SHELLEY'S EARLY LIFE. 
 
From a lithograph by Haverty, j&.(T>. IS 29. JAr 
 Lawless was the " literary friend " to vjhora 
 Shelley alludes in his letter to <2*.(3. JAedwin, Esq., 
 (Dublin, Jdaroh 20th, IS 12 See p. 297. 
 
SHELLEY'S 
 EARLY LIFE 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES. 
 
 WITH CURIOUS INCIDENTS, LETTERS. AXD WRITINGS, 
 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED OR COLLECTED. 
 
 i 
 
 1_ | 
 
 AV. -. Lower Sackville Sr-eet, Dublin, from the balcony of which 
 
 Shelley and his w.fe threw the first Irish pamphlet. 
 
 By DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY, M.R.I.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " DRAMAS AND AUTOS FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDERON," ETC. 
 
 LONDON : IOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, PICCADILLY. 
 
i 
 
 \ 
 
 
J u$2i. 
 
 SHELLEY'S 
 
 EARLY LIFE 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES, 
 
 WITH 
 
 CURIOUS INCIDENTS, LETTERS, AND WRITINGS, 
 
 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED OR COLLECTED, 
 
 BY 
 
 DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY, M.R.LA. 
 
 AUTHOR OF DRAMAS AND AUTOS FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDERON, 
 
 LONDON : 
 ^TOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 & 75, PICCADILLY. 
 n \ 1872. 
 
.Ma 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, 
 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 ftSarJL 
 
 
 i 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 HP HE present work, within the limits prescribed to 
 itself, is founded almost entirely on original re- 
 search among sources of information not previously 
 known or examined. How it grew up the following 
 narrative will explain. 
 
 Keats, in the well-known passage of the noble 
 sonnet which records his astonishment M on first look- 
 ing into Chapman's Homer/' compares his wonder to 
 that of an astronomer who in searching the depths of 
 space has suddenly discovered a new star : — 
 
 " Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, 
 When a new planet swims into his ken." 
 
 Something of the same delight and the same surprise 
 was awakened in my mind, when in making re- 
 searches into a particular period of Shelley's life which 
 had not received the attention that I conceived it 
 merited, I came upon the extraordinary fact that 
 he had published a volume of verse just on the eve of 
 his expulsion from Oxford, which was unknown to his 
 companion in that misfortune, which his friends, his 
 family, and his biographers have been ignorant of, and 
 which now, at the expiration of sixty years, is first 
 identified with his name. 
 
 This poem, for the volume contained but one, it 
 may be as well to state here is not to be confounded 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 with the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, 
 or the Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, of which 
 more or less satisfactory accounts have already been 
 published. In the order of publication the poem 
 referred to came third, but of the two preceding works 
 I shall have something additional to say in the follow- 
 ing pages. 
 
 The discovery I speak of is that of the fact of 
 publication, for of the poem itself, notwithstanding 
 all the exertions I have made, extending over a con- 
 siderable period, and in every possible direction, I 
 have not yet been successful in finding a copy.* To 
 continue or rather to vary the illustration from Keats, 
 I may say that I have discovered the surrounding 
 light that indicates the presence of the star, but have 
 not yet detected its nucleus ; or rather, that I have 
 demonstrated its existence without having seen it, 
 and at a time too when I did not know even its name. 
 
 A distinguished mathematician has referred in 
 eloquent language, and with justifiable pride, to what 
 he calls "the great effort of scientific genius which 
 our time has witnessed — the discovery of Neptune." 
 " Need I remind you," continues the same learned 
 person, " that it was no astronomical observer — no 
 practical skill — which gave to us that great discovery? 
 
 * It is needless to say that this interesting volume is not to be 
 found in any of our public libraries. To the courteous librarians 
 of the Bodleian at Oxford, and of University College at Cam- 
 bridge, I have specially to return my thanks for the search they 
 had kindly made for it. A printed circular sent by myself to 
 almost every second-hand bookseller in the three kingdoms was 
 equally unsuccessful. To advertisements in the public journals, 
 and special inquiries instituted by Mr. Quaritch, Piccadilly ; Mr. 
 Stibbs, Museum Street; Messrs. Longmans, Paternoster Row, and 
 others, no reply has ever been received. 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 Wc owe it not to the telescope of the astronomer, but 
 to the pen of the mathematician. And surely it would 
 be hard to find in the history of the human intellect 
 anything more irresistibly attractive to the imagina- 
 tion — more poetic (if I may use the word) — than the 
 thought that on the scribbled page, in these grotesque 
 symbols, lay a power which enabled the mathema- 
 tician to look up from his table in the solitude of his 
 own study — to point to the heavens with the unerring 
 finger of science, and to say — I cannot see it, but it 
 is there."* 
 
 Though the discovery of a poem even by such a 
 poet as Shelley is a matter of trifling importance com- 
 pared to that of a planet, yet there is a slight resem- 
 blance perhaps in the mode, as will be described in 
 the following pages, by which the lesser fact was 
 ascertained. 
 
 This curious story must doubtless be one of the 
 most interesting portions of the present volume, but 
 the other subjects discussed will be found to contain 
 much new and valuable information connected both 
 with the life and works of Shelley. The republica- 
 tion of the Irish pamphlets is alone a matter of con- 
 siderable importance. They had become so scarce 
 that no biographer of Shelley but one has stated 
 that he had even seen them.f It seems paradoxical 
 to say so, but it is quite true, that no portion of the 
 
 * Address delivered before the Royal Irish Academy at the 
 Stated Meeting, on Wednesday, Nov. 30th, 1870. By John H. 
 Jellett, B.D., President, p. 14. Dublin. 18/O. 
 
 t The two English pamphlets published by Shelley in 181 7, 
 under the name of The Hermit of Marlow, which are nearly as 
 difficult to be met with as those he printed in Dublin, are also 
 given as a supplement to the present volume. 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 early life of Shelley is so little known and so much 
 misrepresented as that which includes his first visit to 
 Dublin in 18 1 2. The cynical Mr. Hogg, in his in- 
 complete Life of the poet, surpasses himself when 
 referring to this event and the subsequent visit of 
 1 8 13. Of the former he knew nothing at the time, 
 as Shelley was then totally estranged from his college 
 friend by a well-founded mistrust in the sublime 
 virtue of that stoical gentleman, which rendered it 
 advisable that the unsuspicious philanthropist and the 
 innocent Harriet should terminate, for a while at 
 least, all communication with the immaculate Mr. 
 Hogg. Nearly thirty years ago the writer of these 
 lines was the first to allude with any precision to 
 the interesting episode of Shelley's visit to Dublin 
 in 18 1 2.* Three years later, a more elaborate paper 
 was published by the same writer on the general 
 character of Shelley's poetical genius. f The portions 
 of this essay referring to the literary and political 
 labours of Shelley during his visit to Dublin in 1812, 
 have been incorporated by Mr. Middleton in his 
 Shelley and his Writings, and are to be found ver- 
 batim in vol. i. of that work from p. 211 to p. 229. 
 This account as originally given in the articles just 
 
 * In letters, under the signature of " An Admirer of Shelley," to 
 the editor of The Dublin Evening Post, Nov. 24th and Dec. 6th, 
 1842. Seven years earlier, in The Dublin Weekly Satirist of 
 October 10th, 1835, a j uven il e poem "To the Memory of Percy 
 Bysshe Shelley," was published by the same writer. The motto 
 Bhows the extent of his Shelley enthusiasm at that period. It is 
 from Prometheus Unbound. 
 
 " My soul is an enchanted boat, 
 Which like a sleeping swan doth float 
 
 Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing." 
 
 f In The Nation, Dec. 20th and Dec. 27th, 1845. 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 mentioned, notwithstanding its meagreness of detail, 
 is the only one hitherto published that can be relied 
 on for accuracy and truth. Since then, however, 
 the whole matter has been re-investigated by me 
 with almost unhoped-for success. The earliest public 
 allusions to Shelley that ever appeared have been 
 found in occasional numbers of rare old Irish news- 
 papers, and are now published for the first time 
 in connexion with his biography. A copy of The 
 Dublin Weekly Messenger of the 7 th of March, 18 12, 
 the paper sent by Shelley to Godwin on the day 
 following, has been recovered. It is in this paper, thus 
 authenticated by himself, that I found the allusion to 
 a poem published by Shelley which has so strangely 
 escaped the knowledge of all his biographers The other 
 local and contemporary allusions to Shelley are very 
 valuable. These will be found in the letters of u An 
 Englishman" and " A Dissenter" in Faulkner's Dublin 
 Journal, a paper first established by Swift's publisher, 
 but long since extinct. This was the organ of the Irish 
 Government and the Protestant Ascendency party, and 
 the only hostility experienced by the young philan- 
 thropist when in Dublin came from it. The letter of 
 "An Englishman" is particularly interesting. It 
 describes Shelley's appearance and manner at the 
 celebrated meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre, at 
 which he spoke. The writer calls him " a stripling," 
 denounces him as a " degenerate Englishman," studi- 
 ously avoids mentioning his name, but bears the most 
 unequivocal testimony to the eloquence of the young 
 speaker, and to the enthusiastic reception which he 
 met with from the assembly. This letter is decisive 
 as to the probabilities of Shelley's success as an 
 orator had he devoted himself to a political career. 
 
 b 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 The late Chief Baron Woulfe, after the lapse of many- 
 years, endeavoured to recall the manner of the youth- 
 ful poet on this occasion when making his maiden 
 speech, but the contemporary description here for the 
 first time produced, written not in admiration but in 
 anger, proves that the recollection of the learned judge 
 on this subject was erroneous. The conduct of the 
 audience towards Shelley at this memorable meeting, 
 which has been so recklessly misrepresented by Mr. 
 Hogg, and so carelessly adopted without inquiry by 
 his followers, is here for the first time described with 
 truth. 
 
 More valuable, however, than these public allusions, 
 are some private memoranda still existing in the hand- 
 w r riting of Shelley himself on this and other important 
 events in his life during these eventful years. These, 
 with some remarks in the autograph of Harriet, then 
 his happy and kind-hearted young bride, I have been 
 permitted to see and transcribe. From these truthful 
 and precious memorials I have extracted many pas- 
 sages which will put the whole motives and preparation 
 of Shelley for his Irish Avatar in a clear and intelli- 
 gible point of view. Some biographical particulars 
 relative to the two remarkable men with whom Shelley 
 became acquainted in 18 11, 1812, and 18 13 are given. 
 Independently they would merit and repay a separate 
 inquiry, but their connexion with Shelley, one by the 
 poem of 18 11, which was published for his benefit, and 
 the other by the History of Ireland, projected and 
 partly printed in 18 12, will be at the present day, at 
 least in England, their chief source of interest.* 
 
 * I wish to modify a statement at p. 4 of the present volume, 
 in which the first of the gentlemen above alluded to, is said to 
 
PREFA CE. xi 
 
 Of these two historical characters and of Shelley's 
 political projects at the time, some curious particulars 
 will be found in the present volume, partly derived 
 from the State Papers in the Record Office. Those 
 that relate to the seizure of the Irish pamphlets at 
 Holyhead aud the attempt to circulate the Declaration 
 of Rights at Barnstaple are in themselves important 
 and interesting documents. For the very curious 
 letter of the Earl of Chichester, and the correspondence 
 between Mr. — afterwards Sir — Francis Freeling and 
 the Post Office agents at Holyhead, I have to return 
 my very grateful thanks to the Right Hon. Chichester 
 Fortescue, M.P., President of the Board of Trade, 
 who has obligingly placed them at my disposal. A 
 separate correspondence, referring to the same seizure, 
 between the officers of the Board of Customs at Holy- 
 head and the Home Secretary, the Right Hon. R. Ryder, 
 is also preserved among the State Papers. It has 
 hitherto escaped notice, and is here published for the 
 first time. The simple but affecting letter of the kind 
 and gentle Harriet, a copy of which is preserved among 
 the State Papers, will be read with much interest. 
 
 To my friend Dr. R. R. Madden, M.R.I.A., I have 
 
 have " succeeded Leigh Hunt as editor of The Statesman" after 
 that paper was given up for The Examiner, by Hunt and his 
 brother. He was probably only a contributor. Who the editor 
 of The Statesman may have been in 1808—9 is uncertain. In the 
 latter year the proprietor was Daniel Lovell. An autograph letter 
 of his, which I have recently seen, shows that in March, 1809, he 
 had been long enough connected with the journal to authorize in 
 some way his making a claim on a distinguished nobleman, a 
 member of the Ministry, for the sum of 1300Z., " agreeable to the 
 account delivered," as he says, " for balance due to the Statesman 
 Paper." This claim throws some light on a passage in the letter of 
 Leigh Hunt, which will be found at p. 74 of the present volume. 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 seen him. He probably left the meeting at Fishamble 
 Street Theatre after the delivery of his own speech, 
 and before the young poet had addressed the assembly. 
 I had twice the opportunity of speaking to O'Connell 
 on the subject of Shelley, once in the autumn of 
 1844, at Darrynane Abbey, after "the unjust cap- 
 tivity/' as he calls it in an autograph paper presented 
 to myself. This visit to Darrynane I paid with two 
 distinguished friends — one the present Prime Minister 
 of Victoria, and the other a leading member of the 
 Irish bar, a gentleman equally loved and admired for 
 his many virtues and his various gifts. On a later 
 occasion O'Connell himself introduced the name of 
 Shelley. It was in the study of his town house in 
 Merrion Square, Dublin. He alluded to an article on 
 Shelley which had just appeared in The Nation of 
 Dec. 20th, 1845. It attracted his notice, probably 
 from some allusions to himself. He paid it the unde- 
 served compliment of attributing it to the powerful 
 pen of Mr. John Mitchell, and was surprised to find 
 it was written by me. On both the occasions I refer 
 to he only spoke of Shelley, to use his own words, as 
 "the man who wrote Queen Mab." The writer in 
 Blackwood says, " Perhaps that astute demagogue was 
 not sorry to have the name of the son of an English 
 Member of Parliament in the list of his supporters at 
 that early period. " At the meeting in question there 
 were several Protestant gentlemen, one a noble lord, 
 of higher social position than Shelley ; but whatever 
 his rank, I believe that O'Connell would have repudi- 
 ated his political support until he had withdrawn the 
 atrocious calumnies on the religion of the people of 
 Ireland, which Shelley had so innocently put forward 
 in both of his Irish pamphlets. 
 
PREFACE. xv 
 
 Another matter, of interest perhaps to some of my 
 readers, may here be mentioned. 
 
 The exact locality of Mrs. Fenning's school, where 
 Shelley first saw Harriet Westbrook, having been dis- 
 puted, I have made some inquiries in this neighbour- 
 hood, and find the conclusions I had already arrived 
 at, given at p. 114 of the present volume, quite cor- 
 rect. The school stood on the north side of Clapham 
 Common, near the " Old. Town/'' directly facing 
 Trinity Church, a position from which it probably 
 derived its name, the mansion having been called 
 " Church House." The site is now occupied by a range 
 of about six houses, known as " Nelson Terrace." Old 
 inhabitants of Clapham recollect " Church House" 
 very distinctly. It was approached by an elaborate 
 antique gateway and neat grass lawn. For some of 
 these particulars I am indebted to the kindness of a 
 lady, the granddaughter of Mrs. Fenning, residing in 
 Kent, to whom I beg to return my best thanks. 
 
