SHELLEY.
Shelley, a name dear to so many now, who are either drawn to him by
his lyrics, which open an undreamed-of fountain of sympathy to many a
silent and otherwise solitary heart, or who else are held spell-bound
by his grand and eloquent poetical utterances of what the human race
may aspire to. A being of this transcendent nature seems generally to
be more the outcome of his age, of a period, the expression of nature,
than the direct scion of his own family. So in Shelley's case there
appears little immediate intellectual relation between himself and his
ancestors, who seem for nearly two centuries preceding his birth to
have been almost unknown, except for the registers of their baptisms,
deaths, and marriages.
Prior to 1623, a link has been hitherto missing in the family
genealogy--a link which the scrupulous care of Mr. Jeaffreson has
brought to light, and which his courtesy places at the service of the
writer. This connects the poet's family with the Michel Grove
Shelleys, a fact hitherto only surmised. The document is this:--
SHELLEY'S CASE AND COKE'S REPORT, 896.
25 Sept. 1 & 2 Philip and Mary. Between Edward Shelley of
Worminghurst, in the county of Sussex, Esqre., of the one part, and
Rd. Cowper and Wm. Martin of the other part.
90a. Covt. to suffer recovery to enure as to Findon Manor, etc.
90b. To the use of him the said Edward Shelley and of the heirs male
of his body lawfully begotten, and for lack of such issue.
To the use of the heirs male of the body of John Shelley, Esqre.,
sometime of Michael Grove, deceased, father to the said Edward
Shelley, etc.
It will be obvious to all readers of this important document that the
last clause carries us back unmistakably from the Worminghurst
Shelleys to the Michel Grove Shelleys, establishing past dispute the
relationship of father and son.
The poet's great grandfather Timothy, who died twenty-two years before
Shelley's birth, seems to have gone out of the beaten track in
migrating to America, and practising as an apothecary, or, as Captain
Medwin puts it, "quack doctor," probably leaving England at an early
age; he may not have found facilities for qualifying in America, and
we may at least hope that he would do less harm with the simple herbs
used by the unqualified than with the bleeding treatment in vogue
before the Brunonian system began. Anyway, he made money to help on
the fortunes of his family. His younger son, Bysshe, who added to the
family wealth by marrying in succession two heiresses, also gained a
baronetcy by adhering to the Whig Party and the Duke of Norfolk. He
appears to have increased in eccentricity with age and became
exceedingly penurious. He was evidently not regarded as a desirable
match for either of his wives, as he had to elope with both of them;
and his marriage with the first, Miss Michell, the grandmother of the
poet, is said to have been celebrated by the parson of the Fleet. This
took place the year before these marriages were made illegal. These
facts about Shelley's ancestors, though apparently trivial, are
interesting as proving that his forerunners were not altogether
conventional, and making the anomaly of the coming of such a poet less
strange, as genius is not unfrequently allied with eccentricity.
Bysshe's son Timothy seems to have conformed more to ordinary views
than his father, and he married, when nearly forty, Elizabeth Pilfold,
reputed a great beauty. The first child of this marriage, born on
August 4, 1792, was the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, born to all the
ease and comfort of an English country home, but with the weird
imaginings which in childhood could people the grounds and
surroundings with ancient snakes and fairies of all forms, and which
later on were to lead him far out of the beaten track. Shelley's
little sisters were the confidants of his childhood, and their
sympathy must have made up then for the lack of it in his parents.
Some of their childish games at diabolical processions, making a
little hell of their own by burning a fagot stack, &c., shows how
early his searching mind dispersed the terrors, while it delighted in
the picturesque or fantastic images, of superstition. Few persons
realise to themselves how soon highly imaginative children may be
influenced by the superstitions they hear around them, and assuredly
Shelley's brain never recovered from some of these early influences:
the mind that could so quickly reason and form inferences would
naturally be of that sensitive and susceptible kind which would bear
the scar of bad education. Shelley's mother does not appear so much to
have had real good sense, as what is generally called common sense,
and thus she was incapable of understanding a nature like that of her
son; and thought more of his bringing home a well-filled game bag (a
thing in every way repulsive to Shelley's tastes) than of trying to
understand what he was thinking; so Shelley had to pass through
childhood, his sisters being his chief companions, as he had no
brother till he was thirteen. At ten years of age he went to school at
Sion House Academy, and thence to Eton, before he was turned twelve.
