those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the
vegetable system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject
whose merits an experience of six months would set for ever at
rest. But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so
great a sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even
though its ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is
found easier by the short-sighted victims of disease to _palliate_
their torments by medicine than to _prevent_ them by regimen.
The vulgar of all ranks are invariably sensual and indocile, yet
I cannot but feel myself persuaded that when the benefits of
vegetable diet are mathematically proved; when it is as clear that
those who live naturally are exempt from premature death as that
one is not nine, the most sottish of mankind will feel a preference
towards a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and painful,
life. On the average, out of sixty persons four die in three years.
Hopes are entertained that, in April, 1814, a statement will be
given that sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on
vegetables and pure water, are then in _perfect health_. More than
two years have now elapsed--_not one of them has died_. No such
example will be found in any sixty persons taken at random.
“Seventeen persons of all ages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr.
Newton) have lived for seven years on this diet without a death,
_and almost without the slightest illness_.... In proportion to the
number of proselytes, so will be the weight of evidence, and when a
thousand persons can be produced living on vegetables and distilled
water,[238] who have to dread no disease but old age, the world
will be compelled to regard flesh and fermented liquors as slow but
certain poisons.”
Shelley next insists on the incalculable benefits of a reformed diet
economically, socially, and politically:--
“The monopolising eater of flesh would no longer destroy his
constitution by devouring an acre at a meal; and many loaves of
bread would cease to contribute to gout, madness, and apoplexy, in
the shape of a pint of porter or a dram of gin, when appeasing the
long-protracted famine of the hard-working peasant’s hungry babes.
The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter consumed in fattening
the carcase of an ox would afford ten times the sustenance,
undepraved, indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if
gathered immediately from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile
districts of the habitable globe are now actually cultivated by men
for [other] animals, at a delay and waste of aliment absolutely
incapable of calculation. It is only the wealthy that can, to any
great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead
flesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by
subjection to supernumerary diseases. Again, the spirit of the
nation, that should take the lead in this great reform, would
insensibly become _agricultural_.
“The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that
of any other. It strikes at the _root_ of the evil. To remedy the
abuses of legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by
which they are produced, is to suppose that by taking away the
_effect_ the _cause_ will cease to operate....
“Let not too much, however, be expected from this system. The
healthiest among us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most
symmetrical, athletic, and long-lived is a being inexpressibly
inferior to what he would have been, had not the unnatural habits
of his ancestors accumulated for him a certain portion of malady
and deformity. In the most perfect specimen of civilised man,
something is still found wanting by the physiological critic. Can a
return to Nature, then, instantaneously eradicate predispositions
that have been slowly taking root in the silence of innumerable
Ages? Undoubtedly not. All that I contend for is, that from the
moment of relinquishing all _unnatural_ habits no new disease is
generated; and that the predisposition to hereditary maladies
gradually perishes for want of its accustomed supply. In cases
of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, such is the
invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water....”
He concludes this philosophic discourse with an earnest appeal to the
various classes of society:--
“I address myself not to the young enthusiast only, to the ardent
devotee of truth and virtue--the pure and passionate moralist,
yet unvitiated by the contagion of the world. He will embrace a
pure system from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity,
and its promise of wide-extended benefit. Unless custom has
turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasures of the
chase by instinct. It will be a contemplation full of horror and
disappointment to his mind that beings, capable of the gentlest and
most admirable sympathies, should take delight in the deathpangs
and last convulsions of dying animals.
“The elderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance,
or who has lived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted
with a variety of painful maladies, would find his account in
a beneficial change, produced without the risk of poisonous
medicines. The mother, to whom the perpetual restlessness of
disease, and unaccountable deaths incident to her children, are the
causes of incurable unhappiness, would, on this diet, experience
the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual health and natural
playfulness.[239] The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by
diseases that it is dangerous to palliate, and impossible to cure,
by medicine. How much longer will man continue to pimp for the
gluttony of Death--his most insidious, implacable, and eternal foe?”
Some time after the melancholy death of his first wife, Shelley married
Mary Wolstoncroft, the daughter of William Godwin, author of _Political
Justice_--perhaps the most revolutionary of all pleas for a change in
the constitution of society that has ever proceeded from a prosaic
tradesman, such as, in the ordinary intercourse of life and interchange
of ideas, his biography and correspondence (lately published) prove
him to have been. Her mother was the celebrated and earliest advocate
of the rights of women. Previously, the lovers had travelled through
France and part of Germany, and an account of their six weeks’ tour was
afterwards printed by Mrs. Shelley.
In 1815 appeared his _Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude_. In 1817
he again left England for Geneva. While in Switzerland he made the
acquaintance of Byron, which was renewed during his stay in Italy.