 2, Cavendish Terrace, Clapham Common, 
 London, S.W. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introductory remarks — Glance at Shelley's first visit to Dublin— Sensa- 
 tion produced by him — Earliest public notice of Shelley — Allusion to 
 a poem published by him hitherto unknown — Silence of Leigh Hunt 
 and Mr. Hogg as to this Poem — Not referred to for sixty years — 
 Singular statement as to its success — Mr. Finnerty — Shelley's inten- 
 tion to reprint his Irish pamphlets in Loudon — Letter to Mr. Hook- 
 ham — Biographical value of the Irish pamphlets— Godwin's dread of 
 political Associations — The poet wiser than the philosopher — Retro- 
 spective view of Shelley's earliest writings — Zastrozzi— Contradictory 
 statements as to it — John Joseph Stockdale — Original Poetry by 
 Victor and Cazire — Stockdale's Budget — Description of Shelley in 
 it — The Stockdales — Victor and Cazire advertised in The Times — 
 Cause of its suppression — Conjectural explanation of the name Victor 
 — Shelley at Oxford — Mr. Hogg's first acquaintance with Shelley — 
 Grave suspicions as to his Life of the poet — Hogg and Medwin com- 
 pared — Mistakes of both on Lord Grenville's election as Chancellor 
 of the University — Letter alleged to have been published by Shelley 
 on the candidateship of Lord Grenville— Shelley not then a student 
 of University College — Endeavour to explain the statement — A letter 
 answering Medwin's description given pp. I — 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Shelley interested in Oxford affairs before his entrance at the University 
 — His Latin lines In Horologium only a translation — Original where 
 found — Mr. Hogg's description of Shelley's rooms at Oxford too ela- 
 borate — Altogether a fancy picture — Reasons for doubting the sudden 
 intimacy between him and Shelley — Posthumous Fragments of Mar- 
 garet Nicholson — When published — Mr. Hogg's account of the matter 
 — Reprint of the volume — Continuation of Mr. Hogg's narrative — 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 His statements examined — The Oxford University and City Herald 
 — John Munday — Particulars connected with him — Margaret Nichol- 
 son published three weeks after Mr. Hogg first met Shelley — Ad- 
 vertisement of it — Analysis of the poems — Omission in Mr. Rossetti's 
 edition of the Posthumous Fragments pp. 26 — 40 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 St. Irvyne published by Stockdale — Its commercial failure — Debt in- 
 curred by its publication — A Refutation of Deism — Contradictory 
 accounts of this book by Mr. Hogg — Probably the work offered to 
 Stockdale to pay off the debt on St, Irvyne — Shelley's letter to God- 
 win describing his literary employments at Oxford — Absurd state- 
 ments of Medwin and Hogg as to newspapers — Shelley a diligent 
 reader of newspapers all his life — His project of having one of his 
 own — " Classical reading and poetical writing" Shelley's occupation 
 at Oxford — Attempt to explain this statement — The Oxford Univer- 
 sity and City Herald — Its politics and character— Poems published 
 in it during Shelley's residence at Oxford — Ode to the Death of Sum- 
 mer — Its Shelleyan tone — Translations from the Greek Anthologia 
 signed "S." in The Oxford Herald — Epigram from Vincent Bourne 
 — Epigrams from the Greek Anthologia resumed — Do not appear in 
 the paper after Shelley's expulsion pp. 41— 6a 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Shelley Letters, edited by Mr. Robert Browning— Letter of Shelley 
 to the Editor of The Statesman — Letter of Shelley to the Editor 
 of The Examiner — The letter when first published — Place assigned 
 to it in Mr. Hogg's book — His absurd comments upon it — 
 Letter printed — Passages in it identical with those in the letter 
 to the Editor of The Statesman — Singular oversight in Mr. Browning 
 not to perceive this identity — Some of the letters forged — Detection 
 of the imposture — Suppression of the volume — Reasons for believing 
 the letter to The Statesman genuine — Leigh Hunt's account of the 
 letter addressed to himself confused and full of errors — Who was the 
 editor of The Statesman ? — No copy of the paper in the British Mu- 
 seum — Founded by John and Leigh Hunt. Its prosecution by the 
 Government — Five years' incarceration of Mr. Lovell — Mr. Lovell 
 not the person addressed as editor of The Statesman by Shelley — 
 Mr. Peter Finnerty — Elaborate account of him from an article in The 
 Examiner by Leigh Hunt — The Walcheren expedition — Sir Home 
 PophamandMr. Finnerty— Sir Richard Strachan — Epigrams 63—94 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Sir Francis Burdett and Peter Finnerty — Subscription to sustain Mr. 
 Finnerty in prison commenced— Universal sympathy with him — 
 Local committee formed at Oxford — Article on Mr. Finnerty in The 
 Oxford Herald — Subscription opened there — Subscription of "Mr. 
 P. B. Shelley" to the fund — Shelley's letters to The Statesman and 
 The Examiner evidently suggested by articles in the The Oxford 
 Herald — Shelley's missing poem of i8ir, advertised conspicuously 
 in The Oxford Herald, March 9th, t8ii — Strong probability that 
 the poem was a satire — Quotation from The Curse of Kehama — Mr. 
 Hogg's absurd statement relative to that poem — Mr. Hogg described 
 in The Atlantic Monthly — The Poetical Essay on the Existing State of 
 Things, probably referred to under another name by Shelley in a 
 . letter to Godwin — Alleged extraordinary success of the poem — A 
 profit of loci, realized by it, and presented to Mr. Finnerty — Ac- 
 count of Shelley's life at Oxford resumed pp. 95 — 106 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Necessity of Atheism — An advertisement of its intended publication 
 discovered, and now first extracted from The Oxford Herald — 
 The MS. offered to Mr. Stockdale — Stockdale's opinion of Mr. 
 Hogg — Remonstrance of Mr. Hogg, and his allusion to Peter Fin- 
 nerty in Stockdale's Budget — Poems by Janetta Philipps — Shelley's 
 interest in that volume — Probably published at his expense — List of 
 subscribers — Names of Shelley, Miss Shelley, Miss Hellen Shelley, 
 and Miss Harriet Westbrook amongst them— Acquaintance of Sheiley 
 with Harriet Westbrook probably formed in consequence of her sub- 
 scription to this volume — Expulsion of Shelley and Mr. Hogg from 
 Oxford — Shelley's residence with Mr. Hogg in Poland Street — Ad- 
 vertisements of the Poetical Essay in the Londou papers during this 
 period — Mr. Hogg's charge of " underhand ways" in Shelley — Cir- 
 cumstances to which he may have alluded — Harriet Westbrook at 
 Clapham — Extracts from unpublished letters by her — Terms of en- 
 dearment used by Shelley towards Harriet — Dedication of Queen 
 Mab — Promised revelations as to the real facts of the separation — 
 Shelley's married life with Harriet at Edinburgh — Visit of Mr. Hogg 
 — Removal of the Shelleys and Mr. Hogg to York — Miss Westbrook 
 sent for by Harriet — "A guardian angel" — Abrupt separation of 
 .the Shelleys from Mr. Hogg at York — A "Fragment of a Novel" 
 too true — "Charlotte" and "Albert" real personages — Residence of 
 the Shelleys at Keswick — Total cessation of all intercourse between 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Shelley and Mr. Hogg for more than a year — Letter of the Duke of 
 Norfolk to Shelley — Untrue statement as to its contents by Mr. 
 Hogg — Substance of the letter — Extracts from the Private Diary of 
 the Duke of Norfolk alluding to Shelley, now first published— Expla- 
 nations of same — Visit of Shelley, Harriet Shelley, and Miss West- 
 brook to the Duke of Norfolk at Greystoke— Extracts from the 
 Private Journal of Mrs. Howard, of Corby Castle, now first pub- 
 lished, describing the party — Mr. James Brougham and Mr. Calvert 
 — Unpublished letter of Shelley alluding to Mr. Calvert — De Quincey 
 on Shelley's residence at Keswick — Shelley's intercourse with 
 Southey at Keswick — Southey's lines on Kobert Emmett — Shelley's 
 " differences" with Southey — Southey's two sets of opinions and 
 feelings pp. 107 — 129 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Preparations for the Irish campaign — Letter to Godwin — The Address 
 to the Irish People described — Duration of Shelley's intended resi- 
 dence in Dublin prearranged — The programme not departed from — 
 Miss Eliza Hitchener— Letter to her — Intention of Shelley to pub- 
 lish his Poems in Dublin — Shelley writes Verses on Robert Emmett — 
 Departure of the Shelleys from Keswick — Shelley's parting observa- 
 tions on Southey, from an unpublished letter written at "Whitehaven. 
 — Mrs. Calvert — The Isle of Man visited en route for Dublin — Arrival 
 of the Shelleys in Dublin — Date hitherto given erroneous — Stormy 
 passage — Coincidence between it and Southey's in i8or — Sackville 
 Street, Dublin, described — Unpublished letter of Shelley describing 
 his hopes — Apostrophe To Ireland — The Mexican Revolution, &c, in 
 this letter — Amount of his income — Letter of introduction to Curran 
 from Godwin — Seeming indifference of the Government to Shelley's 
 proceedings — The Slate Papers of 181 1 — Slowness of Curran in 
 seeking out Shelley — The Address to the Irish People advertised and 
 published — The first sheet sent to Miss Hitchener — Copies also sent 
 to Mr. Westbrook and Godwin — Heavy postage on the pamphlets, 
 which wi re charged as letters — Godwin the greatest sufferer — 
 Curran still slow in making advances to Shelley — Lord Cloneuiry's 
 opinion of Curran's accepting office pp. 130 — 154 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 An unpublished letter of Godwin to Curran — Lord Sidmouth and the 
 Masque of Anarchy — Curious paper in the Record Office addressed 
 to Lord Sidmouth, relative to Godwin's Juvenile Library, published 
 
CONTENTS. xxi 
 
 under the name of Baldwin — Minute analysis of the various works, 
 most of which are mentioned by Godwin in his letter to Curran — 
 Shelley's letter to Hamilton Rowan — Rowan's friendship for Mary 
 Wollstouecraft— Elizabeth Dixon, of Ballyshannon, the mother of 
 Mary Wollstonecraft — Unpublished letter of Shelley, describing his 
 mode of circulating his pamphlets — He and Harriet throw them from 
 the balcony of No. 7, Lower Sackville Street — Daniel Hill, the Irish 
 servant of Shelley — He gives out that his master is only fifteen 
 years of age — Postscript by Harriet — Article in The North British 
 Review, by the late Dr. Anster — Recollections of Chief Baron 
 Woulfe, as to Shelley's mode of addressing a meeting, erroneous — 
 Shelley's " Plan for Proselytising the Young Men of Trinity Col- 
 lege" — The balcony of No. 7, Lower Sackville Street — Roger 
 O'Connor — Other unpublished letters of Shelley . . pp. 155 — 177 
 
 An Address to the People of Ireland, by Percy Bysshe Shelley 
 
 pp. 179—224 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Peter Finnerty alluded to in the foregoing Address — The Limerick 
 Evening Post — Papers in the Record Office relative to the proceed- 
 ings of the Catholics — Mr. Finnerty mentioned — Statement in the 
 House of Commons relative to Mr. Finnerty's speech — Letter of Mr. 
 Wellesley Pole— The meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre — Origi- 
 nally a music hall — The Bull and Bead Society and Dean Swift — 
 Handel's visit to Dublin — The Messiah — Decay of Fishamble Street, 
 and demolition of the theatre— Private reports of the meeting fur- 
 nished to Government preserved in the Record Office — Shelley 
 briefly alluded to — Mr., subsequently Sir Thomas, Wyse described — 
 Remarks on this description — Shelley's speech, as reported in The 
 Freeman s Journal — Report in The Dublin Evening Post — Report 
 in The Patriot — Shelley's own account of his reception at the 
 meeting, from an unpublished letter — Mr. Hogg's reckless misde- 
 scription of the scene — His statements proved to be untrue — The 
 resolution to which Shelley spoke— Extract from the speech of Mr. 
 Wyse pp. 225— 248 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Shelley as an orator — Opinions of Medwin, Trelawny, Captain Williams, 
 and Chief Baron Woulfe on the subject — Important letter of "An Eng- 
 lishman " who was present at the meeting in Fishamble StreetTheatre 
 on the 28th of February, 18 1 2, as given in Faulkner's Dublin Journal 
 
xxii CONTENTS. 
 
 of March 7th, 181 2 — Description of Shelley — His enthusiastic recep- 
 tion by the meeting— The earliest article ever published on Shelley from 
 The Dublin Weekly Messenger o( March 7th, 1S12 — A poem of Shelley 
 hitherto unknown referred to in this article — The poem published 
 for the purpose of assisting to sustain Mr. Peter Finnerty in prison — 
 Its great success — The paper sent by Shelley to Godwin — A second 
 letter alluding to Shelley, signed "A Dissenter, '* in The Dublin 
 Journal, March 21st, 1812 pp. 248 — 261 
 
 PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION OF PHILANTHROPISTS, &C, BY PkRCT 
 
 Bysshe Shelley pp. 263—286 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Shelley's residence in Dublin continued — Godwin and old letters — 
 Political Justice an ineffective work — Shelley to Miss Hitchener — 
 Beresford and the army in Portugal— A Dublin "magistrate of 
 hell" — Major Sirr— Shelley and Sir Francis Burdett — Mr. Law- 
 less — Failure of the attempt to establish the association — Post- 
 script by Harriet — Mr. and Mrs. Lawless — Autobiographical sketch 
 by Harriet Shelley — The " Pythagorean system'' of food adopted — 
 Postscript by Shelley — Lord Fingal — Shelley's description of his 
 reception at the meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre — Intends to 
 establish a newspaper with Mr. Lawless — Letter to Mr. Medwin, 
 senior — History of Ireland parily printed — Shelley's "literar}' 
 friend " — Who he was — Godwin and the Philosopher's stone — Mr. 
 Harold Skimpole— Article in The Examiner on " Young Poets" — 
 Suicide of Harriet — Curious reference to Shelley and Mr. Lawless 
 in The Dublin Evening Post, Nov. 17th, 1842 — Frederick William 
 Conway and John Lawless — Letter of Mr. Conway to Lord Sid- 
 mouth in the Record Office — Shelley withdraws his pamphlets from 
 circulation — Letter to Godwin — Seizure of the pamphlets and De- 
 claration of Rights at Holyhead — Letter of the officer of Customs 
 — Letter of the postmaster at Holyhead — Letter of the Earl of 
 Chichestei — Curious statements about Shelley, Harriet Shelley, and 
 Miss Hitchener in Lord Chichester's letter — Second letter of the 
 officer of Customs at Holyhead, enclosing the copy of Harriet's 
 letter preserved in the Record Office — Harriet's letter — Curious 
 allusions in it — Mrs. Nugent — St. Patrick's night, &c. 
 
 pp. 2S7— 320 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Harriet Shelley's letter sent to Mr. Wellesley Pole — No action taken by 
 the Irish Government — The Declaration of Rights printed at Dublin 
 — Passages in it and Shelley's second pamphlet identical. 
 
 pp. 321—324 
 
 Declaration of Rights pp. 324 — 329 
 
 Shelley leaves Dublin — Misstatements of Mr. Hogg — Unpublished letter 
 of Shelley from Rhayader — Habeas Corpus Act not suspended — 
 "Verses on Robert Emmett" — Description of Nantgwillt — Letter 
 to Godwin — Reflections on the visit to Dublin — Shelley deficient in 
 humour — Disappointed with Curran — Curran's wit described by 
 Godwin — Curious allusions of Shelley in an unpublished letter from 
 Rhayader — Unchanging fidelity to Harriet proclaimed — "Percy's 
 little circle " — Mistakes corrected — Shelley's departure from Dublin 
 not "abrupt" — Absurd romance of Captain Medwin — Mr. Peacock's 
 resume of Shelley's visit to Ireland completely wrong, pp. 329 — 341 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Shelleys leave "Wales and settle at Lynton, Lymouth, North 
 Devonshire — Godwin pressed to visit — Description of Miss Hitchener 
 — A suggestion that the philosopher should bring that lady with 
 him — Miss Hitchener finds her way alone — Daniel Hill, the Irish 
 servant of Shelley — His arrest at Barnstaple — Curious papers in the 
 Record Office published by Mr. Rossetti — The same story told else- 
 where — The Literary History of Barnstaple — New facts — The Letter 
 to Lord Ellenborough printed at Barnstaple — Mr. Syle — Suppression 
 of the Letter — Incompletely printed by Lady Shelley — Mistakes in 
 the transcript of the State Papers referring to the Barnstaple 
 affair corrected — The Devil's Walk — Lord Castlereagh and Shelley 
 equal admirers of Lady Morgan's Missionary — Departure of the 
 Shelleys from Lymouth— Godwin's visit — "The Shelleys gone!" — 
 " The Hon. Mr. Lawleys ;" not a brother of Lord Cloncurry — Re- 
 moval of the Shelleys, Miss "Westbrook, and Miss Hitchener to 
 Tremadoc — Samuel Rogers at Tan-yr-allt — Alleged subscription of 
 Shelley to the Tremadoc breakwater fund — The story very doubtful — 
 Reparation from Miss Hitchener — Confused account by Mr. Hogg — 
 Miss Hitchener considers herself badly treated — Shel'ey's visit to 
 London in reference to this matter — Alleged residence of Shelley with 
 Godwin during this visit scarcely possible — " Fanny Godwin " — Her 
 
v CONTENTS. 
 
 real name — Her melancholy fate — "The Brown Demon" — The 
 " attempted assassination " at Tan-yr-allt — Arrival of Daniel Hill — 
 His complicity in this affair very improbable — an attempt to clear up 
 the mystery — Conclusion pp. 341 — 366 
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote throughout the 
 Country, by the Hermit of Marlow .... pp. 369 — 378 
 
 (" We pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird.") 
 
 An Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Char- 
 lotte, by the Hermit of Marlow pp. 379 — 394 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 1. Death of Mr. Peter Finnerty pp. 395 — 400 
 
 No. 2. Correspondence between the Earl of Moira and the Right Hon. 
 Richard Ryder, relative to "Mr. Lawless," from the State Papers — 
 Letter of Mr. Philip Lawless— Death of Mr. John Lawless— His 
 Funeral pp. 400 — 408 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 /^N the I2tli of February, 1812, a young English- 
 man, with his wife and sister-in-law, arrived in 
 the capital of Ireland, and took up his residence in 
 the principal street of that city. The gentleman had 
 completed his nineteenth year a few months before, 
 but still preserved the appearance of a boy. His wife, 
 remarkable for her fair and girlish beauty, was still 
 younger than her husband, and her sister, the eldest 
 of the party, was but little in advance of her com- 
 panions as to age. This not very formidable-looking 
 trio had come to Ireland on a business of no small 
 importance, for which they had been long preparicg. 
 Their object was, " as far as in them lar" — to use the 
 language of the chief organizer — to effect a funda- 
 mental change in the constitution of the British 
 Empire, to restore to Ireland its native Parliament, 
 to carry the great measure of justice called Catholic 
 Emancipation, and to establish a philanthropic associa- 
 tion for the amelioration of human society all over the 
 world. The young man was perfectly unknown in 
 Ireland, or even in England outside the circle of his 
 
2 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 own family and a few friends. He had published 
 anonymously two or throe little books, both in prose 
 and verse, which perhaps may be considered the least 
 promising first attempts ever made public by a man of 
 genius. One poem, indeed, is said to have been " very 
 beautiful," but as yet we are not in a position to judge 
 if the laudatory epithet was well deserved. Of that 
 poem and its history we shall have much to say. 
 
 Undeterred by these literary failures, and with a 
 consciousness of possessing intellectual powers which 
 had not yet found their proper mode of expression, 
 he determined to devote himself to the work that lay 
 nearest to his hand in the great and universal scheme 
 of philanthropy which he had projected. The con- 
 dition of Ireland particularly attracted him. His 
 sense of justice revolted at the oppression which that 
 country had long endured, and his benevolence was 
 enMndled by the miseries from which it still suffered. 
 He determined to devote himself to its cause. He 
 resolved to become a true Knight of St. Patrick, and 
 to extirpate from its soil those serpent forms of bigotry, 
 prejudice, and misrule which had unfortunately re- 
 placed the less venomous reptiles that had fled before 
 the staff of the Apostle. How he prospered in that 
 generous undertaking is partly the object of the 
 following pages to relate, for the first time, truthfully 
 and in detail. 
 
 Bearing in one hand, as Caesar did his Commen- 
 taries, his unpublished Address to the Irish People, 
 and in the other a letter of introduction from a 
 celebrated though rather ineffective philosopher to 
 an illustrious Irish orator and wit, he crossed the 
 stormy Channel and boldly raised at once the standard 
 of Philanthropy. 
 
EARLIEST PUBLIC NOTICE. 3 
 
 On the 12th of February, [812, he arrived an un- 
 known stranger; by the 27th of the same month he 
 had already become famous. To use his own language 
 in an unpublished letter, he had within that short time 
 u excited a sensation of wonder in Dublin/'' and " ex- 
 pectation was on the tiptoe." The day following the 
 date of this letter he made his first public appearance 
 in a great assembly, which he roused to enthusiasm by 
 his fervid eloquence, and a week later appeared the 
 first of the innumerable papers which year after year, 
 and perhaps century after century, were destined to 
 be written upon the genius and the story of that then 
 unknown young man, under the now familiar head- 
 line of Percy By s she Shelley. 
 
 This article, which was the first to foreshadow the 
 proud anticipations of Shelley himself, that his fame 
 would one day become 
 
 " A star among the stars of mortal night," 
 
 and which was the earliest to recognise the benevolence 
 at least of his intentions, would for these reasons 
 alone be worth preserving. It will therefore be given 
 entire in its proper place, but its concluding paragraph 
 may be here extracted for the exceedingly interesting 
 fact in his literary history which it records, and which 
 by this casual allusion alone has been rescued from 
 complete oblivion. To the accidental preservation of 
 an Irish newspaper published sixty years ago, we are 
 indebted for the following singular and most unexpected 
 piece of information. 
 
 " We have but one word more to add," says The 
 Dublin Weekly Messenger of March 7, 1812: " Mr. 
 Shelley, commiserating the sufferings of our distin- 
 guished countryman Mr. Finerty, whose exertions in 
 
 B 2 
 
4 PERCY BYSSJIE SHELLEY. 
 
 the cause of political freedom he much admired, wrote 
 a very beautiful poem, the profits of the sale of which, 
 we understand from undoubted authority, Mr. Shelley 
 remitted to Mr. Finerty. We have heard they amounted 
 to nearly an hundred pounds. This fact speaks a 
 volume in favour of our new friend." 
 
 What was this " very beautiful poem ?" and who was 
 « Mr. Finerty V* 
 
 Such are two of the questions I propose to myself 
 to answer in the course of this inquiry. 
 
 Since the 7th of March, 1812, until the publication 
 of the present work, except in the private researches 
 set on foot by the author for its recovery, it may 
 safely be asserted that no other allusion can be found 
 to the existence of the poem referred to in the 
 paragraph just quoted. As to Mr. Finerty, the case 
 is somewhat different. The State Trials by Cobbett, 
 the eloquence of Curran, and the history of the United 
 Irishmen, preserve the earlier incidents of his story ; 
 while the annals of English journalism, the disastrous 
 Walcheren expedition, and the debates in Parliament, 
 supply ample materials for his later career. But the 
 connexion of Shelley with him, and the ignorance of 
 Shelley's friends as to that connexion, are alike ex- 
 traordinary. 
 
