THE REAL SHELLEY.
VOL. II
THE REAL SHELLEY.
NEW VIEWS OF THE POET’S LIFE.
BY JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON,
AUTHOR OF ‘THE REAL LORD BYRON,’
‘A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS,’
‘A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS,’ &c. &c.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1885.
_All Rights reserved._
LONDON:
PRINTED BY STRANGEWAYS AND SONS,
Tower Street, Upper St. Martin’s Lane.
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
PAGE
CHAPTER I. WILLIAM GODWIN 1
Mr. Kegan Paul’s Inaccuracies--Godwin’s Early Story--From
Socinianism to Deism--In the Service of Publishers--
Hack-Work--_Political Justice_--_Caleb Williams_--Temperance
and Frugality--Godwin’s two imprudent Marriages--His
consequent Impoverishment--His personal Appearance--His
Speech and Manner--His morbid Vanity--His Sensitiveness for
his Dignity--His Benevolence and Honesty--Good Husband and
good Father--Looking out for a suitable Young Woman--Mary
Wollstonecraft--Godwin’s Regard for her--Mary in Heaven--A
Blighted Being.
CHAPTER II. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 12
The new Settler in George Street, Blackfriars--Mary’s earlier
Story--Woman of Letters--Her Five Years’ Work--Her Attachment
to Mr. Johnson--Coteries of Philosophical Radicalism--
_Anti-Jacobin_ on the Free Contract--Godwin’s Apostasy--From
Blackfriars to Store Street--The Slut become a modish
Woman--Her Passion for Fuseli--Her Appeal to Mrs. Fuseli--Mr.
Kegan Paul’s strange Treatment of Mr. Knowles--_Rights of
Woman_--Plain Speech and Coarseness--Mary goes to Paris--She
makes Imlay’s Acquaintance--Her Assignation with him at the
Barrier--Their Association in Free Love--Mr. Kegan Paul
speaks deliberately--His Apology for Mary’s Action--He falls
between Two Stools--Wife in the eyes of God and Man--Letters
to Imlay--Badness of Mary’s Temper--Her consequent Quarrels
with Imlay--Her Sense of Shame at her Position--Birth of her
illegitimate Child--Her Withdrawal from France--Her Norwegian
Trip--Her Wretchedness and Rage--Dissolution of the Free Love
Partnership--Mary’s Attempt to commit Suicide--Was she out
of her Mind?--Her Union with Godwin in Free Love--Their
subsequent Marriage--Their Squabbles and Differences--Their
Daughter’s Birth--Mary Wollstonecraft’s Death--Mrs. Shelley’s
biographical Inaccuracies.
CHAPTER III. THE SECOND MRS. WILLIAM GODWIN 60
The Blighted Being--Miss Jones’s Disappointment--The Blighted
Being goes to Bath--He proposes to Miss Harriet Lee--Is
rejected by Mrs. Reveley--Is accepted by Mary Jane
Clairmont--Who was she?--Her Children by her first
Marriage--Their Ages in 1801--Points of Resemblance in Mary
Wollstonecraft and Mary Jane Clairmont--The Blighted Being
marries Mary Jane Clairmont--Mr. Kegan Paul’s serious
Misrepresentations of Claire’s Age--The Use made of this
Misrepresentation--Mr. Kegan Paul convicted by his own
Evidences--Charles Clairmont’s Boyhood--Godwin’s Regard for
his second Wife--Misrepresentations touching the second Mrs.
Godwin--Childhood of Mary and Claire--Education of Godwin’s
Children and Step-children--Charles Clairmont’s Introduction
to Free Thought--Godwin’s Care to withhold Mary from Free
Thought--She is reared in Ignorance of her Mother’s Story--
The Book-shop in Hanway Street--The Godwins of The Polygon--
Their Migration to the City--The Godwins of Skinner Street.
CHAPTER IV. THE IRISH CAMPAIGN, AND THE STAY AT NANTGWILLT 78
Opium and Hallucination at Keswick--Migration to Ireland--
Shelley’s Letters to Miss Hitchener--Curran’s Coldness to the
Adventurer--Publication of the _Address to the Irish People_--
Measures for putting the Pamphlet in Circulation--Harriett’s
Amusement--Shelley’s Seriousness--Shelley’s other Irish
Tract--Public Meeting in the Fishamble Street Theatre--
Shelley’s Speech to the Sixth Resolution--Various Accounts of
the Speech--Mr. MacCarthy’s bad Manners--Honest Jack
Lawless--His Project for a History of Ireland--His Way of
handling Shelley--William Godwin’s Alarm--Shelley’s
Submission--His Intercourse with Curran--His Withdrawal from
Ireland--Seizure of his Papers at the Holyhead
Custom-House--Harriett’s Letter to Portia--The Shelleys in
Wales--Miss Hitchener’s ‘Divine Suggestion’--Harriett and
Eliza don’t think it ‘Divine’--Shelley at Nantgwillt--His
Scheme for turning Farmer--His comprehensive Invitation to
the Godwins--His sudden Departure from Nantgwillt--Cause of
the Departure--Mr. MacCarthy again at Fault.
