madness, and was only saved by his physician being honest. He was
betrothed from a boy to his cousin, for age; another came who had as
much as he _would_ have, and she left him "because he was an atheist."
When starving, a friend to whom he had given £2000, though he knew it,
would not come near him. Heard Mrs. Shelley repeat Coleridge on Pitt,
which persuades me he is a poet.
[Here we see that Shelley must have repeated to Polidori that famous
story of his about the attempt of his father to consign him, when he was
an Eton student, to a madhouse, and about the zealous and ultimately
successful effort of Dr. Lind, the Eton physicist, to save him from that
disastrous fate. Next comes the statement that Shelley was betrothed
from boyhood to his beautiful cousin Miss Harriet Grove—the marriage to
take effect when he should attain his majority; an account which we know
to be substantially true. The conduct of Miss Grove—or perhaps we should
rather say of her parents as dictating her action—is placed in an
unfavourable light; for it is plainly suggested that she abandoned
Shelley for another bridegroom on the ground of a more immediate
advantage in worldly position—the allegation of Percy's atheism being
more a pretext than a genuine motive. The passage about a friend to whom
Shelley had given £2000 must (I suppose beyond a doubt) refer to Godwin;
but it is evident that Shelley, in speaking to Polidori, a comparative
stranger, and this in the presence of Mary, had the delicacy to suppress
the name. The charge thus alleged against Godwin is not, I conceive,
accurate, although it approximated towards accuracy. I am not clear that
Shelley, up to the time when he thus spoke in June 1816, had given
Godwin money amounting to quite so large a total as £2000; but at any
rate he cannot have done so up to the time when he was himself
"starving"—or, in milder terms, when he was in very great and harassing
straits for money and daily subsistence. That time was late in 1814, and
in the first days of 1815. It is true that, even before this date, he
had done something to relieve Godwin; but it was only, I think, in April
1816 that he gave the philosopher a really very considerable sum—£1000
in a lump. I say all this for the sake of biographical truth, and not
with a view to vindicating Godwin—whose policy of bleeding Shelley in
purse while he cut him in person has in some recent years been denounced
with increasing vehemence, and it was indeed wholly indefensible. But
human nature—and especially the human nature of an abstract speculator
like Godwin—is capable of very odd self-deceptions; and I dare say
Godwin thought he was equally and strictly right in both his
proceedings—right in getting large sums of money out of Shelley, for a
reforming sage ought to be subsidized by his neophytes—and right in
repudiating and abusing Shelley, for the latter had applied Godwin's own
anti-matrimonial theories to that one instance of practice which the
philosopher did not at all relish.—To proceed to another point. The
lines of Coleridge on Pitt which Polidori heard recited by Mrs. Shelley
are to be sought for in his early poem entitled _Fire, Famine, and
Slaughter_. In that poem (need I say it?) those three Infernal Deities
are represented as meeting in "a desolated tract in La Vendée"; and on
mutual enquiry they learn that one and the same person has sent them
thither all three.
"Letters four do form his name"—
the name Pitt. Famine and Slaughter finally agree that the multitude,
exasperated by their sufferings, shall turn upon Pitt and rend him—
"They shall tear him limb from limb!"
Fire, who has just come from doing Pitt's errands in Ireland, thinks
this ungrateful: she concludes the poem with the memorable words—
"Ninety months he, by my troth,
Hath richly catered for you both:
And in an hour would you repay
An eight years' work?—Away, away!
I alone am faithful—_I
Cling to him everlastingly_."
The poem would be well worth quoting here in full, but is somewhat too
long for such a purpose.]
A young girl of eighteen, handsome, died within half-an-hour yesterday:
buried to-day. Geneva is fortified—legumes growing in the fosses.—Went
about linen and plate.
_June 2._—Breakfasted with Shelley. Read Tasso with Mrs. Shelley. Took
child for vaccination.