 Mr. Finnerty, as he subsequently wrote his name, 
 must have been personally well known to Leigh Hunt. 
 He succeeded Hunt as editor of The Statesman news- 
 paper, when that journal was given up by the future 
 friend of Shelley for the more successful Examiner. 
 It was an article written by Leigh Hunt in the latter 
 paper that drew the attention of Shelley to the case 
 of Mr. Finnerty, and led in a very short time to the 
 remarkable fact of his publishing a poem for his 
 
SHELLEY AXD MR. FIXXERTT. 5 
 
 benefit. Shelley, it is true, was not personally known 
 to Leigh Hunt until two years after the publication of 
 this poem; but Mr. Finnerty lived until 1822, the 
 year of Shelley's death, and Leigh Hunt long survived 
 both. It is strange that in all this time Leigh Hunt 
 should have been silent as to a fact which it is difficult 
 to conceive he could have been entirely ignorant of. 
 It is just possible that he heard of it at a time when he 
 had no conception of the astonishing dimensions to 
 which Shelley's fame would eventually grow. That 
 he preserved no accurate recollection of his own first 
 acquaintance with Shelley himself is certain. It will 
 be shown hereafter that what he has written on this 
 subject is full of errors. Another friend of Shelley, 
 and an earlier one — his biographer, Mr. Hogg — in a 
 letter of remonstrance to John Joseph Stockdale, the 
 publisher, alludes with approval to the conduct of a 
 gentleman who it will be proved was Mr. Finnerty. 
 This letter is published in Stockdale s Budget. But 
 neither in the Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, nor in 
 the so-called Life of Shelley by Mr. Hogg, is there 
 any mention of the journalist to whom the poet paid 
 this singular mark of respect, or of the poem itself. It 
 is scarcely necessary to say that later biographers do 
 not supply the omission. The time when this poem 
 was published, and the place where it was written, 
 render Mr. Hogg's ignorance of its existence most 
 remarkable. The redeeming feature of Mr. Hogg's 
 egotistical and eccentric book is generally considered 
 to be that portion of it which, written many years 
 before under the title of Shelley at Oxford, is incorpo- 
 rated with the later work. What authority can be 
 placed even on this division of Mr. Hogg's book will 
 be seen further on. At present it need only be said 
 
5 PERCY B YSSIIE SJIEL I E Y. 
 
 that while lie loads his page with trivial details and 
 apocryphal conversations, he forgets, or was never told, 
 that his incomparable friend, " the Divine poet/'' as 
 he sometimes almost derisively calls him, with whom 
 he represents himself as living in daily and almost 
 nightly intercourse, had published a poem when at 
 Oxford which, in a pecuniary point of view, was the 
 most successful he had ever written. 
 
 There is another place where the absence of any 
 allusion to this poem is also remarkable. Mr. Finnerty, 
 as will subsequently be more fully stated, had been 
 prosecuted by the Attorney-General for an alleged 
 libel on Lord Castlereagh. Being prevented by Lord 
 Ellenborough from proving that the statements com- 
 plained of were true, he declined to enter into his 
 defence, and allowed judgment to go by default. He 
 was sentenced to a long imprisonment in Lincoln gaol. 
 The liberty of the Press being considered to be involved 
 in the persecution of Mr. Finnerty, an important 
 meeting was called at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, 
 at which Sir Francis Burdett presided. A vote of 
 sympathy and approval of Mr. Finnerty's conduct was 
 passed, and a subscription to sustain him in prison at 
 once set on foot. I have taken the trouble of ex- 
 aminirg all the lists in reference to this fund which I 
 could find in The Morning Chronicle and other papers 
 of the period. In the course of the year the amount 
 exceeded the sum of one thousand pounds. I have, 
 however, been unable to meet with any acknowledg- 
 ment of so handsome a contribution as one hundred 
 pounds — the profits, as we are told, of the poem which, 
 as will be shown, Shelley published for the benefit of 
 Mr. Finnerty. I was, however, rewarded by finding 
 the personal subscription of " Mr. P. B. Shelley," not 
 
THE DUBLIN WEEKLY MESSENGER. 7 
 
 in a London paper indeed, but in a very unexpected 
 quarter, as will subsequently be given in detail. 
 
 It is perhaps equally singular that no recollection 
 or tradition of this circumstance, and uo copy of the 
 poem, or even of the fact of it ever having been 
 published, have been preserved by the collateral descen- 
 dants of Mr. Finnerty who are still living. Two 
 gentlemen have kindly responded to my inquiries, but 
 have not been able to give me any information. And yet 
 there can be no doubt that the statement in The Dublin 
 Weekly Messenger of March 7th, t8 13, is true. At the 
 time this statement was publicly made, Mr. Finnerty 
 was still in prison. He was not released until the ex- 
 piration of his sentence in the following August. The 
 WeeMy Messenger frequently alluded to his martyrdom 
 for what was considered to be the liberty of the Press. 
 He on more than one occasion wrote from his prison 
 to the editor of that journal. A famous speech 
 delivered by him before his incarceration, which was 
 made the excuse in Parliament for the revival of the 
 Convention Act, will be found fully reported in the 
 volume of the paper for 18 10. Nothing published in 
 The Weekly Messenger could possibly have escaped his 
 notice. It is incredible that he would not have con- 
 tradicted this statement of the presentation to him of 
 the profits of a poem if it were not true. This state- 
 ment, too, it should be remembered, is authenticated 
 by Shelley himself, for he sends the paper containing 
 it to Godwin, and pointedly refers to the article in 
 which it is given. In his first pamphlet, printed in 
 Dublin, Shelley expressly alludes to Mr. Finnerty by 
 name. The subject, in whatever point of view we 
 regard it, is full of difficulties, but as much light as 
 can possibly be now thrown upon it is endeavoured to 
 
8 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 be supplied in the following pages. It is here alluded 
 to in order to direct the attention of the reader to 
 what will perhaps be found to be one of the most 
 interesting incidents recorded in this narrative. 
 
 To tell the story satisfactorily, it will be necessary 
 to give, in the first place, the only authentic allusion 
 hitherto published, which Shelley himself has made to 
 the extraordinary episode in his life comprised in his 
 first visit to Dublin in 1812, and the pamphlets which 
 he printed and circulated there in furtherance of the 
 great objects which led him to undertake so singular 
 an expedition. We shall then review his career as a 
 student both at Eton and Oxford; his early publica- 
 tions, including the missing poem of 1 8 1 1 ; some 
 singularly interesting particulars of his married life, 
 particularly at York ; his residence at Keswick ; until 
 at length we find him at the age of nineteen years and 
 five months in Dublin, a political agitator and emanci- 
 pator, an advocate for " Home Rule," a repealer of 
 the Union, and a universal philanthropist. 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley, in a letter to a literary 
 friend in London, thus writes from Lymouth, Barn- 
 staple, on the 1 8th of August, 1812 : — 
 
 u In the first place, I send you fifty copies of the 
 letter [to Lord Ellenborough] . I send you a copy of 
 a work which I have procured from America, and 
 which I am exceedingly anxious should be published. 
 It develops, as you will perceive by the most super- 
 ficial reading, the actual state of republicanized Ire- 
 land, and appears to me above all things calculated 
 to remove the prejudices which have too long been 
 cherished of that oppressed country. I enclose the 
 two pamphlets which I printed and distributed whilst 
 
THE IRISH PAMPHLETS. 9 
 
 in Ireland some months ago (no bookseller daring to 
 publish them). They were on that account attended 
 with only partial success, and I request your opinion 
 as to the probable result of publishing them with the 
 annexed suggestions in one pamphlet, with an expla- 
 natory preface, in London. They would find their 
 way to Dublin."* 
 
 Without referring at present to the letter addressed 
 to Lord Ellenborough, about which I shall have to 
 mention subsequently some interesting facts not pre- 
 viously given in any biography of the poet, we have 
 here the important statement by Shelley himself, that 
 so far from being ashamed of his Irish crusade, in 
 the early part of the same year, as insinuated by Mr. 
 Hogg, he had the deliberate intention of publishing 
 in London the pamphlets which he had printed and 
 distributed in Dublin a few months before. 
 
 For the republication of these pamphlets, even 
 after the lapse of sixty years, it may be said that we 
 have in this letter Shelley's own express sanction. It 
 is true that his object in republishing them at the 
 time would have been a political one. But in a 
 literary point of view, I think he must have regarded 
 them with some complacency. The second pamphlet, 
 at least, he considered to be written in his " own 
 natural style." In this respect, however, it differs 
 very slightly, if at all, from the first, and both pam- 
 phlets may be favourably compared with the letter to 
 Lord Ellenborough, which has been reprinted, though 
 incompletely, by the poet's family. 
 
 * Letter of Shelley to Mr. Thomas Hookham, of Old Bond 
 Street, " a valued friend of Shelley." — See Shelley Memorials, 
 PP- 38, 39- 
 
io PERCY BYSSHE SBELLBT. 
 
 It is not, however, for their literary value or their 
 political significance that the pamphlets are now re- 
 published : it is for their biographical, perhaps I 
 should say their autobiographical, interest. The poli- 
 tical importance of these eloquent protests against 
 intolerance, injustice, and misrule has passed away j 
 but as historical memorials both of the writer and of 
 the time and place in which they were published, they 
 will always be read with interest. Many of the evils 
 against which these fervid appeals were directed have 
 been, at least in recent years, honestly attempted to 
 be remedied. One of the two great measures which 
 Shelley so ardently supported, not only by his pen 
 but by his voice, was passed withiu seventeen years of 
 the time when it received the enthusiastic advocacy of 
 the young poet. What is more to the purpose, the 
 great victory of Catholic Emancipation was won by 
 the very means and in the very way which Shelley 
 himself had projected. That way and those means, 
 it is scarcely necessary to say, were not suggested by 
 Shelley to the powerful mind that organized and made 
 them effective. They were in existence before the 
 youthful philanthropist visited Ireland, and they were 
 practically worked out after he left. With him, how- 
 ever, they were original, and their success in other 
 hands only proves the sagacity with which he sug- 
 gested their use. To whomsoever the merit is due, the 
 fact remains that an association, the mere probability 
 of which Godwin looked upon with terror as inevitably 
 leading to bloodshed, anarchy, and defeat, carried its 
 point successfully, without violence and without even 
 a word of insulting exultation over those who opposed 
 it. In this way the youthful poet proved himself a wiser 
 teacher and a truer prophet than the mature philosopher. 
 
ZASTROZZI. ii 
 
 Before proceeding to describe the actual facts of 
 Shelley's first visit to Dublin, hitherto so briefly 
 alluded to or so strangely misrepresented, I have 
 thought it right to trace, if possible, the source of that 
 interest in the cause of Ireland which he retained all 
 his life, and which led him to begin his public career 
 as a reformer and a philanthropist by becoming its 
 avowed champion. This investigation will have a 
 value outside the particular subject here alluded to, 
 as an opportunity will be thereby afforded for the cor- 
 rection of several important errors connected both 
 with the life and works of Shelley, which, having been 
 once stated with an air of confidence in some bio- 
 graphical account of the poet, have been adopted 
 without examination by succeeding writers. 
 
 The first published work of Shelley was the little 
 prose romance called Zastrozzi. It appeared in June, 
 1 8 10, and advertisements of it will be found in The 
 Times of the 5th and the 12th of that month. Ac- 
 cording to the recollections of a schoolfellow, Shelley 
 gave a farewell banquet to some of his companions at 
 Eton out of a sum of 40/. which he is said to have 
 received from Messrs. Wilkie and Robinson, of Pater- 
 noster Row, for the privilege of publishing this 
 puerile extravaganza. Lady Shelley, who gives this 
 recollection of Mr. Packe, apparently contradicts it in 
 subsequent pages of her Memorials. She states that 
 "in 1809, Shelley left Eton and returned home" 
 (p. 12), and "when still at home, he had written a 
 great many romances in prose, some of which have 
 been printed n (p. 20) . This, however, is a mere in- 
 advertence on the part of Lady Shelley. It was pro- 
 bably St. Irvyne alone that was written in the interval 
 between the time of Shelley's leaving Eton and his 
 
1 2 Pi: IK ' Y B YSSBE HULL LE Y. 
 
 entrance at Oxford. The other " wild romances," 
 including Zastrozzij were probably composed when 
 Shelley was " at home " before he went to Eton. 
 
 Whatever may have been the arrangement between 
 Shelley and Messrs. Wilkic and Robinson, Zastrozzi 
 was published by them on the 5th of June, 1810. 
 Its success does not appear to have encouraged the 
 generous publishers to renew their somewhat dubious 
 liberality, as we find Shelley arranging with a different 
 but more celebrated publisher in reference to another 
 matter of very singular interest. 
 
 This was the transfer on the 17th of September, 
 18 10, to John Joseph Stockdale, 41, Pall Mall, of the 
 entire impression of a volume as yet undiscovered, 
 entitled Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire. 
 
 It is rarely that a publisher becomes the biographer 
 of one of his authors ; seldom is it that the fable is 
 reversed, and the lion depicts the man. Mr. Stock- 
 dale did not become the biographer of Shelley in any 
 very extended sense ; he only gave an episode in the 
 poet's life which it is evident he considered by no 
 means an unimportant one — as being connected with 
 himself. In fact, at the conclusion of the series of 
 papers which he devotes to Shelley in that curious 
 melange of vanity and vindictiveness called Stockdale's 
 Budget, he declares that but for this accidental though 
 fortunate intercourse between himself and the poet, the 
 family of the latter would have been deprived of "the 
 only ray of respect and hope which may illumine 
 their recollections of a father when they have attained 
 an age for reflection, and shed a gleam of ghastly light 
 athwart the palpable obscurity of his tomb."* 
 
 * Stockdale's Budget, No. 9, Wednesday, February 7, 1827. 
 
STOCK DA LIPS BUDGET. 13 
 
 The principal facts connected with Shelley's brief 
 intercourse with Mr. John Joseph Stockclale have 
 been given by Mr. Richard Garnett in his well-known 
 paper entitled Shelley in Pall Mall* A few inte- 
 resting particulars, however, are omitted. One of these 
 is important as giving additional grounds for hoping 
 that a copy of Victor and Cazire may yet be found. 
 Another refers to Mr. Hogg. In reprinting Shelley's 
 letters as given in Stockdale's Budget, Mr. Garnett says, 
 "We have not scrupled to occasionally correct an ob- 
 vious clerical error, generally the result of haste, some- 
 times of a misprint."" Considering that we have not 
 the originals of these letters, but only a transcript of 
 them by Stockdale, these corrections, though extending 
 sometimes to the substitution of a more appropriate 
 for a less appropriate word, may be justified. In such 
 extracts, however, as I shall give, I think it will be 
 more satisfactory to print them exactly as they are 
 given in the original publication. 
 
 As Stockdale's Budget is now difficult to be met 
 with, and as the passage has not been extracted by 
 Mr. Garnett, it may be interesting to quote in his 
 own words the account which the publisher gives of 
 his first interview with Shelley. This is found in the 
 first number of the publication, dated Wednesday, 
 Dec. 13th, 1826'. It commences thus : — 
 
 " Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 " The unfortunate subject of these very slight re- 
 collections introduced himself to me in the autumn 
 of 1810. He was extremely young. I should think 
 he did not look more than eighteen. With anxiety 
 
 * Macmillans Magazine, June, i860. 
 
i 4 PERCY BY88HE SHELLEY. 
 
 in his countenance, he requested me to extricate him 
 from a pecuniary difficulty in which he was involved 
 A\ith a printer whose name I cannot call to mind, 
 but who resided at Horsham, near to which Timothy 
 
 Shelley, Esquire, afterwards J believe made a Baronet, 
 the lather of OUT poet, had a seat called Field Place. 
 J am not quite certain how the difference between the 
 poet and the printer was arranged ; but after I had 
 looked over the account I know that it was paid, 
 though whether I assisted in the payment by money 
 or acceptance I cannot remember. The letters show 
 that it was accomplished just before my too conscien- 
 tious friendship caused our separation. Be that as it 
 may, on the 17th September, 1810, 1 received fourteen 
 Ji midrcd and eighty copies of a thin royal 8vo volume 
 entitled Oriyiaul Poetry by Alonzo and Cazire, or 
 two names something like them. The author told 
 me that the poems were the joint production of him- 
 self and a friend, whose name was forgotten by me 
 as soon as I heard it. I advertised the work, which 
 was to be retailed at 35. 6cl., in nearly all the papers ; 
 but I was told that, though paid for, it did not appear 
 in The Times, and from my frequent experience I 
 consider that such omission was far from improbable, 
 and I fear The Times was not singular in the omission. 
 In many papers, however, I saw it. I am only par- 
 ticular on this point because few if any were sold — a 
 consequence which, as I intimated, was not unlikely 
 to be the case ; though even from these boyish trifles, 
 assisted by my personal intercourse with the author, I 
 at once formed an opinion that he was not an every- 
 day character." 
 
 Passing over the mistake of Mr. Timothy Shelley, 
 
THE 8T0CKDALES. 
 
 the poet's father, having been " made " a baronet, "w s 
 conic to the curious statement that the advertisement c^ 
 Victor and Cazire, though paid for, was not insertec 
 in The Times. This omission, of which Stockdale 
 had no doubt, was, he considers, done designedly. In 
 this supposition the publisher must have had a con- 
 sciousness that at some period of his career a certain 
 watchfulness and caution were occasionally exercised 
 in the offices of respectable journals before advertise- 
 ments from the house of " Stockdale Junior " were 
 given to the public. This, however, refers to a later 
 stage of his business. In 1810 he had not commenced 
 that downward course that ended in his ruin. For 
 more than half a century the house of Stockdale had 
 been an eminent one. The elder Stockdale and his 
 sons had carried on a respectable and extensive busi- 
 ness in Piccadilly before and after John Joseph had 
 set up for himself in Pall Mall. Theology, history, 
 and fiction issued continually under their name. They 
 were in' great request among amateur poets and 
 poetesses, who, if they could " write," could also pay 
 11 with ease." The lady song-birds flocked to them by 
 hundreds. I have seen a large collection of poetical 
 works written exclusively by women, the greater part 
 of which was published by the Stockdales. Among 
 these was Mary Stockdale's Effusions of the Heart, a 
 volume published in 1790 by her father, John Stock- 
 dale. 
 
 The house being thus established for the production 
 of this not very dangerous class of literature, tie 
 statement that an advertisement of a harmless book of 
 juvenile poetry like Victor and Cazire was deliberately 
 suppressed by The Times seemed very improbable. An 
 examination of the file of The Times for 18 10 removed 
 
I4 i PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 iill doubt upon the point. Mr. Garnett had found in 
 fyhe Morning Chronicle of September 18th an advertise- 
 ment of the volume, but twenty-four days later — that 
 }is, on Friday, October 12th — The Times contains the 
 following : — 
 
 " In royal 8vo, price 45. boards, Original Poetey. By 
 Victoe and Caziee. Sold by Stockdale Jun., 41, Pall Mall." 
 
 This is important as showing that the volume was 
 on sale for more than a fortnight longer than Stock- 
 dale remembered it to have been. In that time some 
 additional copies were doubtless sent out for review, 
 or presented by the author and publisher to their 
 friends, thus increasing the probabilities that this very 
 interesting volume may yet be found. 
 
 The cause of the suppression and destruction of the 
 volume was as follows : A short time after its appear- 
 ance, Mr. Stockdale tells us that, on examining his 
 new venture with more care than he had previously 
 bestowed upon it, he discovered that one or other of the 
 bards who concealed their names under the romantic 
 pseudonyms of Victor and Cazire had contributed 
 anything but " Original Poetry " to the volume thus 
 infelicitously entitled. " Thin" as the royal 8vo was, 
 Mr. Stockdale found it was thick enough to contain 
 at least one poem by the well-known Matthew Gregory 
 Lewis. The name of this poem is not given; but as 
 we have seen that Stockdale, in first mentioning the 
 volume, gives the title as " Original Poetry by Alonzo 
 and Cazire," instead of Victory it is not improbable 
 that the appropriated poem may have been that of 
 " Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogene," which appeared 
 in the Tales of Wonder of "Monk" Lewis in j8ot. 
 Shelley was indignant at the imposition which had 
 been practised upon him, and ordered the whole im- 
 
VICTOR AND CAZIRE. 17 
 
 pression to be destroyed. Stockdale, however, considers 
 that before the sentence was carried out nearly a 
 hundred copies had been put into circulation. 
 
