GODWIN AND "VALPERGA."
At this time while political events were absorbing England, and
Shelley was weaving them into poetry in Italy during the remainder of
his residence in Florence, Godwin's personal difficulties were
reaching their climax. When he lost, in an action for the rent of his
house, Shelley came to his help, but in some way Godwin expected more
than he received, and became very unpleasant in his correspondence, so
much so that Shelley had to beg him not to write to Mary on these
subjects, as her health was not then, in October 1819, able to bear
the strain, and the subject of money was not a fitting one to be
pressed on her by him. Mary had not the disposal of money; if she had
she would give it all to her father. He assured Godwin that the four
or five thousand pounds already expended on him might have made him
comfortable for the remainder of his life. Mrs. Godwin, naturally,
would not hear of abandoning the Skinner Street business, as being the
only provision for herself when Godwin should die. It is extremely
painful at this stage of Godwin's career to witness the lowering
effects of his wife's smaller nature upon him, as he certainly allowed
himself to be unduly influenced by her excited and not always truthful
views, as known since the early days of their married life. We have
Mrs. Gisborne's diary showing how Mrs. Godwin could not endure to see
anyone in 1820 who had an attachment for Mary, whom (as Godwin told
Mrs. Gisborne) she considered her greatest enemy; and although he
described his wife as of "the most irritable disposition possible," he
listened to, and repeated her conjectures to the disparagement of
Shelley and Mary at the time when she did not hesitate to accept with
her husband the large sums of money which Shelley with difficulty
raised for them. All the facts shown in this diary prove that Mary and
Fanny must have had a sufficiently trying life at home to account for
the result in either case, especially when we consider that Claire and
her brother Charles both preferred to leave Godwin's house on the
first possible occasion, Charles having left for France immediately
after Mary's and Claire's departure with Shelley. William alone
remained at home, but four years passed in a boarding school at
Greenwich, from 1814, must have helped him to endure the discomforts
of the time. Before Mrs. Gisborne's return to Italy Godwin gave her a
detailed account, in writing, of his money transactions with Shelley,
which had become very painful to both. In January, 1820, Florence
proving unsuitable for Shelley's health, they left for Pisa, the mild
climate of which city made it a favourite resort of the poet during
most of the short remainder of his life. Mary, ever hospitable,
although, as Shelley said, the bills for printing his poems must be
paid for by stinting himself in meat and drink, hoped that Mrs.
Gisborne would have stayed with them during her husband's visit to
England in 1820, as they had moved into a pleasant apartment in March.
This idea was not carried out. About this time Mary and Claire, both
with their own absorbing anxieties, became again irksome to each
other. Mary found relief when Claire was absent, and Claire notes how
"the Claire and the Mai find something to fight about every day," a
way of putting it which indicates differences, but certainly no grave
cause of disturbance. This was after their removal to Leghorn, where
they went towards the end of June to be near the lawyer on account of
Paolo. At the beginning of August the heat at Leghorn caused the
Shelleys to migrate to the baths of San Giuliano, where Shelley found
a very pleasant house, Casa Prini. The moderate rent suited their
slender purse, which had so many outside calls upon it.
In October Claire's departure for Florence, as governess in the family
of Professor Bojti, where she went by the advice of her friend Mrs.
Mason, formerly Lady Mountcashell, brought an end to her permanent
residence with the Shelleys, although she was still to look upon their
house as her home, and she visited them either for her pleasure or to
assist them. Her absence from her friends gives us the advantage of
letters from them, letters full of a certain exaggeration of affection
and sympathy from Shelley, who felt more acutely than Mary that Claire
might be unhappy under a strange roof. Mary, less anxious on those
grounds, writes about the operas she has seen, giving good
descriptions of them. One of her letters is full of anxiety as to
Allegra, who has been placed in the convent of Bagnacavallo by Byron.