In the same year he returned to this country and, after a short
sojourn with Leigh Hunt, he settled at Great Marlow, one of the most
picturesque parts of the Thames. There, in spite of his own ill-health,
he showed the active benevolence of his character, not only in the
easier form of alms-giving but also in frequent visits to the sick
and destitute, at the risk of aggravating symptoms of consumption now
alarmingly apparent. There, too, he composed the _Revolt of Islam_,
or, as it was originally more fitly entitled, _Laon and Cythna_. In
this poem, by the mouth of Laone, he again expresses his humanitarian
convictions and sympathies. She calls upon the enfranchised nations:--
“‘My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing
Beneath the stars, and the night-winds are flowing
O’er the ripe corn; the Birds and Beasts are dreaming--
Never again may blood of bird or beast
Stain with his venomous stream a human feast,
To the pure skies in accusation steaming.
Avenging poisons shall have ceased
To feed disease, and fear, and madness.
The dwellers of the earth and air
Shall throng around our steps in gladness,
Seeking their food or refuge there.
Our toil from Thought all glorious forms shall cul.
To make this earth, our home, more beautiful,
And Science, and her sister Poesy,
Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the Free.
* * * * *
“Their feast was such as Earth, the general Mother,
Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles
In the embrace of Autumn--to each other
As when some parent fondly reconciles
Her warring children, _she_ their wrath beguiles
With her own sustenance; _they_, relenting, weep--
Such was this Festival, which, from their isles,
And continents, and winds, and oceans deep,
All shapes might throng to share, that fly, or walk, or creep:
“Might share in peace and innocence, for _gore_,
_Or poison none this festal did pollute_.
But, piled on high, an overflowing store
Of pomegranates, and citrons--fairest fruit,
Melons, and dates, and figs, and many a root
Sweet and sustaining, and bright grapes, ere yet
Accursed fire their mild juice could transmute
Into a mortal bane; and brown corn set
In baskets: with pure streams their thirsting lips they wet.”[240]
While he was yet residing in Marlow, the Princess Charlotte, daughter
of the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.,) died; and, since her
character had been in strong contrast with her father’s and with
royal persons’ in general, her early death seems to have caused, not
only ceremonial mourning, but also genuine regret amongst all in the
community having any knowledge of her exceptional amiability. The poet
seized the opportunity of so public an event, and published _An Address
to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte. By the Hermit of
Marlow_, in which he inscribed the motto--“We pity the plumage, but
forget the dying bird.” In this pamphlet, while paying due tribute of
regret for the death of an amiable girl, and fully appreciating the
sorrow caused by death as well among the destitute and obscure (with
whom, indeed, the too usual absence of the care and sympathy of friends
intensifies the sorrow) as among the rich and powerful, he invited, in
studiously moderate language, attention to the many just reasons for
national mourning in the interests of the poor no less than of princes;
and, in particular, invited the nation to express its indignant grief
for the fate of the Lancashire mechanics who, missing the happier
fate of their brethren slaughtered at Peterloo, were subjected to an
ignominious death by a government which had, by its neglect, encouraged
the growth of a just discontent.
In 1818 Shelley left England never to return. At this time was composed
the principal part of his masterpiece--_Prometheus Unbound_, the most
finished and carefully executed of all his poems. While in Rome (1819)
he published _The Cenci_, which had been suggested to him by the famous
picture of Guido, until lately supposed to be that of Beatrice Cenci,
and by the traditions, current even in the poet’s time, of the cruel
fate of his heroine. Shakspere’s four great dramas excepted, _The
Cenci_ must take rank as the finest tragic drama since the days of
the Greek masters. It is worked up to a degree of pathos unsurpassed
by anything of the kind in literature. “The Fifth Act,” remarks Mrs.
Shelley, his editor and commentator, “is a masterpiece. Every character
has a voice that echoes truth in its tones.” _The Cenci_ was followed
in quick succession by the _Witch of Atlas_, _Adonais_ (an elegy on
the death of Keats), the most exquisite “In Memoriam”--not excepting
Milton’s or Tennyson’s--ever written; and _Hellas_, which was inspired
by his strong sympathy with the Greeks, who were then engaged in the
war of independence.
Of his lesser productions, the _Ode to the Skylark_ is of an
inspiration seldom equalled in its kind. With the “blythe spirit,” whom
he apostrophises, the poet rises in rapt ecstasy “higher still and
higher.” For the rest of his productions (the _Letters from Italy_ and
criticisms or rather eulogies on Greek art have an especial interest)
and for the other events in his brief remaining existence we must
refer our readers to the complete edition of his works.[241] The last
work upon which he was engaged was his _Triumph of Life_, a poem in
the _terza rima_ of the _Divine Comedy_. It breaks off abruptly--it is
peculiarly interesting to note--with the significant words, “Then what
is Life, I cried?”
