Yet more:--Hogg never heard of this poem; Peacock never heard of it, so

far as the evidences go; no one of the poet's friends or relations appears

ever to have heard of it; no review of the poem has come to light; and

(more remarkable yet!) no one of the many published lists of subscriptions

to the Finerty Fund, to be found in the _Morning Chronicle_, and other

papers of the period (examined by Mr. MacCarthy), makes mention of any

single contribution amounting to 100_l._,--of _any_ contributions whatever

as the result of the sale of the poem.

What a labour of searching for a copy of the poem, and for evidence about

the poem, that may never have been written! Surely the searching would

have resulted in the discovery of a copy, had 2000 copies passed into

circulation, or in the discovery of some stronger evidence of the poem's

publication, had the sale of the work yielded any considerable sum of

money to the Fund, which amounted in the course of twelve months to

something more than 1000_l._

The evidence is not even conclusive that Shelley had a serious intention

to produce a poem for Mr. Finerty's advantage. He may have put forth the

advertisements to whip up the public interest in the movement for the

unfortunate journalist's benefit. Evidence so weak can only be used

conjecturally. I am disposed to regard the advertisements as _bonâ-fide_

advertisements, and to think they referred to some poem published by

Shelley for the alleged object. The author may also have published the

poem with an eye to his own advantage; may have hoped to use the

excitement of a political stir as a means of floating into circulation a

poem, which, in case it succeeded, the 'Gentleman of the University of

Oxford' could claim in his own name. He had been for some time thinking of

publishing a satirical poem. 'I am,' he wrote to Hogg from Field Place, on

20th December, 1810, 'composing a _satirical_ poem. I shall print it at

Oxford, unless I find, on visiting him, that R. is ripe for printing

whatever will sell. In case of that, he is my man.' There is evidence

(though of a doubtful quality) that he wrote the first sketches for a

poem, which eventually took shape in _Queen Mab_, in the summer of 1810.

Much of that poem would answer to the title of _A Poetical Essay on the

Existing State of Things_.

Shelley put so many fictions into his earlier letters to Godwin, that the

reader, who is not a 'Shelleyan enthusiast,' hesitates to trust any

statement of those highly imaginative epistles, that is not supported by

another witness. But he may have been writing truth at Keswick on 16th

January, 1812, when he wrote of himself as the author of the _Essay on

Love_, a little poem. This 'little poem,' if it was ever written, may have

been the same poem as the _Political Essay on the Existing State of

Things_, if the latter was ever written. Were it announced to-morrow on

good authority that a copy had been recovered of the poem by Shelley, for

a copy of which Mr. MacCarthy made so vain a search, I should expect to

learn that the poem, published for Mr. Finerty's benefit, proved to be

poetry that was subsequently worked into _Queen Mab_. If the _Poetical

Essay_ (of March and April, 1811) contained some of the more violent and

outrageous passages of _Queen Mab_, the same considerations that caused

the poet's Oxford bookseller to destroy all the copies of _The Necessity

of Atheism_, that were in his hands, would determine him to destroy at the

same time all the copies of the _Poetical Essay_ lying in his premises.

II. What evidence does MacCarthy produce that Shelley was a contributor of

poetry and of prose articles of literary subjects to the _Oxford Herald_,

whilst he was an Oxford undergraduate?

(1) Mr. MacCarthy's sole reason for attributing the _Ode to the Death of

Summer_ to Shelley's pen, is that it possesses the 'peculiar Shelleyan

flavour by which we can so easily recognise his later poems,' the

qualities of feeling and expression, which justify the author of

_Shelley's Early Life_ for saying,--

'As Pope said of Chapman's translation of the _Iliad_, that it was

"something like what one would imagine Homer himself would have writ

before he arrived at years of discretion;" so this little poem may be

offered as something like what Shelley would have sung before he

attained the full faculty of lyrical expression.'

But whilst there is no positive testimony that the Oxonian Shelley could

give his verses the peculiar flavour for which Mr. MacCarthy commends the

'Ode,' which appears in the _Oxford Herald_ of 22nd September, 1810, the

poems of _St. Irvyne_, published three months later, may well dispose

critical readers to question, whether the author of the novel was capable

of producing verses, having any resemblance to the poetry of his later

time. It may, of course, be urged that the verses, put into the ridiculous

romance, were the nerveless efforts of a considerably earlier period; but

it is difficult to believe that, could he have produced the _Ode to the

Death of Summer_ in September, 1810, the Oxonian Shelley could a few weeks

later have offered the public such feeble effusions as the _St. Irvyne_

verses.

(2) Whilst Shelley's title to be regarded as the author of _The Ode_

rests on the 'Shelleyan flavour' of the poem, which in that respect

differs from all the poetry known to have proceeded from his pen before

the end of 1810, his claim to be regarded as one of the producers of the

'prose essays on some of the older English poets' (which appeared in the

_Oxford Herald_ during his residence at the University) rests on the fact

that one of these essays is signed, 'P. S.' 'One of the papers, signed "P.

S."' says Mr. MacCarthy, 'appeared during the period of Shelley's

residence, and may possibly have been written by him.' It is quite as

probable that some Peter Smith, or other person with P. S. for his

initials, wrote the verses.

(3) Consisting altogether of the two initial letters, the evidence which

disposes Mr. MacCarthy to rate the poet with the literary essayists of the

Oxford newspaper, cannot be declared convincingly cogent and conclusive.

It is, however, far less weak and shadowy than the evidence that the

undergraduate of University College, Oxford, produced the English

translations from the Greek _Anthologia_, which appeared in the _Oxford

Herald_ of 5th January, and 12th January, 1811, with the signature 'S'

attached to each set of verses. After identifying Shelley with the

translator by this solitary letter, Mr. MacCarthy next argues that, having

been thus detected in translating verses of the Greek _Anthologia_,

Shelley may be fairly suspected of being, and indeed assumed to be, the

translator of the epigram by Vincent Bourne, that appeared in English

dress in the _Oxford Herald_ of 23rd February, 1811 (signed

'Versificator'); and also the translator (signing himself 'Versificator')

who produced the English versions of two epigrams from the Greek

_Anthologia_, that appeared in the _Oxford Herald_ of 9th March, 1811. To

those, who hesitate in declaring Shelley the producer of the two January

translations, because his surname began with the letter 'S,' it may well

appear considerably less than manifest that Shelley should be regarded as

the producer of Versificator's translations, because he had a taste for

making verses. After arguing that 'S' was Shelley, because the Shelleys

resembled the Smiths in one interesting particular, and that

'Versificator' must have been Shelley, because Shelley had as good a right

as any one else to style himself so, this perplexing Mr. MacCarthy (who is

of so much account with the Shelleyan experts) tells us in a note, that

some one, during Shelley's time at Oxford, sent a translation from Vincent

Bourne to the _Oxford Herald_, signed 'S. S.--Edmonton.' On such trifles

and trifling, weeks and months were wasted by the Shelleyan expert, who,

with all his boastful show of laborious research, never troubled himself

to find out, when Shelley and Hogg became members of their University.

III. For reasons, with which there is no need to trouble the reader of the

present chapter, Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy holds a strong opinion that

the spurious letter, alleged to have been written by Shelley from

University College on 22nd February, 1811, to 'The Editor of the

_Statesman_,' may have been a genuine performance, although it appeared

for the first time to the public in the notorious _Letters of Percy

Bysshe Shelley_ (1852), that passed through Mr. Robert Browning's

editorial hands only to provoke the scrutiny, that was followed quickly by

their suppression. Maintaining that the letter may have been genuine, Mr.

MacCarthy is only a few degrees less confident that the epistle was the

genuine performance of the undergraduate who, ten days later, wrote Leigh

Hunt the epistle that seems to have been studied by the manufacturer of

the forgery.

Opening with a long paragraph, whose style affords conclusive evidence

that it was not composed by the Oxonian Shelley, the epistle of the

earlier date closes with the following sentences taken verbatim from the

letter of later date:--

'The ultimate intention of my aim is to induce a meeting of such

enlightened, unprejudiced members of the community, whose independent

principles expose them to evils which might thus become alleviated;

and to form a methodical society, which should be organized so as to

resist the coalition of the enemies of liberty, which at present

renders any expression of opinion on matters of policy dangerous to

individuals.... Although perfectly unacquainted with you privately, I

address you as a common friend to liberty, thinking that, in cases of

this urgency and importance, etiquette ought not to stand in the way

of usefulness.'

Whilst these two sentences accord in style with the rest of the letter to

which they properly belong (the genuine letter addressed to Leigh Hunt on

2nd March, 1811), they are preceded in the spurious epistle of later

manufacture and earlier date (22nd February, 1811) with writing of this

incongruent style:--

'SIR,--The present age has been distinguished from every former period

of English history by the number of those writers who have suffered

the penalties of the law for the freedom and spirit with which they

descanted on the morals of the age, and chastised the vices or

ridiculed the follies of individuals of every rank of life, and among

every description of society. In former periods of British

civilization, as during the flourishing ages of Greece and Rome, the

oratorical censor, and the satirical poet, were regarded as exercising

only that just pre-eminence to which superior genius and an intimate

knowledge of life and human nature were conceived to entitle them. The

_MacFlecknoe_ of Dryden, the _Dunciad_ and the satirical imitations of

Pope, remained secure from molestation by the Attorney-General; the

literary castigators of a Bolingbroke and a Wharton enjoyed the

triumph of truth and justice unawed by _ex-officios_; and Addison

could describe a coward and a liar without being called to account for

his inuendos by the interference of the judicial servants of the king.

But times are altered, and a man may now be sent to prison for a

couple of years, and ruined perhaps for life, because he calls a spade

a spade, and tells a public individual the very truths that are

obvious to the most partial of his friends.'

So fine a judge of 'Shelleyan flavour' as Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy

ought surely to have observed how greatly this piece of writing differs in

style and quality from the prose of Shelley's novels, his Oxonian letters

to Stockdale and Hogg, his Irish addresses, and all his prose writings of

the same period. Instead of discovering the difference, however, our nice

_connoisseur_ of 'Shelleyan flavour,' and the historic probabilities,

exclaims in a rapturous note to the last sentence of the quotation:--

'This passage proves almost conclusively that the person addressed as

"Editor of the _Statesman_" must have been Mr. Finnerty. The public

individual of whom he published those obvious truths that were

pronounced a libel by Lord Ellenborough was Lord Castlereagh. The

former editor of the _Statesman_, Mr. Lovell, was suffering

imprisonment for a different offence.'

There is no evidence that Mr. Finerty was, or ever had been, the editor of

the _Statesman_. There are no grounds for thinking he ever had been the

editor of that paper. Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy admits he has no reason

to think Mr. Finerty ever was editor of the _Statesman_. Yet he insists

that this spurious letter (genuine epistle as he thinks), dated 22nd

February, 1811, to the Editor of the _Statesman_, must have been addressed

to a man (who was _not_ that paper's editor), _because_ it contains a

reference to the imprisonment of some person in terms quite as applicable

to an imprisoned journalist who _had never been_, as to an imprisoned

journalist _who had been or was_ editor of that paper.

Nothing in the letter to the Editor of the _Statesman_ implies that the

imprisoned journalist had been in any way connected with the paper, or

that the writer of the letter believed the imprisoned journalist to have

been connected with the paper. Yet Mr. MacCarthy is at great pains to show

how the Oxonian Shelley may have come to imagine that the cruelly

entreated Mr. Finerty was editor of the paper, with which he in fact is

not known to have had any professional connexion. The libel on Lord

Castlereagh, for which Mr. Finerty was sent to prison, having been

published in the _Statesman_ as well as the _Morning Chronicle_, it was

natural for Shelley (argues Mr. MacCarthy) to assume that Mr. Finerty was

editor of the _Statesman_. Shelley was by no means such a fool as the

'Shelleyan enthusiasts' would have us think him. The youngster reasoned

wildly sometimes, but he was not likely to think a journalist must be the

editor of one paper because he had been sent to prison for libelling a

Minister in another paper. Knowing well enough that Mr. Finerty (in whose

concerns he took a lively interest) had been committed for eighteen months

to Lincoln Gaol on 7th February, 1811, Shelley was not likely to imagine a

fortnight later he was the Acting Editor of the London _Statesman_.

Knowing right well Mr. Finerty had been sentenced to _eighteen months_,

Shelley was not likely so soon after the sentence to imagine the

journalist had been sent to prison for _two years_. To read Mr.