 Mr. Garnett has some ingenious conjectures as to 
 Shelley's probable coadjutor in this curious volume. He 
 considers that Cazire represents a female name, which is 
 very likely. But he has not noticed, neither has the 
 coincidence been remarked by any other writer, that the 
 Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson — Shelley's 
 next publication — are alleged to be edited by " Fitz- 
 Victor" — that is, as I understand it, by the son, or 
 literary executor, of the " Victor" of the suppressed 
 volume. It would be curious to find, should a copy 
 of " Victor and Cazire^ ever be met with, that the 
 " Posthumous Fragments" were to some extent but a 
 re-issue of Shelley's original contributions to the pre- 
 ceding work. 
 
 I now come to a very important event in Shelley's 
 life — his matriculation at the University of Oxford. 
 One would think that the exact day on which his name 
 was entered on the books of University College could 
 easily be ascertained, but it has never been given. 
 Lady Shelley says that Shelley went to Oxford in 
 1810, "in which year he became an undergraduate of 
 University College/'' This is rather vague. Mr. Hogg 
 gets over the difficulty very adroitly. Describing the 
 first evening which he spent with the young poet, he 
 says, " I inquired of the vivacious stranger, as we sat 
 over our wine and dessert, how long he had been at 
 Oxford, and how he liked it ? He answered my ques- 
 tions with a certain impatience, and, resuming the 
 subject of our discussion, he remarked that/'' &c. — 
 This is in Mr. Hogg's best style. He always found 
 it easier to invent or embellish a conversation than to 
 
i8 PEROT BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 state a fact. He tells us -when he first met Shelley, 
 but that does not fix with any certainty the period of 
 the poet's entrance at the University j otherwise, what 
 
 was the meaning of the question ? The passage of 
 Mr. Hogg's book is well known, but it is always a 
 pleasure to read it and to quote it. 
 
 " At the commencement of Michaelmas Term — that 
 is, at the end of October, in the year 1810 — I happened 
 one day to sit next to a freshman at dinner : it was his 
 first appearance in hall. His figure was slight, and 
 his aspect remarkably youthful, even at our table 
 where all were very young. He seemed thoughtful 
 and absent. He ate little, and had no acquaintance 
 with any one. I know not how it was we fell into 
 conversation/''*' &c. 
 
 At first sight, the palpable inaccuracies of Mr. 
 Hogg's book seem to arise from defective memory — 
 though it seems strange that a gentleman who could 
 so minutely remember the very words of lengthy con- 
 versations after an interval of twenty-two years should 
 have fallen into the grave mistakes as to matters of 
 fact which will presently be pointed out. A more 
 careful study of the book, however, and a fuller 
 knowledge of Mr. Hogg's character, create a strong 
 presumption that a good deal of deliberate mystifica- 
 tion as to dates, conversations, and letters, has been 
 practised by that gentleman. 
 
 Captain Medwin was a careless writer, and the 
 mistakes in his Life of Shelley are so numerous as 
 totally to destroy its authority. Mr. Hogg, on the 
 contrary, perhaps from the fact of his having been a 
 
 * Life of Shelley, vol.i. p. 51. The passage quoted was origi- 
 nally published in the New Monthly Magazine, 1832. 
 
HOGG AND M EDWIN. 
 
 19 
 
 successful conveyancer, is generally supposed to be 
 accurate, except in those instances where his personal 
 prejudices lead him astray. Thus it is that most of 
 his statements pass unquestioned, and are repeated 
 over and over again "without examination by those 
 compilers who find in his two bulky volumes an in- 
 exhaustible storehouse of supposed facts. But even 
 on questions which apparently he could have no motive 
 in misrepresenting, he is just as inexact as Captain 
 Medwin. The following is an instance of this, although 
 the later biographer supplements the error of his pre- 
 decessor by a greater one of his own : — 
 
 " During the whole period of our residence there" — 
 that is, at Oxford, says Mr. Hogg, in one of those un- 
 guarded moments when he enables us to test his 
 statements by a reference to a fixed date — "the Uni- 
 versity was cruelly disfigured by bitter feuds arising 
 out of the late election of its Chancellor : in an 
 especial manner was our own most venerable college 
 deformed by them, and by angry and senseless dis- 
 appointment. Lord Grenville had just been chosen. 33 
 (i. p. 254). 
 
 Captain Medwin, who, it must be admitted, 
 generally throws the whole responsibility of all state- 
 ments relative to Shelley's life at Oxford on Mr. Hogg, 
 adopts of course the foregoing narrative, and thus 
 supplements it with the following marvellous details : — 
 
 " It might be supposed that it was not without some 
 reluctance that the master and fellows of University 
 College passed against Shelley this stern decree" 
 [his expulsion on Lady-day, 181 1], "not only on ac- 
 count of his youth and distinguished talents promising 
 to reflect credit on the college, but because his father 
 had been a member of it, his ancestors its benefactors. 
 
 C 3 
 
20 PERCY EYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 I know not if these considerations had any weight with 
 the conclave; but it appears that Shelley was by no 
 means in good odour with the authorities of the 
 college, from the side he took in the ejection of 
 Lord Grenville, against his competitor, a member of 
 University. Shelley, by his family and connexions, 
 as well as disposition, was attached to the successful 
 party, in common with the whole body of under- 
 graduates, one and all, in behalf of the scholar and 
 liberal statesman. Plain and loud was the avowal of 
 his statements, nor were they confined to words, for 
 he published, I think, in The Morning Chronicle, under 
 the signature of " A Master of Arts of Oxford," a 
 letter advocating the claims of Lord Grenville, which, 
 perhaps, might have been detected as his by the heads 
 of the college. // was a well-written paper, and 
 calculated to produce some effect ; and as he expressed 
 himself eminently delighted at the issue of the contest, 
 1 as that wherewith his superiors were offended, he was 
 regarded from the beginning with a jealous eye/ Such 
 at least was the impression of his friend/'' 
 
 This story thus ben trovato was too good to be lost, 
 and thus we have so painstaking and generally so 
 accurate a writer as Mr. Rossetti adopting it without 
 the least misgiving. 
 
 Under the title of " Minor Writings of Shelley," 
 Mr. Rossetti assigns to the year 18 j i — that is, two 
 years after Lord Grenville was elected Chancellor — the 
 composition of this apocryphal letter. 
 
 " He published, under the signature of f A Master 
 of Arts of Oxford/ probably in The Morning Chronicle, a 
 letter upholding the candidateship of Lord Grenville as 
 Chancellor of the University/'' — Rossetti's Memoir of 
 Shelley, p. clxxiv. 
 
ELECTION OF LORD GRENVILLE. 11 
 
 A few words will show how utterly irreconcilable 
 these statements are with the date of Shelley's entrance 
 at University College. 
 
 The Duke of Portland, who preceded Lord Gren- 
 ville as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, died 
 on Wednesday, the 30th of October, 1809. The elec- 
 tion of Lord Grenville as his successor took place two 
 months later — on the 13th and 14th of December in 
 the same year. The following is the result of the 
 contest as given in The Oxford University and City 
 Herald of Saturday, December 16, 3809 : — " The com- 
 mittee for the election of a Chancellor of the Uni- 
 versity, in the room of the late Duke of Portland, met 
 between nine and ten o'clock on Wednesday morning, 
 and continued sitting day and night, without any 
 adjournment, till ten o'clock on Thursday night, when 
 the numbers were declared as follow : — 
 
 " For Lord Grenville. . . . 406 
 ,, Lord Eldon . . . .393 
 „ Duke of Beaufort . . .222 
 Majority for Lord Grenville . 13 " 
 
 The candidateship of Lord Grenville, therefore, ex- 
 tended from the 30th of October to the 14th of 
 December, 1809. But in 1809, as we have seen, 
 Shelley was at Eton and Field Place, and did uot go to 
 Oxford until the end of October, 1810 — that is, exactly 
 a year after the candidateship of Lord Grenville com- 
 menced, and ten months after he had been elected. 
 Even the installation of Lord Grenville as Chancellor 
 preceded the entrance of Shelley into the University 
 by four months. That event took place on June 30, 
 18 jo. It was attended with great rejoicings, the re- 
 citation of many odes, amongst which was one by the 
 
72 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Rev. W. Lisle Bowles j the striking of a medal in 
 honour of the event, and though last, not least, the 
 ascent of Mr. Sadler in a balloon. The poem of 
 Bowles appeared simultaneously in The Morning Chroni- 
 cle and The Oxford Herald on Saturday, July 21st, 1810. 
 A poet was found also to describe, perhaps satirically, 
 the great event of Oxford life in the midsummer of 
 1 8 10. The following advertisement appears in The 
 Oxford Herald, Saturday, June 30th, 1810, the day of 
 the installation, so that not only the bard, but the 
 printer, must have had the power of improvisation : — 
 
 "This day is published, price 35. 6d., A Poetical Account of the 
 Installation of a Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Ox- 
 ford : Printed by and for J. Munday, and sold by Longman, Hurst, 
 and Orme, London." 
 
 As Shelley did not enter the University of Oxford 
 until the end of October, 18 10, it is therefore simply 
 impossible that he could have taken any part, as a 
 member of the University, in the election of Lord 
 Grenville. That nobleman had not " just been chosen/' 
 as Mr. Hogg writes ; he had been elected ten months 
 before. It is equally untrue that during " the whole," 
 or any part of Shelley's residence there, " the Uni- 
 versity was cruelly disfigured by bitter feuds arising out 
 of the late election of its Chancellor." All outward 
 animosity or dissatisfaction had long since ceased. 
 Even in July, 18 10, three months before Shelley 
 entered, The Oxford Herald declined to publish a letter 
 on the subject through fear of reviving any unpleasant- 
 ness that may have arisen out of that event. In the 
 number for Saturday, July 21st, 18 10, the following 
 notice was given : — 
 
 " To Correspondents. — We acknowledge the receipt of 
 a letter on the election of Lord Grenville, and, although 
 
MR. TIMOTHY SHELLEY. 23 
 
 we cordially agree with the sentiments of our corre- 
 spondent, we are unwilling to revive any question which 
 may create party animosity, and therefore decline its 
 insertion." 
 
 These explanations conclusively dispose of Mr. 
 Hogg's careless and erroneous statements. The express 
 declaration, however, of Captain Medwin, that he had 
 read an effective letter which Shelley published on the 
 subject of Lord Grenville's candidateship, requires some 
 further notice. We have seen that during the whole 
 period that Lord Grenville's name was before the con- 
 stituency of Oxford, Shelley, who had left Eton, was 
 residing with his father at Field Place. Mr. Timothy 
 Shelley had been a student of University College, and 
 had graduated there.* It is admitted on all hands that 
 he took a warm interest in the affairs of that college, 
 and was a staunch adherent of the Liberal party both 
 in and out of Parliament. The contest for the 
 Chancellorship must have roused all his energies. He 
 had a vote, and possessed, doubtless, considerable in- 
 fluence, which we infer from his character he was not 
 slow to use for the benefit of the cause. It was his 
 exertions, and not those of his son, who had not then 
 entered, that may have provoked that hostility and 
 unfriendliness which the poet experienced later, and 
 at a critical moment. From the specimens of his 
 letters which have been published, the epistolary powers 
 of the future Sir Timothy were certainly not consider- 
 able. What more likely thing than to employ the 
 ready pen and the sympathetic liberalism of his talented 
 
 * He received the Degree of B.A. Jan. 16th, 1778, and of 
 M.A. Feb. 16th, 1781. — Catalogue of Oxford Students, 1841, 
 p. 598. 
 
14 PERCY BYSSHB 8EELLET. 
 
 young son, who was then preparing for his entrance 
 into the great University ? How better account for 
 Shelley assuming the title of a Master of Arts of 
 Oxford when he had not even entered the University, 
 in which he never took a degree ? I had previously 
 searched The Morning ('///'oniric and The Oxford Herald 
 during " the whole period of his residence there/' as 
 Mr. Hogg says, for a letter on the election of Lord 
 Grenville, answering the description of Captain Med win, 
 but in vain. As Longfellow sings, it was like looking 
 for the birds in last year's nest. Not so, however, 
 when I came to the right period, and when this 
 thought occurred to me, that Shelley might possibly 
 have written a letter on the impending election in his 
 father's name. In The Morning Chronicle of November 
 15th, j 809, there is a long letter on the subject, signed 
 " A. M. Oxon," substantially the signature remembered 
 by Captain Medwin. The commencement of the letter 
 seems to have been " inspired" from a different source 
 than that which dictated the conclusion. The former 
 is more personal, and reflects on the nepotism or family 
 partiality attributed to Lord Chancellor Eldon. It 
 attacks the Duke of Beaufort also, but more lightly. 
 The letter rises in dignity as it advances, and appeals 
 to larger and more general principles. This portion 
 may be quoted. It is not unworthy of Shelley, even 
 at a more advanced period of his life than he had then 
 attained. 
 
 " Lord Grenville," says the writer, " between his 
 pigmy rivals, rises with a colossal grandeur of character, 
 with all the private worth that belongs to both of his 
 competitors, and without the infirmities that are im- 
 puted to one of them. He unites the accomplished 
 
LETTER IN THE MORNING CHRONICLE. 25 
 
 scholar with the eminent statesman. As a parliamentary 
 orator, he is considered by a celebrated author whose 
 works now lie before me, since the extinction of the 
 great luminary, Mr. Fox, without an equal. But Lord 
 Grcnville not only promises appropriate excellence for 
 the Chair of the University, but is also particularly 
 recommended to the admiration of the country by his 
 manly political career. Twice has he given up place 
 and power, and lately refused them, solely upon public 
 principle. These are facts which confer real dignity, 
 and constitute a great man. In these times, when 
 independence is so rare, and when place is generally 
 sought alone for the profit it produces, it is the dut} r 
 of those with whom the expression of any part of the 
 national voice is entrusted, to honour, with all the 
 distinction they can bestow, him who is almost a 
 solitary exception to the opprobrium cast upon public 
 men. A contrary course of conduct must induce 
 suspicion, especially if it be seen on the present occa- 
 sion, that if public virtue be seldom found in the 
 statesmen of the present day, it is because the public 
 itself is degraded. 
 
 " I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 " A.M. Oxon." 
 
 " Oxford, Nov. 13th, 1808 " [a misprint for 1809]. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 r "PHERE is another and a curious reason for sup- 
 posing that Oxford affairs occupied a large share 
 of the attention of the good people at Field Place in 
 those stirring months of September and October, 
 1809. The Oxford University and City Herald, of 
 which I have spoken so frequently, and about which 
 I shall have much more to say, circulated largely in 
 the southern counties. We may be sure that Timothy 
 Shelley, Esq., M.P. for Shoreham, was one of its 
 subscribers, It is extremely likely from the following 
 circumstance that the paper was not unfrequently in 
 the hands of his son. Captain Medwin (vol. i. p. 48), 
 referring to the facility with which Shelley wrote 
 Latin verse, has the followiug passage : — " That he had 
 certainly arrived at great skill in the art of versifica- 
 tion, I think I shall be able to prove by the following 
 specimens I kept among my treasures, which he gave 
 me in 1808 or 9" The first is the epitaph in " Gray's 
 Elegy in a Country Churchyard/' " probably a school 
 task." 
 
 " The second specimen of his versification/' says 
 Captain Medwin, " is of a totally different character, 
 and shows a considerable precocity •" — 
 " In Hoeologiuji. 
 
 " Inter marmoreas Leonorae pendula colles 
 Fortunata riimis machina dicit horas. 
 Quas manibus premit ilia duas insensa papillas 
 Cur mini sit digito tangere, amata, nefas ?" 
 
SHELLETS LATIN VERSES. 27 
 
 These lines, which Mr. Rossetti prints in his edi- 
 tion (vol. ii. p. 501), more correctly than Captain 
 Medwin had given them in his Life of Shelley, he 
 assigns, with doubtful accuracy, to the year 1808. It 
 is evident that Captain Medwin considered the thought 
 to be not only precocious, but original, with Shelley. 
 In this opinion probably Mr. Rossetti agreed. Some- 
 thing of the precocity is explained, however, and all 
 of the originality removed, by a reference to The 
 Oxford Herald of Saturday, September 16th, 1809, 
 where the following English epigram appears : — 
 
 " On seeing a Feench Watch round the Neck of 
 a Beautiful Youny Woman. 
 
 " Mark what we gain from foreign lands, 
 Time cannot now be said to linger, — 
 Allow'd to lay his two rude hands 
 Where others dare not lay a finger." 
 
 It is plain that Shelley's Latin lines are simply a 
 translation of this epigram, which he most probably 
 saw in The Oxford Herald, but may have read in 
 some other paper of the time, as I distinctly recollect 
 having met with it elsewhere when making my re- 
 searches among the journals of the period. 
 
 In giving an account of the next poetical venture 
 of Shelley while at Oxford, it will be necessary to 
 draw particular attention to the manner in which this 
 story is told by Mr. Hogg, and the place in his narra- 
 tive assigned to it. The evidence already existing 
 establishes a case at least of grave suspicion against 
 him, and proves that, for some reasons best known to 
 himself, he has not told certain events and circum- 
 stances of his hero's life in the actual order of their 
 succession. This mode of dealing with his materials 
 
aS PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY, 
 
 is very remarkable in the way that he introduces to 
 our notice the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret 
 Nicholson, Every one interested in Shelley has read 
 the lively papers which Mr. Hogg contributed to the 
 New Monthly Magazine in 1832, under the title of 
 " Shelley at Oxford." To these we have previously 
 alluded. They form a considerable part of the first 
 volume of his incomplete life of the poet, and are 
 certainly the most interesting portion of it. If they 
 cannot be taken as a perfectly faithful account of 
 what actually took place between the young men 
 during their, intercourse at Oxford, they have been 
 generally received as a clever elaboration of what by 
 possibility may have occurred. The conversations 
 are too minutely remembered and too elaborately re- 
 ported to be taken for more than an attempt on the 
 part of the writer to fill up an outline that must 
 have well-nigh faded from his mind after an interval 
 of twenty-two years. Such descriptions as the fol- 
 lowing betray rather the trick and artifice of a novelist 
 endeavouring to produce an effective picture than the 
 serious aim of a historian able and willing to tell the 
 truth. It will be remembered that this is the account 
 which Mr. Hogg gives of his first visit to the rooms 
 of a young student whose acquaintance he had made 
 the day before, and with whom he had no grounds 
 for supposing he would ever be much connected in 
 after life. 
 
 et Books, boots, papers, shoes, philosophical instru- 
 ments, clothes, pistols, linen, crockery, ammunition, 
 and phials innumerable, with money, stockings, prints, 
 crucibles, bags and boxes, were scattered on the floor 
 and in every place ; as if the young chemist, in order 
 to analyse the mystery of creation, had endeavoured 
 
HIS ZOOMS AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 29 
 
 first to reconstruct the primeval chaos. The tables, 
 and especially the carpet, were already stained with 
 large spots of various hues, which frequently pro- 
 claimed the agency of fire. An electrical machine, 
 an air-pump, the galvanic trough, a solar microscope, 
 and large glass jars and receivers, were conspicuous 
 amidst the mass of matter. Upon the table by his 
 side were some books lying open, several letters, a 
 bundle of newspapers (!), and a bottle of japan ink (!), 
 that served as an inkstand; a piece of deal, lately 
 part of the lid of a box, with many chips ; and a 
 handsome razor that had been used as a knife. There 
 were bottles of soda-water, sugar, pieces of lemon, 
 and the traces of an effervescent beverage (!). Two 
 piles of books supported the tongs, and these upheld 
 a small glass retort above an argand lamp. I had 
 not been seated many minutes before the liquor in 
 the vessel boiled over, adding fresh stains to the table, 
 and rising in fumes with a most disagreeable odour. 
 Shelley snatched the glass quickly, and dashing it in 
 pieces among the ashes under the grate, increased the 
 unpleasant and penetrating effluvium."* 
 
 In this story there may be one or two of the cir- 
 cumstances which we can rely upon as having actually 
 occurred ; as to the rest of the description, it is evi- 
 dently as complete a study as a chapter in The Old 
 Curiosity Shop. Mr. Hogg had forgotten that he told 
 us a few pages before that Shelley had but just entered 
 the University, that he had dined the preceding even- 
 ing for the first time in hall, and that, as far as Mr. 
 Hogg's information goes, this might have been only 
 the third day of Shelley's residence at Oxford, and 
 
 * The Life of Percy Bysslie Shelley, vol. i. pp. 69, 70. 
 