She feels that the child ought, as soon as possible, to be taken out
of the hands of so "remorseless and unprincipled a man"; but advises
caution and waiting for a favourable opportunity. She hopes that he
may be returning to England. "He may be reconciled with his wife." At
any rate, Bagnacavallo is high and in a healthy position, quite
different from the dirty canals of Venice, which might injure any
child's health. Mary thus tries to console Claire, who is planning, in
her imagination, various ways of getting at her child, and
corresponding with and seeing Shelley on the subject. Mary dissuades
Claire from attempting anything in the spring--their unlucky time. It
was in the second spring Claire met L. B., &c.; the third they went to
Marlow--no wise thing, at least; the fourth, uncomfortable in London;
fifth, their Roman misery; the sixth, Paolo at Pisa; the seventh, a
mixture of Emilia and a Chancery suit. Mary acknowledges this
superstitious feeling is more in Claire's line than her own, but
thinks it worth considering; but this letter to Claire carries us a
year in advance.
During the summer of 1820 Mary had some of the delightful times she
loved so dearly, of poetic wanderings with Shelley through woods and
by the river, one of which she remembers long afterwards, when, making
her note to the "Skylark," she recalls how she and Shelley, wandering
through the lanes whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the firefly,
heard the carolling of the skylark which inspired one of the most
beautiful of his poems. Precious memories which helped her through
many after years devoid of the sympathy she yearned for. At the Baths
they had the pleasure of a visit from Medwin, who gave a description
of how Shelley, his wife and child, had to escape from the upper
windows of their house in a boat when the canal overflowed and
inundated the valley. Mary speaks of it as a very picturesque sight,
with the herdsmen driving their cattle.
During the short absence of Shelley, when he took Claire to Florence,
Mary was occupied planning her novel of _Valperga_, for which she
studied Villani's chronicle and Sismondi's history.
On leaving the baths of San Giuliano, after the floods, the Shelleys
returned to Pisa, where they passed the late autumn and winter of 1820
and the spring of 1821. Here they made more acquaintances than
heretofore, Professor Pacchiani, called also "Il Diavolo," introducing
them to the Prince Mavrocordato, the Princess Aigiropoli, the
_improvisatore_ Sgricci, Taafe, and last, not least, to Emilia
Viviani. Here Mary continued to write _Valperga_, and pursued her
Latin, Spanish, and Greek studies; the latter the Prince Mavrocordato
assisted her with, as Mary writes to Mrs. Gisborne: "Do not you envy
me my luck? that, having begun Greek, an amiable, young, agreeable,
and learned Greek prince comes every morning to give me a lesson of an
hour and a half."
But the person of most moment at this time was undoubtedly the
Contessina Emilia Viviani, whom, accompanied by Pacchiani, Claire,
then Mary, and then Shelley, visited at the Convent of Sant' Anna.
This beautiful girl, with profuse black hair, Grecian profile, and
dreamy eyes, placed in the convent till she should be married, to
satisfy the jealousy of her stepmother, became naturally an object of
extreme interest to the Shelleys. Many visits were paid, and Mary
invited her to stay with them at Christmas. Shelley was convinced that
she had great talent, if not genius. Shelley and Mary sent her books,
and Claire gave her English lessons at her convent, while she was
taking a holiday from the Bojtis. Many letters are preserved from the
beautiful Emilia to Shelley and Mary, letters which, translated into
English, seem overflowing with sentiment and affection, but which to
Italians would indicate rather the style cultivated by Italian ladies,
which, to this day, seems one of their chief accomplishments if they
are not gifted with a voice to sing. To Mary she complains of a
certain coldness, but certainly this could not be brought to
the charge of Shelley, who was now inspired to write his
_Epipsychidion_. To him Emilia was as the Skylark, an emanation
of the beautiful; but to Mary for a time, during Shelley's transitory
adoration, the event evidently became painful, with all her philosophy
and belief in her husband. She could not regard the lovely girl who
took walks with him as the skylark that soared over their heads; and
the _Epipsychidion_ was evidently not a favourite poem of Mary.
Surely we may ascribe to this time, in the spring of 1821, the poem
written by Shelley to Lieutenant Williams, whose acquaintance he had
made in January. There is no month affixed to--
The Serpent is cast out from Paradise....
and it might well apply, with its reference to "my cold home," to the
time when Mary, in depression and pique, did not always give her
likewise sensitive husband all the welcome he was accustomed to, and
Shelley took refuge in a poem by way of letter; for this is the time
referred to by Mary in her letter to Claire as their seventh
unfortunate spring--a mixture of Emilia and a Chancery suit! It was
not till the next spring that Emilia was married, and led her husband
and mother-in-law, as Mary puts it, "a devil of a life." _We_
have only to be grateful to Emilia for having inspired one of the most
wondrous poems in any language.