[The child in question must seemingly have been the beloved infant
William Shelley, born in January of this same year. Polidori does not
appear to have vaccinated the boy with his own hand; for I find in a
letter of his written to his family towards June 20: "Got a gold chain
and a seal as a fee from an Englishman here for having his child
inoculated." As Polidori speaks only of "an Englishman here," not naming
Shelley, it looks as if he purposely withheld from his family the
knowledge that he had come into contact with that wicked and dangerous
character. I wish I knew what has become of the "gold chain and seal,"
the gift of Shelley: but I could not on enquiry find that anything
whatever was known about them by my then surviving relatives. I possess
a letter on the subject, November 4, 1890, from my sister Christina.]
Found gates shut because of church-service. Went in search of Rossi. Saw
a village where lads and lasses, soubrettes and soldiers, were dancing,
to a tabor and drum, waltzes, cotillions, etc. Dr. R[ossi] not at home.
Dined with S[helley]; went to the lake with them and L[ord] B[yron]. Saw
their house; fine. Coming back, the sunset, the mountains on one side, a
dark mass of outline on the other, trees, houses hardly visible, just
distinguishable; a white light mist, resting on the hills around, formed
the blue into a circular dome bespangled with stars only and lighted by
the moon which gilt the lake. The dome of heaven seemed oval. At 10
landed and drank tea. Madness, Grattan, Curran, etc., subjects.
[The "house" of Shelley and his party which is here mentioned is the
Campagne Chapuis, or Campagne Mont Alègre, near Cologny—distant from the
Villa Diodati only about 8 minutes' walk. Shelley and the two ladies had
entered this house towards the end of May, prior to the actual
settlement of Lord Byron in the Villa Diodati. The Shelleys, as we have
more than once heard from this Diary, kept up the practice of drinking
tea—a beverage always cherished by Percy Bysshe. The topics of
conversation, we observe, were madness—probably following on from what
Shelley had on the previous day said about his own supposed madness
while at Eton; also Curran, whom Shelley had seen a little, but without
any sympathy, in Dublin—and Grattan, who, so far as I am aware was not
personally known to the poet.]
_June 3._—Went to Pictet's on English day.
_June 4._—Went about Diodati's house. Then to see Shelley, who, with
Mrs. Shelley, came over. Went in the evening to a musical society of
about ten members at M. Odier's; who read a very interesting memoir upon
the subject of whether a physician should in any case tell a lover the
health [of the lady of his affections], or anything that, from being her
physician, comes to his knowledge. Afterwards had tea and politics. Saw
there a Dr. Gardner, whom I carried home in the calèche. Odier invited
me for every Wednesday.
Came home. Went on the lake with Shelley and Lord Byron, who quarrelled
with me.
[This might seem to be the matter to which Professor Dowden in his _Life
of Shelley_ (following Moore's _Life of Byron_ and some other
authorities) thus briefly refers. "Towards Shelley the Doctor's feeling
was a constantly self-vexing jealousy [I cannot say that the Diary of
Polidori has up to this point borne the least trace of any such
soreness]; and on one occasion, suffering from the cruel wrong of having
been a loser in a sailing-match, he went so far as to send Shelley a
challenge, which was received with a fit of becoming laughter.
'Recollect,' said Byron, 'that, though Shelley has some scruples about
duelling, I have none and shall be at all times ready to take his
place.'" Professor Dowden does not define the date when this squabble
occurred; but the context in which he sets it suggests a date anterior
to June 22, when Byron and Shelley started off on their week's excursion
upon the Lake of Geneva. The very curt narrative of Polidori does not
however indicate any sailing-match, nor any challenge, whether "sent" or
verbally delivered at the moment; and perhaps it may be more reasonable
to suppose that this present quarrel with Byron was a different affair
altogether—an instance when Polidori happened to strike Byron's knee
with an oar. I shall recur to the duelling matter farther on.]
_June 5._—At 12 went to Hentsch about Diodati; thence to Shelley's. Read
Tasso. Home in calèche. Dined with them in the public room: walked in
the garden. Then dressed, and to Odier's, who talked with me about
somnambulism. Was at last seated, and conversed with some Génevoises: so
so—too fine. Quantities of English; speaking amongst themselves, arms by
their sides, mouths open and eyes glowing; might as well make a tour of
the Isle of Dogs. Odier gave me yesterday many articles of
_Bibliothèque_—translated and _rédigés_ by himself, and to-day a
manuscript on somnambulism.