30 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 yet there was time in tins short interval to burn the 
 carpets and the tables, and create the chaos which 
 Mr. Hogg depicts with the hand of a master. The 
 " bundle of newspapers/'* the " bottle of japan ink/' 
 and the u traces of an effervescing mixture," recorded 
 after twenty-two years, are wonderful results of the 
 imagination if not of the memory of the writer. 
 
 It is, however, with these graphic but perhaps 
 not very faithful details that more than 300 pages 
 of Mr. Hogg's book are taken up. The " Ima- 
 ginary Conversations/' as they would have been 
 called had they been written by Savage Landor, a\c 
 may be sure, are quite as good as the real ones, and 
 they may be taken at any rate as evidence of the 
 subjects that occupied the attention of the friends 
 during the period of their residence at the University. 
 It seems strange, however, that so little transpires in 
 these interminable discussions about the literary 
 occupations of Shelley at the time. He either did 
 not confide in Mr. Hogg at all, or Mr. Hogg con- 
 sidered a report of his own clever mode of 
 arguing with Shelley would be more interesting to the 
 reader than a detail of those poetical pieces which 
 Shelley not only wrote but published when at Oxford. 
 He makes an exception to this reticence, indeed, in his 
 account of the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret 
 Nicholson, but it will be noticed that he does not do 
 so until nearly the end of his paper called " Shelley at 
 Oxford" — after 210 pages have been filled with those 
 apocryphal walks and talks to which I have been 
 alluding. It is quite evident that Mr. Hogg wished 
 
 * "A newspaper never found its way to his rooms the whole 
 period of his residence at Oxford," says Mr. Hogg in another 
 mood, and totally forgetful of what he had previously written. — 
 Life of Shelley, vol. i. p. 237. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 3< 
 
 it to be understood that the events and conversations 
 recorded in those 210 pages preceded the publication 
 of Margaret Nicholson, and that it was not until after 
 an acquaintance of some duration, and a close intimacy, 
 that Shelley showed him the proof-sheets of this 
 work, and announced to him his intention of publish- 
 ing it. So far from this being the fact, it will be 
 seen from the evidence here given for the first time, 
 that it must have been at the very beginning of their 
 intercourse — probably on the very first visit ever 
 paid by Hogg at Shelley's rooms — that the mention of 
 the poems published seventeen days after was made. 
 
 The whole of this story is very curious, and must 
 be told somewhat in detail. Mr. Hogg represents 
 Shelley's first attempt at authorship while at Oxford 
 as the result of that personal and private application 
 to study which was stimulated and aroused by 
 the public neglect of his college. " The University 
 at large was not less remiss than each college in par- 
 ticular. . . . The languid course of chartered laziness 
 was ill-suited to the ardent activity and glowing zeal 
 of Shelley/'' — Life, i. p. 259. 
 
 " Since those persons who were hired at an enor- 
 mous charge by his own family and by the state to 
 find due and beneficial employment for him, thought 
 fit to neglect this their most sacred duty, he began 
 forthwith to set himself to work. He read diligently 
 — I should rather say he devoured greedily, with the 
 voracious appetite of a famished man — the authors 
 that roused his curiosity ; he discoursed and discussed 
 with energy ; he wrote — he began to print — and he 
 designed soon to publish various works " (vol. i. p. 260). 
 
 " Shelley/' says Mr. Hogg, on the same page as 
 that from which I have just quoted, " was quick to 
 conceive, and not less quick to execute." He must 
 
PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 certainly have been "quick to conceive" in one day's 
 experience of the University the extent of the tutorial 
 and maternal want of care that was in store for him — 
 quick, too, to devour all the authors that roused his 
 curiosity, and quick to execute those overt acts of 
 authorship that Mere the result of all this individual 
 industry and collegiate neglect. But Mr. Hogg must 
 be allowed to tell his tale out fully in his own way. 
 
 " When I called one morning at one, I found him 
 busily occupied with some proofs, which he continued 
 to correct and re-correct with anxious care. As he was 
 wholly absorbed in this occupation, I selected a book 
 from the floor, where there was always a good store, 
 and read in silence for at least an hour. 
 
 " My thoughts being as completely abstracted as 
 those of my companion, he startled me by suddenly 
 throwing a paper with some force on the middle of the 
 table, and saying in a penetrating whisper, as he sprung 
 eagerly from his chair, l I am going to publish some 
 poems/ 
 
 cc In answer to my inquiries, he put the proofs into 
 my hands. I read them twice attentively, for the 
 poems were very short, and I told him there were 
 some good lines, some bright thoughts ; but there were 
 likewise many irregularities and incongruities. I 
 added that correctness was important in all composi- 
 tions, but it constituted the essence of short ones ; 
 and that it surely would be imprudent to bring his 
 little book out so hastily; and I then pointed out the 
 errors and defects. 
 
 " He listened in silence with much attention, and 
 did not dispute what I said, except that he remarked 
 faintly that it would not be known that he was the 
 author, and therefore the publication could not do him 
 any harm. 
 
HIS FIRST POEM. 33 
 
 " I answered, that although it might not be disad- 
 vantageous to be the unknown author of an unread 
 work, it certainly could not be beneficial. 
 
 " He made no reply ; and we immediately went out 
 and strolled about the public walks. 
 
 " AVe dined, and returned to his rooms, where we 
 conversed on indifferent subjects. He did not mention 
 his poems, but they occupied his thoughts ; for he did 
 not fall asleep, as usual. Whilst we were at tea, he 
 said abruptly, ' I think you disparage my poems. Tell 
 me what you dislike in them, for I have forgotten/ 
 
 " I took the proofs from the place where I had left 
 them, and looking over them, repeated the former ob- 
 jections and suggested others. He acquiesced, and after 
 a pause asked might they be altered ? I assented. 
 
 " ' I will alter them/ 
 
 " ' It will be better to re- write them ; a short poem 
 should be the first impression/ 
 
 l< Some time afterwards he anxiously inquired, l But 
 in their present form you do not think they ought to 
 be published V 
 
 " I had been looking over the proofs again, and I 
 answered, ' Only as burlesque poetry ;' and I read a 
 part, changing it a little here and there. 
 
 " He laughed at the parody, and begged I would 
 repeat it. 
 
 u I took a pen and altered it, and he then read it 
 aloud several times in a ridiculous tone, and was 
 amused by it. His mirth consoled him for the con- 
 demnation of his verses, and the intention of publishing 
 them was abandoned. 
 
 " The proofs lay in his room for some days, and we 
 occasionally amused ourselves during idle moments by 
 making them more and more ridiculous — by striking 
 
34 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 out the more sober passages, by inserting whin 
 conceits, and especially by giving them what we called 
 a dithyrambic character, which was effected by cutting 
 some lines in two, and joining the different parts 
 together that would agree in construction, but were 
 the most discordant in sense." — Life of Shelley, vol. i. 
 pp. 261, 2, 3. 
 
 It is necessary here to interrupt Mr. Hogg for a 
 moment. The Posthumous Fragments of Margaret 
 Nicholson, though a rare volume, is not inaccessible. 
 A copy of the original edition is in the British Museum, 
 and a fac simile reprint, of which a limited number of 
 copies were issued some time ago, may be seen without 
 much difficulty. The poems, with the exception of the 
 first,* w^hich extends to eighty-eight lines in couplets, 
 are also given in Mr. Rossetti's edition (vol. ii. p. 511). 
 They are thus within the reach of all, and it will be 
 found that in no single respect do they bear out the 
 description of Mr. Hogg. 
 
 There is no intentional burlesque traceable in them. 
 There is no example of this process of cutting lines 
 in two and then joining them, so as to agree in con- 
 struction but to differ in sense. Indeed, Mr. Hogg 
 seems to have had a misgiving, after all this display of 
 his own drollery and cleverness, that some day or the 
 other his statements would be examined and his de- 
 scription put to the test. This difficulty did not put 
 him to much inconvenience. Three pages later he in- 
 
 * It is to be regretted that Mr. Rossetti omitted this poem from 
 his edition, on the mere statement of Mr. Hogg that " the MS. had 
 been confided to Shelley by some rhymster of the day." It is the 
 only poem Shelley refers to in his " advertisement " to the volume, 
 and its omission renders that " advertisement " unintelligible. 
 
MARGA RET NICHOLSON. 3 5 
 
 troduces this saving clause, which is highly creditable 
 to his professional skill : — u The work, however, was 
 altered a little, I believe, before the final impression ; 
 but / never read it afterwards " (vol. i. p. 267) — a state- 
 ment that may well be believed after his utterly 
 erroneous description of its character and contents. 
 
 It was to Mr. Hogg, however, as it appears, that we 
 owe its name. 
 
 " I hit upon a title at last, and we inscribed it on 
 the cover. 
 
 "A mad washerwoman named Peg Nicholson had 
 attempted to stab the King, George the Third, with 
 a carving-knife; the story had long been forgotten, 
 but it was then fresh in the recollection of every one. 
 It was proposed that we should ascribe the poems to 
 her. The poor woman was still living and in green 
 vigour within the walls of Bedlam ; bat since her 
 existence must be uncomfortable, there could be no 
 harm in putting her to death, and in creating a 
 nephew and administrator to be the editor of his 
 aunt's poetical works. 
 
 "The idea gave an object and purpose to our 
 burlesque — to ridicule the strange mixture of senti- 
 mentality with the murderous fury of revolutionists 
 that was so prevalent in the compositions of the day ; 
 and the proofs were altered again to adapt them to 
 this new scheme, but still without any notion of pub- 
 lication. When the bookseller called to ask for the 
 proofs, Shelley told him that he had changed his mind, 
 and showed them to him. 
 
 " The man was so much pleased with the whimsical 
 conceit, that he asked to be permitted to publish the 
 book on his own account, promising inviolable secrecy, 
 and as many copies gratis as might be required. After 
 
 D % 
 
56 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 some hesitation permission was granted upon the 
 plighted honour of the trade. 
 
 " In a few days, or rather in a few hours, a noble 
 quarto appeared ; it consisted of a small number of 
 pages, it is true, but they were of the largest size, of 
 the thickest, the whitest, and the smoothest draw- 
 ing paper j a large, clear, and handsome type had im- 
 pressed a few lines with ink of a rich glossy black 
 amidst ample margins. The poor maniac laundress 
 was gravely styled ' the late Mrs. Margaret Nicholson, 
 widow ;' and the sonorous name of Fitz Victor had 
 been culled for her inconsolable nephew and ad- 
 ministrator. To add to his dignity, the waggish 
 printer had picked up some huge text types of so 
 unusual a form that even an antiquary could not 
 spell the words at the first glance. Shelley had torn 
 open the large square bundle before the printer's boy 
 quitted the room, and holding out a copy with both 
 his hands, he ran about in an ecstasy of delight, 
 gazing at the superb title-page" (vol. i. pp. 265, 6). 
 
 Without noticing the remarkable good fortune of 
 Mr. Hogg in being always on the spot, at a critical 
 moment of the conception, gestation, and safe delivery 
 of this poetical bantling, it may be stated that, with 
 the exception of Shelley's probable delight at the 
 appearance of the volume, all the other circumstances 
 maybe attributed to the fertile imagination of Mr. Hogg. 
 
 The poor maniac laundress is not gravely styled 
 " the late Mrs. Margaret Nicholson, widow/' nor is 
 her name mentioned in the whole volume except on 
 the title-page. The printer was " waggish " only to 
 the extent of using the type that he had in most 
 abundance. The paper to which I have already re- 
 ferred, The Oxford University and City Herald, and of 
 
JOHN MUNDAT. 37 
 
 which I shall have much to say further on, was the 
 property of the same printer, and in it there is not a 
 column of advertisements that does not contain 
 frequent examples of this type. It is used in the ad- 
 vertisement of the book itself, as will presently be seen. 
 
 The name of the printer Mr. Hogg does not con- 
 descend to give us, although it will be found that 
 Shelley had other transactions with him besides the 
 publication of the Posthumous Fragments. Captain 
 Medwin, to whom it appears a copy of the volume 
 was sent, though he takes his whole description of it 
 from Mr. Hogg, states that it was "published at 
 Parker's." This of course is a mistake. It was printed 
 and published by John Munday, a name long and 
 honourably known in connexion with the city of 
 Oxford. Of him and of his family I have been 
 favoured, by the present representative of the firm of 
 Munday and Slatter, Mr. Rose, with some interesting 
 particulars, in a letter which will be found below.* 
 
 It will be seen from Mr. Hogg's own acknowledg- 
 ment that a considerable interval elapsed between his 
 first seeing the proofs and the final appearance of the 
 volume under the title of Posthumous Fragments of 
 
 * " Oxford, High Street, Dec. 3rd, 1870. 
 " Sir, — Your letter asking for information about a Poetical 
 Essay, 18 11, came duly to hand. I have made what inquiries were 
 possible, but without any success. There does not appear to be any 
 trace of the tract in the old books, so far as they are in my pos- 
 session. The family of Munday have disappeared from Oxford 
 long since, with the exception of a daughter of Joseph Munday, 
 living in the neighbourhood ; but the son, who succeeded to the 
 printing business, left Oxford many years since for Bristol, and is 
 since dead, so that all chance ot discovery from that source is 
 
 h °P eless - " I am, sir, your obedt. servt. 
 
 " John Rose." 
 
33 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 Margaret Nicholson. They were condemned, altered, 
 recast, retouched, rejected, and finally adopted after 
 much cogitation, and after intervals of " several days/' 
 To produce a volume of the elegance described would 
 in itself require a good deal of mechanical skill and 
 considerable time. It should also be remembered 
 that the book was produced in a printing office busily 
 occupied in bringing out a large weekly journal. 
 Altogether, the most impatient author could scarcely 
 expect under these circumstances that his productions 
 should be offered to the public in less than three 
 weeks. These reasonable conditions, if they are ad- 
 mitted, establish beyond doubt that these poems were 
 lirst shown to Mr. Hogg, not as he insinuates after his 
 intimacy with Shelley had been matured, and as a 
 natural result of their long acquaintance, but most 
 probably, as I have stated, on the first occasion he 
 ever paid the young poet a visit. 
 
 Mr. Hogg has told us that it was " one day at the 
 end of October, 1810/' on which he first saw Shelley. 
 The end of October must, of course, mean about the 
 30th or 31st of that month. The two. young men 
 thus for the first time brought together spent the 
 evening at Hogg's rooms. The host obligingly tells 
 us that he slept very soundly after the departure of 
 u the vivacious stranger" — so soundly indeed that next 
 day he forgot, not only the stranger himself, but the 
 promise he had made to visit him at his rooms. The 
 long conversation to which several of the preceding 
 pages had been devoted, thus congealed by the frost of 
 forgetfulness in one night, came out like the tunes in 
 the horn of Baron Munchausen's courier twenty-two 
 years afterwards. An hour, however, after the time 
 Mr. Hogg had promised to meet his young friend, he 
 
A D VERTISEMENT OF MARQA RET NICHOLSON. 39 
 
 remembered his engagement and repaired to Shelley's 
 rooms. I have given the description of those rooms, 
 but we have now to do with the date. It was pro- 
 bably the 1st of November. At the utmost stretch 
 it could only be a day or two earlier. On Saturday, 
 the 17th November, 1810, that is sixteen or eighteen 
 days after Hogg by his own showing first saw 
 Shelley, the following advertisement appears in The 
 Oxford University and City Herald : — 
 
 " Just Published, price is., Posthumous Fragments of Mae- 
 gaeet Nicholson ; being Poems found amongst the Papers of 
 that noted female, who attempted the life of the King in 1786. 
 Edited by Jflljn jfit^ UtCtor. Oxford : Printed and sold by 
 J. Munday." 
 
 In this advertisement, which is almost identical with 
 the title-page, the name John Fitz Victor is printed 
 in the large black-letter type used in the volume 
 itself. The advertisement is repeated a week later 
 in the next number of The Oxford Herald, the price 
 in the interval having risen to zs. 6d. 
 
 The extent of the very slight acquaintance that 
 could have existed between Shelley and Mr. Hogg 
 whilst the Posthumous Fragments were passing through 
 the press being thus established, we may, without 
 much injury to Shelley, give Mr. Hogg the whole 
 credit of assigning them to Margaret Nicholson. That 
 was a stroke of humour quite worthy of some others 
 complacently recorded of himself by the biographer. 
 Shelley had written a wild rhapsody entitled Frag- 
 ment — Supposed to be an Epithalamium of Francis 
 Ravaillac and Charlotte Corde. This is described by 
 Mr. Hogg, in his most characteristic manner, as " a 
 poem concerning a young woman, one Charlotte Some- 
 body, who attempted to assassinate Robespierre or some 
 
4 o PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 such person." Poor Margaret Nicholson's happily 
 unsuccessful attempt on the life of the King preceded 
 by seven years the famous act of tyrannicide perpe- 
 trated by Charlotte Corday in 1793, not on Robespierre, 
 but on Marat. Careless of the anachronism, Mr. 
 Hogg boldly assigned the poem to the " mad washer- 
 woman" as a happy stroke of humour. The supposed 
 authoress speaks in the first poem of " wife and 
 children ;" this, too, must be taken as a delicious bit 
 of burlesque, in making Mrs. Nicholson imagine herself 
 to have been a man and a father.* On the whole, we 
 cannot but think that the poems would have fared all 
 the better had they been published by Shelley, as they 
 evidently were written by him, as serious compositions. 
 One of them, " The Spectral Horseman," is interesting 
 as showing that at this early period Shelley had begun 
 to take that interest in the history and legends of 
 Ireland which led to such extraordinary results two 
 years later. We have here " The Banshee's moan on 
 the storm;" " A white courser," like that of 
 O'Donoghue, " bears the shadowy sprite ;" " The 
 whirlwinds howl in the caves of Innisfallen." 
 
 " Then does the dragon, who, chained in the caverns 
 To eternity, curses the champion of Erin, 
 Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight." 
 
 Fragments ; p. 25. 
 
 Extravagant as all these passages are, they show that 
 Shelley's sympathies for Ireland had already been 
 awakened, and that his practical efforts for her benefit 
 at a later period were not the result of any sudden or 
 passing caprice. 
 
 * This poem which, as previously noticed, Mr. Eossetti omitted 
 from his Annotated Edition, is given in the faithful reprint of the 
 original editions of Shelley's early poems recently issued by Mr. 
 Hotten — a volume remarkable for its accuracy and cheapness. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 "\ I WHILST the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret 
 Nicholson were thus passing through the press 
 at Oxford, Shelley was in communication with Stock- 
 dale about the publication in London of a more im- 
 portant work. This was the prose romance of St, 
 Irvyne ; or, The Rosicrucian. Only three days before 
 The Oxford University and City Herald had announced 
 the publication of Margaret Nicholson — that is, on the 
 14th of November, 1 810 — Shelley returned to Stockdale 
 the manuscript of St. Irvyne, thanking him at the same 
 time for the trouble he had taken " to fit it for the 
 press. n The work thus " fitted for the press " by Mr. 
 Stockdale was placed at once in the hands of " S. 
 Gosnell, Little Queen Street, London/' by whom it 
 was printed. By the 17th of December, exactly one 
 month after the publication of Margaret Nicholson, St. 
 Irvyne was so far advanced that Stockdale announced 
 its immediate appearance. The announcement was 
 forwarded to Shelley, then at Field Place, who wrote 
 to the publisher in the following terms : — 
 
 "Field Place, December 18th, 18 10. 
 " My dear Sir, — 
 
 " I saw your advertisement of The Rosicrucian, 
 and approve of it highly : it is likely to excite curiosity. 
 .... Mr. Munday, of Oxford, will take some 
 romances; I do not know whether he sends directly 
 
42 PERC Y B YSSHE till EL I E V. 
 
 to you, or through the medium of a bookseller. I will 
 enclose the printer's account for your inspection in 
 another letter. 
 