At both these schools, with little exception, he was solitary, not
having much in common with the other boys, and consequently he found
himself the butt for their tormenting ingenuity. He began a plan of
resistance to the fagging system, and never yielded; this seems to
have displeased the masters as much as the boys. At Eton he formed one
of his romantic attachments for a youth of his own age. He seems now,
as ever after, to have felt the yearning for perfect sympathy in some
human being; as one idol fell short of his self-formed ideal, he
sought for another. This was not the nature to be trained by bullying
and flogging, though sympathy and reason would never find him
irresponsive. His unresentful nature was shown in the way he helped
the boys who tormented him with their lessons; for though he appeared
to study little in the regular way, learning came to him naturally.
It must not, however, be supposed that Shelley was quite solitary, as
the records of some of his old schoolfellows prove the contrary; nor
was he averse to society when of a kind congenial to his tastes; but
he always disliked coarse talk and jokes. Nature was ever dear to him;
the walks round Eton were his chief recreation, and we can well
conceive how he would feel in the lovely and peaceful churchyard of
Stoke Pogis, where undoubtedly he would read Gray's Elegy. These
feelings would not be sympathised with by the average of schoolboys;
but, on the other hand, it is not apparent why Shelley should have
changed his character, as the embryo poet would also necessarily not
care for all their tastes. In short, the education at a public school
of that day must have been a great cruelty to a boy of Shelley's
sensitive disposition.
One great pleasure of Shelley's while at Eton was visiting Dr. Lind,
who assisted him with chemistry, and whose kindness during an illness
seems to have made a lasting impression on the youth; but generally
those who had been in authority over him had only raised a spirit of
revolt. One great gain for the world was the passionate love of
justice and freedom which this aroused in him, as shown in the stanzas
from _The Revolt of Islam_--
Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear friend, when first
The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.
There can be no doubt that these verses are truly autobiographical;
they indicate a first determination to war against tyranny. The very
fact of his great facility in acquiring knowledge must have been a
drawback to him at school where time on his hands was, for lack of
better material, frequently spent in reading all the foolish romances
he could lay hold of in the neighbouring book-shops. His own early
romances showed the influence of this bad literature. Of course, then
as now, fine art was a sealed book to the young student. It is
difficult to fancy what Shelley might have been under different early
influences, and whether perchance the gain to himself might not have
been a loss to the world. Fortunately, Shelley's love of imagination
found at last a field of poetry for itself, and an ideal future for
the world instead of turning to ruffianism, high or low, which the
neglect of the legitimate outlet for imagination so frequently
induces. How little this moral truth seems to be considered in a
country like ours, where art is quite overlooked in the system of
government, and where the hereditary owners of hoarded wealth rest
content, as a rule, with the canvases acquired by some ancestor on a
grand tour at a date when Puritan England had already obliterated
perception; so that frequently a few _chefs d'oeuvre_ and many
daubs are hung indiscriminately together, giving equal pleasure or
distaste for art. This is apposite to dwell on as showing the want of
this influence on Shelley and his surroundings. From a tour in Italy
made by Shelley's own father the chief acquisition is said to have
been a very bad picture of Vesuvius.
It is becoming difficult to realise at present, when flogging is
scarcely permitted in schools, what the sufferings of a boy like
Shelley must have been; sent to school by his father with the
admonition to his master not to spare the rod, and where the masters
left the boy, who was undoubtedly unlike his companions, to treatment
of a kind from which one case of death at least has resulted quite
recently in our own time. Such proceedings which might have made a
tyrant or a slave of Shelley succeeded only in making a rebel; his
inquiring mind was not to be easily satisfied, and must assuredly have
been a difficulty in his way with a conservative master; already, at
Eton, we find him styled Mad Shelley and Shelley the Atheist.
In 1810 Shelley removed to University College, Oxford, after an
enjoyable holiday with his family, during which he found time for an
experiment in authorship, his father authorising a stationer to print
for him. If only, instead of this, his father had checked for a time
these immature productions of Shelley's pen, the youth might have been
spared banishment from Oxford and his own father's house, and all the
misfortune and tragedy which ensued. Shelley also found time for a
first love with his cousin, Harriet Grove. This also the unfortunate
printing facilities apparently quashed. There is some discussion as to
whether he left Eton in disgrace, but any way the matter must have
been a slight affair, as no one appears to have kept any record of it;
and should one of the masters have recommended the removal of Shelley
from such uncongenial surroundings, it would surely have been very
sensible advice.