CHAPTER V. NORTH DEVON 100
Mr. Eton’s Cottage near Tintern Abbey--Shelley’s Reason for
not taking the Cottage--His Letter to Mr. Eton--Godwin’s
expostulatory Epistle--His Grounds for thinking Shelley
prodigal--Reasonableness of Godwin’s Admonitions--Hogg and
MacCarthy at fault--Shelley’s Letters from Lynton to Godwin--
Miss Hitchener at Lynton--Porcia _alias_ Portia--_Letter_ to
Lord Ellenborough--Printed at Barnstaple--Mr. Chanter’s
_Sketches of the Literary History of Barnstaple_--Fifty
Copies of the _Letter_ sent to London--Shelley’s Measures for
the political Enlightenment of North Devon Peasants--His
Irish Servant, Daniel Hill--Commotion at Barnstaple--Daniel
Hill’s Arrest and Imprisonment--Mr. Syle’s Alarm--Shelley’s
humiliating and perilous Position--His Flight from North
Devon to Wales--William Godwin’s Trip from London to
Lynton--His Surprise and Disappointment--His ‘Good News’ of
the Fugitives.
CHAPTER VI. NORTH WALES AND THE SECOND IRISH TRIP 120
William A. Madocks--The Tremadoc Embankment--Shelley’s Zeal
for the People of Tremadoc--His big Subscription to the
Embankment Fund--Tanyrallt Lodge--Shelley in London--Sussex
Selfishness--The Reconciliation with Hogg--Miss Hitchener in
Disgrace--She is banished from ‘Percy’s Little Circle’--Brown
Demon and Hermaphroditical Beast--Shelley in Skinner Street--
Claire and Mary--Fanny Imlay’s Intercourse with Shelley--The
Worth and Worthlessness of Claire’s Evidence-- Shelley’s
Prodigality--Back at Tanyrallt--At Work on _Queen Mab_--At
War with Neighbours--Embankment Annoyances--Livelier Delight
in Harriett--Wheedling Letter to the Duke of Norfolk--Diet
and Dyspepsia--The Hunts in Trouble--Shelley’s Contribution
for their Relief--The odious Leeson--Daniel Hill’s Liberation
from Prison--His Arrival at Tanyrallt Lodge--The Tanyrallt
Mystery--Shelley’s marvellous and conflicting Stories--
Exhibition of the Evidence--Inquisition and Verdict--
Shelley’s ignominious Position--His virtuous Indignation at
the World’s Villany--His undiminished Concern for Liberty and
Virtue--His Withdrawal from Wales to Ireland--He hastens from
Dublin to Killarney--Hogg in Dublin--The Shelleys back in
London.
CHAPTER VII. LONDON AND BRACKNELL 164
Imprint of _Queen Mab_--The Poem’s Notes--The Author’s Views
touching Marriage--Places of Abode in London--Presentation
Copies--Shelley ‘a Lion’--Half-Moon Street--Diet and
Discomfort--Quacks and Crotchet-Mongers--‘Nakedized
Children’--Cornelia Newton--Maimuna and her Salon--
Elephantiasis--‘The Hampstead Stage’--Dinner Party at Norfolk
House--The Duke’s Mediation between the Father and Son--
Failure of the Negotiations--Shelley declines to be ‘a
miserable Slave’--At the Pimlico Lodgings--Correspondence
with Mr. Medwin, of Horsham--Birth of Ianthe Eliza--Shelley
as a Father--Conflict of Evidence respecting his Parental
Character--Shelley’s Kindness to Children--The Poet sets up
his Carriage--His Prodigality in London--His Life at
Bracknell--Maimuna at her Country-House--Last Visits to Field
Place--Captain Kennedy’s Reminiscences--Medwin’s Gossip--The
Trip to Scotland--Dissensions and Estrangements--Shelley and
Harriett drifting apart--_Queen Mab’s_ Vegetarian
Note--_Refutation of Deism_.
CHAPTER VIII. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW LOVE 205
Shelley’s Refusal to join in the Resettlement of A and B--His
Places of Residence in Two Years and Eight Months--_A
Refutation of Deism_--Mr. Kegan Paul’s Inaccuracies--Discord
between Shelley and Harriett--Their Remarriage--Miss
Westbrook’s Withdrawal--Shelley’s Desertion of Harriett--The
Desertion closes in Separation by mutual Agreement--‘Do what
other Women do!’--Causes of the Separation--How Shelley’s
Evidence touching them should be regarded--Peacock’s
Testimony for Harriett--Shelley in Skinner Street--‘The Mask
of Scorn’--Mary Godwin _not_ bred up to mate in Free
Contract--Old St. Pancras Church--At Mary Wollstonecraft’s
Grave--Claire’s Part in the Wooing--Excuses for Mary
Godwin--The Elopement from Skinner Street--From London to
Dover--From Dover to Calais--A ‘Scene’ at Calais--The Joint
Journal--Mrs. Shelley convicted of Tampering with Evidence--
The Six Weeks’ Tour--Shelley begs Harriett to come to him in
Switzerland--Byron’s Hunger for Evil Fame--Shelley’s
Self-Approbation and Self-Righteousness--Godwin’s Wrath with
Shelley--Their subsequent Relations--Shelley’s Renewal of
Intercourse with Harriett--Tiffs and Disagreements between
Claire and Mary--Claire’s Incapacity for Friendship--She
wants more than Friendship from Shelley.
