THE CHANCERY SUIT.
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.
It has been repeatedly declared that the first Mrs. Shelley committed
suicide in desperation, consequent on her elder sister’s cruelty in
shutting the door of her old home against her, when she called at the
house in Chapel Street, in order to see her _dying_ father. That Mr.
Westbrook was not dying either in November or December, 1816, appears from
the fact that in the following year he appeared in the Court of Chancery,
as the petitioner in the suit, that resulted in Lord Eldon’s memorable
decree, that Shelley was an unfit person to have the custody and direct
the education of his two children by his first wife.
On settling in his new home it was only natural for Shelley to wish to see
these two children in its nursery. On the other hand, it was natural for
Mr. Westbrook to have a strong opinion, that it would be ill for his
daughter’s two children to be given into the hands of a father, who
(according to Mr. Westbrook’s not altogether unreasonable view of the
case) would educate them to be infidels and Free Lovers. Acting on this
opinion, Mr. Westbrook refused to give the children up to Shelley, and
followed up the refusal by petitioning the Court of Chancery, to take the
children under its protection, and confide them to the care of persons,
more fit (in Mr. Westbrook’s opinion) than their father to rear and
educate them. Filed in January, 1817, with affidavits and exhibits, this
petition came on for hearing in March, 1817, on the 17th day of which
month Lord Eldon delivered judgment in favour of the petitioner; the
result being that the children were formally placed in the
joint-guardianship of their maternal-grandfather Mr. Westbrook, and
their maternal-aunt, Miss Eliza Westbrook, and eventually under the
personal care and tuition of Dr. Hume, a clergyman of the Church of
England.
There is a curious conflict of the subordinate authorities, respecting the
particular day on which the decree was delivered. Medwin says the judgment
was delivered on the 17th of March, 1817, and this date is given by
several subsequent writers; but Mr. Rossetti (so careful and conscientious
a writer that he seldom errs in a statement of fact) represents, on the
authority of a date given in Lady Shelley’s curiously inaccurate _Shelley
Memorials_, that the day of judgment was on or about the 23rd August,
1817. I can have no doubt that on this rather important point Medwin was
right, as the first order, made immediately after the decree, appears in
Jacob’s _Reports_ under the date of 17th March, 1817, and on the record
under the date of 17th March, 1816 (_i.e._ 17th March of the legal year,
1816, and 17th March of the historic year, 1817). Medwin being right on
this point, Shelley was out of his suspense, touching the event of the
suit, on 17th March, and his mind in a better state for working at _Laon
and Cythna_ in the summer.
Of this decree the _Edinburgh_ (‘Shelley-and-Mary,’ October, 1882)
Reviewer remarks, ‘But, as is well known, the paternal claim of Shelley to
his offspring was resisted by their grandfather Westbrook, and rejected by
Lord Eldon on petition, on the ground, not of Shelley’s misconduct to his
wife, but of the opinions expressed in his writings.’ This statement is
precisely contrary to the fact. The claim was rejected, _not_ on account
of opinions expressed in Shelley’s writings, _but_ on account of his
misconduct to his wife, which on inquiry was found to correspond with
rules of action laid down in the anti-matrimonial note to _Queen Mab_. The
misstatement of the _Edinburgh_ has been made in various ways over and
over again, and has as often been corrected. Yet again to tell the truth
of the matter will have no effect on those of the Shelleyan zealots, who
are wont to reply to every correction of any one of their misstatements
with a stubborn reiteration of the error. They will only smile, and repeat
the misrepresentation more authoritatively. Such stubborn persistence in
error has never before been witnessed in literary annals. But for the
benefit of persons, who wish to know the truth of Shelley’s story, I
repeat yet again that Lord Eldon’s decree kept Shelley’s conduct
steadily in view. Conduct, conduct, conduct, is reiterated throughout the
decree, till the reader grows weary of the word. And yet the Shelleyan
enthusiasts go on stubbornly asserting that the poet’s conduct had nothing
to do with the decision.
Fortunately the Chancellor gave his judgment in writing, and fortunately
the decree was printed in Jacob’s _Reports_ from a copy, furnished to the
editor by Mr. (afterwards Vice-Chancellor) Shadwell, counsel in support of
the petition.
Here is the whole judgment, given paragraph by paragraph, with a brief
note by the present writer to each paragraph:--
Paragraph No. 1.--‘I have read all the papers left with me, and all
the cases cited.’--No word here touching Shelley’s opinions.