Oxford was, in many respects, much to Shelley's taste. The freedom of
the student life there suited him, as he was able to follow the
studies most to his liking.
The professional lectures chiefly in vogue, on divinity, geometry, and
history, were not the most to his liking--history in particular seemed
ever to him a terrible record of misery and crime--but in his own
chambers he could study poetry, natural philosophy, and metaphysics.
The outcome of these studies, advanced speculative thought, was not,
however, to be tolerated within the University precincts, and,
unfortunately for Shelley, his favourite subjects of conversation were
tabooed, had it not been for one light-hearted and amusing friend,
Thomas Jefferson Hogg, a gentleman whose acquaintance Shelley made
shortly after his settling in Oxford in the Michaelmas term of 1810.
This friendship, like all that Shelley entered on, was intended to
endure "for ever," and, as usual, Shelley impulsively for a time threw
so much of his own personality into his idea of the character of his
friend as to prepare the way for future disappointment.
Hogg was decidedly intellectual, but with a strong conservative
tendency, making him quite content with the existing state of things
so long as he could take life easily and be amused. His intellect,
however, was clear enough to make him perceive that it is the poet who
raises life from the apathy which assails even the most worldly-minded
and contented, so that he in his turn was able to love Shelley with
the love which is not afraid of a laugh, without the possibility of
which no friendship, it has been said, can be genuine. Many are the
charming stories giving a living presence to Shelley while at Oxford,
preserved by this friend; here we meet with him taking an infant from
its mother's arms while crossing the bridge with Hogg, and questioning
it as to its previous existence, which surely the babe had not had
time to forget if it would but speak--but alas, the mother declared
she had never heard it speak, nor any other child of its age; here
comes also the charming incident of the torn coat, and Shelley's
ecstasy on its having been fine drawn. These and such-like amusing
anecdotes show the genuine and unpedantic side of Shelley's character,
the delightfully natural and loveable personality which is ever allied
to genius. With the fun and humour were mixed long readings and
discussions on the most serious and solemn subjects. Plato was
naturally a great delight to him; he had a decided antipathy to Euclid
and mathematical reasoning, and was consequently unable to pursue
scientific researches on a system; but his love of chemistry and his
imaginative faculty led him to wish in anticipation for the forces of
nature to be utilised for human labour, &c. Shelley's reading and
reading powers were enormous. He was seldom without a pocket edition
of one of his favourite great authors, whose works he read with as
much ease as the modern languages.
This delightful time of study and ease was not to endure. Shelley's
nature was impelled onwards as irresistibly as the mountain torrent,
and as with it all obstacles had to yield. He could not rest satisfied
with reading and discussions with Hogg on theological and moral
questions, and, being debarred debate on these subjects in the
university, he felt he must appeal to a larger audience, the public,
and consequently he brought out, with the cognisance of Hogg, a
pamphlet entitled _The Necessity of Atheism_. This work actually
got into circulation for about twenty minutes, when it was discovered
by one of the Fellows of the College, who immediately convinced the
booksellers that an _auto-da-fé_ was necessary, and all the
pamphlets were at once consigned to the back kitchen fire; but the
affair did not end there. Shelley's handwriting was recognised on some
letters sent with copies of the work, and consequently both he and
Hogg were summoned before a meeting in the Common room of the College.
First Shelley, and then Hogg, declined to answer questions, and
refused to disavow all knowledge of the work, whereupon the two were
summarily expelled from Oxford. Shelley complained bitterly of the
ungentlemanly way they were treated, and the authorities, with equal
reason, of the rebellious defiance of the students; yet once more we
must regret that there was no one but Hogg who realised the latent
genius of Shelley, that there was no one to feel that patience and
sympathy would not be thrown away upon a young man free from all the
vices and frivolities of the time and place, whose crime was an
inquiring mind, and rashness in putting his views into print. Surely
the dangers which might assail a young man thus thrown on the world
and alienated from his family by this disgrace might have received
more consideration. This seems clear enough now, when Shelley's ideas
have been extolled even in as well as out of the pulpit.
So now we find Shelley expelled from Oxford and arrived in London in
March 1811, when only eighteen years of age, alone with Hogg to fight
the battle of life, with no previous experience of misfortune to give
ballast to his feelings, but with a brain surcharged with mysteriously
imbibed ideas of the woes of others and of the world--a dangerous age
and set of conditions for a youth to be thrown on his own resources.