CHAPTER IX. BISHOPGATE 257
Pecuniary Difficulties and Resources--Choice of a Profession--
Shelley walking a Hospital--Dropt by Acquaintances--Birth of
Mary Godwin’s first Child--Sir Bysshe Shelley’s Death--
Differences and Tiffs between Mary and Claire--Characteristics
of the Sisters--Trip to South Devon--At Work on _Alastor_--
Publication of the Poem--_Essay on Christianity_--Life at
Bishopgate--Shelley’s Idolatry of Byron--Birth of Mary
Godwin’s first-born Son--Claire and Byron--Second Trip to
Switzerland--Shelley’s Pretext for leaving England--Strange
Scene between Shelley and Peacock--Semi-Delusions--Another
Hallucination.
CHAPTER X. THE GENEVESE EPISODE 287
Shelley’s Arrival at Geneva--Byron and Polidori--At the
Sécheron Hotel--Union of the two Parties--Tattle of the
Coteries--The Genevese Scandal--Its Fruit in _Manfred_ and
_Cain_--Its Fruit in _Laon and Cythna_--The Shelleys’ Return
to England--Their Stay at Bath--Their Choice of a House at
Great Marlow--Fanny Imlay’s Suicide--Her pitiable Story--
Harriett’s Suicide--Review of Shelley’s Treatment of her--His
Responsibility for her Depravation and Ruin--Witnesses to
Character and Conduct--Shelley’s Grief for Harriett--His wild
Speech about her--His Marriage with Mary Godwin--Birth of
Allegra.
CHAPTER XI. THE CHANCERY SUIT 304
Mr. Westbrook’s Petition to the Court of Chancery--Date of
Hearing--The _Edinburgh_ Reviewer’s Strange
Misrepresentation--Lord Eldon’s Decree--Arrangements for
Harriett’s Children--Lady Shelley’s strange Mistake touching
those Arrangements--Lord Eldon’s Justification--Mrs.
Shelley’s Regard for Social Opinion--Shelley’s keen Annoyance
at the Chancellor’s Decree--Delusive Egotisms of _The Billows
of the Beach_--Shelley’s Pretexts for going to Italy--His
real Reasons for withdrawing from England.
CHAPTER XII. GREAT MARLOW 317
The Misleading Tablet--House and Garden--Claire at Marlow--
Shelley’s Delight in Claire’s Voice--_To Constantia
Singing_--Source of the Name--Trips to London--_The Marlow
Pamphlets_--_Rosalind and Helen_--Other Literary Work at
Marlow--Mary’s Treatment and Opinion of Claire--Shelley makes
his Will--Date of Probate--The Will’s various Legacies--
Significant Legacies to Claire--Object of the Second Legacy
of £6000--Did Shelley mean to leave Claire so much as
£12,000?--Mr. Froude’s Indiscretion--His Ignorance of the
Will.
CHAPTER XIII. LAON AND CYTHNA 329
Origin of the Free-Contract Party--Divorce in Catholic
England--Nullification of Marriage--Consequences of the
Reformation--Edward the Sixth’s Commissioners for the
Amendment of Ecclesiastical Laws--Martin Bucer’s _Judgment
touching Divorce_--John Milton on Freedom of Divorce--
Denunciations of Marriage by the Godwinian Radicals--Poetical
Fruits of the Genevese Scandal--Byron’s Timidity--Shelley’s
Boldness--His most extravagant Conclusions touching Liberty
of Affection--Appalling Doctrine of _Laon and Cythna_--
Shelley’s Purpose in publishing the Poem--Alarm of the
Olliers--Shelley’s Instructions to the frightened
Publishers--Suppression of the monstrous Poem--Friends in
Council--_Laon and Cythna_ manipulated into the _Revolt of
Islam_--The _Quarterly Review_ on the original Poem--
Consequences to Shelley’s Reputation--Irony of Fate.
CHAPTER XIV. FROM MARLOW TO ITALY 351
The Hunts and the Shelleys--Their Intimacy--Pecuniary
Difficulties--Dealings with Money-lenders--Leigh Hunt
relieves Shelley of £1400--His Testimony to Shelley’s
virtuous Manners--Shelley’s Benevolence at Marlow--At the
Opera--Departure for Italy--The fated Children--Shelley’s
literary Work and studious Life in Italy--Milan--Allegra sent
to her Father--Elise the Swiss Nurse--Her Knowledge and
Suspicions--Claire and her ‘Sister’--Their Affectionate
Intercourse and Occasional Quarrels--Shelley’s Affection for
Claire--Vagrants in Italy--Pisa--Leghorn--Maria Gisborne--Her
Husband and Son--Claire and Shelley at Venice--Trick played
on Byron--His Civilities to the Shelleys--Little Clara’s
Death--Paolo the Knave--He falls in Love with Elise--Their
Marriage--Paolo’s Wrath and Vengeance--Emilia Viviani--
Shelley’s Adoration of Her--The three-cornered Flirtation--
Mrs. Shelley’s Attitude and Action--Shelley’s Fault in the
Affair--His subsequent Shame at the Business--The imaginary
Assault at the Pisan Post Office.