MacCarthy's perplexing pages is to see that the gentleman was not more

successful in confounding his readers than in confounding himself. Yet

because he threw a new kind of mud on Shelley's earliest biographer, this

superlatively inaccurate and stupefying writer has been cried up as a

great Shelleyan authority.

After setting forth the words of the spurious epistle, Mr. MacCarthy

remarks in his usual style of laborious inaccuracy:--

'This letter, whatever its claim to authenticity may be, is dated

February 22nd, 1811. Six days later--_that is_, on the 2nd of March in

the same year--Shelley addressed, for the first time, another

newspaper editor then personally unknown to him, but who became a few

years later one of his most valued and intimate friends--Leigh Hunt.'

February 22nd, 1811. Six days later--that is, on the 2nd of March in the

same year!--What particularity and what curious persistence in blundering!

The gentleman, who is so severe on Hogg for an occasional slip, is more

than usually fortunate when he is only twenty-five per cent wrong in a

calculation of days. Mr. MacCarthy, however, is right in holding there is

no reason to doubt the genuineness of the youthful Shelley's first letter

to the Editor of the _Examiner_. Written in the Oxonian Shelley's best,

but far from strenuous, style, the epistle (of 2nd March, 1811) to Leigh

Hunt--the epistle Leigh Hunt never answered--could not have proceeded from

any hand but Shelley's hand. Strangely ingenious things have been done in

the way of Shelleyan forgeries, but no fabricator of spurious letters and

other materials for fictitious biography would have thought of

manufacturing the delicious bit of puerile bounce that makes the letter

end in this droll fashion:--

'My father is in parliament, and on attaining twenty-one I shall, in

all probability, fill his vacant seat. On account of the

responsibility to which my residence in this University subjects me,

I, of course, dare not publicly avow all I think; but the time will

come when I hope that my every endeavour, insufficient as they may be,

will be directed to the advancement of liberty.

'Your most obedient servant,

'P. B. SHELLEY.'

From his Eton days to a time considerably subsequent to his expulsion from

Oxford, it was Shelley's practice to open correspondence with strangers by

telling them how greatly he differed in his worldly circumstances and

prospects from ordinary young men. In this strain of boyish boastfulness,

he is known to have approached so many people, that it is reasonable to

suppose it to have been his usual device for putting himself in the

favourable regard of persons, whose acquaintance he sought. To the Messrs.

Longman, of Paternoster Row, he wrote from Eton: 'My object in writing it

was not pecuniary, as I am independent, being the heir of a gentleman of

large fortune in the county of Sussex.' To Stockdale he introduced himself

by word of mouth in much the same fashion. In the earliest days of their

acquaintance, Hogg heard not a little from Sir Bysshe Shelley's grandson,

of matters redounding to the dignity of the Castle Goring Shelleys; the

romantic traditions of his house; the arguments with which the Duke of

Norfolk urged him to look to politics as his proper field of action. 'My

father is in parliament,' he writes on 2nd March, 1811, to the editor of

the _Examiner_, whom he has never seen, 'and on attaining twenty-one I

shall, in all probability, fill his vacant seat.' Ten months later (10th

January, 1812), he is writing to William Godwin, whilst seeking the

philosopher's friendship by letter before seeing him,

'I am the son of a man of fortune in Sussex.... It will be necessary,

in order to elucidate this part of my history, to inform you, that I

am heir by entail to an estate of 6000_l._ per annum. My principles

have induced me to regard the law of primogeniture as an evil of

primary magnitude.'

In the musical egotisms of his poetry, the ear catches the same note of

boastful arrogance and self-complacence. Whilst preaching the gospel of

love, and proclaiming his determination to sacrifice himself for the good

of others on the first convenient opportunity, Shelley knew how to remind

his hearers that he would sacrifice a great deal more than the common sort

of philanthropists; and there were moments when, not content with virtue's

peculiar and sweetest reward,--an approving conscience, he was more eager

to provoke, than avoid, the plaudits of the multitude.

The reader of the epistle to Leigh Hunt may well smile at the youngster's

announcement that, in the course of two years, he would probably occupy a

seat in the House of Commons, through his father's timely retirement from

political life. It is not the wont of even the most affectionate father to

be so considerate for his heir-apparent; and though he was a much kindlier

and more generous parent than the 'Shelleyan enthusiasts' like to admit,

Mr. Timothy Shelley, of Field Place, was by no means a likely man to

retreat into private life, in order that his eldest son might become

Member of Parliament for New Shoreham in his twenty-second year.

Delighting in the status of a member of elective assembly, the

self-complacent and rather pompous gentleman plumed himself on standing

well with his 'party' and 'Mr. Speaker,' and being so highly respected by

'the house' and 'the country' that he gave peculiar weight and moral

influence to the committees to which he was appointed. By no means so

destitute of imagination as numerous detractors have declared him, Mr.

Timothy Shelley resembled his son in an aptitude for conceiving whatever

tended for the moment to put him on good terms with himself. To hear Mr.

Timothy Shelley repeat over his second bottle the compliments whispered

into his ear by Mr. Speaker, was to infer that, if his words were reported

accurately, Mr. Speaker was an habitual and extravagant flatterer, or had

some unaccountable partiality for the Member for New Shoreham. To believe

all the Member for New Shoreham said of himself, was to believe, that no

committee was appointed in the Lower House until he and Ministers had

spoken together respecting its constitution, that few nice questions of

foreign policy were decided until Ministers had asked him what might, and

what might not, be done. The kindly gentleman, who declared he had

furnished Archdeacon Paley (or 'Palley,' as the Member for New Shoreham

pronounced the name) with all the main arguments for the 'Evidences,'

could persuade himself that his smile or frown determined the course of

Ministers and Administrations. Whilst the Oxonian Shelley liked to imagine

himself in parliament, his father delighted in imagining himself the very

soul of parliament. So imaginative a father was not likely to vacate his

seat for the advantage of so imaginative a son.

The mere absence of reasonable grounds for the statement would not,

however, justify a confident opinion that Shelley was guilty of deliberate

untruth when he wrote on 2nd March, 1811, that, on coming of age, he would

probably succeed to his father's vacant place in the House of Commons.

Enough has been said in previous pages of this work to show that, together

with a capacity for saying what he knew to be untrue, the Oxonian Shelley,

no less than the Shelley of later time, possessed a fancy so curiously

vigorous and fertile of inventions, that it may be held in some degree

accountable for some of his numerous misstatements. In their desire to

shield him from the obloquy of wilful and habitual untruthfulness, some of

the poet's friends have, no doubt, exaggerated this consequence of his

imaginative energy. In maintaining that his friend cordially detested

falsehood, and in respect of his frequent inaccuracies of statement, was

the mere 'creature, the unsuspecting and unresisting victim, of his

irresistible imagination,' Hogg not only went beyond his evidences, but

traversed and contradicted them in a manner to provoke suspicion of his

own honesty. Even where he admits that the inaccuracies were referable, in

a large measure, to untruthfulness, Peacock betrays a similar disposition

to make the utmost of the singular imaginativeness, which he held no less

accountable for the poet's frequent deviations from veracity.

By those who would rate none too highly the testimony of these two notable

witnesses to the poet's character, allowance must of course be made for

the partiality of friendship. On the other hand, it must be remembered

that, whilst affording them opportunities for studying his character

closely, their intimacy with so singular and interesting a companion,

offered them the strongest inducements to judge him fairly and know him

thoroughly. If it must be conceded that Hogg and Peacock would never have

thought of referring their friend's imperfect veracity to his excessive

imaginativeness, had he been nothing more to them than a slight

acquaintance, it must also be conceded that the circumstances of their

close and affectionate intercourse with the poet, qualified them to give

the true explanation of his most perplexing utterances and most pitiable

infirmity. Having regard to the general trustworthiness of the witnesses,

and also to the several obvious considerations which may well dispose the

reader to receive their evidence with suspicion and incredulity, I cannot

question that, however much they overstated their respective opinions out

of tenderness for the poet's fame, both Hogg and Peacock had reasonable

grounds for believing that a quick and undisciplined fancy was far more,

or scarcely less, accountable than moral obliquity for their friend's

untruthful assertions. For the moment, therefore (_but only for the

moment_), let it be assumed that, whilst penning the lines to Leigh Hunt,

the undergraduate of University College really believed he was likely to

take his father's seat in parliament in the course of the next two or

three years.

The assumption puts the reader face to face with another difficulty. The

Oxonian Shelley, who made this remarkable announcement to Leigh Hunt, was

the same Oxonian Shelley, who used to declare himself indebted to Dr.

Lind's timely intervention for preservation from the madhouse, to which

his father meant to consign him. Whilst there is evidence of some sort

that one of Shelley's hallucinations haunted him from boyhood to the last

month of his existence, there is no evidence of any kind that his most

transitory hallucinations perished within a few days of the hour, when he

first came under their power. It took him more than a year to get the

better of his morbid fancy that Hogg was set on seducing his first wife.

It took him several weeks to survive his equally ludicrous and distressing

fancy, that he was stricken with leprosy. There is no ground for

suspecting he was visited by hallucinations so fleeting that they might be

styled 'illusions of the hour.' If, at the time of writing to Leigh Hunt,

he really believed he would enter parliament in his twenty-second year,

the hallucination must be regarded as holding his mind for a considerable

period, concurrently with the hallucination touching his father's

determination to confine him for life as a lunatic. If there are grounds

for thinking he really hoped to enter parliament so soon through his

father's affectionate consideration, the grounds are still stronger for

thinking he really apprehended incarceration in a madhouse, through his

father's cruelty. To believe his father capable of retiring from

parliament for the advantage of a son who had occasioned much trouble and

reasonable displeasure, it was necessary for Shelley to think his father a

rare example of parental devotion and beneficence. To believe his father

capable of locking him up in a madhouse, at the instigation of resentment

and notions of domestic policy, it was necessary for Shelley to think his

father a monstrous example of parental malice and cruelty.

If he thought his father capable of such self-sacrifice for his boy's

happiness, Shelley must have thought his father an admirably good parent.

If he thought his father capable of such barbarity to his own offspring,

Shelley must have deemed his father a superlatively cruel and wicked

parent. To have believed his father capable of the parental self-sacrifice

and the parental cruelty, Shelley must in the same moment of time have

regarded his father as one of the very best and one of the very worst

parents. It is not in the power of human sanity or human madness to think

thus differently of the same person at the same moment. If Shelley really

believed his father was watching for an opportunity to shut him up in a

madhouse, he was fibbing when he wrote to Leigh Hunt, that his father

would probably soon retire from parliament in his favour. If Shelley

believed what he wrote to Leigh Hunt, he was fibbing when he talked to

Hogg and others of his cruel father's malignant purpose to shut him up in

a lunatic asylum. Strange creature though he was, it is difficult to

believe even of Shelley that, whilst seeing his father's goodness, he

could be so malignantly wicked to do his utmost to persuade his friends of

his father's inordinate badness. Perhaps it is even more difficult to

imagine, strange being though he was, that whilst thinking his father an

execrably bad parent, Shelley would be so perverse as to invent the story,

which went to prove his father an extraordinarily good one.

To escape from this tangle of difficulties, from this dilemma of _four_

horns, readers are at liberty to assume that the Oxonian Shelley believed

no tittle of either of the marvellous stories. Dismissing the assumption

that the youngster wrote to Leigh Hunt in good faith and simple honesty,

they may take it as proved that, in bragging about the seat he would have

in parliament as soon as he should have taken his degree, the

undergraduate was fibbing, in order that the newspaper editor should form

something more than an adequate notion of his correspondent's importance.

They may also take it as proved, that the undergraduate was no more

sincere in talking about his wicked father's design to lock him up in a

madhouse, than in writing that his father would probably retire from

parliament in his favour. The time, doubtless, came when Shelley believed

his worst fictions to his father's discredit, even as tellers of untruths

usually come in course of time to believe the fabrications which they

persist in repeating steadily and earnestly:--even as 'the nobleman, who

recently languished in captivity at Portland,' has doubtless succeeded in

persuading himself that he is the veritable Sir Roger Tichborne.

But before fancies, born of fierce and violent resentments, acquired the

complexion and force of hideous truths to his disordered judgment, it is

conceivable--ay, it cannot be doubted--that Shelley passed through states

of mental and moral disturbance, which were fruitful of impressions and

misconceptions, so curiously composed of fact and fancy, of truth and

chimera, that he might be well described as a victim of semi-delusions.