 " Dear Sir, yours sincerely, 
 
 " P. B. Shelley." 
 
 From the last passage in this letter it would appear 
 that Shelley had undertaken the risk of printing St. 
 Irvyne himself. Mr. Stockdale, it is evident, had the 
 pleasure not only of inspecting the printer's account, 
 but of paying it also. This probably formed the 
 foundation of the debt due to him by Shelley, which, 
 " interest included/' he calculated in 1826 amounted 
 to 300/. The rate of interest must have been high 
 indeed if it be true, as stated in a MS. journal of Dr. 
 Polidori, that the principal sum due on the 1st of 
 August, 181 1, was about 100I. Whatever the amount 
 was, Shelley, writing to Stockdale on that day, de- 
 clared his inability to pay it. He admits " the im- 
 prudence of publishing a book so ill-digested as St. 
 Irvyne" but still asks with a faint glimmer of hope, 
 "Are there no expectations on the profits of its sale?''' 
 This gleam, however, is but momentary; for in the 
 next sentence he offers a new solution of the difficulty — 
 " My studies have, since my writing it, been of a 
 more serious nature. I am at present engaged in 
 completing a series of moral and metaphysical essays — 
 perhaps their copyright would be accepted in lieu of 
 part of my debt." 
 
 It is needless to say that this offer did not tempt 
 Mr. Stockdale to indulge a second time in the luxury 
 of inspecting and paying a printer's account, even 
 with the hope of adding the ideal interest thereon 
 which had so mysteriously expanded the first. 
 
A REFUTATION OF DEISM. 43 
 
 "Whether these moral and metaphysical essays were 
 substantially the same work to which Shelley alludes 
 in his letter to Stockdale of the 18th December, 1810, 
 from which I have already quoted, it is now impossible 
 to say. In that letter he writes : " I have in prepa- 
 ration a novel ; it is principally constructed to convey 
 metaphysical and political opinions by way of conver- 
 sation. It shall be sent to you as soon as completed, 
 but it shall receive more correction than I trouble 
 myself to give to wild romance and poetry." Mr. 
 Garnett, referring to this subject, says : " Speedy extinc- 
 tion, too, was the fate of the MS. novel, of which the above 
 is the first and last mention." As to the novel, this 
 remark is doubtless true; but we certainly do hear 
 again of a work conveying "metaphysical and moral 
 opinions by way of conversation." The idea or plan 
 of a fiction may have been abandoned, and the sub- 
 stance and conversational form of the essays preserved 
 in a book of which Mr. Hogg gives us the following 
 curious account : — 
 
 "The year 18 14 had come upon us. In that year 
 — and at the beginning of the year, I think — Shelley 
 published a work entitled A Refutation of Deism : 
 in a Dialogue. It is handsomely, expensively, and 
 very incorrectly printed in octavo. It was published 
 in a legal sense, unquestionably ; whether it was also 
 published in a publisher's sense and offered for sale I 
 know not, but I rather think that it was — the preface 
 informs us that it was intended it should be. I never 
 heard that anybody bought a copy ; the only copy I 
 ever saw is that which my friend kindly sent to me ; 
 it is inscribed by his own hand, on the title-page, 
 < To his friend T. Jefferson Hogg, from P. B. S/ I 
 never heard it mentioned any further than this, that 
 
44 PERCY B YSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 two or three of the author's friends told me that it 
 had been sent as a present. It is a short dialogue, 
 comprised in 101 pages of large print. Eusebes and 
 Theosophus discourse together and dispute with each 
 other, much as the author loved to dispute when he 
 could find an opponent — whenever Eusebes could find 
 a Theosophus, and get up an antagonistic dialogue. 
 It is written in his powerful, energetic, contentious 
 style, but it contains nothing new or important, and 
 was composed and printed also in a hurry. He never 
 spoke of it to me, or in my presence. It attracted 
 no attention, and doubtless Shelley himself soon dis- 
 covered that it did not merit it." — Life of Shelley, vol. 
 ii. pp. 484, 485. 
 
 How Mr. Hogg could have known that this work 
 was " composed and printed also in a hurry," when 
 Shelley never spoke of it to him or in his presence, 
 is one of those mysteries of intuition so frequently 
 propounded for our belief throughout his book. It 
 is apparently the same work which Shelley had planned 
 in December, 18 10, and which he determined should 
 receive " more correction than he troubled himself to 
 give to wild romance and poetry." The description 
 Mr. Hogg gives of this book is fuller than usual, and 
 may lead to its recovery. There is always, however, 
 something incomplete and unsatisfactory even in his 
 most minute analvsis when dealing: with facts. He 
 tells us that " a long quotation is given in a note from 
 Plutarch's treatise on eating flesh. It is in the 
 original Greek, without any translation either in 
 English or in Latin — a convincing proof that the 
 dialogue was not addressed to unlearned readers" {Life, 
 vol. ii. p. 486). This Mr. Hogg gives without the 
 
TRA NSLA TION FROM PL UTA RCE. 45 
 
 slightest reference to what he had printed but a few 
 pages before, in a letter of Shelley's dated Edinburgh, 
 Nov. 26th, 1813. 
 
 " I have translated the two Essays of Plutarch, irzpl 
 (yapKocpayiag, which we read together. They are very 
 excellent. I intend to comment upon them, and to 
 reason in my preface concerning the Orphic and 
 Pythagoric system of diet." — Life, vol. ii. p. 482. 
 
 It will be amusing, as another example of Mr. 
 Hogg's sublime indifference to facts, to find, when- 
 ever a copy of A Refutation of Deism is discovered, 
 that the "long quotation from Plutarch's treatise on 
 eating flesh," left in the original Greek for learned 
 readers as a note, is translated into English for " un- 
 learned readers" in the " Preface."* 
 
 But we must now return to St. Irvyne, which we 
 have abandoned rather unceremoniously on the first 
 day of its existence. 
 
 An announcement of the birth was published, as we 
 have seen, a day or two before the 1 8th of December, 
 1 8 10; but the new arrival showed little signs of life, 
 if we may judge by the silence of the papers, until 
 towards the end of January, 1 8 1 1 . The advertisement, 
 
 * A long quotation from the same treatise of Plutarch, both in 
 Greek and English, concludes the notes to Queen Mab, in Clark's 
 edition of 182 1. It would appear from a notice signed " W. Clark," 
 on p. 92 of this edition, that the notes of the original Queen Mab 
 of 1813, "in French, Latin, and Greek," were not translated. 
 In the editions of Queen Mab by John Brooks (1829), Mrs. 
 Shelley and Mr. Eossetti, the passage from Plutarch is not trans- 
 lated. In those of Clark, 1821 ; Carlile, 1822 (the same book 
 with Carlile's imprint) and Carlile 1823, with the titlepage of the 
 original edition of 1 8 13, the passage is given in Greek and English. 
 In the edition said to be printed at " New York, by William 
 Baldwin," 1 821, the translation alone is given. 
 
46 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 which Shelley thought was " likely to excite curiosity," 
 began to appear more frequently. Except the head- 
 ing, " The University Romance/' there is nothing 
 in it different from ordinary advertisements. I tran- 
 scribe it from The Times of Saturday, January 26th, 
 181 1, and Saturday, February 2nd, 18 li : — 
 
 " The University Romance. — This day is published, price 
 only $s., St. Irvyne ; or, The Rosicrucian : A Romance. By a 
 Gentleman of Oxford University. Printed for Stockdale Junior, 
 41, Pall-Mali." 
 
 St. Irvyne has one advantage, and one only, over 
 Zastrozzi — it is considerably shorter : in every other 
 respect it is as unreal, imperfect, and puerile as his first 
 attempt. Shelley believed that at least it would have 
 made a bigger book than Zastrozzi, but in this he was 
 mistaken, as though printed in a somewhat larger type 
 it fills exactly sixteen pages less. St. Irvyne, though 
 not published until the end of 18 jo, was probably 
 written while Zastrozzi was passing through the press 
 in the earlier part of the same year. He tells us 
 himself that the second title of the story, The Rosi- 
 crucian, is derived from St. Leon : " What I mean as 
 1 Rosicrucian'' is, the elixir of eternal life. Mr. God- 
 win's romance of c St. Leon' turns upon that super- 
 stition" It has not, however, been noticed that its 
 first title, St. Irvyne, may have been suggested to him 
 by a locality in which he had spent some of the 
 happiest hor.rs of his life in the company of his first 
 love, Harriet Grove. Lady Shelley calls this place 
 St. Leonard's* but Mr. C. Grove, who formed one of 
 the party described in the following interesting passage 
 of a letter addressed by him to Miss Hellen Shelley, 
 
 * Meaning probably St. Leonard's Forest, in a part of which 
 lay the seat of the Duke of Norfolk. 
 
ST. 1RVYNE. 4 7 
 
 the poet's sister, in 1857, speaks of it as St. Irving' s, a 
 name singularly like that of Shelley's romance : — 
 
 " I did not meet Bysshe again/' says Mr. Grove, 
 " till I was fifteen, the year I left the navy, and then 
 I went to Field Place with Harriet [Grove]. Bysshe 
 was there, having just left Eton, and his sister 
 Elizabeth. Bysshe was at that time more attached 
 to my sister Harriet than I can express, and I re- 
 collect well the moonlight walks'* we four had at Strode, 
 and also at St. Irving' s ; that, I think, was the name 
 of the place, then the Duke of Norfolk's, at Horsham. "f 
 After this, in a parenthesis, is the following fuller 
 description : " St. Irving's Hills, a beautiful place on 
 the right-hand side as you go from Horsham to Field 
 Place, laid out by the famous Capability Brown, and 
 full of magnificent forest-trees, waterfalls, and rustic 
 seats. The seat was Elizabethan. All has been 
 destroyed." Mr. Grove adds "that was in 18 10" — 
 evidently a mistake for the summer of 1809, as cor- 
 rectly given by Lady Shelley. — Hogg's Life of Shelley, 
 vol. ii. pp. 550, 551 ; Shelley Memorials, p. 13. 
 
 * The moon, as might be expected, figures conspicuously in. 
 St. Irvyne. One or two passages may be given : — K The moon 
 became as bright as polished silver, and each star sparkled with 
 scintillations of inexpressible whiteness" (p. 194). And again, "I 
 gazed in eager anticipation of curiosity on the scene before me ; 
 for a mist of silver radiance rendered every object but myself im- 
 perceptible; yet was it brilliant as the noonday sun" (St. Irvyne, 
 p. 194). 
 
 t " Hill Place" is the name given to it in Beauties of England, 
 and Wales. London, 18 13. "In the same direction, on the 
 right of the road, is an old seat called Sill Place, formerly the 
 property of the late Viscountess Irwin, but now belonging to the 
 Duke of Norfolk" (Sussex, p. 97). 
 
 Mr. Howard, of Corby Castle, tells me it was sold after the 
 death of Duke Charles in 181 j. The " Viscountess Irwin" may 
 perhaps have suggested the name " Irving" to Mr. Grove. 
 
48 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 As the place was called St. Irving'* by Mr. Grove, 
 it may so have been remembered by Shelley ; and even 
 apart from the associations connected with the pre- 
 sence of Harriet Grove and Elizabeth Shelley, it was a 
 locality that may well be supposed to have lingered 
 in the memory of the poet. 
 
 It is stated that St. Irvyne as well as Zastrozzi re- 
 ceived a good deal of notice from the press. This 
 statement, which seems rather improbable, I have not 
 been able to confirm after a diligent search. In ex- 
 amining the reviews and periodicals of the period for 
 some trace or record • of the missing poem published 
 by Shelley in 1811, which will presently be more fully 
 described, the names of these romances would have 
 arrested my attention, but I do not recollect having 
 met a single allusion to them. The second romance, 
 however, had an admirer, and a warm one, in a very 
 unexpected quarter. " Fortunately for himself/" says 
 Mr. Eossetti, in his Memoir of Shelley (p. lxi.), " Hogg 
 had probably not read St. Irvyne, or he would have 
 found that that name designates a locality, and not a 
 man." It might be urged that perhaps it designated 
 neither. The interest of more than half the story, 
 and that its concluding portion, entirely rests upon 
 Eloise de St. Irvyne, a sort of newer XouueUe Heloise, 
 who may be considered its heroine, after the astound- 
 ing Megalena de Metastasio is disposed of, and from 
 whom it may have derived its name. But whether 
 Mr. Hogg read the romance or not, he praised it ; so 
 much so, indeed, that the modest and perhaps con- 
 scientious author had to deprecate the infrequent, 
 perhaps the unique, adulation of his friend. " ^Vhy 
 will you compliment St. Irvyne ? '' says Shelley in a 
 letter to Mr. Hogg, dated Sunday, May 17th, 181 1 — 
 
THE IRISH MELODIES. 49 
 
 a question which that gentleman doubtless would 
 have found it very difficult to answer. 
 
 As in the case of Margaret Nicholson's Posthumous 
 Fragments, St. Irvyne supplies additional proof of 
 the interest which Ireland was then beginning to 
 awaken in the mind of Shelley. The witchery of the 
 Irish Melodies had already enthralled him. He even 
 goes the length of making the exceptional moral 
 person in his book an Irishman. Compared with " the 
 unhappy TVolfstein" and the " awe-inspiring Ginotti," 
 the Englishman, Mountfort, may be regarded with 
 some favour, but he is not immaculate. He has, 
 however, a more perfect companion. 
 
 '• What companion ?" Eloise interrupted him, in- 
 quiringly. " Why/' replied he, u a friend of mine, 
 who lives at my cottage ; he is an Irishman, and so 
 very moral, and so averse to every species of ga'iete de 
 cceur, that you need be under no apprehensions." " He 
 wanders about, writes poetry, and, in short'''' — appears 
 to be a very harmless sort of person. He eventually 
 becomes the husband of Eloise, who having a stout 
 notions on the marrying score/'' would have willingly 
 dispensed with what she considered a superfluous 
 ceremony. " Nay, do not start/' says the gentle Fitz- 
 eustace, when he proposes to the fair Eloise the hard 
 condition of submitting to the " harmless " formality 
 of being legally married. He probably composed her 
 by the charm which he had found so potent in an 
 earlier scene. 
 
 " Recline on this sofa, then/'' said Pitzeustace, " and 
 I will play some of those Irish tunes you admire so 
 much." 
 
 " Eloise reclined on the sofa, and Fitzeustace, seated 
 on the floor, began to play. The melancholy plaintive- 
 
 £ 
 
50 PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 ness of his music touched Eloise — she sighed, and 
 concealed her tears in her handkerchief. At length 
 she sank into a profound sleep : still Fitzeustace con- 
 tinued playing, noticing not that she slumbered. He 
 now perceived that she spoke, but in so low a tone that 
 he knew she slept * (St. Irvyne,* pp. 209, 216, 217, 280). 
 
 The way in which Shelley disposes of all his cha- 
 racters — not in the book itself, but in a private letter 
 to his publisher — is amusing. Stockdale, after a fitting 
 the work for the press/' rubbed his eyes when all was 
 over, to perceive if possible what had become of the 
 various personages. Like the ferryman in the ballad 
 of Kopisch,f he stood bewildered ; the elfin people had 
 all vanished, and he held in his hand nothing but 
 crumpled leaves. Shelley came to his relief. 
 
 " Ginotti, as you will perceive, did not die by "Wolf- 
 stein's hand, but by the influence of that natural 
 magic which, when the secret was imparted to the 
 latter, destroyed him. Mountfort being a character 
 of inferior import, I did not think it necessary to 
 state the catastrophe of him, as it could at best be 
 but uninteresting. Eloise and Fitzeustace are married 
 and happy, I suppose, and Megalena dies by the 
 same means as Wolfstein. I do not myself see any 
 other explanation that is required/' — Letter dated 
 " University Coll., Nov. 14th, 18 10," in Stockdale's 
 Budget. 
 
 As my leaders will probably be not more exacting 
 
 * In 1822, after the death of Shelley, Stockdale reproduced the 
 old sheets of St. Irvyne, with a title page dated that year. It is 
 from a copy of this reissue in my own possession that the above 
 extracts are given. 
 
 t The Fairies' Passage. The translation of James Clarence 
 Mansran. 
 
SHELLEY AND NEWSPAPERS. 51 
 
 th?n Mr. Stockdale, with this epilogue of the author 
 we shall take our leave of St. Irvyne. 
 
 Iu the second letter which Shelley addressed to 
 Godwin, then personally unknown to him, dated 
 " Keswick, January 10th, 1812/'' he thus epitomizes in 
 one sentence the results of his academic career : — 
 
 " Classical reading and poetical writing employed me 
 during my residence at Oxford " {Hogg, vol. ii. p. 56). 
 
 As far as we have yet gone in this investigation, 
 the only evidence of poetical writing that has .been 
 presented to us is the collection of poems, serious or 
 burlesque, whichever they may be considered to be, 
 that he published under the name of Margaret 
 Nicholson. Indeed Mr. Hogg leaves it to be inferred 
 that with that sublime effort of genius the poetical 
 aspirations of his young friend were satisfied, and 
 that he printed nothing subsequently, either in prose 
 or verse, while at the University, but the unfortunate 
 syllabus entitled The Necessity of Atheism. How 
 completely this is the reverse of the fact will presently 
 be shown. It will be proved that he not only indulged 
 in " poetical writing " to a much greater extent than 
 might be supposed from the silence of his biographer 
 on that point, but that he published a distinct volume 
 of verse — the earliest that came entirely from his 
 own hand — a fact which, after the lapse of sixty years, 
 it has been the good fortune of the present writer to 
 have discovered. 
 
 Among the many loose though dogmatic assertions 
 of Mr. Hogg, for which there is not a tittle of 
 evidence, and that are absolutely contradicted by the 
 facts, is one to the effect that Shelley not only had a 
 dislike to newspapers, but that they never reached him 
 while at the University. " A newspaper never found 
 
 E 1 
 
52 PERCY BYSSnE SHELLEY. 
 
 its way to his rooms the whole period of his residence 
 at Oxford w (Life, vol. i. p. 257). How Shelley could 
 have written and published a volume of verse without 
 his friend knowing anything about it, and yet be unable 
 to receive a single newspaper unseen by that keen-eyed 
 Argus, is a difficulty not easily got over. And yet this 
 reckless assertion is adopted by later writers without the 
 slightest investigation. So far from Shelley being in- 
 different to newspapers and to writers in newspapers, 
 we find him at Oxford alive to the passing political 
 events of the day — writing to the editors of news- 
 papers, identifying himself with their opinions, con- 
 gratulating them on their triumphs, indignant at their 
 persecution, and, stranger than all, publishing a poem 
 for the sustainment in prison of one of them who was 
 considered by the leading Liberals of the day, as well 
 as by Shelley, a martyr for the liberty of the Press. 
 
 Captain Medwin was determined not to be outdone 
 by his rival biographer Mr. Hogg, in affecting an 
 intimate acquaintance with the private habits of their 
 illustrious friend. The infallible Mr. Hogg had 
 declared ex cathedra that " a newspaper never found 
 its way to his rooms the whole period of his residence 
 at Oxford/'' At a time when Shelley was engaged 
 in writing to the editors of three newspapers, and 
 publishing a poem for the sustainment of one of them 
 who had been imprisoned, Mr. Hogg puts into the 
 mouth of his friend the following marvellous statement : 
 " With how unconquerable an aversion do I shrink 
 from political articles and reviews \" Sometimes, alas ! 
 he had to endure the affliction. " When waiting in 
 a bookseller's shop or at an inn," says Mr. Hogg, 
 relaxing a little from the severity of his first assertion, 
 " he would sometimes, although rarely, permit his eye 
 
ABSURD ST A TEMENTS DISPRO VED. 5 3 
 
 to be attracted by a murder or a storm !" What a 
 careful watch had Mr. Hogg at this time over his 
 young friend, when he stole behind his chair and 
 looked over his shoulder to know the precise article 
 that engaged the attention of the poet ! "What a 
 high idea he gives of the subjects most interesting to 
 the youthful philanthropist ! 
 