CHAPTER XV. PISAN ACQUAINTANCES 391
The Williamses--Shelley at Ravenna--The Shelley-Claire
Scandal--Shelley’s startling Letter to Mrs. Shelley--
Examination of the Letter--Its wild Inaccuracies--Mrs.
Shelley’s vindicatory Letter to Mrs. Hoppner--Demonstration
that Byron was authorized by Shelley to withhold the
Letter--Explanation of the Shelley-Claire Scandal--Shelley’s
Visit to Allegra at Bagna-Cavallo--Project for starting the
_Liberal_--Leigh Hunt invited to edit the _Liberal_--
Shelley’s Change of Plans--His Pretexts and Reasons for
changing them--Leigh Hunt’s Way of dealing with his
Friends--His Concealment of his financial Position--Byron at
Pisa--Hunt’s Misadventures on his Outward Voyage--Byron’s
Discouragement in respect to the _Liberal_--Differences
between Byron and Shelley--Shelley’s Position between Byron
and Hunt--The Byron-Shelley ‘Set’ at Pisa--Shelley and Hunt
in secret League against Byron--Shelley’s Change of Feeling
towards Byron--Was Byron aware of the Change?
CHAPTER XVI. CLOSING SCENES 423
Shelley’s Attachment to Jane Williams--Her Womanly Goodness--
Her Devotion to her Husband--_The Serpent is shut out from
Paradise_--_Essay on the Devil_--Shelley’s Happiness and
Discord with Mary--Her Remorseful Verses--Trials of her
Married Life--_Essay on Christianity_--San Terenzo and
Lerici--The Casa Magni--Mary’s Illness and Melancholy at San
Terenzo--Arrival of the ‘Don Juan’--Mutual Affection of Mrs.
Shelley and Mrs. Williams--Shelley’s latest Visions and
Hallucinations--Leigh Hunt’s Arrival in Italy--Shelley sails
for Leghorn--Meeting of Shelley and Hunt--Improvement in
Shelley’s Health--His Mediation between Hunt and Byron--The
Hunts in the Palazzo Lanfranchi--Lady Shelley’s Account of
the Difficulties between Byron and Shelley--Shelley’s
Contentment with his Arrangements for the Hunts--He sets Sail
for Lerici--The Fatal Storm--Cremation on the
Sea-shore--Grave at Rome.
CHAPTER XVII. SHELLEY’S WIDOW AND HER SISTER-BY-AFFINITY 453
The Widow in Italy--Her Return to England--Sojourn in the
Strand--Life at Kentish Town--Residence at Harrow--She is
forbidden to write her Husband’s ‘Life’--‘Moonshine’ and
‘Celestial Mate’--Her closing Years--Claire in her Later
Time--Trelawny’s inaccurate Talk about Shelley’s Will--
Claire’s Double Legacy--She becomes a Catholic--Dies in the
Catholic Faith.
CHAPTER XVIII. LAST WORDS 458
A Schedule of Significant Matters--Delusion and
Semi-delusion--Certain phenomenal Peculiarities of Shelley’s
Mind--The Psychological Problem--The Story that would have
opened Southey’s Eyes--How it would be received by Critical
Persons--Misconceptions of Field Place--Bootlessness of
publishing the Story--Shelley and Socialistic Literature--
Marian Evans’ Great Error--Her Marriage--Mischievous Effects
of the Apologies for Shelleyan Socialism--The Homage to which
Shelley is entitled--The Homage to which he has no Title.
THE REAL SHELLEY.
CHAPTER I.
WILLIAM GODWIN.
Mr. Kegan Paul’s Inaccuracies--Godwin’s Early Story--From Socinianism
to Deism--In the Service of Publishers--Hack-Work--_Political
Justice_--_Caleb Williams_--Temperance and Frugality--Godwin’s two
imprudent Marriages--His consequent Impoverishment--His personal
Appearance--His Speech and Manner--His morbid Vanity--His
Sensitiveness for his Dignity--His Benevolence and Honesty--Good
Husband and good Father--Looking out for a suitable Young Woman--Mary
Wollstonecraft--Godwin’s Regard for her--Mary in Heaven--A Blighted
Being.
To guard against imputations of error, that may be unjustly preferred
against this work on the authority of another man of letters, it is
needful for me to call attention to certain inaccuracies of Mr. Kegan
Paul’s chief literary performance. In Chapter VII., Vol. II., of _William
Godwin; his Friends and Contemporaries_, Mr. Kegan Paul remarks, ‘The
attraction which Godwin’s society always possessed for young men has often
been noticed, nor did it decrease as years passed on. Two young men were
drawn to him in the year 1811, fired with zeal for intellectual pursuits,
and desiring help from Godwin. They were different in their circumstances,
but were both unhappy, and both died young. The first was a lad named
Patrickson, the second Percy Bysshe Shelley.’ In this characteristic
sentence, Mr. Kegan Paul makes at least three blunders. As Patrickson was
corresponding with William Godwin in December, 1810, the youth was drawn
to the man of letters before 1811. As Shelley never saw William Godwin,
never wrote him a line, before 1812 (though Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy
states otherwise, on the strength of a misread passage of one of the
Oxonian Shelley’s epistles), he certainly did not make Godwin’s
acquaintance in 1811. As he was corresponding with him for many months
before he set eyes on him, Shelley was not in the first instance drawn to
the author of _Political Justice_ by his social charms. It is
characteristic of Mr. Kegan Paul that the page on which he declares
Patrickson to have made Godwin’s acquaintance, no earlier than 1811, faces
the very page that exhibits the greater part of a letter from the man of
letters to his ill-fated _protégé_, dated ‘Skinner Street, London,
December 18th, 1810.’