Between the period when he was altogether sane and the period when he

suffered from steady hallucination, at least on one subject, and transient

hallucinations on other subjects, there was a period during which he was

neither absolutely free from delusions nor wholly possessed by any

delusion respecting his father's character and conduct.

IV. Yet another 'discovery' respecting the Oxonian Shelley, for which the

'Shelleyan enthusiasts' overflowed with gratitude to Mr. Denis Florence

MacCarthy. To believe all that is told to his honour in _Shelley's Early

Life_ is to believe that Shelley made himself responsible for the costs

and charges of publishing the little volume of verse, which gave Miss

Janetta Phillips her modest place in literary annals. That Miss Janetta

was writing poetry whilst Shelley kept terms at Oxford, that she rose to a

high place in his poetical regard in the spring of 1811, and that whilst

waging war with bigotry and superstition in academic circles, he was at

much pains to get subscribers for her book of poems, are matters of

historic certainty. In the April of that year, when Miss Elizabeth Shelley

was fast falling from her brother's favour, he wrote to Hogg, 'Elizabeth

is, indeed, an unworthy companion of the Muses. I do not rest much on her

poetry now. Miss Phillips betrayed twice the genius; greater amiability,

if to affect the feelings is a proof of the excess of the latter.' The

long list of subscribers to _Poems by Janetta Phillips_. Oxford: Printed

by Collingwood and Co., 1811, affords conclusive evidence that, whilst

regarding her poetical ability with approval, Shelley bestirred himself in

Oxford, London, and Sussex, to further Miss Janetta's literary venture.

Subscribing himself for six copies of the work, he induced his sister

Elizabeth to put her name down for a copy of the metrical effusions, which

'betrayed twice the genius' of her compositions. Miss Hellen Shelley at

the Clapham Boarding School, and her friend Miss Harriett Westbrook, also

produced half-crowns from their little purses for the benefit of Miss

Janetta Phillips. Other members of Shelley's circle ordered the book at

his instance. Mr. Medwin, of Horsham, ordered a copy; Mr. Charles Grove

took a copy; Mrs. Grove, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, put her name down for

three copies. It was, doubtless, at Shelley's solicitation that his Oxford

bookseller consented to subscribe for Miss Janetta's little volume. It is

probable that the young lady had other friends besides Shelley in the

University, where she found no less than eighty subscribers for her

_Poems_. Still, it may be safely assumed, she was considerably indebted to

Shelley's influence in the colleges for the sympathy and money of so many

gownsmen. That Shelley admired Miss Janetta's poetry, and pushed the

fortunes of her book to the utmost of his ability, is certain.

But what proof is there that he generously took upon himself the charges

of publication, and thereby incurred a debt that drained his pocket a few

months later? What are the facts that to this extent 'exhibit Shelley in

the amiable light of being an active encourager of a youthful muse?' Here

is Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy's evidence to the fact. In one of the

undated letters, which he wrote in the summer (say July) of 1811, from

Radnorshire to Hogg at York, Shelley says--'I have at this moment no

money, as Philipps' and the other debt have drained me.' What evidence to

the point! In the spring of the year Miss Janetta Phillips published a

little book, which was so largely subscribed for that, besides paying the

charges of production, it must have put a good many guineas into the

author's pocket. Three or four months later Shelley writes from Wales that

'Philipps' and the other debt have drained' him so completely that he is

without money. It follows, according to Mr. MacCarthy, that at the time of

writing the letter Shelley was suffering from his generosity to Miss

Janetta Phillips. The 'Shelleyan enthusiasts,' who mistook Mr. MacCarthy

for a prophet because he wrote abusively of Hogg, may be assured that

neither of the debts referred to in the epistle had anything to do with

Miss Janetta Phillips's book. Printed whilst the young lady's poetry was

passing through the press at Oxford, Shelley's tract on _The Necessity of

Atheism_--the publication that resulted in his expulsion from University

College, Oxford--was printed by E. and W. _Phillips_, of Worthing. I have

not thought it worth my while to inquire about Miss Janetta's parentage

and history; but I should not be surprised to learn she was the daughter

of one of these Worthing printers, and that Shelley's efforts for the

success of her book proceeded in some degree from friendliness for the

printers, who were just then rendering him secret and confidential

service. One thing is certain about Miss Janetta. Though it occasioned him

considerable trouble at the moment, the publication of her poems caused

him no subsequent discomfort. The debts, referred to in the letter, were

the debt to Stockdale for the production of _St. Irvyne_, and the debt to

the Messrs. E. and W. Phillips, of Worthing, for printing _The Necessity

of Atheism_. Mr. MacCarthy's precious discovery is 'a mare's-nest' for the

cynical reader to chuckle over.

CHAPTER XIII.

SHELLEY'S SECOND RESIDENCE-TERM AT OXFORD.

Harriett Westbrook--Her Character and Beauty--How Shelley came to care

for her--Her Subscription for Janetta Phillips's Poems--Shelley's

first Visit to Harriett's Home--His Intention to compete for 'the

Newdigate'--Thornton Hunt's scandalous Suggestion--Obligations of the

Oxford Undergraduate--Mary Wollstonecraft on the Guinea

Forfeit--Shelley's False Declaration--His numerous Untruths--_The

Necessity of Atheism_--Was it a Squib?--Lady Shelley's

Inaccuracies--Mr. Garnett's Misdescription of the Tract--His

Misrepresentation of Hogg--The _Little Syllabus_ printed at

Worthing--More Untruths by Shelley--The Tract offered for Sale in

Oxford--Shelley called before 'the Dons'--His Expulsion from

University College--Hogg's Impudence and Craft--His

Misrepresentations--Shelley and Hogg leave Oxford.

Though he had not yet seen the child who, in the following September,

became his first wife, Shelley was enough interested in her on 11th

January, 1811, to write to his publisher, Stockdale:--'I would thank you

to send a copy of _St. Irvyne_ to Miss Harriet Westbrook, 10, Chapel

Street, Grosvenor Square;' an order he would scarcely have given, had not

circumstances already caused him to think of her with peculiar

friendliness. At their boarding-school on the north side of Clapham

Common, near the 'Old Town,' Miss Mary Shelley (_ætat._ 13) and Miss

Hellen Shelley (_ætat._ 11) had several schoolmates, of whose looks and

doings they would naturally prattle to their elder brother during the

Christmas holidays, as they sat about the Christmas fire. How was it that,

of all the girls about whom his sisters may be assumed to have spoken in

his hearing, Harriett Westbrook was the one he selected for a compliment

that must have greatly pleased her? Mary and Hellen were the only persons

(with the exception of their elder sister--possibly one of Harriett's

school friends in earlier time) who can be conceived to have gossiped with

him about the loveliest of Mrs. Fenning's pupils, in a way to inspire him

with interest in her. The fair inference from the reasonable assumptions

is that of all the school-girls, of whom his sisters spoke, Harriett

Westbrook seemed the fairest and most fascinating to him and them.

Let it be assumed that, of all their friends at the Clapham

boarding-school, Harriett was the only girl of whom the sisters spoke to

their brother. In that case, the question arises, why the sisters, so

uncommunicative about the others, were eloquent about the girl who soon

became their brother's wife?--eloquent about her in a way to make him

desirous of knowing her? The question must be answered in a way more or

less favourable to the notion that Harriett stood well in the opinion of

the sisters.

There is another reason for thinking Harriett Westbrook was at this point

of her career peculiarly acceptable to the young ladies of Field Place.

Older than Miss Mary Shelley by two years at least, more than three years

older than Miss Hellen Shelley, Harriett Westbrook, besides being one of

the older girls of Mrs. Fenning's seminary, was the acknowledged 'beauty'

of the school; and beauty in a senior school-girl always disposes the

juniors of the school to regard her favourably, when it is not associated

with any irritating moral defect. Harriett's temper was by no means

faultless, but as she was the only serious sufferer from her propensity to

imagine herself an ill-used damsel, it did not lessen the natural

influence of her personal attractiveness.

Fretful towards herself, she was never peevish or wilfully unkind to

others. Her prevailing mood was tranquil melancholy; and there were times

when she played the rebel with a serene sullenness that made worthy Mrs.

Fenning wonder what would be the end of so perplexing a young lady. When

she was more than usually miserable about nothing at Clapham, this young

lady (who eventually committed suicide) used to think she might as well

destroy herself, would even tell the governesses she rather thought she

should destroy herself. But the announcements of suicidal purpose were

made in so placid and passionless a manner, that they caused little or no

alarm. Even in her naughtiest humours she was gentle in speech and bearing

to her classmates, and not devoid of frigid decorum to those who were in

authority over her. In her brighter seasons she was childishly

charming,--so winning and cooingly docile, that Mrs. Fenning and the

subordinate teachers quickly relented to her smiles, and forgiving her in

five minutes for all the trouble she had given throughout twice as many

weeks, fell to kissing and petting her, as though she were the veriest

darling. How could this darling, so irresistible to the governesses she

harassed, be otherwise than popular with the girls whose tempers she never

tried?

One of those beauties, who are seen oftener on the walls than the floors

of drawing-rooms, less a thing of real life than a picture, this girl of

curious and memorable loveliness lived in the recollections of her Clapham

schoolmates, when forty years and more had passed over her grave. Rather

below the average stature of womankind, shapely as a sculptured Venus,

graceful in her movements, she would have possessed all the finer elements

of womanly loveliness, had she not lacked the air and style of mental

force and moral dignity. In 1856 Miss Hellen Shelley recalled Harriett[6]

Westbrook, whom she saw for the last time in 1811, as 'a very handsome

girl, with a complexion quite unknown in these days--brilliant pink and

white,--with hair quite like a poet's dream, and Bysshe's peculiar

admiration.' It lived also in Miss Hellen's recollection that Mrs.

Fenning, and her assistant-governesses, used to talk about Harriett's

beauty, and even spoke of her as qualified to 'enact Venus' at a _fête

champêtre_. In colour her eyes resembled Shelley's prominent blue eyes,

and the profusion of hair, that was his 'peculiar admiration,' was light

brown.

When she committed to paper (in her fifty-seventh year, or thereabouts)

whatever she could remember of the beautiful girl, whom she never beheld

after they became sisters-in-law, it lived in Miss Hellen Shelley's

recollection that her brother was said to have married her because her

name was Harriett. It is in the way of lovers to delight in the names of

those they idolize, even when their devotion is rewarded with coldness. To

the last, Byron's ear discovered music in 'Mary,' the name of the wee

Scotch lassie whom he loved in his tenth year. One can readily imagine

that the charm of her name was the first influence to make Shelley an

attentive listener to his sisters' gossip about 'the beauty' of their

college friend. It is conceivable that their talk about this lovely

Harriett of the Clapham boarding-school was accountable for the frame of

mind in which Miss Harriett Grove's discarded suitor wrote from Field

Place to Hogg on 28th December, 1810: '_At present_, a thousand barriers

oppose any more intimate connexion, any union with another;' words that

would scarcely have fallen from his pen within a fortnight of his final

rejection by the Wiltshire 'belle,' had he not already recovered from the

first and keenest misery of the misadventure, so far as to be capable of

looking forward to a future time when his 'union with another' Harriett

would be possible.

Is it not conceivable, also, that in their sympathy with his distress for

the loss of Harriett Grove, and in their affectionate desire to restore

him to his usual cheerfulness, the sisters at Field Place conspired to

remind him that their cousin Harriett was not the only beautiful Harriett

in the universe, and to lure him into consoling himself for Harriett

Grove's disdain with Harriett Westbrook's devotion? No doubt Miss Hellen

Shelley and Miss Mary Shelley were full young for match-makers. But girls

sometimes take to match-making, no less than to flirtation, before their

teens. Little Hellen (_ætat._ 11) may not have been taken fully, or even

at all, into the confidence of her elder sisters on the romantic project.

They may have encouraged her to prattle about Harriett Westbrook without

letting her suspect their purpose.

The evidence of this conspiracy on the part of three, or two, of Shelley's

sisters for marrying him to Miss Harriett Westbrook, is fragmentary and

flimsy; but few readers will question that divers facts point to the

existence of an influence at Field Place that not only disposed, but

determined, the poet to seek the young lady's acquaintance. But for his

sisters he would, probably, have never heard of Harriett Westbrook. Their

speech about her must be held accountable for his desire to know her. On

11th January, 1811, he requested Stockdale to send her a copy of _St.

Irvyne_. What but his sisters' talk about her can have disposed Shelley to

pay so considerable a compliment to the young lady, of whom he would

probably never have heard, had it not been for them?