The Williamses, to whom Shelley's poem is addressed, were met by them
in January. Mary writes of the fascinating Jane (Mrs. Williams) that
she is certainly very pretty, but wants animation; while Shelley
writes that she is extremely pretty and gentle, but apparently not
very clever; that he liked her much, but had only seen her for an
hour.
Mary, among her multifarious reading, notes an article by Medwin on
Animal Magnetism, and Shelley, who suffered severely at this time,
shortly afterwards tried its effect through Medwin. The latter bored
Mary excessively; possibly she found the magnetising a wearisome
operation, although Shelley is said to have been relieved by it. His
highly nervous temperament was evidently impressed. When Medwin left,
Mrs. Williams undertook to carry on the cure.
The Chancery suit referred to by Mary was an attempt between Sir
Timothy's attorney and Shelley's to throw their affairs into Chancery,
causing great alarm to them in Italy, till Horace Smith came to their
rescue in England, and with indignant letters settled the
inconsiderate litigation.
Mrs. Shelley, in her Notes to Poems in 1821, recounts how Shelley was
nearly drowned, by a flat boat which he had recently acquired being
overturned in the canal near Pisa, when returning from Leghorn.
Williams upset the boat by standing up and holding the mast. Henry
Reveley, Mrs. Gisborne's son, rescued Shelley and brought him to land,
where he fainted with the cold. At this same time, at Pisa, Mary had
to consider with Shelley a matter of great importance to Claire.
Byron, now at Ravenna, had placed Allegra, as already stated, in the
convent of Bagnacavallo. He told Mrs. Hoppner that she had become so
unmanageable by servants that it was necessary to have her under
better care than he could secure, and he considered that it would be
preferable to bring her up as a Roman Catholic with an Italian
education, as in that way, with a fortune of five or six thousand
pounds, she would marry an Italian and be provided for, whereas she
would always hold an anomalous position in England. At this proposal
Claire was extremely indignant; but Shelley and Mary took the opposite
view, and considered that Byron acted for the best, as the convent was
in a healthy position, and the nuns would be kind to the child. This
idea of Mary would naturally be agreed with by some, and disapproved
of by others; but at that time there was certainly no cause to
indicate that Bagnacavallo would be more fatal to Allegra than any
other place, although Claire's apprehensions were cruelly realised.
From this time Claire and Byron wrote letters of recrimination to each
other, which, considering Byron's obduracy against the feelings of the
mother, Shelley and Mary came to hold as tyrannically unfeeling.
In May, Shelley and his wife and son returned to the baths of San
Giuliano, and while here Shelley's _Adonais_ was published. In
1820, when the Shelleys heard of Keats's fatal illness from Mrs.
Gisborne, she having met him the day after he had received his death
warrant from the doctor, they were the first to beg him to join them
at Pisa. A small touch of poetical criticism, however, appears to have
weighed more with the sensitive Keats than these friendly
considerations for his health, and as he was about to accompany his
friend Mr. Severn to Rome, he did not accept their kind offer, though
in all probability Pisa would have been better for him.
During this summer at the baths Mary had finished her romance of
_Valperga_, and read it to her husband, who admired it extremely.
He considered it to be a "living and moving picture of an age almost
forgotten, a profound study of the passions of human nature."
_Valperga_, published in 1823, the year after Shelley's death, is
a romance of the 14th century in Italy, during the height of the
struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, when each state and
almost each town was at war with the other; a condition of things
which lends itself to romance. Mary Shelley's intimate acquaintance
with Italy and Italians gives her the necessary knowledge to write on
this subject. Her zealous Italian studies came to her aid, and her
love of nature give life and vitality to the scene. Valperga, the
ancestral castle home of Euthanasia, a Florentine lady of the Guelph
faction, is most picturesquely described, on its ledge of projecting
rock, overlooking the plain of Lucca; the dependent peasants around
happy under the protection of their good Signora. That this beautiful
and high-minded lady should be affianced to a Ghibelline leader is a
natural combination; but when her lover Castruccio, prince of Lucca,
carries his political enthusiasm the length of making war on her
native city of Florence, whose Republican greatness and love of art
are happily described, Euthanasia cannot let love stand in the way of
duty and gratitude to all those dearest to her. The severe struggle is
well described, for Euthanasia has loved Castruccio from their
childhood. When they played about the mountain grounds of her home at
Valperga, Castruccio learnt the secret paths to the Castle, which
knowledge later helped him to take the fortress when Euthanasia
refused to yield it to him. Castruccio's character is also well
described: his devoted attachment to Euthanasia from which nothing
could turn him, till the passions of the conqueror and party faction
are still stronger; and the irresistible force which impels him to
make war and subdue the Guelphs, which by her is regarded as murder
and rapine, disunites beings seemingly formed for each other. All
these different emotions are portrayed with great beauty and
simplicity.