At the opening of the next chapter of his book of blunders, Mr. Kegan Paul
holds stoutly to his statement that Shelley and Godwin were in
correspondence twelve months before they exchanged letters. Instead of
being headed ‘1812-14,’ as it would have been, had it not been for this
droll misconception, Chapter VIII., Vol. II., of the book is headed ‘The
Shelleys, 1811-14,’ and opens with a short paragraph containing these
words, ‘The first notice of Shelley in the Godwin Diaries is under date
January 6th, 1811, “Write to Shelley.”’ To heighten the confusion, for
which I am slow to think Godwin’s diary in any degree accountable, the
biographer says in his next paragraph, ‘Shelley was at this time living at
Keswick, in the earlier and happier days of his marriage with Harriet
Westbrook.... He had already, in this manner, made the acquaintance of
Leigh Hunt, when, in January, 1811, he wrote thus to Godwin’:--the letter
thus submitted to the reader’s notice being Shelley’s well-known first
letter to Godwin, which appears in Hogg’s _Life_ under the right date,
‘January 3rd, 1812,’ but in Mr. Kegan Paul’s medley of mistakes under the
wrong date of ‘January 3rd, 1811.’ As Shelley’s first letter to Leigh Hunt
was dated 2nd March, 1811, it was not written before 3rd January, 1811. As
Leigh Hunt took no notice of that letter, Shelley did not make Leigh
Hunt’s acquaintance by writing it. Though Leigh Hunt saw and spoke with
Shelley on one or two occasions of earlier time, he cannot be fairly said
to have made his acquaintance before a day long subsequent to 3rd
February, 1815.
What an assemblage of errors in half-a-page of print! It is conceivable
that the usually careful Godwin in his diary gave the wrong number to the
new year,--a mistake made occasionally even by precise journalists. But if
it was so, instead of being misled by the slip into a series of bad
blunders, Mr. Kegan Paul should have detected and amended it. Here is the
list of blunders:--
_Blunder No. 1._--A wrong date of 1811 for 1812 at the head of the
chapter.
_Blunder No. 2._--The same wrong date to the extract from the diary.
_Blunder No. 3._--The same wrong date in the author’s original writing.
_Blunder No. 4._--The same error in the date given to the letter.
_Blunder No. 5._--The biographer’s own mistake of saying that Shelley was
living at Keswick in January, 1811,--months before his expulsion from
Oxford.
_Blunder No. 6._--The biographer’s own mistake of saying that Shelley and
Harriett Westbrook were husband and wife on 3rd January, 1811,--eight
calendar months before the date of their wedding.
_Blunder No. 7._--The biographer’s own mistake of saying Shelley’s first
letter to Leigh Hunt was dated before 3rd January, 1811.
_Blunder No. 8._--The biographer’s own mistake of saying Shelley made
Leigh Hunt’s acquaintance by writing that letter.
_Blunder No. 9._--The biographer’s own mistake (of years), touching the
date when Shelley made Leigh Hunt’s acquaintance.
Nine errors of fact in half-a-page of light print by a gentleman who has
put himself before the world as an authority on matters of Shelleyan
story, and who in doing so has done not a little for the obscuration of
the record. Mr. Kegan Paul is one of those accurate writers, from whom Mr.
Froude has warned me not to differ. In due course something more will be
said of Mr. Kegan Paul’s services to Shelleyan research, but for the
moment readers are invited to give their attention to a more notable man
of letters.
Born at Wisbech, Co. Cambridge, on 3rd March, 1756, William Godwin was in
his fifty-sixth year when he received Shelley’s letter of entreaty for
sympathy and guidance. The son of a Dissenting minister, who never rose to
any eminence or a higher stipend than 60_l._ a-year in his vocation,
William Godwin was reared amongst people of lowly fortune and rude
manners, in the eastern counties, receiving in his boyhood, from teachers
of no singular efficiency, an education neither greatly better nor
greatly worse than the training ordinarily given to English boys of his
social degree in the later half of the last century. On escaping from
these schoolmasters, one of whom he had served in the capacity of an
usher, the future man of letters went to the Hoxton College in order to
qualify himself for his father’s calling; and on leaving that seminary he
officiated for a few years as a Non-conforming minister, preaching and
otherwise labouring in a way of life for which he soon discovered his
unfitness, first at Ware in Hertfordshire, then at Stowmarket in Suffolk,
and then at Beaconsfield, Co. Bucks. A volume of sermons, published some
while after their delivery to rural congregations, still remains in
evidence that if Godwin in his days of irregular reverence was as good a
preacher as the average Non-conforming pulpiteers of his period,
Dissenters were edified in George the Third’s earlier time with worse
sermons than is generally supposed.
