Percy Bysshe Shelley, eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Baronet, of
Castle Goring, Sussex, was born in that county, on the 4th of August,
1792. At the age of thirteen he was sent to Eton, where he was
distinguished from his schoolfellows by a melancholy and reserved
disposition, and an abstinence from every amusement natural to youth.
He soon began to develop a rigid, unconventional tenacity of
character, in relation to what he deemed the reason and justice of
things, and he was in consequence, at an earlier period than usual,
removed to the University of Oxford. Here his penetrating and
inquisitive mind displayed more fully that pertinacious but
conscientious eccentricity, which forbade his assent to the most
common truths without investigation; and, in consequence of publishing
a pamphlet, in which he attacked the ordinarily received notions of
the being of God, he was expelled from the university, on his refusal
to retract his opinions. This step drew upon him the displeasure of
his family, whose total discountenance of him soon after followed, on
his marriage, at the age of about seventeen or eighteen, with a lady
equally young. The union ended in misery to both; after the birth of
two children they separated by mutual consent, and Mrs. Shelley
subsequently destroying herself, the subject of our memoir was looked
upon as her murderer, and spoken of with proportionate obloquy.
A perusal of Mr. Godwin’s Political Justice, had first induced Shelley
to adopt the systematic rule of conduct, by which he subsequently
squared all his actions, at the sacrifice of every worldly interest.
His conduct was, in consequence, equally noble and extraordinary; and
though, it is said, ‘he had only to become a yea and nay man in the
house of commons, to be one of the richest men in Sussex,’ he declined
it to live upon a comparative pittance. After a visit to Italy, where
he formed a friendship with lord Byron, and composed his Rosalind and
Helen, and Ode to the Euganean Hill, he returned to England, and
married the daughter of Mr. Godwin, with whom he resided for some time
at Great Marlow, in Buckinghamshire. Here he was remarkable for his
unostentatious charity; and he not only administered pecuniary relief
to the poor, but visited them when sick in their beds, having
previously gone the round of the hospitals, on purpose to be able to
practice on occasion. At Marlow, he composed the Revolt of Islam, his
introduction to which, addressed to his wife, is, perhaps, one of the
most beautiful and touching pieces of poetry ever composed. About this
time he was deprived of the guardianship of his two children, in
consequence of his alleged sceptical notions, and of certain peculiar
opinions respecting the intercourse of the sexes. After his separation
from them, which deeply affected him, and increased his disgust
towards the institutions of his country, he returned, with his family
by his second wife, to Italy, where he joined lord Byron and Leigh
Hunt in a periodical called The Liberal. In June, 1822, he visited the
former, at Pisa, and, on the 7th of July, set off, in a boat, on his
return to his own family, at Lerici, in the bay of Spezzia; when a
tremendous storm came on, and, in a week afterwards, the body of
Shelley, with those of Mr. Williams and a seaman, his only companions,
were washed on shore near Villa Reggio. Their remains, after having
been interred by the Italian authorities, were, at the request of
their respective friends, dug up, and reduced to ashes, when those of
Shelley were deposited in the Protestant burial ground at Rome, near
the grave of Keats.
In person, Mr. Shelley was tall and slight, of a consumptive
constitution, and subject to spasmodic pains, the violence of which
would sometimes force him to lie on the ground till they were over.