[After the word _Bibliothèque_ Charlotte Polidori has put some other
word, evidently intended to imitate the _look_ of the word written by
Dr. Polidori: it cannot be read. The subject of somnambulism was one
which had engaged Polidori's attention at an early age: he printed in
1815 a _Disputatio Medica Inauguralis de Oneirodyniâ_, as a thesis for
the medical degree which he then obtained in Edinburgh.]
_June 6._—At 1 up—breakfasted. With Lord Byron in the calèche to
Hentsch, where we got the paper making us masters of Diodati for six
months to November 1 for 125 louis.
[See my remarks under June 1 as to "Necker's house," and the rent to be
paid. Up to November 1 would be barely five months, not six.]
Thence to Shelley: back: dinner. To Shelley in boat: driven on shore:
home. Looked over inventory and Berger's accounts. Bed.
_June 7._—Up at ——. Pains in my loins and languor in my bones.
Breakfasted—looked over inventory.
Saw L[ord] B[yron] at dinner; wrote to my father and Shelley; went in
the boat with L[ord] B[yron]; agreed with boatman for English boat. Told
us Napoleon had caused him to get his children. Saw Shelley over again.
[It seems rather curious that Polidori, living so near Shelley, should
now have had occasion to write to him; ought we to infer that the
challenge was now at last sent? Perhaps so; and perhaps, when Polidori
"saw Shelley over again," the poet laughed the whole foolish matter
off.—The boatman's statement that "Napoleon had caused him to get his
children" means, I suppose, that he wanted to rear children, to meet
Napoleon's conscriptions for soldiers.]
_June 8._—Up at 9; went to Geneva on horseback, and then to Diodati to
see Shelley; back; dined; into the new boat—Shelley's,—and talked, till
the ladies' brains whizzed with giddiness, about idealism. Back; rain;
puffs of wind. Mistake.
_June 9._—Up by 1: breakfasted. Read Lucian. Dined. Did the same: tea'd.
Went to Hentsch: came home. Looked at the moon, and ordered packing-up.
_June 10._—Up at 9. Got things ready for going to Diodati; settled
accounts, etc. Left at 3; went to Diodati; went back to dinner, and then
returned. Shelley etc. came to tea, and we sat talking till 11. My rooms
are so:
+-----------------------+
| Picture-gallery. |
|-----------------------|
| | |
| Bedroom |-----------|
| | |
+-----------------------+
_June 11._—Wrote home and to Pryse Gordon. Read Lucian. Went to
Shelley's; dined; Shelley in the evening with us.
_June 12._—Rode to town. Subscribed to a circulating library, and went
in the evening to Madame Odier. Found no one. Miss O[dier], to make time
pass, played the Ranz des Vaches—plaintive and war-like. People arrived.
Had a confab with Dr. O. about perpanism,[9] etc. Began dancing:
waltzes, cotillons, French country-dances and English ones: first time I
shook my feet to French measure. Ladies all waltzed except the English:
_they_ looked on frowning. Introduced to Mrs. Slaney: invited me for
next night. You ask without introduction; the girls refuse those they
dislike. Till 12. Went and slept at the Balance.
_June 13._—Rode home, and to town again. Went to Mrs. Slaney: a ball.
Danced and played at chess. Walked home in thunder and lightning: lost
my way. Went back in search of some one—fell upon the police. Slept at
the Balance.
_June 14._—Rode home—rode almost all day. Dined with Rossi, who came to
us; shrewd, quick, manly-minded fellow; like him very much. Shelley etc.
fell in in the evening.
_June 15._—Up late; began my letters. Went to Shelley's. After dinner,
jumping a wall my foot slipped and I strained my left ankle. Shelley
etc. came in the evening; talked of my play etc., which all agreed was
worth nothing. Afterwards Shelley and I had a conversation about
principles,—whether man was to be thought merely an instrument.