Admission to his father's house was only to be accorded on the
condition of his giving up the society of Hogg; this condition,
imposed at the moment when Shelley considered himself indebted to Hogg
for life for the manner in which he stood by him in the Oxford ordeal,
was refused. Shelley looked out for lodgings without result, till a
wall paper representing a trellised vine apparently decided him. With
twenty pounds borrowed from his printer to leave Oxford, Shelley is
now settled in London, unaided by his father, a small present of money
sent by his mother being returned, as he could not comply with the
wishes which she expressed on the same occasion. From this time the
march of events or of fate is as relentless as in a Greek drama, for
already the needful woman had appeared in the person of Harriet
Westbrook, a schoolfellow of his sisters at their Clapham school.
During the previous January Shelley had made her acquaintance by
visiting her at her father's house, with an introduction and a present
from one of his sisters. There seems no reason to doubt that Shelley
was then much attracted by the beautiful girl, smarting though he was
at the time from his rupture with Harriet Grove; but Shakespeare has
shown us that such a time is not exempt from the potency of love
shafts.
This visit of Shelley was followed by his presenting Harriet Westbrook
with a copy of his new romance, _St. Irvyne_, which led to some
correspondence. It was now Harriet's turn to visit Shelley, sent also
by his sisters with presents of their pocket money. Shelley moreover
visited the school on different occasions, and even lectured the
schoolmistress on her system of discipline. There is no doubt that
Harriet's elder sister, with or without the cognisance of their
father, a retired hotel-keeper, helped to make meetings between the
two; but Shelley, though young and a poet, was no child, and must have
known what these dinners and visits and excursions might lead to; and
although the correspondence and conversation may have been more
directly upon theological and philosophical questions, it seems
unlikely that he would have discoursed thus with a young girl unless
he felt some special interest in her; besides, Shelley need not have
felt any great social difference between himself and a young lady
brought up and educated on a footing of equality with his own sisters.
It is true that her family acted and encouraged him in a way
incompatible with old-fashioned ideas of gentility, but Shelley was
too prone at present to rebel against everything conventional to be
particularly sensitive on this point.
In May Shelley was enabled to return to his father's house, through
the mediation of his uncle, Captain Pilfold, and henceforth an
allowance of two hundred a year was made to him. But there had been
work done in the two months that no reconciliations or allowances
afterwards could undo; for while Shelley was bent on proselytising
Harriet Westbrook, not less for his sisters' sake than for his own,
Harriet, in a school-girl fashion, encouraged by her sister and not
discouraged by her father, was falling in love with Shelley. How were
the _bourgeois_ father and sister to comprehend such a character
as Shelley's, when his own parents and all the College authorities
failed to do so? If Shelley were not in love he must have appeared so,
and Harriet's family did their best by encouraging and countenancing
the intimacy to lead to a marriage, they naturally having Harriet's
interests more at heart than Shelley's.
However, the fact remains that Shelley was a most extraordinary being,
an embryo poet, with all a poet's possible inconsistencies, the very
brilliancy of the intellectual spark in one direction apparently
quelling it for a time in another. In most countries and ages a poet
seems to have been accepted as a heaven-sent gift to his nation; his
very crimes (and surely Shelley did not surpass King David in
misdoing?) have been the _lacrymæ rerum_ giving terrible vitality
to his thoughts, and so reclaiming many others ere some fatal deed is
done; but in England the convention of at least making a show of
virtues which do not exist (perhaps a sorry legacy from Puritanism)
will not allow the poet to be accepted for what he really is, nor his
poetry to appeal, on its own showing, to the human heart. He must be
analysed, and vilified, or whitewashed in turn.
At any rate Shelley was superior to some of the respectable vices of
his class, and one alleged concession of his father was fortunately
loathsome to him, viz.--that he (Sir Timothy) would provide for as
many illegitimate children as Percy chose to have, but he would not
tolerate a _mésalliance_. To what a revolt of ideas must such a
code of morality have led in a fermenting brain like Shelley's! Were
the mothers to be provided for likewise, and to be considered more by
Shelley's respectable family than his lawful wife? We fear not.
