied himself with ro- 
 mances and poems, with scientific and experi- 
 mental studies, with literary and metaphysical 
 correspondence, and, nevertheless, could find 
 leisure for journeys to Oxford and London, for 
 shooting parties, and for endless rambles with 
 his cousin Medwin in the enchanted forest of St. 
 Leonard, where 
 
 The adders never scy^iige, 
 Nor ye nightyngales synge. 
 
 During the winter, the two cousins wrote 
 together in alternate chapters the commencement 
 of an extravagant romance, in which a hideous 
 witch played the principal part. The portrait of this 
 witch passed from the prose tale into the verse of 
 the " Wandering Jew," with which they occupied 
 themselves shortly afterwards. 
 
 Medwin and Shelley had picked up at a 
 book-stall a fragment of an English translation 
 of the " Wandering Jew/' by Christian Shubart. 
 
6o SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 This fragment, full of a strange and wild elo- 
 quence, strongly impressed Shelley. His imagina- 
 tion was haunted by the marvellous legend, and 
 he and his cousin set to work on a metrical 
 romance. 
 
 When seven or eight cantos were written, 
 Shelley sent them to Campbell * for his opinion. 
 Campbell returned them with the comment that 
 they contained only two good lines : 
 
 It seemed as if an angel's sigh 
 
 Had breathed the plaintive symphony. 
 
 " This criticism of Campbell's," says Medwin, 
 "gave a death-blow to our hopes of immortality." 
 
 Notwithstanding Campbell's adverse verdict, 
 however, the manuscript was sent to Edinburgh 
 to be printed. There it remained until July, 1831, 
 when part of it appeared in Fraser's Magazine. 
 Unfortunately that part was written by Medwin, 
 with the exception of a song at the end of the 
 fourth Canto, which Medwin says is Shelley's, 
 and " extremely musical " : 
 
 See, yon opening rose 
 
 Spreads its fragrance to the gale ! 
 It fades within an hour ; 
 
 Its decay is fast — is pale. 
 Paler is yon maiden, 
 
 Faster is her heart's decay ; 
 Deep with sorrow laden, 
 
 She sinks in death — away. 
 
 But though Shelley's "Wandering Jew" no 
 longer exists, we can judge by his frequent use 
 of the legend in his poems how strongly it had 
 taken hold of his imagination. We meet with 
 it repeatedly in his works ; in " Alastor,"- in 
 " Hellas," and especially in " Queen Mab." f 
 According to Medwin, the episode of Ahasuerus 
 
 * Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), author of " The Plea- 
 sures of Hope" and of "The Last Man." 
 
 + Vol. I., p. 57, etseq. See also "Alastor." 
 
FIRST POETICAL ESSAYS, FIRST LOVE. 6i 
 
 in the latter is only slightly altered from the 
 original "Wandering Jew'." 
 
 This legend of the wandering Jew, the 
 victim of the Galilean's vengeance ; another Pro- 
 metheus persecuted by another Jupiter ; this 
 unmoved witness of the succession of religions 
 and human institutions, besides being a piteous 
 and terrible story, presented an admirable frame- 
 work for the development of Shelley's favourite 
 theme of the struggle between good and evil 
 in the world, arid the successive victories and 
 defeats of the spirit of liberty and love among 
 mankind. He preceded in this the French 
 philosopher-poet, Edgar Quinet, who was inspired 
 by the same spirit and is certainly akin to him, 
 and whose " Ahasuerus " and " Promdthee " have 
 been too much neglected. Some other poems 
 written by Shelley at the same period appeared 
 in a volume entitled " Original Poems " by Victor 
 and Cazire, published at Horsham in 1810. The 
 edition, consisting of fourteen hundred and eighty 
 copies of a volume containing sixty-four pages, 
 had a curious fate, and has so entirely disappeared 
 that the most eager, search on the part of 
 enthusiastic Shelleyans has failed to discover 
 a trace of it. A week after its publication, when 
 about a hundred copies were in circulation, the 
 publisher discovered that this collection of " original 
 poetry " contained a transcript from the pages of 
 M. G. Lewis, the celebrated author of " The 
 Monk." He immediately complained to Shelley, 
 who, writes Stockdale, "with all the ardour 
 incidental to his character, which embraced youth- 
 ful honour in all its brilliancy, expressed the 
 warmest resentment at the imposition practised 
 upon him by his coadjutor, and entreated me to 
 destroy all the copies." * 
 
 * This volume, too, found reviewers. Articles were 
 written on it both in the Poetical Register of Fugitive Poetry 
 
62 SHELLEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 In 1808 Med win had met a young girl in 
 North Wales who was destined to make a mark in 
 English poetry — Felicia Dorothea Browne, after- 
 wards Mrs. Hemans.* The girl-author, then in 
 her sixteenth year, had just brought out two 
 volumes of verse, "Early Blossoms," and "England 
 and Spain ; or, Valour and Patriotism." 
 
 " It was impossible," says Medwin, " not to be struck 
 with the beauty (for beautiful she was), the grace, and 
 charming simplicity and natveU of this interesting girl, 
 and on my return from Denbighshire, I made her and her 
 works the frequent subject of conversation with Shelley. 
 Her juvenile productions, remarkable certainly for her age — 
 and some of those which the volume contained were written 
 when she was a mere child— made a powerful impression 
 on Shelley, ever enthusiastic in his admiration of talent ; 
 and with a prophetic spirit he foresaw the coming greatness 
 of that genius, which under the name of Hemans after- 
 wards electrified the world. He desired to become acquainted 
 with the young authoress, and using my name, wrote to her, 
 
 for i8io-i8ii, and in the British Critic for 181 1. The first 
 deplores the waste of paper by the two authors of this down- 
 right scribble; the second, while praising the type, and after 
 quoting some of Cazire's verses, thus sums up the collection : 
 " It consists of sentimental verses without either rhyme or 
 reason, and of horrifying tales that are perfectly absurd." 
 These reviews have been discovered recently by Mr, Edward 
 Dowden, who is the author of a most interesting article on 
 Shelley's early writings in the Contemporary Review for 
 September, 1844.. He conjectures, with some probability, 
 that the name of Cazire, although the sound is feminine, may 
 only be a disguise for that of Edward Graham, who was at 
 that time a close friend of Shelley's, and an ardent sympa- 
 thiser in his literary pursuits. Young Graham was the son 
 of a French ^migrk of high family who had sought safety in 
 England, where he had married a lady, a direct descendant 
 of Shakespeare. He was a clever musician and a pupil of 
 the celebrated Woelfi, and had been taken into his house by 
 Shelley's father and brought up by him. 
 
 * 1794-1835. Mrs. Hemans was principally a descriptive 
 poet. She was essentially feminine in style, and was in con- 
 sequence a favourite writer with women. Gentle, tender, 
 and melancholy, she might have taken a place among the 
 best lyric-writers of England had she written less. 
 
FIRST POETICAL ESSAYS, FIRST LOVE. 6j 
 
 as he was in the habit of doing to all those who in any 
 way excited his sympathies. This letter produced an answer,, 
 and a correspondence of some length passed between them, 
 which of course I never saw, but it is to be supposed that 
 it turned on other subjects besides poetry ; I mean, that it 
 was sceptical. It has been said by her biographer, that the 
 poetess was at one period of her life, as is the case frequently 
 with deep thinkers on religion, inclined to doubt ; and it 
 is not impossible that such owed its origin to this inter- 
 change of thought. One may indeed suppose this to have 
 been the case, from the circumstance of her mother writing 
 to my father, and begging him to use his influence with 
 Shelley to cease from any further communication with her 
 daughter — in fact, prohibiting their further correspondence. 
 Mrs. Hemans seems, however, to have been a great admirer 
 of his poetry, and to have in some measure modelled her 
 style after his. particularly in her last and most finished 
 effiisions, in which we occasionally find a line or two of 
 Shelley's, proving that she was an attentive reader of his 
 works. " Poets," as Shelley says, " the best of them, are 
 a very chameleonic race, and take the colour not only 
 of what they feed on, but of the very leaves over which 
 they pass." 
 
 Shelley no longer spoke, of Mrs. Hemans ; 
 her rose-water lyrics must have seemed to him 
 very vapid and colourless ; the author of " Early 
 Blossoms " had learned but little from her teacher,., 
 for in her " Sceptic " Mrs. Hemans repudiated any 
 leaning towards the Satanic School of Poetry. 
 Shelley probably estimated her as did Lord 
 Byron, who in iS"20 wrote: "Mrs. Hemans is a 
 poet, but too stilted and too much given to 
 apostrophising." 
 
 Shelley's strong convictions were henceforth 
 combined with a passionate ardour for prose- 
 lytism. Women, as being nearer to Nature, 
 seemed to him to offer the fairest field for the 
 sowing of the New Gospel.* He had begun by 
 
 * Helen Shelley relates in one of her letters that her 
 brother " had a wish to educate some child. A little acrobat 
 who came to the back-door to display her wonderful feats, 
 attracted him, and he thought she would be a good subject 
 for the purpose." 
 
64 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 exercising his apostolate on his sisters ; to them 
 succeeded Felicia Browne, next his cousin, Harriet 
 Grove, and shortly afterwards Harriet Westbrook, 
 his future wife. 
 
 Love itself was to him only a means of intellec- 
 tual conquest and philosophical propagandism. 
 
 It may be asked whether Shelley was ever 
 beguiled by mere passion, by Venus Pandemos, 
 as he called it, and whether he suffered by the 
 deplorable experience to which Thornton Hunt, 
 one of his biographers, alludes : " Accident has 
 made me aware of facts which give me to under- 
 stand that in passing through the usual curriculum 
 of a college life in all its paths Shelley did not 
 go scatheless J but that in tampering with venal 
 pleasures his health was seriously and not tran- 
 siently injured. The effect was far greater on 
 his mind than on his body." 
 
 If we admit on this uncorroborated statement 
 of Thornton Hunt that such a misfortune did 
 happen to Shelley, the only effect it produced 
 was to disgust him for ever with every kind of 
 vice, and to confirm him in the pure manner of life 
 that even his most inveterate detractors, including 
 Mr. Jeaffreson himself, are obliged to admit. 
 
 Prostitution was always the object of Shelley's 
 most violent denunciation. To him it was the 
 hateful but necessary consequence of the deviation 
 from natural love which results from the dogmas 
 of religion and the conventions- of society, the 
 necessary equipoise of legal prostitution, the sine^ 
 qtid non of chastity, that virtue of people who are 
 cheaply virtuous. 
 
 Chastity is " a monkish and evangelical super- 
 stition, a greater foe to natural temperance even 
 than unintellectual sensuality."* There was but 
 one remedy, he thought, for this hideous evil : a 
 
 * Notes on " Queen Mab.'' See also a strong passage 
 in « Peter Bell the Third," '^ ' 
 
FIRST POETICAL ESSAYS, FIRST LOVE. 65 
 
 return to pure love, to the laws of. natural and 
 free love. 
 
 The great characteristic of Shelley's theories 
 on love (and we must bear in mind that his 
 theories were the sole law of his conduct) was 
 the grand principle, that in the human heart the 
 ideal of love is inseparable from the ideal of 
 intellect ; his great quest, even at an age when 
 the spiritual vision is ordinarily obscured by the 
 passions, was a female soul in harmony with 
 all the transcendent aspirations of his own, a 
 soul which, both in intellect and heart, nay, even 
 in action if necessary, could join in his apostolate 
 of morality and humanity; in one word, like 
 Balzac, he sought for a " true believer." But he 
 always sought vainly for such a soul among the 
 living women whom he loved. 
 
 And some were fair — but beauty dies away ; 
 Others were wise — but honeyed words betray. 
 
 It is probably among the latter that he placed 
 Harriet Grove, his first love. Medwin has left us a 
 charming sketch of this young cousin of Shelley's : 
 
 She was born, I think, in the same year as himself. She 
 was like him in lineaments— her eyes, her hair, her features, 
 they said were like to his, but softened all and tempered 
 into beauty. When I think of Miss Grove, and call to 
 mind all the women I have ever seen, I know of none that 
 surpassed or could even compete with her. She was like one 
 of Shakespeare's women, like some Madonna of Raffaelle's. 
 
 The cousins had not met since their early 
 childhood until the summer of 1810. They then 
 spent two months together; a mutual passion 
 sprang up, and its unfortunate sequel was the first 
 love-wound Shelley received.* Shelley initiated 
 
 * Charles Henry Grove, Harriet's brother, gives the 
 following recollections of the period, in a letter dated i6th 
 February, 1857 : 
 
 " I did not meet Bysshe again until I was fifteen years 
 old, when I left the navy, and paid a visit to Field Place, 
 
 F 
 
66 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 her into his studies, and it has even been asserted 
 that she wrote some chapters of " Zastrozzi." 
 
 A correspondence began between them ; but 
 Harriet soon took alarm at the tone of Shelley's 
 letters, which treated of speculative subjects and 
 endeavoured to shake her religious opinions ; 
 she consulted her parents, who, recognising a 
 serious danger for their daughter in the corre- 
 spondence, put an immediate end to it, and 
 relinquished their hopes of a union between the 
 young cousins. 
 
 It is greatly to be regretted that none of 
 these letters of Shelley to his cousin are now 
 in existence, nor yet any of those to Felicia 
 Browne.* It would be curious to observe the 
 art with which this new Abelard mingled love- 
 talk with his discussions on philosophy and theo- 
 logy. On this occasion too his letters spoiled 
 everything, and his beautiful cold-hearted cousin, 
 forgetting the hopes she had allowed Shelley to 
 cherish, married a wealthy Somersetshire squire 
 in November, 1811. Bysshe suffered acutely 
 from what he considered her infidelity. He felt 
 justified in twice describing the cousin he had 
 loved too well as false or untrue : 
 
 One whom I found was dear but false to me ; 
 The other's heart was like a heart of stone. 
 
 with my father and mother, Charlotte and Harriet. ' Bysshe 
 had just left Eton, and was at home with his sister Elizabeth. 
 He was at this time more attached to my sister Harriet 
 than I can express, and I_ recollect well the moonlight walks 
 we four had at Strode, "and also at St. Irvings (the ' St. 
 Irvyne ' of the novel). After our visit to Field Place, we 
 went to my father's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where we 
 passed a very happy month. Bysshe was full of life and 
 ardour, and delighted with his successful wuoing of my 
 sister." 
 
 * In a letter to Hogg, Shelley protests he had no other 
 end in view in his letters to his cousin than to discover 
 
FIRST POETICAL ESSAYS, FIRST LOVE. 67 
 
 As Shelley's love had been passionate and 
 profound, so the wound was deep and slow to 
 heal. In his letters to Hogg during the Oxford 
 vacation we catch an echo of his agony. With 
 anguish in his soul he describes the fatal steps 
 leading. to the catastrophe. 
 
 In a letter dated Field Place, Dec. 23, 1810, 
 he tells Hogg how his sister sometimes attempted 
 to plead his cause with her cousin, who replied 
 in a discreet and reasonable fashion not indicative 
 of very vivid affection: 
 
 " Even supposing I take your representation of your 
 brother's qualities and sentiments — which, as you coincide 
 in and admire, I may fairly imagine to be exaggerated, 
 although you may not be aware of the exaggeration — what 
 right have /, admitting that he is so superior, to enter into 
 an intimacy which must end in delusive disappointment 
 when he finds how really inferior I am to the being which 
 his heated imagination has painted ?" 
 
 Dec. 26, 1810 : '■' Circumstances have operated in such a 
 manner that the attainment of the object of my heart was 
 impossible ; whether on account of extraneous influences, 
 or from a feeling which possessed her mind which told her 
 not to deceive another, not to give him the possibility of 
 •disappointment." 
 
 Jan. 3, 181 1 : "She is no longer mine ! She abhors me 
 as a sceptic — as what she was before ! " 
 
 Jan. II, 1811 : " She is gone ! She is lost to me for ever ! 
 She is married — married to a clod of earth j she will become 
 as insensible herself All those fine capabilities will moulder !" 
 
 For a moment Shelley even contemplated 
 suicide. 
 
 At a subsequent period, when the wound 
 was quite healed, he would recall, not without 
 pleasure, thav first unfolding of a love from which 
 disenchanting reality had never effaced the bloom, 
 and which remained in' his heart as a scarcely 
 unclosed buer, all untouched by the warmth of 
 a summer sun. He must have been thinking 
 
 whether their iaeas coincided sufficiently for them to think 
 seriously of a closer and lasting union. 
 
68 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE , POET. 
 
 of his fondly loved cousin in 1819, when he 
 penned the following lines : 
 
 And where is truth ? On tombs ? For such to thee 
 Has been my heart; and thy dead memory 
 Has lain from childhood, many a weary year, 
 Unchangingly preserved and buried there. 
 
 In a fragment that has come down to us of 
 his studies preparatory to the composition of 
 his " Epipsychidion," he depicted the two cousins 
 under the Italian names of Cosimo and Fiordispina : 
 
 They were two cousins, almost like to twins, 
 
 Except that from the catalogue of sins 
 
 Nature had razed their love, which could not be 
 
 But in dissevering their nativity. 
 
 And so they grew together, like two flowers 
 
 Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers 
 
 Lull or awaken in the purple prime. 
 
 But until these hours of serene reminiscence 
 had struck, he felt bitterly the void left by 
 what he calls the betrayal of his beloved cousin, 
 and laments in heart-broken verse his desertioa 
 and his loneliness: 
 
 THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Dar'st thou amid the varied multitude 
 
 To live alone, an isolated thing .? 
 
 To see the busy beings round thee spring, 
 And care for none ; in thy calm solitude, 
 A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude 
 
 To Zephyr's passing wing .? 
 
 Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove. 
 Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother's hate 
 Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate 
 
 As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love. 
 
 He bears a load which nothing can remove — 
 , , A killing, withering weight. 
 
 He smiles — 'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery ; 
 
 He speaks — the cold words flow not from his soul^ 
 He acts like others, drains the genial bowl 
 
 Yet, yet he longs— although he fears — to die. 
 
 He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly, 
 Dull life's extreniest goal. 
 
FIRST POETICAL ESSAYS, FIRST LOVE. 69 
 
 In this appalling solitude he beholds Death 
 approaching, and offering him lova and eternal 
 rest beyond the grave: 
 
 Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me ? 
 
 My mansion is damp, cold silence is there; 
 
 But it lulls in oblivion the fiends of despair. 
 
 Not a groan of regret, not a sigh, not a breath 
 
 Dares dispute with grim silence the empire of Death. 
 
 I offer a calm habitation to thee — 
 
 Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me ? 
 
 Naught waits for the good but a Spirit of Love 
 That will hail their blessed advent to regions above ; 
 Tor Love, mortal, gleams through the gloom of my sway, 
 And the shades which surround me fly fast at its ray. 
 Hast thou loved ? Then depart from these regions of hate 
 And in slumber with me blunt the arrows of Fate. 
 1 offer a calm habitation to thee — 
 Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me ? 
 
 To this reiterated call from Death the poet 
 replies : 
 
 Oh, sweet is thy slumber ! oh, sweet is the ray 
 "Which, after thy night, introduces the day ! 
 
 1 hoped that I quite was forgotten by all. 
 
 Yet a lingering friend might be grieved at my fall ; 
 
 And duty forbids, though I languish to die, 
 
 "When departure might heave virtue's breast with a sigh. 
 
 O Death ! O my friend ! snatch this form to thy shrine. 
 
 And I fear, dear destroyer, I shall not repine ! * 
 
 The serene pleasures of friendship were at 
 that juncture, and frequently afterwards, a con- 
 solation to Shelley for the disappointments and 
 sufferings of love. 
 
 * "Death : A Dialogue,'' 1810. The friend whose affec- 
 tion wins back the poet to life, and whom Shelley identifies 
 with Virtue herself, was Hogg, who will soon appear in our 
 pages. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SHELLEY AT OXFORD — " NECESSITY OF ATHEISM " 
 — 1810-1811. 
 
 " Oxford," says Leigh Hunt, " has not always 
 appreciated the favours of the gods. Oxford 
 repudiated Locke, estranged Gibbon, expelled 
 Shelley!" 
 
 Nevertheless, when Shelley entered Oxford, 
 the University was nominally Liberal. 
 
 Oxford was still ringing with the eloquent 
 accents of Coppleston, the Professor of Poetry 
 and the bold champion of his University against 
 the attacks of the Edinburgh Reviewers, who 
 accused her, not without reason, of representing 
 the monastic routine of the Middle Ages in her 
 educational system. 
 
 But we should err in complaining of Oxford's 
 intolerance towards Shelley ; we might say of 
 it what St. Augustine says of original sin, " Felix 
 culpa ! " for without it we might have had neither 
 " Laon and Cythna," nor " Prometheus Unbound." 
 
 " At the commencement of Michaelmas Term," 
 says Hogg, "that is at the end of October, in 
 the year 1810,* I happened one day to sit next 
 
 * Shelley had matriculated at University College on 
 April loth, 1810, returning afterwards to Eton, where he 
 remained until the end of July. 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 71 
 
 to a freshman at dinner ; it was his first appear- 
 ance in hall. His figure was slight, and his aspect 
 remarkably youthful, even at our table, where 
 all were very young. He seemed . thoughtful and 
 absent." 
 
 Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Shelley's fellow- 
 student at Oxford, and expelled thence with him, 
 his inseparable friend and his biographer, was 
 too closely associated with Shelley's life for us 
 to omit a sketch of his remarkable character. He 
 has frequently been depicted for us as the Mephis- 
 topheles of another Faust, a kind of demon 
 incarnate playing with the young poet as the 
 cat plays with the mouse. There is some ex- 
 aggeration in this picture ; in order to appreciate 
 Hogg's influence over Shelley at its true worth, 
 we need only bear in mind that on leaving Eton 
 the latter had already formed very decided 
 opinions on all the great questions of philosophy 
 and religion, and had resolved on a line of moral 
 conduct from which nothing could have induced 
 him thenceforth to deviate. 
 
 That Hogg and Shelley should have been 
 mutually attracted by their very diversity is 
 natural enough, but there were on the other 
 hand sufficient points of contact between the 
 man of the world, the Tory sceptic, and the 
 Republican, the confirmed idealist, to explain 
 their sympathy and reciprocal regard. Without ■ 
 taking into account the moral qualities which 
 they shared in common, their thirst for know- 
 ledge, their love of philosophic research and 
 literary study, a burning desire to write and to 
 appear in print was sufficient to cause intimacy 
 between two young men, whose maturity of mind 
 and purity of life placed them apart from the 
 common crowd of students. At that period Hogg 
 had not become the positive and cynical character 
 described by Trelawney in his " Records,", despising 
 
72 SHELLEY-THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 poetry and imagination, and caring for no other 
 study than that of law. In the early years of his 
 intima,cy with the poet, Hogg was a fervent adept 
 in purely literary study, and was as deeply de- 
 voted to Plato and the Greek tragedians as to 
 Blackstone or Coke. Mr. Dowden * has con- 
 clusively proved that his leanings to the romantic 
 were much more pronounced than his biography 
 of Shelley would lead us to suppose. 
 
 He wrote both verses and novels. At Oxfotd 
 he competed for the poetry prize, the subject being 
 "The Dying Gladiator." He also collaborated 
 with Shelley in the composition of " Leonora," 
 a fiction founded on a pathetic incident in real 
 life, and of which a considerable part was in type, 
 when the expulsion of the friends from Oxford 
 alarmed the printer and put a stop to the work. 
 In 1813 he published a philosophical novel much 
 admired by Shelley, who discerned in it the highest 
 gifts of a novelist and a poet. 
 
 Mr. Rossetti, in our opinion, has admirably 
 described Hogg and his book : 
 
 "This gentleman," he says, "belonged to a family of high 
 Toriest living at Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees, and was 
 destined for the conveyancing branch of the law. . . . We 
 can trace in his book the character of a robust bon-vivant ■ 
 and man of society, with a great contempt for bores and 
 crotchet-mongers of all sorts, and a generally sardonic or 
 
 * Coniemporary Review, September, 1884. 
 
 + With his accustomed lightness, occasionally carried to 
 cynicism, Hogg speaks of his own family in regard to their 
 politics and religion in the following terms : " As to my own 
 family and my immediate connections, we were ail persons 
 whose first toast after dinner was, invariably, ' Church and 
 State ! ' — warm partisans of William Pitt, of the highest 
 Church, and of the high Tory party ; consequently we were 
 anything but intolerant — we were above suspicion, above 
 ordinances. . . . My relatives felt that they had margin enough 
 — plenty of sea-room ; that whatever might be said or done, 
 their good principles could not be doubted. ... If the ' Age 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 73 
 
 cynical turn, the antipodes of anything 'gushing' or any 
 revolutionary idealism, tempered, however, by a deep respect 
 for the forms and monuments of intellect consecrated by 
 experience. That an acute mind of this calibre should at 
 once have accepted Shelley as a beautiful soul and heaven- 
 born genius, and should have been inspired with a warm 
 enthusiasm for him, such as neither radical divergences 
 of view, nor early and final separation . . . could avail to 
 bedim, speaks as strongly as anything for the poet's intel- 
 lectual and personal fascination. . . . The aroma of personal 
 knowledge and affection, along with the keen zest of a 
 racontetir who enjoys every oddity and reinforces it in the 
 telling, impart a peculiar charm to these Oxford reminiscences 
 — and indeed, spite of its many flaws and perversities, to the 
 whole ' Life,' the suppression of whose concluding portion 
 defrauds the admirers of Shelley of their just perquisites." 
 
 For our own part, we join in Mr. Rossetti's 
 regret; in reading Hogg we iiave enjoyed the 
 humour of which he speaks, and we regret that 
 the limits of our work do not allow us to quote 
 more largely from him. We can understand what 
 an attraction his original, disdainful, and exclusive 
 intellect, his strong mind, his adamantine patience, 
 as Peacoeke says, must have had upon Shelley, 
 who has given, in a letter to Mary Gisborne, an 
 incisive and witty sketch of the discreet yet keen 
 sceptic and fine scholar: 
 
 You will see Hogg ; and I cannot express 
 His virtues (though I know that they are great) 
 Because he locks, then barricades the gate 
 Within which they inhabit. Of his wit 
 And wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. 
 He is a pearl within an oyster shell. 
 One of the richest of the deep. 
 
 of Reason' (Paine's) had been republished by myself, or one 
 of my earliest friends, the world would have supposed that it 
 was put forth merely to show the utter futility, and impotence, 
 and vanity of the author's arguments." The above gives a 
 painful impression of the sincerity and earnestness of the 
 religious and political convictions of the Tories of those days. 
 
74 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 To return to Oxford and the commons table, 
 where Hogg and Shelley conversed together like 
 old acquaintances, and entered that same eveni"ng 
 on a friendship which in spite of occasional clouds 
 remained warm, devoted, and unchangeable to the 
 last. A conversation on the respective merits 
 of German and Italian poetry, begun at table, was 
 continued in Hogg's rooms, whither he invited the 
 freshman to come for wine. Shelley, finding him- 
 self in company with a cultivated and kindly 
 spirit, threw off his reserve and soon led the talk 
 to his favourite topic of natural science. 
 
 "As I felt in truth," continues Hogg, "but a slight 
 interest in the subject of his conversation, I had leisure to 
 examine, and I may add to admire, the appearance of my 
 very extraordinary guest. It was a sum of many contra- 
 dictions. His figure was slight and fragile, and yet his bones 
 and joints were large and strong. He was tall (nearly five 
 feet eleven), but he stooped so much that he seemed of a low 
 stature.* His clothes were expensive, and made according 
 to the most approved mode of the day ; but they were 
 tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed. 'His gestures were abrupt 
 and sometimes violent, occasionally even awkward, yet more 
 frequently gentle and graceful. His complexion was delicate, 
 and almost feminine, of the purest red and while ; yet he 
 
 * De Quincey, in sketching a portrait of Slielley, relates 
 that he remembers having seen in London a pen-and-ink 
 likeness of the poet in his Oxford gown ; the sketch exactly 
 corresponded with a verbal description he had once heard, 
 that " he looked like an elegant and slender flower, whose 
 head drooped from being surcharged with rain." 
 
 Besides the portrait mentioned by De Quincey, four 
 others are known to have been taken : an engraving of 
 Shelley as a child, from a drawing attributed to the Due de 
 Montpensier, and published by Colnaghi in 1879 ; an oil 
 paintmg by Miss Curran, an enthusiastic admirer of the poet, 
 in 1818-19, and now in the possession of Sir Percy Shelley, 
 his son ; a water-colour by his friend Williams, tliat has 
 now unfortunately disappeared ; and lastly, a portrait in 
 oils, painted alter death by Clint, from Miss Curran'.s 
 portrait, aided by the recollections of Mrs. Shelley and 
 her friend Mrs. Williams, " a portrait,'' savs Trelawney, 
 *' that those who knew Shelley in the last year of his lifa 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 75 
 
 Was tanned and freckled by exposure to the sun, having 
 passed the autumn, as he said, in shooting. His features, 
 his whole face, and particularly his head, were in fact 
 unusually small ; yet the last appeared of a remarkable bulk, 
 for his hair was long and bushy, and in fits of absence, and 
 in the agonies (if I may use tiie word) of anxious thought, he 
 often rubbed it fiercely with his hands, or passed his fingers 
 quickly through his locks unconsciously, so that it was 
 singularly wild and rough. In times when it was the mode 
 to imitate stage-coachmen as closely as possible in costume, 
 and when the hair was invariably cropped like that of our 
 soldiers, this eccentricity was very striking. His features 
 were not symmetrical* (the mouth perhaps excepted), yet 
 was the effect of the whole extremely powerful. They 
 breathed an animation, a fire, an enthusiasm, a vivid and 
 preternatural intelligence, that I never met with in any other 
 countenance. Nor was the moral expression less beautiful 
 than the intellectual ; for there was a softness, a. delicacy, a 
 gentleness, and especially (though this will surprise many) 
 that air of profound rehgious veneration that characterises 
 the best works, and chiefly the frescoes (and into these they 
 infused their whole souls) of the great masters of Florence 
 and of Rome. I recognised the very peculiar expression 
 in these wonderful productions long afterwards, and with a 
 satisfaction mingled with much sorrow, for it was after 
 the decease of him in whose countenance I had first 
 observed it." 
 
 thought very like him." An engraving of the latter forms 
 our frontispiece. Mr. Jeaffreson has followed what he calls 
 the Shelley legend even to these portraits. He devotes ten 
 pages to proving that not one of them is a faithful likeness 
 of the poet, because in all of them the most distinctive 
 feature of his face is absent — his little turned-up nose, as 
 Mr. Jeaffreson expresses it. He cannot sufficiently sneer 
 at the unpoetical little nose, and at the touching weakness 
 of two women, the widow and the friend, idealising their 
 recollections in this posthumous portrait, "and being 
 especially desirous, that on the historic canvas he should be 
 endowed with a nose wholly unlike the one that had been, 
 in their eyes, the great blemish of his earthly tabernacle." 
 Instead of his ten pages of burlesque, Mr. Jeaffreson 
 would have done better to reproduce for us a bust of Shelley 
 of which he .speaks as still existent, and as " protesting, 
 dumbly eloquent, against the unfaithfulness of the portraits." 
 * Shelley himself makes fun in his letters of what he 
 calls " a little turn-up nose." 
 
76 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 The first meeting of these two essentially- 
 different minds, mutually attractive by their very 
 contrast, was decisive. Hogg and Shelley could 
 not thenceforth exist apart ; they were called 
 the inseparables. 
 
 After spending the morning in private study, 
 Hogg habitually repaired to Shelley's room, and 
 they frequently remained together until a late 
 hour of the night. 
 
 If the weather were bad, they read, wrote, and 
 conversed indoors. Their favourite studies were 
 " Locke on the Hum.an Understanding," Hume's 
 ^' Essays," the " Dialogues " of Plato in Madame 
 Dacier's French translation, books on logic, and 
 the Greek, Latin, and English poets. 
 
 " The devotion, the reverence, the religion with which he 
 was kindled towards all the masters of intellect," declares 
 Hogg, " cannot be described. The irreverent many cannot 
 •comprehend the awe, the apathetic worldling cannot imagine 
 the enthusiasm, nor can the tongue that attempts only to 
 speak of things visible to the bodily eye, express the mighty 
 emotion that inwardly agitated him, when he approached for 
 the first time a volume which he believed to be replete with 
 the recondite and mystic philosophy of antiquity ; his cheeks 
 glowed, his eyes became bright, his whole frame trembled, 
 and his entire attention was immediately swallowSd up in 
 the depths of contemplation. . . . 
 
 " He was to be found book in hand at all hours ; reading 
 in season and out of season, at table, in bed, and especially 
 during a walk ; not only at Oxford, in the public walks and 
 High Street, but in the most crowded thoroughfares of 
 London. Nor was he less absorbed by the volume that was 
 open before him, in Cheapside, in Cranbourne Alley, or in 
 Bond Street, than in a lonely lane or a secluded library. 
 Sometimes a vulgar fellow would attempt to insult or annoy 
 the eccentric student in passing. Shelley always avoided 
 the malignant interruption by stepping aside with his vast 
 and quiet agility. . . . 
 
 " I have never beheld eyes that devoured the pages more 
 voraciously than his ; I am convinced that two-tiiirds of the 
 period of day and night were often employed in reading. 
 It is no exaggeration to affirm that out of the twenty-four 
 hours he frequently read sixteen. At Oxford his diligence 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 77 
 
 was exemplary, but it greatly increased afterwards. Few 
 were aware of the extent, and still fewer, I apprehend, of the 
 profundity of his reading ; in his short life, and without 
 ostentation, he had in truth read more Greek than many an 
 aged pedant who, with pompous parade, prides himself on 
 this study alone. A pocket edition of Plato, of Plutarch, of 
 Euripides, without interpretation or notes, or of the Septua- 
 gint, was his ordinary companion ; and he read the text 
 straight forward for hours, if not as readily as an English 
 author, at least with as much facility as French, Italian, or 
 Spanish ; and by changing the position of the words, and 
 occasionally substituting others, he would transmute several 
 sentences from prose to verse, to heroic or more commonly 
 elegiac verse . . . with surprising rapidity and readiness." 
 
 In fine weather they took long walks, dining 
 together afterwards in Shelley's rooms. They thus 
 made acquaintance with the beautiful country 
 round Oxford — Shotover Hill, Bagley Wood, the 
 banks of the Thames, the hills, meadows, and 
 woods — wandering into farms where on one occa- 
 sion the poet was attacked by a ferocious dog, 
 who tore off the skirts of his brand-new blue coat ; 
 or springing over a ruined wall into an admirably 
 kept garden where there was no foliage save the 
 dark leaves of evergreens, where scarcely a single 
 wan, autumnal flower lingered and languished ; 
 a garden that was nevertheless symmetrically 
 arranged and scrupulously neat, and which spoke 
 of peace and solitude, and the ministering presence 
 of gentle human hands. Shelley loved to wander 
 in that enchanting spot, and one day on leaving it 
 he could not refrain from speaking to Hogg of its 
 sacred peace, which no doubt, said he, owed its 
 attraction to the presence of some good and 
 beautiful woman. The beautiful woman dreamed 
 of by Shelley is to become the Enchantress of the 
 garden he describes in one of his most exquisite 
 poems, " The Sensitive Plant." 
 
 In the course of these long rambles, Shelley, 
 to Hogg's great anxiety, would frequently amuse 
 himself by two favourite pastimes, pistol-shooting 
 
78 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 and sailing paper boa'ts. He gave up the former 
 out of regard for Hogg. 
 
 He particularly liked lingering on the banks 
 of Shotover Pond, and night would sometimes 
 overtake him, either repeating verses aloud, or 
 in discussions with his friend on themes that 
 had no connection with surrounding objects. 
 
 In the correct and official atmosphere of 
 Oxford, so original and refined a nature must 
 of necessity have appeared strange and eccentric. 
 Mr. Jeaffreson abounds with stories of the poet!s 
 eccentricities. His Byronic collars, turned down 
 over a blue coat with glittering buttons ; his long 
 and bushy hair under the " little round hat upon 
 his little round head;" his habit of reading or 
 disputing aloud in the High Street or public 
 places of Oxford, were sources of amusement to 
 his fellow students. But we seek in vain for 
 any authority to warrant the conclusion of his 
 biographer that those eccentricities were intended 
 to attract notice and to display his superiority. 
 Hogg relates a charming anecdote which to 
 Mr. Jeaffreson seems conclusive, but is in fact 
 an admirable picture of Shelley at a time when 
 he was deeply interested in discussing philosophy 
 with his friend, particularly the Platonic theory 
 of the pre-existence of souls. 
 
 "One morning," writes Hogg, "we had been reading 
 Plato together. ... In the middle of Magdalen Bridge we 
 met a woman with a child in her arms. . . . 'Will your 
 baby tell us anything about pre-existence, madam?' he 
 asked in a piercing voice and with a wistful look. The 
 mother made no answer. . . . ' Will your baby tell us any- 
 thing about pre-existence, madam?' he repeated with un- 
 abated earnestness. ' He cannot speak, sir,' said the mother 
 seriously. ' Worse and worse,' cried Shelley ; . . . ' but 
 surely the babe can speak if he will, for he is only a few 
 (veeks old. He may fancy, perhaps, that he cannot ; but it 
 is only a silly whim. He cannot have forgotten entirely the 
 use of speech in so short a time ; the thing is absolutely 
 impossible.' ' It is not for me to dispute with you, gentle- 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 79 
 
 men,' the woman meekly replied; . . . 'but I can safely 
 declare I never heard him speak, nor any child of his age.' 
 . . . Shelley pressed the boy'sfat cheek with his fingers. . . . 
 Shelley sighed deeply as we walked on. ' How provokingly 
 close are those new-born babes ! ' he ejaculated ; ' but it is 
 not the less certain, notwithstanding the cunning attempts 
 to conceal the truth, that all knowledge is reminiscence. 
 The doctrine is far more ancient than the times of Plato, 
 and as old as the venerable allegory that the Muses are the 
 daughters of Memory ; not one of the nine was ever said 
 to be the child of Invention.' " 
 
 There was a certain audacity at that epoch 
 in liking Plato at Oxford, and in saying so. The 
 teaching of the schools under the nanae of Aristotle 
 was held in honour exclusively, and Aldrich's* 
 Manual contained pretty well all the philosophy 
 that was taught at the University. Shelley's 
 aversion from a system of pedantic logic, and 
 arid schooling that allowed neither liberty to 
 thought nor free sway to the imagination, may 
 be conceived. Those professors, blindly following 
 in the track of the Middle Ages, seemed to him 
 ghosts from another world—" very dull people." 
 
 He was sent for one morning by one of the 
 tutors, who wanted to talk to him about his studies. 
 He gives the following account of the interview 
 to his friend Hogg : 
 
 A little man sent for me this morning, and told me in 
 an almost inaudible whisper that I must read. 
 
 " You must read, you must read," he repeated in his 
 small voice. I answered that I had no objection. He per- 
 sisted ; so, to satisfy him, for he did not appear to believe 
 me, I told him I had some books in my pocket, and I began 
 to take them out. He stared at me, and said that was not 
 exactly what he meant. " You must read ' Prometheus 
 Vinctus,' and Demosthenes' ' De Corona,' and Euclid." 
 'Must I read Euclid?" I asked sorrowfully. "Yes, cer- 
 tainly.; and when you have read the Greek works I have 
 
 * See an amusing allusion to the Manual in Shelley's 
 satire, " Peter Bell the Third." 
 
fo SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 mentioned, you must begin Aristotle's 'Ethics,' and then 
 you may go on to his other treatises. It is of the utmost 
 importance to be well acquainted with Aristotle." This he 
 repeated so often that I was quite tired, and at last I said, 
 "Must I care about Aristotle? What if I do not mind 
 Aristotle ?" . . . and I left him in great perplexity. 
 
 What would the poor tutor have said could 
 he have guessed that not only did his pupil love 
 and read Plato, but that he wrote revolutionary- 
 verses in behalf of " the dearest interests of 
 universal happiness," in which he wedded the 
 spirits of Ravaillac and Charlotte Corday, and 
 composed an epithalamium for that mystical 
 marriage, which ends as follows : 
 
 But what is sweeter to Revenge's ear 
 Than the fell tyrant's last expiring yell ? 
 
 Yes ; than love's sweetest blisses 'tis more dear 
 To drink the floatings of a despot's knell. 
 
 This wild and incoherent rhapsody bore the 
 following title of Hogg's invention: "Posthumous 
 Fragments of Margaret Nicholson." 
 
 Peg Nicholson, a mad washerwoman, had attempted to 
 stab King George III. with a carving-knife. The episode 
 has long been forgotten ; but at that time it was fresh in 
 every one's memory. The poor woman was still alive in 
 Bedlam ; " but since her existence must be uncomfortable, 
 there could be no harm in putting her to death, and in creating 
 a nephew and administrator to be the editor of his aunt's 
 poetical works." 
 
 Chatterton, one of Shelley's great favourites 
 just then, had set the fashion of such literary 
 mystifications by his pseudo-Rowley. 
 
 The pseudo-Nicholson, if we may believe Hogg 
 and Shelley himself,* had a great success, first with 
 Munday the publisher, who agreed to bring out 
 
 ■* Shelley writes to Graham, Nov. 30, 1810 : "It sells 
 wonderfully here, and is become the fashionable subject of 
 discussion." 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 8i 
 
 the volume at his own expense, and did it well, 
 and next with the public : 
 
 We used to meet gownsmen in High Street reading the 
 goodly volume as they walked — pensive, with a grave and 
 sage delight — some of them, perhaps, more pensive, because 
 it seemed to portend the instant overthrow of all royalty, 
 from a king to a court-card. It was indeed a kind of fashion 
 to be seen reading it in public, as a mark of a nice discern- 
 ment, of a delicate and fastidious taste in poetry, and the 
 very criterion of a choice spirit. Nobody suspected or 
 could suspect who was the author ; the thing passed off as 
 the genuine production of the would-be regicide. What 
 a strange delusion to admire our stuff, the concentrated 
 essence of nonsense ! 
 
 Amid all this declamatory trash, this deluge 
 of romantic and revolutionary effusions, there 
 are, nevertheless, some pieces not laclfing in 
 delicate beauty and a certain Shelleyan aroma; 
 one of these will be found in Appendix II., " Melody 
 to a Scene of Former Times." 
 
 It is impossible to repress a smile when we 
 remember that the same public who were rapturous 
 over the Posthumous Fragments, afterwards dis- 
 dainfully refused to glance at Shelley's "Pro- 
 metheus Unbound," or his " Adonals." * 
 
 Love-confidences were mingled with literary 
 and metaphysical discussions. Shelley liked to 
 tell his friend of the beauty and perfection of his 
 cousin. From the cousin the conversation passed 
 to his eldest sister, Elizabeth, whose letters, inter- 
 spersed with verse, were so charming. Out of 
 friendship for Hogg, Shelley wished to influence 
 his sister in favour of the man he judged most 
 worthy of her ; he invited him to spend the vaca- 
 tion at Field Place in order that he might see 
 
 * Hogg's testimony must not be taken too literally. 
 Mr. Dowden exonerates thp literary public of Oxford from 
 such want of discernment by quoting from Mr. Slatter, of 
 the publishing firm of Munday & Slatter, who describes 
 the " Posthumous Fragments " as " a work almost still-born." 
 
 G 
 
82 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET.. 
 
 her, win her heart, and make her his wife. It 
 was a keen disappointment to Shelley that the 
 project failed. 
 
 Immediately on reaching Field Place for the 
 Christmas hoUdays in i8lo, he writes to his friend 
 Hogg: 
 
 Stoclcdale has behaved infamously to me ; he has abused 
 the confidence I reposed in him in sending him my work,* 
 and he has made very free with your character, of which he 
 knows nothing, with my father. 
 
 Stockdale, who was no doubt quite as anxious 
 to recover from Shelley's father the amount he had 
 expended on publishing "St. Irvyne" as he was 
 alarmed at the infidel tendencies of the young 
 author, had communicated with Mr. Shelley in 
 order to warn him against his son's danger and the 
 influence of that son's friend. 
 
 Mr. Shelley was already greatly incensed 
 against his son by reason of the complaints of 
 Miss Grove's relations; he discerned in the 
 Oxford undergraduate an apostle of infidelity 
 and impiety, and trembled for his own daughters. 
 Remonstrances from father and mother were 
 showered on Shelley; correspondence with his 
 cousin was prohibited ; he was forbidden to print 
 anything more ; there was . even an intention 
 of removing him from Oxford. 
 
 " I am now," he wrote to Hogg, " surrounded, environed 
 by dangers, to which compared the devils who besieged St. 
 Anthony were all inefficient. They attack me for my detest- 
 able principles ; I am reckoned an outcast ; yet I defy them 
 and laugh at their ineffectual efforts. . . . My father wished 
 to withdraw me from college' ; I would not consent to it. 
 There lowets a terrific tempest, but I stand as it were on a 
 pharos, and smile exultingly at the vain beating of the 
 billows below." 
 
 * Probably a philosophical " Dialogue," in which Shelley- 
 set forth his moral and religious theories. 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 83 
 
 These domestic altercations served but to 
 embitter his mind, and to increase his hatred of 
 religious intolerance. So soon as he had over- 
 come the first' feelings of despondency, he accepted 
 the combat, and strong in the purity of his 
 intentions and the sincerity of his convictions, he 
 took an oath, on what he called the altar of per- 
 jured love, the oath of Hannibal, to wage war to 
 the death against the religious fanaticism that 
 was the cause of all his suffering. 
 
 I think it is to the benefit of society to destroy the 
 opinions which- can annihilate the dearest of its ties. . . . 
 It is now that I stand in need of all my art ; they drive me 
 to have recourse to cunning. 
 
 Yet here I swear — and as I break my oaths may 
 Infinity, Eternity blast me— here I swear that never will 
 I forgive intolerance ! It is the only point on which I allow 
 myself to encourage revenge ; every moment shall be 
 devoted to that object, it shall be a lasting, a long revenge ! 
 Oh, how I wish I were the avenger — that it were mine 
 to crush the demon, to hurl him to his native hell never 
 to rise again, and thus to establish for ever perfect and 
 universal toleration ! 
 
 Under circumstances such as these, when Hogg 
 was denounced to Shelley's father as the evil 
 genius of his son, it was difficult to set about 
 realising the Oxford dreams. Yet Shelley con- 
 tinued to encourage his friend's hopes of making 
 Elizabeth Shelley his wife; sending him some 
 verses she had written on the bombardment of 
 Copenhagen, reading to Elizabeth, Hogg's letters 
 and Hogg's verses in which he compares Shelley 
 to an oak, and his faithless cousin to the ivy 
 that destroys the tree; while Hogg almost en- 
 gages himself by a solemn promise. Shelley 
 writes to him gratefully : 
 
 How can I find words to express my thanks for such 
 generous conduct with regard to my sister, with talents and 
 attainments such as you possess, to promise what I ought 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 not perhaps to have required, what nothing but a dear 
 sister's intellectual improvement could have induced me to 
 demand ? 
 
 Towards the close of the vacation, however, 
 Shelley's father became somewhat appeased, and 
 in the middle of January, 1811, he condescended 
 to argue with the youthful theologian, and confer 
 with him as to the evidences of Christianity. 
 It was even agreed that at Easter the terrible 
 Hogg, so vilified by the Pall Mall publisher, 
 should be received at Field Place. 
 
 On his return to Oxford at the beginning of 
 181 1, Shelley resumed his old manner of life with 
 Hogg ; the prospect of a possible union between 
 Hogg and Elizabeth drawing them still closer 
 together. They renewed with delight their former 
 habits of intimacy, their long vigils of study, 
 their rambles, their reading of all sorts, their 
 endless arguments. In order to please his father, 
 Shelley had promised to compete for the Newdi- 
 gate Prize, the subject being the Parthenon. 
 Mr. Shelley, delighted with his son's excellent 
 frame of mind, called upon a friend, the Rev. 
 Edward Dollaway, a learned antiquary, begging 
 iiim to assist the young poet with his erudition. 
 The antiquary on this wrote Shelley a long 
 letter, enclosing him a collection of maps, notes, 
 and documents ; but the poem was never finished. 
 A thunderbolt put a sudden end to Shelley's life 
 at Oxford, and crushed all the hopes and plans 
 of his father. ' 
 
 On matriculating at Oxford, Shelley had 
 undertaken to respect the University Religious 
 Tests, had subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 and, as Mr. Jeaffreson says, was bound to prove 
 himself in communion with the Church of 
 England, by receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper oil certain days in his college chapel. 
 
 It is interesting to learn what was the religious 
 
■SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 85 
 
 system at Oxford in 18 10. Mr. Jcaffreson is 
 sufficiently explicit on this point : 
 
 In respect to this last particular, it was usual for the 
 academic "dons" to have regard for the religious scruples 
 of the undergraduates, whose consciousness of evil living 
 made them leel they would be guilty of presumption in 
 coming to the Lord's table. On going to the Dean of 
 his College, or his tutor, and making confession of his 
 unfitness to communicate, the undergraduate of light 
 manners and tender conscience received permission to 
 be absent from the approaching celebration, on the under- 
 standing that he made a suitable contribution to the alms 
 gathered on the occasion for charitable uses. In most 
 colleges it was understood that the undergraduate who thus 
 avoided the communion should give a guinea to the 
 offertory ; a requirement to which the applicant for dis- 
 pensation could not object on conscientious grounds. Hence 
 the usage which in course of time gave occasion for the 
 statement that the dispensation was bought for a guinea, 
 and the still more perverse statement that undergraduates 
 took the Sacrament at the University, in order to escape the 
 exaction of twenty-one shillings. 
 
 It is easy to guess what Shelley must have 
 thought of such a performance. He could pass 
 judgment on it without having read Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft's remarks on the defective discipline 
 and morality of our national seminaries, in her 
 " Vindication of the Rights of Women " : " What 
 good can be expected from the youth who receives 
 the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to avoid 
 forfeiting a guinea, which he probably afterwards 
 spends in some sensual manner?" 
 
 Shelley accepted the Lord's Supper, as he had 
 accepted the Thirty-nine Articles, from necessity; 
 as a philosopher, he could only laugh at it. 
 
 Openly to attack these puerile institutions would 
 have been to court destruction ; his aims were 
 more Machiavellian. As he wrote to Hogg: "It 
 is now that I stand in need of all my art ; I am 
 driven to have recourse to cunning." It seemed 
 to him that the only road to success in his 
 
86 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 enterprise against religion was to arouse public 
 opinion, to stir and fashion it, and yet not to 
 expose himself to defeat by self-betrayal before 
 the battle. To this end it was well to air liis 
 opinions, to disseminate them among the literary 
 and intelligent, and to dispel torpor by direct 
 appeals to controversy. He had practised this 
 method, learned from Dr. Lind, at Eton, by 
 addressing inquiries on scientific subjects to 
 learned men, and there was now no danger of 
 incurring a flogging from Dr. Keate, with which 
 one of his Eton correspondents had threatened 
 him. He would take efficient means to avoid 
 detection this time. He experienced a secret 
 pleasure in the thought that the mysterious blows 
 which could not fail to hit their object, 
 "I'lnfame," would be struck from the very 
 sanctuary of its most fervent worshippers ; he 
 desired to effect on a smaller scale that which 
 Voltaire had, with greater advantages and less 
 ingenuity, effected on a larger, and in a country 
 far readier than England, the stronghold of cant, 
 to accept even from an anonymous hand the 
 daring doctrines of free thought, and the revolu- 
 tionary teachings of philosophy. 
 
 He entered, therefore, on the warfare, writing 
 under various pseudonyms, even feminine names, 
 to prelates, clergymen, and theologians, who took 
 their correspondent for an unbeliever, or at 
 least a sceptic. Medwin, who passed through 
 Oxford just then, found Shelley absorbed and 
 delighted by the incidents of these theological 
 mystifications. 
 
 But personal correspondence was found to 
 be too restricted. Unless his arguments were 
 to be allowed to degenerate into barren dis- 
 cussions, a starting-point and programme setting 
 forth the grounds of the whole question became 
 a necessity. Shelley, therefore, collaborated with 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 87 
 
 Hogg, and brought out his pamphlet " On the 
 Necessity of Atheism." 
 
 This thesis, written in the form of a geo- 
 metrical theorem with the traditional Q.E.D., 
 was the outcome of the meditations of the two 
 friends, and an abridgment of their analysis 
 in common of Hume's " Essays." It was a cate- 
 gorical demonstration that the existence of God 
 could not be proved by any of the stock 
 arguments in its favour, whether drawn from 
 the senses, from reason, or from evidence. 
 
 The didactic tone of the work leaves no room 
 for doubt as to Shelley's serious purpose in writing 
 it. Hogg speaks of it more lightly as " an 
 innocent and insignificant thesis proposed for 
 the delectation of lovers of logomachy." But 
 for Shelley it was a heavy piece of ordnance 
 intended to cause much noise and destruction. 
 He had written it with intense conviction and 
 fervour. " I will crush Intolerance," he wrote 
 to Hogg. "I will at least attempt it. To fail 
 even in so useful an attempt were glorious." 
 
 So soon as the work was in print* he hastened 
 to send copies, under the name of Jeremiah 
 Stukeley, to all those whom he wished to draw* 
 into correspondence on the subject, explaining 
 that "he had met accidentally with this little 
 tract, which appeared, unhappily, to be quite 
 unanswerable." 
 
 " Unless the fish," writes Hogg, " was too 
 sluggish to take the bait, an answer of refutation 
 was forwarded to an appointed address in London, 
 and then in a vigorous reply he would fall upon 
 the unwary disputant and break his bones. The 
 strenuous attack sometimes provoked a rejoinder 
 more carefully prepared, and an animated and 
 protracted debate ensued." 
 
 * E. & W. Philipps, printers, Worthing, Sussex. 
 
88 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 This did not last long, however. The pam- 
 phlet had been advertised in the Oxford Herald 
 on February 9, 181 1, and had caused consternation 
 in the enemy's camp. Doctors of Divinity and 
 Masters of Arts took counsel together to stop 
 the infamous tract so soon as it should be on 
 sale. Without Munday & Slatter's knowledge 
 Shelley strewed their shop-windows and counter 
 with copies of his pamphlet, telling their shop- 
 man to sell them as quickly as possible at 
 sixpence apiece.* One of the Fellows of New 
 College, the Rev. John Walker, was struck by 
 the strange title. He entered the shop, looked 
 into the pamphlet, and asked to see one of the 
 principals. What was this poison they were 
 vending ? If they had any sense of propriety 
 or any prudence, they would instantly destroy 
 all the copies on which they could lay hands. 
 
 The booksellers, astonished and alarmed, 
 hastened to follow this charitable advice, and at 
 the blazing kitchen-fire, in presence of the Grand 
 Inquisitor, John Walker, the auto-da-fe took 
 place. At the same time they sent to Shelley, 
 begging him to come and confer with them. 
 , Shelley arrived without delay, and an animated 
 conversation ensued. On the one side, Mr, 
 Munday, Mr. Slatter, and a certain lawyer 
 named Clifford who happened to be present,, 
 representing to Shelley the error of his ways, 
 pleading, imploring, threatening ; on the other 
 side the youthful author fearlessly defending 
 his cause in a shrill and piercing voice, main- 
 taining his right to free thought and free speech,, 
 and remaining to the last unconvinced and 
 unpersuadable. 
 
 " He had done worse," he told them, " than 
 spread his net in the sight of callow Oxford 
 
 * We borrow the above particulars from Mr. Dowden's 
 ' Life of Shelley." 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 89 
 
 birds — worse than shock the susceptibilities of a 
 Fellow of New College ; he had sent a copy 
 of his pamphlet to every bishop on the bench, 
 to the Vice-Chancellor, to each of the heads of 
 houses, and with it a letter in his own hand- 
 writing." 
 
 This open admission delivered him up to the 
 enemy. It was an easy matter for the .Oxford 
 authorities to recognise Shelley's handwriting 
 in that of Jeremiah Stukeley ; the Dons consulted 
 together, and resolved on his expulsion. On 
 March 25th, a fine spring morning, Shelley was 
 sent for to the Common Room, where he found 
 the Master and some of the Fellows. Immedi- 
 ately on his entrance, a copy of the terrible 
 syllabus was placed before him. A few minutes 
 afterwards he rushed into his rooms, where Hogg 
 was waiting for him, in extreme agitation : " I am 
 expelled ! " he exclaimed in a piercing voice, " I 
 am expelled ! " Then he gave the following 
 account to Hogg : 
 
 " I was sent for suddenly a few minutes ago. I went to 
 our Common Room, where I found our Master and two or 
 three of the Fellows. The Master produced a copy of the 
 little syllabus, and asked me if I were the author of it. He 
 spoke in a rude, abrupt, and insolent tone. I begged to be 
 informed for what purpose he put the question. No answer 
 was given ; but the Master loudly and angrily repeated : 
 'Are you the author of this book ?' 'If I can judge from 
 your manner,' I said, 'you are resolved to punish me if I 
 should acknowledge that it is my work. If you can prove 
 that it is, produce your evidence ; it is neither just nor 
 lawful to interrogate me in such a case and for such a 
 purpose. Such proceedings would become a court of in- 
 quisitors, but not free men in a free country.' ' Do you 
 choose to deny that this is your composition.?' the Master 
 reiterated in the same rude and angry voice." Shelley com- 
 plained much of hi:i violent and ungentleman like deport- 
 ment, saying: "I Ij-ive experienced tyranny and injustice 
 before, and I well know what vulgar violence is ; but I 
 never met with such unworthy treatment. I told him calmly 
 but- firmly that I was determined not to answer any ques- 
 
90 SHELLEY^THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 tions respecting the publication. He immediately re- 
 peated his demand. I persisteil in my refusal, and he said 
 furiously : ' Then you are expelled, and I desire you will 
 quit the College early to-mori'ow morning at the latest.' 
 One of the Fellows took up two papers and handed one of 
 them to me ; here it is." He produced a regular sentence 
 of expulsion, drawn up in due form, under the seal of 
 the College. 
 
 Hogg instantly addressed a note, which Mr. 
 Jeaffreson calls impudent, but which we should 
 rather characterise as courageous, to the Master 
 and Fellows, in which he begged them to recon- 
 sider their decision with regard to Shelley. 
 
 I wrote a short note to the Master and Fellows, in which I 
 briefly expressed my sorrow at the treatment my friend had 
 experienced, and my hope that they would reconsider their 
 sentence. The note was despatched ; the conclave was 
 still sitting ; and in an instant the porter came to summon 
 me to attend, bearing in his countenance a promise of the 
 reception which I was about to find. 
 
 Hogg followed Shelley's example ; he refused 
 to answer the questions of the Master, and in- 
 stantly received a sentence of expulsion. 
 
 On the morning of March 26th, 181 1, Percy 
 Bysshe Shelley and Thomas Jefferson Hogg left 
 Oxford for London. 
 
 It is in vain for Oxford to try and cleanse 
 herself from the stain she incurred in expelling 
 Shelley ; vain are her present efforts to appeal 
 from the verdict of public opinion, and Mr. 
 Jeaffreson's dull pleadings serve only to deepen 
 the stigma that rests upon the venerable 
 University. 
 
 Mr. Rossetti is the mouthpiece of all that is 
 intellectual and liberal in England when he 
 writes : 
 
 In this case as in others, the honestest and boldest 
 course is also the safest; and we shall do well to under- 
 
SHELLEY AT OXFORD. 91 
 
 stand once for all that Percy Shelley had as good a right to 
 form and expound his opinions on theology, as the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury had to his. 
 
 It is easy to perceive, as Mr. Jeaffreson says, that 
 Mr. Rossetti is not an Oxford man ! 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SHELLEY IN LONDON, AT FIELD PLACE, AND AT 
 CWM ELAN — ELOPEMENT WITH HARRIET 
 WESTBROOK — 1 8 II . 
 
 The two exiles reached London at dusk, and the 
 next morning they settled in lodgings at No. 15, 
 Poland Street. "The name attracted Shelley; 
 it reminded him of Thaddeus of Warsaw and of 
 freedom." The furnished lodging-house appears 
 to him like an enchanted palace ; he was " fas- 
 cinated by a gaudy wall-paper of vine-trellises and 
 grapes which adorned the parlour ; and vowed 
 he would stay there for ever." Every new im- 
 pression was with him so vivid, that he imagined 
 it must endure " for ever." Less than a month 
 had elapsed, and Hogg having left him, the en- 
 chantment vanished, and he abode " alone in the 
 vine-trellised chamber, where he was to remain a 
 bright-eyed, restless fox amidst sour grapes." 
 
 Mr. Shelley was horrified -at his son's expul- 
 sion, and his first thought was to endeavour to 
 separate him from his evil genius. To this end 
 he had corresponded with Hogg's father, request- 
 ing him to come and lecture " his young man ; " 
 he had next written from an hotel to his son, 
 stating as the conditions of forgiveness that 
 Shelley must immediately return to Field Place, 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 93 
 
 must cease all intercourse with Mr, Hogg, and 
 continue his studies privately under a master 
 he would himself select. He reserved to himself 
 the task of converting the young unbeliever by 
 means of Paley's " Natural Theology." " I shall 
 read it with him," he writes in melancholy mood 
 to Hogg senior ; " a father in such case will have 
 more influence than a stranger." Meanwhile he 
 invited the two rebels to dine with him, at his 
 hotel. On the 7th April, 181 1, Hogg and Shelley, 
 before presenting themselves at dinner in ac- 
 cordance with the invitation, took a long ramble 
 together, during which Shelley read aloud some 
 passages from a book criticising the Old Testa- 
 ment and .ridiculing the Jews and their religion. 
 Mr. Shelley received his guests with friendly 
 courtesy; but presently began to bluster, not 
 unkindly, and to grumble, swear, laugh, and cry 
 all at once. 
 
 " What do you think of my father .'' " asked 
 Shelley, aside, of his friend. 
 
 " That is not your father," replied Hogg; "he 
 is the God of the Jews, the Jehovah you were 
 reading about." 
 
 Shelley was so tickled by the reply that, 
 bursting into irrepressible laughter, he slipped 
 from his chair and lay stretched on the floor, 
 to the entire stupefaction of his father, and of 
 Graham, who was present. At this moment 
 dinner was announced. Mr. Graham pulled 
 Shelley to his feet, and they dined amicably. 
 After dinner Shelley's father took Hogg aside 
 and held a serious conversation with him, in 
 the course of which Hogg advised him philosophi- 
 cally to get his son married as soon as possible. 
 After tea, religion was introduced. 
 
 " There is certainly a God," said the Squire 
 of Field Place; "there is no doubt as to the 
 existence of the Deity." Then, as no one disputed 
 
94 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 the proposition, the Squire, turning suddenly on 
 Hogg, said : " Have you, sir, any doubt on the 
 subject ? " 
 " None." 
 
 "If you had, I could prove it to you in a 
 minute." 
 
 " I have no doubt." 
 
 " But perhaps you would like to hear my 
 argument .' " 
 
 "Very much." 
 
 " I will read it to you, then," cried the Squire, 
 drawing from his pocket a sheet of letter-paper 
 whereon he had jotted down a few arguments 
 taken from Paley's " Natural Theology." 
 
 " I have heard this argument before," said 
 Shelley in a low voice to Hogg. 
 
 "They are Paley's arguments," said Hogg. 
 "Yes, you are right, sir," said the Squire, 
 returning the paper to his pocket. " They are 
 Pulleys arguments, I copied them out of Palley's 
 book this morning myself; but Palley had them 
 originally from me ; almost everything in Palley's 
 book he had from me." 
 
 The prospect of studying Paley with the 
 Squire as his Egeria was not calculated to fasci- 
 nate Shelley. He replied to proposals from his 
 father that he had resolved to remain in Poland 
 Street, and that nothing in the world would induce 
 him to give up Hogg. Thereupon the Squire drew 
 his purse-strings tight and forbade him his house. 
 
 Amid all these conflicts and perplexities 
 Shelley was not losing his time. While con- 
 tinuing his studies and discussions with Hogg, 
 he was familiarising himself with the immense 
 city, which his imagination represented to him 
 in ages to come as a " habitation of bitterns, 
 shapeless and nameless ruins."* In company 
 
 * Dedication of " Peter Bell the Third." 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. . 95. 
 
 with Hogg, with his cousin Charles Grove, or with 
 Medwin, he wandered through the streets and 
 parks of London ; through Kensington Gardens, 
 the secluded parts of which — and especially one 
 dark nook planted with old yew-trees — delighted 
 him ; through St. James's Park, where the sight 
 of military evolutions elicited angry outbursts 
 against standing armies and their danger to 
 liberty ; and by the green banks of the Serpentine, 
 where he delighted in sailing flotillas of paper 
 boats. On one occasion, about this time, he 
 might have been found declaiming at the British 
 Forum,* a Radical club ; on another, after hearing 
 the great preacher, Rowland Hill, at Surrey 
 Chapel, and comparing his dramatic talent to 
 that of Kean or Kemble, he addressed a letter 
 to him proposing to occupy his pulpit and address 
 his congregation. He also regularly attended, 
 with his cousin, the great Abernethy's anatomical 
 lectures at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. 
 
 At this period he even thought of entering 
 the medical profession. These various projects 
 hardly accorded with the views of Mr. Shelley, 
 and his patron the Duke of Norfolk, who 
 wished him to enter Parliament. If he felt any 
 enthusiasm for politics, it was quite in an opposite 
 direction to the aristocratic Liberalism of moderate 
 Whigs like his father. The miserable state of 
 England at that time was not likely to reconcile 
 him to Royalty, whose luxury and indifference, 
 when contrasted with the severe sufferings of 
 the people, presented a spectacle alike painful 
 and grotesque. Shelley was moved by it to 
 alternate tears and laughter. On June 19th, 181 1, 
 
 * " He made so good a speech,'' says Grove, " that 
 when he left the room, there was a rush to find out who he 
 was, and to induce him to attend there again." Shelley 
 evaded their enthusiasm by giving them a false name and 
 address. 
 
56 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 a grand ball was given at Carlton House by the 
 Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., in honour 
 of the Bourbon emigres. They were received by 
 the Prince sitting under a crimson canopy of state, 
 and passed from the Privy Council Chamber to 
 the sky-blue satin room, decorated for the occa- 
 sion with fleurs-de-lys. In the banqueting hall 
 the great table extended to the length of two 
 hundred feet, and through a groove in the table 
 ran a stream of pure water flowing from a silver 
 fountain, the banks of which were covered with 
 green moss and aquatic flowers. Gold and silver 
 fishes swam in mid-stream. At the end of the table, 
 above the fountain, sat, on a throne of crimson 
 velvet, the Prince Regent in. a field-marshal's 
 uniform, wearing a wig with a long queue, a large 
 diamond ornament in his hat, a jewelled sword by 
 his side. The grace and elegance of his manners 
 were in perfect harmony with this theatrical 
 costume. The sole question which occupied the 
 minds of the company was whether the Countess 
 of Clonmel or Mrs. Thomas Hope bore away 
 the palm for splendour of attire. 
 
 We may imagine the exhilarating efiect on 
 Shelley when he read the account of such extrava- 
 gant folly in the Morning Herald. He remem- 
 bered it more than once afterwards when writing 
 " Queen Mab," and " Swellfoot the Tyrant," de- 
 scribing the luxury and magnificence of the Royal 
 table : " The price and pains which its ingredients 
 cost might have maintained some dozen families 
 a winter or two." * 
 
 His sense of humour was keenly touched by 
 this Royal farce; and he purposed celebrating 
 it in lyrical form. He wrote to his friend Graham, 
 the musician, asking his co-operation : 
 
 " If, Graham, within that democratical bosom of thine 
 yet lingers a spark of loyalty, if a true and firm King's man 
 
 * "Swellfoot the Tyrant," Scene 2. 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 97 
 
 ever found favour in thy sight, if thou art not totally- 
 hardened to streamlets whose mossy banks invite the repose 
 of the wanderer — if, I repeat, yet thou lovest thy rulers, and 
 kissest the honeyed rod — then, Graham, do 1 conjure thee by 
 the great George, our King, by our noble Prince Regent, 
 and our inimitable Commander-in-Chief — then do I conjure 
 thee by Mr. Clarke, the Duke of Kent, and Lord C'astlereagh, 
 together with Lord Grenville, that thou wilt assist me (as 
 heretofore thou didst promise) in my loyal endeavour to 
 magnify, if magnification be possible, our noble Royal 
 Family. . . . Thou hast a harp of fire, and I a pen of honey. 
 Let then the song roll — well, let it roll ! Take thou thy 
 tuning-fork, for the ode is coming." 
 
 The letter closes with, a translation of the first verse 
 of the " Marseillaise." 
 
 The ode came, and was immediately printed. 
 Only a few insignificant lines are now in existence. 
 Shelley amused himself by flinging copies into 
 the carriages of persons who called at Carlton 
 House. 
 
 On April i8th, Hogg had regretfully left his 
 friend, and started for York, where he was to 
 study the legal profession. Shelley missed him 
 sorely, and his first letters are full of grief and 
 despair. Relations with his father were still much 
 strained. When by chance Mr. Shelley happened 
 to meet his son, he acknowledged his salutation 
 by a look " dark as a thunder-cloud," and a 
 majestic " Your most humble servant." " Father," 
 writes Shelley, on April 29th, " is as fierce as a lion 
 again. . . . He wants me to go to Oxford to 
 apologise to the Master, etc. No, of course. . . . 
 I don't know where I am, where I will be. Future, 
 present, past, is all a mist ; it seems as if I had 
 begun existence anew under auspices so unfavour- 
 able. Yet no, that is stupid.'' 
 
 So long as his father did not relent towards 
 him, Shelley subsisted in London by the help 
 of money from Hogg, on the sums sent him 
 in secret by his sisters, (he had proudly refused 
 all help from his mother), or on that given him 
 
98 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 by his uncle, Captain Pllfold, a brave and 
 jovial sailor, who considered it more creditable 
 to be expelled from Oxford than to have gained 
 the Newdigate. By way of return, Shelley 
 "illuminated" him. The good uncle, with the 
 help of the Duke of Norfolk, contrived to appease 
 the wrath of the "lion" of Field Place; Mr. 
 Shelley allowed himself at last to be persuaded, 
 and agreed to receive his son at home once 
 more. Next he made him an allowance of 
 ;^200 a year, with permission to live where- 
 soever he preferred, on condition, however, of 
 keeping apart from Hogg. 
 
 Two hundred a year ! It was more than 
 Shelley hoped or wished for. "What is money 
 to me .' " he writes to Hogg. " What does it 
 matter if I cannot even purchase sufBcient 
 genteel clothes f I still have a shabby great- 
 coat, and those whose good opinion constitutes 
 my happiness would not regard me the better 
 or the worse for this or any other consequence 
 of poverty. Fifty pounds per annum would be 
 quite enough." 
 
 During the few weeks of his sojourn at Field 
 Place in May and June, Shelley sorrowfully 
 discovered a complete change of feeling in his 
 sister Elizabeth. She had been serious, con- 
 templative, affectionate, enthusiastic, despising the 
 world, but she was now apathetic to everything 
 except the trivial amusements and ■ despicable 
 intercourse of restrained conversation, " bowing 
 before that hellish idol, the world; appealing 
 to its unjust decisions in cases which demand 
 a trial at the higher tribunal of conscience. Yet 
 I do not despair ;. what she once was she has 
 a power to be again, but will that power ever 
 be exerted ? " She looked upon her brother 
 and. his friend as mad. Matrimony had become 
 " the subject of her constant and pointed pane- 
 
SHELLEY LN LONDON. 99 
 
 gyric. It was monstrous ! " Hogg felt incredu- 
 lous; it seemed blasphemous to doubt Elizabeth's 
 divine excellence. "Why, then," wrote Shelley, 
 ''not come and judge for yourself? Come 
 incogtiito, my dear friend. I have two rooms 
 in this house exclusively my own ; you shall 
 share them with me, you will be like a State 
 prisoner. You must only walk with me at mid- > 
 ■night for fear of discovery. My window com- 
 mands a view of the lawn, where you will 
 frequently see an object that will repay your 
 journey — the object of my fond affections. I 
 will meet you at midnight at the Horsham coach ; 
 and will return with you to York." 
 
 The project of a clandestine journey did not 
 commend itself to Hogg, and Shelley found 
 himself reduced to solitude. " I am a perfect 
 hermit, not a being to speak with ! I sometimes 
 exchange a word with my mother on the subject 
 of the weather, upon which she. is irresistibly 
 eloquent; otherwise all is deep silence!" The 
 silent gloom of a home that in earlier days had 
 echoed to the joyful games of his childhood 
 filled Shelley with dark anticipations. "Why 
 should we linger on the earth ? My dearest 
 hopes are fled. . . . She whom I had hoped 
 to unite to Hogg is unworthy of him. ... I 
 have been thinking of Death' and Heaven for 
 four days. Where is the latter? Is there a 
 future life ? Whom should we injure by de- 
 parting } Should we not benefit some ? I was 
 thinking last night, when from the summer- 
 house I saw the moon just behind one of the 
 chimneys, if she alone were to witness our 
 departure?" 
 
 Elizabeth's desertion was one of the deep 
 sorrows of Shelley's life, and at the same time 
 increased his horror of bigotry and intolerance. 
 
 There could be but one consolation, another 
 
 H 2 
 
100 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 female heart to take the place of the lost sister ; 
 and this he found, while on a visit to his uncle 
 Pilfold at Cuckfield, in the person of the poor 
 schoolmistress of the neighbouring village of 
 Hurstpierpoint. One of the Captain's daughters 
 was among her pupils. Miss Elizabeth Kitchener 
 thenceforth became Shelley's ideal of the valiant 
 ■ woman, the feminine apostle whom he afterwards 
 celebrated as Cythna in the "Revolt of Islam." 
 At a somewhat later period, but while still 
 in a state of enthusiastic admiration for his chance 
 acquaintance, he writes : * 
 
 She is a woman with whom I have become intimate 
 on account of her excellent quahties. Though derivinpr her- 
 birth from a very humble source, she contracted during 
 youth a very deep and refined habit of thinking ; her mind, 
 naturally inquisitive and penetrating, overstepped the bounds 
 of prejudice ; she formed for herself an unbeaten path of 
 life. Under the patronage of a singularly liberal mind, this 
 woman, when twenty years of age, became mistress of a 
 school. She concealed not the uncommon modes of think- 
 ing which she had adopted, and publicly instructed youth as 
 a Deist and a Republican. When I first knew her, she had 
 not read " Political Justice," yet her life appeared to me in 
 a great degree modelled upon its precepts. Such is the 
 woman who will shortly become a member of our family. 
 
 From the first day of their acquaintance, in 
 fact, Shelley had but one thought : to withdraw 
 Miss Hitchener from her humble avocations, 
 and attach her to himself as a soul necessary to 
 his soul. Thenceforth he would confide all his 
 thoughts to her keeping, and would disclose the 
 inmost sanctuary of his being. On his departure 
 from Cuckfield he left with his uncle various 
 books for her use : a copy of Southey's " Curse 
 of Kehama," Ensor's " National Education," and 
 Locke's " Essay on the Human Understanding." 
 On his return to Field Place, he at once entered 
 
 * Letter to Godwin, July, 1812. 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. lor 
 
 into a polemical correspondence with his newly- 
 made friend, embracing all the great metaphysical, 
 religious, and moral problems in which he was 
 absorbed.* 
 
 Shelley also engaged in another correspon- 
 dence while at Field Place with the two Miss 
 Westbrooks, one of whom^ the younger by four- 
 teen years, was destined shortly afterwards to 
 become his wife. 
 
 We must retrace our steps to make acquaint- 
 ance with the Westbrooks. " Jew " Westbrook, as 
 he was called, was a rich tavern-keeper in Mount 
 Street, and besides selling food and drink at the 
 bar, he lent money in his back-parlour to customers ; 
 and with the help of his wife, formerly a cook, 
 he had made a large fortune by the two trades. 
 So soon as his means permitted, he had removed 
 his family to a private house in Chapel Street, 
 and had provided his daughters with the edu- 
 cation of young ladies. Thus the younger of the 
 two was at Mrs. Fenning's school at Clapham 
 at the same time as Mary and Helen Shelley. 
 During the Oxford vacation Shelley's sisters had 
 spoken with enthusiasm of their school-fellow, 
 Harriet Westbrook; they admired her beauty 
 and loved her for her gay and gentle dis- 
 position. She was in truth a charming child, 
 whose faults of impatience or temper were 
 forgotten in her bright smile. She was the 
 favourite pupil, a capricious and lovely doll. 
 Helen Shelley, who saw her for the last time 
 in 1811, has traced her portrait in these words: 
 
 She was a very handsome girl, with a complexion quite 
 "Unknown in these days — brilliant in pink and white^with 
 hair quite like a poet's dream, and Bysshe's peculiar admira- 
 
 * About fifty of these letters are in existence. They are 
 of the utmost importance to the history of Shelley's mind 
 aiming 1811-1812. 
 
102 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 tion. Mrs. Fenning and the under - mistresses used ta 
 remark upon her beauty, and often said she might enact 
 Venus in a. fS/e champllre. Her eyes, like Shelley's, were 
 blue and prominent, and her hair light brown. 
 
 She acquired a still deeper interest in Shelley's 
 eyes from a hidden melancholy of temperament 
 — often speaking of suicide, but so calmly that 
 her hearers had ceased to be alarmed by her 
 words. This depression of spirits, forming- so 
 strong a contrast to the bright and playful 
 disposition of the fair Venus, was attributed to 
 the sorrows caused by her father's tyranny. 
 Trelawney relates that on one of Shelley's visits 
 to Clapham, he found the young girls discussing 
 Harriet's trials with her father, and that having 
 himself suffered deeply from paternal tyranny, 
 he conceived a generous passion for the interesting 
 victim ; and his sisters seeing no means of 
 rescuing her, Shelley exclaimed on a sudden : 
 " Well, then, I will marry her ! " He considered 
 his imprudent exclamation as binding, and kept 
 his word. 
 
 Shelley's first acquaintance with Harriet 
 dated from January, 1811. At the end of the 
 Christmas holidays/ his sister Mary had given 
 him a letter of introduction to the Westbrooks, 
 and a present for her friend, of which he was 
 to be the bearer. In the course of the month,. 
 Shelley, on returning to Oxford, had forwarded 
 to Harriet a copy of his novel of " St. Irvyne," 
 by the perusal ol which she could study at leisure 
 the doctrines of Free Love, and imbibe the 
 delicious poison of the poetic loves of Eloisa 
 and Fitzeustace. It was probably in return for 
 this attention, that she subscribed to a volume 
 of poems by Miss Janetta Philipps,* a young 
 writer warmly patronised by the poet. 
 
 * The book was brought out in 181 1, under the title ot 
 "Poems by Jauetta Philipps, Oxford," and was preceded by 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON, 103 
 
 A close correspondence ■ between Harriet 
 and Shelley ensued. 
 
 Miss Westbrook completed her conquest of 
 the poet by confiding to him the unreasonable 
 and tyrannical treatment she received from her 
 parents, and her wretchedness in an atmosphere 
 where there were none whom she could love ; 
 Shelley endeavoured to console her by raising 
 her tone of mind, and uprooting all her supersti- 
 tions. He soon conquered her first scruples. 
 Harriet was fascinated, and easily forgot the 
 repugnance she had at first felt for the atheist, 
 whose fame as such had reached even the 
 Clapham sphool. Shortly after hei- marriage 
 (March, 1812), Harriet gives to a friend — Miss 
 Hitchener — an account of this part of her life, 
 whose tragic ending lends a touching interest to 
 her letter. 
 
 Why does my dear friend continually mislead herself, 
 and thus apply to my judgment, which is so inferior to 
 her own .' 'Tis true you have mixed more in the world than 
 myself. My knowledge has been very confined on account 
 of my youth, and the situation in which I was placed. My 
 intercourse with mankind has, therefore, been much less 
 than you may imagine. When I lived with my fatlier I was 
 not likely to gain much knowledge, as our circle ot acquaint- 
 ance was very limited, he not thinking it proper that we 
 should mix much with society. In short, we very seldom 
 visited those places of fashionable resort and amusement 
 which, from our age, might have been expected. 'Twas but 
 seldom I visited my home, school having witnessed the 
 greater part of my life. But do not think from this that I 
 was ignorant of what was passing in the great world : 
 books and a newspaper were sufficient to inform me of 
 these. Though then a silent spectator, yet did 1 know that 
 all was not as it ought to be. I looked with a fearful eye 
 upon the vices of the great, and thought to myself 'twas 
 better even to be a beggar, or to be obliged to gain my 
 bread with my needle, than to be the inhabitant of those 
 great houses, when misery and famine, howJ around. 
 
 a list of subscribers, among whom the names of Shelley and 
 Harriet Westbrook appear lor the firbt tiuie lo^eiher. 
 
X04 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 I will tell you my faults, knowing what I have to expect 
 from yOLir friendship. Remember my youth, and if any 
 excuse can be made, let that suffice. In London, you know, 
 there are military, as well as everywhere else. When quite 
 a child I admired these red-coats., This grew up with me, 
 and I thought the military the best as well as most fascina- 
 ting men in the world — though at the same time I used 
 to declare never to marry one. This was not so much 
 on account of their vices, as from the idea of their being 
 killed. I thought, if I married any one, it should be a 
 clergyman. Strange idea this, was it not ? But being brought 
 up in the Christian religion, 'twas this first gave rise to it. 
 You may conceive with what horror I first heard that 
 Percy was an atheist ; at least, so it was given out at Clapham. 
 At first I did not comprehend the meaning of the word ; 
 therefore when it was explained I was truly petrified. I 
 wondered how he could live a moment professing such 
 principles, and solemnly declared that he should never 
 change mine. I little thought of the I'ectitude of these 
 principles, and when I wrote to him I used to try to shake 
 them — making sure he was in the wrong, and that myself 
 was right. Yet I would listen to none of his arguments, so 
 afraid I was that he should shake my belief At the same 
 time I believed in Eternal Punishment, and was dreadfully 
 afraid of his supreme Majesty the Devil. I thought I 
 should see him if I listened to his arguments. I often 
 dreamed of him, and felt such terror when I heard his 
 name mentioned. These were the effects of a bad education 
 and living with Methodists. Now, however, this is entirely 
 done away with, and my soul is no longer shackled with such 
 idle fears. 
 
 After Shelley's expulsion from Oxford, one of 
 his first visits in London had been to Mrs. 
 Fenning's school, and Harriet took the opportunity 
 of her own frequent visits to her parents at Chapel 
 Street to convey to Bysshe the money sent him by 
 his sisters. He improved his acquaintance with 
 the Westbrooks, and particularly with Harriet's 
 elder sister Eliza, vvho subsequently acted so odious 
 a part in the poet's home. Her thoughts were now 
 centred on becoming the sister-in-law of a future 
 baronet, and Shelley suffered himself to be 
 bewitched by this feminine fiend. 
 