Paragraph No. 2.--‘With respect to the question of jurisdiction, it is
unnecessary for me to add to what I have already stated. After the
example of Lord Thurlow, in _Orby Hunter’s_ case, I shall act upon the
notion that this Court has such jurisdiction, until the House of Lords
shall decide that my predecessors have been unwarranted in the
exercise of it.’--No word here about Shelley’s opinions.
Paragraph No. 3.--‘I have carefully looked through the answer of the
defendant, to see whether it affects the representation made in the
affidavits filed in support of the petition, and in the exhibits
referred to, of the _principles and conduct_ of life of the father in
this case. I do not perceive that the answer does affect the
representation, and no affidavits are filed against the
petition.’--Shelley’s _principles_ are here referred to, in connection
with his _conduct_.
Paragraph No. 4.--‘Upon the case as represented in the affidavits, the
exhibits and the answer, I have formed my opinion; conceiving myself,
according to the practice of the Court, at liberty to form it, in the
case of an infant, whether the petition in its allegations and
suggestions has or has not accurately presented that case to the
court, and having intimated in the course of the hearing before me,
that I should so form my judgment.’--No word here about Shelley’s
opinions.
Paragraph No. 5.--‘There is nothing in evidence before me, sufficient
to authorise me in thinking that this gentleman 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, _and in
conduct_, that no such change has taken place.’--Observe again how the
Lord Chancellor keeps Shelley’s _conduct_ as well as his avowed and
unrecanted principles clearly in view.
Paragraph No. 6.--‘I shall studiously forbear in this case, because it
is unnecessary, to state in judgment what this Court might or might
not be authorised to do in the due exercise of its jurisdiction, upon
the ground of the probable effect of a father’s principles, of any
nature, whatever upon the education of his children, _where such
principles have not been called into activity or manifested in such
conduct in life_, as this Court, upon, such an occasion as the
present, would be bound to attend to.’--Observe, the Lord Chancellor
declares, that the case under his consideration is not a case where he
has to consider a father’s principles apart from his _conduct_; that
the case is one of a father’s principles having been acted upon by
him; that the judgment he is about to deliver has been formed on a
consideration of Shelley’s _conduct_ in connection with his avowed
principles.
Paragraph No. 7.--‘I may add, that this case differs also, unless I
misunderstand it, from any case in which such principles having been
called into activity, nevertheless, in the probable range and extent
of their operation, did not put to hazard the happiness and welfare of
those whose interests are intrusted to the protection of this
Court.’--Observe how, in this paragraph, principles and conduct are
both kept in view.
Paragraph No. 8.--‘This is a case in which, as the matter appears to
me, the father’s principles cannot be misunderstood, _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 considered as immoral, but to be
recommended and observed in practice, and as worthy of
approbation.’--Again in this paragraph the Lord Chancellor declares
his judgment to result from the consideration of Shelley’s _conduct_,
following from his avowed and unrecanted principles.
Paragraph No. 9.--‘I consider this, therefore, as a case in which the
father has demonstrated that he must and does deem it to be a matter
of duty which his principles impose upon him, to recommend to those
whose opinions and habits he may take upon himself to form, _that
conduct_ in some of the most important relations of life, as moral and
virtuous, which the law calls upon me to consider as immoral and
vicious--_conduct_ which the law animadverts upon as inconsistent with
the duties of persons in such relations of life; and which it
considers as injuriously affecting both the interests of such persons
and those of the community.’--Here again the Lord Chancellor speaks of
_conduct_; declaring that by _conduct_, resulting from his avowed and
unrecanted principles, Shelley has shown himself a man likely to
educate his children to imitate his _conduct_.
Paragraph No. 10.--‘I cannot, therefore, think that I should be
justified in delivering over these children for their education
exclusively, to what is called the care, to which Mr. Shelley wishes
it to be entrusted.’--No word in this paragraph about either
principles or conduct.
Paragraph No. 11.--‘If I am wrong in my judgment which I have formed
in this painful case, I shall have the consolation to reflect that my
judgment is not final.’--No word in this paragraph about either
principles or conduct.
Paragraph No. 12.--‘Much has been said upon the fact that these
children are of tender years. I have already explained, in the course
of the hearing, the grounds upon which I think that circumstance not
so material as to require me to pronounce no order.’--No word here
about either principles or conduct.
Paragraph No. 13.--‘I add, that the attention which I have been called
upon to give to the consideration, how far the pecuniary interests of
these children may be affected, has not been called for in vain. I
should deeply regret if any act of mine materially affect those
interests. But to such interests I cannot sacrifice what I deem to be
interests of greater value and higher importance.’--No word in this
paragraph about either Shelley’s principles or conduct.