A visit to Wales followed, during which Shelley's mind was in so
abstracted a state that the fine scenery, viewed for the first time,
had little power to move him, while Harriet Westbrook, with her sister
and father, was only thirty miles off at Aberystwith; a hasty and
unexplained retreat of this party to London likewise hastened the
return of Shelley. Probably the father began to perceive that Shelley
did not come forward as he had expected, and so he wished to remove
Harriet from his vicinity. Letters from Harriet to Shelley followed,
full of misery and dejection, complaining of her father's decision to
send her back to school, where she was avoided by the other girls, and
called "an abandoned wretch" for sympathising or corresponding with
Shelley; she even contemplated suicide. It is curious how this idea
seems to have constantly recurred to her, as in the case of some
others who have finally committed the act.
Shelley wrote, expostulating with the father. This probably only
incensed him more. He persisted. Harriet again addressed Shelley in
despair, saying she would put herself under his protection and fly
with him; a difficult position for any young man, and for Shelley most
perplexing, with his avowed hostility to marriage, and his recent
assertions that he was not in love with Harriet. But it must be put to
Shelley's credit that, having intentionally or otherwise led Harriet
on to love him, he now acted as a gentleman to his sister's school
friend, and, influenced to some extent by Hogg's arguments in a
different case in favour of marriage, he at once determined to make
her his wife. He wrote to his cousin, Charles Grove, announcing his
intention and impending arrival in London, saying that as his own
happiness was altogether blighted, he could now only live to make that
of others, and would consequently marry Harriet Westbrook.
On his arrival in London, Shelley found Harriet looking ill and much
changed. He spent some time in town, during which Harriet's spirits
revived; but Shelley, as he described in a letter to Hogg, felt much
embarrassment and melancholy. Not contemplating an immediate marriage,
he went into Sussex to pay a visit to Field Place and to his uncle at
Cuckfield. While here he renewed the acquaintance of Miss Kitchener, a
school mistress of advanced ideas, who had the care of Captain
Pilfold's children. To this acquaintance we owe a great number of
letters which throw much light on Shelley's _exalté_ character at
this period, and which afford most amusing reading. As usual with
Shelley, he threw much of his own personality into his ideas of Miss
Hitchener, who was to be his "eternal inalienable friend," and to help
to form his lovely wife's character on the model of her own. All these
particulars are given in letters from Shelley to his friends, Charles
Grove, Hogg, and Miss Hitchener; to the latter he is very explanatory
and apologetic, but only after the event.
Shelley had scarcely been a week away from London when he received a
letter from Harriet, complaining of fresh persecution and recalling
him. He at once returned, as he had undertaken to do if required, and
then resolved that the only thing was for him to marry at once. He
accordingly went straight to his cousin Charles Grove, and with
twenty-five pounds borrowed from his relative Mr. Medwin, a solicitor
at Horsham, he entered on one of the most momentous days of his
life--the 24th or 25th August 1811. After passing the night with his
cousin, he waited at the door of the coffee-house in Mount Street,
watching for a girlish figure to turn the corner from Chapel Street.
There was some delay; but what was to be could not be averted, and
soon Harriet, fresh as a rosebud, appeared. The coach was called, and
the two cousins and the girl of sixteen drove to an inn in the city to
await the Edinburgh mail. This took the two a stage farther on the
fatal road, and on August 28 their Scotch marriage is recorded in
Edinburgh. The marriage arrangements were of the quaintest, Shelley
having to explain his position and want of funds to the landlord of
some handsome rooms which he found. Fortunately the landlord undertook
to supply what was needed, and they felt at ease in the expectation of
Shelley's allowance of money coming; but this never came, as Shelley's
father again resented his behaviour, and took that easy means of
showing as much.
Shelley's wife had had the most contradictory education possible for a
young girl of an ordinary and unimaginative nature--the conventional
surface education of a school of that time followed by the talks with
Shelley, which were doubtless far beyond her comprehension. What could
be the outcome of such a marriage? Had Shelley, indeed, been a
different character, all might have gone smoothly, married as he was
to a beautiful girl who loved him; but at present all Shelley's ideas
were unpractical. Without the moral treadmill of work to sober his
opinions, whence was the ballast to come when disappointment ensued--
disappointment which he constantly prepared for himself by his
over-enthusiastic idea of his friends? Troubles soon followed the
marriage, in the nonarrival of the money; and after five weeks in
Edinburgh, where Hogg had joined the Shelleys, followed by a little
over a week in York, the need became so pressing that Shelley felt
obliged to take a hurried journey to his uncle's at Cuckfield, in
order to try and mollify his father; in this he did not succeed.
