The South of Europe was in a state of great political excitement at the
beginning of the year 1821. The Spanish Revolution had been a signal to
Italy; secrete societies were formed; and, when Naples rose to declare
the Constitution, the call was responded to from Brundusium to the foot
of the Alps. To crush these attempts to obtain liberty, early in 1821
the Austrians poured their armies into the Peninsula: at first their
coming rather seemed to add energy and resolution to a people long
enslaved. The Piedmontese asserted their freedom; Genoa threw off the
yoke of the King of Sardinia; and, as if in playful imitation, the
people of the little state of Massa and Carrara gave the conge to their
sovereign, and set up a republic.
Tuscany alone was perfectly tranquil. It was said that the Austrian
minister presented a list of sixty Carbonari to the Grand Duke, urging
their imprisonment; and the Grand Duke replied, 'I do not know whether
these sixty men are Carbonari, but I know, if I imprison them, I shall
directly have sixty thousand start up.' But, though the Tuscans had no
desire to disturb the paternal government beneath whose shelter they
slumbered, they regarded the progress of the various Italian revolutions
with intense interest, and hatred for the Austrian was warm in every
bosom. But they had slender hopes; they knew that the Neapolitans would
offer no fit resistance to the regular German troops, and that the
overthrow of the constitution in Naples would act as a decisive blow
against all struggles for liberty in Italy.
We have seen the rise and progress of reform. But the Holy Alliance was
alive and active in those days, and few could dream of the peaceful
triumph of liberty. It seemed then that the armed assertion of freedom
in the South of Europe was the only hope of the liberals, as, if it
prevailed, the nations of the north would imitate the example. Happily
the reverse has proved the fact. The countries accustomed to the
exercise of the privileges of freemen, to a limited extent, have
extended, and are extending, these limits. Freedom and knowledge have
now a chance of proceeding hand in hand; and, if it continue thus, we
may hope for the durability of both. Then, as I have said--in
1821--Shelley, as well as every other lover of liberty, looked upon the
struggles in Spain and Italy as decisive of the destinies of the world,
probably for centuries to come. The interest he took in the progress of
affairs was intense. When Genoa declared itself free, his hopes were at
their highest. Day after day he read the bulletins of the Austrian army,
and sought eagerly to gather tokens of its defeat. He heard of the
revolt of Genoa with emotions of transport. His whole heart and soul
were in the triumph of the cause. We were living at Pisa at that time;
and several well-informed Italians, at the head of whom we may place the
celebrated Vacca, were accustomed to seek for sympathy in their hopes
from Shelley: they did not find such for the despair they too generally
experienced, founded on contempt for their southern countrymen.
While the fate of the progress of the Austrian armies then invading
Naples was yet in suspense, the news of another revolution filled him
with exultation. We had formed the acquaintance at Pisa of several
Constantinopolitan Greeks, of the family of Prince Caradja, formerly
Hospodar of Wallachia; who, hearing that the bowstring, the accustomed
finale of his viceroyalty, was on the road to him, escaped with his
treasures, and took up his abode in Tuscany. Among these was the
gentleman to whom the drama of "Hellas" is dedicated. Prince
Mavrocordato was warmed by those aspirations for the independence of his
country which filled the hearts of many of his countrymen. He often
intimated the possibility of an insurrection in Greece; but we had no
idea of its being so near at hand, when, on the 1st of April 1821, he
called on Shelley, bringing the proclamation of his cousin, Prince
Ypsilanti, and, radiant with exultation and delight, declared that
henceforth Greece would be free.
Shelley had hymned the dawn of liberty in Spain and Naples, in two odes
dictated by the warmest enthusiasm; he felt himself naturally impelled
to decorate with poetry the uprise of the descendants of that people
whose works he regarded with deep admiration, and to adopt the
vaticinatory character in prophesying their success. "Hellas" was
written in a moment of enthusiasm. It is curious to remark how well he
overcomes the difficulty of forming a drama out of such scant materials.
His prophecies, indeed, came true in their general, not their
particular, purport. He did not foresee the death of Lord Londonderry,
which was to be the epoch of a change in English politics, particularly
as regarded foreign affairs; nor that the navy of his country would
fight for instead of against the Greeks, and by the battle of Navarino
secure their enfranchisement from the Turks. Almost against reason, as
it appeared to him, he resolved to believe that Greece would prove
triumphant; and in this spirit, auguring ultimate good, yet grieving
over the vicissitudes to be endured in the interval, he composed his
drama.
"Hellas" was among the last of his compositions, and is among the most
beautiful. The choruses are singularly imaginative, and melodious in
their versification. There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify
Shelley's peculiar style; as, for instance, the assertion of the
intellectual empire which must be for ever the inheritance of the
country of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato:--
'But Greece and her foundations are
Built below the tide of war,
Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity.'