Ere long the young minister discovered that he could not believe what he
was bound to teach. That from manhood’s threshold he was more than
slightly disposed to religious scepticism is shown by the curious
disputation he held on paper, during his last year at Hoxton, with a
fellow-student, the question of the strictly private and confidential
controversy being the existence of the Deity. Could he have proved to his
satisfaction the existence of the Almighty, Godwin conceived he would be
troubled by no doubt of the truth of Christianity, nor by any disposition
to quarrel with the refinements of Calvinistic doctrine. Under these
circumstances Godwin took the negative side in the secret controversy,
hoping that his arguments would be demolished and his faith settled by his
fellow-collegian. The result of the conflict does not appear. Possibly the
paper war satisfied the doubter that he could conscientiously enter the
ministry. If so, it only suppressed for a period the doubts that
determined Godwin a few years later to seek another means of livelihood.
At Beaconsfield (1783) he was converted to Socinianism by Priestley’s
_Institutes_. Five years later he had passed through Socinianism into
Deism.
On becoming a Unitarian he took the ordinary course of a young man who,
too poor to live in idleness, and too honest to live by daily falsehood,
possesses studious tastes and literary aptitude. Coming to London he
sought employment of the publishers, and contrived to live hardly,
painfully, temperately, as a book-maker and publisher’s hack, whilst he
persisted in the labours of a student. Producing in his twenty-eighth year
a _Life of Lord Chatham_, for which he got nothing, and the _Defence of
the Rockingham Party_, for which Stockdale paid him five guineas, he went
on reading strenuously and writing as he best could,--throwing off
articles for the _English Review_ at two guineas a-sheet, turning out
forgotten novels for which he was paid from five to twenty guineas,
translating for Murray the French MS. _Memoirs of Simon Lord Lovat_; doing
whatever work came to hand, till he was appointed at sixty guineas per
annum to write the historical part of Robinson’s _New Annual Register_,
and to contribute articles to the _Political Herald_,--two engagements
that, coming to him in his thirtieth year, gave him at the same time a
sense of success and a sense of financial security.
The poverty and hardship, in which he had been trained from childhood till
he dropt the title of ‘Reverend’ and determined to live honestly by the
pen instead of living dishonestly by the pulpit, were serviceable to the
booksellers’ hack, whom they had taught how to live with comfort and
contentment on a precarious number of weekly shillings. The young man, who
dined sufficiently well on a chop and potato, and conceived himself to
have dined luxuriously after consuming a large beefsteak and a pint of
porter, had in some respects the advantage of literary competitors, who
together with higher culture had acquired at Oxford or Cambridge a taste
for higher living. On approaching middle life he could, however, have
afforded to relinquish the frugal habits formed during his early
struggles. The persevering hack, who steadily prosecuted various studies
whilst toiling for the publishers; the religious inquirer, who passed
through Socinianism on his way from Calvinism to Deism; the resolute
Radical, who sought the justification of his political sentiments in
philosophical principles, whilst living in close friendship with Thomas
Holcroft, and cordial good fellowship with Thomas Paine, was a man,
certain to achieve eminence sooner or later in the republic of letters. If
it came to him less than soon, celebrity came to Godwin none too late for
its perfect enjoyment. He was still in his thirty-eighth year, when he
published _Political Justice_,--the work for which Robinson is said to
have paid him, at different times, sums amounting to a thousand guineas;
the work that made him famous as a teacher of philosophical Radicalism.
If it made him the best-abused man of the three kingdoms, this daring and
in some respects superlatively unsound book rendered him the idol of
political enthusiasts in every quarter of the country. Unalluring in
design, repellent in style, usually guarded in expression, sold at a price
that kept it from the hands of the multitude whom it was intended chiefly
to benefit, the frigid and passionless work, whose principles could not
fail to make it regarded with disfavour by the majority of the wealthier
class, possessed no feature or quality, apart from its attractive title,
its aims and its general audacity, to humour the popular taste and win
popular applause. For such a work shrewd judges of the book-market might
well have predicted commercial failure. It was, however, successful from
every point of view. Successful for its immediate and later effect on the
readers it was especially intended to influence, it was fortunate in a
sale that exceeded the anticipations of author and publisher, and
fortunate in the determination of the Government to take no measures to
check its circulation.
Published in 1793, _Political Justice_ was still rising in public esteem,
when Godwin produced (in May 1794) _Caleb Williams_; a novel that was
largely indebted for its singular popularity to the influence of the
political treatise. The books may be said to have run together, and united
in placing their author amongst the most famous writers of his
generation,--the success of the novel stimulating the success of the
scientific study, whilst admiration of the philosopher’s reasonings
quickened the interest in his work of fancy. Whilst readers hastened
eagerly from the tale of terror to the work of unemotional demonstration,
others passed with curiosity from the volumes of the political philosopher
to the pages of the enthralling story. In the annals of English letters
there is no other case of an author, achieving almost at the same moment
so sensational a celebrity in two such different departments of literary
enterprise.