Though absent little over a week, he prepared the way by his absence,
and by leaving Harriet under the care of Hogg, for a series of
complications and misunderstandings which never ended till death had
absolved all concerned. Harriet's sister, Eliza, was to have returned
to York with Shelley; but hearing of her sister's solitary state with
Hogg in the vicinity, she hurried alone to York, and from this time
she assumed an ascendency over the small _ménage_ which, though
probably useful in trifles, had undoubtedly a bad effect in the long
run. Eliza, rightly from her point of view, thought it necessary to
stand between Hogg and her sister. It seems far more likely that
Hogg's gentlemanly instincts would have led him to treat his friend's
wife with respect than that he should have really given cause for the
grave suspicions which Shelley writes of in subsequent letters to Miss
Hitchener. Might not Eliza be inclined to take an exaggerated view of
any attention shown by Hogg to her sister, and have persuaded Harriet
to the same effect? Harriet having seen nothing of the world as yet,
and Eliza's experience before her father's retirement from his tavern
not having been that in which ladies and gentlemen stand on a footing
of equality. It is true that Shelley writes of an interview with Hogg
before leaving York, in which he describes Hogg as much confused and
distressed; but perhaps allowance ought to be made for the fanciful
turn of Shelley's own mind. However this may have been, they left York
for Keswick, where they delighted in the glorious scenery. At this
time we see in letters to Miss Hitchener how Shelley felt the
necessity of intellectual sympathy, and how he seemed to consider this
friend in some way necessary for the accomplishment of various
speculative and social ideas. Here at Chestnut Cottage novels were
commenced and much work planned, left unfinished, or lost. While at
Keswick he made the acquaintance of Southey and wrote his first letter
to William Godwin, whose works had already had a great influence on
him, and whose personal acquaintance he now sought. The often quoted
letter by which Shelley introduced himself to Godwin was followed by
others, and led up to the subsequent intimacy which had such important
results.
Shelley with his wife and sister-in-law paid a visit to the Duke of
Norfolk at Greystoke; this led to a quasi reconciliation with
Shelley's father, owing to which the allowance of two hundred a year
was renewed, Harriet's father making her a similar allowance, it is
presumed, owing to feeling flattered by his daughter's reception by
the Duchess. Shortly afterwards some restless turn in the trio caused
a further move to be contemplated, and now Shelley entered on what
must have appeared one of the strangest of his fancies--a visit to
Ireland to effect Catholic Emancipation and to procure the repeal of
the Union Act. Hogg pretends to believe that Shelley did not even
understand the meaning of the phrases, and most probably many English
would not have cared to do so. In any case Shelley's enthusiasm for an
oppressed people must be admired, and it is noticeable that our
greatest statesman of the present day has come to agree with Shelley
after eighty years of life and of conflicting endeavour.
The plan adopted by Shelley caused infinite amusement to Harriet, who
entered with animation into the fun of distributing her husband's
pamphlets on Irish affairs, and could not well understand his
seriousness on the subject. The pamphlets and the speeches which he
delivered were not likely to conciliate the different Irish parties.
The Catholics were not to be attracted by an Atheist or Antichristian,
however tolerant he might be of them, and of all religions which tend
to good. Lord Fingal and his adherents were not inclined to follow the
Ardent Republican and teacher of Humanitarianism; nor were the extreme
party likely to be satisfied with appeals, however eloquent, for the
pursuit and practice of virtue before any political changes were to be
expected. Shelley's exposition of the failure of the French Revolution
by the fact that although it had been ushered in by people of great
intellect, the moral side of intellect had been wanting, was not what
Irish Nationalists then wished to consider. In fact, Shelley had not
much pondered the character of the people he went to help and reform,
if he thought a week of these arguments could have much effect.