 No sooner had Hogg left London than Shelley 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 105 
 
 received a visit from the two sisters at his lodgings. 
 In his letters to Hogg he dwells complacently on 
 the goodness and kindness of the elder Miss 
 Westbrook, and on the progress of his anti-religious 
 instructions to the two girls. "The fiend, the 
 wretch shall fall ! " he writes on the 28th of April. 
 i' Harriet will do for one of the crushers, and the 
 eldest (Eliza) with some taming will do too." 
 
 He took frequent walks with them in the 
 neighbourhood of the Clapham "prison-house" 
 wherein poor Harriet was pining away. Eliza 
 artfully contrived as many interviews as possible; 
 on one occasion Shelley hastened to Chapel Street 
 on her invitation, where he found the poor captive 
 suffering from a severe headache. Eliza left him 
 in her sister's sole company until a late hour of the 
 night. 
 
 " My poor little friend has been ill," he writes to Hogg ; 
 "her sister sent forme the other night. I found her on a 
 couch, pale ; her father is civil to me, very strangely ; the 
 sister is too civil by half. She began talking about r Amour. 
 I philosophised, and the youngest said she had such a 
 headache that she could not bear conversation. Her sisfer 
 then went away, and I stayed till half-past twelve. Her 
 father had a large party below, he invited me ; I refused. 
 The two sisters are both very clever, and the youngest (my 
 friend) is amiable. Yesterday she was better ; to-day her 
 father compelled her to return to Clapham, whither I have 
 conducted her." 
 
 On their way thither, Harriet confided to 
 Shelley the persecution she had to endure on his 
 account, and the disdain with which she opposed her 
 schoolfellows' cruelty. It is intelligible that such 
 a confession must have alike inflamed Shelley's 
 hatred of intolerance, and his love for the 
 courageous girl. 
 
 Shelley's lessons were so fruitful, that the girl- 
 freethinker soon became suspected on account of 
 her advanced ideas, and was shunned by her 
 
lo6 SHELLEY— THR MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 schoolfellows, who called her an " abandoned 
 wretch." Helen Shelley alone stood by her, and 
 such courageousness delighted her brother, who 
 writes to Hogg : " She would be a divine little 
 scion of infidelity if I could get hold of her.'" 
 Helen was then thirteen, and Harriet sixteen. The 
 little poems sent to Hogg at this period are 
 expressive of Shelley's feelings at the time: 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Why is it said thou canst not live 
 
 In a youthful breast and fair, 
 Since thou eternal life canst give — 
 
 Canst bloom for ever there — 
 Since withering pain no power possessed, 
 
 Nor age to blanch thy vermeil hue, . 
 Nor Time's dread victor, Death, confessed. 
 
 Though bathed with his poison-dew ? 
 Still thou retain'st unchanging bloom, 
 Fixed, tranquil even in the tomb. 
 
 And oh ! when on the blessed, reviving, 
 
 The day-star dawns of Love, 
 Each energy of soul surviving 
 
 More vivid soars above. 
 Hast tliou ne'er felt a rapturous thrill. 
 
 Like June's warm breath athwart thee fly. 
 O'er each idea then to steal, 
 
 When other passions die "i — 
 Felt it in some wild noonday dream. 
 When sitting by the lonely stream 
 Where silence says " Mine is the dell,"' 
 
 And not a murmur from the plain. 
 An 1 iKit an echo from the fell, 
 Disputes her silent reign. 
 {April, 1811.) 
 
 TO 
 
 O thou 
 M'hose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path 
 Which this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold,, 
 But swiftly leading to those awful limits 
 Which mark the bounds of time, and of the space 
 When time shall be no more— wilt thou not turn 
 Those spirit-beaming eyes, and look on me,. 
 Until I be assured that earth is heaven,. 
 And heaven is earth ? 
 (1811.) 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 107 
 
 TO A STAR. 
 
 Sweet star, which gleaming o'er the darksome scene. 
 Through fleecy clouds of silvery radiance fliest ! 
 Spanglet of light on evening's shadowy veil, 
 Which siirouds the daybeam from the waveless lake, 
 Lighting the hour of sacred love, niore sweet 
 Than the expiring morn-star's paly fires ! 
 Sweet star ! when wearied Nature sinks to sleep. 
 And all is hushed — all save the voice of love. 
 Whose broken murmurings swell the balmy blast 
 Of soft Favonius, which at intervals 
 Sighs in the ear of Stillness — art thou aught but 
 Lulling the slaves of interest to repose. 
 With that mild pitying gaze ? — Oh ! I would look 
 In thy dear beam till every bond of sense 
 Became enamoured ! 
 (1811.) 
 
 In the middle of July, 181 1, Shelleyrelinquished 
 his previous intention of joining Hogg at York,* 
 and went on a visit to his cousin Thomas Grove, at 
 Cvvm Elan in Radnorshire, in hopes of meeting the 
 Westbrooks at Aberystwith, where they were about 
 to spend part of the summer. But while looking 
 forward to the happy moment which should 
 reunite him to Harriet, he fell into one of those 
 states of despondency which all his stoicism could 
 not subdue, and in which even the charms of 
 Nature failed to afford enjoyment. 
 
 " This is most divine scenery," he writes to Hogg, " but 
 all very dull, stale, flat, and unprofitable ; indeed this place 
 is a very great bore. I am now with people who, strange to 
 say, never think. I am all sohtude. ... I must stay here, 
 however, to recruit my finances, compelled now to ac- 
 knowledge poverty an evil. ... I do not see a soul ; all is 
 gloomy and desolate. I amuse myself, however, with read- 
 ing Darwin, climbing rocks, and exploring this scenery." 
 
 In his letters to Miss Kitchener he discussed 
 politics and sociology. Equality — is it attainable ? 
 
 * His father had written to him, " Go, if you please, to 
 York, but not with my money." 
 
to8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 If unattainable, yet is it not an ideal towards 
 which society may perpetually advance? .... 
 With a juster distribution of happiness and wealth, 
 of toil and leisure, would not crime and the 
 temptation to crime almost cease to exist .' 
 Would not the rich man himself be better off if 
 free from the passions and evils to which his 
 hereditary fortune predestines him ? While re- 
 plying to these questions with a conviction that 
 such a paradise of equality need not be a visionary 
 one, he could not refrain from casting a sorrowful 
 and prophetic glance at the actual state of affairs, 
 and the sanguinary conflicts that must needs arise 
 sooner or later between the extremes of poverty 
 and wealth, owing to the fatal effects of the present 
 system. 
 
 He illustrated this to Miss Hitchener by a 
 striking anecdote, which, when related by him, 
 becomes symbolic of a high school of morality. 
 
 My window is over the kitchen. In the morning I threw 
 it up, and had nearly finished dressing, when " For the love 
 of charity" met my ear. These words were pronounced 
 with such sweetness, that on turning round I was surprised 
 to find them uttered by an old beggar, to whom in a moment 
 the servant brought some meat. I ran down to give him 
 something. He appeared extremely gratefijl. I tried to 
 enter into conversation with him — in vain ! I followed him 
 a mile, asking a thousand questions. At length I quitted 
 him, finding by this remarkable observation that per- 
 severance was. useless : " I see by your dress that you are 
 a rich man. They have injured me and mine a million 
 times. You appear to me well-intentioned, but I have 
 no security of it while you live in such a house as that, or , 
 wear such clothes as those. It would be charitable in you 
 to leave me." 
 
 Meanwhile Shelley waited in vain for the letter 
 which was to summon him to Aberystwith. 
 
 Mr. Westbrook had brought his daughters so 
 far as Condowell ; but there he suddenly retraced 
 his steps and returned to London, with the intention 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 109 
 
 of placing Harriet once more at the Clapham 
 School. Harriet immediately acquainted Shelley 
 with the plan, on which he endeavoured to befriend 
 her by addressing an eloquent letter to her father; 
 this failed, ho\Vever, to soften the tyrant. Harriet 
 then threw' herself entirely on Shelley's protection, 
 declaring she was ready to fly with him whither- 
 soever he would. Shelley's scruples vanished 
 before such devotion, and hearkening rather to the 
 biddings of chivalrous sentiment than to those of 
 love, or, as he himself described it after the event, 
 " more " from " exerted action than inspired 
 passion," he sacrificed himself, not without melan- 
 choly forebodings, and accepted enthusiastically a 
 duty exacted from him by the sufferings and love 
 of her who had placed herself in his hands. 
 
 In the first glow of feeling he writes to 
 Hogg: 
 
 Her father has persecuted her in a most horrible way by 
 endeavouring to compel her to go to school. She asked my 
 advice. : resistance was the answer, at the same time that 
 I essayed to mollify Mr. Westbrook in vain ! and in conse- 
 quence of my advice she has thrown herself upon my pro- 
 tection. . . . Gratitude and admiration all demand that I 
 should love her for ever. . . . We shall have ;£2oo a year ; 
 when we find it run short we must live, I suppose, upon 
 love ! . . . We shall see you at York. 
 
 Shelley hastened to London, where he found 
 Harriet ill and undecided. Instigated doubtless 
 by Eliza, she wished to make sure of her future 
 position by a formal marriage. This was also the 
 advice of Hogg, who was an ardent partisan of 
 lawful matrimony. Shelley yielded to the opinion 
 of his friend ; he was perfectly indifferent on 
 his own account to the views of the world, he 
 only yielded to considerations of Harriet's 
 interests and happiness. "A woman's happiness 
 is fragile, all too easily shattered, and therefore to 
 be guarded against shock or stroke." He knew 
 
110 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 also " how useless " it was "to attempt by solitary 
 and isolated examples to renovate the face of 
 society, until reason shall have worked so radical 
 a change that the experimenter may disregard 
 vexations from the results, and place himself above 
 the prejudice with which his opinion would be 
 met by the immense majority." 
 
 On August 15, 1811, he writes to Hogg: "I 
 am become a perfect convert to matrimony, not 
 from temporising but from your arguments." * A 
 promise of marriage was therefore given to both 
 the sisters, and only money was wanting to carry 
 out the elopement. Shelley borrowed twenty-five 
 pounds from the father of his cousin Medwin, 
 Finally, after several secret interviews between the 
 lovers in the presence of Charles Grove, one fine 
 morning in August (Saturday, the 24th, says 
 Mr. Dowden) Harriet Westbrook stepped lightly 
 and gaily into the hackney-coach waiting for her 
 at a coffee-house door in Mount Street, the two 
 cousins sprang in beside her, and the coach-wheels 
 rattled towards the Bull and Mouth, where the trio 
 waited all day for the departure of the Northern 
 mail. 
 
 * "The one argument, which you have urged so often 
 with so much energy, the sacrifice made by the woman, 
 50 disproportioned to any which the man can make, this 
 alone can justify me, were it a fault, for my hesitating 
 submission to your superior intellect. . . . My father is 
 here, much astonished probably to see me in London. He 
 will soon be more so." 
 
 According to some letters to Miss Kitchener quoted 
 by Mr. Dowden, Shelley spent a few days in August both at 
 Field Place and at Cuckfield, where he again met his friend, 
 and announced to her his intention of entering the "pro- 
 fession of physic." But he was soon recalled to London by 
 a pressing letter from Harriet. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH, YORK, AND KESWICK 
 — MOMENTARY RUPTURE WITH HOGG — 
 SHELLEY AND SOUTHEY— l8ll-l8l2. 
 
 At midnight the mail-coach stopped a few 
 minutes at York, and Shelley wrote a hurried 
 note to Hogg: "Harriet is with me. We are 
 in a slight pecuniary distress. We shall have 
 seventy-five pounds on Sunday; until then, can 
 you send ten pounds ? " Hogg did better than 
 send the loan, he started himself for Edinburgh. 
 During their journey Bysshe and Harriet 
 had met with a young Scots advocate, who had 
 explained to them the necessary steps for con- 
 tracting marriage according to Scots law. Then 
 on their arrival in Edinburgh they had found 
 excellent rooms, and a good-humoured landlord 
 who agreed to advance them money, on the one 
 condition that Shelley should treat himself and 
 his friends to a supper. The supper accordingly 
 took place, but was nigh to ending with a tragedy. 
 The landlord's roystering friends proposed to 
 invade the rooms of the new-married pair at 
 midnight ; and Shelley, in extreme indignation, 
 caught up his pistols and threatened to use them 
 if they ventured on such a liberty. The marriage 
 
112 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 was solemnised on August 28th, between " Percy 
 Bysshe 'i\\€i\^Y , farmer, Sussex, and Miss Harriet 
 VVestbrook, daughter of Mr. John Westbrook, 
 London." 
 
 When Hogg arrived, the wedding was over. 
 Mr. Timothy Shelley had soon been informed 
 of the great event, and was highly indignant; he 
 instantly cut off the supplies, and Shelley waited 
 in vain for his quarterly allowance of jQ^O, due 
 in September. His uncle Pilfold enabled him 
 to pay his debts, and to him it was due that he 
 did not remain "chained to the mud and com- 
 merce of Edinburgh." Shelley's father next broke 
 out into lamentations addressed to the elder Mr. 
 Hogg.'for it was presumed "that Bysshe having 
 set off for Edinburgh with a young female, may 
 stay at York on his way, and God only knows 
 what may happen if your young man and my 
 young man should meet ! " 
 
 Hogg's arrival was the crowning joy of 
 Shelley's happiness, and the five weeks spent by 
 the trio in Edinburgh were weeks of Eden-like 
 felicity. Hogg was dazzled with Harriet's beauty; 
 he can scarcely paint her in sufficiently bright 
 colours, or with sufficiently tender touches : 
 
 If it was agreeable to listen to her, it was not less 
 agreeable to look at her ; she was always pretty, always 
 bright, always blooming. Without a spot, without a wrinkle, 
 not a hair out of its place. 
 
 He frequently escorted her in her walks ; to- 
 gether they visited Holyrood Palace and Arthur's 
 Seat. He was shocked at the insensibility of the 
 inhabitants of the northern metropolis to the 
 charms of his youthful companion : 
 
 I went abroad with her there more frequently, but 
 nobody ever noticed her ; she was short, and slightly and 
 delicately formed— not raw-boned enough for the Scottish 
 market. 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. 113 
 
 After breakfast, of which Shelley's share often 
 consisted of bread and honey, the morning was 
 passed in study : Shelley translating a treatise of 
 Buffon (probably " Les ifepoques de la Nature "), 
 while Harriet was at work in a similar way on a 
 novel by Madame Cottin, " Claire d'Albe."* The 
 afternoon was devoted to walks, and on their 
 return from these, a little serving-maid, whose 
 unmusical Northern accent' was agonising to 
 Shelley, would announce that tea was ready. Tea- 
 time was spent in philosophical conversation; 
 after which Harriet would begin to read aloud 
 in her clear, sweet voice. " T^lemaque " and 
 " Belisaire " were her favourite books.f 
 
 In spite of the charm lent to F^n^lon and 
 Marmontel by Harriet's clear voice, Shelley fre- 
 quently yielded to "innocent slumbers" which 
 gave serious offence to the fair reader. Before 
 retiring to rest the three friends would stroll out 
 to admire the stars, or perhaps the famous comet 
 of 181 1. On one Sunday Shelley was induced by 
 Hogg to attend divine service in the kirk. "I 
 never saw Bysshe so dejected," says Hogg; "... 
 he looked the picture of perfect wretchedness ; 
 the poor fellow sighed piteously as if his heart 
 would break." Yet he volunteered to be present 
 at the evening Catechism. The extraordinary 
 accent with which the catechist put his questions 
 to his young neophytes : " Wha was Adam ? . . . 
 Wha's the deil .? " threw him into a fit of laughter 
 that forced him to leave the church. On another 
 
 * The novels of Madame Cottin, which were so popular, 
 especially with women, at the beginning of the century, were 
 then in their first vogue. " Harriet," says Hogg, " rendered 
 the two volumes exactly and correctly ; and wrote the whole 
 out fairly, without blot or blemish, upon the smoothest, 
 whitest, finest paper, in a small, neat, ilowing, and legible 
 feminine hand." 
 
 t " She had the clearest pronunciation I ever heard." 
 
 I 
 
114 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 occasion he incurred the severe reproof of a serious 
 Scotchman, by his wild and noisy gaiety in the 
 streets on the Sabbath day. 
 
 When their means began td be exhausted, the 
 trio returned to York, travelling by post-chaise. 
 The weather was rainy, and Harriet, to make 
 the journey pleasanter, read aloud from one of 
 Holcroft's novels,* which seemed anything but 
 amusing to Shelley ; he derived much more 
 pleasure from the childlike speeches of his young 
 bride, whose wonder was excited by every novelty 
 on the journey, and who, as a " little Cockney,''' 
 was so ignorant of the objects of country life that 
 she had to learn from him the difference between 
 a field of barley and a field of turnips. When the 
 horses were changed, and Hogg busied himself 
 about the luggage, Shelley would vanish. Once 
 at Berwick, all was ready to start, but Bysshe 
 was missing; Hogg went in pursuit, and found 
 him " in a drizzling rain, gazing mournfully at 
 the wild and dreary sea, with looks not less 
 wild and dreary." The travellers reached York 
 on a rainy evening in October. The young 
 couple found lodgings, "and stayed for about 
 ten days at the house of the Misses Dancer,. 
 Coney Street, the dingy dwelling of two dingy 
 old milliners, fatal as the Valkyrise, two of the 
 Fatal Sisters not unworthy of a place in the Edda,. 
 who were manifestly designed to sew shrouds, hem 
 winding-sheets, and make mouldering dresses 
 for the dead."t 
 
 Shelley felt little of that interest in the ancient 
 city of York, and its Christian antiquities, which 
 would have been excited in a mind less full of 
 abstract theories, and more mindful of the moral 
 
 * A popular novelist and comic author of the time. 
 
 + "York at that time," says Hogg, " was in many respects 
 a poor city ; rich only in ecclesiastical and civic pnde — aud- 
 it was not easy to find good lodgings." 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. iij 
 
 and sesthetic teachings of history. The marvellous 
 Minster appeared to him but a huge monument 
 of the barbarism of the Middle Ages. 
 
 "When I contemplate these gigantic piles of super- 
 stition," he writes to Miss Hitchener (October, 1811), "when 
 I consider, too, the leisure for the exercise of mind which the 
 labour which erected them annihilated, I set them down as 
 so many retardations of the period when Truth becomes 
 omnipotent. AH these useless ornaments are exertions 
 of bodily labour which, though trivial separately considered, 
 when united destroy a vast proportion of this invaluable 
 leisure. How many things could we do without ! " 
 
 Shelley was occupied with other cares, above 
 all with anxiety about the means of living. Ten 
 days had passed away at York, and his father 
 made no sign of loosening his purse-strings, and 
 Shelley resolved on seeking an interview with 
 him in order to come to terms. 
 
 " I had thought," he wrote to Miss Hitchener, " that this 
 blind resentment had long been banished to the regions 
 of dulness, comedies, and farces, or was used merely to 
 augment the difficulties and consequently the attachment of 
 the hero and heroine of a modern novel. I have written 
 frequently to this thoughtless man [his father], and am now 
 determined to visit him, in order to try the force of truth ; 
 though I must confess I consider it nearly as hyperbolical as 
 ' music rending the knotted oak.' " 
 
 The journey to Sussex offered him, besides, 
 some prospect of pleasure in a visit to Miss 
 Hitchener, with whom his relations had become 
 closer, more confidential, and more intimate since 
 his marriage with Harriet. Miss Hitchener had 
 received the news of his union with a woman 
 jo ni^cii his inferior with generous kindness, and 
 had expressed the sincerest wishes for the happi- 
 ness of both. Shelley's gratitude was boundless ; 
 he felt that he could now open his heart without 
 reserve to his incomparable friend ; he could tell 
 her that he loved her with the love of a soul 
 
 I 2 
 
Ji6 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 for a soul — that love which is subject neither to 
 time, nor change, nor death, and which is the 
 clearest proof of our immortality. He felt it 
 rather embarrassing to explain to so disinterested 
 and superior a woman that money was the motive 
 of his visit to Sussex. " But even the considera- 
 tion of money may be ennobled by the thought 
 that the true use of wealth is to procure freedom 
 for those we love, and who will apply their freedom 
 to high ends." "Ought he not to share his 
 fortune with Iter who is the sister of his soul, 
 and with him [probably Hogg] who is its brother ? 
 Surely these have a right to it ! " * 
 
 Full of these thoughts, Shelley announced to 
 Hogg his intention of proceeding to Sussex in 
 search of money, nor could he be dissuaded by 
 his friend's sensible advice from undertaking 
 the journey. He departed, leaving his young 
 wife to the guardianship of Hoggj and exposed 
 to the suspicions which so delicate a position 
 must inevitably arouse among her immediate 
 neighbours. t During Shelley's absence, Harriet 
 spent long and lonely days in her own room at 
 York. " Even when it was fair," says Hogg, 
 "she did not go out, having unfortunately trans- 
 planted her London notions of propriety to York ; 
 she considered it incorrect to walk in the streets 
 of that quiet city by herself, where all eyes were 
 attracted by her beauty." Hogg came to see 
 her of an evejiing, when they talked together 
 of her husband or her family, or Harriet read 
 
 * Letters to Miss Kitchener, October, 1811. Miss 
 Hitchener had the good feeling to refuse the offered share ; 
 all she asked was that Shelley would put aside a certain' sum 
 to provide for the old age of Miss Adams, her first 
 instructress and "the mother of her soul." 
 
 + Mr. Jeaffreson devotes a full page to detailing the 
 hundred and one solutions by which the old milliners may 
 have tried to account for Shelley's sudden departure. 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. 117 
 
 aloud from Holcroft or Robertson. Suddenly, 
 four-and-twenty hours before the return of Shelley, 
 Eliza Westbrook appeared upon the scene. The 
 elder sister had only been waiting for an oppor- 
 tunity of taking the young couple under her 
 guardianship, and she had now found it in 
 Harriet's forsaken condition at York. Harriet 
 had frequently spoken to Hogg of her sister's 
 beauty; he was consequently surprised to find 
 her face "seamed with the small-pox," her eyes 
 dull and meaningless, her "beautiful hair" heavy 
 and coarse, her features thin and unlovely. From 
 the first moment of their meeting, Eliza and 
 Hogg were enemies ; they exchanged looks of 
 aversion and dislike, and each set about en- 
 deavouring to oust the other. Hogg at once 
 scented danger to the married pair in the presence 
 of this shrew in their household ; and, in fact, 
 her arrival was followed by a sudden reversal 
 of the habits of the little circle. 
 
 "The house lay, as it were, under an interdict," writes 
 Hogg. " All our accustomed occupations were suspended ; 
 study was forbidden ; reading was injurious ; to read aloud 
 might terminate fatally ; to go abroad was death, to stay at 
 home the grave. Bysshe became nothing ; I, of course, very 
 much less than nothing. . . . 
 
 " Harriet still existed, it was true ; but her existence was 
 to be in future a seraphic life, a beatific vision, to be passed 
 exclusively in the assiduous contemplation of Eliza's infinite 
 perfections. Before the angelic vision, we had never heard 
 of Harriet's nerves, we had never once suspected that such 
 organs existed ; now we heard of little else. ' Dearest 
 Harriet, you must not do that ; only consider the state 
 of your nerves ! Whatever will become of your poor nerves ? 
 What would Miss Warne say ? ' " 
 
 Shelley's journey into Sussex had brought 
 him naught but disappointment. He had had, 
 indeed, the happiness of meeting Miss Kitchener 
 at the house of his uncle Pilfold ; but his father 
 had not yielded to the "force of truth," and. 
 
118 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 worse still, refused to give any pecuniary help 
 without promises of submission and amendment. 
 Hoo-g's first counsel to his friend was to send 
 Eliza Westbrook back to London without delay. 
 But Shelley was desirous of conciliating his father- 
 in-law, the use of whose purse was needful at 
 that time, and judged it inexpedient to make 
 a declared enemy of Eliza. Hogg, however, 
 continued to display his hostility to the unfor- 
 tunate kill-joy, even in the presence of Harriet. 
 
 " Eliza," he tells us, " spent a great deal of her time 
 in her bedroom. I asked Harriet what that dear Eliza did 
 alone there ? ' Does she read .■" ' No.' — ' Does she work ? ' 
 ' Never.' — ' Does she write ? ' ' No.' — ' What does she do, 
 then ? ' Harriet came quite close to me, and answered 
 in a whisper, lest peradventure her sister should hear her, 
 with the serious air of one who communicates some profound 
 and weighty secret, ' She brushes her hair ! ' . . . One day, 
 whilst the guardian angel kept on brushing, we brushed off, 
 and wandered to the river. We stood on the high centre of 
 the old Roman bridge ; there was a mighty flood ; father 
 Ouse had overflowed his banks, carrying with him timber, 
 and what not. ' Is it not an interesting, a surprising 
 sight ? ' — ' Yes, it is very wonderful. But, dear Harriet, how 
 nicely that dearest Eliza would spin down the river ! How 
 sweetly she would turn round and round like that log 
 of wood! And, gracious Heaven, what would Miss Warns 
 say?' She turned her pretty face away and laughed — as a 
 slave lauglis who is beginning to grow weary of an intolerable 
 yoke. ... I had sometimes spoken of my intention of pay- 
 ing a visit to the English lakes, which visit had been 
 exchanged for the matrimonial trip to Edinburgh. The 
 image of lakes, mountains, rocks, and waterfalls, and of the 
 like picturesque and romantic objects whicli those districts 
 present, at once tQok entire possession of light minds. The 
 young couple became in an instant as to their whole souls, 
 demoniacally possessed by the Genius of the Lakes, and it 
 was impossible to exorcise them, to cast out the mischievous 
 spirit, eiiher by prayer, or fasting, or in any other manner — 
 not even by bell, book, and candle ; more especially since 
 their Guardian Angel, smirking in silence, no doubt favoured 
 the sudden fancy." 
 
 Hogg was invited, for manners' sake, to 
 accompany the trio. He explained in his most 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. iig 
 
 humorous language that his affairs required his 
 presence at York ; that November was not the 
 right season for an excursion out of the way 
 of everybody and everything ; that Skiddaw^ 
 Helvellyn, Derwentwater, and Lodore would 
 still be there next summer; Southey and Words- 
 worth as well . . . and even the asses they had 
 so gloriously apostrophised and so sweetly sung. 
 " We must go to Keswick, go thither at once and 
 remain there for ever ! Impossible to remain any 
 longer in such an unpoetical, uninspiring hole 
 as York ; and you, Hogg, you yourself will soon 
 rejoin your friends at Keswick and stay with them 
 for ever ! " 
 
 Great was Hogg's surprise when, on going to 
 their lodgings one evening to dinner, he found the 
 birds flown. An illegible pencilled note informed 
 him that his friends had gone to Richmond, and 
 invited him to join them there. 
 
 Were this part of Shelley's life only known 
 to us through Hogg's narrative, we might justly 
 accuse the former of strange inconstancy towards 
 that " friend of his soul " from whom he had sworn 
 nothing should separate him. Fortunately for us, 
 and unfortunately for Hogg, there are other 
 accounts, which, owing to the revelations of Mr. 
 Dowden, throw complete light on this painful 
 incident in Shelley's history. The following facts 
 are derived from Shelley's hitherto unpublished 
 letters to Miss Hitchener. 
 
 On Shelley's return to York he noticed that 
 Harriet's attitude towards his friend was greatly 
 changed, and that she regarded him with dislike. 
 He inquired into her reasons, and discovered that 
 his beloved friend had endeavoured to seduce his 
 wife. The first advances had been made imme- 
 diately after their removal to York, and he had 
 renewed his hateful attempts during the absence 
 of Shelley. Harriet had recalled him to reason 
 
I20 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 and to duty, on which Hogg, acknowledging his 
 weakness and error, had offered, by way of ex- 
 piation, to write to Shelley and confess all to 
 him. Harriet had opposed this plan, fearing the 
 effects of such a communication on the mind of 
 the poet, and on the following day Shelley had 
 returned. 
 
 What a blow for Shelley ! What must be 
 thought of the human race, if that superior being, 
 "made," as he said, "to give laws to us poor 
 creatures who crawl here below," could be capable 
 of such a cowardly act ? But it was impos- 
 sible ; it was a mistake ; his friend was the 
 victim of prejudice — he could not be wholly lost t 
 Shelley determined to seek an explanation with 
 Hogg. 
 
 "■\^''e walked to the fields beyond York," he writes to 
 Miss Kitchener. " I desired to know fully the account of 
 this affair. I heard it from him, and I believe he was sin- 
 cere. All that I can recollect of that terrible day was that 
 I pardoned him — fully, freely pardoned him ; that I would 
 still be a friend to him, and hoped soon to convince him, 
 how lovely virtue was ; that his crime, not himself, was the. 
 object of my detestation ; that I value a human being not 
 for what it has been, but for what it is ; that I hoped the 
 time would come when he would regard this horrible error 
 with as much disgust as I did. He said little ; he was pale, 
 terror-struck, remorseful. Oh, it is terrible ! . . . This stroke 
 has almost withered my being. Were it not for the dear 
 friend whose happiness I so much prize, which at some 
 future period I may perhaps constitute — did I not live for 
 an end, an aim, sanctified, hallowed — I might have slept in 
 peace. Yet no, not quite that ; I might have been a colonist 
 in Bedlam. Never shall that intercourse cease which has. 
 been the day-dawn of my existence, the sun which has shed 
 warmth on the cold, drear length of the anticipated prospect 
 of life ! . . . I could have borne to die, to die eternally with 
 my once-loved friend. I could coolly have listened to the 
 conclusions of reason ; I could have unhesitatingly sub- 
 mitted. Earth seemed to be enough for our intercourse ;, 
 on earth its bounds appeared to be stated, as the event hath 
 dreadfully proved. But with you, your friendship seems to- 
 have generated a passion to which fifty such fleeting, inade^ 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. 121 
 
 quale existences as these appear to be but the drop in the 
 bucket, too trivial for account. With you, I cannot submit 
 to perish like the flower of the field ; 1 cannot consent that 
 the same shroud which shall moulder around these perishing 
 frames shall enwrap the vital spirit which hath produced, 
 sanctified — may I say eternised? — a friendship such as 
 ours." 
 
 Under such circumstances as these, it was 
 needful for Harriet's sake to part from Hogg; 
 Shelley did not hesitate, and they started for 
 Keswick. 
 
 Whatever Hogg might say, he could have felt 
 little surprise at the sudden departure of the 
 Shelleys, and in place of humorous remarks on 
 the Cumberland Lakes and the ass celebrated by 
 Wordsworth, he had to face a situation in which he 
 played Werther to the Albert and Charlotte of 
 Shelley and Harriet. 
 
 He despatched one despairing letter after 
 another to his friends, imploring Harriet's forgive- 
 ness, withouf which he says he will blow his brains 
 out at her feet. He entreats to be once more 
 admitted to their friendship ; and hurt alike by 
 his friend's generosity and by his refusal, he 
 appeals to the conventional feeling of honour, and 
 offers reparation by a duel. Shelley rejects the 
 proposal with horror; "he has no right either to 
 take the life of another, or to risk his own." Hogg 
 thereupon takes up his own defence, alleging the 
 violence of his passion aiid his high sense of 
 honour. A correspondence lasting five or six weeks, 
 to which Harriet herself contributed, ensued.* 
 
 A curious fragment has been preserved for 
 us in Hogg's " Life of Shelley," under the title 
 of " Fragment of a Novel," in which Shelley, 
 
 * It is unfortunate that we possess none of Harriet's 
 letters on this subject. Hogg, who boasts of his corre- 
 spondence with her, states that he has lost them, " although 
 he vaguely remembers to have placed them aside," but has ■ 
 forgotten with what intention. 
 
122 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 says his ingenious biographer, proposed to write 
 a sequel to Goethe's "Werther," but wherein the 
 reader easily discerns the situation, and recognises 
 the true actors in the drama under their assumed 
 names of Albert, Werther, and Charlotte. 
 
 There were three great attractions for Shelley 
 in Cumberland, namely, the picturesque sceaery 
 of that English Switzerland, the society of the 
 Duke of Norfolk, and that of the Lake poets, 
 Wodsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, whose fame 
 was increasing day by day. 
 
 Towards the end of November the trio reached 
 Keswick, a town lying in the heart of the moun-. 
 tains, near the lakes of Derwentwater and Bassen- 
 thwaite, both of which are visible from the garden 
 of Chestnut Cottage, where our travellers in- 
 stalled themselves. The sublime calm of the 
 magnificent scenery brought peace to Shelley's 
 troubled soul. 
 
 " I have taken," he writes to Miss Kitchener on Novem- 
 ber 23rd, 181 1, "a long solitary ramble to-day. These 
 gigantic mountains piled on each other, these waterfalls, 
 these million-shaped clouds tinted by the varying colours of, 
 innumerable rainbows hanging between yoursslf and a lake 
 as smooth and dark as a plain of polished jet — oh, these are 
 sights attunable to the contemplation ! . . . I have been 
 thinking of you and of human nature. Your letter has been 
 the partner ot my solitude — or rather I have not been alone, 
 for you have been with me.'' And in a later letter : " These 
 mountains are now capped with snow. The lake, as I see it 
 hence, is glassy and calm. Snow-vapours, tinted by the 
 loveliest colours of refraction, pass far below the summits of 
 these giant rocks. The scene, even in a winter's sunset, 
 is inexpressibly lovely. What will it be in summer ? What 
 when you are here ? " 
 
 But the scenery was spoilt for Shelley by 
 the inhabitants. 
 
 " Though the face of the country is lovely," he wrote to 
 Miss Hitchener on January 7th, 1812, "the people are 
 detestable. Ihe manufacturers, with their contamination, 
 have crept into the peacelul vale and deformed the loveliness 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. 123 
 
 of nature with human taint. The debauched servants of the 
 great families who resort contribute to the total extinction of 
 morality. Keswick seems more like a suburb of London 
 than a village of Cumberland. . . . Strange prejudices have 
 these country people. 1 must relate one very singular one. 
 The other night I was explaining to Harriet and Eliza the 
 nature of the atmosphere, and to illustrate my theory 1 made > 
 some experiments on hydrogen gas, one of its constituent 
 parts. This was in the garJen, and the vivid flame was 
 seen at some distance. A few days after Mr. Dare entered 
 our cottage and said he had something to say to me. ' Why, 
 sir,' said he, ' I am not satisfied with you. I wish you 
 to leave my house.' 'Why, sir?' 'Because the country 
 talks very strangely of your proceedings. Odd things have 
 been seen at night near your dwelling. I am very ill- 
 •satisfied with this. Sir, I don't like to tilk of it. I wish you 
 to provide yourself elsewhere.' I have with much difficulty 
 quieted Mr. Dare's fears. He does not, however, much like 
 us, and I am by no means certain that he will permit 
 us to remain.'' 
 
 In the presence of the sublime lake-scenery 
 Shelley's poetical nature awoke. The grand voice 
 of the mountains, which he will afterwards hear 
 still more resonant at the foot of Mont Blanc, that 
 great voice " able to abrogate the vast codes of 
 ^rror and fraud," awoke favourite dreams, visions 
 of another golden age, in the poet's heart. He 
 contemplated a poem designed to set forth as 
 in a picture " the manners, simplicity, and de- 
 lights of a perfect state of society." "Will you 
 assist me ? " he wrote to Miss Kitchener. " I 
 only thought of it last night. I design to ac- 
 complish it and publish it. Then I shall draw 
 a picture of Heaven. I can do neither without 
 some hints from you. . The latter I think you 
 ought to make." From that night the idea of 
 ^' Queen Mab" and "Prometheus" existed in 
 germ in Shelley's imagination. Meanwhile he 
 busied himself in collecting his shorter lyrics, 
 the offspring of his early Muse, intending to 
 publish them with the following epigraph: 
 
 I sing, and Liberty may love the song, 
 
124 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 for the use of those philosophical and reflecting 
 minds "who love to trace the early state of 
 human feelings and opinions." But he chiefly 
 interested himself while at Keswick in the com- 
 position of a novel, " Hubert Cauvin," in which 
 he described " the state of morals and opinions 
 in France during the latter years of the Monarchy," 
 and exhibited the causes of the failure of the 
 French Revolution* His conception of a novel 
 had entirely changed since- he wrote "Zastrozzi" 
 and " St. Irvyne." He writes to Miss Kitchener 
 on January 2nd, i8i2 : "I design to exclude the 
 sexual passion ; and I think the keenest satire 
 on its intemperance will be complete silence on 
 the subject. I have already done about 200 
 pages of this work and about 150 of the essays." -j- 
 
 But neither poetry nor the charms of Nature 
 could enable Shelley to forget his straitened 
 means. It became more than ever important 
 for him to see the Duke of Norfolk, and induce 
 him to exert his influence as mediator with the 
 poet's father. The Duke, who at Shelley's re- 
 quest had just made one useless attempt to soften 
 Mr. Timothy Shelley, no sooner heard of the 
 Percy Shelleys' arrival at Keswick than he 
 hastened to invite them to Greystoke. 
 
 This visit exhausted the poet's last resources, 
 and on November 30th he wrote to his cousin's 
 father, the elder Medwin : 
 
 We are now so poor as to be actually in danger of 
 every day being deprived of the necessaries of life. ... 1 
 
 * "You will see in my 'Hubert Cauvin,'" he writes 
 in another letter, " that I have spoken of the policy of 
 expediency, insincerity, mystery, as the immediate causes of 
 violence and blood in the French Revolution." 
 
 t Probably essays on moral and political subjects. No 
 trace of "Hubert Cauvin" can now be found in prinr 
 or manuscript. 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. 125 
 
 would thank you to remit me a small sum for immediate 
 expenses. . . .' Mr. Westbrook has sent me a small sum, 
 with an intimation that we are to expect no more ; this 
 suffices for the immediate discharge of a few debts ; and it 
 is nearly with our very last guinea that we visit the Duke of 
 Norfolk at Greystoke to-morrow. We return to Keswick on 
 "Wednesday. I have very few hopes from this visit. That 
 reception into Abraham's bosom \i.e., a possible reconcilia- 
 tion with his father] appeared to me to be the consequence 
 of some infamous concessions which are, I suppose, synony- 
 mous with duty. 
 
 The Duke showed much courteous goodwill 
 towards the poet, whom he wished to attract 
 to political life. Bysshe, Harriet, and Eliza spent 
 a few pleasant days at Greystoke, from December 
 4th to the 8th or 9th. "Jew" Westbrook's 
 daughters bore themselves well in the high and 
 brilliant company to which they were introduced. 
 Shelley, although of polished manners and ac- 
 customed to society, felt ill at ease and out of 
 his element at the miniature cou^rt. 
 
 " Fatigued with aristocratical insipidity,'' he wrote to 
 Miss Kitchener, "left alone scarce one moment by those 
 senseless monopolisers of time that form the court of a duke 
 who would be very well as a man, how delightful to com- 
 mune with the soul that is undisguised, whose importance no 
 arts are necessary nor adequate to exalt ! " 
 
 The visit to Greystoke produced an immediate 
 and excellent effect on Shelley's father and grand- 
 father. Shelley had not long returned to Keswick 
 when he heard through his uncle Pilfold of the 
 good disposition felt towards him at Field Place. 
 Mr. Timothy Shelley was willing to allow his 
 son an annual income of .;^2000, if the latter would 
 consent to entail the estate on his eldest son, 
 or, in default of issue, on his brother. On hearing 
 of this proposal, Shelley's wrath and indignation 
 were extreme. 
 
 " Silly dotards ! " he wrote to Miss Kitchener, " do they 
 think I can be thus bribed and ground into an act of such 
 
126 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 contemptible injustice and inutility . . . that I will forswear 
 my principles in consideration of £1,000 a year ? . . . that I 
 should entail ^120000 of command over labour, of power to 
 remit this, to employ it for beneficent purposes on one whom 
 I know not — who might, instead of being the benefactor of 
 mankind, be its bane. . . . No ! this you will not suspect 
 me of." 
 
 Among the guests at Greystoke, one, in par- 
 ticular, had attracted Shelley, and soon became 
 his friend. 
 
 " He was an elderly man,'' wrote Shelley, '' who seemed 
 to know all my concerns, and the expression of his face, 
 whenever 1 held the arguments which I do everywhere, was 
 
 such as I shall not readily forget We have met him 
 
 before in these mountains, and his particular look then 
 struck Harriet." 
 
 This notic^ble man was Mr. Calvert, a Liberal 
 in politics, an interested amateur of ^scientific ex- 
 periment, and a friend of Wordsworth and Cole- 
 ridge. Wordsworth describes him in the " Castle 
 of Indolence " as 
 
 A noticeable man, with large gray eyes. 
 
 It was at Mr. Calvert's house that Shelley first 
 met Southey. 
 
 Shelley was even more attracted by men of 
 letters and poets than by the Duke of Norfolk. 
 But he was less successful in making their ac- 
 quaintance on this occasion. The Lake poets, 
 with the exception of Southey, eluded him. 
 Wordsworth, who read none of the literature of 
 the day, was unacquainted with him, and was 
 destined to remain so for a considerable period. 
 Coleridge* lamented subsequently that he had 
 
 * Hogg has transmitted to us the following interesting 
 fragment of a letter from Coleridge on the subject of Shelley : 
 
 " I think as highly of Shelley's genius— yea, and of his 
 heart — as you can do. Soon after he left Oxford he went to 
 the Lakes, poor fellow ! and with some wish, I have under- 
 stood, to see me ; but I was absent, and Southey received 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. 127 
 
 missed the opportunity of becoming acquainted 
 with the young philosopher, to whom he would 
 have been of more use, he said, than was Southey. 
 Another celebrated writer and critic (De Quincey, 
 the opium-eater), was likewise destined to regret 
 that, without the excuse of absence, he had failed to 
 make the acquaintance of a brother-Oxonian and 
 man of letters. 
 
 " Some neighbourly advantages I might certainly have 
 placed at Shelley's disposal," he said many years after- 
 wards in the curious article he wrote upon Shelley in Tait^s 
 Edinburgh Magazine (1846). "Grasmere, for instance, itself, 
 which tempted at that time by a beauty which had not been 
 sullied ; Wordsworth, who then lived at Grasmere ; Elleray 
 
 him instead. Now — the very reverse of what would have 
 been the case in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred — I 
 might have been of use to him, and Southey could not ; for 
 I should have sympathised with his poetics, metaphysical 
 reviews — and the very word metaphysics is an abomination 
 to Southey ; and Shelley would have felt that I understood 
 him. His discussions — tending towards Atheism of a certain 
 sort— would not have scared me; for me it would have been 
 a semi-transparent larva, soon to be sloughed, and through 
 which 1 should have seen the true image — the final meta- 
 morphosis.. Besides, I have ever thought that sort of 
 Atheism the next best religion to Christianity ; nor does the 
 bett r faith- 1 have learnt from Paul and John interfere for 
 the cordial reverence I feel for Benedict Spinoza. As far as 
 Robert Southey was concerned with them, I am quite certain 
 that his harshness arose entirely from the frightful reports 
 that had been made to him respecting Shelley's moral 
 character and conduct — reports essentially false — but, for a 
 man of Southey's strict regularity and habitual self-govern- 
 ment, rendered plausible by Shelley's own wild words and 
 horrgr of hypocrisy." 
 
 When penning these words Coleridge had doubtless 
 fresh in his memory the stanzas in which Shelley opens his 
 heart to him, and traces for him the history of his thought, 
 and the deceptions his soul suffered in his search for the 
 ideal. (See "Lines to Coleridge," among the "Early Poems.") 
 In connection with this subject, the portrait Shelley has 
 drawn of the great Lake poet in "The Letter to Maria 
 Gisborne " will be read with interest, as well as the lines 
 relerring to him in " Peter Bell the Third." 
 
128 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 and Professor Wilson, nine miles further; finally, my own 
 library, which, being rich in the wickedest of German 
 speculations, would have been more to Shelley's taste than 
 the Spanish library of Southey. But all these temptations 
 were negatived for Shelley by his sudden departure. Ap- 
 parently he had the instinct within him of his own Wandering 
 Jew for restlessness." 
 
 Southey was more curious and more cautious ; 
 he invited Shelley to visit him ; and the two poets 
 were soon on a footing of mutual regard, if not 
 oF positive friendship. Southey admired the talent 
 of the young thinker, and believed him to be good 
 and generous of heart. He saw in him the Southey 
 of 1794. The writings of the future Laureate, 
 those of Wordsworth and Coleridge and the "Gebir" 
 of Landor, were favourite subjects of study with 
 Shelley. Southey was endeared to him as a poet 
 who had been ardent in the cause of the French 
 Revolution, and severely handled by Canning in 
 the Anti-Jacobin. His "Wat Tyler" and his "Joan 
 of Arc," in which he called kings the murderers of 
 mankind, had placed him in the van of English 
 Jacobinism. He had been a fervent admirer of 
 Mary WoUstonecraft, and, together with Coleridge, 
 one of the principal castigators of that republican 
 propaganda which, having failed in England, was 
 endeavouring to found a model Republic or 
 Pantisocracy * in America. 
 
 On introducing himself to Southey, Shelley 
 was mindful of the strong emotion he had 
 experienced on reading the "Letters from 
 Espriella," that pathetic picture of the sufferings 
 of the poor, the misery of the working classes, and 
 the barbarities of martial law. 
 
 But, however ready Shelley might be to admire, 
 and Southey to be admired, friendship was difficult 
 between two men whose genius and whose opinions 
 
 * See an allusion to this in his satire on literary apostates, 
 "Peter Bell the Third." 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. 129 
 
 differed so widely. Southey, at thirty-seven, was 
 tinctured with the pride and arrogance of an 
 aspirant to the laureateship. He was a pedagogue 
 as well as a poet. Shelley found him narrow and 
 limited, doling out his hospitality parsimoniously, 
 listening to the younger man out of curiosity and 
 by way of pastime, treating him as an inferior, 
 almost as a child. 
 
 Southey possessed a fine library of rare books 
 in every language, especially Spanish; his house 
 was crowded with books even to the staircase. 
 But they might not be touched without per- 
 mission. Shelley saw little of them beyond their 
 binding and titles. Occasionally Southey would 
 take one down and read some passages to his 
 guest, .to whom they seemed mere puerilities. He 
 was not partial to discussion, and stated his 
 own opinion dogmatically. He resembled rather 
 a living and speaking register of extracts than 
 a man. He usually put an end to the con- 
 troversy by a quotation which he regarded as 
 decisive to a reasonable mind, and when Shelley 
 gave v^nt to his ideas in enthusiastic and im- 
 petuous language, Southey would remark: "No 
 doubt, no doubt ; I thought and spoke just as 
 you do when I was your age.'" 
 
 After some conversations of the kind, Shelley 
 wrote to Godwin : 
 
 Southey the poet, whose principles were pure and 
 elevated once, is now the paid champion of every abuse and 
 absurdity. I' have had much conversation with him. He 
 says, "You will think as I do when you are as old." I do 
 not feel the least disposition to be Mr. S.'s proselyte.- 
 
 In a letter to Misi Hitchener, December 26th, 
 181 1, Shelley recounts his principal grievances 
 against Southey : 
 
 I have also been much engaged in talking with Southey. 
 You may conjecture that a man must possess high and esti- 
 
 K 
 
130 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 mable qualities if, with the prejudices of such total differences 
 from my sentiments, I can regard him great and worthy. 
 In fact, Southey is an advocate of liberty and equality. He 
 looks forward to a state when all shall be perfected, and 
 matter become subjected to the omnipotence of mind. But 
 
 he is now an advocate for existing establishments 
 
 Southey hates the Irish ; he speaks against Catholic emanci- 
 .pation and Parliamentary reform. In all these things we 
 differ, and our differences were the subject of a long conver- 
 sation. Southey calls himself a Christian ; but he does not 
 believe that the evangelists were inspired ; he rejects the 
 Trinity, and thinks that Jesus Christ stood precisely in the 
 same relation to God as himself. Yet he calls him- 
 self a Christian. Now, if ever there was a definition 
 of a Deist, I think it. could never be clearer than this 
 confession of faith. But Southey, though far from being 
 a man of great reasoning powers, is a great man. He has 
 all that characterises the poet ; great eloquence, though 
 obstinacy in opinion, which arguments are the last things 
 that can shake. He is a man of virtue. 
 
 While retaining a high esteem for Southey's 
 talent, Shelley left Keswick with a poor idea 
 of his character, especially of the fixity of his 
 opinions. As for Southey himself, he mjght not 
 lay down his arms. The future author of " Queen 
 Mab " and " Laon and Cythna " will be in his 
 eyes a leader of what he will choose to call the 
 " Satanic School," and, being no longer ignorant 
 as he was when at Keswick, will be described 
 as " a perverse will and a corrupt heart." 
 
 Some years later, Southey gave full bent to 
 these impressions in a letter to Shelley which 
 cannot be too severely condemned. Shelley had 
 written to him for an explanation of the attacks 
 on Keats in the " Quarterly." Southey, instead of 
 excusing the writer of the article, breaks out 
 into violent recrimination against Shelley him- 
 self, making use even of certain confidential 
 communications concerning his first marriage 
 that Shelley had made to him when at Keswick. 
 "This letter," says Medwin, "opened all the 
 old wounds, and hurt Shelley cruelly for some 
 
SHELLEY AT EDINBURGH. 131 
 
 time." And Byron, in his " Conversations," thus 
 stigmatises Southey's conduct : 
 
 Shame on the man who could revive the memory of a 
 miisfortune of which Shelley was altogether innocent, and 
 ground scandal upon falsehood ! What ! have the audacity 
 to confess that he had for ten years treasured up some 
 observations of Shelley's made at his own table ! 
 
 Disappointed in his hero-worship of Southey, 
 Shelley turned with delight to her who, at that 
 period, symbolised all that was wanting in the 
 human beings around him. His dream was to 
 conquer liberty and happiness for the whole 
 world. 
 
 If two hearts, panting for the happiness and liberty of 
 mankind, were joined by union and proximity, as they are 
 by friendship and sympathy, what might we not expect ? 
 .... I anticipate the era of reform with the more eagerness, 
 and picture to myself j/ok the barrier between violence and 
 
 renovation I perceive in you the embryon of a 
 
 mighty intellect which may one day enlighten thousands. 
 .... Come, come ! and share with us the noblest 
 success or the most glorious martyrdom. 
 
 The chivalrous campaign that was intended as 
 .a prelude to the conquest of the world, and 
 was to be crowned by triumph or martyrdom, 
 was the regeneration of Ireland. 
 
 K 2 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SHELLEY AND GODWIN — SHELLEY IN IRELAND^ 
 IRISH PAMPHLETS — l8l2. 
 
 During Shelley's sojourn in the Lake country, 
 he had entered into correspondence with a man 
 whose name had long been illustrious in the 
 political and literary world of England. This 
 was William Godwin, who has been surnamed" 
 the English Rousseau. 
 
 Godwin was born in 1756, and was in his 
 fifty-sixth year when he received Shelley's first 
 letter. Shelley was yet in the cradle when, in 
 1793, at the age of thirty-seven, Godwin had 
 written the work that was destined to establish 
 his fame as a philosopher and Republican. 
 "Political Justice" is a work as cold and passion- 
 less as its author, and for that very reason is well 
 adapted to attract serious and contemplative 
 minds. Godwin describes in its pages a state 
 of society from which, in opposition to actual 
 social conditions, the oppression and injustice of 
 the great, the foolishness and ignorance of the 
 poor, would alike be banished " by means of a 
 just and even distribution of the good things of 
 life; a state of society in which every member 
 would be independent, free from all convention- 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 133 
 
 alities, without exclusive rights or privileges, and 
 amenable only to the pure dictates of reason and 
 nature." * 
 
 This great work effected in England that 
 which Rousseau's " Contrat Social " had effected 
 for France. All the youth of the day turned 
 towards the new apostle of modern political 
 philosophy. Wordsworth, Southey, and Cole- 
 ridge acknowledged Godwin for their master. 
 Shelley is to inherit their enthusiasm, and one 
 day to write that "he only really thought and felt 
 from the day that he read ' Political Justice.' " 
 
 " Caleb Williams," a novel which appeared 
 a year later, added to the fame and popularity 
 of the young writer. 
 
 But the private life of Godwin, who was as 
 timid and reserved in practice as he was bold 
 in theory, offered a complete contrast to his 
 doctrine. 
 
 As inimical to marriage as he was to every 
 other social convention, and a celibate by nature, 
 he yet was twice married. His first wife was the 
 celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, who became to 
 Shelley the ideal of the woman-philosopher and 
 woman-philanthropist for whom he sought among 
 his female friends, and whom he afterwards por- 
 trayed in his poems. Between Mary and the 
 author of "Laon and Cythna" there was more 
 than one point of resemblance. For, like him, 
 belonging to a wealthy family, she was deprived 
 from early childhood, through the misconduct of 
 her father, of the brilliant future that should have 
 awaited her, and had learned in youth to bear 
 Jier part in the hard struggles of life. She had 
 ■early been made acquainted with the vices and 
 follies of mankind, a:nd she had ever received the 
 
 * No one in France has more truly appreciated "Political 
 Justice" than Benjamin Constant in his "Melanges de 
 J-itt^rature et de Politique." 
 
134 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 homage due to her sex ; she had worked for her 
 bread with her needle ; she had also been a 
 school-teacher in a London suburb, where she 
 wrote her first work, "Thoughts on the Education 
 of Girls ;"* she had afterwards been governess in^ 
 Lady Kingsborough's family, where she found 
 time for a thorough study of French, and for 
 writing stories and tales; finally she found more 
 lucrative and more independent work in placing 
 her pen and her talents at the service of Johnson,, 
 the publisher. This clever man appreciated 
 her genius, and invited her every Sunday 
 to his table. His house was at that time 
 the meeting-place of all the boldest and most 
 original thinkers of the day, politicians, artists, and 
 men of letters, and Mary had the opportunity of 
 meeting Thomas Paine, William Blake, who- 
 illustrated some of her books for children in his 
 own visionary way, the brilliant artist, Henry' 
 Fuseli, and William Godwin. The invectives of 
 the latter against marriage made her an open, 
 partisan of the theory of Free Love — a theory 
 which she subsequently put in practice. Sh& 
 expounded her own ideas in her celebrated book, 
 "Thoughts on the Education of Girls," dedicated 
 to Talleyrand-P^rigord.t In that extraordinary 
 work, full of sensible and practical ideas, and 
 of delicate and profound observation, in which, 
 the women of the present day might find much 
 to learn, a young girl for the first time laid down 
 principles which have become the recognised, 
 basis of all the just claims of her sex. 
 
 ^' 
 
 * A book that has been undulyfinegle'' eaSlt is superior,. 
 in many respects, to the celebraf 'S"^'- of Fendlon on 
 the same subject. \ed " by 
 
 t Mary had read, with passion, ^e grest, the J^ishop 
 of Autun's pamphlet on " L'Educah*, g,^aiionak V' and 
 believed in the writer's sincerity. V. 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 135 
 
 Many of her notions which then appeared 
 premature and scandalous, have since been 
 practically realised. She longed to obtain for 
 women an equal degree of intellectual develop- 
 ment with that of men, she claimed for them 
 •a similar education ; that the same books should 
 be placed in their hands, and that boys and girls 
 should be brought up side by side in the same 
 schools. 
 
 In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, having failed 
 to win the platonic affections of the cold-hearted 
 Fuseli, had sought consolation in a journey to 
 France, there to study on the spot that marvellous 
 revolution whose dawn had fired her enthusiastic 
 spirit. Probably she did not play the part 
 attributed by Shelley to her, under the name of 
 Cythna in "The Revolt of Islam," for in her quality 
 of foreigner, she would be an object of suspicion ; 
 but she did Jier utmost, and in company with 
 Thomas Paine, she had her hour of triumph in 
 Paris. The " Rights of Women " had been 
 translated into French, and received with acclama- 
 tion by the Press. The book was sold on the 
 Boulevards together with the "Droits de 1' Homme." 
 In Paris she carried her theories on love and 
 marriage into practice, and falling passionately 
 in love with an American adventurer named. 
 Imlay, she bore him a daughter who finds a 
 place in the life of Shelley under the name of 
 Fanny Godwin. Mary received a terrible blow 
 by the desertion of Imlay; she endeavoured to 
 drown herself in the Thames, but was rescued 
 by some boatmen. It was then (1797) that 
 Godwin's philosophical affections were won by 
 the courage and ill-fortune of this interesting 
 being ; he offered a shelter, to use his own 
 words, " to the wounded heart," and friendship 
 melted into love. Southey, who met her at this 
 
136 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 period, and esteemed her highly, describes^ her 
 in the following words : 
 
 Of all the lions or literati I have seen here, Mary 
 Imlay's countenance is the best, infinitely the best. The 
 only fault in it is an expression somewhat similar to what 
 the prints of Home Tooke display — an expression indicating 
 superiority ; not haughtiness nor sarcasm in Mary Imlay, 
 but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and 
 although the lid of one of them is affected by a little 
 paralysis, they are the most meaning 1 ever saw. 
 
 Mary Godwin, the child of Mary Wollstone- 
 craft and the author of "Political Justice," was 
 born on August 30th, 1797. She was, destined 
 to become the wife of Shelley, and was herself 
 a writer and poet, and a fit daughter of her whom 
 she thus depicts : 
 
 Mary WoUstonecraft was one of those beings who appear 
 but once, perhaps, in a generation, shedding a light on 
 humanity which neither conflicting opinions nor fortuitous 
 circumstances can obscure. 
 
 Godwin, being left alone with two children, 
 endeavoured to find a second mother for them. 
 He addressed himself unsuccessfullyj to a friend 
 of Mary WoUstonecraft, the widow of a' Mr. 
 Reveley, whom we shall meet with again as Maria 
 Gisborne, under which name she was lauded and 
 sung by Shelley. In December, 1801, Godwin 
 was married to Mary Jane Clairmont, a widow 
 with two children, Jane, better known as Claire, 
 Byron's mistress, then about four or five years old, 
 and Charles, older by one year. 
 
 Godwin's second wife was intelligent and 
 cultured,* but being free from the romantic and 
 philosophic turn of his first wife, she somewhat 
 effaced from his remembrance Mary Wollstone- 
 craft's theories on the education of girls. But 
 Mrs. Clairmont's practical and narrow views failed 
 
 * She translated several French story books for children. 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 137 
 
 to stifle in the youthful Mary those germs of free 
 and independent thought which she had inherited 
 from her mother. 
 
 The three little girls received the usual 
 education from books published by their parents 
 for the use of schools. In 1805, Godwin opened 
 a Juvenile Library in Skinner Street. His star 
 was beginning to pale; the needy bookseller of 
 181 1 lived on a fame that might be called posthu- 
 mous; before making his acquaintance, Shelley 
 had supposed him to be dead. 
 
 It was from Southey that he learned the fact 
 of Godwin's existence ; and yet no long interval 
 had elapsed since Wordsworth, writing to a student 
 of law, had said : " Throw away your books of 
 •chemistry, and read Godwin on ' Necessity ' ; he 
 alone is immortal." But the fate of Spenser's 
 fairy Duessa, who in one and the same day finds 
 herself a young girl and a decrepit old woman, 
 had befallen Godwin. His unparalleled celebrity 
 astounded the next generation, and in 1827 his 
 admirers were placed in an embarrassing dilemma : 
 "Either we must have been mad then, when we 
 allowed the high morality of Mr. Godwin to seduce 
 us, or we must now be miserable apostates, torn 
 bj' personal interest, from the sacred cause of 
 truth." * 
 
 At the time of Shelley's acquaintance with 
 him (he was then nearly sixty), he was an old- 
 looking man, short, massive, thick, with a fine 
 clear complexion, a very broad bald head ; simply 
 ■dressed in an old-fashioned black suit, he looked 
 like a dissenting minister ! 
 
 In Society he was usually reserved, shy, and silent ; yet 
 did he always inspire a certain interest. Whatever he said 
 whe^ he chose to be, comniunicative, was listened to with 
 
 * See an article on Godwin in The British Review for 
 June, 1827. 
 
I3S SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 attention, and was always worth hearing. He appeared ta 
 niysell and to others to be a perpetual coniradiction. He 
 was at once pleasant and unpleasant, agreeable and dis- 
 agreeable ; his conversation was yielded so sparingly that 
 it could never offend by excess, or seem intrusive ; his 
 speech was abrupt and curt, but every remark had its value, 
 
 and was peculiar and chaiacteristic His articulation 
 
 was indistinct ; his utterance was not easy, but impeded by 
 a sort of effort, or catch, sharp and dry. 
 
 The first occasion on which Shelley is mentioned 
 in Godwin's Journal is under the date January 6th, 
 1812: " Wrote to Shelley." This was in reply to 
 the letter of introduction of the young enthusiast : 
 
 Keswick, January yd, 18 12. 
 
 You will be surprised at hearing from a stranger. No 
 introduction has, nor in any probability ever will, authorise 
 that which common thinkers would call a liberty. It is, 
 however, a liberty which, although not sanctioned by 
 custom, is so far from being reprobated by reason, that 
 the dearest interests of mankind imperiously demand that 
 a certain etiquette of fashion should no longer keep " man 
 at a distance from man," or impose its flimsy fancies 
 between the free communications of intellect. 
 
 The name of Godwin has been used to excite in me 
 feelings of reverence and admiration. I have been ac- 
 customed to consider him a luminary too dazzling for the 
 darkness which surrounds him. From the earliest period ot 
 my knowledge of his principles, 1 have ardently desired to 
 share on the footing of intimacy that intellect which 1 have 
 delighted to contemplate in its emanations. Considering, 
 then, these feelings, you will not be surprised at the incon- 
 ceivable emotions with which I learnt your existence and 
 your dwelling. I had enrolled your name in the list of the 
 honourable dead. 1 had felt regret that the glory of your 
 being had passed from this earth of ours. It is not so. You 
 still live, and I firmly believe are still planning the welfare 
 of human kind. I have btit just entered on the scene ot 
 human operations, yet my feehngs and my reasonings cor 
 respond with what yours were. My course has been short 
 but eventful. I have seen much of human prejudice^ 
 suffered much from human persecution, yet I see no reason, 
 hence inferable, which should alter my wishes for theii 
 renovation. The ill-treatment I ha\e met with has more 
 than ever impressed the truth of my principles on my 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 13^ 
 
 judgment. I am young. I am ardent in the cause of 
 philanthropy and truth. Do not suppose that this is vanity. 
 \ am not conscious that it influences this portraiture. I 
 imagine myself dispassionately describing the state of my 
 mind. I am young ; you have gone before me, I doubt 
 not are a veteran to me in the years of persecution. Is it 
 strange that, defying prejudice as I have done, I should 
 outstep the limits of custom's prescription, and endeavour 
 to make my desire useful by a friendship with WilUam 
 Godwin? I ^ray you to answer this letter. Imperfect as 
 may be my capacity, my desire is ardent and unintermitted. 
 Half an-hour would be at least humanely employed in the 
 experiment. 1 may mistake your residence. Certain feel- 
 ings, of which I may be an inadequate arbiter, may induce 
 you to desire concealment. I may not, in fine, have an 
 answer to this letter. If I do not, when I come to London 
 I shall seek for you. I am convinced I could represent 
 myself to you in such terms as not to be thought wholly 
 unworthy of your friendship. At least, if desire for universal 
 happiness has any claim ujjon your preference, that desire I 
 can exhibit. Adieu. I shall earnestly await your answer. 
 
 P. B. Shelley. 
 
 Godwin's reply to this letter has been lost, 
 But a continuous correspondence was begun be- 
 tween himself and Shelley, in the course of which 
 the elderly philosopher, who, like others, had 
 outlived his youthful enthusiasm, applied himself 
 to moderate the impetuosity and impatience of his 
 young disciple, and to restrain his irrepressible 
 longing to reform mankind. Shelley submitted 
 with docility to the wisdom of the author of 
 " Political Justice; " he promises to try to acquire 
 that soberness of spirit, that calmness of thought 
 which, he says, " is the characteristic of true 
 heroism." He quotes — 
 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air — 
 
 and hopes he will not outstep the boundaries of 
 the " modesty of nature." " He will not again 
 crudely obtrude the question of Atheism on the 
 world," yet he is desirous not to sacrifice all things 
 
I40 SHELLE Y—THE MAN AND THE POET, 
 
 to the feigned humility that has paralysed so much 
 of the power of mankind ; he cannot resign him- 
 self to quit the arena he entered so boldly, to 
 renounce the apostolate of the true and good : 
 
 But could I not at the same time improve my own 
 powers and diffuse true and virtuous principles ? Many, 
 with equally confined talents to my own, are by publications 
 scattering the seeds of prejudice and selfishness. Might 
 not an exhibition of truth, with equal elegance and depth, 
 suffice to counteract the deleterious tendency of their 
 principles ? 
 
 The trial of strength upon which he is eager to 
 enter, and of which he speaks with extreme reserve 
 to Godwin, fearing he maybe stopped by objections 
 from the philosopher, is the same on which he 
 dilates with great openness in his letters to Miss 
 Kitchener : the emancipation of Ireland. 
 
 Shelley seems to have felt at an early period, a 
 chivalrous love for that unhappy country. In his 
 novel of "St.Irvyne" he personified his moral ideal 
 in an Irish gentleman, who, to charm his mistress, 
 sings to her the patriotic songs of his native land. 
 And in i8ii he wrote a poem* in aid of Peter 
 Finnerty, a brave Irish patriot, who was then 
 enduring an imprisonment of eighteen months for 
 
 * "A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things. By 
 a Gentleman of the University of Orfard." The epigraph 
 was borrowed from Shelley's favourite poem, " The Curse of 
 Kehama," by Southey : 
 
 " And Famine at her bidding wasted wide 
 The wretched land, till, in the public way, 
 Promiscuous where the dead and dying lay, 
 Dogs fed on human bones in the open light of day." 
 
 Strange to say, this poem, which was formally announced in 
 the London and Oxford newspapers, and which brought, it is 
 •said, ^loo to poor Finnerty, is not to be found. Mr. Uowden 
 ingeniously conjectures that the lost poem may probably 
 be discovered in substance in those portions of " Queen 
 Mab" which eloquently depict the disorders and miseriei 
 of Shelley's time. 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 141 
 
 having written an article in the Morning Chrotiide 
 on the cruelties practised in Ireland under the 
 Government of Lord Castlereagh. 
 
 His conversations with Southey on Irish 
 questions had still further inflamed his desire to 
 devote himself to the cause of Ireland's emancipa- 
 tion, and the last days of his stay at Keswick were 
 spent in preparation for the accomplishment of his 
 design. 
 
 Before leaving Cumberland he wrote to Godwin, 
 January 28th, 18 12 : 
 
 I have been preparing an Address to the Catholics of 
 Ireland, which, however deficient may be its execution, I can 
 by njo means admit that it contains one sentiment which can 
 harm the cause of hberty and happiness. It consists of the 
 benevolent and tolerant deductions of philosophy reduced 
 into the simplest language, and such as those who by their 
 uneducated poverty are most susceptible of evil impressions 
 from Catholicism, may clearly comprehend. I know it can 
 do no harm ; it cannot excite rebellion, as its main principle 
 is to trust the success of a cause to the energy of its truth. 
 It cannot " widen the breach between the kingdoms," as it 
 attempts to convey to the vulgar mind sentiments of universal 
 philanthropy ; and whatever impressions it may produce, 
 they can be no others but those of peace and harmony ; 
 it owns no religion but benevolence, no cause but virtue, no 
 party but the world. I shall devote myself with unremitting 
 zeal, as far as an uncertain state of health will permit, towards 
 forwarding the great ends of virtue and happiness in Ireland, 
 regarding, as I do, the present state of that country's affairs 
 as an opportunity which if I, being thus disengaged, permit 
 to pass unoccupied, I am unworthy of the character which I 
 have assumed. 
 
 The Address was to be printed in Dublin with 
 his poems, and was to be affixed to the walls of 
 the city. 
 
 When on the point of embarking at Whitehaven 
 prior to commencing the crusade, and all aglow 
 with enthusiastic hope, he writes to Miss Hitchener : 
 
 We are now at Whitehaven — a miserable, manufacturing 
 sea-port town. I write to you a short letter to inform 
 
142 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 you of our safety, and that the wind which will fill 
 the sails of our packet to-night is favourable and fresh. 
 Certainly it is laden with some of your benedictions, as 
 with the breath of the disembodied virtues who smile upon 
 our attempt. We set off to-night at twelve o'clock, and 
 arrive at the Isle of Man, whence you will hear from us 
 to-morrow ; then we proceed, when the wind serves, to 
 Dublin. We may be detained some days in the island ; if 
 the weather is fine we shall not regret it ; at all events we 
 shall escape this filthy town and horrible inn. . . . We felt 
 regret at leaving Keswjck. I passed Southey's house without 
 one sting. He is a man who may be amiable in his private 
 character, stained and false as is his public one. He 
 may be amiable, but if he is, my feelings are liars, and I 
 have been so long accustomed to trust to them in these 
 cases, that the opinion of the world is not the likeliest 
 corrector to impeach their credibility. But we left the Calverts 
 with regret. I hope some day to show you Mrs, Calvert ; 
 I shall not forget her, but will preserve her memory as 
 another flower to compose a garland which I intend to 
 present to you. 
 
 Shelleyj accompanied by Harriet and Eliza, 
 sailed from Whitehaven on February 3rd, remained 
 for a few days in the Isle of iMan, and after 
 twenty-eight hours of rough sea, reached Dublin 
 in the night of February 12th, 1812. 
 
 Immediately on landing he wrote to Miss 
 Kitchener : 
 
 .... At length, however, you are free from anxiety for 
 our safety, as here we have nothing to apprehend but 
 Government, which will not, assure yourself, dare to be so 
 barefacedly oppressive as to attack my Address; it will 
 bre:ithe the spirit of peace, toleration, and patience ; . . . 
 as my name, which will be prefixed to the Address, will 
 show that my deeds are not deeds of darkness, nor my 
 counsels things of mystery and fear. . . . Dread nothing 
 for me ; the course of my conduct in Ireland (as shall the 
 entire course of my life) shall be marked by openness and 
 sincerity. . . The ocean rolls between us. O thou ocean 
 whose multitudinous billows ever wash Erin's green isle, on 
 whose shores this venturous arm would plant the flag of 
 liberty, roll on ! 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 143 
 
 TO IRELAND. 
 
 Bear witness, Erin ! when thine injured isle 
 Sees summer on its verdant pastures smile, 
 Its cornfields waving- in the winds that sweep 
 The billowy surface of thy circling deep. 
 Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gave 
 Peace, wealth, and beauty, to its friendly wave, 
 
 .... its blossoms fade, 
 And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade ; 
 Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit. 
 Whose chillness struck a canker to its root. 
 
 On arriving in Dublin, one of Shelley's first 
 steps was to call at Curran's house in order to 
 present to the great lawyer and patriot a letter of 
 introduction given him by Godwin. Shelley had 
 been deeply interested by his speeches even before 
 he purposed to visit Ireland ; he knewCurran to have 
 been bravely devoted to the cause of the victims 
 of the Rebellion. Curran, however, was not very 
 ^ager to make his acquaintance. Shelley called 
 twice at his house without finding him. His 
 political pamphlets were not of a nature to 
 impress Curran favourably. The former friend of 
 Robert Emmet, the eloquent advocate of Rowan 
 and Wolfe Tone, the author of the celebrated 
 speech on the state of Ireland, delivered in the 
 Dublin House of Parliament in 1794, had become 
 more moderate in his views since he had accepted 
 the office of Master of the Rolls, which enforced a 
 certain reserve and a prudent circumspection with 
 regard to revolutionary agitators. 
 
 Shelley was eager to begin the campaign, 
 and lost no time in putting his "Address to the 
 Irish People " in the hands of the printers.* 
 
 * Hogg, who never forgets to mention his enemy Eliza, 
 tells us that while the Address was in the press, the Guardian 
 Angel did her best for the regeneration of Ireland by collect- 
 ing "useful passages'' for publication from the works of 
 
144 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Twelve days after his arrival, the "Address 
 to the Irish People, by P. B. Shelley, price ^d." 
 was published in an edition of fifteen hundred 
 copies. 
 
 It had been rapidly written in a popular style, 
 and was somewhat immature, but it contained 
 passages sparkling with enthusiasm and patriotism, 
 and breathed throughout such sincere and warm 
 feelings of humanity and fraternity, as could not 
 fail to reach the heart of the people. While 
 putting forward the claims on which all the 
 Revolutionary Committees were agreed, viz.. 
 Catholic Emancipation and the -Repeal of the 
 Union, Shelley went far beyond these. 
 
 He pleaded the cause of all the great thoughts 
 that had hitherto found a home in his soul, and 
 which now rushed burning from his pen in words 
 that were clear, simple, spirited, and highly 
 coloured, but that were always noble, and fre- 
 quently poetical. It was difficult to remain 
 unmoved by the earnestness and sincerity with 
 which the young enthusiast preached liberty of 
 conscience, political tolerance, religious equality 
 in the eyes of the law, horror of persecution and 
 of fanaticism, and universal love and charity, 
 "that great principle of the gospel of Christ." 
 Wheresoever human nature was allowed its natural 
 sway, those human accents of Shelley must have 
 found an echo. 
 
 The more thought there is in the world, the more 
 happiness and liberty will there be. . . . Oh, Irishmen ! 
 
 Tom Paine. As for Harriet, she was a warm convert to the 
 cause of Ireland. " I am Irish," she had written to Miss 
 Kitchener when about to quit Keswick, "... I have 
 done with the English. I have witnessed too much of John 
 Bull, and I am ashamed of him. ... I will claim kindred 
 with tJiose brave sons of the ocean, and when I am deceived 
 in them it will be enough." 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 145 
 
 I am interested in your cause ; and it is not because you are 
 Irishmen or Roman Catholics that I feel with you and feel 
 for you, but because you are men and sufferers. Were 
 Ireland at this time peopled with Brahmins, this very same 
 Address would have been suggested by the same state of 
 mind. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that to the 
 Catholics of Ireland this was precisely the weak 
 point in his reasoning. Freedom of thought, 
 in which he believed all strength consisted, was 
 just what told against his philanthropic crusade. 
 The history of the ancient Catholic religion as 
 traced by him after the manner of Voltaire and 
 the Encyclopaedists, could scarcely be to the taste 
 of Irish Catholics ; they could hardly respond 
 with enthusiasm to the invitation of the young 
 tribune to be on their guard against falling under 
 the yoke of the priests, "those mild-faced and 
 beardless impostors," who speak of liberty, and 
 only wish for slaves. He little understood 
 Catholics, who tried to convert them to a worship 
 ^' without priests, altars, confessionals, processions, 
 or miracles," to that interior worship taught by 
 Socrates, "the only worship that should be dear 
 to a good man, the worship of pure heart-felt 
 affection, the piety that is displayed by good 
 actions." Yet every Irishman must have felt 
 proud, and at the same time enthusiastically 
 hopeful, when Shelley poured forth these pathetic 
 words : 
 
 'Oh! Ireland, thou emerald of the ocean, whose sons 
 are generous and brave, whose daughters are honourable, 
 and frank, and fair ; thou art the isle on whose green shores 
 I have desired to see the standard of liberty erected, a flag 
 ■of fire, a beacon at which the world shall light the torch 
 of Freedom ! . . . Adieu, my friends ! May every sun that 
 shines on your gveen island see the annihilation of an abuse, 
 and the birth of an embryon of melioration ! Your own 
 hearts — may they become the shrines of purity and freedom, 
 and never may smoke to the Mammon of unrighteousness 
 ascend from the unpolluted altar of their devotion ! 
 
 L 
 
146 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 As for the means of attaining Catholic 
 Emancipation and Repeal of the Unionj Shelley- 
 was the declared enemy of violent or cowardly 
 measures. He quoted as an example the French 
 Revolution, which had been a terrible failure 
 for the people, because it had made use of 
 violence and falsehood. 
 
 " My warm-hearted friends," he exclaims with blunt 
 freedom, "who meet together to talk of the distresses of 
 your countrymen, until social chat induces you to drink 
 rather freely ; as ye have felt passionately, so reason coolly. 
 Nothing hasty can be lasting ; lay up the money with which 
 you usually purchase drunkenness and ill-health, to relieve 
 the pains of your fellow-sufferers. Let your children lisp of 
 Freedom in the cradle— let your death-bed be the school for 
 fresh exertions — let every street of the city, and field of the 
 country, be connected with thoughts which liberty has 
 made holy. Be warm in your cause, yet rational, and 
 charitable, and tolerant — never let the oppressor grind you 
 ihto justifying his conduct by imitating his meanness. 
 
 He would fain inspire the Irish with his own 
 hopefulness, based on the friendly dispositions 
 of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. : 
 
 That great and good man, Charles Fox, who was your 
 friend, and the friend of Freedom, was the friend of the 
 Prince of Wales. The Prince was the better for his in- 
 structive conversation. He saw the truth, and he believed 
 it. But. will he redress your wrongs ? 
 
 Shelley can feel no certainty of this, and 
 his prophetic soul casts a glance on the future 
 of that weak, and unworthy Prince : 
 
 I know not what to say ; his staff is gone and he leans 
 upon a broken reed ; his present advisers are not like 
 Charles Fox, they do not plan for liberty and safety, not for 
 the happiness, but for the glory of their country ; and what. 
 Irishmen, is the glory of a country divided from their 
 happiness ? It is a false light hung out by the enemies of 
 Freedom to lure the unthinking into their net. Men like 
 these surround the Prince, and whether or no he has really 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 147 
 
 promised to emancipate you, whether or no he will consider 
 the promise of a Prince of Wales binding to a King of 
 England, is yet a matter of doubt. We cannot at least be 
 quite certain of it ; on this you cannot certainly rely. . . . 
 Mildness, sobriety, and reason are the effectual methods of 
 forwarding the end's of liberty and happiness. . . . O 
 Irishmen, reform yourselves 1 Your reform must begin 
 at your own firesides. 
 
 The reform of Ireland was in Shelley's eyes 
 but the first step towards the thorough emancipa- 
 tion of the human race, and the realisation of 
 the Millennium of " Pohtical Justice " — that uni- 
 versal reign of reason and love. We now, for 
 the iirst time, find the poet's favourite theme of 
 a social Palingenesis by the final triumph of 
 virtue developed at some length; he was soon 
 to give it poetical form in "Queen Mab," and 
 at last to invest it with supreme beauty in 
 "Prometheus Unbound." 
 
 The Address concluded with these words of 
 Lafayette, whose name is " endeared, by its 
 peerless bearer, to every lover of the human 
 race " : 
 
 For a nation to love liberty it is sufficient that she 
 knows it, to be free it is sufficient that she wills it. 
 
 Shelley forwarded copies of his pamphlet to 
 all his friends, including the great William 
 Godwin, and he was anxious to justify himself 
 in the eyes of his austere and timorous Mentor 
 for the youthful eagerness with which he had 
 published his thoughts. He writes to him under 
 the date of February 24th : 
 
 I hofT; that the motives which induce me to publish thus 
 early in life do not arise from any desire of distinguishing 
 myself any more than is consistent with and subordinate 
 to usefulness. ... I therefore write and I publish, because 
 I will publish nothing that shall not conduceto virtue, and 
 therefore my publications, so far as they do influence, shall 
 influence to good. My views of society and my hopes 
 
 L 2 
 
J48 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 of it, meet with congenial ones in few breasts. But virtue 
 and truth are congenial to many. I will employ no means 
 but these for my object, and however visionary some may 
 regard the ultimatum that I propose, if they act virtuously 
 they will, equally with myself, forward its accornplishment ; 
 and my publications will present to the moralist and the 
 metaphysician a picture of a mind, however juvenile and 
 unformed, which had at the dawn of its knowledge taken a 
 singular turn ; and to leave out the early lineaments of its 
 appearance would be to efface those which the attrition 
 of the world had not deprived of right-angled originality. 
 
 In order to gain some idea of Shelley's 
 activity during his demagogic and humanitarian 
 fever, it is necessary to read his letters to Miss 
 Kitchener. In these there is none of the sobriety 
 with which he addresses Godwin ; he allows full 
 play to the illusions of his revolutionary zeal : 
 
 Lower Sackville Street, February 27th, 1812. 
 
 I have already sent four hundred of my little pamphlets 
 into the world, and they have excited a sensation of wonder 
 in Dublin ; eleven hundred yet remain for distribution. 
 Copies have been sent to sixty public houses. No prosecu- 
 tion is yet attempted ; I do not see how it can be. Con- 
 gratulate me, my friend, for everything proceeds well' 
 I could not expect more rapid success. The persons with 
 whom I have got acquainted approve of my principles. . . . 
 I do not doubt your ardent desire to " share with me 
 the high delight of awaking a noble nation from the lethargy 
 of its bondage." . . . 
 
 Expectation is on the tiptoe. I send a man out every 
 day to distribute copies, with instructions how and where to 
 give them. ... I stand at the balcony of our window and 
 watch till I see a man who looks likely; I throw a book to 
 him. On Monday my next book makes its appearance. 
 This is addressed to a different class, recommending and 
 proposing associations. I have in my mind a plan for 
 proselytising the young men at Dublin College. Those who 
 are not entirely given up to the grossness of dissipation 
 are perhaps reclaimable. . . . Whilst you are with us in 
 Wales, I shall attempt to organise [a philanthropic associa- 
 tion] there which will co-operate with the Dublin one. 
 Might I not extend them all over England, and quietly 
 revolutionise the country ? . . . 
 
 My youth is much against me here. Strange that 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 149 
 
 truth should not be judged by its inherent excellence, 
 independent of any reference to the utterer. ... I have not 
 yet seen Curran. ... I do not like him for accepting the 
 office of " Master " [of the RoUsl O'Connor, brother to the 
 rebel Arthur, is here. [I have] written to him. ... I am 
 resolved. Good principles are scarce here. The public 
 papers are either Oppositionists or Ministerial. One is 
 as contemptible and narrow as the other. I wish I could 
 change this. I am of course hated by both of those 
 parties. The remnant of united Irishmen whose wrofigs 
 make them hate England, I have more hope of. I have met 
 with no determined Republicans, but have found some who 
 are democraty?a^/tf. 
 
 Shelley had forwarded a copy of his pamphlet 
 to Godwin, and great must have been the shock 
 to his ardent proselytising zeal when he received 
 the philosopher's reply. Never did a more 
 glacial stream fall on more burning, fevered 
 pulses. We can picture to ourselves the 
 disappointment of the fervent apostle who 
 believed himself about to revolutionise England, 
 on reading the following lines, full as they 
 are of common sense and prudent reserve : 
 
 March ^th, 1812. 
 
 In your last letter you say : " I publish, because I will 
 publish nothing that shall not conduce to virtue ; and there- 
 fore my publications, so far as they do influence, shall 
 influence to good." 
 
 Oh, my friend, how short-sighted are the views which 
 dictated this sentence ! Every man in every deliberate 
 action of his life imagines he sees a preponderance of good 
 likely to result. This is the law of our nature from which 
 none of us can escape. You do not on this point generically 
 differ from the human beings about you. Mr. Burke and 
 Tom Paine, when they wrote on the French Revolution, 
 perhaps equally believed that the sentiments they supported 
 ■were essentially conducive to the welfare of man. . . . 
 