Just about the time when he paid her this remarkable attention, Miss

Harriett Westbrook subscribed for a copy of the poems, on the point of

being published, by Miss Janetta Phillips, a young lady in whom he was

warmly interested; a young lady of whom she doubtless heard through him or

his sisters, and whose name would probably have never come to her ear had

it not been for him or them. It is suggested by Mr. Denis Florence

MacCarthy that Harriett Westbrook gave her name to the roll of Miss

Janetta Phillips's subscribers at the instance of Miss Hellen Shelley, and

that the copy of _St. Irvyne_ sent to Miss Harriett Westbrook was

Shelley's acknowledgment of her expression of concern in the enterprise of

his literary _protégée_. Probably the affair should be taken the other way

about. It is more likely that Miss Harriett's subscription to Miss

Janetta's poems was consequent on Shelley's gift of the copy of the novel.

There is no evidence that subscribers for Miss Janetta's poems were being

sought so early as the Christmas holidays (1810-11), and there is good

evidence that the list of those subscribers was not completed and made out

for publication till after Lady-day, 1811. I am, therefore, more disposed

to think Miss Harriett Westbrook subscribed for the poems at Shelley's

instance, and in acknowledgment of his civility in sending her the copy of

_St. Irvyne_, than to regard the gift of the novel as the author's

acknowledgment of her complaisance in subscribing for the poems. But if

Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy is right on this point, Miss Harriett

Westbrook's act in subscribing for the poems _may be_ regarded as an act,

done less for the gratification of one of Shelley's sisters than for the

gratification of Shelley himself, and _must be_ regarded as an act done,

more or less, for the gratification of the young man of whom she can have

heard only through his sisters. Hence the young lady's subscription for

the poems becomes another indication of the existence of an influence at

Field Place, disposing the poet to entertain feelings of friendliness for

'the beauty' of the Clapham boarding-school. Why, it has already been

asked, was Miss Harriett Westbrook the only one of his sisters'

school-fellows to whom he sent a copy of his novel? Why, it must be also

asked, was she the only one of their school-fellows to subscribe for the

poems, for whose success he was so desirous? The questions can only be

answered in a way, pointing to the existence at Field Place of an

influence, to which the act of subscription was directly, or indirectly,

referable.

Whilst readily admitting that the facts of the case sustain and justify a

strong opinion that Miss Hellen Shelley (_ætat._ 11), and Miss Mary

Shelley (_ætat._ 13), talked about their school-fellow Harriett, so as to

make their brother curious about and interested in her, readers may fairly

object (in respect to Miss Elizabeth Shelley) that it is unusual for a

young gentlewoman of the mature age of sixteen years to use her influence,

or be in a position to exercise any influence, over her brother (_ætat._

18) to make him fall in love with a young lady he has not seen. It may

also be further objected that, as she is not known to have been personally

acquainted with Miss Harriett Westbrook, it is especially difficult to

imagine that Miss Elizabeth Shelley made any efforts to compass her

brother's marriage with her younger sisters' school-fellow. There is force

in both of these objections. It must, however, be remembered that, as she

had been a pupil at the Clapham Common school, Miss Elizabeth Shelley (now

in her seventeenth year) may have been at school with Miss Harriett

Westbrook, still only in her sixteenth year. She may (in the absence of

evidence to the contrary) be fairly assumed to have known Miss Harriett

Westbrook by personal observation as well as by report--to have

remembered, as a delightful little girl, the same Harriett who was an

unutterably beautiful 'great girl' in the eyes of Mary and Hellen.

It is of more importance for readers to remember how unusual were the

relations in which Elizabeth stood to her elder brother. It is on the

record (so as to put the facts beyond dispute) that, throughout his suit

to and correspondence with his cousin Harriett, Shelley made a confidante

of his sister respecting his passion for that lovely girl; that he

especially commissioned his eldest sister to plead for him to the object

of his passion; and that in his disappointment at the failure of his suit

to his cousin, he threw himself on his sister for sympathy, consolation,

and counsel. It is no less clear on the record that, during those

Christmas holidays of 1810-11, Miss Elizabeth Shelley, whilst sympathizing

with his sorrow, was for some days in fear that in the agitations of his

grief he would destroy himself. It matters not that Shelley never

seriously thought of committing suicide; it is enough that his sister

believed him to be meditating and capable of self-destruction. 'My eldest

sister,' Miss Hellen Shelley wrote in 1855, or thereabouts, 'has

frequently told me how narrowly she used to watch him, and accompany him

in his walks with his dog and gun.' Moreover, whilst Shelley was in his

trouble seeking consolation and counsel from his eldest sister, he was

influencing her to fall in love with a young man she had never seen, and

to that end was speaking to her of his friend Hogg in terms which made her

fully aware of his purpose. Under these circumstances it would not be

surprising, could it be shown that sister (whom for _her_ happiness he was

training and luring to love a man she had never seen) conceived a purpose

of turning the tables upon him, and making him (for _his_ happiness) fall

in love with a girl on whom he had not set eyes. Under these

circumstances, what more natural than for her to do him a service

corresponding to the service he was set openly on doing her?

Anyhow, it is certain, that having conceived an interest in Miss Harriett

Westbrook, when he can have known nothing of her except from his sisters,

Shelley did not return to Oxford at the close of the Christmas vacation,

without having seen the young lady, and made arrangements for

corresponding with her.

In his article on _Shelley in Pall Mall_, Mr. Garnett is good enough to

promise that, when it shall suit his convenience to do so, he will lay

before the world 'an interesting but unpublished document,' in evidence

that the poet first saw Harriett Westbrook in January 1811. It is very

kind of Mr. Garnett to make this promise; but as it has been known for

more than a quarter of a century to all the world (with the exception of

Shelleyan specialists) that Shelley made Miss Harriett Westbrook's

acquaintance in that month, Mr. Garnett may as well keep his 'interesting

but unpublished document' to himself, if it cannot afford any further

information about the poet. In an extremely entertaining letter, to which

reference has been made in a previous chapter of this work (a letter to be

found in Hogg's much-abused _Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley_), Mr. Charles

Henry Grove, the poet's cousin, says:--

'During the Christmas vacation of that year, and in January 1811, I

spent part of it at Field Place, and when we returned to London, his

sister Mary sent a letter of introduction with a present to her

schoolfellow, Miss Westbrook, which Bysshe and I were to take to her.

I recollect we did so, calling at Mr. Westbrook's house.'

It has been often represented that Shelley was indebted to 'little Hellen'

for his first introduction to the girl who became, a few months later, his

first wife. It has been no less often represented that Shelley made his

first wife's acquaintance only a few weeks before their marriage; that he

made her acquaintance _at_ Mrs. Fenning's house; and that he was inveigled

into the marriage without being allowed the usual opportunities for

studying the girl's character. Readers, therefore, will do well to observe

that he saw her for the first time under her father's roof; that he made

her acquaintance there because he went there for the purpose of making it;

that, on the occasion of this first visit to Mr. Westbrook's house, he

went there with a letter of introduction to the young lady from his sister

Mary; that he, on the same occasion, brought the young lady a present from

his sister Mary; that he made this call upon the young lady in the company

of one of the gentlemen of his family; that this visit must be assumed to

have been paid with the cognizance of Miss Elizabeth Shelley (his eldest

sister); that, from the date of this visit, he and the young lady were in

the habit of exchanging letters; that he did not marry her till he had

corresponded with and otherwise known her intimately for eight full

months; that he did not marry her till he had lured her from Christianity

into atheism; that, instead of marrying her (a sixteen-years-old child)

with her father's consent, he stole her from her father's keeping, even as

(less than three years later) he lured another sixteen-years-old girl from

the roof of her father, who was his intimate friend.

All these statements are matters of fact, and yet Mr. Garnett says the

time will come, when 'it will for the first time be clearly understood how

slight was the acquaintance of Shelley and Harriet, previous to their

marriage; what advantage was taken of his _chivalry of sentiment_, and her

compliant disposition, and the inexperience of both.'

Returning to Oxford for the Lent term, after making Miss Harriett

Westbrook's acquaintance, Shelley returned to the same kind of life, in

which he found various excitements and congenial diversions in the eight

weeks preceding the Christmas holidays. There was no diminution in his

familiarity with and affection for Hogg. Again, the young men took long

walks in the neighbourhood of Oxford, and committed boyish extravagances

of costume and demeanour that made the gownsmen titter over their wine in

the common rooms. They still hoped to be brothers-in-law, and looked

forward to the Easter Vacation as a time for winning Miss Elizabeth

Shelley's acquiescence in their project for the union of their respective

families. They wrote letters, and got through a good deal of desultory

reading, in company with one another. They resumed their old practice of

talking with much volubility and vehemence on subjects of which they knew

little, from ten p.m. till two hours past midnight. Whilst Hogg persisted

in reading for honours, Shelley turned over a good many books for

amusement. Instead of writing to Miss Harriett Grove, he wrote letters to

Miss Harriett Westbrook. At the same time he was making efforts to

lengthen the list of subscribers for Miss Janetta Phillips's poems.

Having in the Christmas holidays scolded off his reasonable displeasure

with his heir, and taken him once again into his favour, Mr. Timothy

Shelley wrote the youngster letters of good advice, begging him to read

hard and distinguish himself at the University; letters which the son and

his friend turned to excellent fun. Whilst the Squire of Field Place thus

evinced a disposition to live on better terms with his boy, there were

signs of a corresponding disposition on Shelley's part, to live on better

terms with his father. Anyhow, it was partly to please the Member of

Parliament for New Shoreham, that the undergraduate promised to compete

for the next Prize Poem,--a promise that vastly delighted the elder Mr.

Shelley, who honoured letters without being qualified to excel in them,

and desired very much to speak of his son as an Oxford Prizeman. The

subject for 'the Newdigate,' was _Parthenon_, and as soon as Shelley had

consented to his father's desire, so far as to say he would go in for the

Prize (eventually awarded to Mr. R. Burdon, of Oriel College), the

jubilant Squire of Field Place went off to his particular friend, the

Reverend Edward Dallaway, Vicar of Leatherhead, and historian of Sussex,

and begged the sound scholar and famous antiquary, to put his erudition at

the service of the poetical undergraduate. The result of this kindly

busy-bodyism on the part of an honest gentleman, who certainly sometimes

did his best to be a good father to a worse than indifferent son, was that

Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley, of University College, received a long letter

from Mr. Dallaway, together with charts, sketches, and documents, which

might have been useful to the young poet, had he remained long enough at

the University to complete the poem (which he began), and send it in to

the judges.

In one respect, the present writer may have described Shelley's academic

life too favourably. Too much may have been said of the purity of the

poet's personal tastes, and of his aversion to pleasures that are

fascinating only to the sensual. If he has erred in this particular, the

writer has not failed through ignorance of matters, making for another and

less agreeable view of the undergraduate's ways of amusing himself at

Oxford, but through a determination to say nothing on insufficient

evidence to the discredit of a remarkable man, whose life affords too many

occasions for necessary censure.

When anything is needlessly blurted to Shelley's shame, the injurious

statement is usually made by one of his idolaters, acting the proverbial

part of a 'candid friend.' It is so in the case of what has been urged

against the prevailing testimony to the purity and refinement of the

Oxonian Shelley's personal habits and tastes.

'Accident,' says Mr. Thornton Hunt--one of Hogg's vituperators, and

one of Shelley's idolaters--'has made me aware of facts which give me

to understand that in passing through the usual curriculum of a

college life in all its paths, Shelley did not go scatheless; but

that, in tampering with venal pleasures, his health was seriously and

not transiently injured. The effect was far greater on his mind than

on his body.'

It is needless to specify the pleasures to which Mr. Thornton Hunt points.

The pleasures which may be bought, and often attract young men in their

hours of idleness, and sometimes result in consequences permanently

injurious to their health, are not so numerous as to make the reader

doubtful as to the nature of the pleasures thus boldly indicated. But Mr.

Thornton Hunt's statement has features which will dispose readers to

question the sufficiency of his information. As Shelley never passed

'through the usual curriculum of a college life,' he can scarcely have

passed through it 'in all its paths' (whatever that may mean):--but let

that pass. It is enough that Mr. Thornton Hunt is unambiguous as to the

class of the pleasures. It is not, however, so clear how those pleasures,

which can only injure the mind through the body, should in Shelley's case

have been so much less baneful to the body than the mind. As Mr. Thornton

Hunt seems to have gained his facts from a loose talker or writer, it is

only fair and charitable to the poet to suppose that his 'frank friend'

got his facts from an altogether unreliable reporter. It may, of course,

be that in a transient fit of rakishness Shelley was so unfortunate as to

encounter mischance, which habitual rakes may be so lucky as to escape.