Shelley was much sought after by the poor Irish, during another month
of his stay in Dublin, on account of his generosity. Here, also, they
met Mrs. Nugent. Harriet's correspondence with her has recently been
published. With the views which she expresses, those of the present
writer coincide in not casting all the blame of the future separation
on Shelley; Harriet naturally feels Mary most at fault, and does not
perceive her own mistakes. Failing in his aim, and being disheartened
by the distress on all sides which he could not relieve, and more
especially owing to the strong remonstrance of Godwin, who considered
that if there were any result it could only be bloodshed, the poet
migrated to Nantgwilt in Wales. Here the Shelleys contemplated
receiving Godwin and his family, Miss Hitchener with her American
pupils; and why not Miss Hitchener's father, reported to have been an
old smuggler? Here Shelley first met Thomas Love Peacock. They were
unable to remain at Nantgwilt owing to various mishaps, and migrated
to that terrestrial paradise in North Devon, Lynmouth. This lovely
place, with its beautiful and romantic surroundings loved and
exquisitely described by more than one poet, cannot fail to be dear to
those who know it with and through them. Here, in a garden in front of
their rose and myrtle covered cottage, within near sound of the
rushing Lynn, would Shelley stand on a mound and let off his
fire-balloons in the cool evening air. Here Miss Hitchener joined
them. What talks and what rambles they must have had, none but those
who have known a poet in such a place could imagine; but perhaps
Shelley, though a poet, was not sufficient for the three ladies in a
neighbourhood where the narrow winding paths may have caused one or
other to appear neglected and left behind. Poor Shelley, recalled from
heaven to earth by such-like vicissitudes, naturally held by his wife;
and forthwith disagreements began which ended in Miss Hitchener's
being called henceforth the "Brown Demon." What a fall from the ideal
reformer of the world!--another of Shelley's self-made idols
shattered.
The Shelleys wished Fanny Godwin to join their party at Lynmouth; but
this Godwin would not permit without more knowledge of his friends,
although Shelley wrote affecting letters to the sage, trusting that he
might be the stay of his declining years. Amid the romantic scenery
of Lynmouth, Shelley wrote much of his _Queen Mab_; he also
addressed a sonnet, and a longer poem, to Harriet, in August. These
poems certainly evince no falling off in affection, although they are
not like the glowing love-poems of a later period.
From Lynmouth Shelley, with his party, moved to Swansea, and thence to
Tremadoc, where they agreed to take a house named Tanyrallt, and then
they moved on to London to meet Godwin, who, in the meanwhile, had
paid a visit to Lynmouth just after their flitting. Here Shelley had
the delight of seeing the philosopher face to face, and now visits
were exchanged, and walks and dinners followed, and, among other
friends of Godwin, Shelley met Clara de Boinville and Mrs. Turner, who
is said to have inspired his first great lyric, "Away the moor is dark
beneath the moon," but whose husband strongly objected to Shelley
visiting their house.
On this occasion Fanny Godwin was the most seen; Mary Godwin, who was
just fifteen, only arriving towards the end of Shelley's stay in
London from a visit to her friends, the Baxters, in Scotland. No
mention is made of her by Shelley, though she must have dined in his
company about November 5, 1812. During this visit to London Shelley
became reconciled with Hogg, calling on him and begging him to come to
see him and his wife. This certainly does not look as if Shelley still
thought seriously of his former difference with Hogg--scarcely a year
before. Shortly after, on the 8th, we find the poor "Brown Demon"
leaving the Shelleys, with the promise of an annuity of one hundred
pounds. She reopened a school later on at Edmonton, and was much loved
by her pupils. Shelley now returned to Tremadoc, where he passed the
winter in his house at Tanyrallt, helping the poor through this severe
season of 1812-13. Here one of Shelley's first practical attempts for
humanity was assisting to reclaim some land from the sea; but
Shelley's early effort, unlike the last one of Göthe's _Faust_,
did not satisfy him, and shortly afterwards another real or fancied
attempt on his life, on February 26th, 1813, obliged the party to
leave the neighbourhood, this time again for Ireland. He spent a short
time on the Lake of Killarney, with his wife and Eliza. In April we
again find him in London, in an hotel in Albemarle Street; thence he
passed to Half Moon Street, where in June their first child, Ianthe,
was born. The baby was a great pleasure to Shelley, who, however,
objected to the wet nurse. He wrote a touching sonnet to his wife and
child three months later. All this time there is no apparent change of
affection suggested. Soon afterwards, while at Bracknell, near
Windsor, they kept up the acquaintance of the De Boinville family, and
Shelley began the study of Italian with them while Harriet
relinquished hers of Latin. From Bracknell Shelley paid his last visit
to Field Place to see his mother, in the absence of his father and the
younger children. An interview with his father followed, and a journey
to Edinburgh, and then in December a return to London; certainly an
ominous restlessness, caused, no doubt, considerably by want of money,
but moving about did not seem the way to save or to make it. Shelley
visited Godwin several times during his stay in London. At this time
Shelley had to raise ruinous post-obits on the family property, and
for legal reasons he now thought it desirable to follow the Scotch
marriage by one in the English church, and he and Harriet were
re-married on March 22, 1814, at St. George's Church.