 In the pamphlet you have just sent me, your views and 
 mine, as to the improvement of mankind, are decisively at 
 issue. You profess the immediate object of your efforts to 
 be "the organisation of a society, whose institution shall 
 serve as a bond to its members." If I may be allowed to 
 understand my book on "Political Justice," its pervading 
 
ISO SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 principle is, that association is a most ill-chosen and ill- 
 qualified mode of endeavouring to promote the political 
 happiness of mankind. And I think of your pamphlet, 
 however commendable and lovely are many of the senti- 
 ments if coniains, that it will be either ineffective to its im- 
 mediate object, or that it has no very remote tendency to 
 light again the flames of rebellion and war. . . . 
 
 Discuision, reading, inquiry, perpetual communication, 
 these are my favourite methods for the improvement o£ 
 mankind ; but associations, organised societies, I firmly 
 condemn. 
 
 You may as well tell the adder not to sting ; 
 You may as well use question with the wolf; 
 You may as well forbid the mountain pines 
 To wag their high tops, and to make no noise 
 When they are Iretted with the gusts of Heaven, 
 
 as tell organised societies of men, associated to obtain their 
 rights and to extinguish oppression, prompted by a deep 
 aversion to inequality, luxury, enormous taxes, and the 
 evils of war, to be innocent, to employ no violence, and 
 calmly to await the progress of truth. I never was at a 
 public political dinner, a scene that I have not now witnessed 
 for many years, that I did not see how the enthusiasm was 
 Ighted up, how the flame caught from man to man, how 
 fast the dictates of sober reason were obliterated by the 
 gusts of passion, and how near the assembly was, like 
 Alexander's compotators at Persepolis, to go forth and fire 
 the city ; or like the auditors of Anthony's oration over the 
 body of Csesar, to apply a flaming brand to the mansion of 
 each several conspirator. . . . 
 
 One principle that I believe is wanting in you, and all 
 our too lervent and impetuous reformers, is the thought that 
 almost every institution or form of society is good, in its 
 place, and in the period of time to which it belongs. How 
 many beautiful and admirable effects grew out of Popery 
 and the monastic institutions in the period when they were 
 in their genuine health and vigour ! To them we owe 
 almost all our logic and our literature. What excellent 
 effects do we reap, even at this day, from the feudal system 
 and from chivalry ! In this point of view, nothing can 
 perhaps be more worthy of our applause than the English 
 Constitution. 
 
 The last remark must have been peculiarly 
 distasteful to Shelley, who in his second pamphlet, 
 " Proposals for an Association of Philanthropists," 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 151 
 
 had expounded somewhat crudely his theories 
 on politics, and launched into violent abuse of 
 the English Constitution. Starting from the 
 principle that there can be no lawful Constitution 
 except that made by the people for their own 
 benefit, he proceeded to show that neither the 
 Great Charter nor the Bill of Rights, the origin 
 of which is held up to us as equally sacred, 
 mysterious, and awful as the law of nature, had 
 any right to the title of Constitution. 
 
 The speeches of kings . . . the writings of courtiers, and 
 the journals of Parliament, which teem with its glory, are 
 full of political cant, exhibit the skeleton of national 
 freedom, and are fruitless attempts to hide evils in whose 
 favour they cannot prove an alibi. . . . The songs of "Rule 
 Britannia " and " God Save the King " are but abstracts of 
 the caterpillar creed of courtiers, cut down to the taste and 
 •comprehension of a mob ; the one to disguise to an alehouse 
 politician the evils of that devilish practice of war, and the 
 other to inspire among clubs of all descriptions a certain 
 feeling which some call loyalty and others servility. 
 
 The morning of Friday, February 28th, 1812, 
 was a morning of excitement for the Sackvillq 
 Street trio. On that day a meeting of the friends 
 of Catholic Emancipation, under the presidency 
 of Lord Fingall, was held in Fishamble Street 
 Theatre, and Shelley was to make a speech. 
 Women were present at such meetings; indeed, 
 they formed a chief attraction. The English 
 police had sent over detective officers to report 
 the proceedings.* We do not possess the exact 
 words of Shelley's speech, which unluckily was 
 immediately preceded by a masterly discourse 
 from O'Connell, but he tells us that he spoke 
 for more than an hour,t and we can form a good; 
 
 * Of the two reports in existence, one does not mention 
 Shelley, the other, giving a list of the speakers, names % 
 certain Shelley, " who gives himself out as a born English- 
 man." ^ 
 
 t Mr. Jeaffreson considers that Shelley's speech lasted 
 
152 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 idea of it from extracts given by the Dublin 
 newspapers, and in particular by the account in 
 the Evening Post of February 29th : 
 
 Mr. Shelley asked for a hearing. He was an English- 
 man, and when he reflected on the crimes committed by his 
 nation on Ireland he could not but blush for his countrymen,, 
 did he not know that arbitrary power never failed to corrupt 
 the heart of man. (Loud and prolonged cheering.) He had 
 come to Ireland for the sole purpose of interesting himself 
 in the fortunes of the country, and impressed with a full con- 
 viction of the necessity of Catholic Emancipation, and of the 
 baneful effects which the union with Great Britain had 
 entailed upon Ireland. He had walked through the fields of 
 the country and the streets of the city . . . and had seen 
 that edifice which ought to have been the fane of their 
 liberties converted into a temple of Mammon.* (Thunders 
 of applause.) He beheld beggary and famine in the country, 
 and he could lay his hand on his heart and say that the 
 cause of such sights was the union with Great Britain. 
 (Hear, hear !) He was resolved to do his utmost to promote 
 a repeal of the Union. Catholic Emancipation would do a 
 great deal towards the amelioration of the condition of 
 the people, but he was convinced that the repeal of the 
 Union was of more importance. He considered that the 
 victims whose members were vibrating on gibbets were 
 driven to the commission of the crimes which they expiated 
 by their lives, by the effects of the Union. . . . 
 
 He could not imagine that the religious opinions of a 
 man should exclude him from the rights of society. The 
 original founder of their religion taught no such doctrine. 
 Equality in this respect was general in the American States, 
 and why not here ? Did a change of place change the 
 nature of man ? He would beg those in power to recollect 
 the French Revolution ; the suddenness, the violence with 
 which it burst forth, and the causes which gave rise to it. 
 He ended by expressing a hope that many years would not 
 piss over his head before he had made himself conspicuous 
 at least by his zeal on behalf of Emancipation and Repeal. 
 
 We learn from Shelley himself, that when 
 he spoke of his doctrine of religious free-thought, 
 
 not longer than ten minutes. What an admirable judge of 
 time is Mr. Jeaffreson ! 
 
 * The Houses of Parliament converted into the Bank of 
 Ireland. 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 153 
 
 his words were received with disapprobation and 
 hisses. He must have been very ignorant of 
 Irish politics, or very anxious to expound his 
 dearest principles, to venture on asking a meeting 
 of Irishmen for equal rights for the Protestant 
 minority and the Catholic majority. He would 
 not have committed such an error a few years 
 later. He had learned from reflection, that the 
 art of persuasion is not the same as the art of 
 reasoning, and that concessions must be made, 
 artifice used, and even a certain amount of legiti- 
 mate cunning employed when we would rule by 
 eloquence. He appeals to the conduct of Christ 
 himself, who, when preaching the abrogation of 
 the Old Law, said to the Jews: "Think not I 
 am come to destroy the Law and the prophets ; 
 I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." * 
 
 Shelley's discourse, however, must have made 
 a powerful impression on his audience, coming 
 as it did from the lips of a youth (who at that 
 time looked about fifteen), and uttered with the 
 same warmth and conviction that inspire the 
 Irish pamphlets of which the speech was only an 
 abridgment. In the Weekly Messenger of March 
 7th, there appeared a long article in honour of 
 the youthful tribune, of "the bold and fearless 
 advocate of good-will, the missionary of truth," 
 who had courageously put his finger on the 
 political wounds of Ireland, and had proclaimed, 
 the true principles of Christianity. 
 
 The writer of the article was Mr. Lawless, 
 an ardent partisan of Emancipation, known in 
 Dublin as "honest Jack Lawless," and at that 
 time engaged on a history of Ireland. His 
 
 * There is a remarkable passage in the Essay on 
 Christianity, wherein Shelley criticises admirably his own 
 juvenile rhetoric when he spoke in Dublin. More than one 
 point of likeness maybe found in Shelley's "Essay," and 
 ths " Vie de Jesus" by M. Renan. 
 
154 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 character, his Republican proclivities, his project 
 of a history, made him interestmg to Shelley, 
 who, believing^ that such a work would be an 
 efficacious means of instructing the Irish public 
 on the righteousness of their claims, determined 
 to contribute to that end with his purse, if not 
 his pen, and asked Mr. Medwin to raise two 
 hundred and fifty pounds for the purpose of 
 furthering the undertaking.* 
 
 Shelley soon discovered that in order to 
 please Irish Catholics, it was necessary to share 
 their prejudices, their dislikes, and their 
 intolerance ; that his great philosophical principles 
 were mistrusted by the leaders, and that the 
 Irish people were in no mood to undertake a 
 chivalrous crusade for the benefit of humanity 
 in general.f 
 
 Yet although the Irish people, as he began 
 to know them better, appeared to him more 
 distressed and less deserving of pity, his heart 
 bled at the idea of deserting them in their 
 misery and of renouncing all efforts to better 
 their condition. 
 
 " Can they be in a worse state than at present ? " he wrote 
 to Godwin, endeavouring to refute the arguments of the 
 latter against association. " Intemperance and hard labour 
 have reduced them to machines. Ihe oyster that is washed 
 and driven at the mercy of the tides, appears to me an 
 animal of almost equal elevation in the scale of intellectual 
 being. Is it impossible to awaken a moral sense in the 
 
 * The result of the joint effort was the appearance, in 
 1814, of "A Compendium of the History of Iieland down to 
 the Reign of George 1." According to Mr. Rossetti, some pas- 
 sages in the work are from Shelley's pen, bat Mr. Dowden is 
 of opinion that the portion really written by Shelley was 
 never printed. 
 
 t "I do not like Lord Fingall," wrote Shelley, "or any 
 of the Catholic aristocracy. Their intolerance can be 
 equalled by nothing but the hardy wickedness and falsehood 
 of the Prince. My speech was misinterpreted. . ." 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 155 
 
 ■breasts of those who appear so unfitted for the high destina- 
 tion of their nafure? - . . I had no conception of the 
 depth of human misery until now. The poor of Dublin are 
 assuredly the meanest and most miserable of all. In their 
 narrow streets thousands seem huddled together— one mass 
 of animated filth. With what eagerness do such scenes as 
 these inspire me I How self-confident, too, do I feel in my 
 assumption to teach the lessons of virtue to those who 
 grind their fellow beings into worse than annihilation. 
 These were the persons, to whom in my fancy I had 
 addressed myself; how quickly were my views on this 
 subject changed ; yet how deeply has this very change 
 rooted the conviction on which I came hither 1 " 
 
 The celebrity conferred on Shelley by the 
 publication of his pamphlets served to attract 
 distressed persons of all kinds to him, and to 
 bring him into contact with the deepest depths 
 of poverty in Dublin. 
 
 " I cannot recount," he writes to Miss Kitchener, March 
 ■ loth, "all the horrible instances of unrestricted and licensed 
 tyranny that have met my ears, scarcely those which have 
 personally occurred to me. ... I am sick of this city, and 
 long to be with you and peace. The rich grind the poor 
 into abjectness, and then complain that they are abject 
 Thev goad them to famine, and hang them if they steal a 
 Joaf." 
 
 We may compare with the foregoing lines 
 the gloomy picture of contemporary Ireland that 
 has been traced for us by Mr. George Moore — 
 a writer who is now at the head of the realistic 
 school of novelists in England — in his lifelike 
 study: " Terre d'Irlande."* 
 
 The words of wisdom, and the paternal 
 warnings of Godwin, who wrote: "Shelley, 
 you are preparing a scene of blood !"t helped 
 
 * One vol., Charpentier, 1887. 
 + " Say not with Macbeth : 
 
 I am in blood 
 Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more, 
 Returning were as tedious as go o'er." 
 
IS6 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 to turn him from the enthusiastic enterprise to 
 which he had devoted all his heartfelt and burning 
 eloquence. 
 
 " It is indescribably painful," he writes to Godwin on 
 March i8th, "to contemplate beings capable of soaring to 
 the heights of science with Newton and Locke, without 
 attempting to awaken them from a state of lethargy so 
 opposite. . . . But I submit— I shall address myself no 
 more to the illiterate. I will look to events in which it 
 ■will be impossible that I can share, and make myself the 
 cause of an effect which will take place ages after I have 
 mouldered in the dust ; I need not observe that this resolve 
 requires stoicism. To return to the heartless bustle of 
 ordinary life, to take interest in its uninteresting details, I 
 cannot. Wholly to abstract our views from self, undoubtedly 
 requires unparalleled disinterestedness. There is not a 
 completer abstraction than labouring for distant ages." 
 
 On March 30th, 18 12, when Shelley wrote 
 those lines, and shaking the dust from his feet^ 
 prepared to quit that other Jerusalem unworthy 
 of his labours and his love, he learned that in 
 this world, as Baudelaire expresses it, "I'action 
 n'est pas la sceur du r^ve," and received the 
 revelation of his real genius. 
 
 The true poet was born. Godwin, delighted 
 to see in him no longer "a Robert Emmet,* 
 an ephemeral meteor," but instead, a worker 
 patiently watching the incessant though imper- 
 ceptible progress of mankind, could now chant 
 
 * Shelley wrote, probably in Dublin, a poem entitled 
 " The Tomb of Robert Emmet." Mr. Dowden gives us the 
 two last verses : 
 
 No trump tells thy virtues — the grave where they rest 
 With thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame. 
 
 Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune carest. 
 Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name. 
 
 When the storm-cloud that lowers o'er the daybeam is gon^ 
 Unchanged, unextinguished, its lifespring will shine ; 
 
 When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan. 
 She will smile through the tears of revival on thine. 
 
SHELLEY AND GODWIN. 157 
 
 his "Nunc dimittis" and write to him in these 
 words : 
 
 The thing most to be desired, I believe, is to keep up 
 the intellectual, and in some sense the solitary fermentation, 
 and to procrastinate the contact and consequent action. 
 This thing has its time :. " In the hour that ye think not, the 
 Son of Man cometh." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 shelley in wales— at nantgwilt — in north 
 devon — in london — at tanyralt — at 
 lynton — letters to godwin — "queen 
 mab" — 1812-1813. 
 
 A SHORT time previous to his departure from 
 Dublin, Shelley had succeeded in becoming 
 acquainted with the incorruptible Curran, and 
 was invited to dinner at his house. The poet 
 discovered, to his great mortification, that a 
 celebrated patriot, when he has reached a certain 
 age, can care for good living as much as for his 
 country, and can unite devotion to liberty with 
 a decided taste for license in speech. To such 
 an one as Shelley, the brilliant talents of his 
 host (whom Byron described as ah "imagination 
 machine, just as Piron was an epjgram machine,") 
 could not compensate for these faults. He 
 wrote of him to Godwin in the following 
 terms : 
 
 Curran is certainly a man of gr,eat abilities, but it appears 
 to me that he undervalues his powers when he applies them 
 to what is usually the subject of his conversation. I may 
 not possess sufficient taste to relish humour, or his incessant 
 comicality may weary that which I possess. He does not 
 possess that mould of mind which I have been accustomed 
 to conteniplate with the highest feelings of respect and love. 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 159 
 
 In short, though Curtan indubitably possesses a strong 
 understanding and a brilliant fancy, I should not have 
 beheld him with the feelings of admiration which his first 
 >isit excited, had he not been your intimate friend. 
 
 Shelley left Ireland on April 4th, 18 12. 
 Before his departure, he despatched a box con- 
 taining the remaining copies of his different 
 pamphlets printed in Ireland, to his dear friend 
 Miss Kitchener. This box was delayed at the 
 Holyhead custom-house, and opened by a clerk 
 who, on examining the contents, communicated 
 with the Home Secretary, and some corre- 
 spondence* ensued concerning it. 
 
 Among the papers it contained, we are already 
 acquainted with the " Address " and " Proposals 
 for an Association ; " the " Declaration of Rights," 
 the most revolutionary in tone of those seized 
 by the police, was a mere copy of the French 
 Declaration in 1789, and of that of Robespierre; 
 the Code of the Republican policy is set forth in it 
 in thirty-one articles, expressed with terseness, 
 and sometimes with epigrammatic force.f The 
 first article is headed : " Government has no 
 Rights," and he echoes Rousseau in saying: 
 "What the rich give to the poor, whilst millions 
 are starving, is not a perfect favour, but an 
 imperfect right." 
 
 Poetry, too, played a part in this arsenal of 
 revolutionary weapons, in the shape of a ballad on 
 "The Devil's Walk," a subject which had already 
 been handled by Southey and Coleridge in 
 common. 
 
 On April 14th the travellers arrived, after 
 a week of wandering, in the neighbourhood of 
 
 * In one of the papers belonging to the correspondence 
 "and kept at the Record Office, Shelley is mentioned as 
 a dangerous and most extraordinary man. 
 
 t there is an excellent article on this subject by Mr. 
 Rossetti in the Fortnightly Review, January 7th, 1871. 
 
i6o SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Cwm Elan, where Shelley liad passed some 
 melancholy weeks the preceding year. There 
 was an old house near by, situated on the 
 picturesque stream, from which it took its name 
 of Nantgwilt, which offered a comfortable resting- 
 place, and the charm of beautiful scenery, too, 
 to the romantic. 
 
 " The cheapness, beauty, and retirement," writes SheHey 
 to Godwin, " make this place in every point of view desirable. 
 Nor can I view this scenery — mountains and rocks seeming 
 to form a barrier round this quiet valley, which the tumult of 
 the world may never overleap — without associating your 
 presence with the idea, that of your wife, your children, and 
 one other friend to complete the picture which my mind 
 has drawn to itself of felicity. Come to Wales. . . ," 
 
 We are now* embosomed in the solitude of mountains, 
 woods, and rivers, silent, solitary, and old ; far from any 
 town, six miles from Rhayader, which is nearest. A ghost 
 haunts the house, which has frequently been seen by the 
 servants. We have several witches in our neighbourhood, 
 and are quite stocked with fairies and hobgoblins of every 
 description. 
 
 Ghosts of another kind haunted Shelley's 
 imagination — melancholy recollections of his 
 former visit to scenes, which now, owing to 
 the brighter circumstances surrounding him, 
 wore so different an aspect. 
 
 Nantgwilt ... is in the neighbourhood of scenes marked 
 deeply on my mind by the thoughts which possessed it 
 when present among them. The ghosts of these old friends 
 have a dim and strange appearance, when resuscitated in a 
 situation so altered as mine is, since I felt that they 
 were alive.t 
 
 This retrospect of the past took such hold 
 of Shelley, that, according to his habit whenever 
 deeply moved, he gave it shape in verse : " The 
 Retrospect: Cwm Elan, 1812." J 
 
 * Letter to Miss Kitchener, April i8th, 181 2. 
 f Letter to Godwin, April 15. 
 
 j Published for the first time in Mr. Dowden's " Life 
 of Shelley," Vol. L, p. 270. 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. i6r 
 
 But the fatality which seemed ever to pursue 
 the poet, crying aloud to him as erstwhile to his 
 " Wandering Jew," " On ! on ! " forbade any long 
 enjoyment of the peaceful happiness of Nantgwilt. 
 The serious illness of Harriet, and the distress 
 caused to his friend Miss Kitchener by scandalous 
 reports concerning herself and him, destroyed his 
 delight in Cwm Elan. What ! slander Portia ! 
 Slander their pure and ideal affection ! And her 
 father dared to forbid her to visit at Shelley's 
 house ! 
 
 You have agitated her mind until her frame is seriously 
 deranged . . . you may destroy her by disease, but her 
 mind is free ; that you cannot hurt. . . . Fates give my 
 Harriet health, give my Portia peace, and I will excuse . . . 
 the rest. 
 
 "You are," he writes to Portia herself, "you are to 
 my fancy as a thunder-riven pinnacle of rock, firm amid the 
 rushing tempest and the boiling surge. Ay, stand for ever 
 firm, and when our ship anchors close to thee, the crew will 
 cover thee with floweirs ! " 
 
 We smile, as Mr. Dowden remarks, "at 
 Shelley's boyish raptures ; " but it was the same 
 temperament and the same idealising imagination 
 which, when matured and refined, gave to English 
 poetry the rapture, swift and high, and the shining 
 imagery of the "Epipsychidion." 
 
 Pecuniary embarrassments put an end to 
 Shelley's project of settling himself in Wales. 
 He was unable to provide the requisite six or 
 seven hundred pounds. The travellers left Nant- 
 gwilt on June nth and removed to Lynmbtith 
 in North Devon. There they dwelt for some 
 weeks in a little cottage, being amply compensated 
 for the poor accommodation by the beauty of 
 the site and surrounding scenery. 
 
 It equals . . . Nantgwilt. Mountains certainly of not 
 less perpendicular elevation than a thousand feet are broken 
 abruptly into valleys of indescribable fertility and grandeur. 
 
 . M 
 
i62 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 The climate is so mild that myrtles of an immense size twine 
 up our cottage, and roses blow in the open air in winter. In 
 addition to these is the sea which dashes against a rocky and 
 caverned shore, presenting an ever-changing view. All 
 " shows of sky and earth, of sea and valley," are here, 
 
 July ith, 1812. 
 
 But Shelley could not enjoy these lovely scenes 
 alone; he needed for the perfect appreciation- 
 of their beauty those friends of his soul, the great 
 Godwin, the divine Portia. The latter, in ac- 
 cordance with his counsels, had overcome every 
 obstacle, and was hastening to join him. The 
 poet wished Godwin to be acquainted with so 
 precious a treasure of Deism and Republicanism ; 
 and Miss Hitchener had accordingly called upon 
 him on her way through London. The author 
 of "Political Justice" received Shelley's friend 
 as he would have received Shelley himself; never- 
 theless he allowed her to perceive a consciousness 
 of his own superiority. 
 
 From what we know of Shelley's enthusiastic 
 idolatry of Miss Hitchener, we may infer with what 
 transports of mystic tenderness, with what ideal 
 effusiveness he must have welcomed under his 
 roof her whose coming he had hastened in the 
 following words : " I have much to tell you about, 
 innate passions, God, Christianity, etc." * The 
 enchantment, alas ! was of short duration ! The 
 immaculate angel soon became the "Brown 
 Demon." So soon as Shelley, truly a spoilt child, 
 
 * It vi^as agreed between the ladies, who disliked the 
 name of Portia, that she should be called simply Bessy. 
 Hogg gives the foUowiiig description of Bessy, vi^hich does 
 not appear to be overdrawn : " Miss Hitchener was tall and 
 thin, bony and masculine, of a dark complexion, and the 
 symbol of male wisdom, a beard, was not entirely wanting. 
 She was neither young nor old, not handsome^not ab- 
 solutely ill-looking. She had been a governess, arid a 
 schoolmistress, as was sufficiently indicated by a prim, 
 formal, didactic manner and speech." 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 163 
 
 had his sublime plaything in his hands, he must 
 needs find out what it was made of; then, the toy 
 being broken, he flung the pieces to the winds. 
 
 But meanwhile the early Lynmouth days must 
 be reckoned among the happiest of his life. " His 
 love for Harriet," says Mr. Dowden, " was ardent, 
 and unmarred by fleck or flaw ; " and " Love," as 
 he himself wrote at this period, " seems inclined 
 to stay in his prison." * The hour of disenchant- 
 ment with Miss Kitchener had not yet struck ; 
 he received letter upon letter from Godwin ; t 
 
 * On the first of August was Harriet's birthday, and 
 Shelley addressed to her a birthday sonnet, hitherto 
 -unpublished : 
 
 Ever as now with Love and Virtue's glow 
 May thy unwithering soul not cease to burn, 
 
 Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts 6'erflow, 
 Which force from mine such quick and warm return. 
 
 To this date also, Mr. Dowden thinks, we may ascribe 
 an unpublished blank verse poem addressed to Harriet, 
 which is a curious mixture of tenderness and of moral 
 aspirations. The following lines form part of it : 
 
 Harriet ! let death all mortal ties dissolve. 
 But ours shall not be mortal ! The cold hand 
 Of Time may chill the love of earthly minds, 
 Half frozen now ; the frigid intercourse 
 Of common souls lives but a summer's day ; 
 . . . But ours ! 
 
 . . . Can those eyes 
 Beaming with mildest radiance on my heart 
 To purity its purity, e'er bend 
 To soothe its vice or consecrate its fears ? 
 Never, thou second self! Is confidence 
 So vain in virtue that I learn to doubt 
 The mirror even of Truth .? . . . 
 Virtue and Love ! unbending Fortitude, 
 Freedom, Devotedness, and Purity ! 
 That life my spirit consecrates to you. 
 
 + We regret we cannot give longer extracts from this 
 interesting correspondence, of which the subject was mostly 
 philosophy. One very remarkable letter, a formal pleading 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 SHELLEY-THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 books were sent for from London, to be perused 
 and discussed with Bessy ; and his mind was 
 vigorously at work either with new pleas in prose 
 on behalf of liberty of speech, or with enterprises 
 of pith and moment in English verse* 
 
 Shelley never missed an opportunity during 
 his short life of raising his voice in favour of 
 the liberties of the people, oppressed as they 
 were by tyrannical power ; he deemed interference 
 with the right of free speech and a free press 
 to be the worst encroachment on liberty ; many 
 a time he boldly defended those who had ventured 
 to defy the resentment and wrath of the political 
 inquisition on free-thought, which seemed to 
 him to be a renewal of the auto-da-fk and the 
 stake of the Middle Ages. In May, 1812, a man 
 named Eaton, a London bookseller, was sentenced 
 to eighteen months' imprisonment and to the 
 pillory for publishing " a blasphemous libel on the 
 Holy Scriptures," entitled, " The Age of Reason," 
 Part III., by Paine. On June nth, Shelley wrote 
 to Godwin : 
 
 What do you think of Eaton's trial and sentence ? I d» 
 not mean to insinuate that this poor bookseller has any 
 characteristics in common with Socrates or Jesus Christ ; 
 still the spirit which pillories and imprisons him, is the same 
 which brought them to an untimely end ; still, even in this 
 enlightened age, the moralist and reformer may expect 
 coercion analogous to that used with the humble yet zealous 
 imitator of their endeavours. I have thought of addressing 
 the public on the subject, and indeed have begun an outline 
 of the address. 
 
 against classical education being restricted to the study 
 of antiquity, will be found 4n the Appendix. 
 
 * To this period must be referred an unpublished frag- 
 ment of three hundred lines entitled " The Voyage," and in 
 all probability, thinks Mr. Dowden, another poem called "A 
 Retrospect of Times of Old." Mr. Dowden thinks it likely 
 that " Queen Mab " took a definite shape at Nantgwilt and 
 at Lynmouth. 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 165 
 
 During his stay at Lynmouth, Shelley put the 
 ■finishing touch to his outspoken pamphlet, 
 addressed to the Lord Chief Justice of England, 
 Lord EUenborough * 
 
 It breathes the same passionate eloquence as 
 -" Queen Mab," which he was then writing, 
 taking refuge in poetry as in a sanctuary which 
 "" iron-hearted persecution " was unable to violate. 
 
 At the same period he was distributing his 
 Irish pamphlets — " Proposals for an Association," 
 •"The Devil's Walk," and the "Declaration of 
 Rights " — about Barnstaple, by the hands of Daniel 
 Healey,t an Irishman in his service, who was 
 consequently arrested on August 19th, and 
 brought before the Mayor of Barnstaple. Healey 
 was convicted of distributing printed pamphlets 
 without the printer's name affixed, and was 
 ■ordered to pay a fine of ;^200, or, in default, 
 to be imprisoned for six months. There was 
 also a rumour that the author and the printer 
 of the letter to Lord EUenborough would be 
 prosecuted, and the alarmed printer is said to 
 iiave destroyed the remaining copies. But such 
 commonplace yet dangerous methods of propa- 
 ganda were not enough for Shelley ; his romantic 
 fancy devised a means of publicity which no 
 Attorney-General could reach — the elements 
 were enlisted in his service ; air and water became 
 emissaries of the new gospel of humanity. 
 
 "Accordingly, we discover Shelley, accompanied 
 hy a tall foreign-looking female, on the Lynmouth 
 
 * "A Letter to Lord EUenborough." "This letter," says 
 Mr. Dowden, "has none of the majestic force of Milton's 
 speech on behalf of liberty of unlicensed printing .... 
 but it has clearness and vigour, and is certainly superior in 
 style to anything which Shelley had previously written." 
 
 t Known hitherto under the alias of Hill, Mr. Dowden 
 has reinstated him in his right name. The Irishman was 
 ■devoted to Shelley, and declared he would go through fire 
 and water for him. 
 
l66 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 beach, pushing certain small boxes — well resined 
 and waxed to keep out the water, and each 
 with mast and sail — from the rocks, or watching 
 from his boat a little flotilla of dark green bottles 
 tightly corked, which rise and sink as the waves 
 sway them seawards ; or we see him in the 
 twilight launching his little luminous balloons 
 laden with truth and virtue, into the sky. On 
 returning from such expeditions as these, Shelley 
 would speed his envoys forward on their mis- 
 sion with the breath of good wishes winged by 
 song." 
 
 We owe to Mr. Dowden two of these un- 
 published sonnets : 
 
 SONNET TO A BALLOON LADEN WITH 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Bright ball of flame, that thro' the gloom of even 
 
 Silently takest thine ethereal way, 
 
 And with surpassing glory dimm'st each ray, 
 Twinkling amid the dark-blue depths of Heaven, — 
 Unlike the fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou 
 
 Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom, 
 Whilst that unquenchable is doomed to glow 
 
 A watch-light by the patriot's lonely tomb ; 
 A ray of courage to the opprest and poor ; 
 
 A spark, though gleaming on the hovel's hearth, 
 Which through the tyrant's gilded domes shall roar ; 
 
 A beacon in the darkness of the Earth ; 
 A sun which, o'er the renovated scene, 
 Shall dart like Truth where Falsehood yet has been. 
 
 ON LAUNCHING SOME BOTTLES FILLED WITH 
 KNOWLEDGE INTO THE BRITISH CHANNEL. 
 
 Vessels of heavenly medicine ! may the breeze 
 Auspicious waft your dark green forms to shore ! 
 Safe may ye stem the wide surrounding roar 
 Of the wild whirlwinds and the raging seas ! 
 And oh ! if Liberty e'er deigned to stoop 
 
 From yonder lovely throne, her crownless brow. 
 Sure she will breathe around your emerald group 
 
 The fairest breezes of her west that blow. 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 167 
 
 Yes ! she will waft ye to some freeborn soul, 
 .Whose eye-beam, kindling as it meets your freight, 
 Her heavenrborn flame in suffering earth will light. 
 Until its radiance gleams from pole to pole. 
 And tyrant hearts with powerless envy burst 
 To see their night of ignorance dispersed. 
 
 Lord Sidmouth, at that time Secretary oi 
 State for the Home Department, , was warned 
 by an informer, named Henry Drake, of Shelley's 
 movements, and caused him to be watched and 
 followed. Secret reports were sent to him relating 
 every action of the poet : Shelley had been seen 
 in company with a woman throwing suspicious 
 boxes into the sea ; one of these on being opened, 
 was found to contain the " Declaration of Rights," 
 and inside a floating bottle another person had 
 found " The Devil's Walk." The Mayor of Barn- 
 staple received instructions to watch the offender ; 
 but the poet had escaped the snare, and had 
 vanished from Lynmouth. He had been obliged 
 to borrow the sum of four pounds, nine shillings. . 
 
 Three weeks later, Godwin, in rbsponse to 
 repeated invitations, reached Lynmouth on 
 September i8th. Great was the disappointment 
 of that patriarchal philosopher, who, as Hogg 
 tells us, relying on the liberality of his host, 
 had not .brought sufificient money with him to 
 defray the cost of his journey back to London, 
 and now found himself short of cash in a strange 
 place. 
 
 On leaving Lynmouth, Shelley had journeyed 
 to South Wales, and installed himself at Tanyralt, 
 near Tremadoc, Carnarvonshire. The cottage 
 was picturesquely perched on a hill, beneath 
 enormous rocks, and belonged to Mr. Madocks, 
 an Oxford man, and Member of Parliament. It 
 is " a cottage," he wrote to Hogg, " extensive 
 and tasty enough for an Italian prince." Shelley's 
 landlord, in common with all who knew him 
 
iC8 SHELLEY-THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 intimately, was soon charmed with the character 
 and genius of his tenant. 
 
 It would have been strange indeed, could 
 Mr. Madccks have remained untouched by 
 Shelley's enthusiastic admiration for the great 
 works he was endeavouring to carry out. The 
 little town of Tremadoc had been built by him 
 on land reclaimed from the encroachments of 
 the sea, and he was now endeavouring to reclaim 
 five thousand acres more of submerged land 
 by means of a vast embankment. Any project 
 for furthering the welfare of mankind claimed 
 Shelley's whole attention. He united his efforts 
 with those of Mr. Madocks with the same 
 enthusiasm that he had displayed in the Irish 
 crusade. A strong tide having on one occasion 
 destroyed part of the embankment, Shelley 
 proposed at once to call a meeting, and raised 
 a subscription, at the head of which he inscribed 
 his own name for one hundred pounds. Moreover, 
 he undertook to solicit aid from the neighbouring 
 gentry, "in spite of their bigotry and prejudice," 
 and with his three companions travelled to 
 London, there to receive further subscriptions. 
 (October 4th, 1812.) 
 
 There were two other great inducements to 
 make the journey to London : to meet Godwin, 
 and to see Hogg once more. 
 
 It is easy to guess with what affection the 
 Socrates of Skinner Street must have received 
 a first visit from his disciple, who, although hitherto 
 unknown to, and separated by distance from 
 him, seemed to be almost one of his own family. 
 Godwin welcomed him as a friend or son, and 
 a day seldom passed without long conferences 
 between them on metaphysics, morals, politics, 
 on spirit and matter, atheism, utility and truthj 
 the clergy, the Church, or the characteristics 
 of German thought -and literature. Godwin's 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 169 
 
 young daughters must have looked on the 
 novelist, the poet, the champion of Ireland, as 
 a hero or demi-god. Shelley does not appear to 
 have bestowed much notice on the two younger 
 girls, Clare and Mary; he was most attracted 
 by Mary WoUstonecraft's first-born daughter — 
 poor Fanny Imlay! — a gentle and melancholy 
 creature, who four years later was destined to 
 follow her mother's example and drown herself 
 in the Thames.* 
 
 Hogg was absent for the vacation, and 
 Shelley awaited his return to London to renew 
 a friendship so disastrously interrupted. The 
 wound had been healed by time, and when 
 they met again all the past was forgotten. 
 
 Shelley took the opportunity of the visit 
 to London to rid his household of her whom 
 he now called "the Brown Demon." His 
 early illusion had been dispelled, and the poor 
 Sussex schoolmistress now appeared as she 
 really was, or even worse, a strong-minded but. 
 vulgar woman, an insupportable and ridiculous 
 blue - stocking ; and most absurd of all, she 
 imagined herself a poet ! Yet may not this 
 delusion have been partly Shelley's own fault .' f 
 At a later period he used to relate, laughing 
 till the tears ran down his face, that at Lynmouth 
 Miss Kitchener had written an ode on the 
 emancipation of her sex, the first line of which 
 ran as follows : 
 
 All, all are men — women and all ! 
 
 On her return to her school he undertook, 
 
 * A correct version of this occurrence is given by the 
 Author in another place. 
 
 \ Mr. Dowden quotes some lines of a poem by Miss 
 Kitchener, which appeared in 1822, the year of Shelley's 
 .death, and " proves that its author, though not a poet, was a 
 -woman of some culture and vigour of mind." 
 
170 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. . 
 
 somewhat ungraciously, to allow her an annuity 
 of forty or fifty pounds, in order to repair as far 
 as possible the injury he had done her.* And 
 on December 3rd, he wrote to Hogg on the 
 subject in these words : 
 
 The Brown Demon, as we call our late tormentor and 
 schoolmistress, must receive her stipend. . . . She was 
 deprived by our misjudging haste of a situation where she 
 was going on smoothly, and now she says that her reputation 
 is gone, her health ruined, her peace of mind destroyed 
 by my barbarity ; a complete victim. . . . This is not 
 all fact ; but certainly she is embarrassed and poor, and 
 we being in some degree the cause, we ought to obviate 
 it. She is an artificial, superficial, ugly, hermaphrodite 
 i.voman, and my astonishment at my fatuity, inconsistency, 
 and bad taste was never so great as after living for four 
 months with her as an inmate. What would Hell be 
 wei-e such a woman in Heaven ? t 
 
 During his sojourn in London, Shelley formed 
 an intimacy with Mr. Newton and his family, 
 which was not without influence on the moral 
 direction of his mind, and the connections he 
 subsequently formed. Mr. Newton was an ardent 
 vegetarian ; not content with practising the system, 
 he had just published an essay on its virtues, 
 entitled, "A Return to Nature." Shelley was 
 struck with the admirable health and beauty 
 of Mr. Newton's children, who had been brought 
 up on vegetarian principles. " They are the 
 most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible 
 
 * Mr. Dowden says the sum was ;£ioo. 
 
 t With reference to this change in Shelley's opinions 
 Mr. Dowden quotes in Miss Hitchener's favour the testimony 
 of an acquaintance of Shelley's who saw her at her father^s 
 house after her return to Sussex. " She was sitting alone, 
 with one of Shelley's works before her. Her fine black 
 eye lighted up, her well-formed Roman countenance was- 
 full of animation, when I spoke of Shelley." She resumed 
 her former profession, and conducted a girls' school with 
 success. Her pupils spoke of her as "a high-principled, 
 clever woman, with a remarkable capacity for teaching." 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 171 
 
 to conceivcj their dispositions the most gentle 
 and conciliating." 
 
 He perused the "Return to Nature," which 
 he terms a "luminous and eloquent essay," and 
 borrowed from it in great measure the arguments 
 in favour of vegetarianism which he urges in 
 one of the notes to ".Queen Mab." His friendship 
 with the Newtons confirmed him in the practice 
 of the Pythagorean system, which he had begun in 
 Ireland, and to which he ever afterwards adhered.. 
 
 His departure from London was accelerated 
 by financial embarrassments ; and he left the 
 metropolis without even taking leave of the 
 Godwins,* and addresses the "miserable city" 
 in a farewell poem, in which he praises enthusi- 
 astically the vales and hills of wild Cambria, the 
 sole asylum, he thinks, of liberty and virtue. Mr.. 
 Dowden gives us part of the poem : 
 
 ON LEAVING LONDON FOR WALES. 
 
 Hail to thee, Cambria ! for the unfettered wind 
 
 Which from thy wilds even now methinks I feel 
 Chasing the clouds that roll in wrath behind. 
 
 And tightening the soul's laxest nerves to steel. 
 True mountain Liberty alone may heal 
 
 The pain which Custom's obduracies bring. 
 And he who dares in fancy even to steal 
 
 One draught from Snowdon's ever sacred spring 
 Blots out the unholiest rede of worldly witnessing. 
 
 And shall that soul, to selfish peace resigned. 
 
 So soon forget the woe its fellows share ? 
 Can Snowdon's Lethe from the freeborn mind 
 
 So soon the page of injured penury tear ? 
 Does this fine mass of human passion dare 
 
 To sleep, unhonouring the patriot's fall. 
 Or life's sweet load in quietude to bear. 
 
 While millions famish even in Luxury's hall, 
 And Tyranny high-raisfed stern lowers on all ? 
 
 * He apologises for the omission in a lively letter 
 to Fanny, who had reproached him for his abrupt and 
 uncivil departure. 
 
SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 No, Cambria! never may thy matchless vales 
 
 A heart so false to hope and virtue shield ; 
 Nor ever niay thy spirit-breathing gales 
 
 Waft freshness to the slaves who dare to yield. 
 For me ! . . The vifeapon that I burn to wield 
 
 I seek amid thy rocks to ruin hurled, 
 That Reason's flag may over Freedom's field. 
 
 Symbol of bloodless victory, wave unfurled, 
 A meteor-sign of love effulgent o'er the world. 
 
 Do thou, wild Cambria, calm each struggling thought. 
 
 Cast thy sweet veil of rocks and woods between, 
 That by the soul to indignation wrought 
 
 Mountains and dells be mingled with the scene : 
 Let me for ever be what I have been. 
 
 But not for ever at my needy door 
 Let misery linger speechless, pale, and lean. 
 
 I am the friend of the unfriended poor.* 
 Let me not madly stain their righteous cause in gore. 
 
 A certain amount of discouragement is revealed 
 in the poet's verse, and perhaps a feeling of 
 regret that even for a moment he should have 
 subordinated the high interests of humanity to 
 which his genius should be exclusively devoted, to 
 a private enterprise of uncertain results. 
 
 He had failed of success in London with 
 regard to the Tremadoc embankment, and 
 perceived he had thoijghtlessly engaged himself 
 in an affair from which it would be best to 
 withdraw, and return to poetry. His home, 
 moreover, was full of charm : " When I come 
 home to Harriet I am the happiest of the happy." 
 His young wife identified herself to the utmost 
 with his ideas and aspirations, studying 
 various subjects under his direction, Latin 
 
 * Mr. Madocks bears witness to the truth of these words. 
 "I have olten heard Mr. Madocks dilate," writes Medwin, 
 "on Shelley's numerous acts of benevolence, his relieving 
 the distresses of the poor, visiting them in their humble 
 a.bodes, and supplying them with food, and raiment, and 
 fuel during the winter." 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 173 
 
 especially; she could already read some Odes 
 of Horace, and purposed writing a Latin letter 
 to Hogg. She had readily conformed to the 
 Pythagorean system. Her fresh young voice, 
 singing old Irish melodies, lent a charm to the 
 winter evenings, and the anticipation of the 
 birth of a child was an additional source of 
 happiness. Shelley was thus independent of 
 the society of his neighbours at Tremadoc, and 
 wrote of them to Hookham the bookseller: 
 "There is more philosophy in one square inch 
 of your counter tlaan in the whole of Cambria." 
 
 Two important events marked the latter 
 part of Shelley's sojourn at Tanyralt — this- 
 acquaintance with Leigh Hunt and the completion 
 of "Queen Mab." 
 
 Hunt had boldly attacked, in the Exaimner^ 
 the character and private life of the Prince 
 Regent, whom Shelley had described in his 
 Irish pamphlets as forgetful of the teaching of 
 the great Fox. Not satisfied with calling him 
 an Adonis of fifty, Hunt had proved that that 
 "delightful, wise, agreeable, virtuous, sincere and 
 immortal Prince was a violator of his word, a 
 libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a 
 despiser of domestic ties, a companion of gamblers 
 and demireps, a man who had reached the age 
 of fifty without acquiring any claim to gratitude 
 from his country, or respect from posterity." 
 
 Thanks to Lord Ellenborough's charges to the 
 jury, and notwithstanding the eloquent speeches 
 on their behalf by their counsel (Brougham), Leigh. 
 Hunt and his brother were sentenced to two 
 years' imprisonment and a fine of five hundred 
 pounds each. 
 
 " To this imprisonment," says Hunt, " I owe my acquaint- 
 ance with the friend of friends, Shelley. He wrote to me 
 with a princely offer of help, which at that time I did 
 not need." 
 
174 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Shelley wrote on the subject to his bookseller, 
 Hookham, in February, 1813 : 
 
 I am boiling with indignation at the horrible injustice 
 and tyranny of the sentence pronounced on Hunt and his 
 brother. . . . Surely the seal of abjectness and slavery 
 is indelibly stamped upon the cliaracter of England. 
 
 Although I do not retract in the slightest degree my wish 
 for a subscription for the widows and children of those poor 
 men hung at York, yet this ^1000 which the Hunts are 
 sentenced to pay is an affair of more consequence. Hunt is 
 a brave, a good, and an enlightened man. Surely the 
 public, for whom Hunt has done so much, will repay in part 
 the great debt of obligation which they owe the champion of 
 their liberties and virtues ; or are they dead, cold, stone- 
 hearted, and insensible — brutalized by centuries of un- 
 remitting bondage ? . . . » 
 
 I am rather poor at present ; but I have £10 which 
 is not immediately wanted. Pray begin a subscription 
 for the Hunts ; put my name down for that sum. ... Oh ! 
 that I might wallow for one night in the Bank of England ! 
 
 "Queen Mab" is finished and transcribed. I am now 
 preparing the notes, which will be long and philosophical. 
 You will receive it "with the other poems. 
 
 " Queen Mab " is Shelley's first serious long 
 poem, and it gives us the sum of his intellectual 
 life up to that date. 
 
 Although " Queen Mab " marks a decisive step 
 in Shelley's poetical career, he was conscious of its 
 shortcomings and defects even while sending it for 
 publication. 
 
 "My poems," he writes in January, 181 3, "will, I fear, 
 little stand the criticism even of friendship ; some of the 
 later ones* have the merit of conveying a meaning in every 
 word, and all are faithful pictures of my feelings at the 
 time of writing them. But they are in a great measure 
 abrupt and obscure — all breathing hatred to government 
 and religion. . . , One fault they are indisputably exempt 
 from, that of being a volume oi fashionable literature." 
 
 * The poems to which Shelley here alludes, and which 
 -he intended to publish in Ireland, are in a manuscript in his 
 own haiidwriting, containing 2,822 lines. Mr. Dowden first 
 disclosed to the world the existence of this manuscript. 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 175 
 
 " In spite of its various errors I am determined 
 to give it to the world," he writes to Hookham on 
 sending the manuscript. He orders the books to 
 be in quarto, and on good paper, to attract the 
 aristocracy. " They will not read it," he says, 
 " but their daughters may." 
 
 It is certain that Shelley included "Queen 
 Mab " among those of his poems that possessed 
 little merit beyond the absence of vulgarity and 
 the expression of the twofold hatred with which 
 his soul was filled. Yet "Queen Mab" was more 
 than this. It was a serious endeavour to establish 
 on a philosophical basis his project of reforma- 
 tion for the world, which was the one passion of 
 his life and the principal inspiration of his genius. 
 It is very difificult to class this poem from a meta- 
 physical point of view, in a defined and precise 
 system with Hume or Spinoza. Neither the latter, 
 ■nor Kant, ever strongly influenced Shelley, who 
 was only beginning to read Spinoza when he put 
 the finishing touches to his poem. In order fully 
 to comprehend the influences under which he 
 composed "Queen Mab," we must study the 
 notes that display his philosophical knowledge, 
 and expound didactically his views on physics 
 and morals. Thus he quotes the fine lines from 
 Ecclesiastes : " One generation passeth away, and 
 another generation cometh, but the earth abideth 
 for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth 
 down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." 
 
 Thus do the generations of the earth 
 
 Go to the grave, and issue from the womb. 
 
 And from Lucretius the admirable passage com- 
 mencing. 
 
 Suave mari magno . . . 
 
 to justify his bold departure from the beaten track 
 in which humanity s,trays far from the true way of 
 
176 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 life. Rousseau supplies him with arguments in 
 favour of the equality which ought to be estab- 
 lished among men; La Place, Cabanis, and Bailly, 
 suggest his astronomical and scientific views. He 
 finds in Robinet's " Systfeme de la Nature," which 
 he himself translated, in Pliny the Elder, Lord 
 Bacon, Locke, Hume, Newton, and ' Condorcet, 
 proofs of that scientific Atheisrh which he opposes 
 to the absurdities of theology. 
 
 The celebrated work by Volney, " Les Ruines " 
 — a popular exposition, in poetical and biblical 
 language, of the eighteenth-century philosophy — 
 suggested to him the plan, and even the frame- 
 work, of his poem. Volney's genius, who looses- 
 the mortal coil of his traveller, and bears him, 
 like a light vapour, into the upper regions, 
 becomes the fairy Mab, the personification of 
 the poetic imagination, revealing to the spirit of 
 lanthe,* separated from her body, the history, of 
 Good and Evil on the earth, and the future 
 destiny of regenerated mankind. 
 
 If Nature (or God) is innocent of the evils 
 of humanity, then man himself must be the 
 principle of those evils ; and here Shelley con- 
 trasts innocent Nature with its opposite. Custom, 
 the very source of hypocrisy, depravity, religion, 
 and tyranny ; of money, war, prostitution, and 
 all the crime and suffering in the world. All this, 
 we shall be told, is declamatory and vulgar. We 
 may admit it to be declamatory — Shelley is partly 
 open to that reproach — but certainly it is not 
 vulgar; for Shelley, even when uttering the 
 truisms of metaphysical and moral commonplace, 
 always displayed originality and vigour of form 
 and expression which take hold upon you, and 
 
 * A Greek name, signifying violet, taken by Shelley from 
 Ovid's " Metamorphoses," 
 
 " Potiturque su4 Iphis lanthe." 
 This was the name of his eldest daughter. 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. i77 
 
 make you forget whatever is redundant, exagge- 
 rated, or inflated in his style. We are quite of 
 Mr. Rossetti's opinion on this matter : 
 
 The part of "Queen Mab" which has some considerable 
 amount of promise, and even of positive merit at times, 
 is the declamatory part — the passages of flexible and 
 sonorous blank verse in which Shelley boils over against 
 kings or priests, or the present misery of the world of man, 
 and in acclaiming augury of an era of regeneration. These 
 passages, with all their obvious literary crudities and im- 
 perfections, are, in their way, of real mark, and not easily 
 to be overmatched by other poetic writing of that least read- 
 able sort, the didactic-declamatory. 
 
 With the exception of M. de Lamennais's 
 *' Paroles d'un Croyant," we know of nothing 
 that can be compared with them, Mr. Dowden 
 has admirably defined the tendencies and spirit 
 of " Queen Mab " in the following words : 
 
 Seldom before in English poetry had the unity of Nature 
 .and the universality of law — the idea of a cosmos— been 
 expressed with more precision or a more ardent conviction. 
 Seldom before in poetry had the vast and ceaseless flow 
 of Being — restless, yet subject to a constant law of evolution 
 and development — been so vividly conceived. Nature, or 
 as Shelley preferred to say, the Spirit of Nature, acting 
 necessarily, and at present producing indifferently good and 
 evil, giving birth alike to the hero, the martyr, the bigot, 
 the tyrant, poisonous serpent, and innocent lamb, yet tends 
 •unconsciously upward to nobler developments, purging itself 
 of what is weak and base. Shelley's spirit, which circles 
 half mournfully, half exultingly, above the ruins of the past, 
 which rises on the wing, and screams at sight of all the 
 oppressions and frauds done under the sun in this our day, 
 flies to the future and embraces it with a lover's joy. . . 
 That his ideal of the future golden age may be smiled at by 
 common sense as impracticable and impossible, need give 
 us small offence. In following the sun he loses his way 
 in a radiant cloudland ; yet still, amid bright voluminous 
 folds of error, he is on the track of the sun. 
 
 Shelley himself, however, has passed judgment 
 on this poem more severely than any other critic has 
 done. " Queen Mab " having been surreptitiously 
 
178 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 printed in London in 1821, while Shelley was in 
 Italy, he wrote the following letter to the editor 
 of the Examiner : 
 
 TO THE "EXAMINER." 
 
 . yiifie 22ncf, 1821. 
 A poem, entitled " Queen Mab," was written by me at 
 the age of eigliteen — I dare say in a sufficiently intemperate 
 spirit, I have not seen this production for several years ; 
 I doubt not but that it is perfectly worthless in point of 
 literary compbsition ; and that in all that concerns moral 
 and political speculation, as well as in the subtler dis- 
 criminations of metaphysical and religious doctrine, it is 
 still more crude and immature. I am a devoted enemy to 
 religious, political, and domestic oppression, and I regret 
 this publication, not so much from literary vanity, as because 
 I fear it is better fitted to injure than to serve the sacred 
 cause of freedom. 
 
 If the publication of " Queen Mab " was not, as 
 Shelley feared, injurious to the cause of liberty 
 in general, it was injurious at least to his own 
 liberty, for it became the pretext of all the 
 persecution to which he was thenceforth subjected. 
 Few indeed were the chosen spirits who could 
 distinguish between the man and the Atheist in 
 the poem, and divine the great future poet in the 
 author of " Queen Mab." 
 
 In the summer of 1820, Trelawney, who had 
 not at that time heard of Shdley, was at Lausanne, 
 and made the acquaintance of one of those few 
 booksellers whose knowledge extends beyond 
 indexes and catalogues. This man read and 
 understood the books he sold in every European 
 tongue. On one occasion Trelawney found him 
 sitting under Gibbon's acacia trees and absorbed in 
 the perusal of an English book. " I can read your 
 modern English poets," said the bookseller, "■ your 
 Byron, Scott, and Moore, and understand them as 
 I walk along ; but I have got hold of a book by 
 one now that makes me stop and take breath. It 
 
SHELLEY IN WALES. 179 
 
 was lying among a lot of new English books that 
 I had not yet opened, when a priest happened 
 to pass by and took it up. After a brief glance 
 at the notes he exploded in wrath, shouting out : 
 ' Infidel ! Jacobin ! Leveller ! Nothing can stop 
 this spread of blasphemy but the stake and the 
 faggot ; the world is retrograding into accursed 
 heathenism and anarchy ! ' 
 
 ■ " When the priest had departed, I took up the 
 small book he had thrown down, saying : ' Surely 
 there must be something here worth tasting.' 
 You know the proverb : No person throws a stone 
 at a tree that does not bear fruit. It was Shelley's 
 ' Queen Mab.' The fruit is crude to my taste, 
 but well flavoured ; it requires a strong stomach 
 to digest it; the writer is an enthusiast and has 
 the true spirit of a poet ; he aims at regenerating 
 humanity, not, like Byron and Moore, pulling it 
 down. They say he is but a boy, and this his first 
 offering; if that be true, we shall hear of him 
 again." 
 
 History has not transmitted to us the name 
 of the excellent bookseller of Lausanne, but it is 
 certain the he possessed more sense and critical 
 acumen than all the English Reviewers of the 
 period put together, 
 
 N 2 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SHELLEY IN DUBLIN — IN LONDON — AT BRACK- 
 NELL, EDINBURGH, WINDSOR— HIS SEPARA- 
 TION FROM HARRIET — 1813-1814. 
 
 On March 9th, 1813, Shelley was once more in 
 Dublin. He had suddenly left Tanyralt, borrow- 
 ing ;^20 from Hookham for the purpose, in 
 consequence of a strange adventure which has 
 much exercised the minds of his biographers. On 
 the night of February 26th, a night of storm 
 and rain, his assassination had been attempted 
 under highly mysterious and improbable circum- 
 stances. Most of Shelley's biographers are of 
 opinion that the nocturnal attack was but a 
 figment of his imagination, one of those halluci- 
 nations which, according to Peacock, would be best 
 treated by "three well-peppered mutton chops.' 
 But the details furnished by numerous extant 
 letters are too circumstantial to admit of such an 
 explanation. Equally inadmissible is the theory 
 of his enemies that he himself had invented the 
 story to facilitate his departure without paying 
 his debts. However this may be, Shelley left 
 Tanyralt in all haste for Dublin, where Jack 
 Lawless received him with open arms. 
 
 Hogg, on learning the abrupt departure of the . 
 poet, relinquished his promised visit to Tanyralt 
 and followed his friend, to Dublin. But on arriving 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. l8i 
 
 at Shelley's address in Cuffe Street, he learned 
 from Mr. Lawless, the owner of the house, that 
 his lately-arrived guests had taken flight for 
 Killarney. Hogg, after inspecting the Irish capital, 
 took his way back philosophically enough to 
 I^ondon, where he was joined by Shelley a few 
 days later. The guardian angel had been left 
 behind with the books. 
 
 " I found Bysshe and Harriet," writes Hogg, "in a hotel 
 at the West End ; they were both well and in good spirits ; 
 the lady was as bright, blooming, and placid as ever. They 
 expressed much regret at my fruitless expedition, and most 
 kindly condoled with me. . . . They complained bitterly 
 of the fatigue, expense, and hideous improbity of iheir long 
 and barbarous course. Their wearied souls were brimful 
 of the recollections of discomfort and miseries endured at 
 Killarney ; where, that they might ■ be more thoroughly 
 wretched, they had occupied a cottage situated upon an 
 island in the lake. ... 
 
 " Bysshe discoursed with animation and eloquent astonish- 
 ment of the perilous navigation of the lakes ; of sudden 
 gusts and treacherous whirlwinds ; how vessels were 
 swamped and sunk in a moment ; and he related with 
 implicit faith tales savouring somewhat of Milesian exaggera- 
 tion and credulity. . . . He made no secret of his satis- 
 faction" at having got rid of Eliza, "but often gave vent to 
 his feelings with his accustomed frankness and energy. 
 The good Harriet smiled in silence, and looked very sly ; 
 she did not dare to express her joy, if she really rejoiced at 
 the absence of her affectionate and tiresome sister. . . . The 
 deliverance was of brief duration, surprisingly brief, for in 
 an incredibly short space of time Eliza reappeared and 
 resumed her sovereign functions. . . . Harriet gave visible 
 promise of being about to provide an heir for an ancient 
 and illustrious house ; and, like all little women, she looked 
 very large upon the occasion. She was in excellent voice, 
 and fonder than ever of reading aloud ; she promptly seized 
 every opportunity of indulging her taste ; she took up the 
 first book that came to hand as soon as I entered the room, 
 and the reading commenced. Sir William Druramond's 
 ' Academical Questions,' Smith's ' Theory of Moral Senti ; 
 ments,' some of Bishop Berkeley's works, Southey's 'Chro- 
 nicle of the Cid,' had taken the place of ' Telemachus,' 
 ' Belisarius,' Volney's ' Ruins,' and the other works which 
 she had formerly read to me." 
 
lS2 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 On reaching London, Shelley, who had in- 
 curred further debts for his travelling expenses, 
 endeavoured in vain to conciliate his father by- 
 letter. After wasting many precious hours in 
 useless negotiations with Mr. Timothy Shelley's 
 advisers, he removed from his hotel, which was 
 ill suited for poetical composition, and took lodg- 
 ings in Half-moon Street. 
 
 " There was a little projecting window,'' says Hogg, " in 
 Half-moon Street, in which Shelley might be seen from the 
 street all day long, book in hand, with lively gestures and 
 bright eyes ; so that Mrs. Newton said he wanted only 
 a pan of clear water and a fresh turf to look like some 
 young lady's lark, hanging outside for air and song. ... 
 The little room on the first floor . . . soon grew into a 
 miniature library ; books were arranged in rows on the 
 floor, in the recesses on each side of the fireplace, ... on 
 tables and chairs and heaped up under tables in confusion. 
 ... In one recess remained, but little disturbed by any 
 of us, in a long row, a Latin . . . translation of the works of 
 Emmanuel Kant — the leaves uncut." 
 
 Hogg and Shelley had resumed their old 
 habits of 1811, walking, studying, and arguing 
 together; and, as in former times, Hogg often 
 dined at his friend's table. The nature of the 
 repast was the only change, , but Hogg had 
 little liking for vegetarianism. He was not 
 indifferent to the comforts of life ; he was accus- 
 tomed to them, and could not recall without 
 regret the pleasant Oxford times, that University 
 "where," he says, "one was forced, whether 
 or no, to live comfortably in spite of oneself." 
 He thought all young ladies angelic, but never 
 more so than when handing you a large cup 
 of strong, good tea. Shelley's frugal fare was 
 not to his taste; he could not, like his friend, 
 rush into the iirst baker's shop when hungry, 
 buy a loaf, and eat it as he strode along, with the 
 occasional addition of raisins. A sweet panada, 
 that Shelley had learned how to prepare from 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 183 
 
 a French lady, and that he thought delicious, 
 was particularly odious to Hogg. He deplored the 
 culinary inexperience of the good Harriet, who 
 once in her life had had the opportunity of learning 
 how to make tea-cakes from Mrs. Southey, at 
 Keswick, but had not learned, and who, when 
 asked what was to be for dinner, would reply: 
 ^'Whatever you please." 
 
 " Once," says Hogg, " I had dropped a word, a hint 
 about a pudding. 'A pudding,' Bysshe said dogmatically, 
 'is a prejudice.' I have wished that the converse of the 
 proposition were true, and that a prejudice was a pudding, 
 and then, according to the judgment of my more, en- 
 lightened young friends, I should never have been without 
 one. . . . Our only resource against absolute starvation was 
 tea."* 
 
 Hogg endeavoured, though vainly, to intro- 
 duce Shelley into his own circle — the official 
 world, the world of fashion, and society. As 
 he was on terms of friendship with the Countess 
 of Oxford, one of the leaders of fashion, he 
 spoke to her in warm praise of his friend, and she 
 expressed a desire to make Shelley's acquaint- 
 ance, but Shelley probably declined the honour. 
 Hogg also wished to make Shelley acquainted 
 with a man who, at that time, enjoyed a great 
 reputation for eloquence and learning, the cele- 
 brated Dr. Samuel Parr, a Liberal divine (we 
 have had many such in France since that epoch). f 
 But this too failed, for Bysshe had not the 
 
 * Tea was always Shelley's favourite beverage ; he praised 
 it poetically in his Letter to Maria Gisborne, and jestingly 
 called himself in one sense a theist. 
 
 t Hogg says amusingly with reference to this subject : 
 " A Whig divine is placed in a very critical position, between 
 two fires ; he has to try and make his way, to creep to the 
 paradise of a bishoprick — a long and narrow bridge, narrow 
 as the edge of a razor ; he must not compromise his ortho- 
 doxy on the one hand, or his Liberality on the other." 
 
lS4 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 smallest inclination for the society of a pedagogue 
 wrapped up in his own infallibility; " to ask him 
 to converse with a schoolmaster, was like tell- 
 ing him to go back to Eton and have a plea- 
 sant chat with old Keate, or with the Oxford 
 bigwigs." 
 
 Shelley preferred the society of ladies who 
 would learn from him, to that of reverend divines, 
 " He was an especial favourite of the fair sex ; 
 he was cherished as the apple of beauty's eye ; 
 he was often called by names of endearment, 
 such as Ariel, and Oberon, and spoken of- by 
 the ladies of his acquaintance as the Elfin King, 
 the King of Fairyland, and under other affec- 
 tionate titles. Elegant society was deemed to 
 be his proper element, and to adorn it his natural 
 vocation ; to bring him into this sphere, and 
 keep him in it, was the anxious care of several 
 amiable and charming creatures." But this was 
 not always easy of accomplishment. 
 
 As capricious and elusive as a sylph or gnome, 
 Shelley easily forgot, in some day-dream or 
 poetic vision, his promises and engagements. 
 "When he was caught, brought up in custody, and 
 turned over to the ladies with 'Behold your King ! * 
 to be caressed, courted, admired, and flattered, 
 the king of beauty and fancy would too commonly 
 bolt, slip away, steal out, creep off" . . . vanish 
 like a magician. Hogg compares his strange 
 disappearances to those of a goat, who is said 
 to pass one hour of the twenty-four every day 
 in the infernal regions : 
 
 I have sometimes seen him standing a long while watch- 
 ing a goat patiently, and following it, for I had related the 
 superstitious legend to him, and it captivated his fancy and 
 pleased him prodigiously ; and he would eye a goat, that 
 came unexpectedly towards him, eagerly, and inquire with 
 penetrating asking glances, " What news from Hades ? " 
 
 If he was in company with two or three young ladies at 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 185 
 
 bedtime, they would continue to sit with him, hearing him 
 and asking liim questions. He took no note of time, and 
 never thought of retiring himself, and the quiet hours of 
 night glided away like moments. . . . Sotnetimes the con- 
 versation was prolonged to cockcrow, and terminated with a 
 walk and breakfast. The mammas were obliged to inter- 
 vene and despatch the young Adonis to his bed. . . . Never 
 was so potent a spell, so wonderful a charm, exercised by 
 any other individual, however gifted. What in the world did 
 Bysshe say to his charmed and charming watchwomen ? I 
 have often essayed— perhaps with a profane hand, and 
 therefore in vain — to raise the veil that covered the face of 
 the mystical Isis. ... I have asked again and again the 
 fair interlocutresses for some samples of the nightly dialogues, 
 but I never obtained more than general expressions of 
 vague delight. ... I have often wished that a shorthand 
 writer had been placed behind a screen during Bysshe's 
 nightly colloquies, to catch and secure for ever on paper a 
 philosophical apocalypse of which the duration was un- 
 happily so transient. What a delightful and precious 
 appendix to an imperfect biography would the notes of the 
 shorthand writer afford ! 
 
 One day Hogg and Shelley were invited to 
 attend a conference of ladies zealous for the 
 emancipation of their sex. The subject of debate 
 was the important question of stays. Hogg alone 
 presented himself. On a table covered with green 
 baize were exhibited plaster casts, prints, etchings, 
 and a rabbit cut open so as to expose the interior, 
 including the lungs. The subject under discussion 
 was the injurious effect of stays on women. The 
 lecturer having demonstrated her thesis upon the 
 casts, and the rabbit, and numerous exhibits of 
 crooked shoulders, curved spines, and contracted 
 chests, addressed herself to Hogg : " Have I not 
 plainly proved that Providence did not intend us 
 to wear stays ? " "I am not very competent to 
 decide the question," replied Hogg, "but I am 
 fully convinced, and you have fully proved, that 
 Providence never intended a buck rabbit to wear 
 stays." " Is it possible the rabbit is not a doe ? " 
 said the poor lady, quite confounded. A long 
 
i86 SHELLEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 silence ensued ; the fair lecturer was evidently per- 
 plexed as to the sex of her anatomical subject. 
 
 When she had recovered herself, Shelley be- 
 came the topic of conversation, the traitorous 
 Shelley who had promised to be present at the 
 conference and had failed to keep his word. The 
 fair lecturer spoke of him with animation and 
 enthusiasm ; if he would but speak out clearly 
 on the great, the important subject of stays, the 
 decision of such an intellect as his would instantly 
 close the discussion. Not another pair of stays 
 would be bought or worn in all Europe ! 
 
 Shelley was beginning to found a school. A 
 band of believers in human perfectibility and in 
 the Millennium were ready to be his disciples, to 
 the great amusement of Hogg, who bespoke for 
 his share in the New Jerusalem " the first floor in 
 a commodious house hollowed out of one huge 
 emerald." To which Shelley replied sadly: 
 *' You laugh at everything. I am convinced that 
 there can be no entire regeneration of mankind 
 until drollery has disappeared from the world 1 " 
 
 " Queen Mab," printed at the end of May, 
 1813, and distributed among Shelley's friends, had 
 a certain success in London. Hogg tells us that 
 strangers of both sexes forced their way into the 
 Shelleys' lodgings to make the acquaintance of 
 the poet. Enthusiastic vegetarians, religious re-^ 
 formers, unsuccessful poets with suicidal mania, 
 melancholy and dreamy women, bores of all sorts, 
 intruded their presence and were passed on to 
 Hogg by the poet. " It was more than intrusion, 
 it was obtrusion, and the word is not strong 
 enough., One person would give Italian lessons 
 to Harriet, another lessons in Hebrew or Arabic 
 to Eliza; a still' greaternumber forced themselves 
 in without excuse or pretext." 
 
 Among their eccentric and extraordinary 
 visitors was a certain Knight of Malta, Sir James 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 187 
 
 Lawrence by name, who had acquired celebrity as 
 the author of a philosophical novel entitled " The 
 History of the Nairs." This rose-coloured tale 
 of. India, "too rose-coloured," says Hogg, "too 
 much like Tom Moore's honey-dew," became a 
 rage with the Shelleys j even Eliza pronounced it 
 to be a delightful book. Shelley Vas greatly 
 impressed by it, and more fully convinced than 
 ever of the immorality of legal marriage. 
 
 One of Shelley's most familiar haunts was the 
 house of Mr. Newton, where he was received as 
 belonging to the family.* The author of "A 
 Return to Nature " was not satisfied with leading 
 mankind back to Nature by the practice of the 
 Pythagorean diet, but to this he added an Eden- 
 like absence of attire, and carried it out in his own 
 family. 
 
 " On a Sunday, in the summer,'' writes Hogg, " we took 
 a walk together, wandering about, as usual, for a long time 
 without plan or purpose. About five o'clock Bysshe stopped 
 suddenly at the door of a house in a fashionable street, 
 ascended the steps hastily, and delivered one of his superb 
 bravura knocks. 
 
 " ' What are we going to do here ? ' 
 
 " ' It is here we dine.' 
 
 "He placed me before him, that I might enter first, as 
 the stranger; the door was thrown wide open, and a strange 
 spectacle presented itself. There were five naked figures in 
 the passage hastening to meet us. The first was a boy of 
 twelve years, the last a little girl of five ; the other three 
 •children, the two eldest of them being girls, vvere of inter- 
 mediate ages, between the two extremes. As soon as they 
 saw me, they uttered a piercing cry, turned round, and ran 
 
 * Mrs. Newton's daughter says : " My mother, who was 
 uncommonly musical (indeed, as Dussek said himself, his 
 most gifted and best pupil), often passed her evenings playing 
 with two of the first-rate musicians in London, viz., Solomon 
 and another. Dear Shelley, instead of listening to the trios, 
 would take us children into a corner, and there in a low and 
 sepulchral voice tell us stories of ghosts and goblins to which 
 we listened with fixed interest and attention." 
 
l88 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 wildly upstairs, screaming aloud. The stairs presented the 
 appearance of Jacob's Ladder, with the angels ascending it,, 
 except that they had no wings, and they moved faster and 
 made more noise than the ordinary representations of the 
 Patriarch's vision indicate. From the window of the nursery 
 at the top of the house the children had seen the beloved 
 Shelley — had scampered downstairs in single file to welcome 
 him ; me, the kill-joy, they had not observed. I was presented 
 to a truly elegant family, and I found everything in the best 
 taste, and was highly gratified with my reception, and with- 
 the estimable acquisition to the number of my friends. 
 Nothing was said about the first strange salutation, nor did 
 I venture to inquire what it signified. After dinner, Bysshe 
 asked why the children did not come into the room to the 
 dessert, as usual. The lady of the house coloured slightly, 
 and said Shelley shqjild see them by-and-by, in the nursery, 
 but they did not dare to show themselves in the dining-room. 
 They were all too much ashamed at having been seen, as they 
 were, so unexpectedly, by a stranger ! Nothing more tran- 
 spired to clear up the mystery of their nudity. At subsequent 
 visits, the whole system was unfolded. ... In order to pre- 
 pare mankind for the happy impending restoration of perfect 
 and universal nudity, children ought to be accustomed at an 
 early age to be, at least occasionally, naked. . . . The 
 mistress of the family assured us that she frequently re- 
 mained for hours without her clothes, and derived much 
 advantage from the complete exposure to the air. She 
 never seemed to have much the matter with her ; and in 
 imaginative persons fancy sways their feelings and con- 
 victions. ' 1 rose early this morning, and having locked 
 myself into my dressing-room, or undressing-room, I re- 
 mained for three hours stark-naked. I am all the better for 
 it, I assure you ; I always am. I feel so innocent during the 
 rest of the day ! ' . . . I gained some credit by com- 
 municating that I had sometimes nakedised, under the 
 authority and by the advice of the celebrated Dr. Franklin, 
 who wrote with earnestness in commendation of air-baths, 
 for so he called and esteemed the remaining naked for some 
 hours in the early morning. . . Except on my first visit, the 
 dear children never appeared naked before me ; before 
 Bysshe they often did. It is for his credit's sake that I state 
 it. I was of the earth, earthy ; he was of the heaven, 
 heavenly ; — I was a worldling' ; he had already returned to 
 Nature, or rather he had never quitted her. He was a pure 
 spirit, in the Divine likeness of the Archangel Gabriel ; the 
 peace-breathing, lily-bearing annunciator. Whether the 
 charming lady might not, without tarnish or discredit, have 
 appeared before him robed only in her innocency, as she was. 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 189 
 
 wont to sit during the eariy morning liours, I will not presume 
 to determine ; it is, at all events, certain that she never did so." 
 
 At the Newtons' Shelley also made the 
 acquaintance of a lady who for a time pro- 
 foundly influenced his life and intellect : this 
 was Madame de Boinville, Mrs. Newton's sister. 
 They were the daughters of Mr. Collins, a wealthy 
 planter at St. Vincent, and a staunch admirer 
 of the new France. Madame de Boinville had 
 adopted and even exceeded the Liberal views 
 ■of her father, wearing a red sash, and calling 
 herself a child of the Revolution. Among the 
 Constitutional hnigrh who frequented her father's 
 house she had noticed one who, although still a 
 young man, had played no insignificant part in 
 the early days of the Revolution. M. de Boin- 
 ville, who had been iormzrXy a. fermier-general, and 
 a friend of La Fayette and Andre Chenier, was 
 reduced to poverty by the emigration. He won 
 the affections of the young Republican lady, and 
 they had been married by the Gretna Green black- 
 smith, previous to a more formal ceremony. Under 
 the Consulate, M. de Boinville returned to France. 
 Madame de Boinville accompanied him, and 
 suffered much annoyance from the Imperial police. 
 It is even related that, on the occasion of one of 
 her journeys between Paris and London, she was 
 taken prisoner at the Hague, but her jailer was so 
 impressed by her beauty that he allowed her to 
 escape. M. de Boinville accepted service under 
 Napoleon, and received a high appointment in the 
 Commissariat of the Grand Army. He died at 
 Wilna in 1813. His widow was still suffering from 
 the shock of bereavement when she first became 
 acquainted with Shelley. Her troubled life had 
 early whitened her hair,* and the contrast between 
 
 * The above sketch of the Boinvilles is taken from Mr. 
 Dowden, who derives it from Mr. Thomas Constable's 
 "Memoir of the Rev. C. A. Chastel de Boinville." 
 
I90 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 her snow-white locks and her youthful counte- 
 nance reminded Shelley of the mysterious spinner 
 in Southey's "Thalaba," Maimuna, by whose 
 name he used to call her : 
 
 Her face was as a damsel's face, 
 And yet her hair was gray. 
 
 It is easy to understand how such a woman must 
 have influenced Shelley. 
 
 The recollection of the enchantress lasted much 
 longer than his intimacy with her in London. In 
 1819 he wrote from Rome to his friend Peacock 
 concerning Madame de Boinville and her daughter 
 Cornelia : 
 
 So you know the Boinvilles ? I could not help con- 
 sidering Mrs. B., when I knew her, as the most admirahle 
 specimen of a human being I had ever seen. Nothing 
 earthly ever appeared to me more perfect than her character 
 and manners. It is improbable that I shall ever meet 
 again the person whom I so much esteemed, and still 
 admire. I wish, however, that when you see her, you would 
 tell her that I have not forgotten her, nor any of the amiable 
 circle once assembled round her. . . . Cornelia, though 
 so young when I saw her, gave indications of her mother's 
 excellencies ; and certainly less fascinating, is, I doubt not, 
 equally amiable and more sincere. It was hardly possible 
 for a person, of the extreme subtlety and delicacy of Mrs, 
 Boinville's understanding and affections, to be quite sincere 
 and constant. 
 
 Besides the charm of their delightful com- 
 panionship, Shelley's friends furnished him with 
 a new source of intellectual and literary enjoy- 
 ment. Mrs. Boinville and her daughter Cornelia 
 initiated him into the language of Dante and 
 Tasso, and, under their guidance, he threw himself 
 into the study of Italian with his habitual ardour 
 for any intellectual pursuit. With his friend Hogg 
 he read " La Gerusalemme Liberata." 
 
 " With mingled feelings," says the latter, " of pleasure 
 and regret we both quitted the graceful, tender, pious epicj 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 19 r 
 
 being in our hearts more than half Crusaders, and not 
 altogether indisposed to enlist under the consecrated banners 
 of Godfrey." 
 
 Ariosto fascinated Shelley ; he eagerly de- 
 voured the "Orlando Furioso," returning to it con- 
 stantly, reading it again and again ; while Hogg 
 was progressing slowly and methodically with the- 
 aid of grammar and dictionary, Shelley read the 
 forty-four cantos of the " Orlando " several times. 
 Dante was postponed. A melancholy female 
 friend, who found consolation for her imaginary 
 sufferings only in the poetry of Petrarch, read 
 with Shelley the " Canzoni " of that great master 
 of lyric verse ; he drank with delight at the 
 pure and ideal spring, while Hogg, to the horror 
 of the lady and her disciple, ridiculed the platonic 
 passion of the stout canon of Padua, who sang 
 of love and kissed his maid-servant between a 
 good breakfast and a better dinner. 
 
 At the end of June, 181 3, a babe was born 
 to Shelley, a little daughter, to whom he gave 
 the name of lanthe Elizabeth. Hogg gives us 
 to understand that in Harriet's composition there 
 was more of vanity and egotism than of maternal 
 affection : 
 
 I often asked Harriet to let me see her little girl, but she 
 always made some excuse. She was asleep, being dressed, 
 or had gone out, or was unwell. The child had some 
 blemish, though not a considerable one, in one of her eyes ; 
 and this, I believe, was the true and only reason why her 
 mother did not choose to exhibit her. She could not bear, 
 herself a beauty, that I should know (such was her weakness) 
 that one so nearly connected with herself was .not perfectly 
 beautiful. 
 
 Shortly afterwards it became necessary to 
 operate on the little lanthe for a tumour. 
 Against the wish of the surgeon, Harriet insisted 
 on being present, and watched the progress of 
 the operation without a sign of emotion. The 
 
192 
 
 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 surgeon declared subsequently that he had never 
 met a woman like her, that she must have been 
 altogether without feeling.* 
 
 Hogg says that Shelley had no affection for his 
 child and took no interest in her ; but Peacock, 
 who is a faithful witness to that epoch in the 
 poet's life, gives us a different and more credible 
 account. " He was extremely fond of his child," 
 he writes, "and would walk up and down a room 
 with it in his arms for a long time together, 
 singing to it a monotonous melody of his own 
 making, which ran on the repetition of a word 
 of his own making. His song was ' Yahmani, 
 Yihmani, Yahmani, Yahmani ' .... it pleased 
 the child, and lulled it when it was fretful ; . . . . 
 he was pre-eminently an affectionate father." Mr. 
 Dowden has transcribed for us a precious record 
 of Shelley's love for his little lanthe, an un- 
 published sonnet, written in September, 1813, 
 three months after her birth : 
 
 TO lANTHE. 
 
 I love thee, Baby, for thine own sweet sake : 
 Those azure eyes, that faintly dimpled cheek. 
 Thy tender frame so eloquently weak. 
 Love in the sternest heart of hate might wake ; 
 But more, when o'er thy fitful slumber bending, 
 Thy mother folds thee to her wakeful heart, 
 Whilst love and pity in her glances blending 
 All that thy passive eyes can feel impart ; 
 More, when some feeble lineaments of her 
 Who bore thy weight beneath her spotless bosom, 
 As with deep love I read thy face, recur ; 
 More dear art thou, O fair and fragile blossom, 
 Dearest when most thy tender traits express 
 The image of thy mother's loveliness. 
 
 It was then (July, 1813) that, on his mother's 
 invitation, and in the absence of Mr. Timothy 
 
 * lanthe Shelley inarrled Mr. Esdaile, and died in 1876. 
 Mr, Dowden defends Haniet from Hogg's censure. 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 195 
 
 Shelley and his sisters, Shelley saw his birth- 
 place, Field Place, for the last time. He stayed 
 there for some days incognito, under the .name 
 of Captain Jones, wearing, when out of doors, 
 the uniform of a young officer who was then 
 quartered at Horsham. Captain Kennedy has left 
 us in a long letter his impressions of the poet : 
 
 ... I found him with his mother and two elder sisters 
 in a small room off the drawing-room, which they had named' 
 Confusion Hall. He received me with frankness and kindli- 
 ness, as if he had known me from childhood, and at once 
 won my heart. . . . The. generosity of his disposition and 
 utter unselfishness imposed upon him the necessity of strict 
 self-denial in personal comforts. Consequently he was 
 obliged to be most economical in his dress. He one day 
 asked us how we liked his coat, the only one he had brought 
 with him. We said it was very nice ; it looked as if new. 
 " Well," said he, " it is an old black coat which I have had 
 done up, and smartened with metal buttons and a velvet 
 collar." . . . He discoursed with eloquence and enthusiasm. 
 He said that he once thought the surrounding atmosphere- 
 was peopled with the spirits of the departed. 
 
 He read poetry with great emphasis and solemnity ; one- 
 evening he read aloud to us a translation of one of Goethe's- 
 poems, and at this day I think I hear him. In music he 
 seemed to delight as a medium of association ; the tunes 
 which had been favourites in boyhood charmed him. There: 
 was one, which he played several times on the piano witlx 
 one hand, which seemed to absorb him ; it was an ex- 
 ceedingly simple air, which I understand his earliest love 
 (Harriet Grove) was wont to play for him. He soon left us, 
 and I never saw him after, but I can never forget him. He 
 was an amiable, gentle being. 
 
 Shortly before this visit Shelley had left 
 London, in order to establish himself less ex- 
 pensively in a little cottage called High Elms. 
 It was situated at Bracknell, in Berkshire, not 
 far from Eton, and in the neighbourhood of the 
 Newtons and " Maimuna " ; and to High Elms 
 came with him Thomas Love Peacock,* one of 
 
 * Both as poet and satirical novelist, Peacock deserves 
 attention, and Shelley's high opinion of his talents and 
 
 O 
 
194 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 his most beloved friends, and worthy, both in 
 intellect and heart, of Shelley's affection. Their 
 intimacy dated from the previous year, at Cwm 
 Elan, became closer still at Bracknell, and lasted 
 without a cloud unto the end. At a time when 
 Peacock was in difficulties Shelley made him an 
 allowance of ;£iOO a year, and continued to express 
 the warmest feelings of friendship for him, even 
 after his own departure from England. 
 
 Shelley came of age while at Bracknell. His 
 pecuniary condition continued to be deplorable; 
 there was an accumulation .of debts, and even 
 a risk of arrest as an insolvent debtor, which 
 his father privately averted. In October, how- 
 ever, he found himself compelled to resort to 
 post-obit bonds in order to raise money. 
 
 But while awaiting the settlement of his affairs, 
 he resolved to revisit the scenes which had wit- 
 nessed the early days of his union with Harriet ; 
 his friends at Keswick,* the Calverts, and Edin- 
 burgh. Peacock was of the party. Although 
 Shelley did not find in Peacock the perfect 
 sympathy of ideas and aspirations that he would 
 have desired, he recognised an agreeable and 
 intellectual companion in his new friend, and 
 also a scholar who was neither superstitious nor 
 dogmatical. 
 
 He returned to London in December, and 
 soon afterwards hired a furnished house at 
 Windsor, at no great distance from Bracknell 
 and the Boinvilles. Throughout these incessant 
 wanderings he continued to devote himself to 
 varied and serious study. He read Tacitus, the 
 
 character is not his least claim to posthumous appreciation. 
 There is an excellent article on Peacock in the British Review 
 for January, 1874. 
 
 * Just at this time Southey had accepted the Poet- 
 Laureateship, and was accused by the Examiner and other 
 Liberal journals of apostasy. 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 195 
 
 philosophical works of Cicero, " one of the finest 
 characters the world has ever produced," La 
 Place's " System of the World," and Grenville's 
 Homer, in two Russia-bound volumes. 
 