Paragraph No. 14.--‘In what degree and to what extent the Court will
interfere in the case against parental authority, cannot be finally
determined till after the Master’s Report.’
Paragraph No. 15.--‘In the meantime I pronounce the following Order:’
This Order, forbidding Shelley to take possession of the children or
meddle in any way with them, was dated on 17th March, 1817.
It appears, therefore, that in no single paragraph does the Lord
Chancellor refer to Shelley’s principles, without at the same time
referring to the _conduct_ referable to those principles. What was the
_conduct_ thus steadily kept in view? The answer can be given briefly. The
petition set forth the circumstances of Shelley’s marriage, withdrawal
from his wife’s society, and cohabitation with Mary Godwin; representing
also that in thus withdrawing from his wife and cohabiting with Mary
Godwin, he was in 1814, and from that year till his wife’s death, acting
on the principles set forth in 1813, in the anti-matrimonial Note to
_Queen Mab_, which was one of the Petitioner’s principal ‘exhibits.’ This
was _the conduct or misconduct_ the Lord Chancellor kept so steadily in
view. Given in a nutshell the Lord Chancellor’s judgment was this, ‘Mr.
Shelley in _Queen Mab_ and the anti-matrimonial note attached thereto,
printed in 1813, declared himself an enemy of lawful marriage; in the
summer of 1814, Mr. Shelley acted on his avowed disregard for the
obligations of marriage; Mr. Shelley’s action and _conduct_ on his avowed
disregard for the obligations of marriage, makes me believe he will
educate these children to hold his views respecting marriage, if they are
committed to his care; taking this view of his _conduct_ to his wife I
decree that the two children shall be withheld from his control.’ The
judgment was based wholly on consideration of the poet’s conduct to his
wife, regarded as the result of his zealous adoption of the views of the
anti-matrimonial innovators.--Yet the _Edinburgh_ Reviewer says that
Shelley’s paternal claim to his offspring was ‘rejected by Lord Eldon on
petition, on the ground not of Shelley’s misconduct to his wife, but of
the opinions expressed in his writings.’
From the substance of the petition, the affidavits supporting the
allegations, the chief ‘exhibit,’ and the terms of the judgment, it is
certain, that the whole suit from petition to decree ‘went’ on what may be
called Free Contract considerations,--the evidence that Shelley had avowed
himself a vehement enemy of lawful marriage in 1813, and acted on the
avowal in 1814 and afterwards:--on the evidence of conduct, in accordance
with, and consequent on the views, set forth in the book, printed when he
was only twenty years of age.
How came the Lord Chancellor to speak of the principles of _Queen Mab_ as
‘avowed at nineteen,’ when the book, though doubtless begun in the poet’s
twentieth year, was mainly written as well as printed in his twenty-first
year? The Lord Chancellor antedated the avowal at least by a fraction of a
year, whilst giving Shelley’s full number of years at the delivery of the
decree. Was the Lord Chancellor’s slight inaccuracy as to the date of
_Queen Mab_, a slip for which he was solely accountable? He may have
miscalculated the time between the date of the book’s title-page and the
day on which he was delivering judgment. Or he may have considered that
the author of a work printed in his twenty-first year might be assumed to
have held and avowed, in his twentieth year, the opinions set forth in the
book. It is however conceivable, and on the whole more probable, that he
merely accepted a date given him in Shelley’s reply (written by himself)
to the petition. There being no copy of that reply in existence, nor any
record of its substance, to speak of its contents is to speak
conjecturally. But in such a paper Shelley could hardly have omitted to
refer to the time when he wrote the book, of which so much had been urged
to his disadvantage by Mr. Westbrook’s counsel; and as he would see his
interest in inducing the Lord Chancellor to regard it as a boyish
performance, not to be accepted as evidence of his present opinions, it
may be reasonably assumed that, in his reference to the important exhibit,
Shelley put its composition as far back as possible. At Pisa, towards the
close of his career, he wrote of the book as a thing proceeding from his
pen when he was only eighteen years old. In the Court of Chancery he
could scarcely ascribe it to so early a time of his existence as his
nineteenth year, but he may be imagined to have assigned its composition
to his twentieth year. To discover a copy of the lost reply would probably
be to discover evidence, that in 1817, the poet assigned to his twentieth
year the poem which in the summer of 1821 he represented himself to have
written ‘at the age of eighteen.’