[The accident to Polidori's ankle was related thus by Byron in a letter
addressed from Ouchy to John Murray. "Dr. Polidori is not here, but at
Diodati; left behind in hospital with a sprained ankle, acquired in
tumbling from a wall—he can't jump." Thomas Moore, in his _Life of
Byron_, supplies some details. "Mrs. Shelley was, after a shower of
rain, walking up the hill to Diodati; when Byron, who saw her from his
balcony where he was standing with Polidori, said to the latter: 'Now
you who wish to be gallant ought to jump down this small height, and
offer your arm.' Polidori tried to do so; but, the ground being wet, his
foot slipped and he sprained his ankle. Byron helped to carry him in,
and, after he was laid on the sofa, went up-stairs to fetch a pillow for
him. 'Well, I did not believe you had so much feeling,' was Polidori's
ungracious remark."
The play written by Polidori, which received so little commendation,
was, I suppose, the _Cajetan_ which is mentioned at an early point in
the Journal. There was another named _Boadicea_, in prose; very poor
stuff, and I suppose written at an early date. A different drama named
_Ximenes_ was afterwards published: certainly its merit—whether as a
drama or as a specimen of poetic writing—is slender. The conversation
between Shelley and Polidori about "principles"and "whether man was to
be thought merely an instrument" appears to have some considerable
analogy with a conversation to which Mary Shelley and Professor Dowden
refer, and which raised in her mind a train of thought conducing to her
invention of Frankenstein and his Man-monster. Mary, however, speaks of
Byron (not Polidori) as the person who conversed with Shelley on that
occasion. Professor Dowden, paraphrasing some remarks made by Mary,
says: "One night she sat listening to a conversation between the two
poets at Diodati. What was the nature, they questioned, of the principle
of life? Would it ever be discovered, and the power of communicating
life be acquired? Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated; galvanism had
given token of such things. That night Mary lay sleepless," etc.]
_June 16._—Laid up. Shelley came, and dined and slept here, with Mrs.
S[helley] and Miss Clare Clairmont. Wrote another letter.
[This is the first instance in which the name of Miss Clairmont is given
correctly by Polidori; but it may be presumed that he had, several days
back, found out that she was not properly to be termed "Miss Godwin."]
_June 17._—Went into the town; dined with Shelley etc. here. Went after
dinner to a ball at Madame Odier's; where I was introduced to Princess
Something and Countess Potocka, Poles, and had with them a long confab.
Attempted to dance, but felt such horrid pain was forced to stop. The
ghost-stories are begun by all but me.
[This date serves to rectify a small point in literary history. We all
know that the party at Cologny—consisting of Byron and Polidori on the
one hand, and of Shelley and Mrs. Shelley and Miss Clairmont on the
other—undertook to write each of them an independent ghost-story, or
story of the supernatural; the result being Byron's fragment of _The
Vampyre_, Polidori's complete story of _The Vampyre_, and Mrs.
Shelley's renowned _Frankenstein_. Shelley and Miss Clairmont proved
defaulters. It used to be said that Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of
_The Monk_, had been mixed up in the same project; but this is a
mistake, for Lewis only reached the Villa Diodati towards the middle
of August. Professor Dowden states as follows: "During a few days of
ungenial weather which confined them to the house [by "them" Shelley
and the two ladies are evidently meant, and perhaps also Byron and
Polidori] some volumes of ghost-stories, _Fantasmagoriana, ou Recueil
d'Histoires d'Apparitions, de Spectres, Revenans_, etc. (a collection
translated into French from the German) fell into their hands, and its
perusal probably excited and overstrained Shelley's imagination."