 " It would be a curious problem," says Hogg, " to calculate 
 how many times he read the whole through^ He devoured 
 in silence . . . often by firelight . . . and he would read some 
 sublime passage aloud, if there was any one at hand to listen, 
 with extreme rapidity and animation . . . nor would he 
 cease until he reached the end of the book, and then, 
 closing it . . . and lifting up his eyes to the ceiling, he ex- 
 claimed with heartfelt pleasure, 'Hah!' remaining for some 
 minutes in an attitude of veneratioi^, wholly absorbed in 
 pleasure and admiration." 
 
 The outcome of his philosophical studies in 
 1813, was a remarkable little book written in the 
 form of a dialogue between a Deist and a 
 Christian, and entitled, " A Refutation of Deism," 
 which appeared early in 18 14. Shelley very 
 subtly places the refutation of Christianity in the 
 mouth of the Deist, and that of Deism' in the 
 mouth of the Christian ; the theosophist demolishes 
 Christianity, whereas the Christian Eusebius, by 
 proving that there is no middle position between 
 Atheism and Christianity, is merely a disguised 
 Atheist demolishing Deism. While thus develop- 
 ing the arguments in the notes to " Queen Mab," 
 the dialogue (which, moreover, was only addressed 
 to the elect few) shows a consideralale advance 
 both in style and -thought. The latter is more 
 elevated, more self-sustained, stronger, less 
 aggressive, and less declamatory. Mr. Dowden 
 points out as particularly noteworthy, Shelley's 
 criticism of the argument from Design in Nature. 
 He brings us to this conclusion : " That our 
 igtiorance alone incapacitates us from referring 
 every phenomenon, however unusual, minute, or 
 -complex, to the laws of motion and the properties 
 of matter; and it is an egregious offence against 
 
 o 2 
 
195 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 the first principles of reason, to suppose an 
 immaterial creator of the world, in quo ovinia 
 moventur sed sine miitiid passione, which is equally 
 a superfluous hypothesis in the mechanical 
 philosophy of Newton, and an useless excrescence 
 on the inductive logic of Bacon." 
 
 Weary of incessant wanderings, and pro- 
 bably in accordance with the wise counsels of 
 Maimuna,* Shelley seemed inclined to rest for 
 a time, while continuing to urge an arrangement 
 on his father, which would relieve him from 
 his pecuniary emt^arrassments. He enjoyed the 
 desired rest in long visits to his Bracknell friends 
 in the early part of 1814. 
 
 On resuming his momentarily interrupted 
 correspondence with Hogg, he writes to him- 
 from Bracknell on March i6th : 
 
 I have been staying with Mrs. Boinville for the last 
 month. I have escaped, in the society of all that philosophy 
 and friendship combined, from the dismaying solitude of 
 myself. They have revived in my heart the expiring flame 
 of life. I have felt myself translated to a paradise, which 
 has nothing of mortality but its transitoriness ; my hearf 
 sickens at the view of that necessity, which will quickly 
 divide me from the delightful tranquillity of this happy home, 
 for it has become my home. The trees, the bridge, the 
 minutest objects, have already a place in my affections. 
 
 My friend, you are happier than I. You have the 
 pleasures as well as the pains of sensibility. I have sunk 
 into a premature old age of exhaustion, which renders me 
 dead to everything but the unenviable capacity of indulging 
 the vanity of hope, and a terrible susceptibility to objects ot" 
 disgust and hatred. 
 
 My temporal concerns are slowly rectifying themselves ; 
 I am astonished at my own indifiFerence to their event. I 
 
 * "Seriously," she writes to Hogg in March, 1814,"! 
 think his mind and body want rest. His jouriieys after what 
 he has never found have racked his purse and his tranquillity- 
 He is resolved to take a little care of the former in pity to the 
 latter, which I applaud, and shall second with all my might.. 
 . . . He is seeking a house close to us. . . ." 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 197 
 
 .live here like the insect that sports in a transient sunbeam, 
 which the next cloud shall obscure for ever. I am much 
 changed from what I was. I look with regret to our happy 
 evenings at Oxford, and with wonder at the hopes which in 
 the excess of my madness I there encouraged. Burns says, 
 you know : 
 
 " Pleasures are like poppies spread : 
 You seize the flower — the bloom is fled ; 
 Or, like the snow, falls in the river, 
 A moment white — then lost for ever." 
 
 Eliza is still with us — not here, but will be with me when 
 rthe infinite malice of destiny forces me to depart. I am now 
 but little inclined to contest this point. I certainly hate her 
 ■with all my heart and soul. It is a sight which awakens an 
 inexpressible sensation of disgust and horror, to see her 
 •caress my poor little lanthe, in whom I may hereafter find 
 the consolation of sympathy. I sometimes feel fairit with 
 the fatigue of checking the overflowings of my unbounded 
 abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But she is no more 
 than a blind and loathsome worm, that cannot see to sting. 
 
 I have begun to learn Italian again. I am reading 
 Beccaria, " Dei delitti e pene." His essay seems to contain 
 some excellent remarks, though I do not think that it 
 ■deserves the reputation it has gained. Cornelia assists me 
 in this language. Did I not once tell you that I thought her 
 cold and reserved .' She is the reverse of this, as she is the 
 ' reverse of everything bad. She inherits all the divinity of 
 her mother. 
 
 What have you written ? I have been unable even to write 
 a common letter. I have forced myself to read Beccaria, and 
 Dumont's Bentham. I have sometimes forgotten that I am 
 not an inmate of this delightful home — that a time will come 
 ■wh ich will cast me again into the boundless ocean of abhorred 
 society. 
 
 I have written nothing but one stanza, which has no 
 meaning, and that I have only written in thought : 
 
 Thy dewy looks sink in my breast ; 
 
 Thy gentle words stir poison there ; 
 Thou hast disturbed the only rest 
 
 That was the portion of despair ! 
 Subdued to Duty's hard control, 
 
 I could have borne my wayward lot : 
 The chains that bind this rumed soul 
 
 Had cai^kered them, but crushed it not. 
 
 This is the vision of a delirious and disterppered dreanii 
 
igS SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 which passes away at the cold, clear light of morning. Its- 
 surpassing excellence and exquisite perfections have no more 
 reality than the colour of an autumnal sunset. Adieu. 
 
 This despairing letter throws a light on 
 the state of Shelley's mind, and prepares us 
 for the abrupt catastrophe which was impending. 
 Shelley's home had become a hell. 
 
 The hour of parting was at hand. Ever since 
 the autumn of 1813 serious differences of opinion 
 had caused a coolness between Shelley and 
 Harriet. His sonnet to Harriet on her birthday 
 in September is very unlike that one he had 
 addressed to her the preceding year. As Mr. 
 Dowden, who first published, it, remarks, "there- 
 is something in it of the strangeness and sadness. 
 of sunset," and the little rift in their love is already 
 perceptible : 
 
 EVENING. TO HARRIET. 
 
 O thou bright sun ! beneath the dark blue line 
 
 Of western distance that sublime descendest. 
 
 And gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline, 
 
 Thy million hues to every vapour lendest. 
 
 And over cobweb, lawn, and grove, and stream 
 
 Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light, 
 
 Till calm earth, with the parting splendour bright,. 
 
 Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream ; 
 
 What gazer now with astronomic eye 
 
 Could coldly count the spots within thy sphere ? 
 
 Such were thy lover, Harriet, could he fly 
 
 The thoughts of all that makes his passion dear, 
 
 And turning senseless from thy warm caress 
 
 Pick flaws in our close-woven happiness. 
 
 Dissensions, sooner or later, were inevitable;: 
 it was in the nature of things that they should 
 occur. There was too great an incompatibility of 
 education, intellect, temper, and character in the 
 wedded pair for life in common not to become 
 suddenly, at a given moment, hateful and in- 
 tolerable. Medwin was surprised, not at their 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 199. 
 
 eventual separation, but that they for so long a 
 period " dragged a chain, of which each link was 
 an additional torture." Far be it from us to- 
 throw a stone at the good Harriet whom Hogg and 
 Peacock have depicted in such brilliant colours ; 
 she paid dearly for the thoughtlessness with which 
 she threw herself into the poet's arms; while 
 Shelley's fault had been that of entering too- 
 lightly on so great a venture, and of mistaking 
 his own generous sympathy for love. When on 
 the point of uniting himself to Harriet he had 
 yielded too easily to the impulse of his heart, ia 
 spite of reason, which called aloud : 
 
 Hear it not, Percy, for it is a knell 
 That summons thee to heaven or to hell. 
 
 And hell had come. He had doubtless persuaded 
 himself that, by the mild and eloquent teaching 
 of love, he should bestow intellect and soul on the 
 beautiful doll, and raise her to his own level ; but 
 he had failed. He had learnt that she could not 
 rise to his height ; that she was deficient in the 
 refinement and delicacy he would fain have found 
 in the companion of his life ; that her heart was 
 narrow and cold, inaccessible to the great passions 
 that filled his own, and incapable of even faintly 
 realising the ideal he had made to himself of love. 
 In a few terrible words he has summed up his 
 grievances against Harriet : 
 
 Every one must know that the partner of my life should 
 be one who can feel poetry and understand philosophy. 
 Harriet is a noble animal, but she can do neithei". 
 
 In place of a Mary Wollstonecraft, or even 
 of a Madame Boinville, he had found in Harriet a 
 mere woman, more addicted to feminine vanity, 
 and to the comforts and luxuries of life, than to 
 the ideal delights of poetry and philanthropy. 
 For a time, indeed, she had striven to kindle the 
 
500 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 sacred fire, to stammer the mystic diction of 
 philosophy; but the great words sounded untrue 
 from her lovely lips, and seemed to be accom- 
 panied by a smile of bright incredulity. She had 
 allowed herself to join in Peacock's laugh at 
 Shelley for the enthusiasm with which he held 
 the impracticable theories that he believed to be 
 of the highest importance to the happiness and 
 perfectibility of the human race. She had ridi- 
 culed the humanitarian and French sentimentality 
 that reigned in Maimuna's circle, and her heart, 
 albeit not a warm one, had felt a sting of jealousy 
 at the place held by that enchantress in her 
 husband's affections. In or before the first mo- 
 ments of motherhood, Harriet had seen the mirage 
 of earlier days fade away, and had found herself 
 among the realities of daily life. She no longer 
 read aloud, and Shelley ceased to take any interest 
 in her studies. If we may trust Peacock; the 
 disputes between the pair arose principally from 
 two causes : first, that Harriet had delegated her 
 tenderest office towards her babe to a hired nurse ; 
 and, secondly, that she persisted in retaining with 
 her the guardian angel, her sister Eliza, whom 
 Shelley regarded with abhorrence. " I always 
 thought," he says," that if Harriet had suckled her 
 own child, and if her sister had not lived with 
 them, their union would have lasted much longer." 
 Yet, however strained was the situation, 
 Shelley, from a sense of duty, resigned himself, 
 though not without a hard struggle, to bear a 
 burden which had become the more intolerable 
 from comparison with the ideal happiness he 
 enjoyed at Bracknell. He was so far from 
 thinking of separation from Harriet, that four 
 days after writing the letter to Hogg that we 
 have given above, he renewed the ceremony of 
 marriage with her according to the Anglican 
 rite at the parish church of St. George. Harriet 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 201 
 
 :'KdLS again pregnant, and Shelley, for the sake 
 of a possible son and heir, was anxious to ratify 
 the EdinlDurgh marriage. 
 
 In April the poet was once more at Brack- 
 nell. "Shelley," wrote Mrs. Boinville to Hogg 
 (April 1 8th), "is again a widower ; his beauteous 
 half went to town on Thursday with Miss 
 Westbrook, who is gone to live, I believe, at 
 Southampton." 
 
 But the greater Shelley's delight in the 
 society at Bracknell, the more painful was the 
 return to his silent and desolate hearth ; and 
 in this melancholy frame of mind he wrote, on 
 leaving the Boinvilles, the following mournful, 
 stanzas : 
 
 Away ! the moor is dark beneath the moon. 
 Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even ; 
 Away ! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon. 
 And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of 
 
 heaven. 
 Pause not ; the time is past ! Every voice cries, " Away ! " 
 Tempt not with one last glance thy friend's ungentle mood ; 
 Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy 
 
 ' stay ; 
 Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. 
 
 He carried with him the ineffaceable remem- 
 brance of that house, and heath, and garden of 
 Bracknell ; and, above all, the recollection of the 
 enchantresses who dwelt there, " of the music of 
 two voices and the light of one sweet smile."* 
 
 Yet amid all this despair, there was as yet 
 room for hope ; if love were dead in Harriet's 
 heart the poet could still appeal to her pity, and 
 implore her not to condemn him to lose all hope. 
 •In May, 18 14, he addressed to her the following 
 lines, which have been found, in Harriet's own 
 
 * Stanzas, April, 1814. 
 
202 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 handwriting, among a manuscript collection of 
 poems prepared by Shelley for publication: 
 
 TO HARRIET. 
 
 Thy look of love has power to calm 
 The stormiest passion of my soul ; 
 
 Thy gentle words are drops of baUii 
 In life's too bitter bowl ; 
 
 No grief is mine but that alone 
 
 These choicest blessings I have known. 
 
 Harriet ! if all who long to live 
 
 In the mild sunshine of thine eye, 
 That price beyond all pain must give 
 
 Beneath thy scorn to die 
 
 Then hear thy chosen own too late 
 His heart most worthy of thy hate. 
 
 Be thou, then, one among mankind 
 Whose heart is harder not for state, 
 
 Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind, 
 Amid a world of hate ; 
 
 And by a slight endurance seal 
 
 A fellow being's lasting weal. 
 
 For pale with anguish is his cheek ; 
 
 His breath comes fast, his eyes are dim ; 
 Thy name is struggling ere he speak ; 
 
 Weak is each trembling limb. 
 In mercy let him not endure 
 The misery of a fatal cure. 
 
 O trust for once no erring guide ! 
 
 Bid the remorseless feeling flee ; 
 'Tis mahce, 'tis revenge, 'tis pride, 
 
 'Tis anything but thee ; 
 O deign a nobler pride to prove, 
 And pity if thou canst not love. 
 
 It is probable this despairing appeal to Har- 
 riet's pity awakened no response in her heart ; 
 and we may believe, while allowing for the 
 natural exaggeration of his wounded love, that 
 Shelley regarded such hardness as an unpardon- 
 able offence.* 
 
 * Mr. Dowden gives a curious proof of this in the- 
 variation of two lines in the sixth stanza of the dedicatioa 
 
SHELLEY IN DVBLLX. 20 j 
 
 In presence of such insensibility as this the 
 occasion seemed to have arisen for liim to apply 
 to his own case the principles he had stated in 
 a note to " Queen Mab," that marriage could 
 not indissolubly unite two beings who were not 
 made for each other, and that it became their 
 duty to seek love and happiness in another union. 
 This was the fatal cure of which he speaks in the 
 stanzas to Harriet. 
 
 Since his re-marriage at St. 'George's he had 
 become more intimate with Godwin, whose em- 
 barrassed pecuniary affairs had moved his generous 
 heart,* and he had met, and been strangely 
 impressed by the young daughter of Godwin 
 and Mary WoUstonecraft, a beautiful girl of 
 seventeen, whose pure, pale face shone with 
 intelligence, sensibility, and earnestness, and in 
 whom was mingled her father's clearness of in- 
 tellect and firm quietude, with her mother's ardour 
 of imagination and feeling. Shelley was dazzled. 
 
 If we may trust Peacock, who was Shelley's 
 chief friend at the time, his passion for Mary was 
 like a thunderbolt : 
 
 " Nothing that I ever read in tale or history,'' writes he, 
 " could present a more striking image of a sudden, violent, 
 irresistible passion, than that under which I found him 
 labouring, when at his invitation I came back to London 
 from the country. His new passion was to be read in 
 his looks, his red and inflamed eyes, his disordered hair 
 
 of "Laon and Cythna." The^c lines which now stand in 
 
 the printed text. 
 
 Yet never found I one not false to me, 
 
 Hard hearts and cold like weights of icy stone ! 
 
 were originally written with allusion to his cousin, Harriet 
 
 Grove, and to his wife Harriet : 
 
 One whom I found was dear but false to me, 
 The other's heart was like a heart of stone. 
 * A sum of ^£3000 was required, which Shelley found 
 
 it very difficult to raise. 
 
:o4 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 pnd clothes. He caught up a bottle of laudanum, and said: 
 'I never part from this;' then he added. 'I am always 
 repeating to myself your lines from Sophocles : 
 
 Man's happiest lot is not to be, etc., etc.'" 
 
 Hogg knew nothing of this until June 8th. 
 
 " We were walking through Newgate Street," he says ; 
 ^' when we reached Skinner Street, Shelley said : ' I must 
 speak with Godwin ; come in, I will not detain you long.' 
 1 followed him through the shop, which was the only 
 entrance, and upstairs. We entered a room on the first 
 floor. . . . Godwin was not there. Shelley appeared to be- 
 displeased at not finding the fountain of ' Political Justice.' 
 
 "'Where is Godwin ?' he asked me several times, as if I 
 knew. . . . He continued his uneasy promenade ; and I 
 -Stood reading the names of old English authors on the 
 backs of venerable volumes, when the door was softly and 
 partially opened, a thrilling voice called, 'Shelley!' A 
 thriUing voice answered, ' Mary !' and he darted out of the 
 room, like an arrow from the bow of the far-shooting king. 
 A very young female, fair, and fair-haired, pale indeed, and 
 with a piercing look, wearing a frock of tartan, an unusual 
 dress in London at that time, had called him out of the room. 
 He was absent a very short time — a minute or two, and 
 then returned. ' Godwin is out, there is no use in waiting." 
 So we continued our walk along Holborn. ' Who was that, 
 pray ? ' I asked ; ' a daughter ! ' ' Yes' ' A daughter oi 
 William Godwin?' 'The daughter of Godwin, and Mary.' 
 This was the first time that I beheld a very distinguished 
 lady, of whom I have much to say hereafter. . . . Hei 
 quietness struck me, and also her paleness and piercing 
 look." 
 
 The impression produced on Mary by Shelley 
 was not less profound. His reverence and filial 
 devotion for Godwin, the enthusiastic admiration 
 he expressed for her mother, and more than all. 
 perhaps, his deep sadness revealing some profound 
 sorrow of heart, touched her tender and generous 
 soul ; unasked she gave him that pity, so near 
 akin to love, that had been refused him by 
 Harriet, and on one occasion her emotion over- 
 came her as she gazed on him, and tears rose to 
 her eyes. Shelley laid aside the constraint he had 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 203 
 
 put upon himself, and responded by a little poem 
 which throws more light on the dawn of their 
 affection, and on their delicate and difficult posi- 
 tion, than all the narratives of their biographers. 
 
 Meanwhile Shelley still corresponded with 
 Harriet, who had removed to Bath. Some few 
 days had elapsed at the beginning of July, and 
 no letter reaching her from Shelley, she wrote 
 in painful anxiety to the bookseller Hookham, 
 entreating for news of her absent husband, failing 
 which, she would herself come to London. 
 Shelley replied to this that he expected her, and 
 she arrived in town on July 14th. 
 
 In the interim, a terrible revelation had dealt 
 a final blow to Shelley's sorely stricken heart; 
 he had convinced himself not only that Harriet 
 had ceased to love him, but that she had given her 
 heart and herself to another.* Holding this con- 
 viction, no further hesitation was possible ; Harriet 
 might no longer be his wife. 
 
 On her arrival in London, Harriet found 
 Shelley fully resolved upon an irrevocable 
 separation. 
 
 She felt that resistance would be unavailing,, 
 and acquiesced in the proposed arrangements, 
 returning with her child to her father's house,, 
 and perhaps hoping that time would restore to 
 her him whom she had not retained on the day 
 when he had pathetically entreated her to recipro- 
 cate his love. 
 
 As there was in Shelley's heart neither anger, 
 nor animosity, nor desire of revenge, he continued 
 to correspond with Harriet, to provide for her 
 wants, and to occupy himself about her with 
 friendly solicitude, until a time came when she 
 was altogether undeserving of his care. He had 
 done his duty, according to his conscience and 
 
 * An Irish gentlemen, named Ryan, who in 1813 h^^l 
 been intimate with Shelley and Harriet. 
 
2o5 SHELLEY— THE .MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 his creed, and at a subsequent period could write 
 to Southey, who had entreated him to examine 
 his past life, as follows : 
 
 I take God to witness, if such a being is now regarding 
 "both you and me, and I pledge myself if we meet, as perhaps 
 you expect, before Him after death, to repeat the same 
 in His presence, that you accuse me wrongfully. I am 
 innocent of ill, either done or intended. 
 
 The new object of his soul's affection, the 
 ideal incarnation of Godwin's genius and Mary 
 Wollstonecraft's noble heart, was clothed in 
 Shelley's eyes with every quality and every 
 perfection of the valiant and ideal woman that 
 Harriet had lacked. 
 
 Mr. Jeaffreson exhausts his ingenuity in trying 
 to prove that Mary Godwin was a kind of 
 ingenue, who had been brought up in the usual 
 wholesome beliefs concerning marriage and love, 
 and that Shelley was the first to open her eyes 
 and initiate her into her mother's doctrines. 
 This is wilfully to misread Mary's character and 
 disposition. "She is singularly bold, somewhat 
 imperious, and active in mind," so Godwin wrote 
 of Mary at the age of fifteen; "her desire of 
 knowledge is great, and her perseverance in 
 everything she undertakes almost invincible." 
 
 With such a temperament as this, and living 
 as she did in an atmosphere of free-thought, 
 Mary had not needed lessons from Shelley to 
 initiate her into the religion of reason; she had 
 amply profited by the teachings of Mr. Baxter,* 
 with whom she had passed much of her girlhood. 
 Shelley was surprised to meet with such elevation 
 of thought, and such high philosophy, united with 
 such extreme youth, and became her disciple. 
 "\ believe," he wrote to her in October, 1814, 
 
 * " Mr. Baxter," says Dowden, " had fed upon Godwin's 
 doctrines, and on the appearance of ' Queen Mab ' expressed 
 his highest admiration for that work." 
 
SHELLEY IN DUBLIN. 207 
 
 ■"■ I must become in Mary's hands what Harriet 
 was in mine. Yet how differently disposed, how 
 devoted and affectionate, how beyond measure 
 reverencing and adoring the inteUigence that 
 governs me ! " It was on terms of equality that 
 Mary, as she herself said at a later period, placed 
 her hand in his hand, and linked her fate with his. 
 
 In " Laon and Cythna," Laon bows before 
 the genius of Cythna, and on Cythna the poet 
 ■confers the part of teacher, of seer, and of prophet. 
 
 The tender remembrance of Mary Wollstone- 
 -craft hovered over the delicious idyll of these 
 sister-souls, who joined their ardent ideal aspira- 
 tions in platonic affection, until their lives might 
 be united in love. Their usual meeting-place 
 was the old churchyard of St. Pancras, where 
 was the grave of Mary Wollstonecraft. To the 
 shade of its overhanging willow Mary would 
 escape with her books from the troubles of 
 home and the ill-temper of her stepmother. It 
 was there, probably, that she read " Queen 
 Mab" in the copy given her by Shelley, in 
 which he had written " Mary Wollstonecraft 
 Godwin, P.B.S. You see, Mary, I have not 
 forgotten you." At the end of the volume Mary 
 had written in July, 1814: 
 
 This book is sacred to me, and as no othfer creature 
 shall ever look into it, I may write in it what I please. 
 Yet what shall I write — that I love the author beyond 
 all powers of expression and that I am parted from him, 
 dearest and only love ? By that love we have promised 
 to each other, although I may not be yours I can never 
 be another's. But I am thine, exclusively thine. 
 
 Then followed these verses : 
 
 By the kiss of love, the glance none sa;w beside 
 The smile none else might understand, 
 
 The whispered thought of hearts allied, 
 The pressure of thy thrilling hand.* 
 
 * From Byron's " To Thyrza," the first line being altered. 
 
2o8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 I have pledged myself to thee, and sacred is the gift. I 
 remember your words : " You are now, Mary, going to mix 
 with many, and fof a moment I shall depart, but in the soli- 
 tude of your chamber I shall be with you." Yes, you are ever 
 with me, sacred vision — 
 
 But ah ! I feel in this was given 
 
 A blessing never meant for me ; 
 Thou art too like a dream from heaven 
 
 For earthly love to merit thee.* 
 
 A short separation had been imposed on 
 Shelley by Godwin. The latter was certainly 
 no very austere Geronte ; but he had been 
 informed of the secret meetings of the young 
 people, with whom he had seriously remonstrated. 
 In order to lull the watchfulness of the 
 philosopher, Shelley for a while ceased to see 
 Mary. But the vows they had interchanged, 
 and the ardour of their love, could endure no 
 long separation ; they loved each other, and 
 who should prevent the union of their lives? 
 Without the knowledge of Godwin and his wife, 
 the lovers made their secret arrangements, and 
 the astonishment of the author of " Political 
 Justice " was great when on the morning of 
 June 28th, he was informed that Mary's and 
 Jane Clairmont's rooms were empty. The lovers 
 were flying to the Continent. 
 
 * From Byron's lines beginning, " If sometimes in the 
 haunts of men." 
 
CHAPTER XI/ 
 
 "'history of a six weeks' tour" — ^JOURNAL 
 OF SHELLEY AND MARY — 1814. 
 
 At four o'clock on the morning of July 28th, 
 the fugitives, accompanied by Jane Clairmont, 
 who was to act as interpreter, left Skinner 
 Street for Dover, But Shelley shall tell the 
 story himself : * 
 
 ]July 28. — The night preceding this morning, all being 
 decided, I ordered a chaise to be ready by four o'clock. I 
 watched until the lightning and the stars became pale. At 
 length it was four. I beUeved it not possible that we should 
 succeed * still there appeared to lurk some danger even in 
 certainty. I went ; 1 saw her ; she came to me. Yet one 
 ■quarter of an hour remained. Still some arrangement must 
 be made ; and she left me for a short time. How dreadful 
 did this time appear ! It seemed that we trifled with life 
 
 a,nd hope. A few minutes passed. She was in my arms 
 
 we were safe. We were on our road to Dover. 
 
 * We owe to Mr. Dowden the very interesting extracts 
 from Shelley's Journal, from which the account published by 
 Mary in 1817 was compiled, under the following title : 
 " History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, 
 Switzerland, Germany, and Holland ; with Letters descriptive 
 of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of 
 Chamouni." We have completed Shelley's Journal by the 
 printed narrative, all passages from the former being 
 enclosed in brackets [ ], thus. 
 
 P 
 
2IO SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Mary was ill as we travelled ; yet in that illness what 
 pleasure and security did we not share ! The heat made her 
 faint ; it was necessary at every stage that we should repose.. 
 I was divided between anxiety for her health and terror lest_ 
 our pursuers should arrive. I reproached myself with not 
 allowing her sufficient time to rest, with conceiving any evil 
 so great that the slightest portion of her comfort might be 
 sacrificed to avoid it. 
 
 At Dartford we took four horses, that we might outstrip' 
 pursuit. We arrived at Dover before four o'clock (where 
 Mary was refreshed by a sea-bath). Some time was 
 necessarily expended in consideration, in dinner, in bar- 
 gaining with sailors and Custom-house officers. At length 
 we engaged a small boat to convey us to Calais ; it was 
 ready by six o'clock. The evening was most beautiful ; the 
 sands slowly receded ; we felt safe. There was little wind, 
 the sails flapped in the flagging breeze. 
 
 The moon rose, the night came on, and with the night a- 
 slow heavy swell, and a fresher breeze which soon became 
 so violent as to toss the boat very much. Mary was much 
 affected by the sea ; she could scarcely move. She lay in 
 my arms through the night ; the little strength which re- 
 mained in my own exhausted frame was all expended in 
 keeping her head at rest on my bosom. The wind was 
 violent and contrary. If we could not reach Calais, the 
 sailors proposed making for Boulogne. They promised only 
 two hours' sail from the shore ; yet hour after hour passed, 
 and we were still far distant, when the moon sank in the red. 
 and stormy horizon^ and the fast-flashing lightning became 
 pale in the breaking day. We were proceeding slowly 
 against the wind, when suddenly a thunder-squall struck the 
 sail, and the waves rushed into the boat. Even the sailors 
 believed that our situation was perilous. The wind had now 
 changed, and we drove before a wind that came in violent 
 gusts, directly to Calais. 
 
 Mary did not know our danger ; she was resting between 
 my knees, that were unable to support her. She did not 
 speak or look, but I felt that she was there. I had time in 
 that moment to reflect and even to reason upon death ; it 
 was rather a thing of discomfort and of disappointment than- 
 horror to me. We should never be separated,, but in death 
 we might not know and feel our union as now. I hope, but 
 my hopes are not unmixed with fear for what will befall 
 this inestimable spirit when we appear to die. 
 
 The morning broke, the lightning died away, the violence 
 of the wind abated. We arrived at Calais whilst Mary still 
 slept ; we drove upon the sands. Suddenly the broad sun 
 rose over France. 
 
"HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS' TOUR." 211 
 
 Priday, Jidy 29. — I said : " Mary, look ; the sun rises 
 over France." We walk ;d over the sands to the inn; we 
 were shown into an apartment that answered the purpose 
 both of a sitting and sleeping-room.] 
 
 I heard for the first time the confused buzz of voices 
 speaking a different language from that to which I had been 
 accustomed, and saw a costume very unlike that worn on the 
 opposite side of the Channel ; the women with high caps and 
 short jackets ; the men with ear-rings ; ladies walking about 
 with high bonnets or coiffures lodged on the top of the head, 
 the hair dragged up underneath, without any stray curls 
 to decorate the temples or cheeks. There is, however, 
 something very pleasing in the manners and appearance of 
 the people of Calais that prepossesses you in their favour. A 
 national reflection might occur that when Edward III. took 
 Calais, he turned out the old inhabitants, and peopled it 
 almost entirely with our own countrymen ; but unfortunately 
 the manners are not English. 
 
 We remained that day and the greater part of the next 
 at Calais ; we had been obliged to leave our boxes the night 
 before at the English Custom-house, and it was arranged 
 that they should go by the packet of the following day, 
 which, detained by the contrary wind, did not arrive until 
 night. 
 
 [In the evening Captain Davison came and told us that a 
 fat lady had arrived, who had said that I had run away with 
 her daughter ; it was Mrs. Godwin. Jane spent the night 
 with her mother. 
 
 Saturday, July 30. — Jane informs us that she is unable 
 to withstand the pathos of Mrs. Godwin's appeal. She 
 appealed to the municipality of Paris — to past slavery and 
 to future freedom. I counselled her to take at least an hour 
 for consideration. She returned to Mrs. Godwin and informed 
 her that she resolved to continue with us. 
 
 I met Mrs. Godwin in the street apparently proceeding 
 to embark for Dover. I walked alone with Mary to the 
 field beyond the gate (a field among the fortifications — hay- 
 makers at work in it). At six in the evening we left Calais 
 and arrived at Boulogne at ten.] 
 
 . We left Calais in a cabriolet drawn by three horses. To 
 persons who had never before seen anything but a spruce 
 English chaise and post-boy, there was something irresistibly 
 ludicrous in our equipage. Our cabriolet was shaped some- 
 thing like a post-chaise, except that it had only two wheels, 
 and consequently there were no doors at the sides ; the front 
 was let down to admit passengers. The horses were there 
 placed abreast, the tallest in the middle, who was rendered 
 more formidable by the addition of an unintelligible article 
 
212 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 of harness, resembling a pair of wooden wings fastened to his 
 shoulders ; the harness was of rope ; and the postillion, a 
 queer, upright little fellow, with a long pigtail, craguded his 
 whip, and clattered on ; while an old forlorn shepherd with a 
 cocked hat gazed on us as we passed. 
 
 The roads are excellent, but the heat was intense, and 
 Mary suffered greatly from it. We slept at Boulogne the 
 first night, where there was an ugly, but remarkably good- 
 tempered femme de chambre. This made us for the first 
 time remark the difference which exists between this class of 
 persons in France and in England. In the latter country 
 they are prudish, and if they become in the least degree 
 familiar they are impudent. The lower orders in France 
 have the easiness and politeness of the most well-bred 
 English ; they treat you unaffectedly as their equal, and 
 ■consequently there is no scope for insolence. 
 
 We had ordered horses to be ready during the night, 
 but were too fatigued to make use of them. The man insisted 
 on being paid for the whole post. " Ah, madame," said the 
 femme de chambre, "pensez-y; c'est pour dddommager les 
 pauvres chevaux d'avoir perdu leur doux sommeil." A 
 joke from an English chambermaid would have been quite 
 another thing. 
 
 In order to hasten the journey as much as possible, on 
 account of Mary's health, we did not rest the following night, 
 and the next day about two, arrived in Paris. 
 
 \Tuesday, August i. — We engaged lodgings at the 
 H&tel de Vienne. Mary looked over, with me, the papers 
 contained in her box. They consisted of her own writings, 
 letters from her father and her friends, and my letters. She 
 promised me that I should be permitted to read and study 
 these productions of her mind that preceded our intercourse. 
 I shall claim this promise at Uri. In the evening we walked 
 to the gardens of the Tuilleries ; they are very formal and 
 uninteresting, without any grass. Mary was not well ; we 
 returned, and were too happy to sleep.* 
 
 * The " History of a Six Weeks' Tour " adds the following 
 details about Paris : " In this city there are no hotels where 
 you can reside as long or as short a time as you please, and 
 we were obliged to engage apartments at an hotel for a 
 week. They were dear end not very pleasant. As usual in 
 France, the principal apartment was a bedchamber ; there 
 was another closet with a bed, and an ante-chamber which 
 we used as a sitting-room. ... I think the Boulevards 
 infinitely pleasanter than the Tuilleries. This street nearly 
 surrounds Paris, and is eight miles in extent ; it is very wide, 
 
"HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS' TOUR." 213 
 
 Wednesday, August 3. — Received a cold and stupid 
 letter from Hookham. He said that Mrs. Boinville's family 
 were reduced to the utmost misery by the distant chance of 
 their being called upon in the course of a year to pay forty 
 pounds for me. He did not send the money. Wrote to 
 Tavernier. Mary read to me some passages from Lord 
 Byron's poems. I was not before so clearly aware how 
 much colouring our own feelings throw upon the liveliest 
 delineations of other minds. Our own perceptions are the 
 world to us. 
 
 Thursday, Attgust 4. — Mary told me that this was my 
 birthday; I thought it had been the 27th June. Tavernier 
 breakfasted ; he is an idiot. I sold my watch, chain, etc., 
 which brought eight napoleons five francs.* Tavernier 
 dined ; the fool infinitely more insupportable. He walked 
 with us in the evening to the Boulevard ; he walked with 
 Jane. 
 
 Friday, August 5. — Breakfasted with some friends of 
 Tavernier. I committed the mistake of imagining a married 
 woman to be a little baby of nine years old, and if her 
 child (whom I imagined to be her sister) had not possessed 
 a more prepossessing countenance, 1 should have taken her 
 in my lap and offered her a lump of sugar. The ladies talked 
 of dress and eating. We went with Tavernier to the police 
 and the church of Notre Dame, the interior of which much 
 disappointed our expectations. At the Louvre we saw one 
 picture apparently of the Deluge, which was terribly, im- 
 pressive. It was the only remarkable picture which we had 
 time to observe. There was Heaven and Hell also ; the 
 Blessed looked too stupid. In the evening we sallied forth 
 in search of H. M. (Helen Marie) Williams. After numerous 
 unavailing inquiries, we met at the Place Vend6me a French- 
 man who could speak English. He offered us his services 
 in the necessary inquiries. He took us out of our way 
 
 and planted on either side with trees. At one end is a 
 superb cascade which refreshes the senses by its continual 
 splashing ; near this stands the gate of St. Denis, a beautiful 
 piece of sculpture. I do not know how it may at present 
 be disfigured by the Gothic barbarism of the conquerors of 
 France, who were not contented with retaking the spoils of 
 Napoleon, but with impotent malice destroyed the monu- 
 ments of their own defeat. When I saw this gate it was in 
 its splendour, and made you imagine that the days of Roman 
 greatness were transported to Paris." 
 
 * It has been stated that Shelley sent this money to 
 Harriet. 
 
214 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 for the pleasure of hearing himself talk ; he told us that he 
 had assisted in bribing the mob to overthrow the statue of 
 Napoleon ; that he was a Royalist, and had been in the 
 English army during the reign of Bonaparte ; he was the 
 first Royalist who had entered Paris. He made us sit down 
 in the garden of the Tuilleries, and there with a smile 
 of abundant and overflowing vanity, confessed that he was 
 an author and a poet. We invited him to breakfast, hoping 
 to derive from his officiousness a relief from our embarrass- 
 ments. 
 
 Saturday, August 6. — M. R. de Savi (the " author and 
 poet") breakfasted with us ; we go with him to M. Peregaux 
 the banker, who refuses to advance money. I learn from 
 Tavernier the direction of H. M. Williams. Secure that my 
 statement of our history and situation cannot fail to interest, 
 I hasten hither. She is absent in the country ; the time of 
 her return is uncertain. On my return to the hotel we go to 
 Tavernier's oiSce to seek for letters ; we hear that Tavernier 
 has letters for us, and is gone to our hotel. We return. We 
 had appointed to dine with M. R. de Savi at six ; we keep 
 the appointment at eight, leaving Jane to wait for Tavernier. 
 M. K. de Savi had relinquished all hope. We return. 
 Tavernier brings a dull and insolent letter from Hookham. 
 
 Sunday., August 7. — Tavernier breakfasts. Promises 
 money. The morning passes in delightful converse. We 
 almost forget that we are prisoners in Paris ; Mary especially 
 seems insensible to all future evil. She feels as if our love 
 would alone suffice to resist the invasions of calamity. She 
 rested on my bosom and seemed even indifferent to take 
 sufficient food for the sustenance of life. We went to 
 Tavernier and received a remittance of sixty pounds. We 
 talk over our plans and determine to walk to Uri. We 
 went to sleep early on the sofa.] 
 
 In England we could not have put our plan in execution 
 without sustaining continual insult and impertinence ; the 
 French are far more tolerant of the vagaries of their neigh- 
 bours. We resolved to walk through France, and with this 
 design we determined to purchase an ass, to carry our port- 
 manteau and one of us by turns. 
 
 Early therefore on IVIonday, August 8th, Shelley and 
 Claire went to the ass market and purchased an ass, and the 
 rest of the day until four in the afternoon, was spfint in 
 preparations lor our departure ; during which, Madame , 
 I'hotesse paid us a visit, and attempted to dissuade us from 
 our design. She represented to us that a large army had 
 been recently disbanded, that the soldiers and officers 
 wandered idle about the country, and that les dames seraient 
 cerlainement enlevies. But we were proof against her argu- 
 
"HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS' TOUR:' 215 
 
 iments, and packing up a few necessaries, leaving the rest to 
 ^o by the diligence, we departed in z. fiacre from the door of 
 the hotel, our little ass following. 
 
 We dismissed the coach at the barrier. It was dusk, and 
 the ass seemed totally unable to bear one of us, appearing to 
 sink under the portmanteau, although it was small and light. 
 We were, however, merry enough, and thought the leagues 
 short. We arrived at Charenton about ten. ' 
 
 Charenton is prettily situated in a valley, through which 
 the Seine flows, winding among banks variegated with trees. 
 On looking at this scene Claire exclaimed, " Oh ! this is 
 beautiful enough ; let us live here." This was her exclama- 
 tion on every new scene, and as each surpassed the one 
 before, she cried, " I am glad we did not stay at Charenton, 
 but let us live here." 
 
 Finding our ass useless, we SQld it before we proceeded 
 -on our journey, and bought a mule for ten napoleons. About 
 nine o'clock we departed. We were clad in black silk. I 
 rode on the mule, which carried also our portmanteau ; 
 Shelley and Claire followed, bringing a small basket of 
 provisions. About one o'clock we arrived at Gros-Bois, 
 where under the shade of trees we ate our bread and fruit, 
 and drank our wine, thinking of Don Quixote and Sancho. 
 
 This night we slept at Guignes, in the same room and 
 beds in which Napoleon and some of his generals had rested 
 during the late war. The little old woman of the place was 
 highly gratified in having this story to tell, and spoke in 
 -warm praise of the Empress Josephine and Marie Louise, 
 twho had at different times passed on that road. 
 
 After having admired the picturesque situation 
 of Provins, which " formed a scene for painting," 
 our travellers reached that part of the country 
 that had been most devastated during the war, 
 and where smoking ruins still marked the 
 passage of the Cossack. Throughout their 
 journey from Nogent to Troyes, there were 
 but ruined villages, houses burned down, 
 blackened beams, broken walls, devastated gar- 
 ■dens, deplorable ruins, and inhabitants still more 
 wretched and deplorable. They can procure no 
 milk, the cows had been taken by the Cossacks ; 
 they think themselves fortunate when they find 
 :shelter in a poor inn where they are offered 
 
2i6 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 rancid bacon, sour bread, and impossible beds. 
 At Echemine the inhabitants, as if belonging 
 to another world, are ignorant that Napoleon has 
 been deposed, and when Shelley asked why 
 they did not rebuild their cottages, replied, they 
 were afraid of the Cossacks. On approaching 
 Troyes, a little green vineyard seems to them 
 like an oasis in the Libyan desert. 
 
 On August 13th they reached that "dirty 
 and uninviting town," and there, owing to 
 Shelley having sprained an ankle, and walking 
 being impossible, the mule was sold and an 
 open carriage bought for five napoleons; a 
 driver also was engaged, who undertook for the 
 sum of eight napoleons to convey the travellers 
 to Neufchdtel in six days. The simple vanity 
 of their muleteer amused our travellers. He 
 pointed out a plain as the scene of a battle 
 between the Russians and the French — "where 
 the Russians gained the victory?" interrupted 
 Mary. "Oh, no, madame," he replied, "the 
 French are never beaten." "But how was it, 
 then, that the Russians entered Troyes ? " " Oh,. 
 after being beaten, they took a circuitous route, 
 and thus entered the town." 
 
 Shelley made use of his short sojourn at 
 Troyes to write a long letter to Harriet, in which 
 he proposed she should join their travelling party, 
 and requested her to address her reply to the 
 Post Office, Neufchatel. He ends his description 
 of the terrible state of France with the following 
 singular remark: "... dreadful as these 
 calamities are, I can scarcely pity the inhabitants ; 
 they are the most unamiable, inhospitable, and 
 unaccommodating of the human race." 
 
 At Besangon, their proximity to the mountains 
 delighted them ; but the roads became difficult, 
 and the driver refused to proceed. They were 
 obliged to pass the night in the miserable ina 
 
"HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS' TOUR." 217 
 
 of a miserable village called Mort ; after a 
 delightful evening spent in climbing rocks, and 
 reading a tale by Mary Wollstonecraft, also 
 Shakespeare's As You Like It, they determined 
 on sleeping by the kitchen fire, as an alternative 
 to sharing a bedroom with the driver ; " Shelley 
 niuch disturbed by the creaking door, the screams 
 of a poor smothered child, and the girl who 
 washed the glasses." 
 
 The driver, still scared at the mountains, 
 halted at the little village of No^. Our travellers 
 took advantage of the delay to wander in a 
 wood, where they entered into serious converse on 
 the perfectibility and future destiny of the world.* 
 
 * Claire records this conversation in her journal: "Shelley 
 said there would come a time when nowhere on the earth 
 would there be a dirty cottage to be found. Mary asked 
 what time would elapse before that time would come ; he 
 said, 'Perhaps a thousand years.' We said, 'Perhaps it 
 would never come, as it was so difficult to persuade the 
 poor to be clean.' But he said it must infallibly arrive, 
 for Society was progressive, and was evidently moving for- 
 wards towards perfectibility ; and then he described the 
 career made by man. I wish I could remember the whole, 
 but half has slipped out of my memory — only I recollect 
 that men were first savages ; then nomadic tribes wandering 
 from place to place with their flocks ; then they formed into 
 villages ; then into towns ; and then improvement in mind, 
 morals, comfort, etc., set in ; and then next came the Arts, 
 and then the Sciences ; and from this point Society 
 would go on step by step to almost perfection. In the 
 meanwhile the voiturier, grown tired ot waiting, had gone 
 on alone. We found him again at Pontarlier. He was 
 very impertinent ; asked why we had stayed so long- 
 in the 'woods, there was nothing to see in the woods ;. 
 said he had waited two hours at Nod expecting us to 
 return, and then had driven on; it was all our faults,. 
 he said ;, and after thinking awhile, Shelley remarked that 
 the driver was right, and it was his dissertation upon the 
 perfectibility of Man that had put us into such difficulties. 
 Mary laughed and said : ' Men always were the source of 
 a thousand difficulties.' Then Shelley asked her why she 
 of a sudden looked so sad, and she answered : ' I Vas 
 
2iS SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 This was their farewell to France. As they 
 approached Switzerland, after leaving Saint 
 Sulpice, the picturesque beauties of the Alpine 
 scenery made them forget all their previous 
 misadventures. On the 19th August, when two 
 leagues from Neufch^tel, they had their first view 
 of the Alps. " How great is my rapture ! " cried 
 Shelley. "la fiery man, with my heart full of 
 ^outh, and with my beloved by my side, I behold 
 those lordly, immeasurable Alps. They look 
 like a second world gleaming on one; they look 
 like dreams more than realities^ they are so 
 heavenly pure and white." 
 
 The sum of sixty pounds they had brought 
 from Paris was expended. No letters for them at 
 Neufchitel. Fortunately, a banker is found who 
 consents to advance Shelley the sum of thirty- 
 eight pounds, sufficient to take them to Uri, 
 the intended close of their journey, and to 
 establish them quietly in some lonely cottage. 
 Two days' driving brought them to Lucerne, and 
 its long imagined delights. Briinnen, with the 
 sight of William Tell's Chapel, fascinated them ; 
 "this lovely lake, these sublime mountains and 
 wild forests seemed a fit cradle for a mind aspiring 
 to high adventure and heroic deeds." They could 
 not weary of contemplating " the divine objects 
 that surrounded" them. 
 
 The romance-writer and poet, full of dreams 
 of a golden age and terrestrial paradise, was 
 then meditating his romance of " The Assassins," * 
 
 thinking of my father, and wondering what he was now 
 feeling.' He then said : ' Do you mean that as a reproach 
 to me?' and she answered : 'Oh, no ! don't let us think 
 more about it.'" 
 
 * This was a Christian tribe, who at the very beginning 
 of Christianity had withdrawn into the valleys of the 
 Lebanon, and became the origin of the famous Assassins, 
 who fought- against the Crusaders under the Old Man of 
 the Mountain. 
 
'HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS' TOUR." 219 
 
 ■of which, unfortunately, only a short fragment 
 remains. The story opens with the siege of 
 Jerusalem. He purposed that Uri should be for 
 him the solitary vale of Bethzatanai, where those 
 other exiles from the holy city had sought peace, 
 love, and God, far from the civilised world, 
 " learning to identify this mysterious friend and 
 benefactor with the delight that is bred among 
 the solitary rocks, and has its dwelling alike in 
 the changing colours of the clouds, and the inmost 
 recesses of the caverns." 
 
 But, in the season of its utmost prosperity and magnifi- 
 ■cence, Art might not aspire to vie with Nature in the valley 
 of Bethzatanai. All that was wonderful and lovely was col- 
 lected in this deep seclusion. The fluctuating elements 
 seemed to have been rendered everlastingly permanent in 
 forms of wonder and delight. The mountains of Lebanon 
 had been divided to their base to form this happy valley ; on 
 every side their icy summits darted their white pinnacles into 
 the clear blue sky, imaging, in their grotesque outline, 
 minarets, and ruined domes, and columns worn with time. 
 Far below, the silver clouds rolled their bright volumes in 
 many beautiful shapes, and fed the eternal springs that, 
 quitting the dark chasms like a thousand radiant rainbows, 
 leaped into the quiet vale then, lingering in many a dark 
 glade among the groves of cypress and of palm, lost them- 
 selves in the lake. The immensity of these precipitous moun- 
 tains, with their starry pyramids of siiow, excluded the sun, 
 which overtopped not, even in its meridian, their overhang- 
 ing rocks. But a more heavenly and serener light was 
 reflected from their icy mirrors, which, piercing through the 
 many-tinted clouds, pi-oduced lights and colours of inex- 
 haustible variety. The herbage was perpetually verdant, and 
 clothed the darkest recesses of the caverns and the woods. 
 Nature, undisturbed, had become an enchantress in these 
 solitudes ; she had collected here all that was wonderful and 
 olivine from the armoury of her omnipotence. The very 
 winds breathed health and renovation, and the joyousness of 
 youthful courage. Fountains of crystalline water played per- 
 petually among the aromatic flowers, and mingled a freshness 
 with their odour. The pine-boughs became instruments of 
 ■exquisite contrivance, among which every varying breeze 
 waked music of new and more delightful melody. Meteoric 
 shapes, more effulgent than the moonlight, hung on the 
 
220 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 wandering clouds, and mixed in discordant dance around 
 the spiral fountains. Blue vapours assumed strange linea- 
 ments under the rocks and among the ruins, lingering like 
 ghosts with slow and solemn step. Through a dark chasm 
 to the east, in the long perspective of a portal glittering with 
 the unnumbered riches of a subterranean world, shone the- 
 broad moon, pouring, in one yellow and unbroken stream,, 
 her horizontal beams. Nearer the icy region, autumn and 
 spring held an alternate reign. The sere leaves fell and 
 choked the sluggish brooks, the chilling fogs hung diamonds 
 on every spray, and in the dark, cold evening the howling 
 winds made melancholy music in the trees. Far above shone 
 the bright throne of winter, clear, cold, and dazzling. Some- 
 times there were seen the snowflakes to fall before the sinking 
 orb of the beamless sun, like a shower of fiery sulphur. The 
 cataracts, arrested in their course, seemed, with their trans- 
 parent columns, to support the dark-browed rocks. Some 
 times the icy whirlwind scooped the powdery snow aloft, to- 
 mingle with the hissing meteors, and scatter spangles through 
 the rare and rayless atmosphere. 
 
 To the Arabians, constant spectators of so 
 sublime a scene : 
 
 Thus securely excluded from an abhorred world, all thought 
 of its judgment was cancelled by the rapidity of their fervid 
 imaginations. They ceased to acknowledge, or deigned not 
 to advert to, the distinctions with which the majority of base 
 and vulgar minds control the longings and struggles of the- 
 soul towards its place of rest. A new and sacred fire wa& 
 kindled in their hearts and sparkled in their eyes. Every 
 gesture, every feature, the minutest action, was modelled to- 
 beneficence and beauty, by the holy inspiration that had 
 descended on their searching spirits. The epidemic trans- 
 port communicated itself through every heart, with the 
 rapidity of a blast from heaven. They were already dis- 
 embodied spirits ; they were already the inhabitants of 
 paradise. To live, to breathe, to move, was itself a sensation 
 of immeasurable transport. Every new contemplation of the 
 condition of his nature brought to the happy enthusiast an 
 added measure of delight, and impelled to every organ where 
 mind is united to external things, a keener and more exquisite 
 perception of all that they contain of lovely and divine. To 
 love, to be beloved, suddenly became an insatiable famine of 
 his nature, which the wide circle of the universe, compre- 
 hending beings of such inexhaustible variety and stupendous 
 magnitude of excellence, appeared too narrow and confined 
 to satiate. 
 
"HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS' TOUR." 221 
 
 Alas that these visitings of the spirit of life should 
 fluctuate and pass away ! That the moments when the 
 human mind is commensurate with all that it can conceive 
 of excellent and powerful, should not endure with its existence, 
 and survive its most momentous change ! But the beauty of 
 a vernal sunset, with its overhanging curtains of empurpled 
 <:loud, is rapidly dissolved, to return at some unexpected 
 period, and spread an alleviating melancholy over the dark 
 vigils of despair. 
 
 Uri, however, was the dream of one day only. 
 The six months' intended residence in the hideous 
 Briinnen house called the Chateau, dwindled to 
 one of forty-eight hours. Only twenty-eight 
 pounds remained in the travellers' purse, and 
 they must at once return to London. On 
 August 28th they reached Lucerne, where 
 Shelley read King Lear aloud,* and worked 
 at his novel of "The Assassins." From motives 
 of economy, they decided on travelling by water, 
 taking the diligence par eau from Reuss to 
 Lauffenburg ; the passengers, " uncleanly," dis- 
 gusting smokers, and altogether so uncivil and 
 rude, that Shelley was obliged to strike one of 
 them. 
 
 The Reuss is exceedingly rapid, and we descended several 
 falls, one of them more than eight feet. . . . There is some- 
 thing very delicious in the sensation, when at one moment 
 you are at the' top of a fall of water, and before the second 
 has expired you are at the bottom, still rushing on with the 
 impulse which the descent has given. 
 
 We shall frequently meet with a recollection of 
 this sensation in the recital of the fantastic voyages 
 made by the heroes of Shelley's poems. 
 
 From Basle to Mayence our travellers de- 
 scended the Rhine on a boat laden with goods. 
 
 Tuesday, August y3. — The Rhine is violently rapid 
 to-day, and although interrupted by no rocks is swollen with 
 
 ], _ 
 
 * Claire, who was highly impressionable, was struck with 
 ■so much horror at King Lear that Shelley was obliged to 
 discontinue reading it aloud. 
 
222 SHELLEY~THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 hio;h waves ; it is full of little islands, green and beautiful. 
 Before we arrived at Shaufane the river became suddenly- 
 narrow, and the boat dashed with inconceivable rapidity- 
 round the base of a rocky hill covered with pines. 
 
 A ruined tower, with its desolated windows, stood on the- 
 summit of another hill that jutted into the river ; beyond, 
 the sunset was illuminating the mountains and the clouds, 
 and casting the reflection of its hues on the agitated river. 
 . . . Here we had no fellow-passengers to disturb our 
 tranquillity by their vulgarity and rudeness. . . . Shelley 
 read aloud to us Mary Wollstonecraft's " Letters from. 
 Norway," * and we passed our time delightfully. 
 
 The next morning a light skiff took the place 
 of the boat, and.onleaving Strasbourg, our travellers 
 once more took their places in the diligence par eau 
 in company of University students and of one 
 terriblef Republican who talked of nothing but 
 cutting off kings' heads. At one of the most 
 dangerous passes of the Rhine they came on a 
 boat that had foundered the same morning, and 
 ■whose entire crew had perished. Their own boat- 
 man, proud to show off his few words of French, 
 consoled them by saying " que c'est seulement 
 un b&teau qui etait subitement renvers^ et tous les 
 peuples sont seulement noyds." 
 
 From Mayence to Cologne — that part of the 
 Rhine which is so marvellously described in the 
 third canto of " Childe Harold " — they were again 
 in company with the terrible Germans — smoking, 
 
 * Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, 
 Norway, and Denmark, 1796. 
 
 t Jane, in her journal, speaks of two other passengers — 
 one a man " that pretended to something," and the other a 
 schoolmaster who spoke a little English, and who sang ; 
 German songs that she much admired. "As we were just 
 passing the dangerous defile " (of the Rhine), she says, " the 
 man of pretensions turned to us, and said : ' AUons ! il faut 
 prier le bon Dieu.' We laughed ; he answered, ' Eh bien ! 
 done il faut chanter.' The schoolmaster immediately began, 
 and they sang an animated German song, which had a much 
 finer effect when seconded by the breaking of the waves 
 over the rocks." 
 
"HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS' TOUR." 225. 
 
 shouting, and (worst of all to English eyes) kissing 
 each other. 
 
 Before their delighted eyes pass visions of 
 " hills covered with vines and trees, craggy cliffs 
 crowned by desolate towers, and wooded islands 
 where picturesque, ruins peeped from behind the 
 foliage and cast the shadows of their forms on 
 the troubled waters which disturbed without 
 deforming them." They left Bonn, that "loveliest 
 .paradise on earth," although unfortunately in- 
 habited by such wretched specimens of the human 
 race, and reached Cologne by road. From Cologne 
 to Cleves they drove in a post-chaise behind the 
 diligence, and accomplished three leagues in seven 
 or eight hours ; then continued their journey by 
 posting across the monotonous plains of Holland, 
 whose sole beauty — a delightful verdure — reminded 
 them of the green fields of England. They em- 
 barked at Rotterdam, and then ensued a delay 
 of two days at Marsluys through stress of weather, 
 during which Shelley worked at his romance of 
 " The Assassins," while Mary began a tale entitled 
 " Hate," and Jane a kind of philosophical novel 
 called "The Idiot." On September loth they 
 had travelled eight hundred miles for less than 
 thirty pounds. But they had only one guinea left 
 in their possession. 
 
 At last, under the guidance of an English 
 captain, their vessel crossed the bar at the mouth 
 of the Rhine, and on September 13th lay af 
 Gravesend in sight of the Kentish hills. 
 
 This rapid journey, amid scenes so various, 
 and seen as it were in a fantastic mirage, left an 
 indelible impression on the mind of the poet. 
 He recurs to it with beautifying and idealising 
 touches in all his ^reat compositions. The living 
 memory of Nature's scenes, troubled and calm, 
 serene and terrible by turns, evoked in Shelley 
 marvellous visions which followed him ceaselessly, 
 
22+ SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 and were depicted whenever the framework of 
 his poetical creations periTiitted. In the preface to 
 " Laon and Cythna " he declares, with little or no 
 exaggeration : 
 
 I have been a wanderer atiiong distant fields. I have 
 sailed down mighty rivers, and geen the sun rise and set, and 
 the stars come forth, whilst I h|ave sailed night and day down 
 a rapid stream among mountajms. 
 
 But, although he was\ struck by the grandiose 
 aspect of Nature, he wa^.^ equally impressed with 
 the desolation and rui/i Tiyrought by man ; with 
 the fatal effects of war, ar^S invasion ; and these he 
 is to depict with terribi^ces j-ength in " Laon and 
 Cythna." rsity 
 
 I have seen the th^p^trefe^ j more visible ravages of 
 tyranny and war, citie^ ^"4 R '-S^^ reduced to scattered 
 groups of black and ?Soflt^_iouses, and the naked in- 
 h.-jbitants sitting fami."shLd upon their desolated thresholds. 
 
 This s'r:< weeks' journey was not lost to pos- 
 terity; to it was due in great measure "Alastor" 
 and the "Revolt of Islam." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SHELLEY IN LONDON AND AT BISHOPSGATE — 
 "ALASTOR" — 1814-1816. 
 
 On his return to London, in the winter of 1814-15, 
 Shelley found himself materially and morally in a 
 critical position. Debts had accumulated, and 
 his father was less than ever inclined to pay 
 them. His creditors were clamorous, and each 
 day brought fresh difficulties. Still more painful 
 was the alienation of the greater number of his 
 London friends, Maimouna included. Godwin's 
 door was closed against him ; yet the sage of 
 Skinner Street did not refuse to be under pecu- 
 niary obligations to him whose conduct he con- 
 sidered unpardonable.* 
 
 * This strange attitude of Godwin ended by exasperating 
 Shelley, and in his correspondence with the philosopher of 
 Skinner Street he cannot conceal his bitterness. He writes 
 under date March 6th, 1816 : "My astonishment, and I will 
 confess when I have been treated with most harshness and 
 cruelty by you, my indignation has been extreme, that, 
 knowing as you do my nature, any considerations should 
 have prevailed on you to be thus harsh and cruel. I 
 lamented also over my ruined hopes, of all that your genius 
 once taught me to expect from your virtue, when I found that 
 for yourself, your family, and your creditors, you would 
 submit to that communication with me, which you once 
 rejected and abhorred, and which no pity for my poverty or 
 
 Q 
 
226 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Hogg and Peacock alone remained true to 
 liim. His relations with Harriet had been com- 
 plicated by the birth of a second child named 
 Charles Bysshe, and were only a source of trouble 
 and annoyance. 
 
 Reading, writing, conversation, discussion with 
 Hogg or Peacock, and Latin and Greek lessons 
 to Mary, were pleasant diversions of his daily 
 recurring vexations. After a long day of business 
 and fatigue Shelley would return to the Margaret 
 Street lodgings with some new volume of poetry, 
 Wordsworth's " Excursion," * or Byron's " Lara," 
 ■and the evening was spent in reading stloud 
 ancient and modern prose and poetry. Coleridge, 
 Spenser, Milton, or Seneca were followed by 
 •Godwin and Lewis's tales, or the stories of a 
 ■ German disciple of Godwin, Charles Brockden 
 Erown.f Four of these stories^ according to 
 Peacock, were works that, together with Schiller's 
 ^' Brigands " and Goethe's " Faust," exercised a 
 powerful influence on Shelley's mind and charac- 
 ter. Some evenings were devoted to " Garnerin's 
 Lectures on Electricity, the Gases, and the Phan- 
 tasmagoria,'^ or to the theatre. In 1814 Edmund 
 Kean appeared for the first time on the boards 
 of Drury Lane. ' On October 1 3th Shelley was 
 present at his representation of Hamlet. His first 
 impression of this great actor, to whom he 
 subsequently thought of entrusting the character 
 
 sufferings, assumed willingly fof- you, could avail to extort. 
 Do not talk cii forgiveness again to me, for my blood boils 
 in my veins, and my gall rises against all that bears the 
 human form, when I think of what I, their benefactor and 
 ardent lover, have endured of enmity and contempt from 
 you and from all mankind." 
 
 * Mary's Journal : " Shelley brings home Wordsworth's 
 ' Excursion,' of which we read a part ; much disappointed. 
 He is a slave." 1 
 
 + These fournovels of Brown's are, " Wieland," "Ormond," 
 " Edgar Huntley," and " Arthur Mervyn." 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 227 
 
 of Count Cenci, was unfavourable; at the end 
 of the second act he left the theatre.* 
 
 To these intellectual pastimes were added 
 other forms of recreation : visits to Exeter 
 ■'Change, to Covent Garden Market, to Lucien 
 Bonaparte's collection of pictures,t to walks by 
 the Serpentine or the Surrey Canal, and often 
 to a pond near Primrose Hill, where Shelley 
 <ielightedly sailed his paper boats. 
 
 There remained little leisure for composition, 
 yet Shelley continued to work at his novel, and 
 contributed to the December number of the Critical 
 Review an article on Hogg's philosophical novel, 
 " Memoirs of Prince Alexis Haimatoff" He 
 bitterly regretted the literary impotence to which 
 he was reduced by pecuniary embarrassments and 
 their attendant cares : 
 
 "One day," writes Peacock, "as we were walking togefher 
 ■on the banks of the Surrey Canal, and discoursing of Words- 
 worth and quoting some of his verses, Shelley suddenly said 
 to me : " Do you think Wordsworth could have written such 
 ,poetry if he ever had dealings with money-lenders ? " 
 
 At one period (from October 23rd to November 
 9th) the danger from the money-lenders became 
 so pressing, that Shelley, having been warned in 
 time of his impending arrest, was forced to leave 
 the St. Pancras lodgings and part for a while 
 from his beloved one. Bailiffs, however, were on 
 
 * Mary's Journal : "The extreme depravity and disgust- 
 ing nature of the stage, the inefficacy of acting to encourage 
 or maintain the delusion. The loathsome sight of men 
 personating characters which do not and cannot belong to 
 them. Shelley displeased with what he saw of Kean." 
 
 t Mary mentions, among these pictures, in her journal, a 
 "Magdalen," by Greuzs, and Carlo Dolci's "Four Evangelists," 
 and in Newman Street there was a statue of Theoclea, " a 
 divinity," exclaims Mary, " that raises your mind to all virtue 
 and excellence ; I never beheld anything half so wonderfully 
 beautiful." ■ 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 his track, and he took refuge sometimes with- 
 I his friend Peacock, at others in various hotels, 
 where he contrived, with every imaginable pre- 
 caution, to receive short visits from Mary, with' 
 whom he, was in close correspondence in order 
 to keep her informed of daily events, and ta 
 arrange places and times of meeting. These- 
 letters, which have been published for the first 
 time by Mr. Dowden, while revealing Shelley's.- 
 state of agitation and perplexity, depict still 
 more vividly his ardent love in that time of 
 bitter trial. We give a few extracts full of 
 passionate adoration : 
 
 This separation is a calamity not to be endured 
 patiently ; I cannot support your absence. I thought that it 
 would be less painful to me. . . . But, my beloved, this will 
 not last. . . . We shall soon be restored to each other. The 
 ■wretchedness of our separation, I am convinced, will endow 
 me with eloquence and energies adequate to the peril. . . > 
 Light of my life, my very spirit of hope . . . when, when 
 shall I meet you ? . . . Give my love to Jane. I think she 
 has a sincere affection for you. 
 
 E/xov Kpvrepiov tcov ayadav roSe. 
 
 . I wander restlessly about. I cannot read or even, 
 write ; but this will soon pass. I should not inflict my own 
 Mary with my dejection ; she has su£Scient cause for disturb- 
 ance to need consolation from me. Well, we shall meet 
 to-day. I cannot v^rite, but I love you with so unalterable a 
 love that the contemplation of me will serve for a letter . . . 
 My dearest, best Mary, let me see your sweet eyes full of 
 happiness when we meet. All will be well. I hope to have 
 deserved many kisses. . . . Know you, my best Mary, that I 
 feel myself, in your absence, almost degraded to the level of 
 the vulgar and impure. I feel their vacant stiff eyeballs 
 fbced upon me, until I seem to have been infected with their 
 loathsome meaning — to inhale a sickness that subdues me to 
 languor. Oh ! those redeeming eyes of Mary, that they 
 might beam upon me before I sleep ! Praise my forbearance, 
 oh ! beloved one — that I do not rashly fly to you, and at 
 least secure a moment's bliss. Wherefore should I delay ? 
 Do you not long to meet me ? All that is exalted and 
 buoyant in my nature urges me towards you, reproaches mf 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 229 
 
 ■with cold delay, laughs at all fear, and spurns to dreani of 
 .prudence. Why am I not with you ? 
 
 Alas ! we must not meet. 
 
 . . . How hard and stubborn must be the spirit that 
 -does not confess you to be the subtlest and most exquisitely 
 fashioned intelligence ; that among women there is no equal 
 mind to yours ! And I possess this treasure ! How beyond 
 all estimate is my felicity ! Yes ! I am encouraged ; I care 
 not what happens ; I am most happy. 
 
 My beloved Mary, I know not whether these transient 
 meetings produce not as much pain as pleasure. What have 
 I said ? I do not mean it. I will not. forget the sweet 
 moments when I saw your eyes — the divine rapture of the 
 few and fleeting kisses. 
 
 . . . Mary, love, we must be reunited. . . . Your 
 thoughts alone can waken mine to energy ; my mind without 
 yours is dead and cold, as the dark midnight river when the 
 moon is down. It seems as if you alone could shield me 
 from impurity and vice. If I was absent from you long, I 
 should shudder with horror at myself; my- understanding 
 becomes undisciplined without you. . . . Evidently you 
 surpass me in originality and simplicity of mind. ' How 
 •divinely sweet a task it is to imitate each other's excellences, 
 and each moment to become wiser in this surpassing love, 
 so that constituting but on being, all real knowledge may be 
 ■comprised in the maxim yva>6i a-eavrov (Know thyself) with 
 infinite more justice than in its narrow and common applica- 
 tion. 
 
 How terrible if month after month I should pass with- 
 out you, or only to see you by snatches and moments. . . . 
 JLove me, my dearest, best Mary, love me in confidence and 
 security ; do not think of me as one in danger, or even as 
 ■one in sorrow. The remembrance and expectation of such 
 sweet moments as we experienced last night, consoles, 
 strengthens, and redeems me from despondency. There is 
 ■eternity in those moments ; they contain the true elixir of 
 immortal life. 
 
 My own beloved Mary, do I not love you? Is not 
 your image the only consolation to my lonely and benighted 
 -condition .■' Do I not love you with a most unextinguishable 
 love ; a feeling that well compensates for the altered looks 
 ■of those who love none but themselves ? What sentiment 
 but disgust and indignation is excited by the desertion of 
 those who fly because they think constancy imprudent ! 
 
 The feeling is sweet, most ennobling, and producing a 
 most celestial balm, with which the sick and weary, spirit 
 j-eposes upon one who may not be doubted ; to whom the 
 ■slightest taint of suspicion is death — irrevocable annihilation. 
 
230 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 To-morrow, blest creature, I shall clasp you aga\n—/or 
 ever. Shall it be so ? This is the ancient language, that 
 love alone can translate. 
 
 So my beloved boasts that she is more perfect in the- 
 practice than I in the theory of love. Is it thus ? No,. 
 sweet Mary, you only meant that you loved me more than 
 you could express ; that reasoning was too cold and slow 
 for the rapid fervour of your conceptions. Perhaps, in 
 truth, Peacock had infected me ; my disquisitions were 
 cold-^my subtleties unmeaningly refined ; and I am a harp 
 responsive to every wind — the scented gale of summer can 
 wake it to a sweet melody, but rough cold blasts draw forth 
 discordance and jarring sounds. 
 
 My own love, did I not appear happy to-day ? For a 
 few moments I was entranced in most delicious pleasure ;; 
 yet I was absent and dejected. I knew not when we might 
 meet again, when I might hold you in my arms and gaze on 
 your dear eyes at will, and snatch momentary kisses in the 
 midst of one happy hour, and sport in security with my 
 entire and unbroken bliss. . . . There are moments in your 
 absence, my love, when the bitterness with which I regret 
 the unrecoverable time wasted in unprofitable solitude and 
 worldly cares is a most painful weight ; you alone reconcile 
 me to myself and to my beloved hopes.* 
 
 * Mary's own letters are no less passionate and tender. 
 The following extract will be read with interest : 
 
 " Tuesday, October 2^th, 1814. 
 
 " For what a minute did I see you yesterday ! Is this 
 the way, my beloved, we are to live till the 6th ? In ihe 
 morning when I wake I turn to look for you. Dearest 
 Shelley, you are solitary and uncomfortable. Why cannot I 
 be with you to cheer you and to press you to my heart ? 
 Ah ! my love, you have no friends ; why then should you be 
 torn from the only oiie who has affection for you ? But I 
 shall see you to-night, and this is the hope I shall live on 
 through the day. Be happy, dear Shelley, and think of me.- 
 Why do I say this, dearest, and only one ? I know how 
 tenderly you love me, and how you repine at your absence 
 from me. When shall we be free from fear of treachery ? 
 ... I was so dreadfully tired yesterday that I was obliged 
 to take a coach home. Forgive this extravagance, but I am 
 so very weak at present. ... A morning's rest, however, 
 will set me quite right again ; I shall be well when I meet 
 you this evening. I send you ' Diogenes ' [probably a 
 translation of Wieland's 'Diogenes'], as you have no books." 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 23 p 
 
 On November 9th, all danger being over, 
 through arrangements entered into by Shelley 
 the lovers were once more united, and, leaving 
 the St. Pancras lodgings, removed their household- 
 goods to Nelson Square. 
 
 The early months of the year 1815 showed 
 a somewhat clearer horizon. Old Sir Bysshe 
 died on January 6th, and, after long and tedious- 
 negotiations between Shelley and his father, an 
 arrangement was made by which he agreed to cede 
 certain inherited rights, and in return was to 
 receive an annual income of ^^looo.* He at 
 once appropriated a proportion of that sum ta 
 a provision for Harriet, allowing her an annuity 
 of two hundred pounds, and in April he handed 
 over one thousand pounds to Godwin. 
 
 Meanwhile, the excitement, privations, and, 
 anxiety of the, closing months of 1814, had 
 seriously affected his health ; he believed himself 
 to be attacked by pulmonary consumption, but 
 happily the danger passed away. It is probable 
 that in the state of melancholy induced by ill- 
 health he composed the " Stanzas on Death," and 
 conceived the iirst idea of "Alastor." Another 
 poignant trouble also tried his weakened consti- 
 tution^ On February 22nd, a seven-months babe, 
 a delicate little girl, was born to Mary ; but not- 
 withstanding the tenderest care, the infant died 
 on March 6th. In order to give any idea of the 
 parents' agonising grief, it would be needful to- 
 transcribe their journal, from which Mr. Dowden 
 has quoted portions dating from February 22nd 
 to March 20th. All Europe was ringing with 
 
 * Mary relates in her journal how Shelley, on hearing of 
 his grandfather's death, went down to Field Place to attempt 
 a reconciliation with his father. He was refused admittance, 
 so sat himself down outside the door of his former home, 
 and consoled himself with reading " Comus " from a pocket 
 edition of Milton. 
 
232 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Napoleon's return to France, but scarcely an echo 
 is found in their journal : 
 
 "March i. — Bonaparte invades France." All 
 their thoughts, their souls, are centred on a cradle 
 that will soon be empty. Books, and an occa- 
 sional visit from Hogg and Peacock, constitute 
 their only diversion from that absorbing anxiety. 
 After the babe's death, the journal contains but 
 a funereal chant. " March 9. — Still think about 
 my little dead baby." " March 19. — Dream that 
 my little baby came to life again, that it had only 
 been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire 
 and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think 
 about the little thing all day. Not in good spirits. 
 Shelley is very unwell." That Mary's feelings 
 were shared by Shelley we cannot doubt, and we 
 possess indisputable proof in that passage of 
 " Laon and Cythna," wherein he describes so 
 exquisitely the birth and death of the babe, and 
 Mary's dream. Such emotions could not be 
 so touchingly described unless they had been 
 experienced. 
 
 However perfect the union of mincj and heart 
 between Shelley and Mary, a slight cloud never- 
 theless obscured their happiness, caused by the 
 abiding presence of Jane Clairmont (Claire) in 
 their home. Shelley's attentions to her, their 
 frequent walks together when Mary was unable 
 to accompany thefn, their reading " Pastor Fido " 
 and " Orlando Furioso " together, soon awoke a 
 very natural jealousy in Mary's sensitive heart. 
 Yet it was difficult to get rid of a friend who 
 had been so true under trial, who was so devoted 
 to Shelley's interests, and who was so attractive 
 by her talents, her qualities, and even her faults. 
 Mrs. Godv/in, who thought her an objectionable 
 companion for Fanny, was unwilling to receive 
 her in Skinner Street ; Shelley's house seemed 
 to be her only resource. But Mary felt too 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 233 
 
 ■keenly on the subject to bear long delay ; and 
 after much discussion and hesitation, it was 
 agreed that Claire should take up her abode 
 T\'ith Mrs. Bicknall, who owned a charming cot- 
 tage at Lynmouth. The departure of Shelley's 
 friend is chronicled in Mary's journal with a 
 satisfaction and joy she does not attempt to 
 conceal : 
 
 Friday, May 12. — Shelley and his friend (Claire) have a 
 last conversation. " 
 
 May 13. — Claire goes ; Shelley vifalks with her. Charles 
 Clairmont comes to breakfast — talk. Shelley goes out vifith 
 him. . . . Jefferson (Hogg) does not come till five. Get 
 very anxious about Shelley ; go out to meet him. . . . 
 .Shelley returns at half-past six ; the business is finished. 
 After dinner Shelley is very tired. . . . I begin a new joumat 
 luith our regeneration. 
 
 Shelley, while estimating Claire at her true 
 "worth, was nevertheless attached to her, and 
 must have regretted the necessity of the sacri- 
 iice he had made for the sake of peace. The 
 passing cloud between the two women, and 
 their subsequent early reconciliation, form the 
 ground-work of his domestic idyll, " Rosalind 
 and Helen." 
 
 During their sad separation of the preceding 
 year, Mary on one occasion wrote to Shelley : 
 
 Oh ! how I long to be at our dear home, where nothing 
 can trouble us, neither friends nor enemies ! . . . Nantgwilt ! 
 do you not wish to be settled there, in a house you know, 
 Jove, with your own Mary, nothing to disturb you, studying, 
 walking ? 
 
 Shelley, too, was anxious to fulfil Mary's wish. 
 He was as impatiently desirous as herself to 
 escape from London. Part of the summer was 
 passed by him in a tour along the south coast 
 of Devon in search of a retired and picturesque 
 retreat. Meanwhile Mary was staying at Clifton, 
 and besought him not to prolong his absence. 
 
234 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 "To-morrow," she writes, "is the 28th of July" (the 
 anniversary of their flight to Dover). " Dearest, ought we not 
 to be together on that day ? Indeed we ought, my love, as I 
 shall shed some tears to think we are not. Do not be angry,, 
 dear love ; your Pecksie is a good girl, and is quite well 
 now again, except a headache when she waits so anxiously- 
 for her love's letters. . . . 
 
 " My dear, dear love, I most earnestly and with tearful 
 eyes beg that I may come to you, if you do not like to leave- 
 the searches after a house." 
 
 At last, in the month of August, he found 
 a suitable house at Bishopsgate, on the borders- 
 of Windsor Park, not far from the Thames, and 
 in that house they immediately established their 
 home, and there remained until late spring in 
 1 8 16. The period of their sojourn at Bishopsgate 
 is one of the most tranquil and happy in Shelley's 
 life. At the end of August, in company with 
 Mary, Peacock,* and Charles Clairmont,i- Shelley 
 boated up the river as far as Lechlade and 
 Cricklade (Gloucestershire), and to that excursion 
 we owe the lines on the churchyard in Lechlade,. 
 " A Summer Evening Churchyard," which, although 
 still melancholy in sentiment, are sweeter and 
 calmer, as was the poet's own spirit at that epoch. 
 Death to him is no longer terrible ; no longer is- 
 the stroke of death frightful to one whose brain 
 is not encircled by nerves of steel j he hears the 
 dead " sleeping in their sepulchres and moulder- 
 
 * Five years before, Peacock had sung the glories of the 
 Thames in verse. 
 
 t Charles Clairmont gave a detailed account of this 
 excursion in a letter to his sister Claire, to be found in 
 Mr. Dowden's work. He thus describes their visit to 
 Oxford : "We arrived (at Oxford) about seven in the evening, 
 and stopped till four the next day. . . We saw the Bodleian 
 Library, the Clarendon Press, and walked through the quad- 
 rangles of the different colleges. We visited the very rooms 
 where the two noted infidels, Shelley and Hogg, pored, 
 with the incessant and the unwearied application of the 
 alchymist, over the certified and natural boundaries of 
 human knowledge." 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 235 
 
 ing as they sleep — a 'thrilling sound?' " Thus 
 solemnised and softened, death is mild, and 
 terrorless as this serenest night," and " loveliest 
 dreams " keep " perpetual watch " on its " breath- 
 less sleep." Already we hear the accents of 
 " Alastor." 
 
 A few days after his return to Bishopsgate^ 
 Shelley wrote to Hogg : 
 
 I found your letter on my return from a water ex- 
 cursion on the Thames, the partiqulars of which will be 
 recounted in another letter. The exercise and dissipation 
 of mind attached to such an expedition have produced so 
 favourable an effect upon my health, that my habitual dejection 
 and iiritability have almost deserted me, and I can devote 
 six hours of the day to study without difficulty. I have been 
 engaged lately in the commencement of several literary 
 plans, which, if my present temper of mind endures, I shall 
 probably complete in the winter. I have consequently 
 deserted Cicero, or proceed but slowly with his philosophic 
 dialogues. ... I have been induced by one of the subjects 
 I am now pursuing to consult Bayle. I think he betrays 
 great obliquity of understanding and coarseness of feeling. 
 No events, as you know, disturb our tranquillity. 
 
 Of the various works planned by Shelley in the 
 happy retirement of Bishopsgate only "Alastor" 
 was completed. "Now at last," exclaim the 
 critics, " we have the real, the immortal Shelley ! " 
 Mr. Rossetti, indeed, justly compares it with 
 " Prometheus Unbound,'' and " The Cenci." It 
 is certain that between "Alastor" and "Queen 
 Mab " there is an abyss. It has been said of 
 Chateaubriand, "What remains to us of him ?" — 
 " Rene." Did. " Alastor " alone remain to us, it 
 would be sufficient to rank its author among the 
 very greatest poets who have sung and wept for 
 us. Its dominant tone is not to be found in 
 " Queen Mab " — a tone of dreamy and almost 
 despairing sadness, which is the more poignant 
 and penetrating for being mingled with the most 
 brilliant and lifelike descriptions of Nature. 
 
236 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 " Alastor " is the first idealised autobiography 
 of Shelley ; the outcome of a psychological moment 
 in which the discouragement engendered by the 
 disenchanting contact of a real and an ideal world 
 takes complete hold of the soul, and includes the 
 whole universe in its own melancholy. Alastor* is 
 the embodiment of the " Spirit of Solitude," of 
 that evil genius which separates a soul from its 
 fellows ; the demon from whom Shelley suffered 
 so much from the moment when, declaring war 
 against every superstition, prejudice, and hypocrisy, 
 he saw the world turn its back upon him and 
 reply to his words of blessing and salvation by 
 its anathema and hate. Mingled with the bitter- 
 ness of disillusion was his presentiment of approach- 
 ing death ; and with his heart still bleeding at the 
 terrible separation exacted of him by his ideal, 
 the poet journeys through the half-seen marvels 
 of the world towards his grave — a supreme intel- 
 lect whose loss is "too deep for tears," and who 
 will leave a void in the senseless universe. 
 Shelley would not have belonged to his epoch 
 had he not experienced that moral unrest, born 
 of the eighteenth century and of the Revolution, 
 which had already been diversely expressed in 
 "Werther," in "Rend," and in "Oberman." If 
 there be any resemblance to these, it is assuredly 
 to Senancour's hero. Alastor is not embittered 
 like Werther ; he is altogether unlike the " beau 
 tendbreux " of Chateaubriand ; nor has he the 
 fatuity of "Childe Harold." He is the poet- 
 Oberman. 
 
 In Senancour's "Reveries" (1798) there is a 
 similar yearning for the regeneration of man- 
 kind. 
 
 The misfortune of Shelley's hero, Shelley's 
 own misfortune, and the misfortune, we will add, 
 
 * The word is taken from yEschylus. 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 237 
 
 of every poet worthy of the name, is the in- 
 ability to find in any created being the realisa- 
 tion of their sublime ideal. " Alastor " has been 
 rightly compared with the " Endymion " of 
 Keats. Endymion also personifies a soul ir» 
 search of its ideal, but unlike the hero of 
 "Alastor" it succeeds in finding the object of 
 its search.* The spirit of Alastor is quite op- 
 posite. Though Shelley may condemn the 
 egoism of the solitary idealist, he nevertheless 
 prefers the fate of the poet dying a victim ta 
 his quenchless thirst, but purified and redeemed, 
 by death, to the mournful destiny of those cold 
 and impassive souls who, " deluded by no generous 
 error, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful 
 knowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition,, 
 loving nothing on this earth, and cherishing no 
 hopes beyond, yet keep aloof from sympathies 
 ■with their kind." 
 