But the abundant evidences to the point satisfy me that 'rakishness' was

foreign to Shelley's general way of living at the University,--that, in

respect to common kinds of dissipation, his habits accorded with the

manners of Victorian much more closely than with the manners of Georgian

Oxford.

To pass from a matter about which Mr. Thornton Hunt might as well have

been silent, to an affair of several incidents, which, though notorious,

must be recorded precisely and fully, because they have never been

narrated correctly;--the incidents that closed with Shelley's expulsion

from University College, Oxford.

Whilst rejecting, with his usual good sense, Hogg's apologetic and

untruthful account of Shelley's motives and purpose in writing and

publishing (for he did both) _The Necessity of Atheism_, Mr. William

Rossetti remarks:--

'In this case, as in others, the honestest and boldest course is also

the safest: and we shall do well to understand once for all that Percy

Shelley had as good a right to form and expound his opinions on

theology as the Archbishop of Canterbury had to his. Certainly Shelley

differed from the Archbishop, and from several other students of, and

speculators on the subject, past and present; but, as there was no

obligation on him to agree with all, or any of them, so there is

nothing to be explained away or toned down when we find that in fact

he dissented.'

Had Mr. Rossetti been educated at Oxford or Cambridge in his boyhood, he

would not have put these words in print. Like the Archbishop of

Canterbury, or any other man, Shelley had, of course, a natural right to

hold and declare what he believed to be the truth on questions of

religion. In civilized communities, however, natural rights are in some

cases necessarily put under limitations, or altogether taken from

individuals,--are partially or wholly relinquished by individuals,--for

the welfare and good order of the societies of which they are members.

Archbishop Manners Sutton had, no doubt, like every other man, a natural

right to his own opinions on matters pertaining to religion, and to

proclaim those opinions. But this right was limited in his case not only

by obligations put upon him as a citizen, but also by official obligations

put upon him as Primate of the Anglican Church. So long as he remained in

his sacerdotal office he was bound in conscience to hold no opinions at

variance with the doctrines of the Church of England, and bound even more

stringently in conscience, and by social law, to refrain from publishing

opinions calculated to discredit those doctrines. Had he relinquished his

sacred office and orders, he would have recovered that much of his natural

right to think and say anything he believed to be true, which was not

denied to him by mere obligations of citizenship. On returning as far as

possible to the position and quality of a layman, he would have recovered

the right of a layman to limited freedom of speech on matters of

religion,--_i.e._ so much of the natural right to free thought and

utterance as in his time was allowed by the law of the land to every

person of his nation. But, so long as he remained Archbishop, his natural

right to be heterodox, and to teach heterodoxy, was wholly dormant.

In like manner, as a member of the University of Oxford (a society he had

joined of his own free will; a society from which he did not wish to be

withdrawn when, in December, 1810, his father threatened to withdraw him

from it), Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley was bound to act as though he were a

sincere son of the National Church, and to do nothing that was likely to

put his orthodoxy in suspicion. Far from being under 'no obligation to

agree with all or any' of the doctrines of the Church of England (as Mr.

Rossetti avers), he was under clear, strong, and stringent obligations to

agree with every one of those doctrines. It may have always been, and

recent legislation has declared that it _was_ (if not in Shelley's time,

at least in later time) unjust and impolitic in the law of the land to

confine the Universities within limits, and hold them under restrictions,

that rendered them at most nothing more than superb seminaries for the

larger part of the nation, instead of seats of learning for the whole

nation. In the present work, however, there is no need to ask whether

those limits and restrictions were ever needful, or whether they were

salutary after ceasing to be needful, or whether they should have been

removed sooner than the recent year (1871) that saw the abolition of the

University Religious Tests. It is enough for Shelley's biographers to know

that, when the poet matriculated at Oxford, no one was allowed to enter

the University without solemnly declaring himself a member of the National

Church, and subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles in demonstration of the

truth of his declaration. Conformity to the doctrines and uses, of the

Church was the condition of admittance to the University. It was also the

condition under which every matriculated student continued to enjoy the

privileges and partake of the benefits of the University. Every member of

the University, besides being a member of the Church, was required to be a

communicant of the Church,--taking the Sacrament at appointed times in the

chapel of his college.

In respect to this last particular, it was usual for the academic 'dons'

to have regard for the religious scruples of undergraduates, whose

consciousness of evil living made them feel they would be guilty of

presumption in coming to the Lord's Table. On going to the Dean of his

college, or his tutor, and making confession of his unfitness to

communicate, the undergraduate of light manners and tender conscience

received permission to be absent from the approaching celebration, on the

understanding that he made a suitable contribution to the alms, gathered

on the occasion for charitable uses. In most colleges it was understood

that the undergraduate who thus avoided the communion should give a guinea

to the offertory; a requirement to which the applicant for the

dispensation could not object on conscientious grounds. Hence the usage

which in course of time gave occasion for the statement that the

dispensation was _bought_ for a guinea, and the still more perverse

statement that undergraduates took the Sacrament at the Universities _in

order_ to escape the exaction of twenty-one shillings. In her remarks on

the defective discipline and morality of our national seminaries, in the

_Vindication of the Rights of Woman_, Mary Wollstonecraft says, 'What good

can be expected from the youth who receives the Sacrament of the Lord's

Supper to avoid forfeiting a guinea, which he probably afterwards spends

in some sensual manner?' The offering, which Mary Wollstonecraft regarded

as a guinea forfeit, was in its origin nothing else than the voluntary

donation of the conscientious student who said to his tutor, 'Though I am

not worthy to be a partaker of the Holy Communion, I may be permitted to

give to the poor.'

Of Shelley, indeed, it is not unfair to say that he was quite capable of

taking the Sacrament in order to have a guinea the more for his pleasure.

It is certain that, whilst openly deriding Christianity, and denying the

existence of God, he could take the Sacrament, from a lighter motive than

a desire to husband his pocket-money. The levity with which he could take

the Sacrament, and afterwards allude to the act as a pretty piece of

drollery, is (to use no stronger language) startlingly offensive. Whilst

lodging in Poland Street, Oxford Street, immediately after his expulsion

from University College, Oxford, he wrote to Hogg (24th April, 1811) of

Harriett Westbrook and her elder sister:--

'My little friend, Harriet W., is gone to her prison-house. She is

quite well in health; at least, so she says, though she looks very

much otherwise. I saw her yesterday. I went with her sister to Miss

H.'s [? F.'s] and walked about Clapham Common with them for two hours.

The youngest is a most amiable girl; the eldest is really conceited,

but very condescending. _I took the Sacrament with her on Sunday!!!_'

With the same levity, he took the Sacrament, seven or eight weeks later,

in Sussex, after returning to Field Place. Writing to Hogg from Horsham on

16th June, 1811, he says, 'I am going to take the sacrament. In spite of

my melancholy reflections, the idea rather amuses and soothes me!!!' This

from the youthful zealot and martyr for Free Thought, who, according to

some of his idolaters, was driven from Oxford because his singular

earnestness and sincerity would not permit him to acquiesce hypocritically

in a faith he disbelieved, or in usages he deemed superstitious!

Whilst the University was held within these religious limits, it was one

of the prime duties of the academic authorities to take due care for the

maintenance of the religious uniformity required by the law of the land.

For the wisdom or impolicy of the law they were no more accountable than

any judge is accountable for the justice or impolicy of the law he is

appointed to administer. It was not for them to make reply or reason why,

but to see that the law for uniformity of religious sentiment was duly

respected by the gownsmen of every academic grade. Had the Master and

Fellows of any college winked at any irregularities tending to defeat the

law within their house, they would have been guilty of a heinous breach of

trust. It is needful to insist on this obvious fact, because, through the

influence of books and articles, written for the most part by gentlemen

who were not educated at either Oxford or Cambridge, the notion has arisen

that the Master and Fellows of Shelley's college might with propriety have

forborne to call him to account for publishing a work at Oxford to

demonstrate the necessity of atheism; that they are chargeable with

mischievous indiscretion, and a flagrant excess of duty, in taking notice

of the tract he wrote and offered for sale at Oxford. Mr. Garnett is of

opinion that by merely leaving Shelley alone 'the Oxford authorities ...

might have preserved an illustrious modern ornament of their University.'

To think with Mr. Garnett on this point is to forget that to preserve to

the University a young gentleman who might one day write excellent poetry

was not the first duty of those authorities. It is to forget that they

were bound to have due care for the religious order and discipline

demanded by the law of the land.

It is easier to discover laxity and indifference than the vexatious

indiscretions of an excessive zeal in the measures employed by those

authorities for the maintenance and preservation of religious uniformity.

Acting too much rather than too little like men of the world, too little

rather than too much like cloistered enthusiasts, they allowed their

undergraduates as far as possible to go their own way, reading whatever

they pleased, saying whatever they liked amongst themselves. When he

remarked approvingly of the authorities of his college, 'They are very

civil to us here: they never interfere with us,' Shelley described

precisely the method of academic government, that, according to Mr.

Garnett, would have preserved Shelley to the University. In respect to

affairs of religion no less than other matters, the undergraduates were

treated civilly; put as gentlemen upon their honour, taken as gentlemen at

their word, allowed the largest possible liberty, interfered with as

little as possible. At matriculation the undergraduate was subjected to no

searching examination, for the discovery of the weak points of his

orthodoxy. It was enough that he made the usual declaration and

subscription with the simple honesty and good faith to be looked for in

young Englishmen. After matriculation he was allowed an almost perilous

freedom. He did not live, like the students of some religious seminaries,

under constant surveillance and espionage. He had no fear that, during his

absence from his rooms, strange eyes would inspect his private books and

search his private papers. He was not harassed with divinity lectures,

attended with questions nicely devised for entrapping him into revelations

of theological unsoundness. Heterodoxy was not sniffed, scented, hunted

down and punished in him and his companions, as heresy was detected and

denounced in the colleges of the sixteenth century by spies and

eavesdroppers. It was enough for the 'dons' of his particular college and

the other authorities of the University, that he attended chapel with

sufficient frequency, and took the Sacrament in accordance with the rules

of 'the house.' Just as he was credited with sincerity at matriculation,

when he subscribed the Articles, it was assumed that he attended chapel as

a sincere member of the Church of England. If he asked for exemption from

attendance at the next celebration of the Lord's Supper, the request was

not regarded as an indication of heterodoxy. Throughout his terms, in the

absence of clear and unlooked-for evidence to the contrary, it was

inferred from his fair observance of religious forms, that he was an

honest Churchman. To what further point could _laisser-faire_ indulgence

be carried with safety? In this manner Shelley was treated in respect to

matters of religion by the rulers of his college, who are said to have

worried him with vexatious interference and insulting requirements. The

boy of eighteen years was dealt with in this fashion. Yet we are told that

all would have gone well with him at Oxford, had the Master and Fellows of

the University only left him alone.

Because religious uniformity was maintained with the least possible

interference with the liberty of individuals, it would be a mistake to

imagine it was not maintained effectually. Of late the fashion has arisen

to speak of the religious forms, that were used for the preservation of

this uniformity, as vain and idle forms. A moment's consideration will

satisfy the fair and judicial reader that this fashion is an unjust one.

Surely the forms were not vain and idle, that excluded from the

Universities the young men of our non-conforming families; that yearly

drove to other and inferior seminaries some three or four hundred young

men of our fairly prosperous families, who, but for those forms, would

have sought their higher education at Oxford and Cambridge. To assume that

those forms were less influential within the Universities than in families

having no connection with the Established Church, is to assume that

English Dissenters surpassed English Churchmen greatly in truthfulness.