It is certain that the Chancellor was not referring to the _Necessity of
Atheism_, when he referred to principles avowed by Shelley at the age of
nineteen. The _Necessity of Atheism_ was notoriously published when the
poet was _eighteen_; and it proclaimed no principles, on which he had
acted in the particular _conduct_, set forth in the petition to which the
Chancellor referred.
The judgment having been delivered, it was ordered that Shelley should
contribute a portion of his income towards the maintenance and education
of his children. How much of his income was he required to spend in this
way? _Primâ facie_ this question would seem one which Lady Shelley, with
the Field Place Papers about her, could not fail to answer correctly, if
she undertook to answer it at all. Lady Shelley answers the question with
curious inaccuracy. She says precisely, ‘He was forced, however, to set
aside 200_l._ a-year for their support; and this sum was deducted by Sir
Timothy from his son’s annuity.’ What are the facts? (1) Shelley was _not_
required to contribute 200_l._ a-year to the education of his children; he
contributed only 120_l._ a-year, in equal quarterly payments. (2) Sir
Timothy Shelley did _not_ deduct 200_l._ a-year, or any sum of money
whatever from the 250_l._ which he paid every quarter to his son’s
bank-account. The curious part of this achievement in blundering is that
Lady Shelley publishes in her book the documents which disprove the
statements of her text. The letters that passed between Shelley and Horace
Smith, in March and April, 1821 (a body of correspondence published by
Lady Shelley herself in her _Shelley Memorials_), show that Sir Timothy
paid the 1000_l._ a-year to Shelley without any deduction; that Dr. Hume,
the custodian of the children, received only 120_l._ for his care of the
two children; that instead of looking to Sir Timothy, the Doctor looked to
Shelley for the payment of this sum; that the Doctor was empowered to draw
on Shelley’s London bankers for 30_l._ a-quarter; and that with the
exception of an additional trifle for _postage_ and other extras, 120_l._
per annum was the whole sum of Shelley’s contribution to the maintenance
of the children. It is thus that Lady Shelley deals with facts from her
authentic sources.
It appears, therefore, that these proceedings in the Court of Chancery
left Shelley with the clear income of 880_l._ a-year; a larger revenue by
80_l._ a-year than the yearly income he had reserved for his own use on
raising Harriett’s allowance to its highest sum:--a fact to be borne in
mind, since successive writers have spoken of these proceedings, as
seriously reducing the income at his command before the first Mrs.
Shelley’s death.
From the August of 1817, even to this year of grace, Lord Eldon has been
written of bitterly for depriving so bright a genius and so virtuous a
citizen as Shelley of the care of his own offspring; and so long as organs
of social opinion, so powerful as the _Edinburgh Review_, continue to
misstate the grounds of the Lord Chancellor’s decree, he will continue to
be denounced as a prodigy of intolerance. It will be otherwise, if writers
bear in mind what were the real grounds of the judgment, for which he has
been censured so vehemently.
To say thus much in the Lord Chancellor’s justification is not to say that
his reasonable opinion would have been justified by the event, had Shelley
contrived to get possession of the two children, and carrying them beyond
the limits of the Chancellor’s jurisdiction, educated them in accordance
with his notions of parental duty. On the contrary, I have little doubt
that, had he taken them to Italy together with Willie and Clara, and lived
long enough to form their morals, he would not have educated them in his
anti-matrimonial views, but would have trained them for the most part like
the majority of English boys and girls, living abroad under the control of
liberal-minded Christian parents. I have two reasons for this opinion.
Unless I am greatly mistaken, had he lived well into life’s middle term,
long before the children had attained the age at which he would have
thought of directing their young minds to questions touching the
intercourse of the sexes, the author of _Laon and Cythna_ would have so
far survived his enthusiasm for the Free Contract and his wilder Free Love
phantasies, as to have no wish to see his children avoid the bonds of
lawful marriage. Had it been otherwise with him, I am confident that
Mrs. Shelley would have resisted strenuously and successfully his wish
to educate his children to prefer the Free Contract to lawful wedlock. Of
the girls, whom he tried for any considerable period to illuminate out of
Christianity and conventional respectability, his strong-willed second
wife was perhaps his least submissive pupil. The young woman, who made him
marry her on the earliest opportunity; who at Great Marlow used to order
him about as though he were a child; who had her children christened
before taking them out of England in 1818; who used to attend the services
of the Anglican Church in Italian cities; who during her residence in
Italy hungered for social recognition; and who in her later time was no
less mindful of social opinion than for ‘a brief hour of her girlhood she
had been reckless and defiant of it,’ was not the woman to allow her
children to be educated in disregard for the sanctity of the matrimonial
rite. Nurtured within the lines of orthodoxy, and educated for
respectability by the step-mother, of whom she lived to speak and write
ungenerously, Shelley’s second wife was not a woman to let him train her
own daughters (had they lived), or Harriett’s little Ianthe, to follow in
the steps of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Much romantic and sensational stuff has been written of the anguish that
came to Shelley from Lord Eldon’s barbarity. It has been told again and
again how these interesting babes were torn from his breast. As he had
left the elder of them of his own accord, when he left her mother, and was
content to let them remain in Chapel Street after losing sight of their
mother, they can scarcely be said to have been _torn from_ his breast.