But even now little rifts seem to have been growing, small enough
apparently, and yet, like the small cloud in the sky, indicating the
coming storm. This very time of trials, through want of money, seems
to have been chosen by Harriet to show a hankering after luxuries
which their present income could not warrant. A carriage was
purchased, and was with its accompanying expenses added to the small
_ménage_; silver plate was also considered a necessity; and,
perhaps the thing most distasteful to Shelley's natural tastes, the
wet nurse was retained, although Harriet had always appeared to be a
strong young woman capable of undertaking her maternal duty. This fact
was considered by Peacock to have chiefly alienated Shelley's
affection.
Apart from this, poor Harriet, with the birth of her child, seems to
have given up her studies, which she had evidently pursued to please
Shelley, and to have awakened to the fact that it was a difficult task
to take up the whole cause of suffering humanity and aid it with their
slender purse, and keep their wandering household going. It is
difficult to imagine the genius that could have sufficed, and it
certainly needed genius, or something very like it, to keep the
Faust-like mind of Shelley in any peace.
There is a letter from Fanny Godwin to Shelley, after his first visit,
speaking of his wife as a fine lady. From this accusation Shelley
strongly defended her, but now he felt that this disaster might really
be impending. Poor pretty Harriet could not understand or talk
philosophy with Shelley, and, what was worse, her sister was ever
present to prevent any spontaneous feeling of dependence on her
husband from endearing her to him. Even before his second ceremony of
marriage with Harriet we find him writing a letter in great dejection
to Hogg. He seemed really in the poet's "premature old age," as he
expressed it, though none like the poet have the power of
rejuvenescence. His detestation of his sister-in-law at this time was
extreme, but he appears to have been incapable of sending her away. It
was a perfect torture to him to see her kiss his baby. He writes thus
from Mrs. de Boinville's at Bracknell, where he had a month's rest
with philosophy and sweet converse. Talking was easier than acting
philosophy at this juncture, and planning the amelioration of the
world pleasanter than struggling to keep one poor soul from sinking to
degradation; but who shall judge the strength of another's power, or
feel the burden of another's woe? We can only tell how the expression
of his agony may help ourselves; but surely it is worthy of admiration
to find Shelley, four days after writing this most heart-broken letter
to Hogg, binding his chains still firmer by remarrying, so that, come
what would, no slur should be cast on Harriet.
Harriet, who had never understood anything of housekeeping, and whose
_ménage_, according to Hogg, was of the funniest, now that the
novelty of Shelley's talk and ways was over, and when even the
constant changes were beginning to satiate her, apparently spent a
time of intolerable _ennui_. It is still remembered in the
Pilfold family how Harriet appeared at their house late one night in a
ball dress, without shawl or bonnet, having quarrelled with Shelley. A
doctor who had to perform some operation on her child was struck with
astonishment at her demeanour, and considered her utterly without
feeling, and Shelley's poem, "Lines, April 1814," written, according
to Claire Clairmont's testimony, when Mr. Turner objected to his
visiting his wife at Bracknell, gives a touching picture of the
comfortless home which he was returning to; in fact, they seem to have
no sooner been together again than Harriet made a fresh departure.
There is one imploring poem by Shelley, addressed to Harriet in May
1814, begging her to relent and pity, if she cannot love, and not to
let him endure "The misery of a fatal cure"; but Harriet had not
generosity, if it was needed, and, according to Thornton Hunt, she
left Shelley and went to Bath, where she still was in July. What
Harriet really aimed at by this foolish move is doubtful; it was
certainly taken at the most fatal moment. To leave Shelley alone, near
dear friends, when she had been repelling his advances to regain her
affection, and making his home a place for him to dread to come into,
was anything but wise; but wisdom was not Harriet's _forte_; she
needed a husband to be wise for her. Shelley, however, had most gifts,
except such wisdom at this time.
Beyond these facts, there seems little but surmises to judge by. It
may always be a question how much Shelley really knew, or believed, of
certain ideas of infidelity on his wife's part in connection with a
Major Ryan--ideas which, even if believed, would not have justified
his subsequent mode of action.
But here, for a time, we must leave poor Harriet--all her loveliness
thrown away upon Shelley--all Shelley's divine gifts worthless to her.
What a strange disunion to pass through life with! Only the sternest
philosophy or callousness could have achieved it--and Shelley was
still so young, with his philosophy all in theory.