Doubtless the Oxonians of Georgian England comprised a small percentage of

undergraduates who were extreme free-thinkers, and a more considerable

percentage of young men, who, after subscribing the Articles in levity,

and with an imperfect knowledge of their contents, passed their academic

terms in frivolity and dissoluteness. But it cannot be doubted that the

religious requirements and observances of the University operated as an

efficacious discipline on the majority of the students. The same

requirements and observances were also influential on every undergraduate,

whatever his secret sentiments and his manner of living, in reminding him

that the University was a school for members of the Church of England and

for no other persons, that as a member of the University he was bound to

live in apparent conformity to the National Church, and that he would

forfeit his right to remain in the University by repudiating the doctrines

of the Church. In Shelley's academic time, every undergraduate knew that

by publishing a work to discredit the fundamental doctrines of

Christianity he would render himself liable to banishment from the

University, and that the authorities of his college would be constrained

by their official obligations to take prompt action for his punishment,

and in case he persisted in his flagrant heterodoxy to expel him. It is

certain that Shelley's view of his academic obligations and

responsibilities differed widely from Mr. Rossetti's erroneous view of

them. That he published _The Necessity of Atheism_ anonymously, that he

made a secret of his authorship of the work, that he declined to answer

'yea' or 'nay' to the inquiry whether he wrote the tract, are sufficient

testimony that he was alive to the nature and consequences of the offence

of which he had been guilty. Evidence under Shelley's own hand has already

been produced that, instead of imagining himself at liberty to hold and

expound any opinions he pleased, he was well aware that, as a member of

the University, he was precluded from publishing certain opinions. On 2nd

March, 1811, at the very moment of publishing _The Necessity of Atheism_,

he wrote from University College, to Leigh Hunt: '_On account of the

responsibility to which my residence in this University subjects me, I, of

course, dare not publicly avow all that I think_.' The writer of these

words was better informed than most of his biographers respecting the

obligations of an Oxford undergraduate.

Had he been so remarkably out-spoken and truth-loving, as Lady Shelley

declares him to have been, Shelley would not have entered Oxford with a

falsehood on his lips, by a solemn declaration that he believed what he

disbelieved. Though he believed in the existence of God till the later

part of the Christmas vacation (1810-11), he had ceased to believe in the

divinity of Christ before he went to Oxford. At the time of his

matriculation he was not a Christian; yet he went before the authorities

of University College and of the University, and declared himself a

believer in Christianity, and an honest member of the Church of England.

How are we to account for the conduct of this singularly out-spoken and

truth-loving Shelley in stating thus deliberately and solemnly what he

knew was untrue?

It may be said that other young men in 1810 told the same untruths for

their convenience and advantage. Doubtless, a few other young men were

guilty of the same untruths. But no one has ventured to extol them for

singular candour, veracity, and moral courage. How came the singularly

out-spoken and truth-loving Shelley to utter the solemn falsehoods? Had he

been so out-spoken and truth-loving, surely he would have said, 'I will

not go to Oxford, because I can only enter the University by means of

enormous untruths.' In the year of his matriculation every English county

had young men, every considerable English town had young men, who would

gladly have gone to Oxford and Cambridge for the advantages of University

education, could they have done so without falsehood;--young men who

entered on the battle of life with inferior culture and at serious

disadvantages, because to get admittance to the Universities it would be

necessary for them to be untruthful. No one has ever thought of commending

these young men for any peculiar elevation of character, because they

refrained from telling a lie and entering on a course of hypocrisy, that

would in some considerable respects have been beneficial to them. They

deserved no such commendation; for their conduct merely proved they were

not wanting in the ordinary truthfulness and honesty, which parliament

assumed ordinary Englishmen to possess, as a matter of course, when it was

determined to exclude Non-conformists from the Universities. How came the

singularly out-spoken and truth-loving Shelley to be so much less than

ordinarily truthful in this business?

It cannot be pleaded in his excuse, as it can be pleaded in behalf of the

many youngsters who subscribed the Articles with commonplace carelessness,

that he had not given much consideration to the Articles and Christian

evidences; that he took it for granted they were all right; that, though

he may have been wrong to trust in so serious a business to vague and

general impressions, he did not know the Articles comprised tenets from

which he differed. It cannot be urged in palliation of his falseness that

by declining to go to one of the Universities he would have thrown away

his only or his best chance of rising to a position of dignity and

comfort. Nor can it be suggested that, knowing his father wished him to go

to the University, and to distinguish himself there, so dutiful and loving

a son did not like to disappoint his sire's paternal ambition. Shelley

went to Oxford merely to please himself; and, in order to have the

pleasure of living at Oxford with congenial companions, he entered the

University under cover of falsehood, declaring he was a Christian when he

knew he was not a Christian. He entered Oxford under cover of this

falsehood, well knowing that to a man of his opinions the usual residence

at Oxford would be a course of hypocrisy. Other young men (though, unless

I err, _not many_ young men) have done likewise. But it would be absurd to

commend them for being especially out-spoken and truth-loving.

During the Michaelmas term of 1810, Shelley amused himself by luring

persons, whom he knew only by name and reputation, into corresponding with

him on religious questions, just as in former time he had drawn strangers

into controversy on questions of natural science. Addressing these people

under a false name and address, he caused them to imagine they were

replying to the letters of a person, troubled with doubts and honestly

desirous of information and guidance for the solution of the difficulties.

To account for the secresy and misrepresentations, with which Shelley

approached the individuals he thus lured into religious controversy, it is

recorded in Hogg's _Life_ that, whilst at Eton, the youthful disputant

about gases was threatened by an angry chemist with exposure to Dr. Keate,

who would not fail to whip him into a healthier state of mind. On being

thus reminded how unfavourable the discipline of his school was to equally

frank and free inquiry, the schoolboy adopted a course that, without

affecting the freedom of his inquiries, would guard him from some of the

consequences of perilous frankness. An anonymous letter-writer at Eton to

save his skin, Shelley was an anonymous letter-writer at Oxford to save

his credit for religious conformity with the 'dons.' Instead of using only

one _nom-de-plume_ in these affairs of deceitful correspondence, Shelley

employed several _aliases_ for his more effectual concealment; and whilst

using different names he misdescribed himself in various ways to the

persons with whom he held intercourse through the post.

Whilst some of his correspondents were given to understand that he was a

sceptical layman, others were led to imagine him a sceptic in holy orders.

The prelates and other learned divines who answered his letters answered

them under misconceptions, arising chiefly or altogether from his

misstatements. At least on one occasion he signed with a woman's name,

that of course accorded with the tenor, tone, and handwriting of the

epistle to which it was appended. The bishop, whom the poet thus lured in

controversy (_vide_ Medwin's _Life_, I. p. 119), was under the impression

that his correspondent was a gentlewoman. Referring to the day he passed

with his cousin at Oxford in Lent term, 1811, Medwin remarks:--

'He showed and read to me many letters he had received in

controversies he had originated with learned divines; among the rest

with a bishop, under the assumed name of a woman.... It is to be

lamented,' Medwin adds, 'that all his letters written at this time

should have perished, as they would throw light on the speculations of

his active and inquiring mind.'

Whether they would materially enlarge our knowledge of the poet's

intellectual and moral constitution is questionable; but it cannot be

doubted the recovery of the vanished epistles would afford some curious

examples of the untruthfulness of which the singularly outspoken and

truth-loving Shelley was capable. Instead of expressing, or hinting

disapproval of his cousin's duplicity, Mr. Medwin only regrets so few

illustrations of so droll a practice should have been preserved. To Mr.

Medwin the whole business of these Shelleyan fabrications appears equally

innocent and diverting; and in this respect he resembles the Shelleyan

enthusiasts of later time, who regard the same evidence of the

truth-loving Shelley's staggering untruthfulness, merely as so much

testimony that he was an exceedingly clever and amusing young gentleman,

and that the learned divines whom he tricked with untruths must have been

stupid fellows and sad simpletons.

To persons of sufficient culture and sensibility, as well as of sufficient

sobriety, to delight in Shelley's poetry, without at the same time

thinking he might have been the Saviour of the World, it is not obvious

why Shelley should be held guiltless of untruth when he wrote to a Bishop

of the Church of England that he was a lady, and as a lady threw himself

upon the same Bishop's charitable consideration. Of course Shelley had a

powerful imagination. That is a fact which the Shelleyan enthusiasts take

care we should not forget. But it is inconceivable (_surely_ it is

inconceivable even to the Shelleyan enthusiasts) that, whilst writing to

the Right Reverend Father in God, the undergraduate of University College,

Oxford, believed that he really was a young lady, and that as a young lady

he might claim a large measure of the Bishop's charitable aid and

sympathy. To sober and fairly intelligent persons it appears, that,

whether it is composed to win confidence which shall be fruitful of a few

half-crowns, or to win such confidence as shall dispose its receiver to

expend time and labour for the sender's advantage, a letter of false

pretences is an act of imposture, of which rogues are likely, and no quite

honest gentleman is at all likely, to be guilty. For myself,--in the

course of every year I receive several letters from strangers asking me to

give them money; and as many letters from strangers of education and

apparent honesty asking me to give them time and labour and judgment, for

their assistance in their literary enterprises. I answer some of the

former letters after inquiry, and I answer all the latter letters without

suspicious inquiry, from a mere wholesome habit of believing what people

say. But should it come to my knowledge that a writer of any of those

latter letters had lured me by false representations into troubling myself

about his affairs, I should naturally think the letter-writer an impostor,

and think myself the victim of imposture.

The letters that passed between Hogg and Shelley during the Christmas

vacation (1810-11) afford evidence that throughout the holidays the future

poet found diversion in incidents arising out of his deceitful and

delusive correspondence with persons, to whom he was not known personally.

Respecting one of his correspondents--the 'W.' whom Mr. MacCarthy mistook

for William Godwin--Shelley wrote on 20th December, 1810:--'I wrote to him

when in London, by way of a gentle alterative. He promised to write to me

when he had time, seemed surprised at what I said, yet directed to me as

the Reverend: his amazement must be extreme.'

No one knew better than this interesting young gentleman, what good cause

W. had for amazement with his reverend correspondent. After the Christmas

vacation, Shelley returned to University College with a strong disposition

to enlarge his correspondence with strangers, and to extend the field of

his operations for disturbing people in their religious opinions. Having

left Oxford in December, believing in the existence of God, he returned to

Oxford in January with the conviction that there was no God. In Michaelmas

term (1810) he had regarded Christianity as a rather narrowing and

otherwise baneful delusion, from which people should be weaned. In Lent

term (1811) he regarded all religions as unutterably hateful, as alike

injurious to human nature and destructive to human happiness. Anger at the

religious steadfastness and intolerance, which determined Miss Harriett

Grove to dismiss him from her acquaintance, had determined him to kill

every religion, so that no religion should be left for people to be

intolerant about. Having left Oxford, in December, with an opinion that

all religions were equally ridiculous, he returned to Oxford, in January,

with the opinion that all religions were equally detestable,--with the

resolve to _slay_ religious intolerance, to _stab her secretly_, by

secretly stabbing and slaying the religious faith that, besides being the

generator, was the vital force, of religious intolerance. To slay

intolerance, the arch-enemy and arch-destroyer of the sweetest human

affections and the most sacred social ties, he would slay creed,--stabbing

her secretly, whilst wearing the disguise of a Christian. In December

(1810) it satisfied him to deride Christianity; at the end of January

(1811) he was determined to kill the belief in God. Any reader who thinks

I have overstated the purpose of this undergraduate (whose feeble pen had

produced nothing stronger than _St. Irvyne_), will cease to think so,

after perusing attentively and judicially the letters which he wrote to

Hogg, during the Christmas holidays.

In the execution of this determination to slay the belief in God (by

stabbing it secretly), this singularly outspoken and truthful Shelley,

whilst still pretending to be a Christian by remaining at Oxford and

attending the religious services of his college chapel, wrote (with Hogg's

help) _anonymously_, and circulated _secretly_ with anonymous or false

letters, the following tract (which readers of this work should peruse

deliberately) on

THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM.

'A close examination of the validity of the proofs adduced to support

any proposition, has ever been allowed to be the only sure way of

attaining truth, upon the advantages of which it is unnecessary to

descant; our knowledge of the existence of a Deity is a subject of

such importance, that it cannot be too minutely investigated; in

consequence of this conviction, we proceed briefly and impartially to

examine the proofs which have been adduced. It is necessary first to

consider the nature of Belief.

'When a proposition is offered to the mind, it perceives the agreement

or disagreement of the ideas of which it is composed. A perception of

their agreement is termed belief, many obstacles frequently prevent

this perception from being immediate, these the mind attempts to

remove in order that the perception may be distinct. The mind is

active in the investigation, in order to perfect the state of

perception which is passive; the investigation being confused with the

perception has induced many falsely to imagine that the mind is active

in belief, that belief is an act of volition, in consequence of which

it may be regulated by the mind; pursuing, continuing this mistake

they have attached a degree of criminality to disbelief of which in

its nature it is incapable; it is equally so of merit.