 Captain Medwin, as we have said, affects to be 
 equally well informed as to Shelley's habits in this 
 respect at a later period of his life. Speaking of his 
 visit to the poet, at Pisa, in 1 821, he says : — " Never 
 have I seen him read a newspaper/'' This, no doubt, 
 may be perfectly true when taken as a personal 
 recollection of the writer. It is, however, relied upon 
 by those who, having adopted the earlier assertion of 
 Mr. Hogg as to Shelley's dislike to newspapers, see 
 in Captain Med win's statement a complete confirma- 
 tion of it. We have already disposed of Mr. Hogg's 
 delusion — the imparting to his friend sentiments and 
 prejudices that were clearly his own. If additional 
 arguments are necessary, they will be found in the 
 single fact that within twelve months of the time at 
 which this aversion to newspapers is said to have 
 existed in the mind of Shelley, he was endeavouring 
 to establish one himself, of which he would have the 
 entire control. This occurred in Dublin, as will be 
 fully detailed in our subsequent account of Shelley's 
 visit to that city. 
 
 The fact is immaterial whether Captain Medwin 
 ever saw Shelley read a newspaper or not, when we 
 have it under his own hand, in letters written from 
 Italy, that he not only received newspapers, but sub- 
 scribed for them. The following extracts are taken 
 from Mr. Peacock's papers in Fraser's Magazine, 
 
54 PERCY B YSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 where the letters are published. Writing from Leg- 
 horn, June, 1819, Shelley says — " Cobbett still more 
 and more delights me, with all my horror of the 
 sanguinary commonplaces of his creed " (Fraser, 
 March, i860, p. 308). Later in the same year he 
 says — " The Examiners I receive. Hunt, as a political 
 writer, pleases me more and more" (August, 1819). 
 " Many thanks for your attention in sending the 
 papers which contain the terrible and important 
 
 news of Manchester Pray let me have the 
 
 earliest political news which you consider important 
 at this crisis" (September, 1819). " I have received 
 all the papers you sent me, and the Examiners regu- 
 larly " (September, 1819). " I take in Galignanr's 
 paper, which is filled with extracts from The Courier" 
 (Pisa, May, 1820). "The Paris paper which I take 
 in copied some excellent remarks from The Examiner" 
 (Leghorn, July, 1820). Finally, at the end of the 
 same letter, he begs of his friend Peacock to send him, 
 with a number of books which he mentions, "Papers, 
 1 Indicators/ and whatever else you may think interest- 
 ing" So much for the accuracy of Shelley's biogra- 
 phers, from Mr. Hogg to Captain Medwin, and the 
 followers of both. 
 
 Putting aside this newspaper controversy, at least 
 for a while, we may return to the account which 
 Shelley himself gives of his occupations during the 
 brief term of his University career. " Classical read- 
 ing and poetical writing employed me during my 
 residence at Oxford " (Letter to Godwin, Keswick, 
 January 10th, 181 2). The only evidence of "poetical 
 writing " that has yet been adduced is the curious 
 volume entitled Posthumous Fragments of Margaret 
 Nicholson. That work, slight and trifling as it is, 
 
" THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND CITY HERALD." 55 
 
 ■was published, as we Lave shown, within three weeks 
 after Shelley's entrance at the University. If the 
 time of his going to Oxford is correctly given by Mr. 
 Hogg and by Lady Shelley, these poems must have 
 been written by Shelley in the interval between his 
 leaving Eton and his entrance at University College. 
 One would expect more results from this systematic 
 prosecution of " classical reading and poetical writing" 
 than the Fragments, which are plainly the product 
 of earlier studies and earlier inspirations. Whenever 
 the missing poem — the fact of the publication of which 
 we have discovered — is found, it will probably justify 
 the assertion of Shelley, that when at Oxford he oc- 
 cupied himself in "poetical writing" as well as " clas- 
 sical reading." While waiting for the appearance 
 of that poem, which will be most interesting as the 
 first poetical work published by Shelley without the 
 assistance or co-operation of an ally, any poems pub- 
 lished at this period which with reasonable probability 
 may be attributed to him must awaken a certain 
 amount of curiosity. 
 
 We have spoken of The Oxford University and 
 City Herald, of which John Munday, the publisher of 
 Margaret Nicholson, was printer. We shall shortly 
 find Shelley's name avowedly in that paper, and in 
 that paper is the earliest advertisement of the missing 
 poem to which we have so often referred. The Eng- 
 lish epigram on a watch, which Shelley translated 
 into Latin, appeared, as we have pointed out, in The 
 Oxford Herald so early as September i6th, 1809. We 
 have suggested that the member for Shoreham (Mr. 
 Timothy Shelley) could scarcely have done less than 
 support by his subscription a Liberal journal which 
 probably circulated largely in Sussex and the adjacent 
 
56 PERCY B YS&HE SEELLE Y. 
 
 counties. Should this surmise he correct, the paper 
 was, of course, week after week forwarded to Field 
 Place, and thus, even before he went to Oxford, may 
 have been frequently in the hands of the young poet. 
 
 It seems strange that no one has hitherto examined 
 the Oxford journals of 1810 and 181 1 for some traces 
 of Shelley while at the University. The details given 
 by Mr. Hogg are so copious, and appear to be so 
 authentic, that curiosity was satisfied, and subsequent 
 writers were content with reproducing in one form or 
 another the elaborate narrative of that gentleman. It 
 was difficult, it is true, to see those papers even at 
 Oxford, as I am informed by the courteous librarian 
 of the Bodleian that no Oxford journals of those years 
 are preserved in that library. The British Museum 
 is more fortunate, as it possesses in a tolerably com- 
 plete state a copy of The Oxford University and City 
 Herald for the years in which, on Shelley's account, 
 we are most interested. This copy was "purchased 
 at the sale of Mr. Heber's books, June, 1834," as 
 mentioned on the fly-leaf of the volume, which contains, 
 with some exceptions, the numbers from December, 
 1806, to the 28th February, 1815. The numbers for 
 1810 seem to be quite perfect, as are those of 1811 to 
 the 29th of September. 
 
 Through all these years The Oxford Herald seems 
 to have preserved a uniform character. Its politics 
 were ultra- Liberal, especially on all questions connected 
 with the liberty of the Press. It appeared once a 
 week, on Saturday, and was " printed and published 
 by John Munday, at The Herald Office, High Street, 
 Oxford ." The name of J. Munday as printer is 
 changed in the number for January 12th, 181 1, to those 
 of " Munday and Slatter," by whom it was subse- 
 
POEMS SIGNED "S." IN "THE OXFORD HERALD." y, 
 
 qucntly carried on. In the same number tliere is an 
 advertisement of " Munday and Slatter, Printers and 
 Booksellers, Herald Office/ High Street, Oxford." A 
 son of John Mnnday succeeded him in the business, 
 but on his leaving Oxford, as mentioned in the in- 
 teresting letter by the present representative of the 
 firm, Mr. John Kose, which has already been given, 
 the establishment vras carried on under the names 
 of Slatter and Rose. 
 
 The Oxford Herald appears to have been conducted 
 with a good deal of literary ability and taste. A 
 column was usually devoted to a prose essay on some 
 of the older English poets. Crashaw and other 
 writers of the same period and school — such as Cowley, 
 traces of whose influence may perhaps be found in the 
 lyrical poetry of Shelley — are frequently mentioned. 
 One of these essays, signed " P. S./" appeared during 
 the period of Shelley's residence, and may possibly 
 have been written by him. There is a marked absence, 
 however, of original poetry in The Oxford Herald, or of 
 verse written expressly for publication in that journal. 
 Political squibs and lengthy odes are in abundance, but 
 they are generally taken at second-hand from The 
 Morning Chronicle. Sometimes a poem appeared on 
 the same day in the two journals. "With the ap- 
 proach of Shelley a change appears in this respect 
 in the pages of the paper; original verse begins 
 to appear, is continued during his residence at the 
 University, and ceases when he leaves it. By 
 original verse I mean, as I have said, verse pub- 
 lished originally in The Oxford Herald. Most of 
 these are signed with the letter " S." They are 
 chiefly translations from the Greek Anthology (of 
 which in his collected works we have undoubted 
 
58 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 specimens) and from the Latin poems of Vincent 
 Bourne. Here is curiously combined in the same 
 pieces some evidence of the " classical reading u and 
 " poetical writing M of which he himself has spoken. 
 These translations do not possess any remarkable 
 merit, nor have they that peculiar Shclleyan flavour 
 by which we can so easily recognise his later poems. 
 They are, however, not inferior to most that he had 
 written up to this period. The signature attached to 
 them, the time at which they appeared, the journal in 
 which they AA 7 ere published, and the course of his 
 studies at the time, all create an amount of presump- 
 tive evidence that justify me in offering them here as 
 having in all probability been written by Shelley. 
 
 Before the ordinarily received time of his arrival at 
 Oxford, however, and as an avant-courier of the coming 
 poet, there appeared in The Oxford Herald a short 
 poem which, as I conceive, possesses to a remarkable 
 degree that peculiar Shelleyan flavour of which I 
 have spoken. This little poem cannot, of course, be 
 put in comparison with some of those exquisite lyrics 
 written by Shelley in his later years — lyrics with which, 
 in fact, nothing in the language can be compared. 
 But there is something essentially Shelleyesque both 
 in the language and the ideas. If the lines were not 
 written by Shelley, they were the composition of some 
 young poet who anticipated Shelley himself in what 
 was peculiarly characteristic of Shelley. As Pope said 
 of Chapman's translation of the Iliad, that it was 
 " something like what one would imagine Homer him- 
 self 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 : — 
 
ODE TO THE DEATH OF SUMMER. 59 
 
 ODE 
 
 TO THE DEATH OF SUMMEE. 
 
 Zephyr, whither art thou straying, 
 
 Tell me where : 
 With prankish girls in gardens playing, 
 
 False and fair; 
 A butterfly's light back bestriding ; 
 Queen bees to honeysuckles guiding, 
 Or in a swinging harebell riding, 
 
 Free from care ? 
 
 Before Aurora's car you amble 
 
 High in air ; 
 At noon, when Neptune's sea-nymphs gambol, 
 
 Braid their hair ; 
 When on the trembling billows rolling, 
 Or on the smooth sands idly strolling, 
 Or in cool grottoes they lie lolling, 
 
 You sport there. 
 
 To chase the moonbeams up the mountains, 
 
 You prepare : 
 Or dance with elves on brinks of fountains, 
 
 Mirth to share ; 
 Now seen with love-lorn lilies weeping, 
 Now with a blushing rosebud sleeping ; 
 Whilst fays from forth their chambers peeping, 
 
 Cry, Oh rare ! 
 
 The braiding the hair of the sea-nymphs by the 
 breeze — the personification of the " love-lorn lilies - ''' — 
 the intense enjoyment of Nature throughout, and the 
 abrupt exclamation at the end, all raise a strong- 
 probability that this lyric was written by Shelley. It 
 appeared in The Oxford Herald of Saturday, Sep- 
 tember 2 2nd, 18 10. Shelley was then at Field Place, 
 as we have letters in the Stockdale correspondence 
 dated there, both before and immediately after. As 
 Shelley had sent so far as Edinburgh to the Messrs. 
 Ballantyne the MS. of his long poem The Wandering 
 
r»o PERL i )' S T8& Hi: SHEL LAY. 
 
 Jew, written in conjunction with Captain Mcdwin, to 
 which they refer in their curious letter of the 24th of 
 September, 1810, there is no improbability in his 
 having sent a short lyric to Oxford for publication in 
 a local paper. It should be noticed that the poem is 
 printed very conspicuously in The Oxford Herald, 
 at the top of a column not usually devoted to litera- 
 ture, whether in justice to the merits of the composi- 
 tion itself, or in deference to the social position of the 
 supposed writer, cannot now be ascertained. 
 
 The evidence of authorship in the ec Ode to the 
 Death of Summer" is altogether, or nearly so, internal. 
 In the translations from the Greek Antliologia it is 
 perhaps exclusively external, arising from the signature 
 and the classical character of the poems themselves. 
 The first of these versions from the Greek is given in 
 The Oxford University and City Herald of Saturday, 
 January 5th, 181 1: — 
 
 The Gbape. 
 From the Greek Antliologia. 
 
 This grape, of future wine the store, 
 
 Who from the tree unripen'd bore ? 
 
 And, loathing its yet acid taste, 
 
 Thus on the ground half-eaten cast ? 
 
 To every footstep passing by 
 
 The spurn'd remains obnoxious lie ; — 
 
 To him, the foe of mirth and love, 
 
 May Bacchus ever hostile prove, 
 
 As to the barb'rous prince of yore 
 
 Who Thracia's blooming vines uptore : — 
 
 This grape, thus wantonly abus'd, 
 
 When in the sparkling glass infus'd, 
 
 This might have warm'd some poet's lay, 
 
 Or chased corroding care away ! S. 
 
 In the next number, for January 12th, 181 1, is the 
 following : — 
 
EPIGRAMS FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGIA. 61 
 
 Epigeam. 
 
 From the Greek Anthologia. 
 
 Siq)j~>o$ed to be spoken by some Roses on the Birth-day of a 
 Beautiful Girl who was on the Point of Marriage. 
 
 We that were wont in Spring's soft lap to bloom, 
 
 Now earl}' blush, 'rnid Winter's dreary gloom, 
 
 And on this day we smiling hail thy charms, 
 
 That soon, sweet maid, shall bless a husband's arms ; 
 
 More pleased thy lovely temples to adorn, 
 
 Than wait the rising of the vernal morn. S. 
 
 The series of epigrams from the Greek is here 
 interrupted by one from the Latin. The signature 
 " S. " is changed also for " Versificator/" but the 
 writer is evidently the same person, as the translations 
 from the Anthologia are resumed under the latter signa- 
 ture on March 9th, 181 1, sixteen days before Shelley's 
 expulsion, after which they no longer appear. 
 
 In The Oxford Herald of Saturday, February 23rd, 
 181 1, is the following: — 
 
 Teaxslatiox of ax Epigeam of Vixcext Bourne. 
 
 Down the river's gentle tide, 
 As to London Bridge we glide, 
 Hark ! the bells of Mary's tower 
 Sweetly warbled music pour ! 
 With what harmony and grace 
 Each preserves its stated place ! 
 While the air, above, around, 
 Trembles with the varied sound. 
 
 Merry changes ceaseless glide 
 
 To old Thames's willow'd side : 
 
 Still recede, and sweeter still 
 
 Through the raptur'd breast they thrill, 
 
 Such the pleasure to our hearts 
 
 Distant melody imparts — 
 
 Enter once within the tow'r, 
 
 All the harmony is o'er. — Versificatoe.* 
 
 * Since this page was in type I have found in The Oxford 
 
62 PEIiCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 The Oxford Herald of Saturday, March 9th, 181 r, 
 contains two epigrams from the Greek, with which, as 
 I have stated, the series closes : — 
 
 On Old Age. 
 From the Greek Anthologia. 
 
 Mortals for age, when distant, pray ; 
 Age, when at hand, they wish away ; 
 The thing of which we're not possest, 
 We constantly esteem the best. — Versificatoe. 
 
 Venus and the Muses. 
 From the same. 
 
 The Queen of Love once threat'ning vow'd, 
 
 Unless the Nine her sway allow'd, 
 
 That Cupid's never-erring dart 
 
 Should quickly pierce them to the heart. 
 
 Then they : " On Mars your menace try, 
 
 The little urchin we defy." — Veksificator. 
 
 There is one thing very remarkable about these last 
 two epigrams in connexion with the suggestion I have 
 ventured to make as to their authorship, and it is this, 
 that they appear in the same number of The Oxford 
 Herald which contains the earliest advertisement of the 
 poem unknown to all Shelley's biographers, to his widow 
 and to his family, which he published on that day. 
 
 Before entering on this curious and most interest- 
 ing subject, we have to retrace our steps a little, and 
 resume the inquiry as to Shelley's connexion with the 
 editors of newspapers, and the interest which he took 
 in the political questions of the day. 
 
 Herald another translation from Vincent Bourne, signed " S. S 
 
 Edmonton." Whatever effect this may have on the suggestion 
 thrown out above, it is only right that it should be mentioned. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 T T is not the least of the peculiarities connected with 
 Shelley's singular story, that while so much that 
 was not only written but published by him remains, 
 and will probably always remain, undiscovered, so 
 many attempts have been made to pass off forged and 
 supposititious documents as his. The most celebrated 
 example of this ingenious mode of trading on the 
 growing celebrity of the poet is the well-known 
 collection of so-called Letters of Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley, published in 1852, and edited, it is to be 
 presumed much to his own subsequent chagrin, by 
 Mr. Robert Browning. This publication, it is scarcely 
 necessary to say, was immediately withdrawn from 
 circulation, and has now become scarce. That some 
 of the letters are forgeries there can be no question, 
 but others, it is almost certain, are genuine. Indeed, 
 it is not easy to see how the counterfeits could have 
 been manufactured without the forgers having some 
 authentic originals to imitate. All the circumstances 
 of the case point to the first letter of the collection as 
 being a genuine document. If so, it is the earliest 
 piece of political writing which we have from the 
 pen of Shelley. 
 
 Shelley, into whose rooms, if we are to believe 
 Mr. Hogg, " a newspaper never found its way the 
 whole period of his residence at Oxford," thus addresses 
 the editor of a London newspaper from Oxford : — 
 
64 PERCY BYSSHB SHELLEY. 
 
 ° To the Editor of The Statesman, London. 
 
 " University College, Oxford, Feb. 22, 181 1. 
 
 " 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 the 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 Mac 
 Flecknoe 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 per- 
 haps for life, because he l calls a spade a spade/ and 
 tells a public individual the very truths that are 
 obvious to the most partial of his friends.* 
 
 * 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 Ellen- 
 borough was Lord Castlereagh. The former editor of The States- 
 man, Mr. Lovell, was suffering imprisonment for a different offence. 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF "THE STATESMAN." 65 
 
 u As I am not in the number of those determined 
 censors to whom Newgate is an elysium, and whom 
 the very idea of being persecuted by the Attorney- 
 General exhilarates more effectually than all the 
 treasures of the Castalian fountain; yet as I love to 
 speculate on the virtues and the vices of the world,, it 
 has been the object of my anxious study to discover 
 some honest and easy means of speaking the whole 
 truth, without incurring the vengeance of Government. 
 The ultimate intention of my aim is to induce a meeting 
 of such enlightened, unprejudiced members of the com- 
 munity, whose independent principles expose them to 
 evils which might thus become alleviated ; and to form a 
 methodical society ivhich should be organized so as to 
 resist the coalition of the enemies of liberty, ivhich 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. With the 
 hope of securing your co- operation, 
 
 " I remain, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient servant, 
 
 " Percy Bysshe Shelley." 
 
 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 news- 
 paper editor then personally unknown to him, but who 
 became a few years later one of his most valued and 
 intimate friends — Leigh Hunt. 
 