Such writing (like the story of his going clean mad from grief for
Harriett) may go for what it is worth, whilst judicious readers are
content to allow, that Shelley must have been acutely mortified and
incensed by a judgment affecting his honour so darkly and deeply, and that
he probably mistook for torture of wounded affection, what was only sharp
chagrin at an humiliating misadventure. Some of the sensational writers
give curious reasons for thinking Shelley suffered unimaginable anguish
from the violence done to his parental feelings. For instance, Hunt is
sure that Shelley suffered inordinately from the loss of the children
because, after the subsidence of his first violent agitation at the
Chancellor’s cruelty, he _never spoke about them_. That Byron was no more
insincere in gushing to the whole world about the Ada be might not look
upon, than Shelley was in writing _The Billows on the Beach_, is a matter
admitting of proof.
This poem ‘To William Shelley’ has been used by successive writers as sure
evidence that, in leaving England in 1818 with his family, Shelley was
mainly moved by a desire to carry his children beyond the reach of Lord
Eldon, whom he suspected of a design to tear them from him. Dealing with
this poem, as Lady Shelley deals with the poet’s imaginary reminiscences
of his boyhood in _Laon and Cythna_, what do we learn from it? That the
poet carried his son William across the sea, when the sky was black and
the wind boisterous; that he carried the boy over the stormy water, in
order that the servants of the Court of Chancery should not tear them
asunder; that the Court of Chancery had already taken from the boy a
brother and sister who were known and dear to him; that Mrs. Shelley and
her little girl were companions of this voyage over a wind-swept sea; that
little William was alarmed at the rocking of the boat, and the cold spray,
and the wild clamour; that the poet and his wife had reason to think the
storm, with all its dark and hungry billows, less cruel than the Court of
Chancery, and to regard themselves as flying from merciless agents of that
Court; that little William was old enough to be likely to hold in
remembrance the flight over the stormy sea; that, though perhaps not old
enough to apprehend the meaning of the written verses, he was at least old
enough to comprehend their sentiment when put in language, adapted to the
understanding of a young child. It is, no doubt, very absurd to read a
poem in this way, and reduce its figurative expressions into bald
statement. But biographers have not hesitated to deal in this way with the
imaginary reminiscences of _Laon and Cythna_ and _Prince Athanase_.
Now for the facts to set in array beside the statements of the poem.
Instead of being old enough to apprehend the meaning of his father’s
words, and to be likely to remember the voyage as a dream of
long-forgotten days, little William was only two years and two months old
when he crossed the Channel. No brother and sister had been taken from
him. His father and mother were not flying from the Court of Chancery,
when they went abroad. They did not go to Italy to get out of the Lord
Chancellor’s grip. They knew that, in respect to William and little
Clara, they had nothing to fear from the Court. How far did the conditions
and incidents of their passage over the water accord with the descriptive
touches of the poem? Heaven knows. Heaven also knows that the poem was
written months before the voyage was made. The poem _To William Shelley_
was written in 1817, the voyage was made in March, 1818. This fact shows
how cautious people should be in building up the poet’s personal story out
of passages from his poems and letters. Shelley’s accounts of his
school-days in _Laon and Cythna_, or of any other matter of his past
history, were as imaginary as his description of his flight across the
Channel, or any other matter of his future history.
It may be urged, but evidence forbids it to be conceded, that, whilst
writing the imaginary piece of autobiography, Shelley was under the
impression that, unless he took his two children by Mary Godwin abroad,
the Court of Chancery would wrest them from him. Such a fear might have
possessed Shelley before the Chancery suit, but even Shelley could not
have entertained so wild a fancy _after_ the suit, which had made him a
lawyer in respect to the Court’s power to do what he pretended to fear. He
knew that the Court would not have listened to Mr. Westbrook’s suit had he
not made a provision for the children by settling 2000_l._ upon them. He
knew that till some similar provision, in property of some sort, had been
made for William and Clara, no proceedings could be taken in Chancery to
remove them from his control. Moreover, he knew that the Court would not
think of taking them from their mother.