'The strength of belief like that of every other passion is in

proportion to the degrees of excitement.

'The degrees of excitement are three.

'The senses are the sources of all knowledge to the mind, consequently

their evidence claims the strongest assent.

'The decision of the mind founded upon our own experience derived from

these sources, claims the next degree.

'The experience of others, which addresses itself to the former one,

occupies the lowest degree.--

'Consequently no testimony can be admitted which is contrary to

reason, reason is founded on the evidence of our senses.

'Every proof may be referred to one of these three divisions; we are

naturally led to consider what arguments we receive from each of them

to convince us of the existence of a Deity.

'1st. The evidence of the senses.--If the Deity should appear to us,

if he should convince our senses of his existence, this revelation

would necessarily command belief:--Those to whom the Deity has thus

appeared, have the strongest possible conviction of his existence.

'Reason claims the 2nd place, it is urged that man knows that whatever

is, must either have had a beginning or existed from all eternity, he

also knows that whatever is not eternal must have had a cause.--Where

this is applied to the existence of the universe, it is necessary to

prove that it was created; until that is clearly demonstrated, we may

reasonably suppose that it has endured from all eternity.--In a case

where two propositions are diametrically opposite, the mind believes

that which is less incomprehensible, it is easier to suppose that the

universe has existed from all eternity, than to conceive a being

capable of creating it; if the mind sinks beneath the weight of the

one, is it an alleviation to increase the intolerability of the

burden?--The other argument which is founded upon a man's knowledge

of his own existence stands thus:--A man knows not only he now is, but

that there was a time when he did not exist, consequently there must

have been a cause.--But what does this prove? we can only infer from

effects causes exactly adequate to those effects:--But there certainly

is a generative power which is effected by particular instruments; we

cannot prove that it is inherent in these instruments, nor is the

contrary hypothesis capable of demonstration; we admit that the

generative power is incomprehensible, but to suppose that the same

effect is produced by an eternal, omniscient, Almighty Being, leaves

the cause in the same obscurity, but renders it more incomprehensible.

'The 3rd and last degree of assent is claimed by Testimony--it is

required that it should not be contrary to reason.--The testimony that

the Deity convinces the senses of men of his existence can only be

admitted by us, if our mind considers it less probable that these men

should have been deceived, than that the Deity should have appeared to

them--our reason can never admit the testimony of men, who not only

declare that they were eye-witnesses of miracles but that the Deity

was irrational, for he commanded that he should be believed, he

proposed the highest rewards for faith, eternal punishments for

disbelief--we can only command voluntary actions, belief is not an act

of volition, the mind is even passive, from this it is evident that we

have not sufficient testimony, or rather that testimony is

insufficient to prove the being of a God, we have before shewn that it

cannot be deduced from reason,--they who have been convinced by the

evidence of the senses, they only can believe it.

'From this it is evident that having no proofs from any of the three

sources of conviction: the mind _cannot_ believe the existence of a

God, it is also evident that as belief is a passion of the mind, no

degree of criminality can be attached to disbelief, they only are

reprehensible who willingly neglect to remove the false medium thro'

which their mind views the subject.

'It is almost unnecessary to observe, that the general knowledge of

the deficiency of such proof, cannot be prejudicial to society: Truth

has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind.--Every

reflecting mind must allow that there is no proof of the existence of

a Deity. Q.E.D.'

On a separate leaf between the title-page and the first page of the text

of the tract the author put this

'Advertisement:--As a love of truth is the only motive which actuates

the Author of this little tract, he earnestly entreats that those of

his readers who may discover any deficiency in his reasoning, or may

be in possession of proofs which his mind could never obtain, would

offer them, together with their objections, to the Public, as briefly

as methodically, as plainly as he has taken the liberty of doing.

Thro' deficiency of proof,--An Atheist.'

In the middle of the title-page appears this title, 'Quod clarâ et

perspicuâ demonstratione careat pro vero habere mens omnino nequit

humana.'--_Bacon de Augment. Scient._; whilst at the foot of the same page

appears this announcement:--'Worthing.--Printed By E. & W. Phillips. Sold

in London and Oxford.' It having been so often asserted that this tract

was neither published nor printed with a view to ordinary publication,

readers should take note of the words, 'Sold in London and Oxford.' The

promise of these words was fulfilled, at least so far as Oxford was

concerned. Duly advertised in the _Oxford Herald_ of 9th February, 1811,

on the eve of its publication, the tract was offered for sale at Oxford in

the usual way. Even by Mr. Buxton Forman it is admitted that the tract

'was "on sale" in Oxford for twenty minutes.' Mr. Forman does not say who

counted the minutes. Possibly the expression was merely meant by Mr.

Forman to signify that the work was on sale for part only of a single day.

That it was no longer on sale within their jurisdiction was, of course,

due to the authorities of the University, whose prompt action for the

suppression of the work may be presumed to have been the direct or

indirect cause of the destruction of the copies of the pamphlet, lying in

the hands of the author's Oxford bookseller.

However they may differ about the literary style and logical force of this

tract, all fair readers must allow that it exhibits no signs of levity, no

indication of having been thrown off in jest as a satire on the class of

performances to which it really belongs. From the first line to the last,

it accords with the Atheist's declaration (in the advertisement) that he

is actuated by a love of truth, and is earnestly desirous that its

arguments may receive serious consideration. Yet it has been described as

a mere harmless piece of fun.

The Shelleyan apologists call attention to the brevity of the monograph,

as though it were a fact in Shelley's favour. It is suggested that serious

books are long books of many pages with many words on a page; and that so

short an essay (even if it was wrong of Shelley to produce it) should be

regarded as a trivial performance, and its publication as nothing worse

than a trivial indiscretion; the implication being that the Master and

Fellows of University College were guilty of monstrous injustice and

cruelty in expelling the author of so small a work. In thus prating about

the insignificant size of the work, these apologists resemble the peccant

maid-servant, who pleaded that, if she had given birth to an infant

without having gone through any form of lawful marriage, it should be

remembered, in palliation of the misdemeanour, that her baby was an

unusually little one. Writing from those 'authentic sources,' which have

afforded her much strange misinformation, Lady Shelley assures us that the

little pamphlet was a 'publication consisting of only two pages;' whereas

if she will only return to her original sources and count the duly

numbered pages, the author of _Shelley Memorials_ will discover that the

text of the small treatise occupies _seven pages_, besides the title-page

and the page exhibiting the 'advertisement,' which is no immaterial part

of the composition. How came Lady Shelley to count the pages so

carelessly? Lady Shelley is curiously wrong on other points about this

little pamphlet. 'In point of fact,' we are told by the lady who suffered

so acutely from Hogg's inaccuracies, 'the pamphlet did not contain any

positive assertion.' Why, the tract is made of positive assertions; it

would not be easy for Lady Shelley to find another tract of the same

length, containing a greater number of positive assertions. The tract

concludes with a sentence of these words:--'Every reflecting mind must

allow that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity;' words followed

by what the lady calls 'a Q. E. D.' What more does this assertion require

to render it 'positive?' Speaking from her original sources, Lady Shelley

tells us that Shelley wrote the little pamphlet 'hastily,' and 'with his

habitual disregard of consequences.' How a pamphlet, made up out of the

'very careful analysis' of Hume's _Essays_, which Shelley and his friend

had prepared in the previous term, can be said to have been written

hastily, is not apparent.

Hogg's narrative, and the extant letter that passed between him and

Shelley in the Christmas holidays, abound with evidence that the latter

came gradually to his opinions touching the non-existence of Deity, and

that the pamphlet was the result of much deliberation. It is no less

certain that instead of publishing the tract with 'habitual disregard of

consequences,' Shelley gave much thought to the consequences of a

discovery that he wrote it. Publishing it anonymously, he was at much

pains to keep the authorship a secret. Yet further we are assured by Lady

Shelley:--

'The publication ... seemed rather to imply, on the part of the

writer, a desire to obtain better reasoning on the side of commonly

received opinion, than any wish to overthrow with sudden violence the

grounds of men's belief.'

The reader who knows the circumstances under, and the end for, which the

pamphlet was produced, and has perused the _ipsissima verba_ of the tract,

may be left to form his own opinion of this example of the way in which

the authorities of Field Place would write the poet's history.

I would not be wanting in courtesy to Mr. Garnett of the British Museum,

of whom I would say nothing worse than that he is wildly and inexplicably

inaccurate in what he has written about _The Necessity of Atheism_. There

is a curious discrepancy between Lady Shelley's account and Mr. Garnett's

description of the famous tract. Whilst Lady Shelley regards the pamphlet

as a serious attempt to strengthen the evidences of the existence of the

Deity, by eliciting 'better reasoning on the side of the commonly

received' view, Mr. Garnett declares that the essay was a mere piece of

caustic playfulness. 'After Hogg's account of it,' says Mr. Garnett, in

his article on _Shelley in Pall Mall_, 'it is sufficiently clear that this

alarming performance was nothing else than a squib, prompted by the

decided success of the burlesque verses the friends had published in the

name of "My Aunt Margaret Nicholson."' A squib, in the sense suggested by

Mr. Garnett, is a flash of humour, a lampoon, a slight satire, a little

censorious writing. A learned gentleman, Mr. Garnett knows well enough

what 'squib' means, when it is applied to a little book. Yet he tells the

readers of _Macmillan's Magazine_ that Shelley's serious argument against

the belief in God was a mere product of caustic fun and humorous

sprightliness. What a charge to make against Shelley! Mr. Garnett is one

of Shelley's friends, admirers, idolaters; and he declares that Shelley

made a jest of the most solemn and awful of all momentous questions; was

so droll a fellow that he styled himself an Atheist, and argued against

the existence of the Deity in pure sportiveness. This is how Shelley is

dealt with by one of his peculiar friends!

What does Mr. Garnett mean by giving Hogg as his authority for saying that

_The Necessity of Atheism_ was a squib, when Hogg is at pains to say the

tract was no such thing? Hogg writes lightly and seriously by turns of the

tract, as he does of other matters of the poet's story. He speaks of the

pamphlet as 'a small pill that worked powerfully.' To minimize the

importance of the work, for which he was even more accountable than

Shelley; to make the least of the serious offence, touching his own

character no less hurtfully than Shelley's reputation, Hogg calls it a

'little pamphlet,' 'a general issue,' 'a compendious allegation in order

to put the whole case in proof,' 'a formal mode of saying, you affirm

so-and-so, then prove it,' 'a little syllabus,' 'an innocent and

insignificant thesis propounded for the delectation of lovers of

logomachy,' a tract that 'was never offered for sale.' In this style Hogg

speaks lightly of the work, that was the central incident of the painful

business, about which he felt too acutely and personally to his last hour,

to be able to speak of it truthfully. The whole affair was one of the few

subjects on which the otherwise substantially honest biographer was

untruthful. Consequently, had he called the tract a squib, in some

sentence at discord with his other statements about the pamphlet, Mr.

Garnett would not have been justified in fathering his own discovery on an

authority, so unworthy of perfect credit on this particular subject. But

Hogg nowhere calls the tract a squib. On the contrary, he guards against

any such misconstruction and misinterpretation of his lighter remarks, and

is at pains to say that, so far as Shelley was concerned, the pamphlet was

an altogether serious performance.

'In describing briefly the nature of Shelley's epistolary

contentions,' Hogg says, 'the recollection of his youth, his zeal, his

activity, and particularly of many individual peculiarities, may have

tempted me to speak sometimes with a certain levity, notwithstanding

the solemn importance of the topics respecting which they were

frequently maintained. The impression that they were conducted on his

part, or considered by him, with frivolity, or any unseemly lightness,

would, however, be most erroneous; his whole frame of mind was grave,

earnest, and anxious, and his deportment was reverential, with an

edification reaching beyond the age--an age wanting in reverence.'

Be it remembered that, in the later weeks of Shelley's second term of

residence, the printed tract was a main feature and chief instrument of

the 'epistolary contentions' to which the biographer refers? How then came

Mr. Garnett to give Hogg as his authority for saying this 'grave, earnest,

and anxious Shelley' diverted himself at Oxford with writing a squib on

the most awful of all sacred subjects? How are we to account for so

staggering a misrepresentation of the evidence of Hogg's book? In his

article on _Shelley in Pall Mall_, Mr. Garnett speaks no less strongly

than precisely of the evidential force of certain Shelleyan documents, not

under the view of the public. What value should we assign to evidence,

respecting documents we cannot examine, from a gentleman who can

misrepresent in so extraordinary a manner the evidence of a printed book

open to the whole world's scrutiny?