 The winter at Bishopsgate was to the poet 
 a season of self-communion, and of melanchol)^ 
 tempered by love, that is marvellously reproduced 
 in his poem. His solitude was occasionally 
 broken by visits from such friends as Hogg,. 
 Peacock, and a Quaker physician. Dr. Pope, with 
 whom Shelley discussed theology in amicable 
 fashion. " I like to hear thee talk, friend Shelley ;. 
 I see thou art very deep." We catch an echa 
 of those serene discussions in the dialogue pub- 
 lished by Shelley in 1814, "A Refutation of 
 Deism," which we have already mentioned. 
 
 Meanwhile he was reading Greek authors, 
 with Hogg and Peacock, and teaching Mary Latin. 
 
 * "Alastor" was published at the beginning of i8i6, with 
 "Stanzas to Coleridge," Stanzas, April, 1814, " Mutability," 
 " Death," " A Summer Evening Churchyard," " Lines to 
 Wordsworth," the translation of ■' A Sonnet by Dante," a 
 translation of some lines from " Moschus," and the " Demoa 
 of the World," from " Queen Mab." 
 
238 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET 
 
 "Mary," he wrote to Hogg in September, 1815, "has 
 finished the fifth book of the ' ^neid,'* and her progress in 
 Latin is such as to satisfy my best expectations." 
 
 In her Biographical and Critical Notes on 
 Shelley, Mary informs us that the poet felt within 
 himself an equal inclination for "poetry and 
 metaphysical discussions," and that " resolving on 
 the former," he engaged "in the study of the 
 poets of Greece, Italy, and England," without 
 neglecting the " constant perusal of portions of 
 the Old Testament — the Psalms, the Book of 
 Job, the Prophet Isaiah, and others — the sublime 
 poetry of which filled him with delight." 
 
 There remains to us only a fragment which 
 can be referred to Shelley's passion for meta- 
 physics, but it is sufficient almost to cause regret 
 that poetry should have suddenly stayed his 
 hand. His philosophical essays belong* to that 
 year (18 15), and treat of his favourite subjects 
 of meditation, i.e. Life, Death, a Future State, 
 Love, the Human Mind, the Phenomena of 
 Dreams, etc. It is evident throughout that 
 Berkeley's idealism has prevailed over the mate- 
 rialistic tendencies contracted by Shelley when 
 studying the French philosophers of the eighteenth 
 century ; he is a convinced upholder of the " Intel- 
 lectual System." No philosopher has so loudly 
 condemned the enervating doctrines of mate- 
 rialism, or exalted so enthusiastically the only 
 reality which in his eyes is deserving of the 
 name. Spirit ; the reality of external things being 
 of " such stuff as dreams are made of." 
 
 The shocking absurdities of the popular philosophy of 
 mind and matter, its fatal consequences in morals, and their 
 violent dogmatism concerning the source of all things, had 
 
 * Shelley himself at this time was reading Lucan's 
 " Pharsalia," " a poem, as it appears to me," he says, " of 
 wonderful genius, and transcending Virgil." 
 
SHELLEY IN LONDON. 239 
 
 •early conducted me to materialism. -This materialism is a 
 seducing system to young and superficial minds. It allows 
 its disciples to talk, and dispenses them from thinking. But 
 I was discontented with such a view of life as it afforded ; 
 man is a being of high aspirations " looking both before and 
 afier," whose "thoughts wander through eternity," dis- 
 ■claiming alliance with transience and decay ; incapable of 
 imagining to himself annihilation ; existing but in the future 
 and the past ; being not what he is, but what he has 
 been and shall be. Whatever may be his true and final 
 -destination, there is a spirit within him at enmity with 
 nothingness and dissolution. This is the character of all 
 life and being. Each is at once the centre and the cir- 
 cumference ; the point to which all things are referred, and 
 the line in which all things are contained. . . . 
 
 The spiritual chain which links all creatures 
 together, and which places each individual soul 
 in actual contact with the soul of the universe, 
 is Love. 
 
 In the motion of the very leaves of spring, in the blue air, 
 there is then found a secret correspondence with our heart. 
 There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in 
 the flowing brooks, and the rustling of the reeds beside them, 
 which, by their inconceivable relation to something within 
 the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, 
 and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the 
 enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved 
 ringing to you alone. 
 
 Metaphysics such as these stand very near 
 to poetry, and Shelley did well in abandoning 
 deduction and dogmatism, to clothe his idealism 
 in the lyrical language that alone was worthy 
 of it. What are Plato, Berkeley, and Male- 
 branche but poets ; and what are metaphysics 
 themselves but poetry and dreams ? 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 JOURNEY TO AND SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND- 
 SHELLEY AND BYRON. 
 
 On January 24th, 18 16, at the very time that 
 Byron's separation from his wife was the scandal 
 of the day, a child was born to gladden the 
 quiet home at Bishopsgate. He received the name 
 of William, after Mary's father. 
 
 There was so much resemblance between' the 
 lives and circumstances of the two poets that 
 it was fitting they should meet. Both, too, were 
 under the ban of public opinion. 
 
 Shelley was only waiting for an opportunity 
 to make the acquaintance of an author of whom 
 he had never lost sight since the time when he 
 had quoted the "Hours of Idleness" in "St. 
 Irvyne." He had sent him a copy of "Queen 
 Mab," and Byron was said to admire the poem,, 
 while he disclaimed the authorship of the Notes. 
 
 An entirely fortuitous circumstance brought 
 them together. 
 
 At that time Byron was on the Committee 
 of Management of Drury Lane Theatre, en- 
 deavouring to infuse fresh life into the drama 
 by new masterpieces that neither Walter Scott, 
 Mathurin, Coleridge, nor any one else would- 
 
SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND. 241 
 
 ■write for him ; offering plays by Sotheby or 
 Burgess wHich the Committee enthusiastically 
 refused ; harassed by authors and authoresseSj 
 milliners and Irish adventurers, by dancing 
 masters and actors, "ungovernable people"; quar- 
 felling over ballet-girls, and dining and drinking 
 with Sheridan, Kinnaird, and others. 
 
 One morning an elegant girl, rather small, 
 tut with marvellous shoulders and arms, lovely 
 hands and feet, with the voice of a siren, and with 
 •dark hair and passionate dark eyes, introduced 
 herself to Byron. She was Jane Clairmont, or 
 *' Claire." She had come to solicit the poet's 
 interest in order to obtain an engagement at 
 the theatre, and Byron interested himself so 
 jTiuch, that he immediately made her his mis- 
 tress and arranged to meet her at Geneva. 
 While Byron, who set out on April 25th, was 
 travelling in princely fashion towards Geneva, 
 by way of Flanders and the Rhine, Shelley, 
 •vvho left England early in May, accompanied 
 by Claire, Mary, and the little William and his 
 nurse, was journeying for the second time to 
 Paris. 
 
 We must now record the commencement of 
 a most romantic and mysterious occurrence in 
 our poet's romantic life. 
 
 The night before Shelley's departure from 
 London (the story was related to Byron and 
 Medwin by him, shortly before his death), he 
 received a visit from a married lady, "young, 
 , handsome, and of noble connections," who con- 
 'lessed to him that she, although he was personally 
 unknown to her, had long adored him in her 
 secret soul, and had resolved to belong to, and 
 follow him to the ends of the world. Shelley 
 explained to her that he was not free to dispose 
 of himselt, softening his refusal as far as possible, 
 and received the. adieux of his beautiful and 
 
242 SHEL-LEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 interesting visitor. Thenceforth, she followed" 
 in his footsteps, traced him to Switzerland, back 
 to England, then to Italy, and died at Naples, 
 to Shelley's inconsolable grief. Most of his 
 friends and biographers are inclined to look upon 
 this sad and gentle lady who follows the loved 
 footsteps, as an imaginary incarnation of the 
 ideal woman whom he vainly sought in flesh 
 and blood ; in one word, as a poetic hallucination.. 
 But although we are ready to acknowledge, as 
 we have already stated in our notice of Shelley's 
 novels, that he was apt to introduce the creatures 
 of his imagination into the realities of life, and 
 that in particular, certain passages in his poems,, 
 even those which, like " Alastor," * were written 
 before the journey to Switzerland, contain 
 striking allusions to the mysterious sympathies 
 which attract " the young maidens " to Shelley ;. 
 still it is difficult to accept hallucination as an 
 explanation of incidents so prolonged, so precise,, 
 and so extraordinary. Moreover, as we shall see, 
 there are mysterious allusions in the poems 
 written while at Naples, that can hardly be 
 explained except by accepting the truth of 
 Medwin's narrative. That the sceptical Byron 
 did not so accept it, is not surprising, and no 
 more convinces us than do the gratuitous as- 
 surances of Mr. Jeaffreson.f 
 
 Unprovided with letters of introduction, and 
 without acquaintances in Paris, the travellers 
 were compelled to wait at their hotel until the 
 French officials, who had become suspicious since 
 the escape of La Valette, should please to counter- 
 sign their passports. They found the French less 
 courteous to English folk than before the last 
 
 • Vol. I., p. 84 
 
 + Mr. Rossetti, without coming to a positive conclusion,, 
 admits the great probability of the truth of the story. 
 Mr. Dowden is of the same opinion. 
 
SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND.; 243 
 
 invasion of the Allies ; ill-humour and discon- 
 tent were visible on every countenance. 
 
 Nor is it wonderful that they should regard the subjects 
 of a Government which fills their country with hostile 
 garrisons, and sustains a detested dynasty on the throne, 
 with an acrimony and indignation of which that Government 
 alone is the proper object. This feeling is honourable to the 
 French, and encouraging to all those of every nation in 
 Europe who have a fellow-feeling_ with the oppressed, and 
 who cherish an unconquerable hope that the cause of liberty 
 must at length prevail. 
 
 Four days later they reached Champagnolles, 
 a little village situated in the depths of the 
 mountains, and the awful desolation of the 
 Rousses and Nion passes was presently exchanged 
 for one of the most smihng of landscapes. In the 
 Hotel S^cheron at Geneva, the travellers awoke 
 next morning to a view of the lake and the Alps. 
 
 To what a different scene are we now arrived ! To the 
 warm sunshine, and to the humming of sun-loving insects ! 
 From the windows of our hotel we see the lovely lake, blue 
 as the heavens which it reflects, and sparkling with golden 
 beams. The opposite shore is sloping and covered with 
 vines. . . . Gentlemen's seats are scattered over these banks, 
 behind which rise the various ridgfes of black mountains, and 
 towering far above in the midst of its snowy Alps, the 
 majestic Mont Blanc, highest and queen of all. Such is the 
 view reflected by the lake ; it is a bright summer scene, 
 without any of that sacred solitude and deep seclusion that 
 delighted us at Lucerne. — {May 17, 1816.) 
 
 Their first proceeding at Geneva was to hire 
 a boat, and every evening at about six o'clock 
 they sailed on the lake, sometimes gliding over 
 its glassy surface, at others speeded along by a 
 strong wind. They seldom returned until ten 
 o'clock, and then, as they approached the shore 
 they were " saluted by the delightful scent of 
 flowers and new-mown grass, and the chirp of 
 the grasshoppers and the song of the evening 
 birds." 
 
 R 2 
 
244 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 The first few days at Geneva were passed thus 
 in a most delightful solitude : 
 
 We do not enter into society here, yet our time passes 
 swiftly and delightfully. We read Latin and Italian during 
 the heats of noon, and when the sun declines we walk in the 
 garden of the hotel, looking at the rabbits, relieving fallen 
 cockchafers, and watching the motions of a myriad of lizards, 
 who inhabit a southern wall of the garden. 
 
 The lucky trio, " escaped from the gloom of 
 winter and of London," inhale happiness at every 
 pore: 
 
 I feel as happy as a new-fledged bird [it is Mary who 
 •still writes], and hardly care to what twig I fly, so that I 
 may try my new-fledged wings. A more experienced bird 
 may be more difficult in its choice of a bower ; but in my 
 present temper of mind the budding flowers, the fresh grass 
 of spring, and the happy creatures about me, that live and 
 enjoy these pleasures, are quite enough to afford me ex- 
 quisite delight, even though clouds should shut out Mont 
 Blanc from my sight. 
 
 Ten days after their arrival. Lord Byron, with 
 his inseparable companion Polidori, came to the 
 Secheron Hotel, where he remained for a few days 
 in the company of his new friends. Soon, how- 
 ever, the two parties separated, outwardly at least, 
 Byron removing to the Villa Diodati,* and the 
 Shelleys settling towards the end of May in a 
 cottage known as Campagne Chapuis, or Cam- 
 pagne Mont Al^gre, turning its back on Mont 
 Blanc, and facing the sombre view of the Jura, 
 behind which they nightly watched the setting 
 of the sun. At their feet lay the lake, and their 
 boat was moored in a little creek. The clear 
 splendid weather of their early stay broke up, 
 rain and storm detained our travellers within 
 doors. All seemed to them grand and majestic; 
 
 * It was at Geneva that Milton, on his return from Italy 
 in 1639, had paid a visit to his friend Dr. John Diodati, 
 a Geneva Professor of Theology. 
 
SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND. 245 
 
 amid the wild scenery, storms were more 
 terrible and grandiose ; and in the intervals of 
 fine weather the sun shone with a brightness 
 and warmth unknown in England. They were 
 deeply interested in the phenomena of Nature, 
 and watched them with a patience worthy of 
 professional astronomers. Shelley, who is, be- 
 yond all others, the painter of storm and tem- 
 pest, garnered up colours and pictures for future 
 description. 
 
 "We watch them," writes Mary, June ist, 1816, "as they 
 approach from the opposite side of the lake, observing the 
 lightning play among the clouds in various parts of the 
 heavens, and dart in jagged figures upon the piny heights of 
 Jura, dark with the shadow of the overhanging cloud, while 
 perhaps the sun is shining cheerily upon us. One night we 
 enjoyed a finer storm than I had ever before beheld. The 
 lake was, lit up, the pines on Jura made visible, and all 
 the scene illuminated for an instant, when a pitchy black- 
 ness succeeded, and the thunder came in frightful bursts 
 over our heads amid the darkness. 
 
 Compared with such splendid spectacles the 
 narrow and ill-paved streets, and the meaningless 
 and unbeautiful buildings of Geneva, offered few 
 attractions to the lovers of Nature. 
 
 But they gazed with interest on Rousseau's 
 obelisk standing in the Promenade of Plains-Palais, 
 where the people took vengeance, during the Revo- 
 lution, on the magistrates of Geneva for having 
 banished the great philosopher, " and where," says 
 Mary, " from respect to the memory of their pre- 
 decessors none of the present magistrates ever walk." 
 
 The most striking characteristic of the people 
 of Geneva, besides their Puritanism, is the equality. 
 between the various classes of citizens, which is 
 due to the greater liberty and the higher culture 
 of the working classes : 
 
 " Nevertheless," continues Mary, " the peasants of Swit- 
 zerland may not emulate the vivacity and grace of the 
 
246 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 French. . . . Nothing is more pleasant than to listen to 
 the evening song of the vine-dressers. They are all women, 
 and most of them have harmonious although masculine 
 voices. The theme of their ballads consists of shepherds, 
 love, flocks, and the sons of kings who fall in love with 
 beautiful shepherdesses. Their tunes are monotonous, but 
 it is sweet to hear them in the stillness of the evening, while 
 ■we are enjoying the sight of the setting sun, either from the 
 hill behind the house or from the lake." 
 
 On the 23rd of June, Shelley and Byron made 
 an excursion round the lake together. We will 
 leave Shelley to tell the story himself : 
 
 Montal^gre, near Coligni, Geneva, July 12. 
 
 It is nearly a fortnight since I have returned from Vevey. 
 This journey has been on every account delightful, but most 
 especially because I then first knew the divine beauty of 
 Rousseau's imagination as it exhibits itself in " Julie." It is 
 inconceivable what an enchantment the scene itself lends, 
 to those delineations from which its own most touching 
 charm arises. But I will give you an abstract of our voyage, 
 which lasted eight days, and if you have a map of Switzerland 
 you can follow me. 
 
 We left Montalfegre at half-past two on the 23rd of June. 
 The lake was calm, and after three hours of rowing, we 
 arrived at Hermance, a beautiful little village containing a 
 ruined tower, built, the villagers say, by Julius Caesar. ... 
 
 Leaving Hermance, we arrived at sunset at the village of 
 Nerni. »Af[er looking at our lodgings, which were gloomy 
 and dirty, we walked out by the side of the lake. It was 
 beautiful to see the vast expanse of these purple and misty 
 waters, broken by the craggy islets near to its slant and 
 " beached margin." There were many fish sporting in the 
 lake, and pmltitudes were collected close to the rocks to 
 catch the flies which inhabited them. 
 
 On returning to the village we sat on a wall beside the 
 lake, looking at some children who were playing a game like 
 ninepins. The children here appeared in an extraordinary 
 way deformed and diseased. Most of them were crooked, 
 and with enlarged throals ; but one little boy had such 
 exquisite grace in his mien and motions as I never before 
 saw equalled in a child. His countenance was beautiful for 
 the expression with which it overflowed. There was a 
 mixture of pride and gentleness in his eyes and lips— the 
 indications of sensibility, which his education will probably 
 
SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND. 247 
 
 ■pervert to misery, or seduce to crime ; but there was more of 
 gentleness than of pride, and it seemed that the pride was 
 tamed from its original wildness by the habitual exercise of 
 milder feelings. My companion gave him a piece of money 
 which he took without speaking, with a sweet smile of easy 
 thankfulness, and then with an unembarrassed air turned to 
 his play. All this might scarcely be ; but the imagination 
 surely could not forbear to breathe into the most inanimate 
 forms some likeness of its own visions, on such a serene and 
 glowing evening, in this remote and romantic village, beside 
 the calm lake that bore us hither. 
 
 On returning to our inn, we found that the servant had 
 arranged our rooms, and deprived them of the greater portion 
 of their former disconsolate appearance. They reminded my 
 companion of Greece ; it was five years, he said, since he had 
 slept in such beds. The influence of the recollections ej?cited 
 by this circumstance on our conversation gradually faded, 
 and I retired to rest . . . 
 
 The next morning we passed Yvoire, a scattered village 
 with an ancient castle, whose houses are interspersed with 
 trees, and which stands at a little distance from Nerni on the 
 promontory which bounds a deep bay, some miles in extent. 
 So soon as we arrived at this promontory, the lake began to 
 assume an aspect of wilder magniiicence. The mountains of 
 Savoy, whose summits were bright with snow, descended in 
 broken slopes to the lake ; on high, the rocks were dark with 
 pine forests, which become deeper and more immense, until 
 the ice and snow mingle with the points of naked rock that 
 pierce the blue air; but below, groves of walnut, chestnut, 
 and oak, with openings of lawny fields, attested the milder 
 climate. 
 
 As soon as we had passed. the opposite promontory, we 
 saw the river Drance, which descends from between a chasm 
 in the mountains, and makes a plain near the lake, inter- 
 sected by its divided streams. Thousands of besolets, beauti- 
 ixi. water-birds, like sea-gulls, but smaller, with purple on 
 their backs,, take their station on the shallows, where its 
 waters mingle with the lake. As we approached Evian, 
 the mountains descended more precipitously to the lake, 
 and masses of intermingled wood and rock overhung its 
 shining spire. . . . 
 
 About half-an-hour after we arrived at Evian, a few 
 -flashes of lightning came from a dark cloud, directly over- 
 head, and continued after the cloud had dispersed. " Diespiter 
 per pura tonantes egit equos," a phenomenon which certainly 
 had no influence on me, corresponding with that which 
 jt produced on Horace. 
 
 The appearance of the inhabitants of Evian is more 
 
our 
 ran 
 
 248 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 wretched, diseased, and poor, than I ever jecoUect to have 
 seen. The contrast, indeed, between the subjects of the 
 King of Sardinia, and the citizens of tljie independent 
 republics of Switzerland, afifor4^j^'''owerfiJl illustration of 
 the blighting effects of desg(jy;i'"^: '"' " '' "^tM! space of a few- 
 miles. They>«iqr ""^Sr^nToV To- ,„A j"^*' ^^ savonneuseT 
 they calltS^^^'^f "^1 .tf^^^^d somtjifficulty about 
 y -„-J<rrem In the eveniAe,syndic heard I; companion's. 
 assports,but so soon astFfor the circumUnce 
 . and name, he apologisede) that the B„t,ress' iviaria 
 , We here heard (Meillerl. . in rememfc of Saint- 
 Louisa had slept at MeiUerie .find that thefcomrton sent 
 -reux. How beautiful it is tofattach themJewTto those 
 ents of human nature can's duties andW eniovments 
 ho are most removed from \\ admission It the late of 
 hen Genius pleads for theirVnd had soLe honev the 
 -wer . . We dined there, V essence Tthe mountain 
 est I have ever tasted, the veJ -"W^jX' "e mountain 
 \s, and as fragran . P, ^ hsyW-yH^ge derives its- 
 ame^ij-on, this production. I accflene is the well-known 
 scene oJVaint.Preux's visionJt>"« ' ^"^ MeiUene is indeed: 
 enchanted^. — ^.ji^...»a.«oTi^eau no magician. . . . 
 
 The lake appeared somewhat calmer as we left Meillerie,. 
 sailing close to the banks, whose magnificence augmented 
 with the turn of every promontory. But we congratulated 
 ourselves too soon. The wind gradually increased in violence 
 until it blew tremendously ; and as it came from the remotest 
 extremity of the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, 
 and covered the whole surface with a chaos of K>am. One 
 of our boatmen, who was a dreadfully stupid fellow, persisted 
 in holding the sail at a time when the boat was on the point 
 of being driven under water by the hurricane. On dis- 
 covering his error, he let it entirely go, and the boat for a 
 moment refused to obey the helm ; in addition, the rudder 
 was so broken as ■ to render the management of it very 
 difficult ; one wave fell in, and then another. My companion^ 
 an excellent swimmer,' took off his coat. I did the same, 
 and we sat with our arms cirossed, every instant expecting tO'' 
 be swamped. The sail was, however, again held, the boat 
 obeyed the helm ; and, still in imminent peril from the 
 immensity of the waves, we arrived in a few minutes at a; 
 sheltered port in the village of St. Gingoux. 
 
 I felt at this near prospect of death a mixture of sensa- 
 tions, among which terror entered, though but subordinately. 
 My feelings would have been less painful had I been alone ; 
 but I knew that my companion would have attempted tO' 
 save me, and I was overcome with humiliation when I 
 thought that his life might have been risked to preserve 
 mine. When we arrived at St. Gingoux, the inhabitants. 
 
SOJOURN IN ^SWITZERLAND. 249 
 
 •who stood on the shore, unaccustomed to see a vessel as 
 frail as ours, and fearing to venture at all on such a sea, 
 exchanged looks of wonder and congratulation with our 
 boatmen, who, as well as ourselves, were well pleased to set 
 foot on shore. 
 
 St. Gingoux is even more beautiful than Meillerie. The 
 mountains are higher, and their loftiest points of elevation 
 descend more abruptly to the lake. On high the aerial 
 summits still cherish great depths of snow in their ravines, 
 and in the paths of their unseen torrents. One of the 
 highest of these is called Roche de St. Julien, beneath whose 
 pinnacles the forests become deeper and more extensive. 
 The chestnut gives a peculiarity to the scene, which is most 
 beautiful, and will make a picture in my memory, distinct 
 from all other mountain scenes which I have ever before 
 visited. 
 
 As we arrived here early, we took a iwiture to visit the 
 mouths of the Rhone. We went between the mountains 
 and the lake, under groves of mighty chestnut-trees, beside 
 perpetual streams, which are nourished by the snows above, 
 and form stalactites on the rocks over which they fall. We 
 saw an immense chestnut-tree which had been overthrown 
 by the hurricane of the morning. The place where the 
 Rhone joins the lake was marked by a line of tremendous 
 breakers ; the river is as rapid as when it leaves the lake, 
 but is muddy and dark. . . . We returned to St. Gingoux 
 before sunset, and I passed the evening in reading " Julie." 
 
 As my companion rises late, I had time before breakfast 
 on the ensuing morning to hunt the waterfalls of the river 
 that fall into the lake at St. Gingoux. The stream is indeed, 
 from the declivity over which it falls, only a succession of 
 waterfalls, which roar over the rocks with a perpetual sound, 
 and suspend their unceasing spray on the leaves and flowers 
 that overhang and adorn its savage banks. The path that 
 conducted along this river sometimes avoided the precipices 
 of its shores by leading through meadows, sometimes 
 threaded the base of the perpendicular and caverned rocks. 
 I gathered in these meadows a nosegay of such flowers as I 
 never saw in England, and which I thought more beautiful 
 for that rarity. 
 
 On my return, after breakfast we sailed for Clarens, 
 determining first to see the three mouths of the Rhone, and 
 then the Castle of Chillon. The day was fine and the water 
 calm. We passed from the blue waters of the lake over the 
 stream of the Rhone, which is rapid even at a great distance 
 • from its confluence with the lake ; the turbid waters mixed 
 with those of the lake, but mixed with them unwillingly. (See 
 "Nouvelle Heloise," Letter 17, part 4O I read "Julie" all 
 
250 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 ■day ; an overflowing, as it now seems, surrounded by tha 
 scenes which it has so wonderfully peopled, of sublimest 
 genius,and more than human sensibility. Meillerie, the Castle 
 of Chillon, Clarens, the mountains of La Valais and Savoy 
 present themselves to the imagination* as monuments of 
 things that were once familiar, and of beings that were 
 once dear to it. They were created, indeed, by one mind, 
 but a mind so powerfully bright as to cast a shade of false- 
 hood on the records that are called reality. 
 
 We passed on to the Castle of Chillon,* and visited its 
 dungeons and towers. These prisons are excavated below 
 the lake ; the principal dungeon is supported by seven 
 columns, whose branching capitals support the roof. Close 
 to the very walls the lake is 800 feet deep ; iron rings are 
 fastened to these columns, and on them were engraven a 
 multitude of names, partly those of visitors, and partly doubt- 
 less those of the prisoners, of whom now no memory remains, 
 and who thus beguiled a solitude which they have long 
 ceased to feel. One date was as ancient as 1670. At the 
 commencement of the Reformation, and, indeed, long after 
 that period, this dungeon was the receptacle of those who 
 shook or who denied the system of idolatry from the effects 
 of which mankind is even now slowly emerging. 
 
 Close to this long and lofty dungeon was a narrow cell, 
 and beyond it one larger and far more lofty and dark, sup- 
 ported upon two unornamented arches. Across one of these 
 arches was a beam, now black and rotten, on which prisoners 
 were hung in secret. I never saw a monument more terrible 
 of that cold and inhuman tyranny which it has been the 
 <lelight of man to exercise over man. It was indeed one of 
 those many tremendous fulfilments which render the " per- 
 nicies humani generis " of the great Tacitus so solemn and 
 irrefragable a prophecy. . . . 
 
 We proceeded with a contrary wind to Clarens against 
 a heavy swell. I never felt more strongly than on 
 landing at Clarens, that the spirit of old times had 
 deserted its once cherished habitation. A thousand 
 times, thought I, have Julia and St.-Preux walked on 
 this terraced road, looking towards these mountains which 
 I now behold ; nay, treading on the ground where I 
 now tread. From the window of our lodging our landlady 
 pointed out " le bosquet de Julie." At least the inhabitants 
 of this village are impressed with an idea that the persons 
 of that romance had actual existence. In the evening we 
 walked thither. It is indeed Julia's wood. The hay was 
 
 * Reminiscences of the Castle of Chillon occur in many 
 places in " The Revolt of Islam." 
 
SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND. 251 
 
 inaking under the trees ; the trees themselves were aged, but 
 "vigorous, and interspersed with younger ones, which are 
 destined to be their successors, and in future years when we 
 are dead, to afford a shade to future worshippers of Nature, 
 who love the memory of that tenderness and peace of which 
 this was the imaginary abode. We walked forward among 
 the vineyards, whose narrow terraces overlook this 
 affecting scene. Why did the cold maxims of the world 
 compel me at this moment to repress the tears of melan- 
 choly transport which it would have been so sweet to 
 indulge immeasurably, even until the darkness of night had 
 swallowed up the objects which excited them ? 
 
 I forgot to remark, what indeed my companion remarked 
 to me,* that our danger from the storm took place precisely 
 in the spot where Julie and her lover were nearly overset, 
 and where St.-Preux was tempted to plunge with her into 
 the lake. 
 
 On the following day we went to see the Castle of Clarens, 
 a strong, square house, with very few windows, surrounded 
 by a double terrace that overlooks the valley, or rather the 
 plain of Clarens. The road whioh conducted, to it wound 
 up the steep ascent through woods of walnut and chestnut. 
 We gathered roses on the terrace in the feeling that they 
 might be the posterity of some planted by Julie's hand. We 
 sent their dead and withered leaves to the absent. 
 
 We went again to the " bosquet de Julie," and found that 
 the precise spot was now utterly obliterated, and a heap of 
 stones marked the place where the little chapel had once 
 stood. Whilst we, were execrating the author of this brutal 
 folly, our guide informed us that the land belonged to the 
 Convent of St. Bernard, and that this outrage had been 
 committed by their orders. I knew bdfore that if avarice 
 could harden the hearts of men, a system of prescriptive 
 religion has an influence far more inimical to natural 
 sensibility; I know that an isolated man is sometimes 
 restrained by shame from outraging the venerable feelings 
 arising out of the memory of genius, which once made Nature 
 even lovelier than itself } but associated man holds it as the 
 very sacrament of his union to forswear all delicacy, all 
 benevolence, all remorse ; all that is true, or tender, or 
 sublime. 
 
 We sailed from Clarens to Vevey. . . . 
 It was at Vevey that Rousseau conceived the design of 
 ^' Julia." . . . 
 
 * At a later period Byron remarked to Medwin : " It 
 would have been a more classical end, to have perished 
 there, but a less pleasant one." 
 
252 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 The rain detained us two days at Ouchy. We, however^ 
 visited Lausanne, and saw Gibbon's house. We were' 
 shown the decayed summer-house where he finished his 
 History, and the old acacias on the terrace from which he saw 
 Mont Blanc, after having written the last sentence. There- 
 is something grand and even touching in the regret which he- 
 expresses at the completion of his task. It was conceived 
 amid the ruins of the Capitol. The sudden departure of his- 
 accustomed and cherished toil must have left him like the 
 death of a dear friend, sad and solitary. 
 
 My companion gathered some acacia leaves to preserve 
 in remembrance of him.* I refrained from doing so, fearing 
 to outrage the greater and more sacred name of Rousseau, 
 the contemplation of whose imperishable creations had left 
 no vacancy in my heart for mortal things. Gibbon had 
 a cold and unimpassioned spirit. I never felt more inclina- 
 tion to rail at the prejudices which cling to such a thing, 
 than now that Julie and Clarens, Lausanne and the Roman 
 Empire, compelled me to a contrast between Rousseau and 
 Gibbon. 
 
 This animated narrative of Shelley's should 
 be compared with Byron's stanzas in the third 
 canto of " Childe Harold/' of which, as his- 
 friend says, Shelley speaks in terms of rapturous 
 praise. 
 
 These stanzas begin with the lines : 
 
 Clarens ! sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep Love I 
 
 Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought ; 
 
 Thy trees take root in Love ; the snows above 
 
 The very glaciers have his colours caught, 
 
 And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought 
 
 By rays which sleep there lovingly ; the rocks. 
 
 The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought 
 
 In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, 
 
 Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks. 
 
 These scenes profoundly impressed Shelley's 
 imagination also, and transformed themselves- 
 there into new creations, keeping only that 
 amount of reality which creative genius retains 
 when idealising Nature. 
 
 * Byron wrote to Murray after the visit to Ouchy on the 
 27th June, 1816. 
 
SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND. 253 
 
 Shelley's landscapes resemble those of Leonardo 
 da Vinci, or other old Italian masters. 
 
 Anything we could say of Shelley's* enthusiasm 
 at this epoch for Rousseau, would pale beside 
 his enthusiastic expressions of admiration for 
 the "Nouvelle Hdlolse" in the passage we have 
 quoted, but, although Shelley was powerfully 
 attracted by Rousseau's admirable portrayal of 
 Nature, and his incomparable interpretation of 
 the purest and sweetest feelings of love, he was 
 not blind to the errors of the thinker and the 
 philosopher; and although, like him, Shelley taught 
 men to return to the truth and simplicity of 
 Nature, and was like him the irreconcilable foe 
 of all social conventions, he strenuously opposed 
 Rousseau's interpretation of the word "Nature," 
 and nothing seemed to him more false than the 
 -wish that mankind should revert to the state 
 
 * Shelley seems to have taken great interest from an 
 early age in all that concerned Rousseau. Hogg quotes an 
 anecdote of Jean-Jacques that appealed to the poet's imagina- 
 tion, and will be appreciated by Rousseau's admirers. It is 
 strange to find a hitherto unpublished anecdote in Hogg's 
 book : 
 
 " Our kind friend J. F. N. informed us that some old 
 gentleman of his acquaintance, whose name I have forgotten, 
 came over from France in the packet with Rousseau and 
 David Hume. The Scotch philosopher was sick, and kept 
 below, but the citizen of Geneva was quite well and lively, 
 and remained on deck. He was sociable, talkative, and in- 
 <juisitive, and asked many questions. Observing this gentle- 
 man writing upon a substance that was new to him, he begged 
 to know what it might be. It was ass's skin, a substance 
 much used formerly in pocket-books, but now seldom to be 
 seen. The nature of the tablet was explained to him ; how 
 well it received and retained the marks of a black-lead 
 pencil, and how readily the characters were effaced when it 
 was wetted. Rousseau was much surprised at the novelty, 
 upon which the gentleman presented him with the pocket- 
 book, and it was accepted with great and almost childish 
 eagerness. During the remainder of the voyage, with the 
 infantine simplicity of genius, the most eloquent of philo- 
 sophers was constantly playing with his new toy ; busily 
 
254 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 of savages and of brutes. Uncivilised mati 
 seemed to him the most pernicious and miserable 
 of beings. 
 
 " Man," he said, " was once a wild beast, who has become, 
 through civilisation, a moralist, a metaphysician, an astro- 
 nomer, and a poet. Lucretius and Virgil, in order to prove 
 the progress of human nature, had but to compare them- 
 selves with the cannibals of Scythia. Where justice increases, 
 so does equality ; and there is more justice now, because 
 civilisation is more widely distributed." 
 
 He severely condemned the part taken by- 
 Rousseau in the eighteenth century, as an in- 
 stigation to the. Revolution : 
 
 Rousseau gave license by his writings to passions that 
 only incapacitate and contract the human heart. 
 
 But with this exception, his admiration for 
 
 Rousseau grew with his .years. In his "Essay 
 
 on Christianity," he goes so far as to compare 
 him to Christ : 
 
 He is perhaps the philosopher among the moderns who, 
 in the structure of his feelings and understanding, resembles 
 most nearly the mysterious sage of Judea. It is impossible 
 to read those passionate words in which Jesus Christ up- 
 braids the pusillanimity and sensuality of mankind without 
 being strongly reminded of the more connected and sys- 
 tematic enthusiasm of Rousseau. 
 
 writing upon the ass's skin, wiping out and writing again. 
 Nevertheless, it is by no means impossible that the fanciful, 
 capricious, suspicious man soon afterwards might take 
 offen-ce at the gift, imagine that some treachery lurked in it j 
 that there was a snake in the grass ; that the smooth tablet 
 was contrived purposely to betray and ruin him, poisoned by 
 the deceitful David, and thereupon it might be committed to. 
 the flames. A subtle poison infused by the envenomed 
 malice of the jealous, insidious Hume into the ass's skin, 
 gradually ascending up the pencil into the fingers, arid pro- 
 ceeding thence along the arm, and finally arriving at the 
 heart, and thereupon instantaneous death ; the bare idea of 
 such an incident was charming to Shelley, and every tablet 
 of ass's skin was a page of romance." 
 
SOyOURN IN SWITZERLAND. 255; 
 
 In this respect Shelley is the true son of both ; 
 but Rousseau had so entirely captivated his heart 
 and his imagination, that in the last and un- 
 completed poem, in which he endeavoured to 
 sum up all his metaphysical and moral teaching 
 on life and human destiny, he invokes the spirit 
 of Rousseau to lead him through the Hell of 
 this world, just as Dante took Virgil, the mild 
 prophet-poet, for his guide in the infernal regions- 
 One week spent in intimacy with Byron 
 sufficed for Shelley to discover the real Byron 
 beneath the fantastic appearances that concealed 
 him from the -vulgar gaze. On July 17th, in a 
 letter to Peacock, he pronounces the following 
 categorical opinion : 
 
 Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person ; and as 
 such, is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest 
 and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as the winds ? 
 
 His opinion of his noble friend hardly varied 
 after this. He continued to admire his genius, 
 which 'he regarded as "capable of rendering him 
 the redeemer of his degraded country, if he 
 would but direct it to that end." 
 
 In society there is no more agreeable or 
 unassuming being; as a companion he is 
 good-humoured, candid, and witty ; but Byron's 
 qualities are tarnished by pride. He compares 
 his extraordinary faculties with the little minds 
 about him, and conceives an. intense conviction 
 of the nothingness of life, and is consumed by 
 impatience and self-concentration that degenerate 
 into scepticism. Shelley could not pardon his 
 immoral life, and endeavoured more than once 
 to raise him from the slough; their intimacy in 
 Switzerland produced the happiest effect on 
 Byron, whose mind was elevated and enlarged 
 by contact with that of his friend. The reader 
 must be blind indeed who cannot see traces of 
 
2S6 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Shelley's influence in the third canto of "Childe 
 Harold," and the accompanying notes. Moore* 
 mentions and deplores that influence. He says: 
 
 On philosophy and poetry the conversation of the two 
 poets, generally turned, and as might be expected from 
 Lord Byron's facility in receiving new impressions, the 
 opinions of his companion were not altogether without some 
 influence on his mind. Here and there among those fine 
 bursts of passion and description that abound in the third 
 canto of " Childe Harold," may be discovered traces of that 
 mysticism of meaning, that sublimity losing itself in its own 
 vagueness, which so much characterised the writings of his 
 extraordinary friend, and in one of the notes we find Shelley's 
 favourite Pantheism of Love thus glanced at.+ 
 
 It is probable that Byron read some portions 
 of the third canto to his friends, during the 
 evenings at Diodati,J although they were mostly 
 spent in animated conversation between Byron 
 and Shelley, to which Mary listened with pas- 
 sionate attention ; Byron's voice touched her to 
 the heart. 
 
 " I do not think," she writes in her journal, " that any 
 person's voice has the same power of awakening melancholy in 
 
 * Moore's " Life of Byron," Vol. IIL, p. 65. 
 
 f See note beginning : " But this is not all ; the feeling 
 with which all around Clarens," etc. 
 
 J On May<aBth of the following year, Mary writes in 
 her journal : " Uo you not remember, Shelley, when you first 
 read it to me ? One evening after returning from Diodati. 
 It was in our little room at Chapuis. The lake was before 
 us, and the mighty Jura. That time is past, and this will also 
 pass, when I may weep to read these words, and again 
 moralise on the flight of time. ... I think of our excursions 
 on the lake. How we saw him when he came down to us, 
 or welcomed our arrival with a good-humoured smile ! How 
 vividly does each verse of his poem recall some scene of this 
 kind to my memory ! This time will soon also be a recol- 
 lection. We may see him again, and again enjoy his society ; 
 but the time will also arrive when that which is now an 
 anticipation will be only in the memory. Death will at 
 length come, and in the last moment all will be a dream." 
 
SOyOURN IN SWITZERLAND. 257 
 
 me as Alb^'s. I have been accustomed, when hearing it, to 
 listen and speak little ; another's voice, not mine, ever re- 
 plied — a voice whose strings are broken. When AVoh ceases 
 to speak, I expect to hear that other voice, and when I hear 
 another instead, it jars strangely with every association . . . 
 and thus . . . when Alb& speaks, and Shelley does not 
 answer, it is as thunder without rain — the form of the sun 
 without heat or light." 
 
 One evening (it was June i8th)j after a conver- 
 sation on apparitions and ghcsts, Byron recited 
 some lines from Coleridge's " Christabel," which 
 had just been published : 
 
 She unbound 
 The cincture from beneath her breast : 
 Her silken robe, and inner vest, 
 Dropt to her feet, and full in view, 
 Behold ! her bosom and half her side — 
 Hideous, deformed, and pale of hue, 
 A sight to dream of, not to tell ! 
 And she is to sleep by Christabel. 
 
 Seized with horror, Shelley uttered a piercing 
 cry ; he suddenly thought of a woman he had 
 heard of, who had eyes instead of nipples. When 
 he had recovered and calm was restored, Byron 
 proposed that each one should write a ghost 
 story. Shelley began one, which, as usual, he 
 soon abandoned. Byron began hig celebrated 
 tale of the "Vampire," which PoliJori finished 
 and published three years later, while Mary 
 wrote her " Frankenstein ; or, the Modern Pro- 
 metheus." 
 
 A few days afterwards Shqlley made another 
 Alpine excursion, but this time he was accom- 
 panied by Mary and Claire. They left Geneva 
 on July 20th, and passing through Bonneville> 
 Cluses, Sallanches, and Servoz, they reached the 
 valley of Chamouni ; Shelley was much impressed 
 with a waterfall near Maglans, at least twelve 
 hundred feet high, dashing from " the overhanging 
 
2S8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 brow of a black precipice, imitating a veil of the 
 most exquisite woof." At Servoz, Mont Blanc 
 was before them. 
 
 " Mont Blanc was before us," writes Shelley, " but it Was 
 covered with cloud ; its base, furrowed with dreadful gaps, 
 was seen above. Pinnacles of snow intolerably bright, part 
 of the chain connected with Mont Blanc, shone through the 
 clouds at intervals on high. I never knew — I never imagined 
 what mountains were before. The immensity of these aerial 
 summits excited, when they suddenly burst upon the sight, 
 a sentiment of"6cstatic wonder not unallied to madness. 
 And, remember, this was all one scene ; it all pressed home 
 to our regard and imagination. Though it embraced a vast 
 extent of space, the snowy pyramids which shot into the 
 bright blue sky seemed to overhang our path ; the ravine, 
 clothed with gigantic pines, and black with its depth below, 
 so deep that the very roaring of the untameable Arve, which 
 rolled through it, could not be heard above — all was as 
 much our own as if we had been the creators of such im- 
 pressions in the minds of others as now occupied our own. 
 Nature was the poet whose harmony held our spirits more 
 breathless than that of the divinest." 
 
 The sight of the Montanvert and Les Bossons 
 glaciers caused him unspeakable rapture; the 
 dazzling white of precipice and pinnacles — the 
 latter resembling so many glass needles beneath 
 a net of frosted silver ; the masses of ice slipping 
 down and breaking into powder as they struck 
 the rocks beneath, the slow but incessant move- 
 ment of the glaciers encroaching in their irresis- 
 tible march on the surrounding pasture lands 
 and forests, accomplishing in the course of 
 centuries the destruction that would be completed 
 in one hour by a» torrent of lava, and bearing 
 with them huge rocks and piled-up heaps of 
 sand and stones from their mountain sources; 
 all the.se wondrous sights moved him to admira- 
 tion and to philosophical reflection on the destiny 
 of our globe; on the sublime but sombre theory 
 of Buffon, that the earth, at a certain period, 
 will become a frozen mass, by reason of the' 
 
SOJOURN IN. SWITZERLAND. 259 
 
 spread of the ice from the Polar regions and 
 higher points of the earth's surface. 
 
 "Do you who assert the supremacy of Ahriraan," he 
 ■wrote, in a moment of poetical exaltation, "imagine him 
 throned among these desolating snows, among these palaces 
 of death and frost, so sculptured in this their terrible 
 magnificence by the adamantine hand of necessity, and that 
 he casts around him, as the first essays of his final usurpa- 
 tions, avalanches, torrents, rocks, and thunders, and, above 
 all, these deadly glaciers, at once the proof and symbols of 
 his reign ; — add to this the degradation of the human species, 
 who in these regions are half-deformed or idiotic, and most 
 of whom are deprived of anything that can excite admiration. 
 This is part of the subject more mournful and less sublime, 
 but such as neither the poet nor the philosopher should 
 disdain to regard." 
 
 He afterwards compares Mont Blanc to the 
 god of the Stoics, a vast animal whose frozen 
 blood for ever circulated within his stony veins. 
 
 It was at the foot of the giant mountain 
 that Shelley composed his poem of " Mont Blanc," 
 "under the immediate impression," he says him- 
 self, "of the deep and powerful feelings excited 
 by the objects which it attempts to describe ; 
 -and as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, 
 rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to 
 imitate the untameable wildness and inaccessible 
 solemnity from which those feelings sprang." 
 
 In this admirable poem, wherein Shelley truly 
 tries to vie with the horror and beauty of Nature, 
 we find his ideal Ahriman, transformed into the 
 personification of the " old Earthquake demon," 
 teaching 
 
 . . . her young 
 Ruin. Were these their toys ? . . . 
 
 He interrogates the wilderness — the splendid and 
 funereal chaos ; to others they reply with Doubt and . 
 Death; to Shelley the mysterious tongue teaches a 
 
 . . . faith so mild. 
 So solemn, so serene, that man may be 
 But for such faith with Nature reconciled ; 
 
 S 2 
 
26o SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 and by that reconciliation, that union of the 
 spirit of man with the great spirit of Nature, 
 he finds a means of raising himself above all 
 mortal passions, and all the sorrows of humanity. 
 
 Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal 
 Large codes of fraud and woe. 
 
 Shelley gazes on Mont Blanc piercing the 
 infinite sky, still, snowy, and seren£, towering 
 far above the unearthly shapes, scarred, ghastly, 
 and riven, that are piled around ; the image of 
 Nature's spirit, of the secret strength of things 
 which govern thought, without which Mont Blanc 
 itself, and earth, and stars, and sea would be but 
 silence, solitude, and vacancy.* 
 
 It is clear, from the thought expressed at 
 the close of the poem — a thought which is fre- 
 quently repeated in Shelley's works — that Pan- 
 theism with him was pure idealism. And it 
 l:;)ecomes still more incontrovertible on perusal of 
 his " Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," which was- 
 also written while in Switzerland, and for progress 
 of thought and beauty of form is one of the 
 culminating points in Shelley's poetry ; it is- 
 an invocation of his real Muse — that " unseerb 
 Power," that " Spirit of Beauty " called " Demon,, 
 Ghost, or Heaven," whose " light alone " " gives 
 grace and truth to life's unquiet dream." 
 
 All Shelley is in that exquisite Hymn. 
 
 Another remarkable personage, much esteemed 
 by our poet, was at this epoch introduced to 
 Shelley : Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of " The 
 
 * On leaving Montanvert, Shelley had written in the 
 Travellers' Album the two beautiful lines — 
 
 " God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
 Answer, and let the ice-plains echo God ! " 
 
 In another inn Album, in the same handwriting, was written — 
 
 Eijui ^iKavhpamos, Srjfioxparixos t a6ios tc. 
 
 Lord Byron is said to have effaced the latter inscription. 
 
SOJOURN IN SWITZERLAND. 261 
 
 Monk.'' It was now that Lewis added a codicil 
 to his will, witnessed by the three friends (Byron, 
 Shelley, and Polidori), requiring the heir of his 
 Jamaica estates to visit the property every three 
 years in order to maintain the privileges and 
 rights of the slaves who should belong to the 
 then proprietor.* 
 
 Yet amid all the enjoyment of travel and 
 the pecuniary anxieties it entails, Shelley looked 
 wistfully towards England, where he had passed 
 many happy moments, and longed to return 
 •thither as soon as possible. On May 15th, 1816, 
 he wrote to Peacock : 
 
 You live by the shores of a tranquil stream, among low 
 and woody hills. You live in a free country, where you may 
 •act without restraint, and possess that which you possess in 
 security ; and so long as the name of country and the selfish 
 conceptions it includes shall subsist, England, I am persuaded, 
 .is the most free and the most refined. . . . 
 
 So long as man is such as he now is, the experience of 
 -which I speak will never teach him to despise the country of 
 his birth ; far otherwise, like Wordsworth, he will never know 
 what love subsists between that and him until absence shall 
 have made its beauty more heartfelt ; our poets and our 
 philosophers, our mountains and our lakes, the rural lanes 
 and fields which are so especially our own, are ties which, 
 -until I become utterly senseless, can never be broken asunder. 
 
 These, and the memory of them, if I never should return, 
 these and the affections of the mind, with which having been 
 once united, are inseparable (sic), will make the name of 
 England dear to me for ever, even if I should permanently 
 return to it no more. . . . My present intention is to return 
 to England, and to make that most excellent of nations my 
 perpetual resting-place. 
 
 Yet before returning to England for ever, he 
 wished to see more of the world. 
 
 " If possible," he wrote on July 17th, " we think of descend- 
 ing the Danube in a boat, of visiting Constantinople and 
 
 * Forgues' " Originaux et beaux Esprits de I'Angleterre :" 
 M. G. Lewis. Lewis had just returned from Jamaica, where 
 he had been securing the welfare of the numerous negroes 
 <on his plantations. 
 
262 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Athens, then Rome and the Tuscan cities, and returning by the- 
 South of France, always following great rivers — the Danube, 
 the Po, the Rhone, and the Garonne. Rivers are not like roads, 
 the work of the hands of man ; they imitate mind, which 
 wanders at will over pathless deserts, and flows through 
 Nature's loveliest recesses, which are inaccessible to anything 
 besides. . ■ . This Eastern scheme is one which has just 
 seized on our imaginations. I fear that the detail of execu- 
 tion will destroy it, as all other wild and beautiful visions. . . . 
 Tell me, in return, all English news. What has become of 
 my poem [" Alastor"]? I hope it has already sheltered itself in 
 the bosom of its mother. Oblivion, from whose embraces no 
 one could have been so barbarous as to tear it except me. 
 
 " Tell me of the political state of England ; its literature, 
 of which when I speak, Coleridge is in my thoughts ; your- 
 self, lastly your own employments, your historical labours. . . . 
 
 " You must shelter my roofless Penates, dedicate some new 
 temple to them, and perform the functions of a priest in my 
 absence. They are innocent deities, and their worship- 
 neither sanguinary nor absurd. 
 
 " Leave Mammon and Jehovah to those who delight in 
 wickedness and slavery ; their altars are stained with blood, 
 or polluted with gold, the price of blood. But the shrines. 
 of the Penates are good wood fires, or window-frames inter- 
 twined with creeping plants ; their hymns are the purring of 
 kittens, the hissing of kettles, the long talks over the past 
 and the dead, the laugh of children, the warm wind of 
 summer filling the quiet house, and the pelting storm of 
 winter struggling in vain for entrance. . . . 
 
 " I trust entirely to your discretion on the subject of a 
 house. Certainly the Forest engages my preference, because- 
 of the sylvan nature of the place and the beasts with which 
 it is filled. But I am not insensible to the beauties of the 
 Thames. . . . 
 
 " Recollect, however, we are now choosing a fixed, settled, 
 eternal home, and as such its internal qualities will affect us 
 more constantly than those which consist in the surrounding 
 scenery, which, whatever it may be at first, will shortly be no 
 more than the colours with which our own habits shall 
 invest it." 
 
 The fixed,. settled, and lasting home for which 
 Shelley was seeking, was destined to endure 
 barely two years. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SHELLEY AT BATH— SUICIDE OF HARRIET AND 
 MARRIAGE OF SHELLEY — THE HERMIT OF 
 MARLOW — "LAON AND CYTHNA " — "PRINCE 
 ATHANASIUS " — ADDRESS TO THE ENGLISH 
 PEOPLE — 1816-1818. 
 
 On returning to London, September 7th, 1816, 
 Shelley hastened to join his friend Peacock, and 
 stayed a fortnight with him at Marlow, where he 
 determined to settle, and while the temple of 
 his Penates was being prepared, he removed for a 
 time to Bath. 
 
 On October 9th, Mary received an alarming 
 letter ; and Shelley immediately set off for Bristol 
 and Swansea. But the day preceding that of his 
 arrival, October loth, poor Fanny Imlay had 
 committed suicide in the bedroom of an inn ; a 
 bottle of laudanum lay upon the table by her side 
 with a note which ran thus : " I have long deter- 
 mined that the best thing I could do was to put 
 an end to the existence of a being whose birth 
 was unfortunate, and whose life has only been 
 a series of pain to those persons who have hurt 
 their health in endeavouring to promote her 
 welfare. Perhaps to hear of my death will give 
 yoii pain ; biit you will soon have the blessing of 
 
264 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 forgetting that such a creature ever existed 
 as . . ." 
 
 As Shelley read this touching farewell, he 
 recalled his last hurried interview with Fanny 
 in London, and penned the mournful stanza : 
 
 Her voice did quiver as we parted ; 
 
 Yet knew I not that heart was broken 
 From whence it came, and I departed 
 Heeding not the words then spoken. 
 Misery, O Misery ! 
 This world is all too wide for thee ! ♦ 
 
 This tragic event was soon succeeded by another 
 still more painful to Shelley. On December 14th 
 a letter from Hookham acquainted him with the 
 death of Harriet Westbrook, whose body had been 
 found in the Serpentine. She was twenty-two 
 years of age. Her life, from the date of her 
 separation from Shelley, is somewhat obscure to 
 us. Thornton Hunt asserts that having been 
 deserted by her lover (a captain in the army 
 according to Trelawney), she was thrown on the 
 streets, repudiated by her father and sister, driven 
 from their house, and finally, feeling deserted by 
 the whole universe, her thoughts reverted to the 
 idea of voluntary death, which from childhood 
 had been cherished by her. 
 
 Shelley, who had always been mindful of her 
 since their separation, and had provided for her 
 maintenance, had for a few weeks lost sight of her, 
 and was vainly inquiring for her address. 
 
 On receiving the fatal news Shelley hastened to 
 London to claim his children, and nothing can 
 
 * Mr. Dowden proves satisfactorily that Fanny's death 
 cannot be attributed to an unfortunate attachment for Shelley, 
 as Claire asserts. Her letters, collected by Mr. Dowden, 
 sufficiently explain her suicide as being merely the natural 
 result of the excessive melancholy inherent in her disposi- 
 tion and increased by the nature of her surroundings at 
 Skinner Street. 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 265 
 
 give a clearer idea of his state of mind than the 
 letter he wrote on the following day to Mary : 
 
 1 hjtve spent a day, my beloved, of somewhat agonising 
 sensations, such as the contemplation of vice, and folly, and 
 hard-heartedness exceeding all conception must produce. 
 Leigh Hunt has been with me all day, and his delicate and 
 tender attentions to me, his kind speeches of you, have sus- 
 tained me against the weight of the horror of this event. 
 
 'ihe children I have not got. I have seen Longdill, who 
 recommends proceeding with the utmost caution and reso- 
 luteness ; he seems interested. I told him I was under con- 
 tract of marriage to you, and he said that in such an event all 
 pretence to detain the children would cease. Hunt said 
 very delicately that this would be soothing intelligence to 
 you. Yes, my only hope, my darling love, this will be one 
 among the innumerable benefits which you will have 
 bestowed upon me, and which will still be inferior in value 
 to the greatest of benefits — yourself. It is through you that 
 I can entertain without despair the recollection of the 
 horrors of unutterable villainy that led to this dark, dreadful 
 death. . . . Everything tends to prove, however, that beyond 
 the shock of so hideous a catastrophe having fallen on a 
 human being once so nearly connected with me, there would, 
 in any case, be little to regret. Hookham, Longdill, every 
 one does me full justice ; bears testimony to the upright 
 spirit and liberality of my conduct to her. There is but one 
 voice in condemnation of the detestable Westbrooks. If 
 they should dare to bring it before Chancery, a scene of 
 such fearful horror would be unfolded as would cover them 
 ■with scorn and shame. . . . Do you, dearest and best, seek 
 happiness — where it ought to reside — in your own pure and 
 perfect bosom ; in the thoughts of how dear and how good 
 you are to me ; how wise and how extensively beneficial you 
 are perhaps now destined to become. Remember my poor 
 babes, lanthe and Charles. How tender and dear a 
 mother they will find in you — darling William, too ! My 
 eyes overflow with tears. To-morrow 1 will write again. 
 
 Nothing can be more tender and loving than 
 Mary's reply to this letter ; her hand trembles as 
 she thinks of poor Fanny's sad fate : 
 
 Poor dear Fanny ! If she had lived until this moment 
 she would have been saved, for my house would then have 
 been a proper asylum for her. . . . How very happy 
 shall I be to possess those darling treasures of yours ! 
 
266 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 [lanthe and Charles] . . . There will be a sweet brother and 
 sister for my William, who will lose his pre-eminence as 
 eldest. . . . 
 
 Harriet's suicide, following on that of Fanny, 
 was a frightful blow to Shelley; his character was 
 altered by it, and the remembrance haunted him 
 to his last hour. Thornton Hunt writes : 
 
 I am well aware that he had suffered severely, and that 
 he continued to be haunted by certain recollections, partly 
 real and partly imaginative, which pursued him like an 
 Orestes. If exteriorly he appeared to bear this blow philo- 
 sophically, the reason is he was as undemonstrative as he 
 was profound, and at all times of his life was remarkably 
 free, as De Quincey observes, from " sickly sentimentalism." 
 
 From a feeling of delicacy and a regard for 
 appearances, Shelley hesitated as to an immediate 
 marriage with Mary. But on the advice of 
 Peacock and that of Sir Lumley Skeffington, 
 author of a play called " The Word of Honour," 
 and considered to be an infallible judge in such 
 delicate matters, the formal ceremony was gone 
 through without delay. 
 
 He needed no hints from Godwin; still less 
 was itj as Mr. Jeaffreson implies, a wish to annoy 
 his father. On December 30th, 18 16, the marriage 
 was celebrated at St. Mildred's in presence of 
 Godwin and his wife. 
 
 During this time of trial Shelley found some 
 consolation in a new friendship which proved 
 enduring. Until the autumn of 1816, he had no 
 close relations with Leigh Hunt, in whom, how- 
 ever, he had been deeply interested as a victim of 
 intolerance and tyranny.* 
 
 * Shelley had expressed his sympathy at the time of 
 Hunt's imprisonment, and it was probably on the occasion, 
 of his liberation that he wrote the following sonnet :. 
 For me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble 
 
 In my faint eyes, or that my heart beat fast 
 With feelings that make rapture pain resemble, 
 Yet from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast. 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 267 
 
 Hunt had at first contemned the productions 
 of the young poet. It was not until he had 
 read "Alastor" and the "Hymn to Intellectual 
 Beauty/' that he made reparation in the columns 
 of the Examiner by an article in which he 
 mentions Shelley as " one of the young poets 
 who promises to shed lustre on the new school." 
 " If the rest answer," he added, " to what we have 
 seen, we shall have no hesitation in announcing 
 him for a very striking and original thinker." 
 The ice was now broken. 
 
 Early in November Shelley was at Marlovv, 
 and took the opportunity of visiting his new 
 friend at his pretty Hampstead home, in the 
 neighbourhood of Marlow. In January, 1817, the 
 Chancery suit concerning his children by Harriet 
 brought Shelley up to London. The Westbrooks 
 denounced him as author of " Queen Mab/' 
 Atheist, and Republican, and he must prepare 
 his defence. Shelley might ' well fear that the 
 reactionary and intolerant spirit of the times, 
 which had driven Cobbett to America, might 
 visit on him the severe penalties 'of the law 
 of libel, and that, like Eaton, he might be 
 punished with imprisonment and the stocks. 
 Mary, ever anxious and loving, soon joined him. 
 in London. 
 
 His literary connection with Hunt and his- 
 circle, of which the Examiner was the centre 
 and mainspring, was fortunate for Shelley, in 
 diverting his mind from his fears and anxieties ; 
 and Mary became intimate with Hunt's wife,, 
 the Marianne whose name lives for ever in the 
 poet's verse. 
 
 I thank thee ! Let the tyrant keep 
 
 His chains and tears — yea, let him weep 
 
 With rage to see thee freshly risen, 
 
 Like strength from slumber, from the prison 
 
 In which he vainly hoped the soul to bind, 
 
 Which on the chains must prey that fetter humankind. 
 
268 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 " That was a memorable evening " (February 
 5tli, 1 8 17), writes Mr. Dowden, "when the three 
 "Young Poets' of his Examiner article of three 
 months since — Reynolds, Keats, and Shelley — 
 supped together at Hampstead with their gene- 
 rous critic. ' Keats,' we are told by Leigh Hunt, 
 ' did not take to Shelley as kindly as Shelley 
 did to him. . . . Keats being a little too sensitive 
 on the score of his origin, felt inclined to see 
 in every man of birth a sort of natural enemy.' " 
 At Hunt's table Shelley also became acquainted 
 with Charles Lamb — but the latter, to Shelley's 
 regret, drew away from him — and Hazlitt, with 
 whom he discussed politics until three in the 
 morning. With Brougham, also, the great and 
 terrible editor of the Edinburgh Review, the 
 advocate of the Examiner in Government prose- 
 cutions, and his own adviser in the Chancery 
 suit, Shelley now became acquainted, and in 
 Horace Smith he found a true and devoted 
 friend, who, to the ardour of a poet and the 
 zeal of a political reformer, added the sound 
 judgment of a ftian of business. Shelley him- 
 self has sketched him for us. " Is it not odd, 
 that the only truly generous person I ever knew, 
 ■who had money to be generous with, should 
 be a stockbroker 'i And he writes poetry, too, 
 and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to 
 make money, and does make it, and is still 
 generous." And later, in a letter to Mrs. Gisborne, 
 lie says : 
 
 Wit and sense, 
 Virtue and human knowledge — all that might 
 Make this dull world a business of delight — 
 Are all combined in Horace Smith. 
 
 In March, Shelley set up his peaceful Penates 
 in a spacious cottage (Albion House) at Marlow, 
 not far from the Thames. It was surrounded 
 by a large garden, beyond which lay open 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 269 
 
 meadows leading towards undulating wooded 
 slopes. Eight dornaer windows gave a Gothic 
 appearance to the front of the house. The 
 largest roonij large enough for a ball-room, but 
 damp and cold, was fitted up by Shelley as a 
 library. His writing-table stood between two 
 life-sized casts of Af)ollo and Urania.* The house- 
 hold consisted of Shelley, his wife, little William, 
 Claire and little Alba.f Elise, a Swiss nurse, 
 and Harry, the gardener and man-of-all-work. 
 
 The happiness of Shelley and Mary was nov/ 
 complete ; Mary spent her time in reading, 
 studying, and writing " Frankenstein " ; J Claire 
 also wrote, but her special delight was music ;. 
 she accompanied hersejf on the piano, to which 
 she sang in a voice compared by her former 
 music-master. Corn', to a string of pearls, giving 
 the most exquisite delight to Shelley, whose soul 
 was " dissolved " in " consuming ecstasies." § 
 
 If the hermitage of. Marlow were a temple of 
 poetry, it was also one of friendship. Shelley's 
 friends enjoyed without scruple the generous 
 hospitality he offered them. They were Godwin, 
 Peacock, Hogg, the Hunts, and Horace Smith, 
 But the poet made no acquaintance among the 
 neighbouring commonplace gentry, whom he held 
 in horror. 
 
 One of his greatest amusements at Marlow 
 was boating on the river. His little mimic fleets 
 of paper boats no longer sufficed him ; he owned 
 
 * Mr. Dowden says Venus, 
 
 \ Alba or AUegra, the child of Byron and Claire, was' 
 bom at Bath on January 12th, 1817. At Marlow she passed 
 for the daughter of a friend in London, sent into the country 
 for her health. 
 
 % "Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus," 181 j 
 (3 vols.). The most remarkable of Mary's works ; the 
 preface was written by Shelley. 
 
 § " To Constantia Singing." A poem addressed to Claire 
 under that name. 
 
270 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 a boat, made for both oars and sail, which he 
 had christened the Vaga (to which his friends 
 would playfully add the syllable " bond "). Leigh 
 Hunt gives the following account of the daily life 
 of the Hermit of Marlow : 
 
 He rose early in the morning, walked and read before 
 breakfast, took that meal sparingly, wrote and studied the 
 greater part of the morning, walked and read again, dined 
 on vegetables (for he took neither meat nor wine), conversed 
 with his friends (to whom his house was ever open), again 
 walked out, and usually finished with reading to his wife till 
 ten o'clock, when he went to bed. His book was generally 
 Plato or Homer, or one of the Greek tragedians, and the 
 Bible, in which he took a great, though peculiar, and often 
 admiring interest. 
 
 While in the enjoyment of these peaceful days 
 consecrated to study and friendship, a blow was 
 struck which was terrible to his feelings as a 
 father, and decisive of the future course of his 
 life. 
 
 " Jew " Westbrook's petition to the Court of 
 Chancery, praying that all control over the educa- 
 tion of his children should be taken from Shelley, 
 came before the Court in March, 1817, and on 
 the 27th of that month the High Chancellor, 
 Lord Eldon, pronounced judgment in favour 
 of the petitioner. Harriet's children were placed 
 under the guardianship of their grandfather, and 
 that of Dr. Hume, a clergyman of the Anglican 
 Church. 
 
 The considerations alleged by Mr. Westbrook 
 were that Shelley had deserted his wife, and that 
 he was an avowed Atheist, who would educate his 
 children in his own principles; "Queen Mab" 
 was quoted to prove his opinions concerning 
 God and marriage, as also his Letter to Lord 
 Ellenborough. 
 
 Notwithstanding the skilful defence set up by 
 Shelley, Lord Eldon, who had taken time to 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 271 
 
 consider his judgment, pronounced against him. 
 Purposely leaving aside the accusation of Atheism, 
 he dwelt principally on the immorality of Shelley's 
 opinions on marriage, and on his conduct as 
 influenced by these. 
 
 " There is nothing in evidence before me," said his Lord- 
 ship, "sufficient to authorise me in thinking that this gentle- 
 man has changed, before he arrived at the age of twenty-five, 
 the principles he avowed at nineteen. I think there is ample 
 evidence in the papers, arid in his conduct, that no such 
 thange has taken plade. . . . This is a case in which, as the 
 matter appears to me, the father's principles cannot be mis- 
 understood ; in which his conduct, which I cannot but 
 consider as highly immoral, has been established in proof, 
 and established as the effect of those principles ; conduct, 
 nevertheless, which he represents to himself and others 
 not as conduct to be considexed as immoral, but to be 
 recommended and observed in practice, and as worthy of 
 approbation . . . conduct which the law animadverts upon 
 as inconsistent with the duties of such persons and those of 
 the community." 
 
 Shelley was consequently restrained " from 
 intermeddling with the children until the further 
 order of the Court." 
 
 Although Shelley did not appeal from this 
 judgment to the House of Lords, yet he did not 
 despair of obtaining justice and a reversal of the 
 odious sentence, in the event of a change in the 
 political situation. In a letter to Peacock, written 
 at Naples in 18 19, he says: "We have reports 
 here of a change in the English Ministry — to what 
 does it amount .■• for, besides my national interest 
 in it, I am on the watch to vindicate my most' 
 sacred rights, invaded by the Chancery Court." ' 
 
 Meanwhile, the poet vindicated the father, and, 
 Lord Eldon acquired in Shelley's indignant yerse' 
 an immortality he would have sought in vain from' 
 his own judicial prose. ' 
 
 Among the poems of 18 17, we may read the' 
 
272 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 terrible curse invoked by an outraged father on 
 him whom he calls the 
 
 . , . darkest crest 
 Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm 
 Which rends our mother's bosom — priestly pest ! 
 
 By those unpractised accents of young speech, 
 Which he who is a father thought to frame 
 
 To gentlest lore such as the wisest teach. 
 
 7 hou strike the lyre of mind ! oh, grief and shame ! . . , 
 
 I curse thee .... 
 
 Nor does Shelley miss a later opportunity of 
 branding him who had torn away his children ; in 
 the "Mask of Anarchy" (1819), he depicts Lord 
 Eldon under the name of Fraud : 
 
 Next came Fraud, and he had on, 
 Like Lord Eldon, an ermine gown. 
 His big tears, for he wept well. 
 Turned to millstones as they fell ; 
 And the little children who 
 Round his feet played to and fro, 
 Thinking every tear a gem. 
 Had their brains knocked out by them. 
 
 The weeping Eldon in " CEdipus Tyrannus " 
 will appear again as " Dakry, the Wizard Minister 
 of Swellfoot." 
 
 Thus bereft of two children, Shelley turned an 
 anxious gaze on his little William, lest, in the 
 name of religion and morality, a sacrilegious 
 hand should claim that child too from his 
 father's care. He conceived the project of re- 
 moving him from his ungrateful country, and 
 seeking beyond the sea the sunny shores of Italy 
 or Greece. 
 
 His dream of a lasting abode in free England 
 had vanished ; his health was terribly affected 
 by the successive shocks he had undergone, and 
 required a warmer climate ; it was his duty to live 
 for those who remained to him, those to whom his 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 273 
 
 life might be a source of happiness^ usefulness, 
 safety, and honour, while his death would deprive 
 them of all these things.* 
 
 It might be expected that under repeated 
 strokes of misfortune, the poet would bend and 
 sink. But on the contrary, he seemed to acquire 
 new strength and spirit. While anxiously awaiting 
 the decision of the Court, he wrote his longest 
 poem. While the law was branding him as 
 unfit "for the most rudimentary duties of social 
 life," he was preparing to protest more strongly 
 than ever against those principles in the name of 
 which he was condemned ; and he pursued with 
 •confidence and enthusiasm the moral and social 
 ideal which he had proclaimed, and for which 
 he had already suffered martyrdom. He com- 
 posed "Laon and Cythna.'^ 
 
 "The poem was written," says Mary, " in his boat as it 
 floated under the beech-groves of Bisham, or during wander- 
 ings in the neighbouring country, which is distinguished for 
 pecuUar beauty. The chalk hills break into cliffs that over- 
 hang the J hames, or form valleys clothed with beech ; the 
 wilder portion of the country is rendered beautiful by exu- 
 berant vegetatiim ; and the cultivated part is peculiarly 
 fertile. With all this wealth of nature which, either in the 
 form of gentlemen's parks or soil dedicated to agriculture, 
 flourished around, Marlow was inhabited (I hope it is 
 altered now) by a very poor population. The women are 
 lace-makers, and lose their health by sedentary labour, for 
 which they were very ill paid. The poor-laws ground to the 
 <Just not only the paupers, but those who had risen just 
 above that state, and were obliged to pay poor-rates. . . . 
 Shelley afforded what alleviation he could.t In the winter, 
 
 * Letter to Godwin, Dec. 7, 1817. 
 
 t His sojourn at Marlow was one continual exercise of 
 "benevolence ; many long pages might be filled with the 
 narration of his charitable deeds, as told by his biographers. 
 This period of bis life resembles the lives of the Saints. 
 One of his neighbours and friends, Mrs. Madocks, who 
 acted as his almoner during the absence of the Hermit 
 of Marlow, gives the following testimony in 1859 : "Every 
 
 T 
 
374 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 while bringing out his poem, he had a severe attack of 
 ophthalmia, caught while visiting the poor cottages. I men- 
 tion these things— for this minute and active sympathy with 
 his fellow creatures gives a thousandfold interest to his 
 speculations, and stamps with reality his pleadings for the- 
 human race." 
 
 And, in fact, if there is one distinctive mark 
 amid its exuberance of moral, political, and reli- 
 gious teaching in the poem, it is the ardent love of 
 mankind burning, from beginning to end, with 
 irresistible and contagious fire. We find in it 
 precisely the same creed as in " Queen Mab " ;. 
 hatred of tyranny and custom, condemnation of 
 selfishness and cupidity that darken the heart and 
 destroy the energies of man, intense longing to 
 rescue the human race from the ignominious 
 yoke of religion, and woman from the degrading 
 slavery that lowers and corrupts her. But these 
 doctrines are set forth with such passionate con- 
 viction, with such forcible and burning eloquence^ 
 they are so full of sympathy, love, and hope, 
 that we are carried away, in spite of ourselves,, 
 by the deep and rushing stream ; we forget 
 to admire the eloquent poetry, because we are 
 bewildered by the magical descriptions, and filled 
 with the strange charm of the marvellous and 
 divine evocations of this new Apocalypse. Shelley 
 himself called his poem a "Vision of the Nine- 
 teenth Century." He no longer gives us the 
 
 spot is sacred that he visited ; he was a gentleman that 
 seldom took money about with him, and we received 
 numerous little billets; written sometimes on the leaf of a 
 book, to pay the bearer the sum he specified, sometimes as 
 much as half-a-crown ; and one day he came home without 
 shoes, saying that he had no paper, so he gave the poor man 
 his shoes. Like St. Francis, his charity was extended to 
 the dumb creation. He would buy cray-fish of the men who 
 brought them through the streets, and would order his 
 servant to bear them back to their lurking-places in the; 
 Thames." 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 275 
 
 melancholy despair of Alastor whOj in his dis- 
 illusion, seeks rest, and oblivion in death ; but, 
 revived by love, Shelley, in the person of Laon, 
 his hero, who is the embodiment of ideal de- 
 votion to the regeneration and happiness of 
 mankind, combats all the sad realities which 
 oppose that regeneration, and delay the coming 
 of that happiness to which he calls poor erring 
 humanity. 
 
 This is the dominant idea of the poem, and 
 Shelley opens the subject by an allegorical myth, 
 in which he depicts, under striking imagery, the 
 history of the old strife between good and evil 
 in the world, such as he conceived it. To the 
 reader it is a somewhat confusing assemblage of 
 the traditions of India and those of Greece, of 
 Manichaeism, and of Christianity. Good and evil 
 are twin geniuses — equal gods ; in- the formidable 
 strife that is waged between them, evil is repre- 
 sented by the eagle, the bird of Jupiter, who 
 was afterwards depicted in the " Prometheus " 
 as personifying the principle of evil ; and the 
 serpent is the incarnation of the Morning Star 
 or principle of good, the Avatar of human 
 genius, the Prometheus of the Greeks, the Lucifer 
 or Satan of the Bible. 
 
 The fair, mysterious woman who receives the 
 wounded Serpent in her bosom is, in this poem, 
 the incarnation of the Spirit of Nature ; assuming 
 the rdle that in "Prometheus" is to be played 
 by Asia — the personification of Divine love, the 
 new Eve, the lover of the Morning Star, of 
 Prometheus — Lucifer. 
 
 The whole of this allegory is embodied in 
 human forms in "Laon and Cythna." 
 
 The principal r61e is given to the woman, 
 Cythna. 
 
 Shelley, who became a more and more devoted 
 follower of Mary Wollstonecraft since his union 
 
 T 2 
 
276 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 with her daughter, created Cythna to be 
 the prophetess and apostle of the regeneration 
 of her sex. If Laon awakes in Cythna the 
 love of freedom, Cythna awakes in Laon the 
 love of purity ; she instinctively loathes the joy- 
 less sensuality of which women are the victims, 
 which flings their grace and beauty as a prey 
 to the hyena — lust. She desires for woman 
 equality, liberty, justice, and dignity. She would 
 avenge the outrage and insult woman has too 
 long endured ; and her gentle martyrdom is 
 more potent against tyranny than the armed 
 resistance of Laon ; her torturers are converted. 
 
 All these thoughts are in Mary WoUstone- 
 craft's book, the " Rights of Women," but the 
 suavity, the passion, the divine music are Shelley's.* 
 
 If ever a poet has existed worthy of the 
 French Revolution, he is certainly the author of 
 the " Revolt of Islam." The subject, whatever 
 may be said of it, is as full of inspiration to a 
 poet as the rescue of the Saviour's tomb, or the 
 discovery of a new World. 
 
 Michelet, after narrating the stirring episode of 
 the Federation in his " History of the Revolution," 
 exclaims : " I have held in my hands for a 
 moment, on the altar of Federation, the un- 
 covered heart 6f France ; I saw the beating of 
 that heroic heart at the first ray of the faith 
 of the future. How then should I worship the 
 little gods of this world 1 I had caught a glimpse 
 of God. May the sublime vision, that for an 
 instant was ours during the' solemn act of French 
 fraternity, lift us above all the moral misery 
 of our times, and give us back a spark of the 
 
 * In proof of this the reader is referred to Shelley's 
 enthusiastic panegyric of Mary WoUstonecraft, in the Dedica- 
 tion to his wife, stanza xii. He also alludes, later, to Mary's 
 revolutionary enthusiasm, and to her sojourn in Paris during 
 the early years of the Revcilution. 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 277 
 
 heroic fire that burned in the hearts of our 
 fathers ! " 
 
 Shelley's great soul divined that which drew 
 from Michelet tears of admiration and love, and 
 it is difficult to read the episode of the Federation 
 in canto v., without feeling the glow of that 
 heroic fire of which Michelet speaks. 
 
 Shelley's ideas upon the essence of the moral 
 laws, and the arbitrariness of human institutions, 
 brought him to the logical conclusion that the 
 impediments to marriage, invented by man and 
 sanctioned by religion, are as artificial and as 
 immoral as the law of its indissolubility. To make 
 this conclusion distinctly evident, he placed his 
 hero and heroine, Laon and Cythna, in the 
 relationship of brother and sister — ^joined together 
 in the most perfect union by the double ties of 
 consanguinity and love. 
 
 But it required all Shelley's ingenuousness to 
 believe that such doctrines could be printed and 
 published in prudish England. Nevertheless,^ 
 they were published j a few copies of a first edition 
 were circulated; but so unfavourable an impres- 
 sion was produced that the publishers became 
 alarmed, stopped further publication, and requested 
 Shelley to revise his poem. He was forced, there- 
 fore, to abolish all trace of fraternal relation- 
 ship between Laon and Cythna, and likewise 
 to soften several passages in which Atheism and 
 the stake were too perceptible. " Laon and 
 Cythna," revised, corrected, and purified, re- 
 appeared under the title of the " Revolt of Islam." 
 
 But these concessions to public opinion failed 
 to disarm criticism. Shelley was mistaken when 
 he believed the public would receive his amended 
 work favourably, and without prejudice. Re- 
 viled, derided, and stigmatised, " Laon and 
 Cythna" only strengthened the existing pre- 
 judice against the author of "Queen Mab." 
 
278 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 The faithful portrayal of his own mind, which 
 Shelley regards as one of the principal merits 
 of "Laon and Cythna," he had previously at- 
 tempted that same year in " Prince Athanasius," 
 a poem still more personal to himself, and which 
 has remained merely a sketch or fragment. In 
 the whole of Shelley's works there is not one 
 more psychological, profound, or subtle, and if we 
 wish to know the very finest mood of the poet's 
 mind, self-analysed in its most fugitive phases 
 and in its most delicate shades, it is there we 
 must seek it. It is pure spirit analysing and 
 dissecting itself in order to discover the un- 
 discoverable cause of the infinite uneasiness with 
 which it is devoured. But at last Shelley feared 
 to lose his foothold in a world of such subtlety, 
 and forbore to complete the study lest his 
 analysis njiight become morbid and beyond the 
 comprehension of the most attentive reader. Such 
 as it is, the fragment of "Prince Athanasius" 
 is of the highest importance for what I may 
 designate as the psychological autobiography of 
 the poet. Athanasius, like the youth in " Alastor," 
 seeks throughout the world a human being to love. 
 On the vessel on which he embarks, a lady comes 
 to him in whom he thinks he sees the realisation 
 of his ideal of love and beauty. But soon he 
 perceives that she is but Pandemos, or the 
 earthly and unworthy Venus, who, after casting 
 her spell over him, deserts him. Athanasius, beaten 
 down by sorrow, dies. To his death-bed comes 
 Urania, she who alone can fill and satisfy his 
 soul, and kisses his lips. Of this great con- 
 ception there remain but a few lines of the final 
 fragment, in which Shelley depicts Mary as 
 Urania, and the admirable address to Uranian love, 
 
 Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all 
 We can desire, O Love ! 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 279 
 
 -with which Shelley longs to inebriate the human 
 race. 
 
 After the composition of " Laon and Cythna," 
 projects of very various kinds occupied Shelley's 
 imagination; he read the pages of Tacitus on 
 Othoj and contemplated writing a poem on the 
 great and melancholy emperor, " who, both tyrant 
 and tyrannicidcj hallowed the Roman sword by 
 bathing it in his own blood." But amidst his 
 various projects, his imagination turns towards one 
 object, one type, the incarnation of his own spirit 
 and his own love ; a type that since " Queen Mab " 
 has been constantly rising higher and higher, 
 becoming more and more pure and ideal as it 
 passed through Alastor, Prince Athanasius, Laon 
 in the " Revolt of Islam," and culminated at last in 
 the final conception of Prometheus. 
 
 The laborious inception of the great idea with 
 which this work is penetrated, its continuing and 
 (to his mind) imperfect progress, and his despair at 
 finding the world deaf to the voice of truth and 
 love, overwhelm his soul, much more than any ex- 
 terior trials can, with an incurable sadness which 
 he expressed in heart-broken words ; he bitterly 
 deplores the impotence of his thoughts which 
 rise and fall in solitude, the vain efforts of , his 
 imagination which succeeds only in possessing 
 "" one-half of the shadow which it creates." 
 
 Once more descend 
 The shadows of my soul upon mankind ; 
 For to those hearts with which they never blend, 
 Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind. 
 From the swift clouds which track its flight of fire, 
 Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind. 
 
 JHe longs for " a chariot of cloud " : 
 
 Oh, that a chariot of cloud were mine ! 
 
 I would sail on the waves of the billowy wind 
 
 To the mountain peak and the rocky lake," 
 
28o SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 in regions inaccessible to common mortals, and to 
 which he showed the author of " Childe Harold " 
 the path, for Byron echoed Shelley in the beautiful 
 stanza, that the latter loved to apply to himself: 
 
 On the sea. 
 The boldest steer but where their ports invite ; 
 But there are wanderers o'er eternity. 
 Whose bark drives on and on, and ne'er shall anchored be. 
 
 This hopeless quest of the ideal did not, however, 
 prevent Shelley from eagerly watching the course 
 of political events in his native land, and from 
 making use of events which stirred the mind of the 
 people, to set forth his own ideas, express his 
 views, and explain the lessons of contemporary 
 history by the light of his own theories. 
 
 The great question of Parliamentary Reform 
 was agitated in England in 1817, and Shelley, 
 ever eager for the rights of the people, published 
 a political pamphlet on the subject, named : " A 
 Proposal for putting Reform to the Vote throiigh- 
 out the Country, by the Hermit of Marlow." 
 