It would not surprise me to come upon letters, written by Shelley to
induce some of his friends to think he suffered from the fear, but they
would not affect my strong opinion that he was never troubled by the
apprehension between the delivery of the Lord Chancellor’s decree and the
departure for Italy, whither he went in 1818 from several motives, any one
of which would have been sufficient to account for his action,--(_a_) from
restlessness; (_b_) from a desire to get away from his creditors, who were
troubling him; (_c_) from a desire to get away from friends who were
sponging upon him and draining his resources extortionately; (_d_) from a
desire to be nearer Byron, a strong attraction to him from 1818 to a few
months before his death; (_e_) from a notion that by going out to Italy
with Clara and little Allegra, instead of sending the child (just a year
and two months old) thither under the charge of a servant, he might
render his wife’s ‘sister’ good service; (_f_) from a notion that his
health required a southern climate. These are the motives that caused him
to go abroad.
In a letter (_vide_ _Shelley Memorials_) to William Godwin (dated from
Marlow, 7th December, 1817) Shelley rested his determination altogether on
the state of his health, in these words:--
‘I have experienced a decisive pulmonary attack; and, although at
present it has passed away without any considerable vestige of its
existence, yet this symptom sufficiently shows the true nature of my
disease to be consumption.... In the event of its assuming any decided
shape, it would be my _duty_ to go to Italy without delay; and it is
only when that measure becomes an indispensable _duty_ that, _contrary
to both Mary’s feelings_ and mine, as they regard you, I shall go to
Italy.’
Had Shelley at this time been under the particular fear of the Lord
Chancellor, he would not have failed to name it as a ground for wishing to
go abroad; as a reason even stronger than his desire to preserve his
health and life, for Mary’s sake and for the sake of her father and her
children.
From this letter it is manifest that Shelley’s disposition to go to Italy
was, up to 7th December, 1817, opposed by his wife, and also by her
father, with whom he was again on friendly, though of course far from
cordial terms. It is noteworthy that in this epistle to Godwin he does not
venture to suggest that he was thinking of taking his children out of
England, in order to keep them under his eye, and at the same time put
them beyond the Lord Chancellor’s grip.
At the time of writing in these terms to his father-in-law Shelley had
already written (_vide_ _Shelley Memorials_) from Hunt’s house thus to his
wife:--
‘Now, dearest, let me talk to you. I think we ought to go to Italy. I
think my health might receive a renovation there, for want of which
perhaps I should never entirely overcome that state of diseased action
which is so painful to my beloved. I think Alba ought to be with her
father. This is a thing of incredible importance to the happiness
perhaps of many human beings. It might be managed without our going
there. Yes, but not without an expense which would in fact suffice to
settle us comfortably in a spot where I might be regaining that health
which you consider so valuable. It is valuable to you, my own dearest.
I see too plainly that you will never be quite happy till I am well.
Of myself I do not speak, for I feel only for you. First, this money.
I am sure that if I ask Horace Smith he will lend me 200_l._ or even
250_l._ more. I did not like to do it from delicacy, and a wish to
take only just enough; but I am quite certain that he would lend me
the money.’
Thornton Hunt says that it was a characteristic practice with Shelley to
specify _one_ sufficient motive for any course of action, and to ignore
all minor motives; and that he was thus, without any real cause, sometimes
regarded as uncandid or reserved. This is the younger Hunt’s ingenious way
of palliating the ugly fact, that Shelley often alleged one motive for a
course of action, which was really consequent on another motive. But in
this letter to Mary, instead of alleging only one reason for wishing to go
to Italy, he alleges several reasons,--(_a_) his concern for his health;
(_b_) his concern for his dearest Mary’s happiness, which will be never
complete till he is quite well; (_c_) his desire to do the best for
Allegra; and (_d_) his care for the ‘many human beings,’ whose happiness
may possibly be affected by the arrangements for making Byron take a
lively interest in his illegitimate daughter. Here are four motives for
determining to go to Italy; but never a word as to the writer’s desire to
get his own dear babes by Mary outside the Lord Chancellor’s jurisdiction.
Had he been really actuated by the desire, he would surely have specified
it to the _mother_ of the children, as the strongest conceivable argument
for bringing her to his mind respecting the migration to Italy.