When _The Necessity of Atheism_ had been printed by Messrs. E. and W.

Phillips, of Worthing, it was Shelley's practice to send a copy of the

performance to any notable divine or other personage whom he wished to

draw into a controversial correspondence, together with a brief note

(under a false signature and address), saying--

'That he had met with that little tract, which appeared, unhappily, to

be quite unanswerable. Unless,' Hogg continues, 'the fish was too

sluggish to take the bait, an answer of refutation was forwarded to an

appointed address in London, and then in a vigorous reply he would

fall upon the unwary disputant, and break his bones. The strenuous

attack sometimes provoked a rejoinder more carefully prepared, and an

animated and protracted debate ensued: the party cited, having put in

his answer, was fairly in court, and he might get out of it as he

could.'

It was thus that 'the innocent and insignificant thesis propounded for the

delectation of lovers of logomachy' (Hogg's description of the tract) was

floated into circulation, by force of lie upon lie. Instead of being

'propounded for the delectation of lovers of logomachy,' it is stated by

Hogg himself that the tract was composed and put in type because Shelley,

finding strangers slow to notice a written challenge to argument,

conceived they would be attracted by a printed syllabus. True, so far as

it goes, this statement gives only part of the truth. Seeing that a

printed scheme for disputation would be more attractive, Shelley saw also

that he could not spare the time to produce a manuscript syllabus (written

by his own hand) for each of the many persons whose bones he was set on

breaking.

The day on which the undergraduate of University College received his

first lot of printed copies from the Worthing printers is unknown; but it

cannot have preceded by many days the appearance in the _Oxford Herald_

(9th February, 1811,) of this advertisement:--'Speedily will be published,

to be had of the Booksellers of London and Oxford, _The Necessity of

Atheism_. "Quod clarâ et perspicuâ demonstratione careat pro vero habere,

mens omnino nequit humana."--_Bacon de Augment. Scient._' Probably the

appearance of this advertisement in the Oxford newspaper followed closely

upon the arrival at Shelley's rooms in University College of the first lot

of printed copies from Worthing. Anyhow, the authorities of the University

were advertised, so early as the 9th of February, that a work, to

demonstrate the necessity of atheism, would be speedily offered for sale

within their jurisdiction. Inserted in a newspaper, read by many members

of the University, this advertisement came quickly under the eyes of the

Vice-Chancellor and Proctors of the University, the Heads of Houses, and

all other persons especially concerned in the maintenance of academic

discipline at the seat of learning. There was gossip in the common-rooms.

Sitting over their port, Doctors of Divinity and Masters of Arts exchanged

sentiments respecting the audacious announcement. The proctors took

counsel with their pro-proctors, and the acutest and most discreet of 'the

bull-dogs' was ordered to keep a sharp look-out for the first copy of the

atrocious publication that should be offered for sale in any bookseller's

window. Of course it was the opinion of the authorities that Mr. Munday,

the proprietor of the _Oxford Herald_, knew the atheist's real name; at

least could say what induced him to put such a staggering advertisement in

his paper. It cannot be questioned that Mr. Munday's shop, the office of

the _Oxford Herald_, was watched day and night by persons who were

instructed to take note of all individuals visiting the printer's

premises. Doubtless, also, the people at the Post Office were affected by

the measures, taken by the academic authorities for the discovery of the

person or persons, who should venture to sell atheistical literature in

the City of the Church. The Vice-Chancellor and Proctors have good and

sufficient means of observing what is done at Oxford in this present year

of grace, and had even better means of observation seventy years since.

Whilst the academic authorities were taking measures for the discovery of

any persons who should trouble the University with an atheistical

publication, Shelley was sending out copies of the tract, and replying to

the letters of his numerous correspondents. Each of the copies so sent

forth by the author was commended to the careful consideration of its

recipient by several falsehoods,--the untruths of the printed

advertisement, and the untruths of the letter accompanying the work. It

was untrue that the author's 'only motive' in putting the tract in

circulation was 'a love of truth;' he was actuated by resentment against

the religious earnestness which had caused Miss Harriett Grove to dismiss

him from her acquaintance, and by a desire to slay what he called bigotry

and intolerance. It was untrue that he hoped earnestly the recipient of

the pamphlet would show him defects in his arguments; all he desired being

a reply that would afford him an opportunity for breaking the replicant's

bones! It was untrue that he had come accidentally on the little tract,

which he had written himself. It was not true that the apparent

conclusiveness of the arguments caused him unhappiness. The name appended

to his letter was a false name; the address from which he pretended to

write was a falsehood. When he pretended to be a woman he was guilty of

another falsehood. The most offensive of all the falsehoods was the

profession that he was suffering from his religious doubts, and sincere in

asking the stranger to aid him in dispersing them.

It has been repeatedly urged, in palliation of the falsehoods Shelley

employed in provoking and prosecuting 'his epistolary contentions,' that

the scholars of former time, who brought about the revival of letters or

were the offspring of the revival, contended with one another by epistles

as well as by word of mouth, and that their letters, instead of being

signed with their rightful Christian names and surnames, were usually

signed with fanciful names of their own manufacture. The apology, were it

true to the facts of the ancient fashion, would not justify Shelley's

deceits; but it is a misrepresentation of the innocent usage of the old

disputants. The mediæval scholar, who wrangled and wrote under an assumed

name, held steadily to his adopted name, so that he was known by it and by

no other name in the Universities and scholarly guilds. When Gerard's

illegitimate son had once styled himself Desiderius Erasmus, in accordance

with the innocent though fantastic and pedantic fashion of his

contemporaries, he was styled so to his dying hour. The man who thus takes

a name and sticks to it, whether he be a soldier or lawyer, a politician

or dramatic actor, is guilty of no falsehood. Erasmus did not change his

name every day of the week from a deceitful motive; he did not use a

score of _aliases_ at the same time; it was not his habit to write to

charitable people saying that he was a woman, and whilst feigning to be

some one else to pretend he was living in one place whilst he was living

in another place. In his epistolary diversions the singularly outspoken

and truth-loving Shelley was guilty of all these various forms of

misrepresentation. He used a score of different names, misrepresented his

sex, told fibs about his address, said he was unhappy at what caused him

delight, declared himself to have come accidentally on the book written by

his own hand, declared to strangers that he was actuated solely by love of

truth at the moment when he was boasting to Hogg that he was animated by

hatred of religion. It cannot be denied that he was habitually guilty of

all these different forms of deceit. It is admitted he was guilty of them,

even by those who extol him for his singular frankness and sincerity.

The end to Shelley's Oxford career came suddenly. From the day of his

return to College after the Christmas vacation, things had gone pleasantly

with the undergraduate. When Medwin, on passing through Oxford, spent a

day with his cousin, he found him agreeably diverted with the incidents of

his controversial correspondence with learned divines, including the

Bishop who thought him a woman. He was exchanging letters with charming

little Harriett Westbrook. His efforts for the benefit of Miss Janetta

Phillips had been successful. He was on friendly, if not affectionate,

terms with his father, and was at work on the poem for the Newdigate

Prize. In spite of all Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy says to the contrary,

he delighted as much as heretofore in the society of Hogg. The term was

drawing to an end, and in a week or two the young men hoped to be at Field

Place, in the society of the young lady, whose assent to their wishes

would make them brothers-in-law. Nothing had occurred to forewarn him of

the storm so soon to break in fury upon him, when, one fine, bright,

cheery morning, Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley received a summons to appear

before the Master and some of the Fellows of his College in their

common-room. It does not appear that, together with the summons, Shelley

received an intimation of the business that made the Master and 'dons'

wish to see him. It is more than probable that the messenger who brought

the summons left the undergraduate to conjecture, why he was required to

meet the magnates of the College in their common-room soon after the usual

hour for breakfast. He can scarcely be supposed, however, to have gone to

the common-room without an apprehension that _The Necessity of Atheism_

had something to do with the summons. His suspense was of no long

duration. The Master and two or three Fellows were awaiting his arrival

when he entered the room, and, on his appearance, the Master produced a

copy of _the Little Syllabus_.

How the pamphlet came to the Master's hands is unknown to the present

writer. There is reason to think the work had not been on sale in Oxford

for many days, though its speedy publication had been advertised in the

_Oxford Herald_ on the 9th of the previous month. There is reason for

thinking that 25th March, 1811, the day of Shelley's expulsion, was also

the day on which the tract was first offered for sale in Oxford. After the

author's disgrace, no tradesman of the city would have ventured to offer

the work to customers in the ordinary way of business. As the University

police were doubtless on the look-out for the publication, it is not to be

supposed that the tract had been long on sale before it came to the

Master's hands. I should not be surprised to learn that the first copy

displayed in Mr. Munday's shop-window was snapped up by an officer of the

University within a few minutes of its appearance there, and that the

policeman's act was speedily followed by the delivery of a notice, that

determined Mr. Munday to lose no time in destroying all the copies of the

work remaining in his possession. In fact, I should not be surprised to

learn that Mr. Buxton Forman had good authority for the precise number of

minutes which he represents (figuratively or literally) as covering the

time during which the tract was on sale at Oxford. To imagine all this is,

of course, also to conceive that the authorities of University College had

already completed their inquiries respecting the work, had discovered the

author, and at the break of the 25th day of March, were only waiting for

an act of formal publication, to take promptly a course of action on which

they had previously decided.

Anyhow, they were ready for decisive action on the young author's

appearance before them. They certainly acted on that occasion with vigour

and apparent promptitude; but it does not follow that they acted without

due inquiry and deliberation. Anyhow, they fastened the deed on the door.

They knew that Shelley was one of the authors, if not the sole author, of

the tract. If, as Shelley and Hogg averred, the sentence for Shelley's

expulsion was signed and sealed before he entered the common-room, the

fact merely shows that the authorities came there only to act on the

result of previous inquiry. The fact does not indicate precipitation or

prejudgment of the case,--_i.e._ judgment before sufficient inquiry and

clear discovery. It is not wonderful the Master and Fellows knew all about

the matter; for at Oxford the academic authorities had great facilities

for inquiry into such a business. Through inquiries and observations at

the Post Office, the University police could easily discover to whom

Shelley was writing letters,--to what address in London he was sending

letters. It was easy work in the course of a few weeks to gather

information from persons who had received copies of _the_ pamphlet,

together with letters in the author's handwriting. It was also easy for

the Master and 'dons' of University College to gather additional

information respecting Shelley's previous history. There _is_ now, and

_was_, seventy years since, close and confidential intercourse between the

authorities of the Universities and the authorities of the public schools.

A boy does not leave Eton with a very bad character and enter Oxford with

a good one. From the date of his matriculation the 'dons' of University

College knew what kind of boy Shelley was at Eton. As soon as he began to

trouble them at Oxford, they knew what to expect from him, and how they

must deal with him.

How did the outspoken and truth-loving Shelley act when the Master, taking

the tract from his pocket, inquired whether he wrote it? Did he, in a

manner becoming a martyr for the truth's sake, reply, 'Yes, sir, I wrote

the pamphlet, and it declares faithfully my sincere convictions'? Did he

in a manner suitable to a gentleman (interrogated by his collegiate

superiors on a matter about which they had a clear right to question him,

and about which they were bound to question him) answer frankly, 'Yes,

sir, and I am prepared to take the consequences of my act'? Not a bit of

it. The frank, outspoken, fearless Shelley shuffled and quibbled like an

attorney's copying-clerk. He asked the Master's purpose in putting the

question. He told the Master to produce his evidence. He blustered about

the injustice and illegality of the Master's proceedings. Then, losing

his temper, he became abusive. He accused the Master (who was only doing

his duty) of tyranny, injustice, and vulgar violence. He asked for the

production of evidence, demanded a formal trial, and yet refused to plead

'Not Guilty.' All that is known respecting what passed between the Master

and Fellows on the one hand, and the contumacious undergraduate on the

other hand, within the four walls of the common-room, comes to us from

Shelley himself, by way of Hogg's pen. One would fain have a more reliable

witness. But in default of better testimony, we must be content with the

report of Shelley's evidence against himself.

It had been arranged between the two friends that Hogg should come to

Shelley's rooms at an unusually early hour on the Lady-day of 1811. In

accordance with this appointment, Hogg (little imagining what was even

then going on in the common-room) entered his friend's apartment, whilst

the latter was with 'the dons,' or on his way back from his interview with

them. In a minute Shelley rushed into the room, terribly agitated.