 The whole question, in his opinion, was this; 
 Should the people legislate for themselves, or 
 should they be governed by laws made by an 
 assembly which does not even represent even 
 one thousandth part of the community ? We may • 
 find his reply in his Irish pamphlets: "No, the 
 people may not be thus governed." The actual 
 constitution of Parliament appears to him a 
 spectacle to arouse indignation and horror: 
 
 An hospital for lunatics is the only theatre whare we can 
 conceive so mournful a comedy to be exhibited as this mighty 
 nation now exhibits. . . . The prerogatives of Parliament con- 
 stitute a sovereignty which is exercised in contempt of th& 
 people ... for its misery and ruin. ... It is the object 
 of the Reformers to restore the people to a sovereignty thus 
 held in their contempt, by making the House of Commons 
 a complete representative of the will of the people. 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 281 
 
 In order to attain this end, Shelley advised 
 the holding of a permanent meeting " to take 
 into consideration the most effectual measures 
 for ascertaining the will " of the people, and 
 put "his name down on the subscription-list for 
 necessary expenses, for a sum qf ;^ioo, being a 
 tenth part of his income. As to the requisite 
 reforms, Shelley thought with Cobbett that annual 
 parliaments ought to be adopted, but he con- 
 sidered the English nation as yet insufficiently 
 prepared for universal suffrage — 
 
 The consequence of the immediate extension of the 
 elective franchise to every male adult, would be to place 
 power in the hands of men who have been rendered brutal, 
 and torpid, and ferocious, by ages of slavery. ... I allow 
 Major Cartwright's arguments to be unanswerable ; ab- 
 stractedly it is the right of every human being to have a 
 share in the Government. But Mr. Paine's arguments are 
 also unanswerable ; a pure republic may be shown ... to 
 be that system of social order, the fittest to produce the 
 happiness and promote the genuine eminence of man. 
 Yet nothing can less consist with reason, or afford smaller 
 hopes of any beneficial issue, than the plan which should 
 abolish the regal and the aristocratical branches of our 
 constitution, before the public mind, through many grada- 
 tions of improvement, shall have arrived at the maturity 
 which can disregard these symbols of its childhood. 
 
 The moderate reform desired by Shelley was 
 accomplished, more than half a century later, by 
 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 On Nov. 6th, 18 17, occurred the premature death 
 of the young Princess Charlotte, daughter of 
 George IV. and Caroline of Brunswick, the idol 
 of the English people. Suddenly snatched from 
 domestic joys that had consoled her for an un- 
 happy childhood, the "fair and innocent princess" 
 carried with her to the grave the lamentations 
 of all England. 
 
 Shelley was shocked at the national mourning 
 for a woman, who, although interesting from her 
 
282 SHELLEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 misfortunes and her premature death, was yet 
 chiefly so as a Princess and future Queen of 
 England. In grief so solemn and ostentatious 
 he detected signs of servility and baseness, and 
 "the Hermit of Marlow" wrote an "Address 
 to the People " with the following motto : " We 
 pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird." 
 
 The dying bird thus forgotten by the English 
 people in their pity for its bright plumage, repre- 
 sented the common and hidden miseries of suffer- 
 ing humanity, the sorrows of the people, of which 
 poor Charlotte's destiny formed a very small 
 part. 
 
 Shelley understands the public mourning of 
 the Athenians for the death of those whose valour, 
 intelligence, or genius had illumined the Republic ; 
 he would have thought it well that, when Milton 
 died, " the universal English nation had been 
 clothed in solemn black," that "the French 
 nation should have enjoined a public mourning 
 at the death of Rousseau and Voltaire." " It were 
 well done also," he says, " that men should mourn 
 for any public calamity which has befallen their 
 country or the world, though it be not death. 
 This helps to maintain that connection between 
 one man and another, and all men considered as a 
 whole, which is the bond of social life. There should 
 be public mourning when those events take place 
 which make all good men mourn in their hearts — 
 the rule of foreign or domestic tyrants, the abuse 
 of public faith, the wresting of old and venerable 
 laws to the murder of the innocent, the established 
 insecurity of all those . . . who cherish an 
 unconquerable enthusiasm for public good. , . 
 When the French Republic was extinguished the 
 world ought to have mourned." In an eloquent 
 parallel he compares the death of the young, 
 amiable, and interesting Princess, "the last and 
 the best of her race," with that of the three men 
 
SHELLEY AT BATH. 283 
 
 Tvho were executed for political offences on the 
 same day — Brandreth, Ludlam, and Turner — 
 whose frightful deaths by) hanging and decapita- 
 tion constitute a calamity that the English na- 
 tion should lament with inconsolable grief.* He 
 ends with an eloquent peroration which we must 
 quote in its entirety : 
 
 Mourn then, People of England ! Clothe yourselves 
 in solemn black. Let the bells be tolled. Think of mortality 
 and change. Shroud yourselves in solitude and the gloom 
 of sacred sorrow. Spare no symbol of universal grief. Weep 
 — mourn — lament. Fill the great City— fill the boundless 
 fields with lamentation and the echo of groans. A beautiful 
 Princess is dead — she who should have been the Queen of 
 lier beloved nation, and whose posterity should have ruled it 
 for ever. She loved the domestic affections, and cherished 
 arts which adorn, and valour which defends. She was 
 amiable, and would have become wise, but she was young, 
 and in the flower of youth the despoiler came. Liberty is 
 dead ! Slave ! I charge thee, disturb not the depth and 
 solemnity of our grief by any meaner sorrow. If one has 
 died who was like her that should have ruled over this land, 
 like Liberty, young, innocent, and lovely, know that • the 
 power through which that one perished was God, and that it 
 was a private grief. But man has murdered Liberty ; and 
 whilst the life was ebbing from its wound, there descended 
 on the heads and on the hearts of every human thing the 
 sympathy of an universal blast and curse. Fetters heavier 
 than iron weigh upon us, because they bind our souls . We 
 move about in a dungeon more pestilential than damp and 
 narrow walls, because the earth is its floor and the heavens 
 are its roof. Let us follow the corpse of British Liberty 
 slowly and reverentially to its tomb ; and if some glorious 
 Phantom should appear, and make its throne of broken 
 swords and sceptres and royal crowns trampled in the dust, 
 let us say that the Spirit of Liberty has arisen from its 
 grave, and left all that was gross and mortal there, and kneel 
 down to worship it as our Queen. 
 
 The foregoing lines became subsequently the 
 theme of Shelley's version of " God save the King " 
 — God save Liberty ! 
 
 * Shelley lifts up his voice in strong reprobation of the 
 penalty of death : " Nothing is more horrible than that man 
 should for any cause take the life of man." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY — MILAN, LEGHORN, LUCCA, 
 VENICE, THE CAPUCHINS, FLORENCE, AND 
 PADUA — " ROSALIND AND HELEN/' AND 
 "JULIAN AND MADDALO" — 1818. 
 
 Early in February, 1818, Shelley, who waff 
 impatient to get into a milder climate, on account 
 of the increasing delicacy of his health, bade 
 adieu to Marlow. It was with profound regret 
 that he left the scenes associated with the in- 
 tellectual pleasure which he had enjoyed in the 
 composition of " Laon and Cythna." 
 
 On the 9th March, William Shelley, Clara 
 Everina Shelley (born on the 3rd September, 
 1817, at Marlow), and Clara Allegra, Byron's 
 daughter, were duly baptized at St. Giles's-in- 
 the-Fields, and on the nth Shelley took his 
 last look at the shores of England. 
 
 A new life was about to begin for him 
 under the sunny sky of Italy, "that paradise of 
 exiles and pariahs," as he calls it. His genius, 
 freed from all enmities and resentments, was 
 about to soar boldly into the serene spheres of 
 the purely ideal. On losing sight of England, 
 Shelley seemed to lose sight of earth altogether ; 
 by daily contact with the masterpieces of Italian, 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 285 
 
 Art and Nature his taste was refined, his con- 
 ceptions were elevated and purified ; he became 
 invested with the beauty and grandeur of the 
 antique, through his absorbed contemplation of 
 its ruins, his assiduous study of sculpture, his 
 researches into Plato and ^schylus, in short, 
 his loving worship of all the arts. His faculties 
 expanded, together with his senses and his frame, 
 under these favourable physical conditions ; and 
 to this epoch we owe the incomparable poet 
 of the " Prometheus," the " Epipsychidion," the 
 "Adonafs," and the "Hellas." 
 
 We have the history of this transformation, 
 this full bloom of his poetic genius, in his 
 ^'Letters from Italy." These letters are held 
 by the best judges to occupy an exceptional 
 place in the epistolary literature of the century. 
 If they do not possess the brilliancy, the humour, 
 the petulance, and the wonderful " go " of Byron's 
 letters, they possess greater solidity and serious- 
 ness, a deeper passion, a more sincere enthusiasm, 
 and absolute frankness of thought and feeling. 
 Mr. Garnett has justly remarked that Shelley's 
 letters represent exactly the way in which the 
 poet, as a poet, contemplates life and Nature. 
 A great deal of the pleasure which they produce 
 proceeds from their close agreement with the 
 poetical works upon which they are the in- 
 voluntary commentary. They prove that the 
 ideal world of Shelley was to him a real world, 
 and that the habitual level of the life of the 
 man was not lower than that of the poet. 
 
 On the 1 2th of March, 18 18, Shelley em- 
 barked on the Lady Castlereagh for Calais. He 
 was accompanied by his wife, Miss Clairmont, 
 Elise (the Swiss girl), Milly (a young maid- 
 servant from Marlow), his own two children, and 
 the little Allegra, who was only fourteen months 
 old. He hoped to bring about a reconciliation 
 
286 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 between Byron and the mother, through the 
 medium of this child. The party travelled 
 through France by way of Calais, Rheims, 
 Langres, Dijon, and Lyons, Shelley reading 
 aloud Schlegel's work, and a new poem by 
 Hunt, called "Foliage." 
 
 On the 26th of March, Shelley crossed the 
 Pass of the Echelles, and entered the valleys 
 of the Alps. The winding road, cut in the rock 
 on the face of the mountain, which leads to 
 Chambery, produced a vivid impression upon 
 him. He declares that the site resembles that 
 described in the " Prometheus " of .^schylus, and 
 proceeds to draw an exquisite word-picture of 
 it. But although the poet, whose mind is already 
 full of his " Prometheus," seeks for images in pro- 
 portion with his subject amid the grand natural 
 scenery of the Alpine ranges, the humanitarian 
 philosopher is moved to the deepest pity by 
 the poverty and wretchedness of the inhabitants 
 of those fertile valleys. Shelley remarks con- 
 tinually upon this contrast between man and 
 Nature while he journeys into Italy, and he is 
 disposed to exaggerate it ingenuously, in order 
 to stigmatise the tyranny of Governments, 
 which he regards as its sole true cause, with 
 greater truth and liberty. These melancholy im- 
 pressions are, however, speedily dispelled by the 
 charms of Alpine Nature; while the carriages 
 are climbing the ascent of Mont Cenis, Shelley 
 becomes intoxicated with delight, he sings as 
 he goes. While descending the Alps, his chest 
 expands, his sensations become more acute and 
 vivid under the influence of the beauty of the 
 country and the serenity of the sky; he feels 
 more keenly than ever that he depends upon 
 these things for life. With what delight he 
 hears for the first time at Susa a pretty Italian 
 woman speaking "the clear, the perfect language 
 
SUELLEY IN ITALY. 287 
 
 of Italy, after the nasal, clipped cacophony of 
 the French " ! The first objects which he meets 
 in that favoured land delight and enchant him ;. 
 those objects are, firstly, the Arch of Augustus 
 at Susa, which is like the gate of Italy ; and 
 a fair woman whose graceful mien and blonde 
 beauty recalled Fuseli's Eve. 
 
 Shelley arrived at Milan on the 4th of April, 
 and remained there for a month. He was parti- 
 cularly struck by two things, the Duomo and 
 the Opera. But the lake of Como had a far 
 greater attraction for the poet. The beauty of 
 its shores, and its lovely villas, Tanzi, Tremez- 
 zina, Sommariva, Pliniana, is, according to him, 
 to be surpassed only by that of the Lakes of 
 Killarney. He would have liked to settle down 
 permanently in one of those enchanting places, 
 Pliniana, a half-ruined villa, with great laurel 
 hedges, overlooking the finest landscape in the 
 world. He had, however, to relinquish his own 
 wishes in deference to those of Mary; who did 
 not relish "that divine solitude of Como" so 
 keenly as he did, and he bent his steps towards 
 Pisa, being attracted thither by the vicinity of 
 the sea. 
 
 He left Milan with great regret and crossed 
 the Apennines, which he considered much less 
 beautiful than the Alps : " An immense and 
 indeterminate scene, in which the imagination 
 cannot find a shelter." On the other hand, the 
 plains of Parma had the aspect of a garden in 
 his eyes. He remained only three or four days at 
 Pisa, "a large and disagreeable town almost 
 without inhabitants," and arrived on the loth of 
 May at Leghorn, where he was detained a full 
 month by the pleasure which he derived from the 
 society of the Gisbornes, new friends to whom he 
 was introduced by Godwin. Mrs. Gisborne, who 
 from her childhood had led an adventurous life. 
 
288 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 was peculiarly calculated to attract and fascinate 
 Shelley. She was the daughter of an English 
 merchant settled at Constantinople, and, at the 
 age of eight years, she was separated from her 
 mother. Her father brought her up with the 
 greatest care in the free society of the English 
 merchants and diplomatists. In 1785, Jeremy 
 Bentham, then visiting the Bosphorus, had re- 
 marked the young girl, who, at fifteen, was quite 
 womanly, and exhibited extraordinary capacity 
 for the arts. He played Eichner's sonatas for the 
 piano and the violin with her. Shortly afterwards 
 we find her at Rome with her father, taking 
 lessons in painting from Angelica Kaufmann. 
 The English painter, Barry, was so much struck 
 by some of her sketches that he strongly urged 
 her to devote herself exclusively to painting. At 
 Rome she married Mr. William Reveley, an archi- 
 tect, who brought her to London, where she 
 formed a social alliance with all the advanced 
 intellects -of the time — for she fully shared the 
 Liberal convictions of her husband — and placed 
 herself under the philosophic guidance of Godwirl 
 and Mary Wollstonecraft. When Mary was born 
 she took her to her own house, and tended her 
 with maternal solicitude. She became a widow 
 early, and, having refused Godwin, she married 
 Mr. John Gisborne in 1800, and retired to Italy 
 with her new husband and her son by her first 
 marriage. Mr. Gisborne gave his wife's son a 
 sound scientific education. When Shelley found 
 the Gisborne family installed at Leghorn, Henry 
 Reveley was an engineer of great promise, with a 
 pronounced taste ' for mechanics and the new 
 applications of science. 
 
 The story of Maria Gisborne, her relations 
 with Mary Wollstonecraft, her beauty, her charac- 
 ter, and, above all, her freedom from religious 
 or social prejudices, could not fail to captivate 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 2S9 
 
 the inflaipmable soul of the poet. As for the 
 husband, he was an excellent man — placidity 
 itself — with but little capacity for business, in 
 which he had never succeeded ; erudite, well-read, 
 not without interest in poetry in general, and 
 enthusiastic about Calderon. He had initiated 
 his wife into the beauties of the Magico Prodi- 
 gioso and the Autos, and in their school Shelley 
 learned to love that other Shakespeare whom 
 he had met more than once unconsciously, 
 and who was thenceforth to share the poet's 
 devotion to the author of Macbeth and King 
 Lear. 
 
 These agreeable relations, which speedily deve- 
 loped into a warm and close friendship, diverted 
 Shelley's thoughts from the unpleasantness of that 
 great commercial town, which is the most untaught 
 and unattractive of the Italian cities, and he bade 
 farewell with sincere regret to the accomplished 
 woman who was destined to inspire one of his 
 most original poems, a masterpiece of humour 
 and grace, the " Letter to Maria Gisborne." At 
 the Baths of Lucca, where there were English 
 people only, Shelley was free to give himself up 
 entirely to his studious tastes and the carrying out 
 of his poetic plans. He rejoiced "in being restored 
 to silence, and that chosen society of all the ages, 
 his books, which he had carefully packed before 
 leaving England, and found again at Lucca, 
 and in his picturesque walks in the chestnut 
 woods, on the banks qf the river, or across the 
 mountains. His dwelling was a restored and 
 repainted cottage in the midst of grand scenery, 
 surrounded by wooded mountains, surmounted 
 here and there by the bare crest of some far- 
 distant Apennine. The house stood in a little 
 garden, with a laurel grove at the end of it so 
 thick that the sun could not pierce it with his rays. 
 The poet's happy days at Lucca were passed in 
 
ago SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 walks with Mary in the neighbourhood, long ex- 
 cursions on horseback to the Prato fiorito, a field 
 of flowers on the summit of one of the Apennines, 
 or to the sanctuary of the Monte Pelerino, the 
 loftiest of those mountains ; attentive observation 
 of the slightest perturbations of the atmosphere, 
 which he studied in order to paint it ; contempla- 
 tion of the beautiful Italian evenings ; study of the 
 great Italian poets, Ariosto, Petrarch, and Tasso; 
 and in reading and translating Plato. 
 
 The admirable translation of the " Banquet of 
 Plato," which dates from this epoch, was the work 
 of ten mornings. Although this translation seemed 
 to him very insufficient to convey in English the 
 inimitable graces of the original, it may safely be 
 affirmed that, not since the Renaissance, has Plato 
 found so enthusiastic an interpreter, one so apt to 
 comprehend and to embody all the charm and 
 poetry of his language. Mrs. Shelley is justified in 
 her claim for this translation, that it presents the 
 great Athenian to English readers in a style 
 worthy of him. 
 
 In translating Plato's " Banquet," Shelley also 
 purposed to give Mary an idea of the sentiments 
 and manners {m^urs) of the Athenians. With this 
 object he began' an essay which was to form a 
 preface to his translation, upon the literature, the 
 arts, and the manners of the Athenians. We have 
 only a fragment of this essay, entitled, " A Dis- 
 course upon the Manners of the Ancients in rela- 
 tion to the subject of Love." Shelley's mind was 
 deeply impressed with the unrivalled grandeur of 
 that unique epoch in the history of the human 
 mind ; and as he held that no person had hitherto 
 depicted the life of the ancient Greeks with exacti- 
 tude and fidelity, he designed to supply the 
 deficiency. To do this it was necessary, in his 
 belief, to divest himself of all modern prejudices 
 and considerations, to become altogether pagan, 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 291 
 
 •entirely Greek. In his praiseworthy work, "Le 
 Vo)'-age du Jeune Anacharsis," the Abb6 Bar- 
 thelemy commits the fault of never forgetting that 
 he is a Christian and a Frenchman ; and although 
 Wieland makes a tolerable pagan, he still has too 
 much political prejudice. He is too much afraid of 
 •diminishing the interest of his recital by depicting 
 sentiments with which a modern European could 
 not sympathise. All books written upon the 
 ■Greeks seemed to Shelley to have been written 
 for children, and on principles of timid prudery 
 incompatible with truth. 
 
 To begin the work by an explanation of the 
 Greek ideas upon the subject of love, was to 
 take the bull by the horns, and- no one could 
 realise more fully than Shelley the conditions 
 imposed upon any writer who should try to re- 
 store to life the true traditions of Greek antiquity 
 upon this obscure and delicate subject. It is 
 deeply to be regretted that he did no more 
 than sketch the outline of the picture, perhaps 
 because he was deterred by the very delicacy 
 of the subject ; but, such as it is, his sketch is 
 rich in fruitful ideas and original views. No more 
 just idea of the position of woman in ancient 
 times, and the causes of her inferiority and degra- 
 dation, could be given. While doing justice to the 
 progress in the relations of the two sexes accom- 
 plished by Christiarirty and Chivalry, Shelley 
 objected with justice to the exaggeration of the 
 merit of that revoliation, and would not admit 
 the pretension that the Greeks knew nothing of 
 sentimental or ideal love, and the claim of that 
 passion to be the exclusive product of Christian 
 or chivalrous ideas. 
 
 Amid the charms of solitude, and the calm 
 
 of his mind, which was refreshed by the living 
 
 _^5i-ing of Nature and Plato, Shelley once more 
 
 found inspiration. In the middle of August 
 
 u 2 
 
292 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 (1818), upon the entreaty of Mary, he finished 
 his poem of " Rosalind and Helen," * which he 
 had begun, at Marlow, one of those rare works 
 in which Shelley, coming down from his dreamy 
 heights, touches ordinary life, and consents to- 
 depict purely human passions. 
 
 " Rosalind and Helen " possessed a special 
 interest for Mary. It is easy for any reader 
 who has even a superficial knowledge of Shelley^a 
 history to discover Claire and Mary, separated 
 for awhile, and at enmity, under the names of 
 Rosalind and Helen, and to find Shelley himself 
 in Lionel. He wrote this narrative in the hopes 
 of cementing the friendship of the two young 
 women who were now reunited under his roof, 
 and, in fact, from thenceforth (1818) their mutual 
 attachment was undisturbed. 
 
 On the 17th of August Shelley went to Venice^ 
 accompanied by Claire, to visit Lord Byron. 
 The poor mother hoped that Shelley would pro- 
 cure permission for her to see her daughter again. 
 At Padua Shelley took a gondola, and, by a. 
 strange chance, he selected a gondolier who had 
 formerly been in Byron's service. This man 
 talked incessantly of the Giovanotto Inglese, who 
 bore an outlandish name, lived sumptuously, 
 and spent money lavishly. Venice was reached 
 at midnight, and the gondola sustained a tempest 
 of wind, rain, and lightning in the lagoon. 
 
 On the day after his arrival, Shelley, leaving 
 Claire with the Hoppners,t went to Byron's 
 dwelling. The conversation between the frienda 
 soon turned upon the delicate matter that Shelley 
 
 * " Rosalind and Helen " was published by Oilier in the 
 spring of 1 8 19, together with " Verses written in the Euganean 
 Mountains," the " Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," and the 
 sonnet " Ozymandias." 
 
 t Mr. Hoppner was British Consul at Venice, and Mrs, 
 Hoppner had taken charge of the little Allegra. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 293 
 
 had so much at heart, and the latter believed 
 that he had gained some points. Byron seemed 
 even disposed to give up the child to her mother. 
 Their interview, which was full of kindliness and 
 good-humour, was prolonged by an excursion in 
 a gondola, and the two poets indulged in the 
 latter diversion several times during Shelley's 
 stay at Venice. To that sojourn we owe the 
 poem of "Julian and Maddalo," so eloquently 
 eulogised by Mr. Rossetti, who declares that it 
 alone would suffice to justify the poet's deathless 
 fame, and holds that, together with the "Pro- 
 metheus " and " The Cenci," it completes the 
 supreme trinity of Shelley's genius. 
 
 The reader will easily recognise the two friends 
 under the names of Julian and Maddalo. It would 
 be difficult to depict two such different natures 
 better than Shelley depicts them in his preface, 
 and to tell the whole truth with greater ,tact 
 and delicacy. In his letters to his friends he 
 is sharper and more caustic ; it is in them 
 that we must seek for his real views of the 
 genius and the character of the author of " Don 
 Juan." 
 
 Byron, who was anxious to have Shelley near 
 him, offered him the use of his villa, called 
 ■dei Cappucini, near Este. Shelley accepted this 
 proposal, and pressed his wife to join him there. 
 During his absence he had been very anxious 
 about her, and had written several letters to 
 her, full of the tenderness of his loving heart, 
 and of truly paternal solicitude. He had also 
 addressed some pretty verses to her. His in- 
 structions for the journey, which she was to make 
 under the guidance of the accomplished Paolo, 
 Avere of the most minute and thoughtful kind. 
 
 Mary, who was longing to rejoin her husband 
 came with all haste to Este. The Villa dei 
 Cappucini, an ancient residence of the Medici, 
 
294 SHELLEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 was situated in the neighbourhood of that city^ 
 on the summit of a little hill surrounded by 
 several loftier ones. The house was pleasant 
 and commodious ; a wall enclosed between trellised 
 vines, or Pergola, as the Italians call it, led from 
 the house to the bottom of the garden, where 
 there was a summer-house. This was used by 
 Shelley as his study, and there he wrote "Julian, 
 and Maddalo," and began the "Prometheus." The 
 praises of the villa, the views from it, and the 
 great plain of Lombardy which stretched below,, 
 are sung in many of the poet's letters of this 
 peaceful epoch. 
 
 A melancholy event darkened the fair days 
 of the Villa dei Cappucini ; this was the death 
 of the little Clara, who had been taken ill with 
 dysentery during the journey. The child was 
 taken from Este to Venice for medical advice, 
 but she died almost immediately upon arriving 
 there, and the sorrowing parents returned to- 
 mourn her in their saddened home. 
 
 To Shelley, beautiful Venice, with " its silent 
 streets paved with water," was a bitter and 
 lugubrious spectacle. He saw nothing there save 
 the dungeons, the piombi, and the oubliettes, a 
 city enslaved from the day on which the rights 
 of the people had been usurped, but more de- 
 graded still since its subjection to the Austrian 
 yoke. " I had no idea," he writes, " of the 
 excess to which avarice, cowardice, superstition,, 
 ignorance, passionless debauchery, and all the 
 unspeakable brutalities which degrade human 
 nature, may be carried, until I had seen Venice ! " 
 
 No traveller in Italy has felt the misfortune 
 of that fair land become the prey of the foreigner,, 
 so keenly as Shelley ; no poet has so bitterly 
 deplored the shame and misery of her servitude,. 
 or sung so nobly her hopes of a national re- 
 surrection ; none has associated himself so en- 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 295 
 
 thusiastically with her every attempt to accomplish 
 her freedom. 
 
 Petrarch's house and tomb, sacredly preserved 
 at Arqua, attracted him to the Euganean Mountains, 
 but the deeper feeling for liberty mingles with 
 that for Nature, in the emotions of the disciple of 
 Laura's lover, when he contemplates Padua, "where 
 the lamp of learning burns no longer, or is only 
 a mocking meteor." In the ruins of Florence, 
 he beholds the chastisement of an inexpiable 
 crime, the attempt against the liberty of Pisa, 
 and, on rising from the perusal of Sismondi's 
 " Italian Republics," he utters in song the heroic 
 legend of Marenghi, who avenged his banishment 
 from Florence by burning a Pisan ship. 
 
 Winter was approaching, and Shelley left the 
 Villa dei Cappucini on the 5th November, 1818, 
 for the South of Italy. After two days' journey 
 by very bad roads, he arrived at Ferrara, and 
 recorded his admiration of the "true country of 
 Pasiphae," through which he had passed. He 
 afterwards remembered the little white oxen of 
 the plain of Ferrara, when he wrote his satirical 
 drama CEdipus, in which he places the English 
 Royal Pasiphae upon the stage. Ferrara, at the 
 time of Shelley's visit, was no longer the adven- 
 turous city of Ariosto ; but, although deserted and 
 melancholy, it had still preserved an air of 
 grandeur and magnificence, something fanciful, 
 too, which recalled its poetic memories. Shelley 
 visited the Cathedral, but was driven from it by 
 the importunity of the beggars, before he had 
 time to discover whether the fresco of the Last 
 Judgment is a copy or an original by Michael 
 Angelo;* and the famous Public Library, con- 
 taining 160,000 volumes, and immensely rich 
 in manuscripts and miniatures, "whose colours 
 
 * A superb inspiration of Bastianino after Michael Angelo. 
 
296 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 are as fresh as though they dated from yesterday." 
 The great attraction of Ferrara for Shelley lay in 
 the recollections of his brother poets, Ariosto and 
 Tasso. He pauses in deeply-moved contempla- 
 tion before the tomb of Ariosto, in one of the 
 great halls of the Library, surmounted by an 
 expressive bust of the poet, or before his arm-chair, 
 a common piece of furniture enough in walnut- 
 wood, picturing to himself Ariosto still sitting 
 there, the open book of " Satires " close at hand, 
 and the old inkstand aiding the living poet's 
 fancy. But nothing interests him so deeply as 
 the autograph manuscripts of the two poets ; the 
 Satires of Ariosto, and a manuscript of the Geru- 
 salemme Liberata, also some sonnets of Tasso's 
 to his persecutor. Shelley's mind, always in quest 
 of some manifestation beyond the present and 
 tangible object, seeks to divine the symbol of 
 their soul and their genius in these mute characters, 
 subjecting them to close examination and analysis. 
 He peruses those sonnets which Tasso wrote in 
 his prison — they are in praise of his tormentor, 
 and, moved by profound pity for the weakness 
 of the noble victim, he comprehends and pardons. 
 Shelley does not fail to visit the Hospital of 
 Saint Anne, in which is the prison "which for 
 seven years -and three months shut out that 
 glorious being from the air and the light, where 
 those poetic influences which he has communicated 
 to thousands of readers, were nurtured." In its 
 darkest corner he saw the mark of the chains, 
 fastened to the wall, by which his hands and feet 
 were bound. There, in his mind's eye, he beheld 
 the unfortunate poet ; his eyes fixed upon the 
 barred window, following with his despairing gaze 
 the beloved shadow of Leonora, towards the 
 tower of the palace, which is to be seen in the 
 distance. He piously detaches a morsel of the 
 wood of the real door of this dark and baneful 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 297 
 
 -prison, to be sent to his friend Peacock. Not 
 an instant's doubt has Shelley of the authenticity 
 of the hateful place ; he is not a critical and 
 sceptical traveller like Goethe, who saw nothing 
 in Tasso's prison but an ordinary coal-cellar, in 
 which he was assuredly never incarcerated, and 
 quotes on the occasion Luther's famous inkstain, 
 which is renewed from time to time, for the 
 satisfaction of credulous tourists. 
 
 From Ferrara, Shelley proceeded to Bologna, 
 ■where he arrived on the 8th November. Here, 
 Shelley ventured on the yet untrodden ground 
 •of art-criticism. Until the period of his travels 
 in Italy, he had been indifferent to the Fine Arts, 
 -with the exception of Sculpture ; but his mind 
 was too ardently fixed upon the search after the 
 Beautiful, to admit of his neglecting to pursue 
 it under all its forms. The Italian Museums had 
 awakened in him that insatiable curiosity which 
 made him observe in painting as well as in 
 statuary, " the laws according to which that ideal 
 beauty, of which we have in ourselves a perception 
 so intense and yet so obscure, is realised in out- 
 ward forms." He was not an amateur by 
 profession ; he was not a learned connoisseur ; 
 but he possessed what is worth more than 
 erudition and technical knowledge, that is to 
 say, natural taste and love of the beautiful, which 
 is its principle and its rule. He felt strongly and 
 keenly, and he expressed ardently what he felt; 
 in his descriptions of pictures there is freshness 
 and grace of sentiment, sincerity and truth of 
 impressions, which render marvellously the effect 
 of the work, and place it, so to speak, before 
 our eyes. In the tone, the keenness, and the 
 originality of his criticisms, he approaches the 
 great master of this kind of writing, our own 
 Diderot. 
 
 The two painters who strike him most in that 
 
29S SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 wonderful Bologna gallery, are Correggio and 
 Guide. He admires a picture representing " Four 
 Saints," by the former, "of exquisite execution,"^ 
 and especially a "Beatified Christ, of inexpres- 
 sible beauty," which gives him the highest idea 
 of the painter's genius. Above all, he admires 
 the vaporous and fluid light with which each 
 seems to be penetrated. Like Goethe, he is 
 enamoured of the divine genius of Guido, "who 
 ought never to have painted," he says, " anything 
 but that which is most perfect to behold, instead 
 of those dreadfully stupid subjects which no 
 amount of abuse can sufficiently stigmatise. On 
 this point Shelley thinks with Goethe, and would 
 willingly have endorsed the saying of the great 
 German pagan : " Faith has resuscitated the arts. 
 Superstition has laid hold on them and killed them 
 afresh." His favourites among the masterpieces 
 of Italian Art are heathen or allegorical subjects. 
 He remembers with delight Guido's " Rape of 
 Proserpine," "in which ^froserpine casts a languish- 
 ing, half-resigned look upon the flowers which 
 she leaves behind her in the fields of Enna." He 
 endeavours to convey this tender impression in 
 verse. Guido's "Victorious Samson" has, to his 
 mind, something of " the strength and elegance '* 
 of the Apollo; the picture of "Fortune " he regards 
 as " a work of true beauty." He also admires 
 the " Massacre of the Innocents " and " The Dying 
 Christ," but the first of these pictures strikes him 
 as a feeble rendering of so horrible a subject;, 
 and apropos of the second, although " very fine," 
 he says : " One grows tired, whatever may be 
 the conception and the execution of the subject, 
 of seeing that agonised and monotonous figure 
 eternally stereotyped in a prescribed attitude of 
 torture." He experiences a similar feeling on 
 contemplating Guercino's "St. Bruno," which repre- 
 sents to him the sublime of mystical horror. He 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 299. 
 
 could not admire the mannered and forced 
 method of Guercino. 
 
 Amid all these masterpieceSj Raffaelle's " Saint 
 Cecilia " delighted Shelley most : 
 
 You forget that it is a picture as you look at it .: and yet 
 it is most unlike any of those things which we call reality 
 It is of the inspired and ideal kind, and seems to have been 
 conceived and executed in a similar state of feeling to that 
 which produced among the ancients those perfect specimens 
 of poetry and sculpture which are the baffling models of 
 succeeding generations. There is a unity and a perfection 
 in it of an incommunicable kind. The central figure, St. 
 Cecilia, seems rapt in such inspiration as produced her image 
 in the poet's mind ; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes lifted up ; 
 her chestnut hair flung back from her forehead — she holds 
 an organ in her hands — her countenance as it were calmed 
 by the depth of its passion and rapture, and penetrated 
 throughout with the warm and radiant light of life. She is 
 listening to the music of heaven, and, as I imagine, has just 
 ceased to sing, for the four figures that surround her evidently 
 point, by their attitudes, towards her ; particularly St. John, 
 who with a tender yet impassioned gesture, bends his counte- 
 nance towards her, languid with the depth of his emotion. At 
 her feet lie various instruments of music, broken and unstrung. 
 Of the colouring I do not speak; it eclipses Nature, yet it has 
 all her charm and softness. 
 
 Remembering Shelley's extreme admiration 
 of the grace and charm of Raffaelle, Correggio, 
 and Gui(;lo, we cannot feel surprise at his verdict 
 on the grandj masculine, and severe style of 
 Michael Angelo, which he criticises, with reference 
 to his "Last Judgment," and estimates the painter 
 as the " Titus Andronicus " of his art : 
 
 With respect to Michael Angelo, I dissent, and think 
 with astonishment and indignation on the common notion 
 that he equals, and in some respects exceeds Raffaelle. He 
 seems to me to have no sense of moral dignity and loveli- 
 ness ; and the energy for which he has been so much 
 praised, appears to me to be a certain rude, external, 
 mechanical quality, in comparison with anything possessed 
 by Raffaelle, or even much inferior artists', flis famous 
 painting in the Sixtine Chapel seems to me deficient in 
 beauty and majesty, both in the conception and the execution. 
 
300 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 He has been called the Dante of painting ; but if we find 
 some of the gross and strong outlines which are employed 
 in the most distasteful passages of the "Inferno,' where shall 
 we find your Francesca — where the spirit coming over the 
 sea in a boat, like Mars rising from the vapours of the 
 horizon — where Matilda gathering flowers, and all the 
 exquisite tenderness, and sensibility, and ideal beauty, in 
 which Dante excelled all poets except Shakespeare ? 
 
 Shelley applied his axiom, sweet and strong, 
 to Art. To Shelley, Michael Angelo seemed the 
 type of strength or horror untempered by beauty ; 
 he only conceived strength either in contrast or 
 in union with grace, as in Leonardo da Vinci's 
 " Medusa," which inspired his beautiful lines begin- 
 ning: "Her horror and her beauty are divine. . . ." 
 There is one passage in a curious pamphlet by 
 Shelley on the Devil, wherein he tries to 
 account for his marked preference for painters 
 and poets who have devoted themselves to Beauty 
 rather than to Horror, to Grace rather than to 
 Strength : 
 
 Misery and injustice contrive to produce very poetical 
 effects, because the excellence of poetry consists in its 
 awakening the sympathy of men, which among persons 
 influenced by an abject and gloomy superstition, is much 
 more easily done by images of horror than of beauty. It 
 often requires a higher degree of skill in a poet to make 
 beauty, virtue, and harmony poetical, that is, to give them 
 an idealised and rhythmical analogy with the predominating 
 emotions of his readers — than to make injustice, deformity, 
 'and discord poetical. There are fewer Raffaelles than 
 Michael Angelos ; better verses have been written on Hell 
 than Paradise. How few read the " Purgatorio" or the 
 "Paradiso " of Dante, in comparison of those who know the 
 "Inferno" well!* 
 
 Moreover, Michael Angelo did not appear to 
 him to realise equally with Raffaelle the ideal of 
 
 * " On the Devil and Devils," a very amusing essay 
 written in the Lucianic manner, in which Shelley criticises 
 the conflicting opinions on the nature of the Devil, his 
 attributes, and his place of abode. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 301 
 
 Greek beauty, which is Shelley's standard for all 
 the conceptions of Art. The thought of the 
 vanished paintings of Greece, of the mutilations 
 suffered by the masterpieces of modern painters, 
 either from the Vandalism of " restoration " or 
 French bayonets, moves him to gloomy reflections 
 on the fragility and mortality of that fugitive art. 
 
 Sculpture retains its freshness for twenty centuries— the 
 Apollo and the Venus are as they were. But books are 
 perhaps the only productions of man coeval with the human 
 race. Sophocles and Shakespeare can be produced and 
 reproduced for ever. But the paintings of Zeuxis and Apelles 
 are no more, and perhaps they bore the same relation to 
 Homer and jEschylus, that those of Guido and Raffaelle bear 
 to Dante and Petrarch. 
 
 From Bologna, Shelley travels slowly to Rome, 
 by way of Rimini, Fano, Foligno, and the Via 
 Flaminia. He follows the course of the Metaurus,. 
 the banks of which were the scene of the defeat of 
 Asdrflbal, and perceives with astonishment that 
 the sides of the mountain through which the road 
 is carried, yet bear marks of the chisels of the 
 legionaries of Rome. At the romantically situated 
 town of Spoleto, he is full of admiration for a 
 colossal aqueduct, and a castle built by Belisarius 
 or Narses ; at Terni, the celebrated cataract of 
 Velino appears to him, after the glaciers of 
 Montanvert and the source of the Arveiron, one 
 of the grandest spectacles in the world. At 
 length he reaches the famous Campagna di Roma ; 
 he sees the Apennines on the one hand, on the 
 other St. Peter's and Rome ; " Rome, the capital of 
 a vanished world ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVI. . 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY — ROME AND NAPLES— 
 1818-1819. 
 
 Shelley reached Rome on November 20th, 1818; 
 on that occasion he did little more than glance at 
 the Eternal City, but even the superficial inspection 
 of the miracles of ancient Art produced on him an 
 impression that exceeded, he says, anything he 
 had ever experienced in his travels. He saw little 
 of modern Rome, visiting by preference the ruins 
 of the Coliseum, which appeared to him as sublime 
 and as impressive in its present state, as when it 
 was encrusted with Dorian marble, and ornamented 
 with columns of Egyptian granite ; and the Arch 
 of Titus, or rather of Constantine, " the Christian 
 reptile, who had crawled through the blood of his 
 murdered family to the supreme power." He 
 wandered in the desert of the ruins of the Forum, 
 strewn with the wrecks of temples which a great 
 nation once dedicated to the abstractions of the 
 mind ; he rested with pleasure on the green slope 
 of earth beneath the pyramidal tomb of Cestius 
 which is known as the English burial-place, and 
 where his own ashes were soon to rest. 
 
 " It is, I think, the most beautiful and solemn cemetery 
 I ever beheld," he writes, as though with a presentiment. 
 " To see the sun shining on its bright grass — fresh when we 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 303 
 
 first visited, with the autumnal dews — and hear the whisper- 
 ing of the wind among the leaves of the trees which have 
 overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring 
 in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of 
 women and young people who were buried there, one might, 
 if one were to die, desire the sleep they seem to sleep. Such 
 is the human mind ; and so it peoples with its wishes vacancy 
 and oblivion." 
 
 He was deeply impressed by the sight of the 
 Coliseum, and here, while Mary sketched the 
 ruined stairs, and little William sported beside her, 
 he began that historical and philosophical romance 
 of which the Coliseum was to be the subject and 
 the title.* 
 
 After a week given to the delights of Rome, 
 Shelley set out for Naples, where he purposed 
 passing the beginning of the winter. The frantic 
 terrors of a Lombard merchant and a Calabrian 
 priest, supplied the comedy of the journey. They 
 were in mortal fear of being assassinated when 
 travelling, before daylight, . through the Pontine 
 Marshes, and trembled at the pistol and the 
 intrepidity of the poet. The first incident he 
 witnessed on arriving at Naples was an assassina- 
 tion, but the beauties of Nature, and the glorious 
 marvels of Art, soon enabled him to forget the 
 hideousness and degradation of man. 
 
 He writes to Peacock (December 22nd) : 
 
 We have a lodging divided from the sea by the royal 
 gardens, and from our windows we see perpetually the blue 
 waters of the bay for ever changing, yet for ever the same, and 
 encompassed by the mountainous island of Capri, the lofty 
 peaks which overhang Salerno, and the woody hill of Posilipo, 
 whose promontories hide from us Misenum, and the lofty isle 
 of Inarime (Ischia), which, with its divided summit, forms the 
 opposite horn of the bay. From the pleasant walks of the 
 garden we see Vesuvius ; a smoke by day and a fire by night is 
 seen upon its summit, and the glassy sea often reflects its light 
 
 * A remarkable fragment of this tale, in which Shelley 
 ■draws his own portrait, has been published by Mr. Forman. 
 
304 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 or shadow. The climate is delicious. We sit without a fire 
 with the windows open, and have almost all the productions 
 of an English summer. The weather is usually like what 
 Wordsworth calls " the first fine day of March," sometimes 
 very much warmer, though perhaps it wants ' that " each 
 minute sweeter than before," which gives an intoxicating 
 sweetness to the awakening of the earth from its winter's 
 sleep in England. 
 
 Instead of guide-books, they read " Corinne," 
 Titus LiviuSj and Winckelmann. 
 
 The first excursions were to Baiae and 
 Vesuvius. On December 8th, Shelley visited with 
 lively emotion those classic spots called by Virgil 
 Puteolana et Cuniana regna : Posilipo j the Bay of 
 Pozzuoli, with its lofty rocks and craggy islets, its 
 arches and portals of precipice, and its enormous 
 caverns, which echoed faintly with the murmur of 
 the languid tide ; the Mare Morto ; the Avernus 
 and cavern of the Sibyl ; in fact, all the scenery of 
 the sixth book of the ".iEneid." He was, however, 
 somewhat disappointed to see how these places 
 had fallen from their mythological and Virgilian 
 beauty ; the Elysian Fields having become a vine- 
 yard, the Avernus having lost its deadly and 
 pestilential vapours, and the miserly Acheron, 
 under the name of Fusaro, being now employed 
 for soaking flax, and forming an excellent oyster- 
 bed. The land is covered with tombs and ruins, 
 the whole attraction of the scenery being due to 
 the effect of sea and sky; "the colours of the 
 water and the air breathe over all things here the 
 radiance of their own beauty." Nevertheless, he 
 admires the cavern of the Sibyl (not Virgil's Sibyl) 
 on Lake Avernus, the ruins of the temple of Pluto, 
 which are reflected in the windless mirror of a lovely 
 basin of water, surrounded by dark and profoundly 
 solitary hills ; and the broken columns of a temple 
 to Serapis at Pozzuoli. 
 
 Vesuvius is, next to the glaciers, the most 
 imposing exhibition of the energies of Nature that 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 305 
 
 Shelley had seen. We must quote his exquisite 
 description, which is worthy of a place beside 
 those of Goethe • and Chateaubriand : 
 
 It has not the immeasurable greatness, the overpowering 
 magnificence, nor above all, the radiant beauty of the glaciers, 
 but it has all their character of tremendous and irresistible 
 strength. From Resina to the hermitage you wind up the 
 .mountain, and cross a vast' stream of hardened lava, which 
 is an actual image of the waves of the sea, changed into 
 hard black stone by enchantment. The lines of the boiling 
 flood seem to hang in the air, and it is difficult to believe 
 that the billows which seem hurrying down upon you are not 
 -actually in motion. This plain was once a sea of liquid fire. 
 From the hermitage we crossed another vast stream of lava, 
 and then went on foot up the cone — this is the only part of 
 the ascent in which there is any difficulty, and that difficulty 
 has been much exaggerated. It is composed of rocks of 
 lava, and declivities of ashes ; by ascending the former and 
 •descending the latter, there is very little fatigue. On the 
 summit is a kind of irregular plain, the most horrible chaos 
 that can be imagined, riven into ghastly chasms, and heaped 
 up with tumuli of great stones and cinders, and enormous 
 rocks blackened and calcined, which had been thrown from 
 the volcano upon one another in terrible confusion. In the 
 midst stands the conical hill from- which volumes of smoke 
 and the fountains of liquid fire are rolled forth for ever. 
 The mountain is at present in a slight state of eruption ; and 
 a thickj'heavy white smoke is perpetually rolled out, inter- 
 rupted by enormous columns of an impenetrable black 
 bituminous vapour, which is hurled up, fold after fold, into 
 the sky with a deep hollow sound, and fiery stones are 
 rained down from its blackness, and a black shower of 
 ashes fell even where we sat. The lava, like the glacier, 
 ■creeps on perpetually, with a crackling sound as of sup- 
 pressed fire. There are several springs of lava ; and in one 
 place it gushes precipitously over a high crag, rolling down 
 the half-molten rocks, and its own overhanging waves ; a 
 cataract of quivering fire. We approached the extremity 
 of one of the rivers of lava ; it is about twenty feet in 
 breadth and ten in height ; and as the inclined plane was 
 not rapid, its motion was very slow. We saw the masses of 
 its dark exterior surface detach themselves as it moved, and 
 betray the depth of the liquid flame. In the day the fire is 
 but slightly seen ; you only observe a tremulous motion in 
 the air, and streams and fountains of white sulphurous 
 smoke. 
 
3o6 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 At length we saw the sun sink between Capre» and 
 Inarime, and, as the darkness increased, the effect of the fire- 
 became more beautiful. We were, as it were, surrounded by 
 streams and cataracts of the red and radiant fire ; and in the 
 midst, from the column of bituminous smoke shot up into the- 
 air, fell the vast masses of rock, white with the light of their 
 intense heat, leaving behind them, through the dark vapour, 
 trains of splendour. We descended by torchlight, and I 
 should have enjoyed the scenery on my return, but they con- 
 ducted me, I know not how, to the hermitage in a state of 
 intense bodily suffering, the worst effect of which was spoiling 
 the pleasure of Mary and Claire. Our guides on the occasion 
 were complete savages. You have no idea of the horrible 
 cries which they suddenly utter, no one knows why ; the 
 clamour, the vociferation, the tumult. Claire, in her palan- 
 quin, suffered most from it ; and when I had gone on before, 
 they threatened to leave her in the middle of the road, which 
 they would have done had not my Italian servant promised 
 them a beating, after which they became quiet. Nothing, 
 however, can be more picturesque than the gestures and the 
 physiognomies of these savage people. And when, in the 
 darkness of night, they unexpectedly begin to sing in chorus 
 some fragments of their wild but sweet national music, th& 
 effect is exceedingly fine. 
 
 In the intervals between these excursions 
 Shelley visited the museums of Naples, more 
 particularly the sculpture galleries, for the collec- 
 tion of paintings, says he, "is sufficiently miser- 
 able," * but : " Such statues ! There is a Venus,t 
 an ideal shape of the most winning loveliness ; a 
 Bacchus more sublime than any living being ; J a 
 Satyr, making love to a youth, in which the living 
 expression of the sculpture, and the inconceivable 
 beauty of the forrii of the youth, overcome one's 
 repugnance to the subject." 
 
 * Shelley excepted from this censure the original studies 
 by Michael Angelo of the " Day of Judgment," a few 
 pictures by Raffaelle and his pupils, a " Danae " of Titian's, 
 a " Maddelena " by Guido, and some excellent pictures, in. 
 point of execution, by Annibale Caracci ; " none others," 
 says he, " worth a second look." 
 
 t Most likely the Venus of Capua, attributed to Praxiteles, 
 and the original, it is said, of the Venus of Milo. 
 
 t Probably the Hermaphrodite Bacchus. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 307 
 
 We can easily imagine how deep an impression 
 on Shelley the ruins of Pompeii must have 
 produced ; he was astonished, having no conception 
 that anything so perfect could yet remain. From 
 the contemplation of its tombs, its stones, and its 
 paintings, his mind turned to the consideration of 
 the human life which once animated this desert of 
 ruins ; by the aid of its monuments he reconstructs 
 the spirit and the soul of the ancient city He 
 writes : 
 
 The houses have only one storey, and the apartments 
 though not large, are very lofty. A great advantage results 
 from this, wholly unknown in our cities. The public build- 
 mgs, whose ruins are now forests, as it were, of white fluted 
 columns, and which then supported entablatures loaded with 
 sculptures, were then seen on all sides over the roofs of the 
 houses. This was the excellence of the ancients. Their 
 private expenses were comparatively moderate ; the dwelling 
 of one of the chief senators of Pompeii is elegant indeed, and 
 adorned with most beautiful specimens of Art, but small. 
 But their public buildings are everywhere marked by the 
 bold and grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. In 
 the little town of Pompeii (it contained about twenty thousand 
 inhabitants) it is wonderful to see the number and the gran- 
 deur of their public buildings. Another advantage, too, is 
 that in the present case the glorious scenery around is not 
 shut out, and that, unlike the inhabitants of the Cimmerian 
 ravines of modem cities, the ancient Pompeians could con- 
 template the clouds and the lamps of Heaven ; could see the 
 moon rise high behind Vesuvius, and the sun set in the sea, 
 tremulous with an atmosphere of golden vapour, between 
 Inarime and Misenum. . . . 
 
 At the upper end, supported on an elevated platform, 
 stands the Temple of Jupiter. Under the colonnade of its 
 portico we sate, and pulled out our oranges, and figs, and 
 bread, and medlars (" sorry fare," you will say), and rested 
 to eat. Here was a magnificent spectacle. Above and 
 between the multitudinous shafts of the sun-shining columns 
 was seen the sea, reflecting the purple heaven of noon above 
 it, and supporting, as it were, on its line the dark, lofty 
 mountains of Sorrento, of a blue inexpressibly deep, and 
 tinged towards their summits with streaks of new-fallen 
 snow. Between was one small green island ; to the right 
 were Capreae, Inarime, Prochyta (Procida), and Misenum. 
 Behind was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling forth 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 volumes of thick white smoke, whose foam-like column was 
 sometimes darted into the clear dark sky, and fell in 
 little streaks along the wind. Between Vesuvius and the 
 nearer mountains, as through a chasm, was seen the main 
 line of the loftiest Apennines, to the east. The day was 
 radiant and warm. Every now and then we heard the 
 subterranean thunder of Vesuvius ; its distant deep peals 
 seemed to shake the very air and light of day, which inter- 
 penetrated our frames with the sullen and tremendous 
 sound. This scene was what the Greeks beheld (Pompeii 
 was, you know, a Greek city). They lived in harmony with 
 Nature, and the interstices of their incomparable columns 
 were portals, as it were, to admit the spirit of beauty which 
 animates this glorious universe to visit those whom it 
 inspired. If such is Pompeii, what was Athens ? What 
 scene was exhibited from the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and 
 the temples of Hercules, and Theseus, and the Winds ; 
 the islands of the vEgean Sea, the mountains of Argolis, and 
 the peaks of Pindus and Olympus, and the darkness of the 
 Boeotian forests interspersed ? 
 
 Shelley draws likewise much solemn instruction 
 from the tombs which rise on either side of the 
 Consular road, and which resemble " not so much 
 hiding-places for that which must decay, as volup- 
 tuous chambers for immortal spirits." 
 
 "These tombs," he writes, "are the most impressive 
 things of all. The wild woods surround them on either 
 side, and along the broad stones of the paved road which 
 divides them you hear the late leaves of autumn shiver and ■ 
 rustle in the stream of the inconstant wind, as it were like 
 the steps of ghosts. The radiance and magnificence of 
 these dwellings of the dead, the white freshness of the 
 scarcely finished marble, the impassioned or imaginative 
 life of the figures which adorn them, contrast strangely with 
 the simplicity of the houses of those who were living when 
 Vesuvius overwhelmed them. 
 
 " I have forgotten the amphitheatre, which is of great 
 magnitude, though much inferior to the Coliseum. I now 
 understand why the Greeks were such great poets ; and, 
 above all, I can account, it seems to me, for the harmony, 
 the unity, the perfection, the uniform excellence of all their 
 works of Art. They lived in a perpetual commerce with 
 external Nature, and nourished themselves upon the spirit of 
 its forms. Their theatres were all open to the mountains 
 and the sky. Their columns, the ideal types of a sacred 
 forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery, admitted the light 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 309 
 
 and wind ; the odour and the freshness of the country pene- 
 trated the cities. Their temples were mostly upaithric ; and 
 the flying clouds, the stars, or the deep sky, were seen 
 above. Oh, but for that series of wretched wars, which 
 terminated in the Roman conquest of the world ; but for the 
 Christian religion, which put the finishing strokes on the 
 ancient system ; but for those changes that conducted 
 Athens to its ruin, to what an eminence might not humanity 
 have arrived ! " 
 
 Under the stress of such emotions as these, and 
 the influence of a ch'mate to which he was so 
 unaccustomed, Shelley's strength was soon spent. 
 He felt himself unable to follow up his poetical 
 enterprises. He writes in his letter to Peacock of 
 January 26th, 18 19: "Oh, if I had health, and 
 strength, and equal spirits, what boundless intel- 
 lectual improvement might I not gather in this 
 wonderful country!" He writes but little; and 
 while completing the first act of " Prometheus," con- 
 ceives the plan of a great moral and political work, 
 in which he will embody the discoveries of all ages, 
 and endeavour to harmonise the contending creeds 
 by which mankind has been ruled. His restless 
 thoughts, beneath the fiery sky of Naples, depress 
 and crush him ; he realises with despair the im- 
 potence of his efforts and of his dreams ; he falls 
 into a mental and physical lassitude which is all 
 the harder to bear because he "finds not any 
 heart to share in his emotion." It was at this 
 epoch that he wrote those poems, filled with a 
 deep and intense melancholy, in which he asks 
 from poetry consolation and the power to forget ; 
 such as the "Lines on a Faded .Violet," the 
 despairing " Sonnet," in which, recalling the en- 
 thusiasm with which he had attempted to lift " the 
 painted veil called Life," and his disappointments, 
 having found none to love, nothing earthly capable 
 of satisfying him, he compares himself to 
 
 A splendour among shadows, a bright blot 
 Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove 
 For truth, and, like the Preacher, found it not. 
 
3IO SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 But above all, we must read the " Stanzas written 
 in dejection near Naples," if we would form a just 
 idea of Shelley's depression and discouragement at 
 this period. With Shelley, however, despair was 
 never bitter ; it is always mingled with resignation 
 and calm ; there is a smile even in his tears ; he 
 neither curses nor hates. He has no anger against 
 Destiny who has poured out for him so bifter a 
 cup ; he finds a charm even in his melancholy, and 
 like a tired child he could lie down and wait till 
 deathlike sleep might steal upon his senses; he 
 will still bear his life of anguish until he feels his 
 cheek grow cold in the warm air, until he hears 
 the sea breathe o'er his dying brain its last 
 monotony. One cannot refrain, when reading this 
 heart-rending poem, from thinking of Christ's 
 agony in the Garden of Olives. Shelley finds con- 
 solation in the idea that mankind will lament him, 
 " for I am one," he says, " whom men love not, 
 and yet regret;" and where shall we find words 
 more touching than these of the poet-lover of 
 humanity who pardons his fellows for having been 
 indifferent to him during life, because he hopes 
 that they will regret, him after death? It is as 
 beautiful as the cry of Jesus: "Forgive them, 
 Father ! they know not what they do ! " 
 
 These Neapolitan " Stanzas " are to be com- 
 pared only with the poem entitled " Misery," 
 which was inspired by similar sentiments. In a 
 fragment written earlier called " Death," he draws 
 Misery as seated near an open grave, and he calls 
 upon his " sweetest friend," to dry her tears and 
 be consoled; now he takes up and develops the 
 same subject. Misery, here, is not only his 
 " sweetest friend," but his sister, his beloved, whom 
 he invites to " the bridal bed, beneath the grave," 
 to caresses and " dreadful transports," which will 
 fade away like a vapour in the sleep that lasts for 
 ever. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 311 
 
 Shelley concealed with care these effusions from 
 Tier who shared his work and pleasure ; yet in spite 
 of himself they revealed themselves. He reproached 
 himself for thus betraying the discontent and sad- 
 ness of his soul, and so unjustly wounding the 
 heart of his beloved Mary, who only, as he said, 
 would have had the right of complaining that she 
 had not been able to extinguish in him even the 
 faculty of describing sorrow. Mary, however, did 
 not complain ; but she suffered, and guessed at the 
 secret wound her poet hid from her. "There is 
 one," she writes in her " Biographical Notes," " who 
 looks back with unspeakable regret and gnawing 
 remorse to such periods, fancying that had one 
 been more alive to the nature of his feelings, and 
 more attentive to soothe them, such would not 
 have existed ; and yet, enjoying as he seemed to 
 -enjoy, the sweet influences of earth and sky, it was 
 difficult to believe that his melancholy was 
 produced by other causes than the continual' 
 sufferings which made of him a martyr." 
 
 The deep dejection and despair ; words so 
 precise as those in the third strophe of the 
 •" Stanzas : " 
 
 Alas ! I have nor hope nor health. 
 
 Nor peace within, nor calm around, . . . 
 
 . . . Nor fame, . . . nor love, . . . 
 
 would be difficult to explain, as we have already 
 insinuated, without taking into account some 
 extraordinary moral cause, such as that to which 
 Shelley himself attributes them in the narrative 
 given by Medwin of his connection with the 
 beautiful unknown lady who followed him to 
 Naples, and there died. 
 
 After having visited the Lago d'Agniano, and 
 the notorious G|etto del Cane, where Shelley 
 would not allow the tortures of the unfortunate 
 dogs when exposed to the fatal vapours of the 
 
3T2 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 cave to be exhibited before him ; Salerno and 
 its magnificent scenery ; Faestum with its sub- 
 lime colonnades and ruined temples, which ap- 
 peared to him "as in the shadow of some half- 
 remembered dream," the poet left Naples at the 
 end of February, 1819, to return to Rome. 
 
 He travelled slowly, resting one day at Mola 
 di Gaeta, at the inn called the " Villa di Cicerone," 
 from being built on the ruins of the ancient villa, 
 in the midst of orange and citron groves ; and 
 at Terracina, where he admired the high conical 
 crags, the Anxur rocks sung by Horace. At 
 Albano he arrived again in sight of Rome : 
 " Arches after arches in unending lines stretching 
 across the uninhabited wilderness, the blue de- 
 fined line of the mountains seen between them ; 
 masses of nameless ruin standing like rocks out 
 of the plain ; and the plain itself, with 'its 
 billowy and unequal surface, announced the 
 neighbourhood of Rome." 
 
 At Rome, Shelley's first enthusiasm for the 
 grand ruins of that vast necropolis awoke anew. 
 He was never tired of revisiting the Coliseum^ 
 the monuments of the Forum, the colossal statues 
 of Castor and Pollux, the Arch of Constantine 
 of which the gigantic bas-reliefs, " expressing 
 that mixture of force and crime which is called 
 a Triumph," gave him the idea of his poem, the 
 "Triumph of Life," which death interrupted. 
 But the ruins which he takes most pleasure in 
 describing, because they are daily the witnesses 
 of his thought, and in some measure the sources, 
 of his inspiration, are the Thermae of Caraealla. 
 It was here that he composed the greater part 
 of the " Prometheus Unbound," " among the 
 flowery lawns, the copses of odorously blossom- 
 ing trees which clothe the tortuous labyrinths 
 of this immense platform, ancf- the arches sus- 
 pended in mid-air which give vertigo." 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 313 
 
 Modern Rome was far from arousing in 
 Shelley the same interest as ancient Rome. He 
 would have seen modern Italy vanish without 
 any great regret ; he was always painfully struck 
 with the contrast between the moral degra- 
 dation of the people, and the glorious beauty 
 of Nature and Art. He could not endure to 
 see St. Peter's, because of the fettered convicts 
 in parti-coloured clothes who stand in the square, 
 hoeing out the weeds that grow between the 
 stones of the pavement : 
 
 Near them, sit or saunter groups of soldiers armed with 
 loaded muskets. The iron discord of those innumerable 
 chains clanks up with the sonorous air and produces, con- 
 trasted with the musical splashing of the fountains, and the 
 deep azure beauty of the sky, and tfie magnificence of the 
 architecture around, a conflict of sensations allied to madness. 
 
 To the sinister clank of chains must be added 
 the noisy acclamations of "Viva Napoleone ! " 
 which greeted the Emperor of Austria and Maria 
 Louisa. Such are men in fair Italy ! Idiots 
 and slaves ! However, the Romans pleased him 
 much, especially the women, whom he excepts 
 from the prejudiced and unfavourable judgment 
 he passes on the Italians : 
 
 The Roman women, though totally devoid of every kind 
 of information, or culture of the imagination, or affections, 
 or understanding — and in this respect a kind of gentle 
 savages — yet contrive to be interesting. Their extreme 
 innocence and naivet'e, the freedom and gentleness of their 
 manners, the total absence of affectation, make an inter- 
 course with them very like an intercourse with uncorrupted. 
 children, whom they resemble in loveliness as well as sim- 
 plicity. I have seen two women in society here of the highest 
 beauty ; their brows and hps, and the moulding of the face 
 modelled with sculptural exactness, and the dark luxuriance 
 of their hair, floating over their fine complexions — and the 
 lips— you must hear the commonplaces which escape from 
 them before they cease to be dangerous. The only inferior 
 part are the eyes, which, though good and gentle, want the 
 
.314 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 mazy depth of colour behind colour with which the Intellectual 
 women of England and of Germany entangle the heart in 
 soul-inwoven labyrinths. 
 
 The feeling of contempt which modern Italy 
 inspired in Shelley, reveals itself in his letters 
 by the curious criticisms he passed on the monu- 
 ments of Christian and Papal Art. Thus St. 
 Peter's appears to him much inferior in archi- 
 tectural beauty to St. Paul's ; while " internally 
 it exhibits littleness on a large scale^ and is in 
 every respect opposed to antique taste."* On 
 the other hand the Pantheon, though not a fourth 
 part of the size, is "the visible image of the 
 universe." The idea of magnitude is swallowed 
 up and lost in the perfection of its proportions, 
 as when you regard the unmeasured dome of 
 heaven. 
 
 The ceremonies of Holy Week, celebrated in 
 the year 1818 with more than ordinary pomp 
 on account of the presence of the Emperor of 
 Austria, were matters of indifference to Shelley. 
 Nevertheless, on his way home one day from a 
 visit to the Coliseum, he was present at the Wash- 
 ing of the Pilgrims' Feet, and also the distribution 
 of macaroni by the Cardinals to the hungry 
 beggars. On Easter Sunday he admired the 
 illuminations of the Cupola and the fireworks at 
 the Castle of St. Angelo, which exhibited an 
 additional set-piece representing the Mausoleum 
 of Hadrian. 
 
 Shelley at Rome, as elsewhere, went very 
 little into society. The Italians had no attrac- 
 tion for him ; and in Mary Shelley's letters 
 but one single Italian lady is mentioned, the 
 Signora Marianna Dionigi, painter, antiquary, and 
 authoress, at whose conversazioni all the authors 
 
 * He admits, however, that its colonnade, its palace-like 
 facade, and the rest of the Square form an " architectural 
 •combination unequalled in the world." 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 315 
 
 and artists were to be found. On the other 
 hand Shelley met some distinguished fellow- 
 countrymen at Rome such as Lord Guilford, Sir 
 William Drummond, whom he esteemed highly 
 as a thinker, and Miss Curran, daughter of the 
 Irish Master of the Rolls; this lady had some 
 skill in painting, and becoming a friend of the 
 family, attempted the portraits of Shelley, of 
 Mary, of Claire, and of little William (May, 
 1819). 
 
 Rome was to be for Shelley, as he himself 
 called it, both Paradise and the tomb. 
 
 The last moments of his stay in the Eternal 
 City were profoundly saddened by the death. of 
 his beloved little William, who was carried off 
 after an illness of a few days (June 7th). Shelley 
 had watched during sixty hours of agony with- 
 out closing his eyes. "We suffered terrible 
 grief when at Rome," writes Mary, " with re- 
 gard to our eldest boy, who, for his beauty and 
 promise, was our hearts' idol. We left the 
 capital of the world, impatient to quit for a 
 time scenes too closely connected with his pre- 
 sence and his loss." Shelley was now childless; 
 of his five children not one remained. 
 
 This blow struck him so sorely that he 
 thought he would never recover any cheer- 
 fulness again. His grief expressed itself in 
 some pathetic lines to his "Lost William," no 
 longer there to fill the home with his smiles. 
 William was buried in the Protestant cemetery, 
 already so poetically described in the letter to 
 Peacock, and where his father was so soon to 
 join him. 
 
 The poet in his grief thought of quitting 
 Rome and Italy, that had robbed him of all he 
 held most dear, and of returning to England. 
 The child's death had had a terrible effect on 
 his health, and the doctors spoke of sending 
 
3l6 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 him to Africa or Spain ; he decided, however, 
 to remain in Italy, and went with Mary to 
 Leghorn, to seek consolation near their kind 
 friends the Gisbornes. 
 
 He took with him, as the most precious result 
 of the inspiration of Rome, the three first acts 
 of his " Prometheus." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY — LEGHORN AND FLORENCE 
 — "THE CENCI" — " PETER BELL THE THIRD " 
 — "PROMETHEUS UNBOUND" — 1819. 
 
 "The year 1819," says Mr. Dowden, "was 
 Shelley's annus mirabilis, and in one year to 
 have created such poems as the ' Prometheus ' 
 and ' The Cenci,' is an achievement without 
 parallel in English poetry since Shakespeare lived 
 and wrote." 
 
 The month of June, 18 19, found Shelley in- 
 stalled in the Villa Valsovano, between Leghorn 
 and Monte Nero. The villa was a little country 
 house set down in the centre of a grassy farm. 
 A roofed and glazed terrace at the top of the 
 house served Shelley as his study. 
 
 He writes to Peacock on July 6th : 
 
 I have here a study in a tower, something like Scy- 
 throp's,* where I am just beginning to recover the faculties 
 of reading and writing. My health, whenever no Libecchio 
 blows, improves. From my tower I see the sea, with its 
 islands, Gorgona, Capraja, Elba, and Corsica on one side, 
 and the Apennines on the other. 
 
 * Scythrop is the hero of Peacock's novel, " Nightmare 
 Abbey," which Shelley had just received and read as a 
 palliative for his melancholy. 
 
3l8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 It was in this tower that, within the space 
 of three months, he wrote the tragedy of "The 
 Cenci." 
 
 " Shelley had often incited me," Mary writes, "to attempt 
 the writing a tragedy ; he conceived that I- possessed some 
 dramatic talent," of which he most erroneously believed 
 himself to be destitute. " He believed that one of the first 
 requisites was the capacity of forming or following up a 
 story or a plot. He fancied himself to be defective in this 
 portion of imagination ; it was that which gave him least 
 pleasure in the writings of others. . . . He asserted that he 
 was too metaphysical and abstract, too fond of the theoretical 
 and the ideal, to succeed as a tragedian. 
 
 " The subject he had suggested (to me) for a tragedy 
 was Charles I., and he had written to me, ' Remember, 
 remember Charles I. I have been already imagining how 
 you would conduct some scenes. The second volume of 
 " St. Leon " * begins with the proud and true sentiment, 
 "There is nothing which the human mind can conceive 
 which it may not execute." Shakespeare was only a human 
 being.' 
 
 " These words were written in 1818, while we were in 
 Lombardy, when he little thought how soon a work of his 
 own would prove a proud comment on the passage he 
 quoted. When in Rome in 1819, a friend put into our hands 
 the old manuscript account of the story of the Cenci. We 
 visited the Colonna and Doria palaces, where the portraits 
 of Beatrice were to be found ; and her beauty cast the 
 reflection of its own grace over her appalling story. Shelley's 
 imagination became strongly excited, and he urged the 
 subject to me as one fitted for a tragedy. More than ever 
 I felt my incompetence, but I entreated him to write it 
 instead ; and he began, and proceeded swiftly, urged on by 
 intense sympathy with the sufferings of the human beings 
 whose passions, so long cold in the tomb, he revived, and 
 gifted with poetic language. This tragedy is the only one of 
 his works that he communicated to me during its progress. 
 We talked over the arrangement of its scenes together. I 
 speedily saw the great mistake he had made as to the bent 
 of his genius. . . . 
 
 " Shelley wished 'The Cenci' to be acted. He was not a, 
 playgoer, being of such fastidious taste that he was easily 
 disgusted by the bad fiUing-up of the secondary parts. 
 While preparing for our departure from England, however, 
 
 * A novel of Godwin's, highly esteemed by Shelley. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 319- 
 
 he saw Miss O'Neil several times. She was then in the 
 zenith of her glory, and Shelley was deeply moved by her 
 impersonation of several parts, and by the graceful sweet- 
 ness, the intense pathos, and the sublime vehemence of 
 passion she displayed. She was often in his thoughts as he 
 wrote ; and when he had finished, he became anxious that 
 his tragedy should be acted, and receive the advantage of 
 having this accomplished actress to fill the part of heroine." 
 
 "The Cenci" was, in fact, a strong effort on 
 Shelley's part to leave the poetry of meta- 
 physics and abstractions to which his genius 
 inclined him, and to enter on the field of drama, 
 which is both human and popular. Has he suc- 
 ceeded ? It would be the greatest mistake to 
 imagine that in "The Cenci" there is an ordi- 
 nary tragedy which in any way recalls classical 
 tragedy or historical drama, such as it is in the 
 works of the dramatists who preceded Shelley. 
 His original genius could not restrict itself to a 
 settled conventional form, and in approaching the 
 stage, he was to inaugurate an entirely personal 
 conception of dramatic style, in a work that has- 
 nothing in common with any which preceded or 
 followed it.* " The Cenci " stands all alone and 
 separate in the history of the theatre ; it has 
 no models, and still less any imitators. Once 
 again, and .despite his efforts to forget himself, 
 and think only of the effect he desired to pro- 
 duce, Shelley has created his own image in the 
 person of Beatrice. " It is," as De Quincey has 
 said, ''the strife between darkness and light in 
 the story of the Cenci which fascinated Shelley." 
 The two principal characters, the incestuous father 
 and his daughter — the gentle yet indomitable 
 Beatrice — are- not so much human beings as living 
 and moving abstractions, ideal and superhuman 
 
 * In M. Sarrazin's " Pofetes Modernes de I'Angleterre,"' 
 the remarkable chapter devoted to a critique on "The Cenci" 
 will be read with interest ; also Mr. Swinburne's beautiful 
 preface to Madame Tola Dorian's translation of this tragedy.. 
 
320 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 personifications of the two powers which Shelley 
 delighted to pit against each other in all his 
 poetical works ; on one side, in the person of 
 Cenci, the strength and the fatality of evil; on 
 the other, that of Beatrice — as he had already 
 shown in Cythna — of all that is most feeble and 
 fragile, the soul of a young girl, resisting that 
 fatality, and triumphing over it by death and 
 martyrdom. The circumstance of incest was in 
 Shelley's eyes only an accessory circumstance 
 which furnished him with the story, and served 
 to bring out the abuses of domestic tyranny 
 with still greater horror to those prejudiced 
 against social impropriety. The Bible, Greece 
 with the "CEdipus," and Calderon, were his 
 authorities for putting upon the stage an irregu- 
 larity (punished and expiated by murder) to which 
 he attached in his own mind only a conventional 
 criminality, and a purely poetical value. In one 
 of his letters, he propounds a curious theory 
 on this subject, which proves that he was more 
 engrossed, during the composition of " The Cenci," 
 with Calderon than Mary is willing to admit in 
 the passage cited above. He says, referring to one 
 of the tragedies of this great writer, Absalom's 
 Hair : " It is a piece full of the deepest and 
 tenderest touches of nature." 
 
 The incest scene of " Amon and Tamar " is perfectly tre- 
 mendous.* Incest is, like many other incorrect things, a 
 very poetical ci rcumstance! It may De the excess ot love 
 or "^hafp. It may B6 the deflance of everythmg for^ 
 ■ sake of another, which clothes itselt m tne ffiory ot the , 
 falsest heroism, or it may be that cynical rage which , 
 rrinfniinr^ ^ng^ tufi g-gnn ana fti? Daa in existing opinions, 
 b reaks ftv^^Pgh them for th epurpose oi noting m seinsnnes s 
 api-aaUpatiy; Calderon]^ following ttie J ewifeh historians, 
 has represented Amon's action in the basest point of view 
 — he is a prejudiced savage acting what he abhors, and 
 abhorring that which is the unwiUing party to his crime. 
 
 * A translation of this scene will be found in the Appendix. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 321 
 
 Notwithstanding Peacock's objections to " The 
 Cenci " — he considered the subject too bold, and 
 referred the author to Dryden's " CEdipus," also 
 to the "Mirra" of Alfieri— Shelley, encouraged 
 by his friends at Leghorn, had two hundred and 
 fifty copies of the play printed in Italy, and 
 sent one to Peacock that he might offer it to 
 Mr. Harris for Covent Garden. Harris declined 
 it, and would not even offer the role of Beatrice 
 to Miss O'Neil, but promised that if the poet 
 would write another tragedy on another subject, 
 he would willingly accept it. 
 
 The success of " The Cenci " with the reading 
 public was such as Shelley was little accustomed 
 to. Two editions appeared during his lifetime. 
 
 The Shelley Society has made reparation for 
 the error of Mr. Harris and his contemporaries. 
 Under its auspices "The Cenci" was played 
 by the best actors in London in 1886, and an 
 audience composed of the most distinguished 
 persons' in art and literature applauded the 
 tragedy, to which the England of 18 19 had pre- 
 ferred — -to the displeasure of Byron himself — 
 "Marino Faliero." 
 
 The delights of Scythrop's tower do riot, how- 
 ever, prevent Shelley from casting longing looks 
 towards England. He writes to Peacock on the 
 22nd August, 1819 : 
 
 I most devoutly wish that I were living near London^ 
 I do not think I shall settle so far off as Richmond ; and 
 to inhabit any intermediate spot on the Thames would 
 be to expose myself to the river damps, not to mention that 
 it is not much to my taste. My inclinations point to 
 Hampstead ; but I do not know whether I should not make 
 up my mind to something more completely suburban. 
 What are mountains, trees, heaths, or even the glorious 
 or ever beautiful sky, with such sunsets as I have seen 
 at Hampstead, to friends ? Social enjoyment in some 
 form or other is the Alpha and Omega of existence. 
 All that I see in Italy — and from my tower window 
 I now see the magnificent peaks of the Apennines half 
 
 Y 
 
322 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 enclosing the plain — is nothing ; it dwindles into smoke 
 in the mind, when I think of some familiar forms of scenery^ 
 little, perhaps, in themselves, over which old remembrances 
 have thrown a delightful colour. How we prize what we 
 despised when present ! So the ghosts of our dead associa- 
 tions rise and haunt us, in revenge for our having let them 
 starve, and abandoned them to perish. . . . 
 
 I have been much better these last three weeks. My 
 work on " The Cenci," which was done in two months, was a 
 fine antidote to nervous medicines, and kept up, I think, 
 the pain in njy side as sticks do a fire. Since then I have 
 materially improved. I do not walk enough. Claire, who 
 is sometimes my companion, does not dress in exactly the 
 right time. I have no stimulus to walk. Now I go some- 
 times to Leghorn on business, and that does me good. . . . 
 
 I have been reading Calderon in Spanish. A kind of 
 Shakespeare is this Calderon ; and I have some thoughts, 
 if I find that I cannot do anything better, of translating 
 some of his plays. 
 
 The particular business which took Shelley 
 oftenest to Leghorn was the project of con- 
 structing a steamboat, in which Henry Reveley. 
 then took a great interest. The poet was ambi- 
 tious of being the first to put a steamboat on 
 the Mediterranean which should regularly ply 
 between Leghorn, Genoa, and Marseilles, and 
 Shelley devoted all his accustomed energy and 
 enthusiasm to this enterprise ; he took the most 
 vivid interest in the designs, and advanced the 
 requisite sums, making over to the young engineer 
 all the profits, and reserving for himself the glory 
 of success — or the shame of failure. 
 
 "Well, how goes on all?" he writes on October 28th, to 
 Henry Reveley ; " the boilers, the keel of the boat, and the 
 cylinder, and all the other elements of that soul which is to 
 guide, our 'monstruo de fuego y agua' over tlie sea? . . 
 Your boat will be to the ocean of water what this earth is to 
 the ocean of aether — a prosperous and swift voyager." 
 
 Unluckily, a few months later the departure of 
 the Gisbornes for England put a stop to these 
 attractive schemes. Shelley found his only con^ 
 solation in going to contemplate the steamboat 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 323 
 
 "asleep under the walls," where he was afraid, 
 ;he said, to waken it, for the same reason that he 
 would have feared to awaken Ariadne after Theseus 
 had left her — unless he himself had been Bacchus. 
 Soon after (September, 18 19), Shelley left the 
 Villa Valsovano, to the regret of all his Leghorn 
 friends, even of Oscar the house-dog, who was 
 inconsolable at his departure. He was attracted 
 by Florence, the capital of the fine arts, and 
 would have remained there longer only for the 
 wind from the Apennines, which he found both 
 unpleasant and insalubrious. But a great joy 
 came to him at Florence : the birth (November 
 1 2th, 18 19) of another son, who was christened 
 on January 2Sth, 1820, receiving the names of 
 Percy Florence. 
 
 During his sojourn of a few months at Florence, 
 there was seldom a day in which he did not visit 
 its picture galleries, and especially its sculptures : 
 " There, amid the varied creations of Greek Art, 
 he rested from his most arduous labours. The 
 
 ■* Niobe,' the 'Venus Anadyomene,' the ' Bacchus 
 and Ampelus,' were objects of his most un- 
 wearied admiration. I have heard him expatiate 
 on the subject," says Medwin, " with all the 
 
 eloquertce of a poet. He had made ample notes 
 
 on the wonderful masterpieces of the Gallery, 
 from which he allowed me to mdke extracts which 
 
 surpass in eloquence anything that Winckelmann 
 
 lias written on the subject." 
 
 Shelley's letters at this period are full of the 
 
 artistic enthusiasm with which "h^ drank the spirit" 
 
 of those marvellous forms of antique sculpture. 
 
 "All worldly thoughts and cares,'' he wrote, "seem to 
 vanish from before the sublime emotions such spectacles 
 •create ; and I am deeply impressed with the great difference 
 of happiness enjoyed by those who live at a distance from 
 these incarnations of all that the finest minds have conceived 
 •of beauty, and those who can resort to their company at 
 pleasure. What should we think if we were forbidden to read 
 the great writers who have left us their works ? " 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 It was during that period of mental intoxi- 
 cation, that at Delesert's reading-room in Florence, 
 on one of the early days of October, he came across 
 a late number of the Quarterly Review, in which 
 he had been told he should find the famous article 
 on " Laon and Cythna," and be much amused 
 thereby. The grotesque anathemas of the chaste 
 Reviewer did, in fact, move him to convulsive 
 laughter. The article, a very bitter one, was at 
 first attributed by Shelley to Southey, but it was 
 in fact the production of a former Eton school- 
 fellow, John Taylor Coleridge. From criticism 
 of the author, the Reviewer passed to censure on 
 the man : 
 
 He is too young, too ignorant, too vicious, to reform any 
 other world than the little world of his own heart. If we- 
 might withdraw the veil of private life, and tell all we know 
 about the writer, it would be indeed a disgusting picture that 
 we should exhibit ; but it would be an unanswerable comment, 
 to our text, for it is not easy for those who read only, to con- 
 ceive how much low selfishness, how much unmanly cruelty, 
 are consistent with the laws of this universal and lawles's love.*" 
 
 Such drivel coul'd not affect Shelley. His was 
 a soul inaccessible to self-love, but full of grief 
 and indignation at the sufferings and wretched- 
 ness of his fellow-beings, his fellow countrymen. 
 
 He had continued, in Italy, to watch the 
 course of events and politics in England. The- 
 news of the " Manchester Massacre " (August i6th, , 
 1819), "that piece of bloodthirsty and murderous 
 oppression," he likens to " the distant thunders of 
 the terrible storm which is approaching. The. 
 
 * Hunt warmly defended his friend in the Examiner, 
 and the famous Wilson contributed an article to the January 
 number oiBlackwoods Magazine, in which he compared the 
 Quarterly Reviewer to a dunce rating a man of genius : ''It 
 is impossible to read a page of his ' Revolt of Islam,' without 
 perceiving that in nerve and pith of conception he approaches 
 more nearly to Scott and Byron than any other of their con- 
 temporaries." 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 323 
 
 tyrants here, as in the French Revolution, have 
 first shed blood. May their execrable lessons not 
 be learnt with equal docility. . . . What is to be 
 done.' Something, assuredly." 
 
 All that was in his power was to take up the 
 lyre, and in Pindaric odes express his indigna- 
 tion and patriotism. It was now that he wrote 
 his Revolutionary songs — some in burning 
 stanzas and of visionary vengeance, as in the 
 " Mask of Anarchy," the " Ode to Liberty," the 
 " God save the Queen " ; others in the form of the 
 bitterest, most withering political satire that ever 
 scourged nations, kings, and Ministers, viz. the 
 admirable Sonnet on " England in 1819" ; "Lines 
 ■written during the Administration of Lord Castle- 
 reagh " ; " Similes of Two Political Characters," 
 and, above all, his incomparable "Song to the 
 Men of England," the most eloquent and pathetic 
 ■commentary ever written on the Sic vos non vobis 
 •of Virgil. 
 
 No^better idea of the versatility of Shelley's 
 genius can be gained than by comparing these 
 -diatribes of Juvenal-like wrath and bitterness, 
 with his masterpieces of humorous and burlesque 
 ■satire, such as " Peter Bell the Third " and " Swell- 
 foot the Tyrant." " The Cenci " brought us close 
 to the " Qidipus " of Sophocles ; but these are 
 near to Aristophanes. 
 
 " Peter Bell*the Third " is an ideally perfect 
 satire on literary apostasy, and in particular on 
 the apostasy of Wordsworth. 
 
 At the commencement of the French Revolu- 
 tion, Wordsworth had been among those English- 
 men whom the awakening of Liberty had filled 
 with fire and enthusiasm. 
 
 He had dreamed of inaugurating a youthful, 
 human, equalising poesy, which should put an end 
 to the reign of the conventional, and the vapidity 
 ■of traditional and classic poetry, which should 
 
326 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET.. 
 
 force the lowliest and most familiar realities intO' 
 the mould of verse ; a revolution in both thought 
 and Art analogous to that which Madame de Stael 
 desired for France in 1789. Wordsworth worked 
 all his life long at this revolution, but he soon 
 departed from the generous feelings that had 
 inspired his purpose, and Talone could give it 
 warmth, vitality, and durability. He withdrew 
 into himself, and gave up his humanitarian visions ;. 
 the triumph of despotic power and the Conservative 
 reaction threw him into the camp of the most 
 determined upholders of established institutions ; 
 and even so far back as 1809 he had become so 
 shameless a pervert as to write his " Pamphlet 
 on the Capitulation of Cintra," in which he re- 
 proached Pitt for not making war upon France 
 more vigorously. 
 