The manner of his death is well known. While engaged in his usual
recreation of boating he was drowned in the bay of Spezia. His body
was washed on to the shore and, according to regulations then in force
by the Italian governments of the day, in guarding against possible
infection from the plague, it was burned where it lay, in presence of
his friends Byron and Trelawney, and the ashes were entombed in the
Protestant cemetery in Rome--a not unfitting disposal of the remains of
one the most spiritualised of human beings.
The following just estimate of the character of his genius and
writings, by a thoughtful critic, is worth reproduction here:--“No man
was more essentially a poet--‘glancing from earth to heaven.’ He was,
indeed, ‘of imagination all compact.’ ... In all his poems he uniformly
denounces vice and immorality in every form; and his descriptions of
love, which are numerous, are always refined and delicate, with even
less of sensuousness than in many of our most admired writers. It
is true that he decried marriage, but not in favour of libertinism;
and the evils he depicts, or laments, are those arising from the
indissolubility of the bond, or from the opinions of society as to its
necessity--opinions to which he himself submitted by marrying the woman
to whom he was attached.... His reputation as a poet has gradually
widened since his death, and has not yet reached its culminating point.
He was the poet of the future--of an ideal futurity--and hence it was
that his own age could not entirely sympathise with him. He has been
called the ‘poet of poets,’ a proud title, and, in some respects,
deserved.”[242]
Of his creed, the article which he most firmly held, and which,
perhaps, most distinguishes him from ordinary thinkers, was the
_Perfectibility_ of his species, and his firm faith in the ultimate
triumph of Good. “He believed,” says the one authority who had the
best means of knowing his thought and feeling, “that mankind had only
to _will_ that there should be no evil, and there would be none. It is
not my part in these notes to criticise the arguments that have been
urged against this opinion, but to mention the fact that he entertained
it, and was, indeed, attached to it with fervent enthusiasm. That man
could be so perfectionised as to be able to expel Evil from his own
nature, and from the greater part of the world, was the cardinal point
of his system. And the subject he liked best to dwell upon was the
image of One warring with an evil principle, oppressed not only by it
but by all, even the good, who were deluded into considering evil a
_necessary_ portion of humanity--a victim full of gratitude and of hope
and of the spirit of triumph emanating from a reliance in the ultimate
omnipotence of Good.” Such was the conviction which inspired his
greatest poem _The Prometheus Unbound_.
A principal charm of his poetry is that which repels the common class
of readers: “He loved to _idealise_ reality, and this is a task shared
by few. We are willing to have our passing whims exalted into passions,
for this gratifies our vanity. But few of us understand or sympathise
with the endeavour to ally the love of abstract beauty and adoration
of abstract Good with sympathies with our own kind.”[243] Of so rare a
spirit it is peculiarly interesting to know something of the outward
form:--
“His features [describes one of his biographers] were not
symmetrical--the mouth, perhaps, excepted. Yet the effect of the
whole was extremely powerful. They breathed an animation, a fire,
an enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelligence, that I never
met with in any other countenance. Nor was the moral expression
less beautiful than the intellectual: for there was a softness, a
delicacy, a gentleness, and especially (though this will surprise
many) that air of profound religious veneration that characterises
the best works, and chiefly the frescoes, of the great Masters of
Florence and of Rome.
“His eyes were blue, unfathomably dark and lustrous. His hair was
brown: but very early in life it became grey, while his unwrinkled
face retained to the last a look of wonderful youth. It is admitted
on all sides that no adequate picture was ever painted of him.
Mulready is reported to have said that he was too beautiful to
paint. And yet, although so singularly lovely, he owed less of his
charm to regularity of feature, or to grace of movement, than to an
indescribable personal fascination.”
As to his voice, impressions varied:--
“Like all finely-tempered natures, he vibrated in harmony with
the subjects of his thought. Excitement made his utterance shrill
and sharp. Deep feeling, or the sense of beauty, lowered its
tone to richness; but the _timbre_ was always acute, in sympathy
with his intense temperament. All was of one piece in Shelley’s
nature. This peculiar voice, varying from moment to moment, and
affecting different sensibilities in diverse ways, corresponds to
the high-strung passion of his life, his finedrawn and ethereal
fancies, and the clear vibrations of his palpitating verse. Such a
voice, far-reaching, penetrating, and unearthly, befitted one who
lived in rarest ether on the topmost heights of human thought.”[244]
If the physical characteristics of a great Teacher or of a sublime
Genius excite a natural curiosity, it is the principal _moral_
characteristics which most reasonably and profoundly interest us. To
the supremely amiable disposition of the creator of _The Cenci_ and
_Prometheus Unbound_ brief reference has been made; and we shall fitly
supplement this imperfect sketch of his humanitarian career with the
vivid impressions left on the mind of the friend who best knew him.
Love of truth and hatred of falsehood and injustice were not, in his
case, limited to the pages of a book, and forgotten in the too often
deadening influence of intercourse with the world--they permeated his
whole life and conversation.