In the days when _Political Justice_ and _Caleb Williams_ were new
literature, eminently successful authors derived less emolument from their
most popular writings, than comes now-a-days to authors of inferior merit
from works of only average popularity. But putting him in pecuniary ease
for the moment, Godwin’s double triumph (though he sold the novel for a
curiously small sum) placed him in a position that, to a man of his
industry and frugal habits, was a promise of security from financial
discomfort, so long as he retained his power of working, and persisted in
the ways of prudence. That he was not likely to fall into poverty through
self-indulgence appeared from his way of living when fortune smiled upon
him. Remaining in the little house in Somers Town, where his yearly
expenditure never exceeded 130_l._, he showed no disposition either for
the pleasures of luxury or the pleasures of ostentation.
How came it that the man of letters, so averse to every kind of
prodigality, dropt in a few years into the very troubles from which his
industry and temperance seemed certain to preserve him, and, after falling
into poverty in life’s middle term, whilst the productions of his pen were
still fairly remunerative, passed the long remainder of his laborious
years in one, vain humiliating conflict with financial embarrassment? The
answer is that, with every good reason for persisting in celibacy, and no
single sound excuse for surrendering the advantages of singleness, he made
two imprudent marriages,--the second of which was only a few degrees less
imprudent and unfortunate than the earlier alliance with Mary
Wollstonecraft. In other than financial respects Godwin suffered severely
from these unions. It might almost be thought that the divine powers, who
have been assumed to concern themselves especially with the affairs of
lovers, determined to punish the arch-maligner of lawful matrimony, by
luring him into the estate he had decried, and then rendering him a signal
example of some of the evils that may ensue from wedlock. It is strange
that the man, who in celibatic freedom spoke so hardly of marriage,
endured in later time so much from the honourable estate he had warned
others to avoid. Strange also that, instead of being confirmed in his
philosophic disapproval of wedlock by what he endured in his own person
from marriage, he survived his repugnance to the whilom detestable
institution, and towards the close of his career stoutly maintained he had
never regretted either of the marriages for which he paid so dearly.
Though it is impossible for a sane biographer to write of William Godwin
with enthusiasm, or any kind of cordial admiration, no fair one can deny
that, if he was deficient in the graces requisite for a hero of
biographical romance, the author of _Political Justice_ possessed several
admirable qualities. To take a fair view of the man, who suffered severely
for kindness shown to Shelley, readers should toss aside as a mere
humorous fabrication Miss Mitford’s story of the way in which the
bookseller of Skinner Street used to go ‘down on his knees, flourishing a
drawn dagger’ at Shelley’s feet, and ‘threaten to stab himself if his
dutiful son-in-law would not accept his bills.’ They must also throw away
as vile tattle all the stories of William Godwin’s delight at finding
himself the father-in-law of a young gentleman who might some day be a
baronet. Whatever his failings, William Godwin was no such creature as
these anecdotes imply,--no such snob as snobs have declared him. In the
financial difficulties of his later time, and in the moral debasement that
almost invariably results in some degree from long exposure to such
difficulties, he was capable of begging for gifts from exalted persons,
and getting up a pecuniary testimonial in acknowledgment of his own public
services. But these were the acts of his declining age, when his brain was
losing its alertness and his pen its cunning; when publishers treated him
coldly as a man ‘no longer what he was,’ and children (not his own) hung
about him, asking him, not only for bread, but for costly education. They
were also acts done in a period when men of letters were taught by social
usage to be something less than self-dependent. At his worst, Godwin never
(like Leigh Hunt) sought the gifts of rich people in order that he might
enjoy indolence and luxuries. Ever industrious to the utmost of his
ability, and ever glad to be so, Godwin at the worst sought help only that
he might be more helpful to those who were dependent on him. Moreover,
Godwin was one of the men who have so strong a title to the world’s
tenderness and even to its reverence, that whilst gratitude enjoins us to
judge them at their best, justice forbids us to judge them at their worst.
Flattered on Northcote’s canvas, and flattered still more in Mr. Kegan
Paul’s photograph of Northcote’s picture, William Godwin’s presence was on
the whole by no means agreeably impressive; but for the badness of the
worst feature of his more remarkable than pleasing countenance he was
almost compensated by the goodness of his eyes. ‘He has,’ Southey wrote in
1797, ‘large noble eyes, and a nose,--oh, most abominable nose! Language
is not vituperatious enough to describe the effect of its downward
elongation.’ Interfering with the effect of a shapely mouth, this
grotesquely elongated nose seemed set on moving down to the chin of
corresponding prominence. From the portrait to which reference has been
made, Godwin seems in his earlier middle age to have had a visage
remarkable rather for tenuity than massiveness; but Hogg’s account of the
philosopher’s appearance affords evidence that delicacy was no
characteristic of the Skinner-Street bookseller’s personal aspect. It
would have been well if, on dropping his title to reverence, the young
_littérateur_ had also dropt the garb and manner that long afterwards
reminded beholders of his original calling. When he dined _tête-à-tête_,
and for the first time with William Godwin, Hogg observed that the ‘short,
stout, thickset old man, of very fair complexion,’ and a head no less
remarkable for baldness than magnitude, had altogether the ‘appearance of
a Dissenting minister;’--a statement to be regarded as sufficient
testimony that the author of _Caleb Williams_ had not altogether the
appearance of a gentleman, at least in the opinion of Mr. Hogg, ever
disdainful of Dissenters.