 In 1818, Wordsworth, who had become the- 
 " bard " of the Established Church, published two 
 Addresses to the Liberals of Westmoreland in 
 favour of the Conservatives, thus, by dint of 
 flattery and servility to the reigning power, estab- 
 lishing his claims to the post of Poet Laureate, in 
 which he, in fact, succeeded Southey in 1843. 
 
 Shelley, from his earliest boyhood, had been a. 
 passionate admirer of Wordsworth. Many in- 
 tellectual and literary sympathies attracted him 
 to a school of poetry which was essentially 
 personal, sentimental, and dreamy, and which 
 invested all the phenomena of the universe with 
 meaning ; he forgave Wordsworth for what was 
 "drowsy and frowzy" in him, as Byron called it, his 
 puerile inventions, and his dull prosing, for the 
 sake of the moral and emotional idealism through 
 which the solitary poet of Mount Rydal contem- 
 plated and vivified Nature. More than one trace 
 may be found in Shelley's works of the influence 
 of that poet who was moved by the humblest 
 flower or blade of grass to " thoughts too deep foi'" 
 tears." 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 337 
 
 He had at an early period competed with him 
 on his own ground, by treating some of his 
 favourite themes with ingenuousness and sim- 
 plicity, and while at Geneva had succeeded in 
 imparting to Byron so great an appreciation of a 
 poet whom the haughty author of " English Bards 
 and Scotch Reviewers " had described as " the 
 meanest object of the 'lowly group/' that Words- 
 worth recognised himself in the third canto of 
 " Childe Harold." 
 
 But the greater his admiration and affection 
 for the favoured child of the Muses, the more did 
 Shelley deplore the part taken by him in political 
 matters. In July, 1818, when the Addresses to 
 the Liberals of Westmoreland were published, he 
 •wrote in the following unmeasured language to 
 Peacock : " I have been informed of the unfortunate 
 termination of the Westmoreland elections. I wish 
 you had sent me some of the overflowing villainy 
 of those apostates. What a beastly and pitiful 
 wretch, that Wordsworth ! That such a man 
 should be such a poet ! I can compare him with 
 no one but Simonides, that flatterer of the Sicilian 
 'tyrants, and at the same time the most natural and 
 tender of lyric poets." 
 
 The satire of "Peter Bell the Third'' must 
 have been conceived at this period. 
 
 Shelley wanted to prove that the poet, capable 
 of abjuring the gods of his youth, and of bowing 
 down before power and public opinion, was con- 
 demned to see his sources of inspiration dried up, 
 and to fall into platitudes and dulness. 
 
 But Shelley had not waited until those latter 
 days to brand the apostasy of his favourite poet; 
 in 181 5, he had bewailed in touching lines the 
 desertion of him whom he calls the "Poet of 
 Nature, ... a lone star whose light did shine 
 
 On some frail bark in Winter's midnight roar ; 
 
 ... A rock-built refuge . . . 
 Above the bhnd and battling multitude." 
 
328 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Shelley's reproaches did not reach the ear 
 of the god. Wordsworth had become verbose, 
 oracular, tolerating none lower than himself, 
 scarcely admitting there could be any one higher, 
 and comparing himself to Milton. 
 
 He disdained contemporary poets, especially 
 those who dared to stray from the paths newly 
 trodden by him, and he ignored Shelley. 
 
 On one occasion, before Trelawney was 
 personally acquainted with the author of " Queen 
 Mab," he met an English tourist at Geneva, 
 accompanied by his wife and sister, who was 
 bitterly lamenting that Switzerland was becoming 
 a commonplace and civilised country, wherein a 
 lover of Nature could no longer find a solitary spot 
 in which to contemplate at leisure the wild beauty 
 of the scenery. 
 
 "Yesterday," he grumbled, "at break of day, 
 I scaled the most rugged height within my reach ; 
 it looked inaccessible ; this pleasant delusion was 
 quickly dispelled ; I was rudely startled out of 
 a deep reverie by the accursed jarring, jingling, 
 and rumbling of a caleche, and harsh voices that 
 drowned the torrent's fall." The grumbling tourist 
 was Wordsworth. Trelawney accosted him, and 
 without further ceremony asked him plainly : 
 " What do you think of Shelley as a poet ? " 
 "Nothing," replied Wordsworth; then seeing the 
 astonishment of his interlocutor, he continued : 
 "a poet who has not produced a good poem be- 
 fore he is twenty-five, we may conclude cannot, 
 and never will do so." "But 'The Cenci'?" 
 "Won't do," he replied, shaking his head, as 
 he got into the carriage ; a rough-coated Scotch 
 terrier followed him. " This hairy fellow is our flea- 
 trap." To the honour of Wordsworth it must be 
 admitted that, at a subsequent period, he overcame 
 his prejudice against Shelley, and rendered him 
 justice, "Peter Bell the Third" notwithstanding.* 
 
 * Shelley so designated his poem because it was written 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 329 
 
 Shelley considered " Peter Bell the Third " as 
 merely a slight satire in which, as he says, both 
 iines and language had it their own way. It 
 was hardly finished, when a political incident 
 drew his attention to one of his favourite subjects, 
 that of the Defence of the Liberty of the Press. 
 The publication of the works of the well-known 
 revolutionist, Thomas Paine, and in particular of 
 liis "Age of Reason," had- been the occasion of 
 one of the most odious persecutions due to the 
 English law of libel, in the beginning of the 
 present century. Carlile, the publisher, was 
 <:ondemned to prison, but continued, from his 
 cell, to appeal to public opinion in the columns 
 of the Republican. Shelley could not fail to be 
 interested in the fate of so courageous a victim ; 
 he took up the defence of Carlile in an eloquent 
 letter intended for the Examiner. In that letter 
 he warmly attacks the capricious restrictions im- 
 posed on the Press by a power as illusory as 
 it is arbitrary. He names himself, among a 
 •constellation of great men and great writers, 
 who, if Law were Justice, would be more rightly 
 prosecuted than a poor bookseller. He claims 
 trial by their peers for Carlile and Paine ; a 
 jury composed, not of so-called Christians, but 
 of the philosophers and Deists who are unjustly 
 shielded by their high social position from similar 
 prosecution : such as Sir William Drummond, 
 "the most acute metaphysical critic of the age, 
 a man of profound learning .... unblemished 
 integrity of character," and as undisguised an 
 opponent of Christianity as Paine ; Godwin, the 
 author of " Political Justice " and the " Enquirer," 
 who has treated Christianity as an " exploded 
 
 after Wordsworth's " Peter Bell," and after a parody thereon, 
 written by J. Hamilton Reynolds, one of tlie three young 
 -poets patronised by Leigh Hunt, and was especially directed 
 against Wordsworth's alleged puerilities and literai-y fatuity. 
 See Ml-. Forman's fine edition. 
 
330 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 superstition, to which, in the present state of 
 knowledge, it was unworthy .... as a moral 
 philosopher, to advert;" and Mr. Burdon, a 
 gentleman of great fortune, who had published 
 a book " called ' Materials for Thinking,' in which 
 he plainly avows his disbelief in the divine 
 authority of the Bible." 
 
 Hunt, to whom the letter was addressed 
 (Nov. 3rd), did not publish it, on account, pro- 
 bably, of its strong language and the high person- 
 ages attacked by Shelley. The poet acquiesced 
 without demur in his friend's decision, and set ta 
 work on a political treatise less aggressive in 
 tone, in which he proposed to include the theory 
 of every needful reform in Government.* Ac- 
 cording to Mr. Dowden's analysis of the work, 
 Shelley, after rapidly sketching the effect of 
 Reform, the French Revolution, and the eighteenth 
 century on the "hopes and aspirations of the 
 human race," passes on to consider the various 
 reforms necessary to the government of England, 
 and the possible and desirable mode in which 
 they should take place. The advance of literature 
 in his own country at the beginning of the cen- 
 tury, seemed to Shelley to be the prophecy of 
 great social and political change. f One of 
 the principal causes of the social misery in 
 England he held to be the modern device of 
 
 * The " Philosophical View of Reform," which was begun 
 in December, 1819, and in great part finished in May, 1820, , 
 has remained in manuscript. Mr. Forman has published 
 but two short fragments. Mr. Dowden, who has seen the 
 manuscript, considers that "it sets forth the writer's opinions, 
 on political subjects with sufficient fulness, and makes us 
 acquainted with the side of his mind presented to actual 
 politics as no published writing of Shelley's has done." It 
 remains for the Shelleyan Society to fill the void by publish- 
 ing these important passages. 
 
 + The passage containing this prophetical view may be 
 found at the close of his " Defence of Poetry." 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 331 
 
 public credit, by means of which companies and 
 bankers grew rich at the expense of the poor ; 
 the increase of the national industry which this 
 system is supposed to effect, ends merejy in 
 increasing the misery of the poor and the luxury 
 of the rich; " to make a manufacturer" (an artisan, 
 as we now say) "work sixteen hours where 
 he had only worked eight; to turn children 
 into lifeless and bloodless machines at an age 
 • when otherwise they would be at play before 
 the cottage doors of their parents; to augment 
 indefinitely the proportion of those who enjoy 
 the profit of the labour of others . . , to create a 
 new aristocracy of attorneys, excisemen, directors, 
 Government pensioners, usurers, stock-jobbers, 
 who . . . can only eat, and drink, and sleep, and 
 in the intervals of these actions cringe and lie," 
 without ever exercising the true and noble facul- 
 ties of the soul, while the poor toiler knows but 
 pain and misery in the present, and has, in the 
 future, only "those gleams of hope which seem 
 to speak to him of Paradise, only to make dark- 
 ness visible, like the flames of Milton's hell." 
 
 " The so-called National Debt is but the debt 
 of the privileged classes and of the tyrants who 
 incurred it in unjust and liberticide wars. The 
 labour which it represents . . . since the com- 
 mencement of the American war, would, if 
 properly employed, have covered our land with 
 monuments of architecture exceeding the sump- 
 tuousness and the beauty of Egypt and Athens ; 
 it might have made every peasant's cottage a 
 little paradise of comfort, with every convenience 
 desirable . . . neat tables and chairs, and good 
 beds, and a collection of useful books ; and our 
 .fleet, manned by sailors well-paid and well-clothed, 
 might have kept watch round this glorious island 
 against the less enlightened nations which as- 
 suredly would have envied its prosperity." As 
 
332 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 a remedy to the then, state of things, Shelley- 
 proposed that the privileged classes should alone 
 be held legally responsible for the National Debt, 
 and that special tribunals should be created for 
 its liquidation. 
 
 As to reform of Parliament and the system of 
 representation, Shelley, in this treatise, is most 
 moderate in his views ; universal suffrage, or 
 the admission of women to the rights of suffrage, 
 seem to him dangerous and premature measures. 
 
 As he advanced in life, his aversion to violent 
 means and sudden resolves increased. 
 
 " The great thing to do," he said, " is to hold the balance 
 between popular impatience and tyrannical obstinacy ; to 
 inculcate with fervour both the right of resistance and the 
 duty of forbearance. You know my principles incite me to 
 take all the good I can get in politics, for ever aspiring to 
 something more. I am one of those whom nothing will fully 
 satisfy, but who are ready to be partially satisfied in all that 
 is practicable. ... I have a motto on a ring in Italian, ' 11 
 buon tempo verrk.' There is a tide both in public and in 
 private affairs, which awaits both men and nations." 
 
 He liked also to quote Rousseau's saying, that 
 he wfould rather see things remain as they are 
 than shed one drop of blood. He never lost 
 faith in the ultimate triumph of social reform ; 
 but that triumph would be due to a slow and 
 calculated revolution based principally on the 
 moral reform of individuals. It was on this 
 human and philosophic basis that he founded 
 his hopes of the universal regeneration, of the 
 palingenesis of mankind and the world, which 
 he sang with such poetic and sublime fervour 
 in the fourth act of his " Prometheus Unbound." 
 
 This, the last supplementary portion, written 
 at Florence in December, 1819, is the culminating 
 point of Shelley's genius as a lyric poet. This 
 grandiose and unique work, which we possess in 
 its entirety, lifts its author at once above every 
 lyric poet of the century. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 333 
 
 Shelley was conscious of the value of his 
 " Prometheus," and esteemed it in proportion to 
 the labour it had cost him : 
 
 My friends say my "Prometheus" is too wild, ideal, and 
 perplexed with imagery ; it maybe so It has no resemblance 
 to the Greek drama ; it is original, and cost me severe labour. 
 If that is not durable poetry, tried by the severest test, I do 
 not know what is. It is a lofty subject, not inadequately 
 treated, and should not perish with me. 
 
 Shelley's judgment has been confirmed by 
 posterity, and whatever may be the defects of 
 this prodigious work in detail, to us it appears 
 like one of the gigantic Sphinxes of the desert, 
 defying man and time alike. We willingly joia 
 in Mr. Rossetti's fine panegyric : 
 
 There is, I suppose, no poem comparable, in the fair sense 
 of that word, to "Prometheus Unbound." The immense 
 scale and boundless scope of the conception ; the marble 
 majesty and extramundane passions of the personages ; the 
 sublimity of ethical aspiration ; the radiance of ideal and 
 poetic beauty which saturates every phase of the subject, and 
 (almost, as it were) wraps it from sight at times, and trans- 
 forms it out of sense into spirit; the roUing river of great 
 sound and lyrical rapture ; form a combination not to be 
 matched elsewhere, and scarcely to encounter competition. 
 There is another source of greatness in this poem neither to 
 be foolishly lauded nor (still less) undervalued. It is this : 
 that "Prometheus Unbound," however remote the foundation 
 of its subject-matter, and unactual its executive treatment, 
 does in reality express the most modern of conceptions, the 
 utmost reach of speculation of a mind which burst up all 
 crusts of custom and prescription like a volcano, and imaged 
 forth a future wherein man should be indeed the autocrat and 
 renovated renovator of his planet. This it is, I apprehend, 
 which places "Prometheus" clearly, instead of disputably, at 
 the summit of all latter poetry ; the fact that it embodies, in 
 forms of truly ecstatic beauty, the dominant passion of the 
 dominant intellects of the age, and especially of one of the 
 extremest and highest among them all, the author himself 
 It is the ideal poem of perpetual and triumphant progression 
 — the Atlantis of Man Emancipated. 
 
 Mrs. Shelley has very clearly described in 
 
334 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 her notes, the spirit, genesis, and development 
 of this grand composition : 
 
 During his travels in Italy (1818-1819), Shelley meditated 
 on the subject of his drama. . . . But though he diversified 
 his studies, his thoughts centred in the " Prometheus." At 
 last, when at Rome, during a bright and beautiful spring, he 
 gave up his whole time to the composition. . . . 
 
 At first he completed the drama in three acts. It was 
 not till several months after, when at Florence, that he con- 
 ceived that a fourth act, a sort of hymn of rejoicing in fulfil- 
 ment of the prophecies with regard to Prometheus, ought to 
 be added to complete the composition. 
 
 The prominent feature of Shelley's theory of the destiny 
 of the human species was, that-evil _is- not inlierent_ill_Ul£- 
 system of the creation, but an accident that might be 
 expelled. This also forms a portion of Christianity ; God 
 made earth and man perfect, till he, by his fall, 
 
 " Brought death into the world, and all our woe.'' 
 
 Shelley believed that mankind had only to will that there 
 should be no evil, and there would be none. He was 
 attached to this opinion with fervent enthusiasm. That man' 
 could be so perfectionised as to be able to expel evil from 
 his own nature, and from the greater part of the creation, 
 was a cardinal point of his system. And the subject he 
 loved best to dwell on was the image of One warring with 
 the Evil Principle, oppressed not only by it, but by all, even 
 the good, who were deluded into considering evil a necessary 
 portion of humanity. A victim full of fortitude and hope, 
 and the spirit of triumph emanating from a reliance in the 
 ultimate omnipotence of good— such he had depicted in his 
 last poem, when he made I^aon the enemy and the victim of 
 tyrants. He now took a more idealised image of the same 
 subject. 
 
 He followed certain classical authorities in figuring 
 Saturn as the good principle, Jupiter the usurping evil one, 
 and Prometheus the regenerator, who, unable to bring 
 mankind back to primitive innocence, used knowledge as a 
 weapon to defeat evil, by leading mankind beyond the state 
 wherein they are sinless through ignorance, to that in which 
 they are virtuous through wisdom. Jupiter punished the 
 temerity of the Titan by chaining him to a rock of Caucasus, 
 and causing a vulture to devour his still renewed heart. 
 There was a prophecy afloat in Heaven, portending the fall 
 of Jove, the secret of averting which was known only to 
 Prometheus ; and the god offered freedom from torture on 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 335 
 
 condition of its being communicated to him. According to 
 the mythological story, this referred to the offspring of 
 Thetis, who was destined to be greater than his father. 
 Prometheus at last bought pardon for his crime of enriching 
 mankind with his gifts, by revealing the prophecy. Hercules 
 killed the vulture, and set him free ; and Thetis was married 
 to Peleus, the father of Achilles. 
 
 Shelley adapted the catastrophe of this story to his own 
 peculiar views. The son, greater than his father, born of the^ 
 nuptials of Jupiter and Thetis, was to dethrone evil, and' 
 bring back a happier reign than that of Saturn. Prometheus 
 defies the power of his enemy, and endures centuries of 
 torture, till the hour arrives when Jove, blind to the real 
 event, but darkly guessing that some great good to himself 
 will flow, espouses Thetis. At the moment, the Primal Power 
 -of the world drives him from his usurped throne, and Strength, 
 in the person of Hercules, liberates Humanity, typified in 
 Prometheus, from the tortures generated by evils done or 
 suffered. Asia, one of the Oceanides, is the wife of Prometheus ; 
 she was, according to other mythological interpretations, 
 the same as Venus and Nature. When the Benefactor of. 
 Mankind is liberated. Nature resumes the beauty of her 
 prime, and is united to her husband, the emblem of the 
 human race, in perfect and happy union. In the fourth act, 
 the poet gives further scope to his imagination, and idealises 
 the forms of creation, such as we know them, instead of such 
 as they appeared to the Greeks. Maternal Earth, the mighty 
 parent, is superseded by the Spirit of the Earth — the guide of 
 our planet through the realms of sky — while his fair and 
 weaker companion and attendant, the Spirit of the Moon, 
 receives bliss from the annihilation of evil in the superior 
 sphere. 
 
 Shelley develops, more particularly in the lyrics of this 
 drama, his abstruse and imaginative theories with regard to 
 the Creation. It requires a mind as subtle and penetrating 
 as his own to understand the mystic meanings scattered 
 throughout the poem. They elude the ordinary reader by 
 their abstraction and delicacy of distinction, but they are far 
 from vague. It was his design to write prose metaphysical 
 essays on the nature of man, which would have served to 
 •explain much of what is obscure in his poetry ; a few 
 scattered fragments of observations and remarks alone 
 remain. He considered these philosophical views of mind 
 and nature to be instinct with the intensest spirit of poetry. 
 
 More popular poets clothe the ideal with familiar and 
 sensible imagery. Shelley loved to idealise the real— to gift 
 the mechanism of the material universe with a soul and a 
 voice, and to bestow such also on the most delicate and 
 
336 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 abstract emotions and thoughts of the mind. Sophocles was 
 his frreat master in this species of imagery. ... In reading 
 Shelley's poetry we often find similar verses, iresembling, but 
 not imitating, the Greek in this species of imagery ; for 
 though he adopted the style, he gifted it with that originality 
 of form and colouring which sprang from his own genius. . . . 
 The tone of the composition [of " Prometheus Unbound "] 
 is calmer and more majestic, the poetry more perfect as a 
 whole, and the imagination displayed at once more pleasindy 
 beautiful, and more varied and daring [than in any of his 
 previous attempts]. . . . Throughout the whole poem there 
 reigns a sort of calm and holy spirit of love ; it soothes the 
 tortured, and is hope to the expectant, until the prophecy is 
 fulfilled, and Love, untainted by any evil, becomes the law of • 
 the world. 
 
 No ancient myth has, in equal measure to 
 that of Prometheus, awakened in the human soul 
 the longing to lift the thick veil that hides the 
 origin of the world and of the human race. It 
 was very variously interpreted even in the time 
 of the Greeks, by Hesiod and .^schylus, and 
 has become to the modern world a terrible Sphinx, 
 which every soul haunted by the symbolically 
 expressed mysteries of the ancient wisdom has. 
 in turn consulted, receiving replies in harmony 
 with its own philosophic convictions, or those 
 of its century. Among all the various ititerpra- 
 tations, one seems to have prevailed ; that one 
 which makes of Prometheus a personification or 
 good, in the struggle of good and evil, of spirit 
 as against force, of liberty and progress in conflict 
 with tyranny and ignorance — an eternal struggle 
 which seems the very condition of life and being. 
 The Greeks in delivering Prometheus, in order 
 that he may be reconciled with Zeus his eternal 
 enemy, must surely have had some conception- 
 of the inherent necessity of things, of the "struggle 
 for life," as it is called by modern science, of life 
 itself consisting in struggle, and of the discord 
 which produces the essential and final harmony 
 of the world. We are inclined to believe that 
 
SHELLEY JN ITALY. 337 
 
 they had j hence we must seek in the third part 
 
 of the ^schylean trilogy, unhappily lost to us, 
 
 for the true philosophic and scientific meaning of 
 
 the mythic Prometheus. Shelley's interpretation 
 
 is of an opposite character. Being absolutely 
 
 convinced that with the disappearance of Zeus 
 
 and all his representatives, a new golden age 
 
 would be created on earth by the strength of 
 
 the human will alone, he could not accept a 
 
 compromise to which the wise temperament of 
 
 Greece resigned itself, unless he might make the 
 
 best of it by the aid of his faculties and his genius. 
 
 Christianity and its ultra-terrestrial Utopias had 
 
 not passed in vain through the mind of the poet. 
 
 Like the Christian Prometheus, the victim of the 
 
 Judaic Zeus, he also dreamed of an everlasting 
 
 Paradise for humanity, but a paradise to be found 
 
 on earth purified and regenerated by love. 
 
 Christian and Biblical ideas suggested to him the 
 
 thought of extending this regeneration not only 
 
 to the moral and human world, but also to the 
 
 •entire universe of suns and spheres, whose destinies, 
 
 as in the Mosaic Genesis, seemed linked with that 
 
 of humanity itself. This grandiose dream all to 
 
 the honour of mind, the only god of this world, 
 
 has at any rate given us in the last act, or rather 
 
 last chant, of " Prometheus Unbound " the most 
 
 sublime hymn ever uttered to the glory of the 
 
 eternal harmony of Nature, as apprehended by the 
 
 human soul in communion with her. 
 
 Michelet, in " La Mer," has written like a poet 
 of the symphony of worlds of which science is 
 endeavouring to read the score ; of the mathe- 
 matical relation of the stars between themselves, 
 which are the harmonic intervals of the celestial 
 music ; " the earth," he says, " in her tides, greater 
 and less, speaks to her sisters the planets. Do 
 they reply 1 We must believe they do. From 
 their fluid elements they too must rise up, conscious 
 
 z 
 
338 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 of the impulse of the earth. Mutual attraction^ 
 the bent of each planet to come forth from its 
 egoism, must be the cause of sublime dialogues 
 in the heavens. Unfortunately the ear of man 
 hears but the least part of these." 
 
 Shelley heard one of those dialogues, and has 
 marvellously rendered it for us in the fourth act 
 of his " Prometheus." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY — PISA— LEGHORN — THE BATHS 
 OF ST. GIULIANO — LETTER - TO MARIA 
 GISBORNE — " HYMN TO MERCURY " — " THE 
 WITCH OF ATLAS " — ^SHELLEY AND KEATS — 
 "ADONAIS" — 1820. 
 
 It was not without keen regret that Shelley was 
 forced by the " infernal cold of Florence," to leave 
 the " fairest of cities beneath the sun," the sculp- 
 tures he so dearly loved, and the delightful 
 wooded banks of the Arno, where he studied 
 Dante, and wrote the last canto of the "Pro- 
 metheus." He took refuge at Pisa (January 26th, 
 1820) from the terrible Apennine winds, antici- 
 pating enjoyment from sky, water, and mountains 
 " I must suffer at any rate," he says, " but I expect 
 to suffer less in a boat than in a carriage." 
 
 With the spring there came, in the milder 
 climate of Pisa, the usual improvement in Shelley's 
 health, which was likewise promoted by the wise 
 treatment of the celebrated Dr. Vacca. " Only 
 for certain moral causes," he "would have been 
 greatly benefited " by his " residence in Italy." 
 Among these moral causes must be reckoned 
 the departure of the Gisbornes for England, 
 the final failure of the steamboat undertaking, 
 the refusal of his tragedy at Covent Garden, 
 
 z 2 
 
340 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 his homesick longing for England, and above 
 all, the vexations inflicted on him by Godwin.' 
 It was no slight source of pain to Shelley, 
 that Godwin, after all his sacrifices in the 
 endeavour to serve him, should treat him with 
 so little consideration and friendship. Godwin 
 was on the brink of ruin, and laid the blame of 
 his unfortunate position, which was due to his 
 own carelessness, on his friend and benefactor. 
 Shelley grew weary of flinging- money into the 
 Skinner Street abyss : 
 
 Except for the good-will which this transaction seems to 
 have produced between you and me, this money, for any 
 advantage that it ever conferred on you, might as well have 
 been thrown into the sea. Had I kept in my own hajids this 
 ^4000 or ;^5ooo, and administered it in trust for your perma- 
 nent advantage, I should have been indeed your benefactor. 
 . . . Sir Philip Sidney, when dying and consumed with 
 thirst, gave the helmet of water which was brought to him 
 to the wounded soldier who stood beside him. It would not 
 have been generosity, but folly, had he poured it on the 
 ground, as you would that I should the wrecks of my once 
 prosperous fortune. ... If you are sincere on this subject, 
 why, instead of seeking to plunge one already half-ruined for 
 your sake into deeper ruin, do you not procure the £,if>o by 
 your own active power ? A person of your extraordinary 
 accomplishments might easily obtain from the booksellers, 
 for the promise of a novel, a sum exceeding this amount. 
 Your " Answer to Malthus " would sell for at least ;^4oo. 
 
 Meanwhile some pleasant acquaintances at 
 Pisa made a break in the clouds. One of the 
 celebrities of Pisa was Professor Vacca, to whom 
 the city subsequently raised a monument, designed 
 by Thorwaldsen, in the Campo Santo. Vacca's • 
 views on philosophy and politics were for the 
 most part the same as Shelley's ; and he did the 
 latter a great service by inducing him to dispense 
 with doctors and drugs, and trust to Nature 
 for a cure. 
 
 In addition to this friend there was Lady 
 Mountcashel, a woman of superior attainments, who 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 341 
 
 had been the favourite pupil of Mary Wollstone- 
 craft thirty years before, when Mary was governess 
 in the family of Lord Kingston ; and on the 
 occasion of Godwin's visit to Ireland in 1800, 
 Lady Mountcashel had received him with hos- 
 pitality. She had retained the republican and 
 philosophic principles of her masculine education ; 
 her mind was cultivated, her disposition mild, 
 benevolent and imperturbably serene. She had 
 long been separated from her husband, the Earl 
 of Mountcashel, and was living in Italy with Mr. 
 George William Tighe, who, being disgusted with 
 the world, lived .apart from it in the company of his 
 books. According to Medwin Lady Mountcashel 
 inspired Shelley with his exquisite poem of the 
 " Sensitive Plant." 
 
 Yet, in spite of the charm that the society of 
 friends, so congenial to his intellect, had for 
 Shelley, his heart was in London with the 
 Gisbornes. On May 26th, 1820, he wrote to them : 
 
 I am just returned from a visit to Leghorn, Casciano, and 
 the old fortress at Sant' Elmo. . . . Everything seems in 
 excellent order at Casa Ricci — garden, pigeons, tables, chairs, 
 and beds. . . . What a glorious prospect you had from the 
 windows of Sant' Elmo ! The enormous chain of the 
 Apennines, with its many-folded ridges, islanded in the 
 misty distance of the air ; the sea, so immensely distant, 
 appearing as if at your feet ; and the prodigious expanse of 
 the plain of Pisa, and the dark green marshes lessened 
 almost to a strip by the height of the blue marshes over- 
 hanging them. Then the wild and unreclaimed fertility of 
 the foreground, and the chestnut-trees, whose vivid foliage 
 made a sort of resting-place to the sense before it darted 
 itself to the jagged horizon of this prospect. I was altogether 
 delighted. I had a respite from my nervous symptoms, 
 which was compensated to me by a violent cold in the head. 
 There was a tradition about you at Sant' Elmo — an English 
 family that had lived here in the time of the French. 
 
 We go to Bagni next month. ... I am undergoing a 
 course of the Pisan baths, on which I lay no singular stress 
 — but they soothe. I ought to have peace of mind, leisure, 
 tranquillity ; this I expect soon. Our anxiety about Godwin 
 
342 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 is very great, and any information that you could give a day 
 or two earlier than he might, respecting any decisive event 
 in his lawsuit, would be a great relief. Your impres- 
 sions about Godwin (I speak especially to Madonna mia, 
 who had known him before) will especially interest me. 
 You know that added years only add to my admiration of 
 his intellectual powers, and even the moral resources of his 
 character. ... To see Hunt is to like him. To know 
 Hogg, if any one can know him, is to know something very 
 unlike and inexpressibly superior, to the great mass of men. 
 
 This charming letter was written in Reveley's 
 study, and may serve as a commentary upon the 
 admirable epistle in verse which Shelley addressed 
 shortly afterwards to Maria Gisborne^one of 
 the gems of his familiar poetry in which we knew 
 not whether to admire most the perfection of the 
 descriptions, the exquisite delicacy of the sentiment 
 or the incomparable wit and humour with which 
 the poet avails himself of the smallest details. 
 All his London friends are named in it with 
 an affectionate regard that does not exclude 
 impartiality or raillery. 
 
 It was during his stay at Casa Ricci that, one 
 summer evening wandering with Mary " among the 
 lanes whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of 
 fire-flies," he heard the song of the skylark, and 
 instantly interpreted its ideal impression in one of 
 his most perfect poems : — his salutation to the bird, 
 or rather to the blithe spirit disdainful of earth, 
 whose clear and piercing strain he enviesj and 
 would fain learn how to teach the world "such 
 harmonious madness." 
 
 . The days were spent pleasantly at Pisa in the 
 study of Latin and Greek with Mary, and Shelley 
 rendered into ottava rhna the Homeric Hymn to 
 Mercury. The playful tone of the free translation 
 struck a new vein of light-hearted inspiration, 
 which soon showed itself in his marvellously 
 fanciful " Witch of Atlas." 
 
 The heat of Leghorn in August had forced 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 
 
 343 
 
 the Shelleys to remove to the Baths of San 
 Giuliano, near Lucca, and, after an excursion to 
 Monte San Pellegrino, he wrote in three days 
 that wonderful poem which he describes as en^ 
 tirely fanciful, and, if its merit be measured by 
 the labour it cost, absolutely worthless. In his 
 heart Shelley probably preferred this fanciful im- 
 provisation to his more laborious productions 
 such as " The Cenci." It is a fairy tale, but such 
 an one as might be told and heard by pure spirits 
 — a fairy tale, as Mr. Rossetti says, " enchanting 
 and imperishable." We may observe with the 
 same writer that a clue to its meaning is to be 
 found if we understand the Witch to be the Spirit 
 of Beauty, of which all the beauties in the world is 
 but a shadow, " whose words, though too fine to 
 be articulate to mortal ear, fill us with a longing 
 for all high truth ; whose presence, though in- 
 visible, quickens within us all hope and joy and 
 love." Here we must pause, nor' try to analyse 
 that which refuses to be analysed. Painting alone, 
 and painting by a sylph or an Ariel, could render 
 something of that divine phantasy, " What an 
 admirable subject for Retsch ! " says Medwin. 
 ■" A second ' Midsummer Night's Dream ! ' " * 
 
 It seems incredible that the poet who had just 
 -written the " Witch of Atlas " should be the same 
 man who, steadily observing the political state of 
 Europe, suffered no symptom of that awakening of 
 Liberty among his contemporaries, whose ap- 
 proaching triumph he foresaw, to escape his 
 notice. The year 1820 seemed to respond to that 
 presentiment : in the south of Europe the spirit of 
 revolution was aroused. Spain gave the signal, 
 and the flame soon spread to the south of Italy, to 
 Naples, and Sicily. The poet's heart beat in 
 sympathy with all. " Sicily, like Naples, is free ! " 
 
 • Retsch's " Outlines to Shakespeare's Plays." 
 
344 SHELLEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 he wrote to Mary (July 23rd) " the enthu- 
 siasm of the inhabitants was prodigious ; the 
 women fought from the houses, raining down 
 boiling oil on the assailants." And in September, 
 " At Naples the Constitutional party have de- 
 clared to the Austrian Minister that, if the 
 Emperor should make war upon them, their first 
 action would be to put to death all the members 
 of the royal family — a necessary and most just 
 measure, when the forces of the combatants, as 
 well as the merits of their respective causes, are so 
 unequal. That kings should be everywhere the 
 hostages for liberty — nothing more admirable ! " 
 In the fervour of his revolutionary enthusiasm 
 Shelley wrote the " Ode to Liberty " and the 
 " Ode to Naples " successively. 
 
 There are few lyrics so thrilling, so highly 
 charged with passion and enthusiasm, as the 
 " Ode to Liberty," in which Shelley unrolls before 
 our dazzled gaze the history of the victories and 
 defeats of that "virgin huntress swifter than the 
 moon," and "terror of the world's wolves." 
 Athens, Rome, Arminius, Christianity, the Saxoii 
 Alfred, Luther, Milton, France in '93, and Napo- 
 leon pass in succession before us, leaving the world 
 either luminous or obscure, according as Liberty 
 casts or withholds "the shadow of her coming." 
 A like passion and a like eloquence are breathed 
 in the " Ode to Naples." The poet is still filled 
 with the poetic recollections of Pompeii and Bate, 
 of " the unknown graves of the dead kings o£ 
 melody" (Homer and Virgil). From the splen- 
 dour of the Elysian shores he rises to the con- 
 templation of the destiny of Naples, of her 
 hoped-for freedom — the signal eagerly awaited by 
 the whole of Italy : 
 
 Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paan 
 From land to land re-echoed solemnly. 
 
 Till silence became music .'' From the ^oean. 
 To the cold Alps, eternal Italy 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 345 
 
 Starts to hear thine ! The sea 
 Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs 
 
 In light and music ; widowed Genoa wan 
 By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs, 
 Murmuring "Where is Doria?" Fair Milan, 
 
 Within whose veins long ran 
 The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel 
 To bruise his head. . . . 
 
 Florence, beneath the sun, 
 
 Of cities fairest one, 
 Blushes within her bower for freedom's expectation ; 
 
 From eyes of quenchless hope 
 
 Rome tears the priestly cope, 
 As ruling once by power, so now' by admiration — 
 
 An athlete stripped to run 
 
 From a refnoter station 
 For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore ; 
 As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail. 
 
 So now may Fraud and Wrong ! Oh, hail ! 
 
 Austrian bayonets unhappily soon crushed the 
 Neapolitan revolution. Shelley was deeply affected 
 by this disaster, and was indignant that his friend 
 Moore could applaud it in verse unworthy of a 
 poet and an Irishman, 
 
 Should Italy ever commemorate her resurrec- 
 tion to freedom and national life by a monument,, 
 she would be ungrateful indeed did she not place 
 beside the names of her warrior-heroes that of the 
 poet who sang so gloriously of her hopes and 
 electrified her patriotism. When lyrical poetry 
 attains to such a height and power as his, we may 
 pronounce it to be, as Shelley himself said, speak- 
 ing out of the very faith with which he was 
 inspired, "a prophecy and a cause." 
 
 While Shelley was thus pouring forth a flood 
 of lyrical verse in his most serious and eloquent 
 vein, the tragi-comedy then being played in 
 England,, with Queen Caroline for its heroine, 
 afforded him an opportunity of exercising the 
 kind of talent he had so unexpectedly disclosed 
 in " Peter Bell the Third " — that faculty of original 
 
346 SHELLEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 and powerful irony, that spirit of comical satire, 
 burlesque and yet poetical — a mixture hitherto 
 unknown in the incisiveness of Swift and the 
 airiness of Aristophanes. 
 
 The "CEdipus Tyrannus," like "Peter Bell 
 the Third," was merely a light and playful impro- 
 visation, but it was an improvisation of genius. 
 
 One day, while looking at some extracts from 
 Le Courrier Frattgais, he lighted upon a strange 
 and astonishing piece of news. Queen Caroline, 
 on hearing of the death of George III., had 
 hastened to England. Deserted and dishonoured 
 by the grotesque King, George IV., the too 
 notorious Princess was about to claim her rights 
 as wife and queen. The result is well known ; 
 the story of the long and shameful suit occupies 
 tlic whole of the political annals of England, in 
 1820. Never before had any people offered so 
 odious, repulsive, and ridiculous a spectacle to 
 the world ; it alone would have justified all the 
 anathemas heaped by Shelley on the head of 
 Royalty. 
 
 Long before this, Shelley had formed his 
 opinion of George IV. ; it was that of every 
 thinking Englishman ; it was that which Thackeray 
 has emphatically expressed in his " Four Georges," 
 " I do not know that there could be a bitterer satire 
 on English society at that period, than to say 
 it was able to admire George IV." 
 
 In common with many others, Shelley had 
 at first been blinded by the farce of Liberalism, 
 acted by the Prince of Wales becoming the 
 friend and disciple of Fox and Sheridan ; he 
 had relied for a moment on the hopes raised by 
 a youth who shouted for " Wilkes and Liberty ! " 
 But he saw behind the mask, and divined from 
 the conduct of the Regent what the future King 
 of England would be. 
 
 In " Swellfoot the Tyrant," we recognise the 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 347 
 
 liist'oric George IV., of the memoirs of the time ; 
 the " base fellow " of Lady Hester Stanhope, the 
 hero of the dinner-table and of dandyism, the 
 inventor of maraschino punch, the fat, crowned fop, 
 exclusively engrossed, amid grave European events, 
 with the cut of a coat, or the seasoning of a dish. 
 All these details, taken from history, are invested 
 with heroic and gigantic forms and proportions in 
 Shelley's drama. By a process of poetical hyper- 
 bole somewhat analogous to that of Rabelais, 
 ■George IV. becomes the ideal dandy, glutton, 
 and tyrant ; the ungrateful friend of Sheridan 
 and Brummel becomes as ■ Swellfoot (CEdipus) 
 the "Man-Milliner to red Bellona," the dainty 
 epicure is transformed into a Homeric Gargantua, 
 who devours in a single plat, devised by his 
 Persian cook, what would suffice to feed a dozen 
 families for a winter or two ; the sceptical and 
 fickle Don Juan, whose life has known hardly one 
 real passion except hatred and contempt of his 
 wife, becomes a tragical George Dandin, a victim 
 of the jealous divinity who " waves o'er the couch 
 of wedded kings, the torch of Discord with its 
 fiery hair," the famous green bag laid on the table 
 in the House of Lords, and containing the proofs 
 of the royal adultery, is changed into a terrible 
 invention of Hell, a poison more mortal than death 
 itself "sealed up with the broad seal of Fraud, 
 who is the Devil's Lord High Chancellor," and 
 baptized by " the Primate of all Hell." 
 
 In order to idealise Caroline while remaining 
 true to History, Shelley had only to depict her as 
 the credulous and enthusiastic folly of the populace 
 of London saw her. But he was no dupe of the 
 political comedy played round the Queen; he 
 knew very well that the madcap Princess, who 
 seemed all through her life to be bent on the 
 self-destruction of her honour and her reputation, 
 had always been a despised tool in the hands of 
 
348 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 the Whigs, a puppet of the Opposition which they 
 would fling away on the first change in public 
 opinion. He wrote to Peacock in this sense, July 
 1 2th : 
 
 Nothing, I think, shows the generous gullibility of the 
 English nation more than their having adopted Her Sacred 
 Majesty as the heroine of the day, in spite of all their 
 prejudices and bigotry. I, for my part, of course wish no 
 harm to happen to her, even if she has, as I firmly believe, 
 amused herself in a manner rather indecorous with any 
 courier or baron. But I cannot help adverting to it as one 
 of the absurdities of royalty, that a vulgar woman, with all 
 those low tastes which prejudice considers as vices, and a 
 person whose habits and manners every one would shun in 
 private life, without any redeeming virtues, should be turned 
 into a heroine because she is a queen, or, as a collateral 
 reason, because her husband is a king ; and he, no less than 
 his Ministers, are so odious that everything, however dis- 
 gusting, which is opposed to them is admirable. 
 
 He was willing to believe in the famous 
 " green bag " : 
 
 " I wonder what in the world the Queen has done," he 
 writes at the beginning of this tragi-comedy ; •'! should 
 not wonder, after the whispers I have heard, to find that the 
 green bag contained evidence that she had imitated Pasiphae 
 and that the Committee should recommend to Parliament a 
 Bill to exclude all Minotaurs from the succession. What 
 silly stuff is this to employ a great nation about ! I wish 
 the King and the Queen, like Punch and his wife, would 
 fight out their disputes in person." 
 
 In the foregoing lines we perceive the first 
 conception and plan of " Swellfoot the Tyrant." 
 lona Taurina, the Queen, the new Pasiphae (after 
 long wanderings in all the fabulous countries to 
 which .(Eschylus sends the unhappy lo), stung and 
 harassed by the same gadfly, returns to Thebes 
 where the husband and wife settle their edifying 
 differences by a solemn and decisive trial. 
 
 How did Shelley conceive the idea of the 
 Aristophanic chorus which represents the Theban,. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 349 
 
 that is, the English people? From a mere 
 coincidence. 
 
 "We were then" (August, 1820), writes Mrs. Shelley, "at 
 the Baths of San Giuliano ; a friend came to visit us on the 
 day when a fair was held in the square, beneath our windows. 
 ■Shelley read to us his 'Ode of Liberty' and was riotously 
 accompanied by the grunting of a quantity of pigs brought 
 for sale to the fair. He compared it to the 'Chorus of 
 Frogs ' in the satiric drama of Aristophanes; and it being an 
 hour of "merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting 
 another, he imagined a political satirical drama on the. 
 circumstances of the day, to which the pigs would serve as 
 chorus ; and Swellfooi was begun." 
 
 The notion of representing the English people 
 under the form of the most selfish and ease- 
 loving of animals must have amused Shelley. 
 As he makes one of the characters say : " How 
 can I find a more appropriate term," than pig- 
 gishness, "to include religion^ morals, peace, 
 and plenty. 
 
 And all that fit Bastia as a nation 
 
 To teach the other nations how to live ? " 
 
 Had not Burke, that oracle of Anglican cant, 
 said that an Englishman is, above all, " a religious 
 animal ? " Had he not compared Revolutionists 
 to a handful of grasshoppers hidden in the 
 heather, while millions of fine beasts repose in 
 the shade of the British oak, and ruminate in 
 silence .? To repair somewhat the irreverence 
 of his first metamorphosis, the poet invented 
 another ; the pigs of every caste and kind were 
 transformed at the close of the piece into bulls, 
 the " fine beasts " of Burke, and by a fantastic 
 etymology, the Ionian Minotaur becomes the 
 legendary founder of a people who take pride 
 in their nickname of John Bull. 
 
 Shelley could not fail to depict the advisers 
 and ministers of George IV.'s disastrous reign, 
 under hideous and grinning masks. A Welling- 
 
3SO SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 ton, a Castlereagh, an Eldon, a Sidmbuth ; eaeh 
 of these courtiers is indelibly branded. Nothing 
 could be more comically strange or more poeti- 
 cally comic, than the lasting contrast between 
 these modern characters, alike odious and gro- 
 tesque, and the Greek garments in which they 
 are dressed up, uttering, in the language of gods 
 and Homeric heroes, the most absurd sophistry, 
 the wildest folly ; nothing more irresistibly droll 
 than the mingling of the manners and oddities 
 of modern England, of the John Bull of Arbuthnot, 
 with the most graceful and fantastic traditions of 
 ancient mythology. 
 
 The present time, which may be called the 
 age of parody, may bow down before Shelley, and 
 acknowledge in him the Shakespeare of the art. 
 
 In July, 1820, Shelley was deeply affected 
 by the receipt of sad news. John Keats was 
 dying of consumption at the age of twenty-five. 
 On June 22nd he had broken a blood-vessel, and 
 the end was near. 
 
 On hearing this, Shelley wrote to him from 
 Pisa on July 27th, 1820 : 
 
 My dear Keats, 
 
 I hear with great pain the dangerous accident you 
 have undergone, and Mr. Gisborne, who gives me the 
 account of it, adds that you continue to wear a consumptive 
 appearance. This consumption is a disease particularly 
 fond of people who write such good verses as you hate 
 done, and with the assistance of an English winter it can 
 often indulge its selection. I do not think that young and 
 amiable poets are bound to gratify its taste ; they have 
 entered into no bond with the Muses to that effect. But 
 seriously (for I am joking on what I am very anxious about),, 
 I think you would do well to pass the winter in Italy and 
 avoid so tremendous an accident, and if you think it as 
 necessary as I do, so long as you continue to find Pisa or 
 its neighbourhood agreeable to you, Mrs. Shelley unites with 
 myself in urging the request that you would take up your 
 residence with us. You might come by sea to Leghorn 
 (France is not worth seeing, and the sea is particularly good 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 351 
 
 for weak lungs), which is within a few miles of us. You 
 ought, at all events, to see Italy, and your health, which I 
 suggest as a motive, may be an excuse to you. I spare 
 declamation about the statues, and paintings, and ruins, and, 
 what is a greater piece of forbearance, about the mountains 
 and streams, the fields, the colours of the sky, and the sky 
 itself. 
 
 I have lately read your "Endymion" again, and even, 
 with a new sense of the treasures of poetry it contains, 
 though treasures poured forth with indistinct profusion.. 
 This people in general will not endure, and that is the 
 cause of the comparatively few copies which have been 
 sold. I feel persuaded that you are capable of the greatest 
 things, so you but will. I always tell Oilier to send you 
 copies of my books. " Prometheus Unbound," I imagine you 
 will receive nearly at the same time with this letter. " The 
 Cenci" I hope you have already received— it was studi- 
 ously composed in a different style. ... In poetry I have 
 sought to avoid system and mannerism. I wish those who 
 excel me in genius would pursue the same plan. 
 
 Whether you remain in England, or journey to Italy, 
 believe that you carry with you my anxious wishes for 
 your health, happiness, and success, wherever you are, or 
 whatever you undertake, and that I am. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 P. B. Shelley. 
 
 Keats answered this affectionate invitation as a 
 friend and as a poet: 
 
 Hampstead, August loth, 1820. 
 My dear Shelley, 
 
 I am very much gratified that you, in a foreign 
 country, and with a mind almost over-occupied, should write 
 to me in the strain of the letter beside me. If I do not 
 take advantage of your invitation, it will be prevented by 
 a circumstance I have very much at heart to prophesy. 
 There is no doubt that an English winter would put an 
 end to me, and do so in a lingering, hateful manner. There- 
 fore, I must either voyage or journey to Italy, as a soldier 
 marches up to a battery. ... I am glad you take any pleasure 
 in my poor poem, which I would willingly take the trouble to 
 anwrite, if possible, did I care so much as I have done about 
 reputation. I received a copy of "The Cenci," as from yourself, 
 from Hunt. There is only one part of it I am judge of— the 
 poetry and dramatic effect, which by many spirits nowadays 
 is considered the Mammon. A modern work, it is said. 
 
352 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 must have a purpose, which may be the god. An artist must 
 serve Mammon ; he must have " self-concentration" — selfish- 
 ness, perhaps. You, I am sure, will forgive me for sincerely 
 remarking that you might curb your magnanimity, and be 
 more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with 
 ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold 
 chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings 
 furled for six months together. And is not this extraordinary 
 talk for the writer of "Endymion," whose mind was like a pack 
 of scattered cards ? I am picked up and sorted to a pip. 
 My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk. I am 
 in expectation of "Prometheus" every day. Could I have my 
 own wish effected, you would have it still in manuscript, or be 
 but now putting an end to the second act. I remember you 
 advising me not to publish my first flights, on Hampstead 
 Heath. I am returning advice upon your hands. Most of 
 the poems in the volume I send you have been written above 
 two years, and would never have been published but for 
 hope of gain ; so you see I am inclined enough to take your 
 advice now. I must express once more my deep sense of 
 your kindness, adding my sincere thanks and respects for 
 Mrs. Shelley. In the hope of soon seeing you, 
 
 I remain, most sincerely yours, 
 
 John Keats. 
 
 It is very touching to see the rival poets thus 
 ingenuously communicating to each other their 
 impressions and their criticisms, and each ap- 
 parently more anxious for the other's fame than 
 for his own. The fiery ardour of Shelley forbade 
 him to follow the counsels of his laborious and 
 precise friend. He was a worker on an heroic 
 scale, a painter of frescoes — not a carver or a 
 miniature-painter. He did not understand the 
 " Perseus " of Benvenuto Cellini ; according to him 
 the poet or the artist should not work beyond the 
 precise moment of inspiration ; the " polissez et 
 repolissez" of Boileau, and the "slow, dull care" of 
 Keats, seemed to him absurdity. He deemed the 
 patient labour of the file incompatible with 
 strength, naturalness, or effect. 
 
 The new collection of poems which Keats had 
 announced, realised to a certain extent the ex- 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 353 
 
 jiectations he had formed on reading "Endymion." 
 Immediately on reading it he wrote to Peacock 
 (November 8th, 1820) : 
 
 Among the modern things that have reached me, is a 
 volume of poems by Keats ; in other respects insignificant 
 enough, but containing the fragment of a poem called 
 "Hyperion." I dare say you have not time to read it ; but 
 it is certainly an astonishing piece of writing, and gives me a 
 conception of Keats which I confess I hid not before. 
 
 In his enthusiastic admiration of that wonderful 
 fragment, indignant at the bitter and unjust review 
 of Keats's earlier poems in the Quarterly Review, 
 and exaggerating the effect which must be pro- 
 duced on a sensitive and delicate organisation by 
 such hostile criticism, he writes to the editor of the 
 Review in which the article appeared, as follows : 
 
 The wretch who wrote it has doubtless the additional 
 reward of a consciousness of his motives, besides the thirty 
 guineas a sheet, or whatever it is that you pay him. ... I 
 am not in the habit of permitting myself to be disturbed by 
 what is said or written of me, though I dare say I may 
 be condemned sometimes justly enough. . . . The case is 
 different with the unfortunate subject of this letter, the author 
 of " Endymion" . . . and ... if it is Mr. Gifford that 1 am 
 addressing, I am persuaded that in an appeal to his humanity 
 and justice, he will acknowledge the/rtj ab hoste doceri. . . . 
 
 Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state of mind by 
 this review, which, I am persuaded, was not written with any 
 intention of producing the effect, to which it has at least 
 greatlycontributed, of embittering his existence, and inducing 
 a disease from which there are now but faint hopes of his 
 recovery. The first effects are described to me to have 
 resembled insanity, and it was by assiduous watching that 
 he was restrained from effecting purposes of suicide. The 
 agony of his sufferings at length produced the rupture of a 
 blood-vessel" in the lungs, and the usual process of con- 
 sumption appears to have begun. He is coming to pay me 
 a visit in Italy ; but I fear that unless his mind can be kept 
 tranquil, little is to be hoped from the mere influence of 
 chmate. 
 
 But let me not extort anything from yoiir pity. I have 
 just seen a second volume, published by him evidently in 
 careless despair. . . . Allow me to solicit ' your especial 
 
 2 A 
 
354 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 attention to the fragment of a poem entitled " Hyperion," 
 the composition of which was checked by the Review in 
 question. The great proportion of this piece is surely in the 
 very highest style of poetry.* I speak impartially, for the 
 canons of taste to which Keats has conformed in his other 
 compositions, are the very reverse of my own. I leave you 
 to judge for yourself ; it would be an insult to you. to suppose 
 that, from motives however honourable, you would lend your- 
 self to a deception of the public. 
 
 Shelley, as we see by the foregoing letter, 
 cherished no false hopes concerning Keats's re- 
 covery, and it was with no surprise, albeit with 
 keenest sorrow, that a few months later he heard 
 of his death. They had not met again. The 
 author of " Hyperion " died at Rome on February 
 23rd, 1 82 1, tended by a devoted friend, Mr. Severn, 
 the artist, who watched over him to the last with 
 the truest tenderness. Shelley regretted that he 
 knew of that touching devotion too late to allude 
 to it in the elegy which he consecrated to the 
 memory of his friend. This poem alone, the 
 " Adonais," f would suffice to render the in- 
 separably linked names of Shelley and Keats 
 immortal. We cannot read it without being 
 deeply moved by the melancholy with which 
 Shelley predicts his own fate, and seems to fore- 
 bode the impending tragedy which is destined to 
 unite him to his friend. 
 
 Towards the end of October, 1820, Shelley 
 
 * Byron, who could not forgive Keats for having depre- 
 ciated Pope, and set himself up as a law-giver in Parnassus 
 while he was as y.et but a school-boy poet, and who had 
 bitterly ridiculed him in 1820, made amends for this after the 
 death of the poet. His judgment is inspired by that of 
 Shelley ; he declares Keats to have been a genius of great 
 promise, and says that his fragment, " Hyperion," seems to 
 be directly inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as 
 .(Eschylus. 
 
 \ "Adonais" was not completed until June, 1821. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 355 
 
 -was driven from the Baths of San Giuliano by an 
 inundation of the canal between the Serchio and 
 the Arno; the water invaded his house, and he 
 returned to Pisa, taking up his winter quarters at 
 Casa Galetti, with Medwin, whom he had not seen 
 since 1813. The latter, after long wanderings^ 
 including a voyage to Bombay, where he had 
 bought a copy of " Laon and Cythna " for the 
 price of the paper on which it was printed, had 
 joined his friend in Italy. He has written the 
 most interesting particulars of the literary life of 
 the poet during his residence at Pisa in the winter 
 of 1820-21. He describes him as full of projects 
 of poems, studying Arabic with his cousin, with a 
 view to future travels through Syria and Egypt, 
 •delighting more and more in the Greeks and the 
 Spaniards, improvising, for Medwin's benefit, a 
 translation of the " Prometheus " of ^schylus, 
 and luxuriating in the light and perfume of "the 
 -golden and starry Autos " of Calderon ; purposing 
 to write a version in terza rima of Dante's Epic ; 
 and reading with admiration Manzoni's " Promessi 
 Sposi." He considered the description of the 
 plague at Milan, to be " far superior to those of 
 De Foe or Thucydides." They also read together 
 Schiller's tragedy of "Joan of Arc." The chief 
 merit of this work in Shelley's eyes was that it 
 treated the Christian religion as a mythology, and 
 he said that a hundred years hence it would be 
 more admired than now. 
 
 At times, however, in the midst of these pure 
 delights, Shelley would give way to a dark 
 melancholy, "too sacred," says Medwin, "to notice, 
 and which it would have been a vain attempt to 
 dissipate." At other times, when his fea'tures 
 bore the impress of suffering, his spirit was lost 
 in reverie, absorbed in the contemplation of the 
 «xterior world, and dissolved, as it were, into 
 Nature. 
 
 2 A 2 
 
356 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 " More than once," continues Medwin, " I have remarked 
 something of this in Shelley, as we stood watching from my 
 open window in the upper part of the house the sunsets of 
 Pisa, which are gorgeous beyond any I have ever witnessed, 
 when the waters, the sky, and the marble palaces that line 
 the magnificent crescent of the Lung' Arno were glowing 
 with crimson — the river a flood of molten gold— and I seem 
 now to follow its course towards the Ponte al Mare, till the 
 eye rested on the Torre del Fame, that frowned in dark 
 relievo on the horizon. On such occasions, after one of these 
 reveries, he would forget himself, lost in admiration, and 
 exclaim : ' What a glorious world ! There is, after all,, 
 something worth living for. This makes me retract the wish 
 that I had never been born.' " 
 
 At such times he forgot the bitter thought? 
 which had made him write : " I am regarded 
 by all who know or hear of me, except, I 
 think, on the whole five individuals, as a rare 
 prodigy of crime and pollution, whose look even 
 might infect. This is a large computation, and I 
 don't think I could mention more than three." 
 
 Even in Italy his kind fellow-countrymen^ 
 missed no opportunity of freshly opening the 
 wound. There is a story that at the Pisa Post 
 Office an English officer said to him, " So you 
 are that damned Atheist Shelley 1 " and struck 
 him with his cane. 
 
 The varied and agreeable social relation? 
 formed by Shelley during his second residence 
 at Pisa, were some consolation for the contempt 
 and rudeness of his own countrymen. We find 
 him at Casa Galetti surrounded by such clever 
 and noticeable persons as Pacchiani, Emilia 
 Viviani, Mavrocordato, Taaffe (the translator and 
 commentator of Dante), and Sgricci the impro- 
 visatore; there lor the first time he enjoyed the 
 society of a chosen and select circle which he 
 was so well fitted to appreciate. Two of his 
 most beautiful works, the " Epipsychidion " and 
 " Hellas," were written under these propitious, 
 circumstances. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SHELLEY IN ITALY — PISA AND RAVENNA — 
 • EMILIA VIVIANI AND THE " EPIPSYCHIDION " 
 — "A DEFENCE OF POETRY "—" HELLAS" — 
 "CHARLES I."— 182 1. 
 
 On March 2ist, 1821, Shelley wrote to Peacock: 
 ""I have made the acquaintance at Pisa, in an 
 ■obscure convent, of the only Italian in whom 
 I have ever felt any interest." 
 
 This was the young and beautiful Contessina 
 Emilia Viviani, she who inspired the "Epipsy- 
 chidion." Since the preceding autumn, Shelley 
 bad been intimate with a certain Abb^ Pacchiani, 
 Professor at the University of Pisa and chaplain 
 in the family of Count Viviani. 
 
 Pacchiani was a typical abb^ of the eighteenth 
 century, a fit opponent of Voltaire or Diderot. 
 Medwin gives us an amusing sketch of the 
 man : 
 
 Pacchiani was about fifty years of age, somewhat above 
 the coqjmon height, with a figure bony and angular, and 
 ■covered with no more superfluous flesh than a prize-fighter. 
 His face was dark as that of a Moor, his features marked 
 and regular, his eyes black and gloomy. He always re- 
 minded me of one of Titian's portraits (his family had been 
 Venetians) stepping out of its frame. Had he lived when 
 Venice was governed by the Tr^, he would have made a 
 Loredano, and might have sate to Anr»e Radcliffe'for a 
 
35S SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Scliedoni ; but, to descend to modern times, during the 
 reign of Austrian despotism he was admirably calculated 
 for a spy, or c alder aio—-ptrhs.-ps he might be one. " Chi 
 lo sa ?" Nature certainly never designed him for a divine. 
 As to his religion, it was about on a par with that of II 
 Abbate Casti (Casti a ncn casta, as lucjis d. non lucendo), of 
 whom he was afterwards a worthy successor, in his native 
 city, Florence. But at Pisa, // Signore Professore was the, 
 title by which he was generally known — a professor, like 
 many other professors and lecturers, at least in' Italy, who 
 had made a sinecure of his office, that of belles letires, and 
 only mounted the cathedra once during the many years that 
 he touched his poor emoluments ; for the Transalpine 
 universities are not quite so richly endowed as our own. 
 Not that this neglect of his duties would have affected his 
 appointment, but, as he told me, he lost it by an irresistible 
 hon mot. During one of his midnight orgies, which he was 
 in the habit of celebrating with some of the most dissolute 
 of the students, he was interrogated in the darkness by the 
 patrol in the streets of Pisa, as to who and what he was ; to . 
 which questioning he gave the following reply : " Son' un 
 - uomo publico, in una strada publica, con una'donna publica." 
 This pubhc avowal cost him his chair. But it gave him 
 eclat, and did not lose him his friends, or exclude him from 
 the houses where he was the spiritual guide and confessor. 
 There were, it is true, two reasons why he was tolerated in 
 good society (which Casti says is to be found where he places 
 Don Juan, below) — his pen and his tongue — the dread of 
 both. His epigrams were sanglanies, and he gave sobriquets 
 the most happy for those who offended him ; as an instance- 
 of which, he most happily styled a captain of our Navy 
 il dolce capitano — a bye-word that stuck to him through life, 
 and always excited a smile at his expense whenever he 
 appeared. He was a good poet, if one might judge from the' 
 quotations he was in the habit of making from his tragedies, 
 which he continually talked about, and which Madame 
 de Stael, who knew him, used to call his imaginary ones, for 
 not a line of them was ever published — perhaps written. 
 His talent was conversation — a conversation full of repartee 
 and sparkling with wit ; and his information (he was a man 
 of profound erudition, vast memory, and first-rate talent) 
 made him almost oracular. Shelley, when Pacchiani first 
 became an habitue at his house, was charmed with him, and 
 listened with rapt attention to his eloquence, which he 
 compared to that of Coleridge. It was a swai-m of ideas 
 singularly extravagant, but which he contrived to weave into 
 his argument with marvellous embroidery. Now he plunged 
 into abysses but to lighten other abysses ; and his vv'ords,. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 339 
 
 like a torrent — for there was no stopping t;lm when faii'ly 
 rushing onwards— carried all before them. 
 
 It was this gift of eloquence that made him for a time 
 welcome at Shelley's, where he passed many an evening in 
 the week (I think I see him now, dissecting the snipes with 
 his long, bony, snuffy fingers — for he never in the operation 
 made use of a knife or fork) ; at first I say, for he had in the 
 outset sufficient tact (no one knew mankmd better) to keep 
 in the background the revolting vices which were familiar to 
 him and disfigured his character. He had a predilection 
 for our compatriotes, with and without the e, but particularly 
 patronised the Belle Inglese, as he always called English 
 women ; and after the Italian fashion, soon familiarly called 
 ■Mrs. Shelley, La Signora Maria. Wherever he once got 
 the entrie, he was a sine gud non, a fa tout. ' He had always 
 some poor devil of low origin to recommend as a master of 
 his language, receiving, under the rose, part of the lesson 
 money. He was never at a loss to. find some Palazzo to be 
 let, getting a monthly douceur out of the rent from the land- 
 lord ; for a picture fancier, he had always at hand some 
 mysterious Marchese or Marchesa, ready to part with a Carlo 
 Dolce, or Andrea del Sarto, or Allori — origivah of course. 
 He could dilate for hours on the Venus of the Tribune, the 
 Day and Night of Michael Angelo, the Niobe ; knew the. 
 history of every painter and painting in the galleries of the 
 Uffizii and Pitti better than Vasari, or his successor Rosini ; 
 in short, he was a Mezzano, Cicerone, Conosciatore, Dilettante, 
 and I might add, Ruffiano. Mrs. Shelley has sketched him 
 in her " Valperga." 
 
 Some years later^ Medwin again met with 
 Pacchiani at Florence. He was reduced to abject 
 poverty, had been imprisoned for debt, but was 
 more than ever a Diavolo incarnato. 
 
 In the course of conversation with Shelley the 
 abbe mentioned to him two young daughters of 
 the Count, who, on their father's second marriage, 
 •had been placed in separate convents. He d^velt 
 principally on the elder, Emilia, who for two years 
 had been in the Convent of St. Anna, awaiting a 
 husband who would take her without dowry. 
 
 "Poverina," said Pacchiani, "she pines like a 
 bird in a cage — ardently longs to escape'from her 
 prison-house — pines with ennui, ci.x\<\ wanders about 
 the corridors like an ■ unquiet spirit ; she sees her 
 
36o SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 young days glide on without an aim or purpose- 
 She was made for love. Yesterday she was 
 watering some flowers in her cell — she has nothing 
 to love but her flowers — 'Yes,' said' she, addres- 
 sing them, 'you are born to vegetate, but we 
 thinking beings were made for action — not to be 
 penned up in a corner, or set at a window to 
 bloom and die.' " 
 
 Such words as these found a responsive echo 
 in Shelley's heart. 
 
 "The next day,'' continues Medwin, "accompanied by 
 the priest, we came in sight of the gloomy dark convent, 
 whose ruinous and dilapidated condition told too plainly of 
 confiscation and poverty. It was situated in an unfrequented 
 street in the suburbs, not far from the walls. After passing 
 through a gloomy portal, that led to a quadrangle, the area 
 of which was crowded with crosses, memorials of old 
 monastic times, we were soon in the presence of Emilia. . . . 
 
 Emilia was indeed lovely and interesting. Her profuse 
 black hair, tied in the most simple knot, after the manner of 
 a Greek Muse in the Florence gallery, displayed to its full 
 height her brow, fair as that marble of which I speak. She 
 was also about the same height as the antique. Her features 
 possessed a rare faultlessness, and almost Grecian contour, 
 the nose and forehead making a straight line . . . her eyes 
 had the sleepy voluptuousness, if not the colour of Beatrice 
 Cenci's, They had indeed no definite colour, changing with 
 the changing feeling to dark or light as the soul animated 
 them. Her cheek was pale too as marble, owing to her 
 confinement and want of air, and perhaps to thought. ■ 
 
 There was a lark in the parloir that had lately been 
 caught. "Poor prisoner !" said she, looking at it compas- 
 sionately, '' you will die of grief ! How I pity thee I What 
 must thou suffer when thou hearest in the clouds the songs 
 of thy parent birds, or some flocks of thy kind on the wing, 
 in search of other skies, of new fields, of new delights ! But, 
 like me, thou wilt be forced to remain here always, to wear 
 out thy miserable existence here. Why can I not release 
 thee .?..." 
 
 Such was the impression of the only visit I paid Emilia ; 
 but I saw her some weeks after, at the end of a Carnival, 
 when she had obtained leave to visit Mrs. Shelley, com- 
 panioned by the abbess. In spite of the Contessina's efforts 
 ■ to assume cheerfulness, one might see she was very, very 
 sad ; but she made no complaint. She had grown used to 
 suffering ; it had become her element. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 361 
 
 Claire and Mary frequently visited her at the 
 •convent, and lent her books, such as " Corinne," 
 "La Nouvelle Helolse," etc. Claire began to 
 teach her English. Shelley often wrote to her^ 
 and together with gifts of flowers wet with her 
 tears,* received from her in answer letters full 
 ■of melancholy and despair. While Mary was 
 for Emilia her "dearest sister," Shelley became 
 the "beloved brother/' t\iQ " se.nsibile Percy," the 
 ^' adorato sposo." 
 
 On one occasion she writes to him as follows : 
 
 This evening I wish to tell you many things, but my vigilant 
 and importunate Argus has hindered me from so doing. I will 
 now tell you a part of them. You console me by engaging 
 ■yourself to effect my liberation. Here I fare ill, both in 
 spirits and health, and suffer very much in every way, so 
 that by taking me from here you would give me a new 
 existence. I leave the how to you, who have that experience 
 and that wisdom in which 1 am wanting. . . . Ah, God 
 pardon my mother! She could make me contented, if not 
 happy, and, on the contrary, it is she who is the chief cause 
 ■of my misfortunes. I love her still, and wish her every good. 
 I feel that Nature speaks and lives in my heart. Although she 
 forgets that she is my mother, I remember that 1 am her 
 daughter. . . . You say that my liberation will perhaps 
 <iivide us. O my friend ! my soul, my heart can never be 
 parted from my brother, from my dear sisters ! Myperson, 
 once delivered from this prison, will attempt all things in 
 order to follow my heart, and Emilia will seek you every- 
 where, even to the utmost boundaries of the world. I do not 
 dove, nor shall I ever be able to love, any thing or person so 
 much as your family ; for it I would abandon everything, 
 and should lose nothing, since in it are included all that can 
 exist of beautiful, virtuous, amiable, sensibile, and learned in 
 fhe world. 
 
 Shelley was attracted to Emilia, not, only by 
 her sorrows and her beauty, but still more by 
 her charms of intellect and the ideal tendencies 
 of her mind. " She had cultivated her mind," 
 
 * See the exquisite madrigal beginning : " Madonna, 
 wherefore hast thou sent to me, sweet basil and mig- 
 nonette .' " 
 
362 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET 
 
 he says, " more than any Italian woman I have 
 met." She read the Italian poets, was herself a 
 writer of verse, and, although ignorant of Plato, 
 had written an "Apostrophe to Love" that has 
 come down to us, and bears witness to her 
 elevation and purity of thought on that subject. 
 This possibly may have given Shelley the first 
 idea of his " Epipsychidion ; " and from Emilia 
 he borrowed the, words of his epigraph, which 
 is the key to the poem : " L' anima amante si 
 slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nell' infinito 
 un mondo tutto per essa, diverse assai da questo 
 oscuro e pauroso baratro " (the loving soul soars 
 above the visible world, and creates for herself 
 in infinite space a world all her own, and unlike 
 indeed to this dark and dreadful prison). 
 
 To see more than a pure Platonic affection 
 in the friendship between Shelley and Emilia, 
 would be wilfully to shut one's eyes against 
 evidence. Mary is too closely interwoven in the 
 "Epipsychidion," as sister to Emilia, for us to 
 suppose for an instant that she could have any 
 cause for jealousy. Shelley himself dismissed 
 any such interpretation of his conduct with 
 contempt. On October 22nd he wrote to 
 J. Gisborne: "The 'Epipsychidion' is a mystery; 
 as to real flesh and blood, you know that I do 
 not deal in those articles ; you might as well 
 go to a gin-shop for a leg of mutton, as expect 
 anything human or earthly from me. . . Some 
 of us have, in a prior existence, been in love 
 with an Antigone, and that makes us find no 
 full content in any mortal tie. ... I desired 
 Oilier not to circulate this piece except to the 
 initiated (o-uwroi), and even chey, it seems, are 
 inclined to approximate me to the circle of a. 
 servant-girl and her sweetheart. But I inteqd 
 to write a symposium of my own to set all this 
 right." A little later, in 1822, when his passion 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 363 
 
 for Emilia had passed away, and when, too, 
 that part of himself which is expressed in the 
 " Epipsychidion " had passed away also, he wrote 
 to Gisborne : 
 
 The " Epipsychidion " I cannot look at ; the person 
 whom it celebrates was a cloud instead of a Juno ; and poor 
 Ixion starts from the Centaur that was the offspring of his 
 own embrace. ^If you are curious, however, to hear what I 
 am and have been, it will tell you something thereof. It is 
 an idealised history of my life and feelings. I think one is ■ 
 always in love with something or other ; the error — and I 
 confess it is not easy for spirits cased in flesh and blood to 
 avoid it — consists 'of seeking in a mortal image the likeness 
 of what is perhaps eternal. 
 
 There can be no mistake, the " Epipsychidion " 
 is to its author merely the history of disappoint- 
 ment in his search for, ideal beauty, of which he 
 has caught a glimpse in the created beauty that 
 has at various times detained him in his flight 
 towards the uncreated and the eternal. 
 
 In Shelley, love, as an emotion of the soul, 
 cannot be satisfied with one object only ; every- 
 thing beautiful in Art, in Nature, in humanity, and 
 especially in woman, is his own ; he loves a woman 
 as he loves the sun, the cloud, the song of the 
 lark or nightingale, the " Niobe " or the " Apollo," 
 the " Antigone " of Sophocles, or the " Two 
 Heavenly Lovers " of Calderon. From Harriet 
 Grove to Emilia Viviani, that which he sings of 
 with rapture, is Love itself; his only Muse, his 
 one God. In order to appreciate the " Epipsy- 
 chidion," it must be read in the same spirit as 
 the "Vita Nuova" of Dante, or Shakespeare's 
 Sonnets. 
 
 The romance of, Emilia ends for Shelley as 
 other romances had ended. We have seen the 
 estimation in which he held her, so soon as the 
 commonplace realities of life robbed him of the 
 gracious phantom of his own fascinated imagi- 
 nation. 
 
364 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Mary writes to Mrs. Gisborne on March 7th, 
 1822 : 
 
 Emilia has married Biondi ; we hear that she leads him 
 and his mother (to use a vulgarism) a devil of a life. The 
 conclusion of our friendship {a la Jtaliana) puts me in mind 
 ■of a nursery rhyme which runs thus : 
 
 As I was going down Cranbourne Lane, 
 
 Cranbourne Lane was dirty, 
 And there I met a pretty maid 
 
 Who dropt to me a curtsey. 
 I gave her cakes, I gave her wine, 
 
 I gave her sugar-candy ; 
 But oh ! the little naughty girl, 
 
 She asked me for some brandy. 
 
 T^ow turn " Cranbourne Lane " into Pisan acquaintances, 
 which I am sure are dirty enough, and "brandy" into 
 that wherewithal to buy brandy (and that no small sum 
 feri), and you have the whole story of Shelley's Italian 
 Platonics. 
 
 Emilia Viviani came to a sad and gloomy 
 €nd. Medwin thus describes her last days ; he 
 had come across Pacchiani several years after- 
 wards in Florence, who one day said to him 
 mysteriously : 
 
 " I will introduce you to an old friend — come with me," 
 and he conducted me to a country house in the suburbs. 
 The villa was in great disrepair. The court leading to it, 
 overgrown with weeds, proved that it had been for some 
 years untenanted. An old woman led us through a number 
 of long passages and rooms, many of the windows in which 
 were broken, and let in the coli blasts from " the wind- 
 swept Apennines ; '' and opening at length a door, ushered 
 us into a chamber, where a small bed and a couple of chairs 
 formed the entire furniture. The couch was covered with 
 white gauze curtains to exclude the gnats ; behind them 
 was lying a female form. She immediately recognised me 
 — was probably prepared for my visit — and extended her 
 thin hand to me in greeting. So changed that recumbent 
 figure, that I could scarcely recognise a trace of the once 
 beautiful Emilia. Shelley's evil augury had been fulfilled, 
 she had found in her marriage all that he had predicted ; 
 for six years she led a life of purgatory, and had at length 
 broken the chain with the consent of her father, who had 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 365 
 
 lent her this long disused and dilapidated campagne. I 
 might fill many a page by speaking of the tears she shed 
 over the memory of Shelley — but enough— she did not long 
 enjoy her freedom. Shortly after this interview she was 
 confined to her bed ; the seeds of malaria, which had been 
 sown in the Maremma, combined with that all-irremediable 
 malady, brolien-heartedness, brought on a rapid consumption. 
 The old woman, who had been her nurse, made me a 
 long narration of her last moments, as she wept bitterly. 
 I wept too when I thought of Shelley's Psyche, and his 
 " Epipsychidion." 
 
 Happily for Shelley, amid all such disappoint- 
 ments in Platonic love, " his mistress Urania," as 
 he named poetical inspiration, remained true to 
 him. 
 
 A pamphlet by his friend Peacock gave him an 
 opportunity of breaking a lance in her honour 
 early in 1821. 
 
 Peacock's article, which appeared in Ollier's 
 Literary Miscellany, 1820, was a clever attack ^n 
 poetry 'and poets. He gave a rapid sketch of 
 "The Four Ages of Poetry," the age of iron, the 
 age of gold, the age of silver, and the age of brass, 
 which recur in regular succession from the times of 
 Homer to those of Nonnus, and from the times of 
 the Troubadours to those of Wordsworth. He 
 maintained that the poetry of primitive ages 
 (periods during which there are — if we except the 
 priesthood, which always flourishes — only three 
 flourishing trades : those of the king, the thief, and 
 the beggar) was but the hyperbolical panegyric of 
 the exploits and wealth of a restricted number of 
 predominant individuals. The strongest part of 
 the pamphlet was its satire on the modern age 
 of brass— that is, on the contemporary poets, or 
 the Lake School, or " Returners to Nature," as he 
 amusingly dubs them. 
 
 The conclusion drawn by Peacock was that 
 poetry is suitable to the childhood of nations, biit 
 is not fit for their maturity, and that to treat it 
 
366 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 seriously is as absurd as for a grown man to rub 
 his gums with a coral, or to be hushed to sleep 
 with the tinkle of silver bells. He made no ex- 
 ception even for moral poetryj which consists, he 
 says, in tearful and egoistical rhapsodies, expressive 
 of the writer's extreme dislike of the world and all 
 it contains. 
 
 Such a satire moved Shelley to both indig- 
 nation and amusement. While sharing to a 
 certain extent Peacock's criticisms on the Bavii 
 and Maevii of the day, he could not admit that 
 poetry herself was responsible for the rhymes of 
 Barry Cornwall, "this stuff in terza, ottava, and 
 trcmillesima rima," whose earthly baseness had 
 drawn down the lightning of his friend's undis- 
 criminating censure " upon the temple of immortal 
 song" itself. 
 
 " Your anathemas against poetry itself," writes Shelley 
 (February isth, 1821), "excited me to a sacred rage, or 
 caloeihes* scribendi of vindicating the insulted Muses. I had 
 the greatest possible desire to break a lance with you within 
 the lists of a magazine, in honour of my mistress, Urania ; 
 but God willed that I should be too lazy, and wrested the 
 victory from your hope ; since first having unhorsed poetry, 
 and the universal sense of the wisest in all ages, an easy 
 conquest would have remained to you in me, the knight 
 of the shield of shadow and the lance of gossamere. 
 Besides, I was at that moment reading Plato's 'Ion,' which 
 I recommend you to reconsider." 
 
 An attack of ophthalmia prevented Shelleyfrom 
 immediately setting to work ; but by the month of 
 March, 1 821, he had completed the first part of his 
 admirable "Defence of Poetry," which may justly 
 be described as " the song of the swan." 
 
 Another lady besides Emilia soon appeared at 
 Pisa to exercise a powerful charm over the poet. 
 
 In the beginning of 1821, Shelley made the 
 acquaintance of Edward Williams and his wife. 
 
 * Caloethes, the contrary of cacoethes, Dowden explains. • 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 367 
 
 The young couple had come direct from Geneva to 
 Italy for the express purpose of knowing Shelley 
 personally ; Medwin having described him as a 
 most marvellous phenomenon. Edward Williams 
 was the descendant of one of Cromwell's daughters, 
 and had been a schoolfellow of Shelley at Eton ; 
 he had served in the navy, and had subsequently 
 travelled in India with Medwin. He was frank, 
 loyal, generous, brave, passionately fond of the 
 sea and of navigation, something of a poet, 
 possessed real dramatic talent,* and was therefore 
 well adapted to win Shelley's affection. Mrs. 
 Williams realised the feminine ideal he had 
 essayed to describe in the " Sensitive Plant." 
 Her sweet and simple nature, the elegance of her 
 movements, and her gracious manners compen- 
 sated in Shelley's ' eyes for any want of literary 
 culture, while her proficiency in music, her harp 
 and guitar playing were a new and hitherto 
 unknown delight to Shelley. He had hardly 
 known her an hour when he loved her. In several 
 exquisite little poemsf he has expressed his tender 
 affection for this lady; he compares her to 
 Mirand,at, and elects himself to be her Ariel. 
 Thenceforth Shelley and Williams were never 
 parted, not even in death. 
 
 Among the most frequent guests at the Casa 
 Aulla, was a personage who interested Shelley in 
 more ways than one, but more especially because 
 he represented the sacred cause of freedom for the 
 poet's true mother-country, Greece. He writes to 
 Peacock, on the 21st March, 1821 : 
 
 We have made a very interesting acquaintance with a 
 
 * Shelley wrote an epithalamium, to be set to music, for 
 one of his plays on a subject from Boccaccio. 
 
 + See "Lines to Edward Williams," "The Magnetic 
 Lady to her Patient," "To Jane— The Invitation," "To 
 Jane— The Recollection," " With a Guitar, to Jane," " To 
 Jane.'' 
 
368 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Greek Prince, perfectly acquainted with ancient literature, 
 and full of enthusiasm for the liberties and improvement of 
 his country. Mary has been a Greek student for several 
 months, and is reading "Antigone" with our turbaned 
 friend, who, in return, is taught English. 
 
 This turbaned friend was Prince Mavrocordato, 
 one of the survivors of the Wallachian insurrection, 
 who had taken refuge in Italy. It was a piece 
 of good fortune for the exiled Greek, and for 
 the cause of Hellenic independence, to meet the 
 poet who was about to take the interests of 
 awakening Greece so warmly to heart, and to 
 sing with heroic enthusiasm and prophetic in- 
 spiration, the defeat of the Crescent and the 
 triumph of Hellas. 
 
 Shelley knew little of the modern Greeks, 
 except from the historical novel of " Anastasius ;"* 
 he saw in them only the heirs of the Hellenic 
 name and glory, " the descendants of the nation 
 to which we owe our civilisation." He believed 
 that, though degraded by misfortune and slavery, 
 their natural characteristics were a pledge of the 
 future, and doubted not that a change in the 
 political situation would bring about their com- 
 plete regeneration. 
 
 All public attention is now centred on the wonderful 
 revolution in Greece. I dare not, after the events of last 
 winter, hope that slaves can become freemen so cheaply ; 
 yet I know one Greek of the highest qualities, both of 
 courage and conduct— the Prince Mavrocordato — and if the 
 rest be like him, all will go well. 
 
 Some months later he was at Leghorn with 
 his friend Trelawney, who took him over the 
 docks, where men of all the nations of the world 
 were congregated together, and showed him the 
 
 * " Anastasius ; or, Memoirs of a Greek," written at the 
 end of the eighteenth century. Three vols., 1819 ; by Thomas- 
 Hope. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 369 
 
 modern Greeks he had just glorified in his 
 " Hellas." 
 
 "I hear their shrill nasal voices," said Trelawney, as they 
 approached the Greek vessel they were about to visit, " and 
 should like to know if you can trace in the language or 
 lineaments of these Greeks of the nineteenth century A.D., 
 the faintest resemblance to the lofty and sublime spirits who 
 lived in the fourth century B.C. An English merchant 
 who has dealings with them, told me he thought these 
 modern Greeks were, if judged by their actions, a cross- 
 between the Jews an,d the Gipsies." 
 
 Shelley and Trelawney, while thus conversing 
 had ascended the San-Spiridione, where they 
 found the Greeks huddled in little groups on 
 the bridge, shouting, gesticulating, smoking, eating 
 and playing, like savages. • "Does this realise 
 your idea of Hellenism } " asked Trelawney. " No, 
 tjut it does of Hell/' answered Shelley. Still 
 worse was it when he heard Captain Zarita speak ; 
 the latter offered them pipes and coffee in his 
 cabin — under a niche with an image of St. Spiri- 
 dion, before which a lamp burned — and told them 
 he disapproved of war because it interrupted 
 trade. "Come away," said Shelley ; " there is not 
 a drop of the old Hellenic blood here. These 
 are not the men to rekindle the ancient Greek 
 fire ; their souls are extinguished by traffic and 
 superstition. Come away ! " 
 
 It was not possible to Shelley to move among 
 the realities of life without the infliction of con- 
 stant pain on his own ideal; and he withdrew 
 from the world principally with the object of 
 avoiding a contact involving disenchantment. It 
 may be that we should never have possessed 
 " Hellas," had Shelley spoken with Captain Zarita 
 a few months earlier. 
 