“The qualities that struck any one newly introduced to Shelley
were, first, a gentle and cordial goodness that animated his
discourse with warm affection and helpful sympathy; the other, the
eagerness and ardour with which he was attached to the cause of
human happiness and improvement, and the fervent eloquence with
which he discussed such subjects. His conversation was marked
by its happy abundance, and the beautiful language in which he
clothed his poetic ideas and philosophical notions. To defecate
life of its misery and its evil was the ruling passion of his
soul; he dedicated to it every power of his mind, every pulsation
of his heart. He looked on political freedom as the direct agent
to effect the happiness of mankind; and thus any new-sprung hope
of liberty inspired a joy and even exultation more intense and
wild than he could have felt for any personal advantage. Those
who have never experienced the workings of passion on general and
unselfish subjects cannot understand this; and it must be difficult
of comprehension to the younger generation rising around, since
they cannot remember the scorn and hatred with which the partisans
of reform were regarded some few years ago, nor the persecution to
which they were exposed.
“Many advantages attended his birth; he spurned them all when
balanced with what he considered his duties. He was generous to
imprudence--devoted to heroism. These characteristics breathe
throughout his poetry. The struggle for human weal; the resolution
firm to martyrdom; the impetuous pursuit; the glad triumph in
good; the determination not to despair.... Perfectly gentle
and forbearing in manner, he suffered a great deal of internal
irritability, or rather excitement, and his fortitude to bear was
almost always on the stretch; and thus, during a short life, he had
gone through more experience of sensation than many whose existence
is protracted. ‘If I die to-morrow,’ he said, on the eve of
unanticipated death, ‘I have lived to be older than my father.’ The
weight of thought and feeling burdened him heavily. You read his
sufferings in his attenuated frame, while you perceived the mastery
he held over them in his animated countenance and brilliant eyes.
“He died, and the world showed no outward sigh; but his influence
over mankind, though slow in growth, is fast augmenting; and in
the ameliorations that have taken place in the political state of
his country we may trace, in part, the operation of his arduous
struggles.... He died, and his place among those who knew him
intimately has never been filled up. He walked beside them like a
spirit of good to comfort and benefit--to enlighten the darkness of
life with irradiations of genius, to cheer with his sympathy and
love.”[245]
* * * * *
With the name of Shelley is usually connected that of his more popular
contemporary, Byron (1788-1824). The brother poets, it already has been
noted, met in Switzerland; and, afterwards, they had some intercourse
in Italy during Shelley’s last years. Excepting surpassing genius,
and equal impatience of conventional laws and usages they had little
in common. The one was first and above all a reformer, the other a
satirist. To assert, however, the author of _Childe Harold_ to have
been inspired solely by cynical contempt for his species is unjust.
A large part of his poems is pervaded apparently with an intense
conviction of the evils of life as produced by human selfishness and
folly. But what distinguishes the author of _Prometheus Unbound_ from
his great rival (if he may be so called) is the sure and certain
hope of a future of happiness for the world. Thus, that belief in
the all-importance of humane dietetics, as a principal factor in the
production of weal or woe on earth, is far less apparent in Byron is
matter of course.
Yet, that in moments of better feeling, Byron revolted from the gross
materialism of the banquets, of which, as he expresses it, England
“Was wont to boast--as if a Glutton’s tray
Were something very glorious to behold.”[246]
and that, had he not been seduced by the dinner-giving propensity
of English society, he would have retained his early preference for
the refined diet, we are glad to believe. In a letter to his mother,
written in his early youth, he announces that he had determined upon
relinquishment of flesh-eating, and his clearer mental perceptions in
consequence of his reformed living;[247] and he seems even to have
advanced to the extreme frugality of living, at times, upon biscuits
and water only.
It would have been well for him had he, like Shelley, abstained from
gross eating and drinking upon _principle_; and had he uniformly
adhered to the resolution formed in his earlier years, we should, in
that case, not have to lament his too notorious sexual intemperance.
XLII.
PHILLIPS. 1767-1840.
It is an obvious truth--in vain demonstrated seventeen centuries
since by the best moral teachers of non-Christian antiquity--that
abolition of the slaughter-house, with all the cruel barbarism
directly or indirectly associated with it, by a necessary and logical
corollary, involves abolition of every form of injustice and cruelty.
Of this truth the subject of the present article is a conspicuous
witness. During his long and active career, in social and political
as well as in literary life, Sir Richard Phillips was a consistent
_philanthropist_; and few, in his position of influence, have
surpassed him in real beneficence. In the face of rancorous obloquy
and opposition from that too numerous proportion of communities which
systematically resist all “innovation” and deviation from the “ancient
paths,” he fearlessly maintained the cause of the oppressed; and, as a
prison reformer, he claims a place second only to that of Howard.