Professor Dowden then proceeds to narrate an incident connected with
Coleridge's _Christabel_, of which more anon; and he says that
immediately _after_ that incident Byron proposed, "We will each write
a ghost-story"—a suggestion to which the others assented. It is only
fair to observe that Professor Dowden's account corresponds with that
which Polidori himself supplied in the proem to his tale of _The
Vampyre_. But Polidori's Diary proves that this is not absolutely
correct. The ghost-stories (prompted by the _Fantasmagoriana_, a poor
sort of book) had already been begun by Byron, Shelley, Mrs. Shelley,
and Miss Clairmont, not later than June 17, whereas the _Christabel_
incident happened on June 18. Byron's story, as I have already said,
was _The Vampyre_, left a fragment; Shelley's is stated to have been
some tale founded on his own early experiences—nothing farther is
known of it; Mrs. Shelley's was eventually _Frankenstein_, but, from
the details which have been published as to the first conception of
this work, we must assume that what she had begun by June 17 was
something different: of Miss Clairmont's story no sort of record
remains.
The Countess Potocka, whom Polidori mentions, was a lady belonging to
the highest Polish nobility, grand-niece of Stanislaus Augustus
Poniatowski, who had been King of Poland up to 1798. She was daughter of
Count Tyszkiewicz, and married Count Potocki, and afterwards Count
Wonsowicz. Born in 1776, she lived on to 1867, when she died in Paris, a
leader of society under the Second Empire. Thus she was forty years old
when Polidori saw her. She wrote memoirs of her life, going up to 1820:
a rather entertaining book, dealing with many important transactions,
especially of the period of Napoleon I: she gives one to understand that
this supreme potentate was rather susceptible to her charms, but a rival
compatriot, the Countess Walewska, was then in the ascendant. I have
seen reproductions from two portraits of the Countess Potocka, both of
them ascribed to Angelica Kauffman: one of these shows a strikingly
handsome young woman, with dark eyes of singular brilliancy and
sentiment. Its date cannot be later than 1807, when the painter died,
and may probably be as early as 1800.]
_June 18._—My leg much worse. Shelley and party here. Mrs. S[helley]
called me her brother (younger). Began my ghost-story[10] after tea.
Twelve o'clock, really began to talk ghostly. L[ord] B[yron] repeated
some verses of Coleridge's _Christabel_, of the witch's breast; when
silence ensued, and Shelley, suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to
his head, ran out of the room with a candle. Threw water in his face,
and after gave him ether. He was looking at Mrs. S[helley], and suddenly
thought of a woman he had heard of who had eyes instead of nipples,
which, taking hold of his mind, horrified him.—He married; and, a friend
of his liking his wife, he tried all he could to induce her to love him
in turn. He is surrounded by friends who feed upon him, and draw upon
him as their banker. Once, having hired a house, a man wanted to make
him pay more, and came trying to bully him, and at last challenged him.
Shelley refused, and was knocked down; coolly said that would not gain
him his object, and was knocked down again.—Slaney called.
[Some of these statements are passing strange, and most of them call for
a little comment. First we hear that Mrs. Shelley called Polidori her
younger brother—a designation which may have been endearing but was not
accurate; for, whereas the doctor was aged 20 at this date, Mrs. Shelley
was aged only 18. Next, Polidori, after tea, began his ghost-story.
This, according to Mrs. Shelley, was a tale about "a skull-headed lady,
who was so punished for peeping through a keyhole—what to see, I forget;
something very shocking and wrong, of course." So says Mrs. Shelley: but
Polidori's own statement is that the tale which he at first began was
the one published under the title of _Ernestus Berchtold_, which
contains nothing about a skull-headed lady: some details are given in my
Introduction. Afterwards he took up the notion of a vampyre, when
relinquished by Byron. The original story, _Ernestus Berchtold_, may
possibly have been completed in 1816: at any rate it was completed at
some time, and published in 1819, soon after _The Vampyre_. Then comes
the incident (first published in my edition of Shelley's poems in 1870)
of Byron repeating some lines from _Christabel_, and Shelley, who mixed
them up with some fantastic idea already present to his mind, decamping
with a shriek. The lines from _Christabel_ are these—
"Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe and inner vest
Dropped to her feet, and full in view
Behold! her bosom and half her side,
Hideous, deformed, and pale of hue—
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
And she is to sleep by Christabel!"