 The companionship of Prince Mavrocordato 
 awoke in him all his Greek sympathies. The 
 Prince communicated to him in April the pro- 
 
 2 B 
 
37° SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 clamation just issued by his cousin Ypsilanti j 
 on that day Shelley conceived " Hellas/' and 
 ordered two seals to be engraved with the 
 device of a dove with outspread wings surrounded 
 by this motto : " Maj/i-ir «/i ep6kav aySvav." The same 
 motto became the epigraph of the drama. 
 
 It was fitting that Shelley's last complete 
 work should be a hymn in honour of liberty 
 and of the glorious country of Homer, ^schylus, 
 and Plato. But his enthusiasm for the past did not 
 prevent him from taking a clear view of European 
 politics, and of the action of the great Powers- 
 in a conflict involving the destinies of the world. 
 He severely blamed the interested and selfish 
 policy of England ; and indicated the only proper 
 course to be taken by a nation regardful of the 
 rights of peoples and of her own dignity: 
 this should be to support the independence of 
 Greece, instead of incurring the indelible stain 
 of a monstrous alliance "with the enemies of 
 domestic happiness, of Christianity, and of civili- 
 sation." 
 
 One cannot read " Hellas " without being 
 struck with its likeness to the " Perss " of 
 ./Eschylus. The dramatic interest is equally 
 simple, grand, and terrible in both. The coming 
 of successive messengers of evil, the evocation 
 of Mahomet II. by Ahasuerus, the despair of 
 Mahmud, the admirable contrast between the 
 choruses of Greek and Turkish slaves — these 
 almost transport us to the stage of Athens. 
 But there is a moral and philosophical atmo- 
 sphere in Shelley's drama which we do not find 
 in .iEschylus, lifting it far above the actual facts 
 on which it is grounded ; there is an inspired 
 presentiment of the final triumph of the Hellenic 
 or Promethean spirit over all religious fanaticism 
 and social tyranny. By a marvellous stroke of 
 genius he makes Mahmud himself the mouth- 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 371 
 
 piece of this prophecy ; and in Mahmud is in- 
 carnate not only the melancholy belonging to the 
 decline of a great but decaying power, but the 
 deeper and more human melancholy of a mind 
 awakened by adversity to great thoughts on the 
 fragility of human things, and to the revelations 
 of the ever-present, ever-subsisting spirit per- 
 sonified in Ahasuerus. 
 
 There is a strange grandeur in this mixture of 
 the real and the ideal, of history and vision, which 
 lifts us far above the narrow scene of action, 
 to the remotest spheres of thought and imagi- 
 nation. All through "Hellas" we feel, ourselves 
 in presence of a still higher and vaster con- 
 ception, which the poet had at first intended 
 to realise, but which he relinquished in order to 
 strike the popular imagination quickly and for- 
 cibly. Though " Hellas " did not obtain its 
 rightful meed of fame in London, the poet, had 
 he lived, would have been consoled for the in- 
 justice of his fellow-countrymen, by its effect 
 on Lord Byron. " It is impossible to express," 
 says Medwin, "the influence exercised on Byron 
 by that drama, and by Shelley's enthusiasm, 
 when he resolved to devote himself to the cause 
 of Greece." Shelley needed keen intellectual 
 excitement to counteract the moral and physical 
 exhaustion induced at intervals by ill-health and 
 financial difficulties! But the return of fine 
 weather, and the delight of boating, contributed 
 to his rapid restoration. He had now a boat 
 of his own, a boat that held three persons, "a 
 little nautilus-shell," he called it, with which he 
 navigated the rushing Arno, or the Serchio, to 
 the great alarm of Italian onlookers. 
 
 This period of tranquillity was only broken by 
 an excursion to Florence, and a short visit to Lord 
 Byron, at Ravenna, in August. 
 
 Shelley found him transformed by his passion 
 
 2 B 2 
 
372 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 for the Countess Guiccioli, which had rescued him 
 from the wretched excesses into which he had 
 fallen through pride and indifference rather than 
 from choice, in excellent health, and immersed in 
 politics and literature. 
 
 Shelley had barely arrived when Byron 
 hastened to communicate to him a monstrous 
 and shameful story that had been told him by the 
 Hoppners, and which out of hatred to Claire, his 
 former mistress, he was not unwilling to believe. 
 Claire was said to have been Shelley's mistress 
 while at Naples, and to have borne him a child 
 which he had sent to the Foundling Hospital. 
 The authors of the calumny were Shelley's former 
 servants, Elise and Paolo, who thus revenged 
 themselves for their dismissal. Shelley was 
 greatly hurt to think that his highly valued friends 
 the Hoppners could for a moment have believed 
 so shameful a story. He begged his wife to write 
 to the Hoppners, refuting the charge which she 
 " only can effectually rebut." Mary at once 
 wrote as Shelley asked her, a letter full of the 
 most eloquent indignation, as well as the deepest 
 affection for her husband : 
 
 That my beloved Shelley should stand thus slandered in 
 your minds — he, the gentlest and most humane of creatures 
 — is more painful to me, oh, far more painful than words can 
 express ! Need I say that the union between my husband 
 and myself has ever been undisturbed ? Love caused our 
 first imprudence ; love which, improved by esteem, a perfect 
 trust one in the other, a confidence and affection which, 
 visited as we have been by severe calamities (have we not 
 lost two children ?), has increased daily and knows no 
 bounds. 
 
 Shelley handed this letter to Lord Byron, who 
 undertook to forward it to the Hoppners with 
 comments of his own ; but he failed to do so, and 
 the letter was found among Byron's papers after 
 his death. 
 
 Very different was Shelley's zeal for and in all 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 373 
 
 that concerned his friend. La Guiccioli was 
 desirous of removing to Switzerland in order to 
 extricate herself from the difficulties of her 
 position in. Italy, and Shelley, at Byron's request, 
 tasked himself to write her a long letter in Italian 
 advising her to stay where she was; "an odd thing 
 enough for an utter stranger to write on subjects 
 of the utmost delicacy to his friend's mistress," he 
 writes to Mary. " But it seems destined that I am 
 always to have some active part in everybody's 
 affairs whom I approach. I have set down in 
 lame Italian, the strongest reasons I can think of 
 against the Swiss emigration. To tell you the 
 truth, I should be very glad to accept as my fee, 
 his establishment in Tuscany." 
 
 Shelley's " lame Italian " was eloquent enough 
 to detain the Countess in Italy, and as a reward 
 for her docility she asks of him a favour : " Do 
 not leave Ravenna without Milord." It was 
 arranged that Byron should join Shelley at Pisa. 
 
 During Shelley's stay at Ravenna he visited the 
 curious antiquities of that ancient city, and "looked 
 with a certain interest at the tomb of Theodoric 
 and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia ; " but cared 
 little for the beauty of its mosaics and Symbolic 
 sculptures. He wandered through the gloomy 
 pine-forest that separates Ravenna from the sea, 
 wherein Dante meditated, and Byron, at the 
 request of La Guiccioli, composed his "Prophecy of 
 Dante." Nor did he neglect the tomb of the great 
 GhibeHne. " I have seen Dante's tomb," he 
 writes to Mary, " and worshipped the sacred spot." 
 
 But more than aught else at Ravenna, Lord 
 Byron himself and the progress of his genius was 
 interesting to Shelley. 
 
 He has read to me one of the unpublished cantos of "Don 
 Juan ,-■' which is astonishingly fine. 1 1 sets him not only above, 
 but far above, all the poets of the day — every word has the 
 stamp of immortaUty. I despair of rivalling Lord Byron — as 
 
374 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 well I may — and there is no other with whom it is worth 
 contending. This canto (5th) is totally in the style, and 
 sustained with incredible ease and power, of the end of the 
 second canto. There is not a word which the most rigid 
 asserter of the dignity of human nature could desire to be 
 cancelled. It fulfils, in a certain degree, what I have long 
 preached of producing — something wholly new and relative 
 to the age, and yet surpassingly beautiful. It may be vanity, 
 but I think I see the trace of my earnest exhortations to him 
 to create something wholly new. 
 
 The unreserved admiration felt by Shelley for 
 Byron, discouraged him, perhaps, more than any 
 other cause from writing. He was bitten by the 
 desire for fame. 
 
 " I write nothing," he tells Peacock, " and probably shall 
 write no more. It offends me to see my name classed among 
 those who have ho name. ... I had rather be nothing. . . . 
 And the accursed cause to the downfall of which I dedicated 
 what powers I may have had — flourishes like a cedar, and 
 covers England with its boughs. My motive was never the 
 infirm desire of fame ; and if I should continue an author, 
 I feel that I should desire it. The cup is justly given to one 
 only of an age ; indeed, participation would make it worth- 
 less ; and unfortunate they who. seek it and find it not." 
 
 Yet although Shelley thus allowed himself to 
 be dazzled by the splendour of Byron's genius, he 
 felt that there lay between them an abyss that the 
 most sincere admiration could not bridge. Byron's 
 selfishness and pride closed all the avenues of his 
 heart. And with deep melancholy Shelley says : 
 
 Lord Byron and I are excellent friends, and were I- 
 reduced to poverty, or were I a writer who had no claims to 
 a higher station than I possess — or did I possess a higher 
 than I deserve — we should appear in all things as such, and 
 I would freely ask him any favour. Such is not now the 
 case. The demon of mistrust and pride lurks between two 
 persons in our situation, poisoning the freedom of our inter- 
 course. This is a tax, and a heavy one, which we must pay 
 for being human. I think the fault is not on my side, nor is 
 it likely, I being the weaker. I hope that in the next world 
 these things will be better managed. What is passing in 
 the heart of another rarely escapes the observation of one 
 who is a strict anatomist of his own. 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 375 
 
 So just an appreciation of Byron's character^ 
 and of the moral obstacles to perfect friendship 
 -with him, was due in great measure to the reserve 
 which Shelley had found to be necessary with 
 j regard to his friend Leigh Hunt, for whose 
 ' benefit he had endeavoured, while staying at 
 Ravenna, to promote with Byron's help a 
 periodical to be called The Liberal. With Hunt 
 he could speak openly, and in his disappointment 
 at not finding Byron so generous and unselfish 
 as himself he wrote to him as follows : 
 
 Particular circumstances, or rather, I should say, 
 particular dispositions in Lord Byron's character, render 
 the close and exclusive intimacy with him in which I find 
 myself intolerable to me. Thus much, my best friend, I 
 ■will confess and confide to you. No feelings of my own 
 shall injure or interfere with what is now nearest to them — 
 your interest ; and I will take care to preserve the little 
 influence I may have over this Proteus in whom such 
 strange extremes are reconciled. 
 
 On October 25th, Shelley left the Baths of 
 San Giuliano, in order to join the Williamses at 
 Pisa, where he expected Byron. Immediately on 
 arriving, he hired a spacious palazzo, and had it 
 put in readiness for the noble poet. The build- 
 ing, it was said, was partly constructed after 
 <iesigns by Michael Angelo, and was called the 
 Palazzo Lanfranchij on its front, above a chain 
 such as was worn by captives, were the words 
 "Alia Giornata." La Guiccioli had arrived at 
 Pisa before Byron, and was accompanied ~^ by 
 her father and brother ; " the lion's jackals," as 
 Shelley called them. Shelley's own residence was 
 on the Lung' Arno ; he had taken a few rooms on 
 the upper floor of the Tre Palazzi di Chiesa, from 
 which there was a view of the country and the 
 sea.* 
 
 * So says Dowden, but Rabbe says a view " of the town 
 and its environs." Dowden says expressly, '■^avoiding the 
 ill odours of the town," etc. 
 
376 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 There, among his books, and the clustering 
 plants * he loved to cultivate, and which " for hina 
 changed sunny winter into spring," he resumed 
 his tragedy of " Charles L," which he purposed to 
 make a still more artistic achievement than " The 
 Cenci." Unfortunately, it was never completed. 
 Some considerable fragments, however, remain — 
 entire scenes, truly Shakespearian in spirit. If 
 we may trust Medwin, Shelley threw aside his 
 work from a feeling of disgust, similar to that 
 which prevented Michael Angelo from completing 
 the bust of Brutus in the Florence Gallery, " dis- 
 gust at treason." He could not forgive the 
 murderers of Charles I., and shrank from painting 
 the hypocritical tyrant Cromwell as a hero. 
 
 In Byron's company, Shelley forgot his 
 grievances and his reserve, and abandoned himself 
 to the fascination of a poet whose very faults 
 were attractive, and whose brilliant and paradoxical 
 conversation amused him, and brought his own 
 qualities into play. 
 
 The two friends rarely passed a day without 
 meeting, or practising pistol shooting. 
 
 A very interesting volume might be made of 
 Shelley's and Byron's conversations as recounted 
 by Medwin and Trelawney. The opposite 
 characters of the two poets are shown in striking 
 contrast : the one, skipping from subject to sub- 
 ject, touching the surface only, with light banter 
 and love of mystification (Shelley compared him 
 in this to Voltaire) ; the other, serious and earnest, 
 oracular in speech, and following with contagious 
 warmth and the most persuasive sincerity the 
 sublime leadings of his imagination, or the subtlest 
 turns of the argument; yet able to pass, like 
 Raffaelle, when occasion served, " from grave ta 
 gay, from lively to severe." Byron read every 
 
 * See his poem entitled " ZuccaJ' 
 
SHELLEY IN ITALY. 377 
 
 day to Shelley what he had composed during" 
 the night : either " Cain," that apocalyptic vision 
 and new revelation to humanity, or " Heaven and 
 Earth," one of his most polished productions 
 (Shelley loved to declaim the choruses of this 
 work, deeming them models of the lyrical style), 
 or. "The Deformed Transformed," which of all 
 Byron's works Shelley liked the least. It is said 
 that Byron, enraged at his criticisms, threw the 
 manuscript into the fire ; but if so, the poem 
 rose again from its ashes. 
 
 The merits of poets, ancient and modern, were 
 warmly discussed ; Shelley enthusiastically de- 
 fending his favourite poets Dante and Shakespeare 
 from Byron's narrow and contemptuous criticism. 
 The dangerous subjects of philosophy and 
 religious metaphysics were often touched upon ; 
 Byron took pleasure in rousing the irritable sus- 
 ceptibility of his friend " the Snake," as he called 
 him, on these points, laughing in his sleeve at 
 the straightforward sincerity of his convictions. 
 
 One day in December, 1821, Shelley was 
 informed that a man at Lucca had been con- 
 demned to be burnt alive for the crime of 
 sacrilege. "The Spanish woman,'' as Byron calls 
 her, "who has her petticoats thrown over Lucca, 
 has just condemned a poor devil to the stake 
 for stealing a wafer-box out of a church. Shelley 
 and I were up in arms against this act of piety, 
 and are disturbing everybody to get the sentence 
 changed." In the first burst of indignation, 
 Shelley proposed that Byron, Medwin, and he 
 should rescue the offender at the moment of 
 execution and place him in safety beyond the 
 Tuscan frontier. Byron, less ardent, but more 
 practical, suggested the more prudent proceeding 
 of representations. Shelley accordingly wrote on 
 the subject to Lord Guilford, the English 
 Minister at Florence, and prepared a memorial 
 
378 SHELLEY—THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 to the Grand Duke. But Lord Guilford's inter- 
 vention was effectual, and on December 13th 
 Shelley wrote to Lord Byron : 
 
 " I hear this morning that the design . . . 
 of burning my fellow-serpent has been aban- 
 doned, and that he has been condemned to the 
 galleys." 
 
 Shelley had missed a grand opportunity of 
 overturning the idols of the false gods, of ex- 
 tinguishing the flames, and of exclaiming with 
 the hero of " The Revolt of Islam " ; 
 
 "I am Laon!" 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SHELLEY AT PISA AND AT CASA MAGNI — HIS 
 DEATH AND FUNERAL PYRE — "THE TRIUMPH 
 OF LIFE" — 1822., 
 
 The opening of the year 1822 had added to 
 the little English colony at Pisa a new member 
 who very soon became one of Shelley's most 
 devoted friends and fervent admirers. This was 
 Edward John Trelawney. He was of a chivalrous 
 and adventurous nature ; noble and generous ; 
 ardent in his admiration of Shelley's intellect 
 and character; and holding him far superior to 
 Byron, he became a constant guest at Shelley's 
 rooms during this the last year of his life, and the 
 most disinterested and faithful of his biographers.* 
 
 "A kind of half-Arab Englishman," says Mrs. Shelley, 
 *' whose life has been as changeful as that of Anastasius, 
 and who recounts the adventures of his youth as eloquently 
 -and well as the imagined Greek. ... He is six feet high ; 
 raven-black hair, which curls thickly and shortly like a 
 Moor's ; dark-gray expressive eyes ; overhanging brows ; 
 upturned lips, and a smile which expresses good-nature and 
 kind-heartedness ... his language, as he relates the events 
 of his life, energetic and simple, whether the tale be one of 
 blood and horror or of irresistible comedy. His company is 
 idelightful, for he excites me to think." 
 
 * " Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author." London, 
 1878. 
 
38o SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Shelley and his friends thought of writing 
 a play, or at the least a novel, founded on his ad- 
 venturous life. In' the " Fragments of an Un- 
 finished Drama," we have Trelawney idealised ia 
 the character of the Pirate. 
 
 Trelawney gives a most amusing account of his 
 first interview with Shelley : 
 
 It was late when I arrived at Pisa, and after dining I 
 hurried to the Tre Palazzi on the Lung" Arno, where the 
 Shelleys and Williamses lived in the same house. The 
 Williamses received me in their earnest, cordial manner. 
 We had a great deal to communicate to each other, and 
 were in loud and animated conversation, when I was rather 
 put out by observing in the passage near the open door, 
 opposite to where I sat, a pair of glittering eyes steadily 
 fixed on mine; it was too dark to make out whom they 
 belonged to. With the acuteness of a woman Mrs. 
 Williams's eyes followed the direction of mine, and going to 
 the doorway she laughingly said : " Come in, Shelley ; it's, 
 only our friend Tre just arrived." Swiftly gliding in, blush- 
 ing like a girl, a tall thin stripling held out both his hands ;, 
 and although I could hardly believe — as I looked at his 
 flushed, feminine, and artless face — that it could be the poet, 
 I returned his warm pressure. After the ordinary, greetings 
 and courtesies, he sat down and listened. I was silent froia 
 astonishment. Was it possible this mild-looking, beardless 
 boy could be the veritable monster at war with all the 
 •world — excommunicated by the Fathers of the Church, 
 deprived of his civil rights by the fiat of a grim Lord 
 Chancellor, discarded by every member of his family, and 
 denounced by the rival sages of our literature as the founder 
 of a Satanic school.'' I could not believe it; it must be a. 
 hoax. 
 
 It is difficult for the present generation even 
 to conceive the acrid bigotry of fifty years ago. 
 
 He was habited like a boy, in a black jacket and 
 trousers which he seemed to have outgrown. . . . Mrs. 
 WiUiams saw my embarrassment, and to relieve me asked 
 Shelley what book he had in his hand ? " Calderon's 
 Magico Prodigioso. I am translating some passages in it." 
 " Oh ! read it to us !" Shoved off from the shore of common- 
 place incidents that could not interest him, and fairly 
 launched on a theme that did, he instantly became obr 
 livious of everything but the book in his hand. The 
 
SHELLEY AT CAS A MAGNI. 381 
 
 masterly manner in which he analysed the genius of the 
 author, his lucid interpretation of the story, and the ease 
 with which he translated into our language the most 
 subtle and imaginative passages of the Spanish poet, were 
 marvellous, as was his command of the two languages. 
 After this touch of his quality, I no longer doubted his 
 identitv. A dead silence ensued. Looking up, I asked : 
 ^' Where is he?" Mrs. Williams said : "Who? Shelley? 
 Oh ! he comes and goes like a spirit, no one knows when or 
 ■where." 
 
 At the end of 1821, Shelley and Williams had 
 •conceived the idea of building a boat according to 
 a model the latter had brought with him from 
 England. Trelawney was consulted, and proposed 
 an American schooner ; but Shelley and Williams 
 persisted in their plan, and the construction of the 
 boat was entrusted to Captain Roberts, a friend of 
 Trelawney's at Genoa. The three friends had 
 ■discussed it during the night of Jan. iSth, 1822. 
 "Thus on that night," wrote Mrs. Shelley at a 
 later period, "one of gaiety and thoughtlessness 
 — Jane's and my miserable destiny was decided. 
 We then said, laughing each to the other : ' Our 
 husbands decide without asking our consent, or 
 having our concurrence ; for to tell you the truth, I 
 hate this boat, though I say nothing.' Said Jane : 
 ' So do I ; but speaking would be useless and only 
 spoil their pleasure 1 ' How well I remember that 
 night 1 How short-sighted we are ! And now 
 that its, anniversary is come and gone, methinks I 
 cannot be the wretch I too truly am." 
 
 While waiting the arrival of the fatal boat, 
 Shelley spent his leisure hours in translating from 
 Calderon and Goethe; * he considered the Magico 
 Prodigioso and Faust to be wonderfully alike, 
 
 * He found Calderon far less difficult to translate than 
 Goethe ; "only Coleridge," he said modestly, " is capable of 
 translating Goethe." Faust has, since that time, been 
 frequently translated into French, but never so well as by 
 M. Camille Benoit in a book just published by Lemerre. 
 
382 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 though he admitted the different genius of the two 
 authors. Goethe seemed to him the greater 
 philosopher and Calderon the greater poet. 
 
 Two vexatious incidents occurred in March to 
 disturb the calm current of their life at Pisa." 
 
 The ground-floor of the building in which the 
 Shelleys dwelt was used on Sundays as an Evan- 
 gelical chapel, and Mary, out of compliance with 
 public opinion, was occasionally present at the 
 services and sermons. Dr. Nott, the learned editor 
 of the poems of Surrey and Wya,tt, was the 
 preacher. On Sunday, March 3rd, Mary received a 
 special invitation requesting her presence, and that 
 morning's discourse consisted of an attack on 
 Atheism^ with several direct allusions to Mrs. 
 Shelley, intended to warn her against the baleful 
 influence of her husband's doctrines. The gossips 
 and scandal-mongers were delighte'd — but Mary 
 bitterly regretted having visited the piano di sotto, 
 and longed for the sea-girt isle of which Shelley, 
 sick of the wickedness of men, had spoken to her 
 in his letters from Ravenna. 
 
 On another Sunday, March 24th, Byron, Shelley, 
 Count Pietro Gamba, Captain Hay, and Taaffe, the 
 translator of Dante, were returning from their 
 'evening ride, when a half-drunken dragoon rode 
 through the midst of the group, jostling against the 
 commentator of the " Divina Commedia." Byron 
 and Shelley set off in pursuit of the ruffian, 
 stopped him, demanded his name and address, and 
 gave him their cards. Sergeant-Major Masi called 
 to the guard, and began slashing right and left 
 with his sword. Shelley was knocked off his 
 horse, and would have been struck, but for the 
 intervention of Captain Hay. Masi fled, and was 
 severely wounded by one of Byron's sbirri (" I 
 have some rough fellows in my service," he used to 
 say), and taken to the hospital. This adventure 
 made a great sensatipn at Pisa, and occasioned 
 
SHELLEY AT CAS A MAGNL 383 
 
 the most absurd rumours. At a later period it 
 served the Government as one pretext among 
 others for exiling Count Pietro Gamba. 
 
 These untoward incidents, which were made 
 more annoying through their exaggeration, de- 
 termined Shelley on removing from Pisa, and 
 seeking a retired spot far from the tongue of 
 gossip and small scandals ', he was further impelled, 
 to this course by a desire to break ofif his superficial 
 intimacy with Byron, tie had visited the shores 
 of the Bay of Spezzia a few months before, and had 
 discovered a deserted building, Casa Magni, situated 
 in melancholy solitude between the villages of 
 Lerici and San Terenzo. It was a house of dull 
 and severe aspect, built on cloister-like arches, 
 which gave it the appearance of a convent, sheltered 
 behind by a hill covered with dark forest trees, 
 and overlooking the sea, which washed the very 
 walls of the terrace. "The natives were even 
 wilder than the place. Many a night they passed 
 on the beach singing or rather howling ; the women 
 dancing about among the waves that broke at 
 their feet.". 
 
 It was in trembling, and with a kind of dumb 
 terror full of forebodings of evil, that Mary took 
 possession of the lonely and comfortless house. 
 " We might have been wrecked," she says, " on 
 one of the South Sea Islands, and have felt 
 no farther from all civilisation ; yet where there 
 is sunshine, comfort becomes luxury, and our own 
 society suffices us." 
 
 Shelley's delight was now perfect ; he had 
 almost found his solitary isle, and writes to his 
 friend Smith: "As to me, like Anacreon's swallow, 
 I have left my Nile, and have taken up my 
 summer quarters here, in a lonely house close 
 by the sea-side, surrounded by the soft and sublime 
 scenery of the Gulf of Spezzia." 
 
 On May 12th, the fatal boat arrived. The 
 
384 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 inhabitants of Casa Magni were walking after 
 dinner on the terrace when they descried a strange 
 sail rounding the point of Porto Venere; it was 
 the Don Juan, as Byron had christened her — a 
 name soon changed by Shelley for that of the 
 A riel. 
 
 The enthusiastic poet insisted on trying her 
 the very next day, eagerly seeking opportunities 
 of matching her against the feluccas and other big 
 craft in the bay. Williams, in his curious journal 
 full of Shelley-worship, gives a detailed account 
 of their daily adventurous expeditions to every 
 point on the coast of Spezzia. Their feelings 
 resembled those of Christopher Columbus when 
 discovering the New World. 
 
 Our two sailors were in ecstasies over their 
 boat ; Williams as jealous of the Ariel's reputatiorl 
 as of his wife's ; they could not tear themselves 
 away from their plaything, and the Mediterranean 
 soon seemed "too small and calm a lake on which 
 to display her excellence." They dismissed the 
 Genoese sailor engaged by Trelawney, retaining 
 only an inexperienced lad, named Charles Vivian. 
 Williams, who knew something of the sea, instructed 
 Shelley how to handle a boat, " with as much 
 anxiety," says the latter, " as a sparrow's over her 
 cuckoo young." 
 
 " It was great fun,'' writes Trelawney,"to witness Williams 
 teaching the poet howto steer, and other points of seamanship. 
 As usual, Shelley had a book in his hand, saying he could 
 read and steer at the same time, as one was mental, the other 
 mechanical .... The boat on one occasion getting, as sailors 
 express it, ' in irons,' Shelley's hat was knocked overboard, 
 and he would probably have followed, if 1 had not held him. 
 He was so uncommonly awkward, that when they had things 
 jjhip-shape, Williams, somewhat scandalised at the lubberly 
 inanoeuvre, blew up the poet for his neglect and inattention 
 to orders. Shelley was, however, so happy, and in such high 
 glee, and the nautical terms so tickled his fancy, that he 
 even put his beloved 'Plato' in his pocket, and gave his 
 
SHELLEY AT CASA MAGNL 385 
 
 mind up to fun and frolic. 'You will do no good with 
 Shelley,' I said, ' until you heave his books and papers over- 
 board ; shear the wisps of hair that hang over his eyes ; and 
 plunge his arms up to the elbows in a tar-bucket.' Shelley 
 was often quite heedless of the boat, so intent was he on 
 catching images from the ever-changing sea and sky." 
 
 As the Ariel drew too much water to near 
 the shore, Williams, with the help of a carpenter, 
 had constructed a very small boat, of reeds and 
 tarred canvas, flat-bottomed, and so light as to 
 be easily carried by one person from the house 
 to the shore. This fragile toy delighted the poet ; 
 the slightest movement caused her to capsize, and 
 more than once' Shelley was in real danger. But 
 he attributed this to the boat's unsteadiness, 
 rather than to any imprudence of his own. " I 
 see," he said, "why ships and boats are of the 
 feminine gender ; it is because they are as perfidious 
 as women." On this subject, Trelawney relates 
 two anecdotes too characteristic to be omitted : 
 
 On a calm sultry evening, Jane was sitting on the sands 
 ibefore the villa, on the margin of the sea, with her two 
 'infants, and watching for her husband— he was becalmed in 
 the offing, awaiting the sea-breeze. Shelley came from the 
 house, dragging the skiff; after launching her, he said to 
 Jane : " The sand and air are hot ; let us float on the cool, 
 calm sea ; there is room, with careful stowage, for us all in 
 my barge." His flashing eyes and vehement, eager manner 
 ■determined on the instant execution of any project that took 
 his fancy, however perilous. ... So Jane impulsively and 
 promptly squatted in the bottom of the frail bark with her 
 babies. She understood that Shelley intended to float on 
 the water near the shore, where the sea is very shallow. A 
 puff of wind, a ripple on the water, an incautious movement, 
 and the tub of a thing must cant over. The poet presently, 
 proud of his freight, triumphantly shoved off from the 
 shore, and, to exhibit his skill as a mariner, rowed round 
 a jutting promontory into ^eep blue water. There was no 
 eye watching them, no boat within a mile, the shore fast 
 receding, the water deepening, and the poet dreaming. As 
 these dismal facts flashed on Jane's mind, her insane folly 
 in trusting herself to a man of genius, but devoid of 
 judgment, prudence, or skill, dismayed her. After pulling 
 
 2 c 
 
386 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 out a long way, the poet rested on his oars, unconscious of 
 her fears, and apparently of where he was, absorbed in a. 
 deep reverie. . . . Spellbound with terror, Jane kept her 
 eyes on the awful boatman, lost in his sombre melan- 
 choly. She made several remarks, but they met with no 
 response. 
 
 Suddenly he raised his head ; his brow cleared, and his 
 face brightened as with a bright thought, and he exclaimed 
 joyfully : " Now let us together solve the great mystery." 
 Jane, understanding the danger she would run did she remain 
 silent, or too brusquely rouse the poet from his ecstasy, 
 answered in her usual cheerful voice : " No, thank you, not 
 now ; I should like my dinner first, and so would the 
 children." And seeing the poet shocked by this gross 
 material answer to his sublime proposition, she continued r 
 "And look, the sea-breeze is coming in, and the mist is 
 clearing away ; we ought to go back — they will be anxious 
 about us, and Edward says this boat is not safe." " Safe !" 
 said the poet ; " I'll go to Leghorn or anywhere in her." 
 " You haven't yet written the words for the Indian air," 
 Jane went on. '"Yes, I have," he answered, "long ago. I 
 must write them out again, for I can't read what I compose 
 and write out of doors. You must play the air again, and 
 I'll try and make the thing better." 
 
 In the meanwhile Shelley kept on rowing, and regained 
 the shore without accident. Once again the demon of the 
 deep, who watched his prey, had spread his wings and taken 
 flight Williams and Trelawney, both very anxious, waited 
 for them on the shore. Jane jumped out so hurriedly that 
 the punt and the poet capsized. Williams scolded her for 
 this, telling her that if she had waited an instant he would 
 have hauled up the boat. " No, thank you," she cried, still 
 in excitement. " Oh, you do not know what a dreadful fate 
 I have just escaped. Never will I put my foot in that 
 horrid coffin ! Solve the great mystery ! Why, he is the 
 greatest of all mysteries! You can form some notion of 
 what other people will do, as they partake of our common 
 nature — not what he will do ! He is seeking after what we 
 all avoid — death ! " At dinner she ate nothing. " Ah ! 
 never put me in a boat with Shelley alone ! " she repeated. 
 The poet, hearing his name, glided into the room, with his 
 boyish face and radiant expression. He seized some bread 
 and grapes, which he ate, while he read one of Calderon's 
 dramas. . 
 
 Another day there was some bustle in the house, as a 
 distinguished stranger from Germany was coming to visit 
 Shelley. The dinner was served without waiting for Shelley, 
 and the stranger was telling them how the German students- 
 
SHELLEY AT CAS A MAGNL 387 
 
 of English literature considered Shelley as the most philo- 
 sophical of poets, a writer of transcendent imagination, 
 surpassing all our popular poets in depth of thought and 
 refinement. One of the party remarked that genius purifies ; 
 the naked statues of the Greeks are modest, the draped ones 
 of the moderns are not ; when all at once the ladies hid their 
 faces in their hands in mute despair before a most unex- 
 pected apparition. It was Shelley, in the costume of a 
 marine god, dripping with sea-water, his hair full of sea- 
 weed. Quite unmoved, he calmly explained his adventure. 
 While taking his customary sea-dip, his skittish skiff had 
 played him one of her usual tricks by upsetting all his 
 clothes in the water, and he could not get to his room withr 
 out crossing the dining-room, which at that hour was always 
 vacant. .A few minutes later he reappeared with a book in 
 his hand, and said triumphantly : " I have recovered this 
 priceless gem from the wreck ! " It was an .iEschylus. He 
 then took his place, unconscious of having done anything 
 that could offend. 
 
 At the Casa Magni Shelley wrote even less 
 than at Pisa; he gave an explanation of this 
 to Smithj which is already known to us : "I 
 have lived too long near Lord Byron, and the 
 sun has extinguished the glow-worm ; for I can- 
 not hope with St. John, that 'the light came 
 into the world, and the world knew it not' " In 
 his solitude, he was overcome from time to time 
 by discouragement and melancholy ; and although 
 he had no intention of suicide, he wished to have 
 the possibility of escape at hand. He asked 
 Trelawney to procure prussic acid for him. " My 
 wish was serious," he wrote on June i8th, "and 
 sprang from the desire of avoiding needless suf- 
 fering. I need not tell you 1 have no in- 
 tention of suicide at present, but I confess it 
 would be a comfort to me to hold in my posses- 
 sion that golden key to the chamber of perpetual 
 rest." 
 
 These were, however, but passing moods oc- 
 casioned by despair at the deafness of the world 
 to truths he would fain reveal. Melancholy was 
 banished by the charm of his circle of friends, 
 
 2 c 2 
 
3S8 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 by Nature, by the sea, and by his boat, which 
 dispersed these importunate clouds as by en- 
 chantment. On June i8th, he wrote to Gisborne: 
 
 You know my gross ideas of music, and will forgive me 
 when I say that I listen the whole evening on our terrace to 
 the simple melodies with excessive delight. I have a boat 
 here ; it cost me eighty pounds, and reduced me to some 
 difficulty in point of money. However, it is swift and beau- 
 tiful, and appears quite a vessel. Williams is captain, and 
 we drive along this delightful bay in the evening wind, under 
 the summer moon, until earth appears another world. Jane 
 brings her guitar, and if the past and the future could be 
 obliterated, the present would content me so well that I 
 could say with Faust to the passing moment, "Remain thou, 
 thou art so beautiful ! " Claire is with us, and the death of 
 her child * seems to have restored her to tranquillity. Her 
 character is somewhat altered. She is vivacious and talka- 
 tive, and, though she teazes me sometimes, I like her. . . . 
 Lord Byron, who is .at Leghorn, has fitted up a splendid 
 vessel — a small schooner on the American model — and 
 Trelawney is to be captain. How long the fiery spirit of our 
 pirate will accommodate itself to the caprice of the poet 
 remains to be seen, . . . 
 
 I write little now. It is impossible to compose except 
 under the strong excitement of an assurance of finding 
 sympathy in what you write. Imagine Demosthenes reciting 
 a philippic to the waves of the Atlantic. Lord Byron is 
 in this respect fortunate. He touched the chord to which a 
 million hearts responded, and the coarse music which he 
 produced to please them, disciplined him to the perfection to 
 which he now approaches. I do not go on with " Charles I." 
 I feel too little certainty of the future, and too little satis- 
 faction with regard to the past to undertake any subject 
 seriously and deeply. I stand, as it were, upon a precipice, 
 which I have "ascended with great, and cannot descend with- 
 out greater peril, and I am content if the heaven above me 
 is calm for the passing moment. ... I have read several 
 more of the plays of Calderon. Los Dos Amantes del Cielo 
 is the finest, if I except one scene in the Devocion de la Cruz. 
 I read Greek, and think about writing. I do not think much 
 of not admiring Metastasio ; the nil admirari, how- 
 ever justly applied, seems to me a bad sign in a young person. 
 
 * The little Allegra had just died at the Capuchin con- 
 vent of Bagnacavallo, in the Romagna, where Byron had 
 placed her. 
 
SHELLEY AT CAS A MAGNL 389 
 
 I had rather a pupil of mine had conceived a frantic passion 
 for Marini himself, than that she had found out the critical 
 defects of the most deficient author. When she becomes of 
 her own accord full of genuine admiration for the finest scene 
 in the " Purgatorio," or the opening of the " Paradiso," or 
 some other neglected piece of excellence, hope great things. 
 
 There was but one subject besides litera- 
 ture that never failed to interest Shelley, viz. 
 the triumph of truth and goodness in the 
 world. As it was his first, so was it his last 
 passion. 
 
 '- It seems to me," he wrote to Horace Smith, " that 
 things have now arrived at such a crisis as requires every 
 man plainly to utter his sentiments on the inefficacy of the 
 existing religions, no less than political systems, for restrain- 
 ing and guiding mankind. Let us see the truth, whatever 
 that may be. The destiny of man can scarcely be so de- 
 graded that he was bom only to die ; and if such should be the 
 case, delusions, especially the gross and preposterous ones of 
 the existing religion, can scarcely be supposed to exalt it. 
 If every man said what he thought, it could not subsist a day. 
 But all, more or less, subdue themselves to the element that 
 surrounds them, and contribute to the evils they lament by 
 the hypocrisy that springs from them. England appears to 
 be in a desperate condition ; Ireland still worse ; and no 
 class of those who subsist on the public labour will be per- 
 suaded that their claims on it must be diminished. But the 
 Government must content itself with less in taxes, the 
 landholder must submit to receive less rent, and the fund- 
 holder a diminished interest, or they will all get nothing, or 
 something worse than nothing. I once thought to' study 
 these affairs, and write or act in them. I am glad that my 
 good genius said ^refrain.' I see little public virtue, and I 
 foresee that the contest will be one of blood and gold ; two 
 elements which, however much to my taste in my pockets 
 and my veins, I have an objection to out of them. ... I still 
 inhabit this divine bay, reading Spanish dramas, and sailing 
 and listening to the most enchanting music. We have some 
 friends on a visit to us, and my only regret is that the 
 summer must ever pass, or that Mary has not the same 
 predilection for this place that I have, which would induce 
 me never to shift my quarters." 
 
 In this last letter we seem to have Shelley's 
 last will, in a political and religious sense ; his 
 
390 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 thoughts may perhaps be more lucid, wider, purer 
 and more elevated, but they are essentially the 
 same as in "Queen Mab." 
 
 A curious parallel might be drawn between 
 Shelley's first poem and his last, " The Triumph 
 of Life." One is the embryo, the other is the 
 full bloom of his genius. 
 
 He had passed from the inspiration of the 
 eighteenth-century philosophers to that of Plato 
 and Dante. The imitation of the "Divina Com- 
 media," even in the rhythm (fima terza) is mani- 
 fest. Virgil, "whose modesty led him to affect 
 to copy others, though he created afresh all 
 that he copied," was no longer the poet's guide 
 in that marvellous vision ; but in his place was 
 a genius of later times, a prose-poet, who has 
 also lifted part of the veil of Nature and Futurity 
 — Rousseau. Struck by the strange pageantry 
 of the mysterious chariot and the still more 
 mysterious Shape it bore along, the poet asks 
 its meaning, and a voice answers, " Life ! " It 
 is the voice of Rousseau, whom the poet recog- 
 nises under the fantastic and Dantesque appari- 
 tion of an old root growing with strange distortion 
 out of the hill-side. Shelley has never mingled 
 with more pathetic art the fantastic creations 
 of his brain and the living realities around him, 
 incorporated with his dream. The very form is 
 Dantesque : 
 
 O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness ! 
 That vfhat I thought was an old root which grew 
 To strange distortion out of the hill-side, 
 Was, indeed, one of those deluded crew, 
 And that the grass which methought hung so wide, 
 And white, was but his thin, discoloured hair ; 
 And that the holes it vainly sought to hide 
 Were, or had been, eyes. 
 
 Then, passing in single file before the poet, 
 come Napoleon, Voltaire, Frederick, Catherine 
 
SHELLEY AT CAS A MAGNL 391 
 
 and Leopold, Plato, Alexander, and his master 
 Aristotle, Bacon; the flood of ages and of men, 
 all the contrasts, all the contradictions, all the 
 riddles of life. We can only guess what would 
 Tiave been Shelley's interpretation of those con- 
 tradictions and riddles by the revelations of his 
 other poems. The vision breaks off at that 
 terrible inquiry which sums up all Shelley's 
 doubts, quests, and aspirations : " Then what is 
 Life f " Death soon solved his doubts by opening 
 to him its infinite horizon of peace and immor- 
 tality. 
 
 He seems to have had a distinct presentiment 
 of approaching death when he penned the following 
 poignant lines (1822) : 
 
 When the lamp is shattered, 
 
 The light in the dust lies dead ; 
 When the cloud is scattered, 
 
 The rainbow's glory is shed ; 
 When the lute is broken, 
 
 Sweet notes are remembered not ; 
 When the lips have spoken, 
 
 Loved accents are soon, forgot 
 
 Towards the end of June, 1822, Leigh Hunt, 
 the long-expected friend and guest, at last 
 arrived, accompanied by his wife and seven 
 children. Through Shelley's care, apartments 
 had been prepared for him in Byron's palace at 
 Pisa. So soon as Shelley heard of his friend's 
 arrival at Leghorn, he and Williams put to sea 
 on board the Ariel, freshly done up, "to make 
 the port of Leghorn in good style," as Shelley 
 said. Leigh Hunt's eldest son, Thornton Hunt, 
 describes, in his interesting Memoir,* the affec- 
 tionate emotion with which the friends met again 
 in Italy : 
 
 Some years elapsed between the night when I saw 
 ;Shelley pack up his pistols — which he allowed me to ex- 
 
 ■* The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1863. 
 
392 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 amine— for his departure for the South, and the moment 
 when, after our own arrival in Italy, my attention was again 
 called to his presence, by the shrill sound of his voice as he 
 rushed into my father's arms, which he did with an im- 
 petuosity and fervour scarcely to be imagined by any one 
 who did not know the intensity of his feelings, and the deep 
 nature of his affection for that friend. I remember his crying 
 out that he was " so inexpressibly delighted ! you cannot 
 think how inexpressibly happy it makes me ! " 
 
 He endeavoured, however, to express his happi- 
 ness in a piece of verse, the last he ever wrote, 
 which unfortunately has been lost. He accom- 
 panied the Hunts to Pisa, in order to see them 
 comfortably settled in the Lanfranchi Palace, and 
 to make final arrangements about The Liberal. 
 Byron, meanwhile, had allowed himself to be 
 persuaded by his English friends, Moore in par- 
 ticular, that the projected periodical would be 
 prejudicial both to his fame and his interests \ 
 and it was against the grain that he prepared to- 
 join in a venture that seemed to Moore to court 
 bankruptcy. Shelley, therefore, found him dis- 
 inclined to fulfil his engagement, and was deeply 
 disappointed. He was aware that Byron thought 
 too slightingly of Hunt's character as well as of 
 his talents, for any lasting agreement between 
 them ; and as he had not forgiven him his treat- 
 ment o^ Claire, neither could he forgive him now 
 for not sharing his own generous feelings towards 
 his friend. 
 
 A serious misunderstanding might have arisen 
 between Byron and Shelley, had not the latter 
 been bent on conciliation in the interests of Hunt 
 himself. 
 
 But Shelley was acutely sensitive in all that 
 regarded friendship, and his last days were sad- 
 dened by these difficulties. 
 
 A deep melancholy pervades his last letters, 
 from Pisa and Leghorn; they seem to forebode 
 
SHELLEY AT CASA MAGNL 393 
 
 the final catastrophe. On July 4th he writes to 
 Jane Williams from Pisa : 
 
 You will probably see Williams before I can disentangle 
 myself from the affairs with which I am now surrounded. 
 I return to Leghorn to-night, and shall urge him to sail with 
 the first fair wind without expecting me. I have thus the 
 pleasure of contributing to your happiness when deprived of 
 every other, and of leaving you no other subject of regret, 
 but the absence of one scarcely worth regretting. I fear you 
 are solitary and melancholy at Villa Magni, and, in the 
 intervals of the greater and more serious distress in which I 
 am compelled to sympathise here, I figure to myself the 
 countenance which has been the source of such consolation 
 to me, shadowed by a veil of sorrow. 
 
 How soon those hours past, and how slowly they return, 
 to pass so soon again, and perhaps for ever, in which we 
 have lived together so intimately and happily ! Adieu, my 
 dearest friend. I only write these lines for the pleasure of 
 tracing what will meet your eyes. Mary will tell you all the 
 news. 
 
 Pisa, July i,th, 1822. 
 My dearest Mary, 
 
 . . . Things are in the worst possible situation with, 
 respect to poor Hunt. I found Marianne in a desperate state 
 of health, and on our arrival at Pisa, sent for Vacck. He 
 decides that her case is hopeless, and that although it will 
 be lingering, must inevitably end fatally. . . , This intelli- 
 gence has extinguished the last spark of poor Hunt's spirits, 
 low enough before. . . . Lord Byron is at this moment on 
 the point of leaving Tuscany. The Gambas have been exiled, 
 and he declares his intention of following their fortunes. . . . 
 Trelawney is here, without instructions, moody and disap- 
 pointed. But it is the worst for poor Hunt, unless the present 
 storm should blow over ... he arrived here, with no other 
 remnant of his ;^4oo than a debt of sixty crowns. Lord 
 Byron must of course furnish the requisite funds at present,, 
 as I cannot ; but he seems inclined to depart without the 
 necessary explanations and arrangements due to such a 
 situation as Hunt's ... he offers him the copyright of the 
 'Vision of Judgment' for his first number. This offer, if 
 sincere, is more than enough to set up the journal, and, if 
 sincere, will set everything right. 
 
 How are you, my best Mary ? Write especially how is 
 your health, and how your spirits are, and whether you are 
 not more reconciled to staying at Lerici, at least during the 
 
394 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 summer. You have no idea how I am hurried and occupied ; 
 I have not a moment's leisure, but will write by next post. 
 Ever, dearest Mary, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 S. 
 I have found the translation of the symposium. 
 
 Jane Williams replied to Shelley's melancholy- 
 note by one still more melancholy, in which, after 
 expressing her anxiety at the continued absence 
 of Neddino (her husband), she added in a post- 
 script a question to which the event afterwards 
 gave so tragic a reply : " Why do you say you 
 may I'lever enjoy such happy moments again ? 
 Are you going to join your friend Plato .? " 
 
 On July 8th, Shelley and Williams decided on 
 leaving Leghorn, and set sail for Lerici. We can 
 have no better informed or more sympathetic 
 narrator of the terrible catastrophe that followed 
 than the widow of the poet. 
 
 " Having heard that Hunt had left Genoa," she writes a 
 few days after the event (iSth August) to Mrs. Gisborne, 
 " Shelley, Edward, and Captain Roberts departed in our boat 
 for Leghorn to receive him. I was then just better, had 
 begun to crawl from my bedroom to the terrace ; but bad 
 spirits succeeded to ill health, and this departure of Shelley's 
 seemed to add insufferably to my misery. I could not endure 
 that he should go. I called him back two or three times, 
 and told him that if I did not see him soon I would go to 
 Pisa with the child. I cried bitterly when he went away. 
 They went, and Jane, Claire, and I remained alone with the 
 children. I could not walk out, and though I gradually 
 gathered strength, it was slowly, and my ill spirits increased. 
 In my letters to him I entreated him to return^' the feeling 
 that some misfortune would happen,' I said, 'haunted me.' 
 I feared for the child ; for the idea of danger connected with 
 him never struck me. When Jane and Claire took their 
 evening walk, I used, to patrol the terrace, oppressed with 
 wretchedness, yet gazing on the most beautiful scene in the 
 world. . . I had a letter or two from Shelley mentioning 
 the difficulties he had in establishing the Hunts, and that he 
 was unable to fix the time of his return. Thus a week passed. 
 On Monday, 8th, Jane had a letter from Edward, dated 
 Saturday ; he said that he waited at Leghorn for Shelley,. 
 
SHELLEY AT CASA MAGNI. 395 
 
 ■who was at Pisa; that Shelley's return was certain; 'but,' he 
 continued, ' if he should not come by Monday, I will come 
 in a felucca, and you may expect me Tuesday evening at 
 furthest.' 
 
 " This was Monday, the fatal Monday, but with us it 
 was stormy all day, and we did not at all suppose that 
 they could put to sea. At twelve at night we had a 
 thunderstorm. Tuesday it rained all day, and was calm 
 (the sky wept on their graves). On Wednesday the wind 
 was fair from Leghorn, and in the evening several feluccas 
 arrived thence. One brought word that they had sailed 
 Monday, but we did not believe them. Thursday was 
 another day of fair wind ; and when twelve at night came, 
 and we did not see the tall sails of the little boat double the 
 promontory before us, we began to fear, not the truth, but 
 some illness — some disagreeable news for their detention; 
 Jane got so uneasy that she determined to proceed the next 
 day to Leghorn in a boat to see what was the matter. 
 Friday came, and with it a heavy sea and bad wind ; Jane 
 however, resolved to be rowed to Leghorn, since no boat 
 could sail, and busied herself in preparations. I wished her 
 to wait for letters, since Friday was letter-day. She would 
 not, but the sea detained her ; the swell rose so that no boat 
 would venture out. At twelve at noon our letters came. 
 There was one from Hunt to Shelley ; it said, ' Pray write 
 to tell us how you got home, for they say that you had bad 
 weather after you sailed Monday, and we are anxious.' The 
 paper fell from me ; I trembled all over. Jane read it. 
 ^Then it is all over!' she said. 'No, my dear Jane,' 
 I cried ' it is not all over ; but this suspense is dreadful ! 
 Come with me, we will go to Leghorn ; we will post to be 
 swift and learn our fate.' We crossed to Lerici, despair in 
 our hearts. They raised our spirits there by telling us that 
 no accident had been heard of, and that it must have been 
 known, etc. But stiU our fear was great, and, without rest- 
 ing, we posted to Pisa. It must have been fearful to see us 
 — ^two poor, wild, aghast creatures— driving (like Matilda) 
 towards the sea to learn if we were to be for ever doomed to 
 misery. I knew that Hunt was at Pisa at Lord Byron's house, 
 but I thought that Lord Byron was at Leghorn. I settled that 
 we should drive to Casa Lanfranchi, that I should get out and 
 ask the fearful question of Hunt, ' Do you know anything of 
 Shelley ?' On entering Pisa the idea of seeing Hunt for the 
 first time for four years under such circumstances^ and 
 asking him such a question, was so terrific to me that it was 
 -with difficuhy that I prevented myself from going into con- 
 vulsions— my struggles were dreadful. They knocked at 
 the door, and some one called out ' chi e?' It was the 
 
395 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Guiccioli's maid. Lord Byron was at Pisa ; Hunt was ii» 
 bed ; so I was to see Lord Byron instead of him. This was 
 a great relief to me ; I staggered upstairs : the Guiccioli 
 came to meet me smiling, while I could hardly say, ' Where 
 is he — Sapete alcima cosa di Shelley ?^ They knew nothing; 
 he had left Pisa on Sunday; on Monday he had sailed^ 
 there had been bad weather Monday afternoon ; more they 
 knew not. Both Lord Byron and the lady have told me 
 since that on that terrific evening I looked more like a 
 ghost than a woman. Light seemed to emanate from my 
 features ; my face was very white ; I looked like marble, 
 Alas, I had risen almost from a bed of sickness for this- 
 journey. I had travelled all day ; it was now twelve at night, 
 and we, refusing to rest, proceeded to Leghorn ; not in 
 despair, no, for then we must have died, but with sufficient 
 hope to keep up the agitation of the spirits which was all my 
 life. It was past two in the morning when we arrived. They 
 took us to the wrong inn. Neither Trelawney nor Captain 
 Roberts was there, nor did we exactly know where they 
 were, so we were obliged to wait until daylight. We threw 
 ourselves dressed on our beds and slept a little, but at six 
 o'clock we went to one or two inns to ask for one or the 
 other of these gentlemen. We found Roberts at the 
 ' Globe.' He came down to us with a face which seemed 
 to tell us that the worst was true ; and here we 
 learned all that had occurred during the week they 
 had been absent from us, and under what circumstances 
 they had departed on their return. Shelley had passed most 
 of the time at Pisa arranging the affairs of the Hunts and 
 screwing Lord Byron's mind to the sticking-place about the 
 journal. He had found this a difficult task at first, but at 
 length he had succeeded to his heart's content with both 
 points. Mrs. Mason said that she saw him in better health 
 and spirits than she had ever known him, when he took 
 leave of her Sunday, July 7th, his face burnt by the sun, and 
 his heart light that he had succeeded in rendering the Hunts- 
 tolerably comfortable. Edward had remained at Leghorn. 
 On Monday, July 8th, during the morning, they were em- 
 ployed in buying many things, eatables, etc., for our solitude. 
 There had been a thunderstorm early, but about noon the 
 weather was fine, and the wind right fair for Lerici. They 
 were impatient to be gone. Roberts said, ' Stay until to- 
 morrow, to see if the weather is settled ' ; and Shelley 
 might have stayed, but Edward was in so great an anxiety 
 to reach home — saying they would get there in seven hours 
 with that wind — that they sailed, Shelley.being in one of those 
 extravagant fits of good spirits in which you have sometimes 
 seen him. Roberts went out to the end of the mole, and 
 
SHELLEY AT CAS A MAGNL 397 
 
 •watched them out of sight. They sailed at one, and wdnt 
 ■off at the rate of about seven knots. About three, Roberts, 
 who was still on the mole, saw wind coming from the gulf, 
 •or rather what the Italians call a temporale. Anxious to 
 know how the boat would weather the storm, he got leave to 
 •go up the tower, and with the glass discovered them about 
 ten miles out at sea, off Via Reggio ; they were taking 
 in their topsails. ' The ' haze of the storm,' he said, ' hid 
 them from me, and I saw them no more. When the 
 storm cleared I looked again, fancying that I should 
 see them on their return to us ; but there was no boat 
 on the sea.' This, then, was all we knew ; yet we did 
 not despair. They might have been driven over to 
 Corsica, and, not knowing the coast, have gone God knows 
 where. Reports favoured this belief. It was even said that 
 they had been seen in the Gulf. We resolved to return 
 with all possible speed. We sent a courier to go from tower 
 to tower along the coast to know if anything had been seen 
 or found, and at 9 a.m. we quitted Leghorn, stopped but one 
 moment at Pisa, and proceeded towards Lerici. When at 
 two miles from Via Reggio, we rode down to that town to 
 know if they knew anything. Here our calamity first began 
 to break on us. A little boat and a water-cask had been 
 found five miles off ; they had manufactured a piccolissima 
 lancia of thin planks, stitched by a shoemaker, just to let 
 them run on shore without wetting themselves, as our boat 
 drew four feet water. The description of that found tallied 
 with this ; but then this boat was very cumbersome, and in 
 bad weather they might have been easily led to throw it 
 overboard. The cask frightened me most, but the same 
 reason might in some sort be given for that. I must tell you 
 that Jane and I were not now alone . Trelawney accom- 
 panied us back to our home. We journeyed on, and reached 
 the Magra about half-past 10 p.m. I cannot describe to you 
 what I felt in the first moment when, fording this river, I felt 
 the water splash about our wheels. I was suffocated, L 
 gasped for breath ; I thought I should have gone into con- 
 vulsrons, and I struggled violently that Jane might not per- 
 ceive it. Looking down the river, I saw the two great lights 
 burning at the Joce. A voice from within me seemed to 
 •cry aloud, ' That is his grave ! ' After passing the river I 
 gradually recovered. Arriving at Lerici, we were obliged to 
 cross our little bay in a boat. San Arenzo was illuminated 
 for a festa. What a scene ! The waving sea, the sirocco 
 wind, the lights of the town towards which we rowed, and 
 our own desolate hearts, that coloured all with a shroud. 
 We landed. Nothing had been heard of them. This was 
 Saturday, July 13th. And thus we waited until Thursday, 
 
398 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 July 2Sth, thrown about by hope and fear. We sent 
 messengers along the coast towards Genoa, and to Via 
 Reggio. Nothing had been found more than the lancetta/ 
 reports were brought to us — we hoped — and yet to tell you 
 all the agony we endured during those twelve days, would 
 be to make you conceive a universe of pain — each moment 
 intolerable, and giving place to one still worse. The people 
 of the country, too, added to one's discomfort. They are like 
 wild savages ; on festas the men and women and children in 
 different bands — the sexes always separate — pass the whole 
 night in dancing on the sands close to our door, running into 
 the sea, then back again, and screaming all the time one 
 perpetual air — the most detestable in the world ; then the 
 sirocco perpetually blew, and the sea for ever moaned their 
 dirge. On Thursday, 25th, Trelawney left us to go to Leghorn, 
 to see what was doing or what could be done. On Friday I 
 was very ill, but as evening came on I said to Jane, ' If 
 anything had been found on the coast, Trelawney would 
 have returned to let us know. He has not returned, so I 
 hope.' About seven o'clock p.m. he did return ; all was 
 over, all was quiet now, they had been found washed on 
 shore. Well ! all this was to be endured. 
 
 " Well, what more have I to say ? The next day we 
 returned to Pisa, and here we are still. Days pass away, ' 
 one after another, and we live thus. We are all together ; 
 we shall quit Italy together. Jane must proceed to Londonj 
 if letters do not alter my views I shall remain in Paris. 
 Thus we live, seeing the Hunts now and then. Poor Hunt 
 has suffered terribly, as you may guess. Lord Byron is very 
 kind to me, and comes with the Guiccioli to ^ee me often. 
 To-day — this day— the sun shining in the sky — they are 
 gone to the desolate sea-coast to perform the last offices to 
 their earthly remains, Hunt, Lord Byron, and Trelawney. 
 The quarantine laws would not permit us to remove them 
 sooner, and now only on condition that we burn them to 
 ashes. That I do not dislike. His rest shall be at Rome 
 beside my child, where one day I also shall join them. 
 ' Adonais ' is not Keats's, it is his own elegy — he bids you 
 there go to Rome — I have seen the spot where he now lies — 
 the sticks that mark the spot where the sands cover him — 
 he shall not be there, it is too near Via Reggio — they are 
 now about this fearful office — and I live ! " 
 
 The corpse of Shelley had been found on the 
 coast near Via Reggio : the face and hands, and all 
 parts of the body not protected by the clothing, 
 were fleshless. 
 
SHELLEY AT CAS A MAGNL 399 
 
 " The tall, slight figure,'' writes Trelawney, who was called 
 to identify it, " the jacket, the volume of ^schylus * in one 
 pocket, and Keats's Poems in the other— doubled back as if 
 the reader, in the act of reading, had hastily thrust it away — 
 were all too familiar to me to leave a doubt on my mind that 
 this mutilated corpse was any other than Shelley's. The 
 body of Williams, much more mutilated still, was found on 
 the coast, three miles from that of Shelley. . . . Williams was 
 the only one of the three who could swim, and it is probable 
 he was the last survivor. . . . Shelley always declared that 
 in case of wreck, he would vanish instantly, and not imperil 
 valuable lives by permitting others to aid in saving his, which 
 he looked upon as valueless. It was not until after three- 
 weeks after the wreck of the boat that a third body was found 
 — four miles from the other two. This 1 concluded to be 
 that of the sailor boy, Charles Vivian. 
 
 " 1 mounted my horse and rode to the Gulf of Spezzia, 
 put up my horse, and walked until I caught sight of the lone 
 house on the sea-shore in which Shelley and Williams had 
 dwelt, and where their widows still lived. ... As I stood on 
 the threshold of their house, the bearer, or rather confirmer 
 of news, which would rack every fibre of their quivering 
 frames to the utmost, I paused, and looking at the sea, my 
 memory reverted to our joyous parting only a few days 
 before. 
 
 " The two families, then, had all been in the verandah,, 
 overhanging a sea so clear and calm that every star was 
 reflected on the water as if it had been a mirror ; the young 
 mothers singing some merry tune, with the accompaniment 
 of a guitar. Jhelley's shrill laugh — I heard it still — rang in 
 my ears, with Williams's friendly hail, the general ' buona 
 notte ' of all the joyous party, and the earnest entreaty to 
 me to return as soon as possible, and not to forget the com- 
 missions they had severally given me. I was in a small boat 
 beneath them, slowly rowing myself on board the ' Bolivar,' 
 at anchor in the bay, loath. to part from what I verily believed, 
 to have been at that time, the most united and happiest set 
 of human beings in the whole world. And now by the blow 
 of an idle puff of wind the scene was changed. Such is- 
 human happiness. 
 
 " My reverie was broken by a shriek from the nurse 
 Caterina, as crossing the hall she saw me in the doorway. 
 After asking her a few questions, I went up the stairs, and, 
 
 * Mr. Dowden, who has seen the volume at Boscombe 
 Manor, where all the relics of Shelley are collected, by tha 
 filial piety of his son, asserts that it is a Sophocles. 
 
400 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 unannounced, entered the room. I neither spoke, nor did they 
 question me. Mrs. Shelley's large gray eyes were fixed on 
 my face. I turned away. Unable to bear this horrid silence, 
 with a convulsive effort she exclaimed, ' Is there no hope?' 
 J did not answer, but left the room, and sent the servant with 
 the children to them. The next day I prevailed on them to 
 return with me to Pisa." 
 
 It was Trelawney, again, who undertook, in 
 conformity with Tuscan law, to burn the bodies. 
 He and Byron consulted together in order to 
 render the cremation a solemn ceremony, recalling 
 as far, as possible the ceremonial of ancient times. 
 A funeral oration alone was wanting. " We had 
 lost," says Trelawney, " our Hellenic bard." The 
 body of Edward Williams was burned on August 
 15th, and that of Shelley on the following day. 
 
 Byron assumed a somewhat theatrical and 
 Hamlet-like demeanour on the occasion. 
 
 " When Byron," says Trelawney, " saw the shapeless 
 mass of bones and flesh" — [all that now remained of 
 Williams] — " ' Is that a human body ? ' he exclaimed. ' Why, 
 it is more like the carcass of a sheep, or any other animal, 
 than a man. This is a satire on our pride and folly.' I 
 pointed to the letters E. E. W. on the black silk hand- 
 kerchief. Byron, looking on, muttered ' The entrails of a 
 worm hold together longer than the potter's clay of which 
 man is made. Hold ! let me see the jaw,' he added, as they 
 were removing the skull ; ' I can recognise any one by the 
 teeth with whom I have talked. I always watch the lips 
 and mouth ; they tell what the tongue and eyes try to 
 ■conceal. . . Don't repeat this with me,' Byron said ; ' let 
 my carcass rot where it falls.' 
 
 "The next day Byron and Leigh Hunt arrived in the 
 ■carriage, attended by soldiers, and the health officer as 
 before. The lonely and grand scenery that surrounded us 
 so exactly harmonised with Shelley's genius that I could 
 imagine his spirit soaring over us. The sea, with the 
 islands of Gorgona, Capraji, and Elba, was before us ; old 
 battlemented watch-towers stretched along the coast, backed 
 by the marble-crested Apennines, glistening in the sun, 
 picturesque from their diversified outlines, and not a human 
 tiwelling was in sight. As I thought of the delight 
 Shelley felt in such scenes of loneliness and grandeur, 
 
SHELLEY AT CAS A MAGNL 401 
 
 ■whilst living, I felt we were no better than a herd of wolves 
 or a pack of wild dogs, in tearing out his battered and naked 
 body from the pure yellow sand that lay so lightly over 
 it, to drag him back to the light of day ; but the dead have 
 no voice, nor had I power to check the sacrifice. The work 
 went on silently in the deep and unresisting sand ; not a 
 word was spoken, for the Italians have a touch of sentiment, 
 and their feelings are easily excited into sympathy. Even 
 Byron was silent and thoughtful. We were startled and 
 drawn together by a dull hollow sound that followed the 
 blow of a mattock ; the iron had struck a skull, and the 
 body was soon uncovered. Lime had been strewn on it ; 
 this, or decomposition, had the effect of staining it of a dark 
 and ghastly indigo colour. Byron asked me to preserve 
 the skull for him ; but remembering that he had formerly 
 -used one as a drinking-cup, I was deteimined Shelley's 
 should not be so profaned. The limbs did not separate from 
 the trunk, as in the case of Williams's body, so that the 
 corpse was removed entire into the furnace. I have taken 
 ; the precaution of having more and larger pieces of timber, 
 i in consequence of my experience of the day before of the 
 ' difficulty of consuming a corpse in the open air with our 
 apparatus. After the fire was well kindled we repeated the 
 ceremony of the previous day, and more wine was poured 
 ■over Shelley's dead body than he had consumed during his 
 life. This, with the oil and salt, made the yellow flames 
 glisten and quiver. The heat from the sun and the fire was 
 so intense that the atmosphere was tremulous and wavy. 
 The corpse fell open and the heart was laid bare. The 
 frontal bone of the skull, where it had been struck with the 
 mattock, fell off ; and as the back of the head rested on the 
 red-hot bottom bars of the furnace the brains literally 
 seethed, bubbled, and boiled, as in' a cauldron, for a very 
 long time. 
 
 " Byron could not face this scene ; he withdrew to the 
 beach, and swam off to the Bolivar. Leigh Hunt remained 
 in the carriage. The fire was so fierce as to produce a white 
 heat on the iron, and to reduce its contents to gray ashes. 
 The only portions that were not consumed were some frag- 
 ments of bones — the jaw and the skull — but what surprised 
 us all was that the heart remained entire. In snatching 
 this relic from the fiery furnace my hand was severely ■ 
 burnt. 
 
 "After cooling the iron machine in the sea, I collected the 
 human ashes and placed them in a box, which I took on 
 board the Bolivar. Byron and Hunt retraced their steps to 
 their home, and the officers and soldiers returned to their 
 quarters." 
 
402 SHELLEY— THE MAN AND THE POET. 
 
 Shelley's ashes were deposited by Trelawney 
 in the English cemetery at Rome, near those 
 of his little son William, and his brother poet 
 John Keats. Leigh Hunt inscribed cor cordium 
 on the stone, and Trelawney added the following 
 lines from Ariel's song in the Tempest : 
 
 Nothing of him that doth fade. 
 But doth suffer a sea change 
 Into something rich and strange. 
 
 In the parish church of Christchurch, Hants, 
 there is a monument of melancholy aspect, which 
 recalls alike the image of Christ taken down from 
 the cross and placed in His mother's arms, and 
 that of a mournful, weeping Muse contemplating, 
 in silent sorrow the death-disfigured countenance' 
 of her dearest votary. This monument by Weeks, ; 
 erected by filial piety in the shadow of a country 
 church, to Shelley and Mary, awaits the hour 
 when England shall atone for her ingratitude by 
 placing it in Westminster Abbey by the side of 
 the effigies of Milton, Spenser, and Shakespeare. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 FRAGMENT OF "ST. IRVYNE." 
 
 GINOTTI RELATES HIS HISTORY TO WOLFSTEIN. 
 
 "From my earliest youth, before it was quenched by 
 complete satiation, curiosity, and a desire of unveiling 
 the latent mysteries of Nature, was the passion by which 
 all the other emotions of my mind were intellectually 
 organised. This desire first led me to cultivate, and 
 with success, the various branches of learning which led 
 to the gates of wisdom. I then applied myself to the 
 cultivation of philosophy, and the edat with which I 
 pursued it, exceeded my most sanguine expectations. 
 Love I cared not for ; and wondered why men perversely 
 sought to ally themselves with weakness. Natural 
 philosophy at last became the peculiar science to which 
 I directed my eager inquiries ; thence was I led into a 
 train of labyrinthic meditations. I thought of death — I 
 shuddered when I reflected, and shrank in horror from 
 the idea, selfish and self-interested as I was, of entering a 
 new existence to which I was a stranger. I must either 
 dive into the recesses of futurity, or I must not, I can- 
 not die. — ' Will ilot this nature — will not the matter of 
 which it is composed, exist to all eternity ? Ah ! I 
 know it will ; and, by the exertions of the energies with 
 which Nature has gifted me, well I know it shall.' 
 This was my opinion at that time : I then believed that 
 there existed no God. Ah ! at what an exorbitant price 
 ■ have I bought the conviction that there is one ! ! ! 
 Believing that priestcraft and superstition were all the 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 APPENDIX. 
 
 religion which man ever practised, it could not be 
 supposed that I thought there existed supernatural 
 beings of any kind. I believed Nature to be self sufficient 
 and excelling ; I supposed not, therefore, that there 
 could be anything beyond Nature. 
 
 " I was now about seventeen. I had dived into the 
 depths of metaphysical calculations. With sophistical 
 arguments had I . convinced myself of the non-existence 
 of a First Cause, and, by every combined modification 
 of the essences of matter, had I apparently proved 
 that no existences could possibly be, unseen by human 
 vision. I had lived, hitherto, completely for myself; I 
 cared not for others ; and, had the hand of fate swept 
 from the list of the living every one of my youthful 
 associates, I should have remained immoved and 
 fearless. I had not a friend in the world; — I cared 
 for nothing but self. Being fond of calculating 
 the effects of poison, I essayed one, which I had 
 composed, upon a youth who had offended me ; he 
 lingered a month, and then expired in agonies the most 
 terrific. It was returning from his funeral, which all the 
 students of the college where I received my education 
 (Salamanca) had attended, that a train of the strangest 
 thought pressed upon my mind. I feared, more than 
 ever, now to die ; and although I had no right to form 
 hopes or expectations for longer life than is allotted to 
 the rest of mortals, yet did I think it were possible to 
 protract existence. And why, reasoned I with myself, 
 relapsing into melancholy, why am I to suppose that 
 these muscles or fibres are made of stuft" more durable 
 than those of other men ? I have no right to suppose 
 otherwise than that, at the end of the time allotted by 
 Nature for the existence of the atoms which compose my 
 being, I must, like all other men, perish, perhaps ever- 
 lastingly. Here in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed 
 that Nature and chance which I believed in ; and, in a 
 paroxysmal frenzy of contending passions, cast myself, 
 in desperation, at the foot of a lofty ash-tree, which 
 reared its fantastic form over a torrent which dashed 
 below. 
 
 "It was midnight; far had I wandered from Sala- 
 manca; the passions which agitated my brain, almost 
 
APPENDIX. 40s 
 
 to delirium, had added strength to my nerves and 
 swiftness to my feet ; but after many hours' incessant 
 walkiiig, I began to feel fatigued. No moon was up, 
 nor did one star illume the hemisphere. The sky was 
 veiled by a thick covering of clouds ; and, to my heated 
 imagination, the winds, which in stern cadence swept 
 aloiig the night scene, whistled tidings of death and 
 annihilation. I gazed on the torrent foaming beneath 
 my feet ; it could scarcely be distinguished through the 
 thickness of the gloom, save at intervals, when the 
 white-crested waves dashed at the base of the bank on 
 which I stood.' 'Twas then that I contemplated self- 
 destruction ; I had almost plunged into the tide of death, 
 had rushed upon the unknown regions of eternity, when 
 the soft sound of a bell from a neighbouring convent 
 was wafted in the stillness of the night. It struck a 
 chord in unison with my soul ; it vibrated on the secret 
 springs of rapture. I thought no more of suicide, but, 
 reseating myself at the root of the ash-tree, burst into a 
 flood of tears. Never had I wept before ; the sensation 
 was new to me ; it was inexplicably pleasing. I reflected 
 by what rules of science I could account for it; there 
 philosophy failed me. I acknowledged its inefficacy, 
 and, almost at that instant, allowed the existence of a 
 superior and beneficent Spirit, in whose image is made 
 the soul of man ; but quickly chasing these ideas, and 
 overcome by excessive and unwonted fatigue of mind 
 and body, I laid my head upon a jutting projection of 
 the tree, and, forgetful of everything around me, sank 
 into a profound and quiet slumber. Quiet, did I say ? 
 No — it was not quiet. I dreamed that I stood on the 
 brink of a most terrific precipice, far, far above the 
 clouds, amid whose dark forms, which lowered beneath, 
 was seen the dashing of a stupendous cataract; its 
 roarings were borne to mine ear by the blast of night. 
 Above me rose, fearfully embattled and rugged, fragments 
 of enormous rocks, tinged by the dimly gleaming moon, 
 their loftiness, the grandeur of their misshapen pro- 
 portions, and their bulk, staggering the imagination; 
 and scarcely could the mind itself scale the vast loftiness 
 of their aerial summits. I saw the dark clouds pass by, 
 borne by the impetuosity of the blast, yet felt no wind 
 
4o6 APPENDIX. 
 
 myself. Methought darkly gleaming forms rode on their 
 almost palpable prominences. 
 
 "Whilst thus I stood gazing on the expansive gulf 
 which yawned before me, methought a silver sound 
 stole on the quietude of night. The moon became 
 as bright as polished silver, and each star sparkled with 
 scintillations of inexpressible whiteness. Pleasing images 
 stole imperceptibly upon my senses, when a ravishingly 
 sweet strain of dulcet melody seemed to float around. 
 Now it was wafted nearer, and now it died away in 
 tones to melancholy dear. Whilst I thus stood en- 
 raptured, louder swelled the strain of seraphic harmony ; 
 it vibrated on my inmost soul, and a mysterious softness 
 lulled each impetuous passion to repose. I gazed in 
 eager anticipation of curiosity on the scene before me ; 
 for a mist of silver radiance .rendered every object but 
 myself imperceptible; yet was it brilliant as the noon- 
 day sun. Suddenly, whilst yet the full strain swelled 
 along the empyrean sky, the mist in one place seemed to 
 dispart, and, through it, to roll clouds of deepest 
 crimson. Above them, and seemingly reclining on 
 the viewless air, was a form of most exact and superior 
 symmetry. Rays of brilliancy surpassing expression 
 fell from his burning eye, and the emanations from 
 his countenance tinted the transparent clouds below 
 with silver light. The phantasm advanced towards me ; 
 it seemed then, to my imagination, that his figure was 
 borne on the sweet strain of music which filled the 
 circumambient air. In a voice which was fascination 
 itself, the being addressed me, saying : ' Wilt thou 
 come with me ? wilt thou be mine ? ' I felt a deci3fed 
 wish never to be his. ' No, no,' I unhesitatingly cried, 
 with a feeling which no language can either explain or 
 describe. No sooner had I uttered these words, than 
 methought a sensation of deadly horror chilled my 
 sickening frame ; an earthquake rocked the precipice 
 beneath my feet ; the beautiful being vanished ; clouds, 
 as of chaos, rolled around, and from their dark masses 
 flashed incessant meteors. I heard 'a deafening noise 
 on every side ; it appeared like the dissolution of Nature ; 
 the blood-red moon, whirled from her sphere, sank 
 beneath the horizon. My neck was grasped firmly, and, 
 
APPENDIX. 407 
 
 turning round in an agony of horror, I beheld a form 
 more hideous than the imagination of man is capable of 
 portraying, whose proportions, gigantic and deformed, 
 were seemingly blackened by the inevasible traces of the 
 thunderbolts of God ; yet in its hideous and detestable 
 countenance, though seemingly far different, I thought I 
 could recognise that of the lovely vision. ' Wretch ! ' it 
 exclaimed, in a voice of exulting thunder, ' saidst thou 
 that thou wouldst not be mine ? Ah ! thou art mine 
 beyond redemption, and I triumph in the conviction 
 that no power can ever make thee otherwise. Say, art 
 thou willing to be mine ? ' Saying this, he dragged me 
 to the brink of the precipice; the contemplation of 
 approaching death frenzied my brain to the highest pitch 
 of horror. 'Yes, yes, I am thine,' I exclaimed. No 
 sooner had I pronounced these words, than the visionary 
 scene vanished, and I awoke." 
 
 LETTER TO GODWIN ON CLASSICAL 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 "You know that in most points I agree with you. 
 As I see you in 'Political Justice,' I agree with you. 
 Your ' Enquirer ' is replete with speculations in which I 
 sympathise, yet the arguments there in favour of classical 
 learning failed to remove all my doubts on that point. I 
 am not sufficiently vain and dogmatical to say that now 
 I have no doubts on the deleteriousness of classical 
 education ; but it certainly is my opinion — nor has your 
 last letter sufficed to refute it — that the evils of acquiring 
 Greek and Latin considerably overbalance the benefit. 
 But why, because I think so, should it even be supposed 
 necessary by you to warn me against fearing ^z.t you feel 
 displeasure? Assure yourself that the picture of you in 
 the retina of my intellect is a standing proof to me, that 
 its original is capable of extending to opinions the most 
 unlimited toleration, and that he will scan with disgust 
 nothing but a defect of the heart. Let Reason, then, be 
 
4o8 APPENDIX. 
 
 arbiter between us. Yet sometimes I am struck with 
 dismay when I consider that, placed where you are, high 
 up on the craggy mountain of knowledge, you will scarcely 
 condescend to doubt, even sufficiently for the purposes 
 of discussion, although by that dsubting, you might fit 
 me for following your footsteps. Yet I will explain my 
 reasons for doubting the efficacy of classical learning, as- 
 a means of forwarding the interests of the human race. 
 
 " In the first place, I do not perceive how one of the 
 truths of 'Pohtical Justice' rests on the excellence of 
 ancient literature. That Latin and Greek have con- 
 tributed to form your character, it were idle to dispute, 
 but in how great a degree have they contributed ? Are 
 not the reasonings on which your system is founded 
 utterly distinct from and unconnected with the excellence 
 of Greece and Rome? Was not the Government of 
 republican Rome, and most of those of Greece, as 
 oppressive and arbitrary, as liberal of encouragement to 
 monopoly as that of Great Britain is at present ? And 
 what do we learn from their poets? As you have 
 yourself acknowledged somewhere, 'they are fit for 
 nothing but the perpetuation of the noxious race of 
 heroes in the world.' Lucretius forms perhaps the 
 single exception. Throughout the whole of their 
 literature runs a vein of thought similar to that which, 
 you have so justly censured in Helvetius. Honour — 
 and the opinion either of contemporaries, or more 
 frequently of posterity — is set so much above virtue as, 
 according to the last words of Brutus, to make it nothing 
 but an empty name. Their politics sprang from the 
 same narrow and corrupted source. Witness the in- 
 terminable aggressions between each other of the states 
 of Greece; the thirst of conquest with which even 
 republican Rome desolated the earth;— they are our 
 masters in politics, because we are so immoral as to 
 prefer self-interest to virtue, and expediency to positive 
 good. You say that words will neither debauch our 
 understandings, nor distort our moral feelings. You 
 say that the time of youth could not be better employed 
 than in the acquisition of classical learning. But words 
 are the very things which so eminently contribute to 
 the growth and establishment of prejudice; the learning 
 
APPENDIX. 409 
 
 of words before the mind is capable of attaching 
 corresponding ideas to them, is like possessing machinery 
 with the use of which we are so unacquainted as to be 
 in danger of misusing it. But words are merely signs of 
 ideas. How many evils, and how great evils, spring 
 from annexing inadequate and improper ideas to words ! 
 The words honour, virtue, duty, goodness, are examples 
 of this remark. Besides, we only want one distinct sign 
 for one idea. Do you not think that there is much 
 more danger of our wanting ideas for the signs of them 
 already made, than of our wanting these signs for inex- 
 pressible ideas ? I should think that natural philosophy, 
 medicine, astronomy, and above all history, could be 
 sufficient employments for immaturity; employments 
 ; which would completely fill up the era of tutelage, and 
 render unnecessary all expedients for losir^g time well, 
 by gaining it safely. 
 
 "Of the Latin language as a grammar I think highly. 
 . It is a key to the European languages, and we can hardly 
 : be said to know our own without first attaining a com- 
 plete knowledge of it. Still I cannot help considering it 
 as an affair of minor importance, inasmuch as the science 
 of things is superior to the science of words. Nor can I 
 help considering the vindicators of ancient learning — I 
 except you, not from politeness, but because you, unlike 
 them, are willing to subject your opinions to reason — as 
 the vindicators of a literary despotism ; as the tracers of 
 a circle which is intended to shut out from real know- 
 ledge, and to which this fictitious knowledge is attached, 
 all who will not support the established systems of 
 politics, religion, and morals. I have as great a con- 
 tempt for Cobbett as you can have, but it is because he is 
 a dastard and a time-server; he has no humanity, no 
 refinement; but were he a clasiical scholar, would he 
 have more ? Did Greek and Roman literature refine the 
 «oul of Johnson? Does it extend the views of the 
 thousand narrow bigots educated in the very bosom of 
 ■classicality ? But 
 
 "... in publica commoda peccem 
 Si longo sermone morer tua tempora,' 
 
 says Horace at the commencement of his longest letter." 
 
410 APPENDIX. 
 
 LAST SCENE OF THE FIRST ACT OF "THE 
 HAIR OF ABSALOM," BY CALDERON. 
 
 Amon — Tamar. 
 
 Musicians singing behind the scenes. 
 
 Tamar. Eat, Amon, while they sing. 
 
 Amon. I would sooner listen. 
 
 Amon and Musicians. He loveth not, who speaketh 
 not. 
 
 Amon. Be not surprised, divine Tamar, at my bold- 
 ness, if to-day I violate the laws of modesty arid reverence. 
 May this white hand, without changing the lilies into 
 asps, serve as antidote to my poison. 
 
 Tamar. Let go my hand, Amon; it is wrong now Ko 
 find fault with a mistake.* 
 
 Amo7i. Were it a mistake, thou wouldst be right, but 
 it is time for my passion to break the chain of my misery. 
 
 Amon and Musicians. For he loveth not, who speaketh 
 not. 
 
 Amon. I am dying for thee, Tamar. My confidence 
 has killed me. 
 
 Tamar (aside). Who could have foreseen this? 
 (Aloud). Consider, Amon. 
 
 Amon. I will consider nothing. 
 
 Tamar. I am thy sister. 
 
 Amon. True. But if, as the proverb says, " Blood 
 boils without fire," what will blood and fire be together? 
 
 Tamar. Our law allows marriage between kindreds 
 Ask my father for me. 
 
 Amon. It is late to try persuasion. 
 
 Tamar (calling). Hither 1 \A Musician enters. 
 
 Amon. Tamar wishes you to sing. 
 
 Tamar. I ? 
 
 * An allusion to a preceding scene, in which Tamar had con- 
 I seuted to act as an imaginary lover, to soothe her brother's distress. 
 
APPENDIX. 411 
 
 The Musician. We obey. \Exit. 
 
 \Singing behind the scenes. 
 
 Amon. I must possess thee. — Jonadab, shut the 
 doors at once. 
 
 Jonadab {from without). The doors are shut. 
 
 Tamar. Think of the risk. 
 
 Amon. I fear it not. 
 
 Tamar. Father ! Lord ! Absalom ! 
 
 Amon. Thysweet harmonious voice is powerless now. 
 
 Tamar. Then I will call on Heaven. 
 
 Anion. Heaven is slow to answer. 
 
 Tamar. Then shall this weapon kill thee. {She 
 snatches his sword and flies.) Pursue me not, I have both 
 strength and courage. 
 
 Amon. Thou hast wounded me now with my sword, 
 and though this be an omen, I fear nothing. Having 
 spoken, I must needs go on, foi* assuredly . . , 
 
 Amon and Musicians. He loveth not, who speaketh 
 not. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS, 
 
:tili'i- 
 
 
 'Ci