The Italian superstitions are well shown, as how the Florentines
ascribed all good and evil fortune to conjunction of stars. The power
of the Inquisition in Rome comes likewise into play, when the
beautiful prophetess Beatrice (the child of the prophetess Wilhelmina)
who had to be given to the Leper for protection, as even his filthy
and deserted hut was safer for her than that it should be known to the
Inquisition that she existed. She is rescued from the Leper by a
bishop who heard her story from the deathbed of the woman to whom her
mother when dying had confided her. She was then brought up by the
bishop's sister. Her mother's spirit of prophecy was inherited by the
daughter; and as the mother believed herself to be an emanation of the
Holy Spirit, so Beatrice thought herself the Ancilla Dei. These
mystical fancies and their working are depicted with much beauty and
strength.
These Donne Estatiche first appear in Italy after the 12th century,
and had continued to the time which Mary Shelley selected for her
romance. After giving an account of their pretensions, Muratori
gravely observes: "We may piously believe that some were distinguished
by supernatural gifts and admitted to the secrets of heaven, but we
may justly suspect that the source of many of their revelations was
their ardent imagination filled with ideas of religion and piety."
Beatrice, on prophesying the Ghibelline rule in Ferrara, is seized by
the emissaries of the Pope, and has to undergo the ordeal of the white
hot ploughshares, through which she passes unscathed, there having
apparently been connivance to help her through. Her exultation and
enthusiasm become intense, and it is only after a great shock that she
grows conscious of the falseness of her position; for, having met
Castruccio on his mission to Ferrara, she is irresistibly attracted by
him, and, mixing up her infatuation with her mystical ideas, does not
hesitate to make secret appointments with him, never doubting that her
love is returned, and that they are one at heart. When at length
Castruccio has to return to Lucca, and to his betrothed, Euthanasia,
the shock to the poor mystical Beatrice is terrible. Finally she is
met as a pilgrim wending her weary way to Rome. Assuredly, Shelley was
justified in admiring this character. There is a straightforwardness
in the plot into which the stormy history of the period is clearly
introduced, which gives much interest to this romance, and it is a
decided advance upon _Frankenstein_, though her age when that was
written must not be forgotten. A book of this kind shows forcibly the
troubles to which a lovely country like Italy is exposed through
disunion, and must fill the hearts of all lovers of this beautiful
land with gratitude to the noble men who willingly sacrificed
themselves to help in the cause of united Italy; those whose songs
roused the people, and carried hope into the hearts of even the
prisoners in the pozzi of Venice; for the man of idea who can rouse
the nation by his songs does not help less than the brave soldier who
can aid with his arms, though alas! he does not always live to see the
triumph he has helped to achieve. [Footnote: Gabriele Rossetti, whom
Mary Shelley knew, and to whom she referred for information while
writing her lives of Italian poets, has been said to have been the
first who in modern times had the idea of a united Italy under a
constitutional monarch, for which idea and for his rousing songs he
was forced to leave Italy by Ferdinand I. of Naples in 1821, and
remained an exile in England till his death in 1854, at the age of 71.
How Mary Shelley, with her husband, must have sympathised in these
ideas with their love of Italy can be understood, although it was the
climate and beauty of Italy more than the people that charmed Shelley;
but then was he not also an exile from his native land?]
This work, when completed, was sent to her father by Mary, for it had
been a labour of love, and the sum of four hundred pounds which Godwin
obtained for it was devoted to help him in his difficulties.
Unhappily, the romance was not published till the year after her
husband's death.