Another thing to come under the saucy young Templar’s notice was that,
whilst having altogether the ‘appearance of a Dissenting minister,’ his
companion lacked the colloquial address of a gentleman of society and
breeding. His articulation wanted distinctness, and his uneasy utterance
was attended by a show of effort and distress, that might almost be called
an impediment. But though painful on being noticed for the first time,
this difficulty ceased to trouble listeners when they grew accustomed to
it, and even gave an agreeable distinctiveness to a somewhat harsh and
discordant voice.
William Godwin’s moral nature resembled his appearance and manner, in
comprising several agreeable and commendable qualities, without being
altogether pleasing or in any degree remarkable for dignity. To the last,
also, it resembled them in affording indications of the humility of his
original condition and earlier circumstances. The man of intellect, whose
costume and bearing reminded people that he had formerly been a Dissenting
minister in small market-towns, never survived the influence of the rural
conventicle; never outlived the social influences of the humble and
unrefined people, who had surrounded him in his days of ministerial
service. The egregious vanity, that animated him from youth to old age,
was not the almost generous infirmity to be observed in the elegant and
refined, but the mean and despicable vanity of the rude and
vulgar-minded. Ever accessible to flatterers, he swallowed the grossest
adulations with keen relish;--with ludicrous greed, if it were prepared
for his palate by feminine artifice. When the postman laid a letter on his
Skinner-Street shop-counter, the philosopher’s countenance flushed if he
saw himself designated in the superscription ‘Mr. Godwin,’ instead of
‘William Godwin, _esquire_.’
On the other hand, he had numerous good qualities. He was, upon the whole,
truthful and honest; just to men he disliked and principles he
disapproved, and altogether the benevolent man he commended himself for
being. In all that related to, his opinions on politics, religion, and the
social virtues, and his ways of promulgating and enforcing those opinions,
he was sincere as sunlight, and absolutely cantless. The only fault of his
sympathetic and judicious benevolence was that it sometimes exceeded his
means. Alike in the days when he was a needy hack, in his brief term of
prosperity, and in the long period of his financial difficulties, poor
people hung about him and had money from him. Beneficent to his indigent
relatives, he was no less beneficent to persons not of his kindred. The
interest he displayed in young men, and the pains he took for their
mental, moral, and material welfare, cannot be too highly commended. From
the date of his marriage with Mary Wollstonecraft, he was a bright example
of domestic virtue. A good husband to that curious woman, who, during
their brief association, tried him not a little with her captious and
querulous temper; he was a good husband to his second wife, who (though by
no means so bad a person as the wilder Shelleyan enthusiasts would have us
believe) tried him for a long period almost as vexatiously as Mary
Wollstonecraft tried him for a short one. A man is not to be extolled for
being good to his own children. But it is much to Godwin’s credit that,
whilst he was a good father to his daughter by Mary Wollstonecraft, and to
his son by his second wife, he was quite as good a father to his three
step-children--to Mary Wollstonecraft’s illegitimate daughter Fanny, to
Charles Clairmont (the second Mrs. Godwin’s son by her former husband),
and to Charles’s sister Jane,--the Jane Clairmont _alias_ Claire of
Byronic story.
But though he is to be respected for all these good, honest, wholesome
qualities, it remains that Godwin’s unemotional nature and unrefined
homeliness forbid the biographer to write rapturously about him. No
considerable man of letters has, in recent times, been more curiously
wanting in the mental, moral, and personal graces, which the fancy is apt
to associate with famous followers of the higher arts. Though he wrote
many novels (one of them being a tale of no uncommon vigour), he was
curiously wanting in romantic fervour and imaginativeness. Though he was
ambitious of writing for the stage, and made several essays in dramatic
literature, he was absolutely devoid of poetical sensibility. Capable of
firm, though cold, friendship, he was absolutely incapable of love. When
it occurred to him, in his twenty-ninth year, that he might as well have a
wife to cook his daily chop and look after his shirt-buttons, he
commissioned his sister to look out for a suitable young woman. In
middle-age, when he slipped from ordinary friendship into a closer
alliance with Mary Wollstonecraft, he was careful to provide himself with
a peculiar and private lodging at a convenient distance from their common
home in ‘The Polygon,’ Somers Town, in order that he might be able to
spend most of his time well out of her way. Some ten or twelve months
later, Mary Wollstonecraft was on her death-bed, sinking tranquilly, even
happily, out of this life, under the soothing influence of an anodyne,
given her a short time before by her medical attendant. ‘Oh, Godwin, I am
in heaven!’ she ejaculated, in gratitude for the effect of the medicine,
to her husband, standing over her. ‘You mean, my dear,’ he replied with
more self-command than tenderness, ‘that your physical sensations are
somewhat easier.’ It is all well, and very amusing, for Mr. Kegan Paul to
gush over the ‘blight’ that came to Godwin’s heart and life, from his
‘untimeous’ loss of the woman he never loved,--the woman whose tenderest
feelings for him differed widely from the emotions of love. But readers of
this page can need no assurance that the materialist, who reproved his
wife so drolly for thinking herself in heaven, never took her to his
embrace because he thought her an angel.