The marks of premature thought and trouble were more visible in his
frame than his countenance, which, says the writer from whom we have
before quoted, ‘had a certain seraphical character, that would have
suited a portrait of John the Baptist, or the angel whom Milton
describes as “holding a reed tipped with fire.”’ He had a small, but
well-shaped face, with a fair and delicate complexion, cheeks not
devoid of color, and large animated eyes, that had almost an
appearance of wildness. His voice was weak and shrill, and had a
peculiar effect on those who heard it for the first time. He passed a
solitary and temperate life; rising early in the morning, and retiring
to bed at ten o’clock, having, in the meantime written, studied, and
read to his wife, and taken sparingly of his meals, which consisted,
at dinner, of vegetables, as he partook neither of meat nor wine. His
purse, though he possessed but a very limited income, was at the
service of all who needed it; it was not uncommon with him, says our
previous authority, to give away all his ready money, and be compelled
to take a journey on foot, or on the top of a stage, no matter during
what weather. He allowed to a literary acquaintance a pension of £100
per annum; but says Mr. Leigh Hunt, ‘the princeliness of his
disposition was seen most in his behavior to myself, who am proud to
relate, that Mr. Shelley once made me a present of £1,400 to extricate
me from debt, and his last sixpence was ever at my service, had I
chosen to share it.’ The following anecdote is told of lord Byron, and
some of his cotemporaries; Shelley, at the time, being on a visit to
his house at Hampstead:――‘As I approached my door,’ said Mr. Hunt, ‘I
heard strange and alarming shrieks, mixed with the voice of a man. The
next day it was reported, by the gossips, that Mr. Shelley, no
Christian (for it was he who was there), had brought some very strange
female into the house, no better of course than she ought to be. The
real Christian had puzzled them: Mr. Shelley, in coming to our house
that night, had found a woman, lying near the top of the hill, in
fits. It was a fierce winter night, with snow upon the ground, and
winter loses nothing of its fierceness at Hampstead. My friend, always
the promptest, as well as most pitying, on these occasions, knocked at
the first houses he could reach, in order to have her taken in, but
the invariable answer was that they could not do it. At last, my
friend sees a carriage driving up to a house at a little distance. The
knock is given; the warm door opens; servants and lights pour forth.
Now, thought he, is the time. He puts on his best address, which
anybody might recognize for that of the highest gentleman, as well as
an interesting individual, and plants himself in the way of an elderly
person, who is stepping out of the carriage with his family. He tells
his story; and asks him if he will go and see the poor woman. ‘No,
sir; there’s no necessity for that sort of thing, depend on it;
imposters swarm everywhere, the thing cannot be done. Sir, your
conduct is extraordinary.’ ‘Sir,’ cried Mr. Shelley, at last, forcing
the flourishing householder to stop, out of astonishment, ‘I am sorry
to say that your conduct is not extraordinary; and, if my own seems to
amaze you, I will tell you something that may amaze you a little more,
and, I hope, will frighten. It is such men as madden the spirits and
patience of the poor and wretched; and, if ever a convulsion comes in
this country, which is very probable, recollect what I tell you; you
will have your house, that you refuse to put this miserable woman
into, burnt over your head.’ ‘God bless me, sir! dear me, sir!’
exclaimed the frightened wretch, and fluttered into his mansion. The
woman was then brought to our house, which was at some distance, and
down a bleak path; the next day my friend sent her comfortably home
and, adds Mr. Hunt, this was one of the most ordinary of Shelley’s
actions.
As a poet, we think Shelley has never been surpassed; and we could
point out many of his passages which are without their equal, even if
we look for their parallel in the works of Shakspeare, Byron, and
Milton. But the wild speculative sublimity of his thoughts, the
refined intellectuality of his ideas, and the mysterious intertexture
of sentiment with feeling, which are the characteristics of his
poetry, will always hinder him from becoming popular. Yet, with all
this, there is a simplicity about his writings, as remarkable, it has
been observed, as its views and speculations are remote and peculiar.
A very just notion of his style has been taken by the biographer to
whom we have before alluded, who observes, that in all Shelley’s works
there is a wonderfully sustained sensibility, and a language lofty and
fit for it. ‘He has the art,’ continues the same authority, ‘of using
the stateliest words and the most learned idioms without incurring the
charge of pedantry, so that passages of more splendid and sonorous
writing are not to be selected from any writer since the days of
Milton; and yet, when he descends from his ideal world, and comes home
to us in our humble bowers, and is yearning after love and affection,
he attunes the most natural feelings to a style so proportionate, and
withal to a modulation so truly musical, that there is nothing to
surpass it in the lyrics of Beaumont and Fletcher.’ In addition to the
works before mentioned, Shelley is the author of Queen Mab, Alastor,
Prometheus Unbound, the tragedy of The Cenci, and a volume of
posthumous poems.