 Whatever question may be raised as to the 
 
 F 
 
66 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 genuineness of the letter " to the Editor of The 
 Statesman" there can be none as to that which 
 Shelley addressed " to the Editor of The Examiner." 
 The original autograph is still probably in existence, 
 having been in the possession of Mr. George Henry 
 Lewes in 1841, who published it for the first time 
 in his article on Percy Bysshe Shelley in the North 
 British Review of that year. There is, however, some 
 difficulty about it. In the first place, the super- 
 scription of the letter is not given, and we are 
 therefore in doubt whether it was addressed "to the 
 Editor of The Examiner" or "to Leigh Hunt "by name. 
 In the copy of this letter which Mr. Hogg very re- 
 luctantly published in the second volume of his 
 Life of Shelley, and which he was not aware had 
 been already in print for seventeen years, the words 
 " to Leigh Hunt " are no doubt added ; but this was 
 merely done for his information by Mrs. Shelley, as 
 will be plain from his own account of the matter : — 
 
 " A strange epistle," says Mr. Hogg, " of -which a 
 copy in Mrs. Shelley's writing has lately been placed 
 in my hands, may be conveniently introduced and 
 noticed in this place as being connected with the 
 subject, although it was written two years before, during 
 our residence at Oxford." — Life, vol. ii. pp. 187, 188. 
 
 This is truly a wonderful specimen of Mr. Hogg's 
 " convenient " mode of manipulating materials en- 
 trusted to him when he finds they are directly contra- 
 dictory to some passionate or petulant dictum pro- 
 pounded by himself in some other portion of his 
 confused and chaotic biography. One would think 
 that a letter written by Shelley when at Oxford might 
 be more " conveniently introduced and noticed" when 
 describing his residence there in 181 1, than forcibly 
 
LETTER TO " THE EXAMINER" WHEN PUBLISHED. 67 
 
 wrenched out of its proper place and given in his corre- 
 spondence from Tanyralt in 1 8 12. But this would not 
 suit the plan of Mr. Hogg. Having committed himself 
 in his original essays published in the New Monthly 
 Magazine to the absurd declaration that " a newspaper 
 never found its way to his rooms the whole period of his 
 residence at Oxford/' it would not do in the reprint- 
 ing of those papers to put side by side with that state; 
 ment a document which completely established its 
 inaccuracy, if not its absolute untruth. He therefore 
 relegates the tell-tale letter of March 2nd, 18 11, to the 
 safe limbo of his second volume, by which time ordinary 
 readers had quite forgotten the fable of the first. 
 
 The disconcerted biographer had, however, to publish 
 the letter somewhere, and he does so at length, but 
 with a very bad grace. A better biographer than Mr. 
 Hogg, but one who has unfortunately adopted too 
 many of the loose and unfounded statements of that 
 gentleman, speaks of the two volumes of the Life of 
 Shelley as " Mr. Hogg's irresistibly amusing book." 
 If it be amusing, it is certainly at the expense of Mr. 
 Hogg himself, and not at that of some of his characters 
 (including his hero), whom he attempts to hold up to 
 ridicule. Thus it is, that when he discovers Shelley 
 had done certain acts and written certain letters about 
 which he had not thought it necessary to consult his 
 " guide, philosopher, and friend," Mr. Thomas Jeffer- 
 son Hogg, those acts and those letters are at once 
 condemned as the ne plus ultra of folly, of which in 
 his after-life Shelley was heartily ashamed. Had Mr. 
 Hogg lived to find out that the divine poet, his incom- 
 parable friend, not only ventured to send letters with- 
 out his knowledge, but absolutely had the audacity to 
 write and publish poems and pamphlets without the 
 
 F 2 
 
68 PERCY B YSSIIi: SHELLEY. 
 
 " imprimatur " of Mr. J. F. II., what would have 
 been his surprise ! how "amusing u the description of 
 Shelley's subsequent shame ! Unhappily, however, 
 we have not the third and fourth volumes of the 
 "irresistibly amusing book," and must be content 
 with the first and second. The present sample could 
 scarcely be exceeded. " The truth is/' says Mr. Hogg, 
 making a clean breast of it, " my poor friend knew 
 well that it was quite wrong " (that is, to have written 
 a generous letter to Leigh Hunt), " because lie never 
 communicated his intentions to myself, or to any of his 
 friends; he never told me what he had done, being un- 
 questionably ashamed of his precipitancy ; he never 
 showed me the letter or the answer to it, if he ever 
 received one." — Life, vol. ii. p. 190. 
 
 Before giving this letter, which it is necessary to print 
 for the illustration of this part of my subject, one or 
 two other instances of these overt acts of high treason 
 against the sovereign rights of Mr. Jefferson Hogg 
 may be mentioned. In 1812, as will fully be detailed 
 hereafter, Shelley visited Dublin on a political crusade, 
 without the necessary forms of obtaining permission 
 from his despotic master. This was evidently a pira- 
 tical proceeding, which, though unintelligible, could 
 not be silently passed over. With a sort of mild 
 severity, but still using the stereotyped phrases, he 
 says : — " He did not communicate his intentions to 
 me at the time. I never heard of his exploits in 
 Dublin until after their termination, and but little did 
 I learn at any period from himself. He seldom spoke 
 of them. If he ever referred to the subject at all, it 
 was briefly : and in truth he appeared to be heartily 
 ashamed of the whole proceeding " (ii. p. 75). When 
 we come to treat of this period, the last statement 
 
FIRST LETTER TO LEIGH HUNT. 69 
 
 will be found to be contradicted by Shelley's own 
 reflections on the subject, as given in an unpublished 
 letter. But when at Dublin Shelley published two 
 elaborate pamphlets in furtherance of his political 
 scheme. On this additional proof of the young re- 
 former's want of confidence in his constitutional adviser, 
 the elderly Tory gentleman of 1858 thus descants : — 
 
 n Bysshe invariably sent me a copy of all his other 
 works, whether long or short, in verse or in prose, as 
 soon as they were published, or, more commonly, as 
 soon as they were printed; but he never gave me, 
 either at the time of their appearance or subsequently, 
 his two Irish pamphlets. He never named them to 
 me, and I saw them for the first time a few months 
 ago" (ii. p. 76). 
 
 It will be found, quite apart from the private grounds 
 of complete separation between Shelley and his college 
 acquaintance about this period, that there were other 
 publications of the poet besides the Irish pamphlets 
 which were not sent to Mr. Hogg, probably because 
 the writer knew they could meet with little sympathy 
 from one the depth and shallowness of whose pre- 
 judices, both personal and political, the young en- 
 thusiast had by that time pretty well gauged. 
 
 Shelley's first letter to Leigh Hunt, as Editor of 
 The Examiner, is as follows : — 
 
 " University College, Oxford, March 2nd, 1 8 1 1 . 
 11 Sir, — Permit me, although a stranger, to offer 
 my sincerest congratulations on the occasion of that 
 triumph so highly to be prized by men of liberality ; 
 permit me also to submit to your consideration, as one 
 of the most fearless enlighteners of the public mind at 
 the present time, a scheme of mutual safety and mutual 
 
70 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 indemnification for men of public spirit and principle, 
 which, if carried into effect, would evidently be pro- 
 ductive of incalculable advantages. Of the scheme, the 
 following is an address to the public, the proposal for 
 a meeting, and it shall be modified according to your 
 judgment, if you will do me the honour to consider 
 the point. 
 
 " The ultimate intention of my aims is to induce a 
 meeting of such enlightened and unprejudiced members of 
 the community, whose independent principles expose them 
 to evils ivhich 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. It has been for want 
 of societies of this nature that corruption has attained 
 the height at which we now behold it ; nor can any of 
 us bear in mind the very great influence which, some 
 years since, was gained by ' Illuminism/ without 
 considering that a society of equal extent might 
 establish national liberty on as firm a basis as that 
 which would have supported the visionary schemes of 
 a completely equalized community. 
 
 a Although perfectly unacquainted with you pri- 
 vately, 1 address you as a common friend to liberty, 
 thinking that, in cases of this urgency and impor- 
 tance, etiquette ought not to stand in the way of use- 
 fulness. 
 
 "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 
 
MR. BROWNING AND LETTERS OF SHELLEY. ;r 
 
 as this may be, will be directed to the advancement of 
 liberty. 
 
 " I remain, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient servant, 
 * To Leigh Hunt." " P. B. Shelley. 
 
 The general resemblance of these two letters — one to 
 the Editor of The Statesman, and the other to the Editor 
 of The Examiner — is at once apparent, but it has not 
 previously been pointed out that two important passages 
 in each are identical. These, for the sake of comparison, 
 I have printed in italics. It will be remembered that 
 the circumstance which first created a suspicion of the' 
 genuineness of the letters published in 1852 under the 
 superintendence of Mr. Browning, was the introduc- 
 tion into a letter purporting to have been written to 
 Godwin in 1 8 1 9 of a passage published long subse- 
 quently in The Quarterly Review by Sir Francis 
 Palgrave. The passage in The Quarterly lingered in 
 the memory of Mr. Palgrave, the son of the writer, 
 but escaped the notice of Mr, Browning, although the 
 subject of the paper in which it is found, " The Fine 
 Arts in Florence/' might reasonably have attracted 
 the attention of Mr. Browning, who resided so long 
 in that city. The forgetfulness of one so deeply 
 read in Shelleyan literature is more surprising, as he 
 must have been long familiar with the letter to Leigh 
 Hunt, originally published by Mr. Lewes in 1841. 
 This identity should, of course, have been pointed out, 
 but in the opinion of the present writer it by no 
 means establishes the fact that the letter to the Editor 
 of The Statesman is a forgery. The object which 
 Shelley had in view was the same, but the position of 
 the two editors at the time was different. The 
 
7 2 PERCY B TSSHS SMELLS Y. 
 
 Government had succeeded in its prosecution of The 
 Statesman, but was defeated in that of The Examiner. 
 AVliilc condoling with the Editor of the former on his 
 imprisonment, and congratulating the latter on his^ 
 triumph, Shelley proposes to each the formation of 
 an Association which, among other things, would place 
 in greater security the freedom of the press. We have 
 here the outline of those " Proposals/'' which he pub- 
 lished a year later at Dublin in the second of his 
 Irish pamphlets. It is not at all improbable that on 
 the general subject of his letters, which were intended 
 rather as a circular to the Liberal papers than a special 
 communication to any, he would have repeated the 
 exact phrases which seemed best to express his ideas. 
 It does not appear that he received any reply to either 
 of the letters. I shall have presently to inquire who 
 in all probability was the person whom Shelley may 
 have addressed as Editor of The Statesman. The 
 account which Leigh Hunt gives of the letter addressed 
 to himself is so confused as to raise the presumption 
 that he did not receive it until some years later, when 
 Shelley personally sought his acquaintance, if indeed it 
 ever reached his hands at all. He never published the 
 letter himself. In 1841 it is found in the possession 
 of a stranger, who first prints it. Mr. Hogg, in [858, 
 not knowing that it had been published before, prints 
 it from a MS. copy in the handwriting of Mrs. Shelley, 
 who probably took it from the printed version of Mr. 
 Lewes, and finally it is given — most likely from the 
 same source — by Mr. Thornton Hunt, in the corre- 
 spondence of his father, with no further explanation 
 than this, that u among the letters of this period I 
 find the first from Shelley." Leigh Hunt, in his 
 Autobiography, thus describes his earliest recollections 
 
MISTA KEN RECOLLECTION OF LEIGH HUNT. 73 
 
 of Shelley : — " He was then a youth not come to his 
 full g T owth_, very gentlemanly, earnestly gazing at every 
 object that interested him, and quoting the Greek dra- 
 matists. Not long afterwards he married his first wife, 
 and he subsequently wrote to me while I was in prison, 
 as I have before mentioned/'' — Leigh Hunt's Autobio- 
 graphy, edited by his eldest son. London, 1860, p. 255. 
 This is, of course, entirely wrong. The letter " be- 
 fore mentioned" was written in 181 1, two years before 
 Leigh Hunt was in prison. There is no evidence to 
 show that Shelley was personally known to Leigh 
 Hunt until long after his marriage with his first wife ; 
 and Thornton Hunt expressly mentions that among 
 the literary and political visitors to his father when 
 imprisoned in 1813 and 1814, he has no recollection 
 of Shelley. Mr. Thornton Hunt supplies the omission 
 of his father, and tells us how, but not when, Leigh 
 Hunt and Percy Bysshe Shelley became acquainted. 
 Speaking of Mr. Hunter, the bookseller in St. Paul's 
 Churchyard — who it would seem was the second hus- 
 band of Mrs. Kent, the mother of Marian Kent, 
 Hunt's wife — he says : " It was indeed Mr. Rowland 
 Hunter who first brought Leigh Hunt and his most 
 valued friend personally together. Shelley had brought 
 a manuscript poem which proved by no means suited 
 to the publishing house in St. Paul's Churchyard; 
 but Mr. Hunter sent the young reformer to seek the 
 counsel of Leigh Hunt" (p. 255). The poem here 
 referred to may have been Queen Mab, which Shelley 
 privately printed in 18 13 (though Hunt could scarcely 
 have forgotten a circumstance connecting that famous 
 poem with his first personal acquaintance with its 
 author) ; but the anecdote cannot by any possibility 
 refer to 1811. 
 
74 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 We return now to the question, who was the Editor 
 of The Statesman newspaper, to whom Shelley is 
 alleged to have written on the 22nd of February, 181 1 ; 
 and what were the circumstances that provoked the 
 letter we have transcribed ? 
 
 The Statesman newspaper was the first political 
 speculation of Leigh Hunt and his elder brother 
 John. In a letter to his future wife, Marian Kent, 
 dated Gainsborough, Sunday, February 23rd, 1806, 
 Leigh Hunt says : " My brother John sent me a letter 
 last night, begging that I would come to town as soon 
 as possible, as the first number of The Statesman will 
 be published on the 26th/' .... "The Earl of Moira 
 has taken the paper under his immediate patronage, 
 and it will no doubt have a large circulation in the 
 Ministerial circles" [Correspondence , vol. i. p. 17). " His 
 brother John," says Thornton Hunt, " with whom he 
 resided for a time, was a printer, and they had already 
 endeavoured to unite their forces. John had sought 
 to establish the paper already mentioned, The States- 
 man" . . . . " but it was relinquished apparently 
 through some want of perseverance in the capitalists. 
 Early in 1808 the brothers setup The Examiner" [Ibid. 
 vol. i. p. 42). 
 
 In the British Museum there is, unfortunately, no 
 copy of The Statesman. That noble library, which 
 with all its shortcomings is one of the finest in the 
 world, contains but a single number of a paper which, 
 if for nothing else, would be interesting from having 
 been established by Leigh Hunt, and contributed to 
 by Shelley. It is also memorable from the sufferings 
 of at least one of its proprietors. Shelley's letter to 
 the Editor, as given in Mr. Browning's suppressed 
 volume, naturally awakened in me the desire to know 
 
u THE STATESMAN," AND "THE DA Y." 75 
 
 if in the paper itself there was any acknowledgment 
 of its receipt. Unfortunately, but one number, as I 
 have said, of The Statesman, and that of a date sub- 
 sequent to the period we are investigating, is preserved 
 in the British Museum. A few facts connected with 
 it may, however, be given from other sources. 
 
 The Statesman was established, as we have seen, in 
 1806, by Leigh Hunt and his brother John. It re- 
 mained in their hands until 1 808, when The Examiner 
 was started. In September, 18 10, it was found, to his 
 cost, to be the property of one Daniel Lovell. The 
 character of the paper and the cause of its misfor- 
 tunes were very succinctly stated by Lord Folkestone 
 in a speech delivered by him in the House of Com- 
 mons on the 28th of March, 18 11. " The Statesman" 
 said he, " is a paper which has attracted notice by its 
 opposition to Ministers" (Cobbett's Political Regis- 
 ter, April 3rd, 181 1, p. 818). An excuse was easily 
 found to set the machinery of the law against it, the 
 Editor having copied into his own journal two articles 
 which had appeared in contemporary newspapers. 
 One of these was from The Day* which severely com- 
 mented on the conduct of the military in Piccadilly 
 on the 7 th of April, 18 10, at the arrest of Sir Francis 
 Burdett. No prosecution was instituted against the 
 
 * The Bay, according to the late Master of the Eolls in 
 Ireland, Mr. Walsh, was established by James Farrell (the asso- 
 ciate of Eobert Emmett, but subsequently an eminent merchant in 
 London), Irish Johnson, Quin, and Peter Pinnerty. " Among 
 other literary speculations," says the late Judge, " they established 
 a newspaper called The Bay, which did not succeed. It was 
 proposed to improve its appearance by a new and expensive ar- 
 rangement and an improved title, which Farrell suggested should 
 be, ' Sufficient for The Bay is the evil thereof.' The evil day was 
 then given up." — Ireland Sixty Years Ago, p. 185. 
 
76 PERCY BYSSffE SHELLEY. 
 
 papers in which these articles originally appeared, the 
 
 whole vengeance of the Government being concen- 
 trated on the head of Mr. Lovell. Making no de- 
 fence except that the articles complained of were 
 copied in the usual way of selection, the Editor al- 
 lowed judgment to go by default. The excuse as- 
 sisted him little in a Court presided over by Lord 
 Ellenborough. Mr. Lovell was sentenced to an im- 
 prisonment which extended to the incredible length of 
 nearly five years, in consequence of his being unable 
 to procure the necessary bail. In the session of 1 8 15 
 attention was drawn to his case in Parliament, and 
 he was at length released from his imprisonment, 
 wdiich he had endured from the 29th of November, 
 1810. 
 
 This was a case that even in its inception might surely 
 have aroused all the generous indignation of Shelley, 
 but it will be remembered that on February 22nd, 18 11, 
 when the letter to theEditorof The StatesmarnvsiS written, 
 Mr. Lovell had been already three months in prison. 
 It is difficult to understand the sudden interest taken 
 by Shelley in Mr. Lovell, supposing him to be the 
 person addressed as the Editor of The Statesman. It 
 is possible, however, that the individual addressed was 
 not Mr. Lovell at all, but a totally different person, 
 who either had been acting as editor since the incar- 
 ceration of Lovell in the previous November, or 
 who, from having published in The Statesman, as well 
 as in The Morning Chronicle, the so-called libel on 
 Lord Castlereagh, for which he too suffered a long 
 imprisonment, might have been considered by Shelley 
 as the editor of the former paper. This individual, 
 whose name the present work has been the first to 
 mention in connexion with that of Shelley, as we 
 
11 TEE EXAMINER" A XI) MR. FINNERTY. 77 
 
 have briefly stated in our opening- chapter,, and in a 
 preceding- note, was Mr. Peter Finnerty. 
 
 The eloquence of Curran, as we have said, has pre- 
 served the name of Peter Finnerty from oblivion j but 
 few could imagine that perhaps a more enduring fame 
 has been reserved for it in the poetry of Shelley. 
 Such, however, is the fact, and such is the singular 
 story I have to relate. 
 
 The story of Mr. Peter Finnerty has been told and 
 the principles involved in his prosecution discussed by 
 no less skilful a hand than that of Leigh Hunt. 
 The future author of Rimini had not yet made the 
 acquaintance of Shelley, but as Editor of The Examiner 
 he courageously defended in the person of Mr. Fin- 
 nerty the conduct of a brother journalist, and upheld 
 a cause then very much imperilled, the liberty of the 
 press. Expecting to be an immediate sharer in Mr. 
 Finnerty's imprisonment, he was not deterred from 
 avowiug a complete participation in the opinions for 
 the publication of which that gentleman was then 
 enduring punishment. This thorough knowledge of 
 the case of Peter Finnerty renders it peculiarly strange 
 that Leigh Hunt, of all people, should have been ig- 
 norant that his illustrious friend Shelley had sus- 
 tained as a poet the same man whom he himself had 
 defended as a journalist. 
 
 In The Examiner for February 17th, t8ii, and 
 February 24th, 18 11, are two elaborate articles on the 
 prosecution of Peter Finnerty. Both have the usual 
 signature used by Leigh Hunt in his political writings. 
 The first article deals with the principles involved in 
 the case ; the second, with the facts. The reader 
 will scarcely consider the latter tedious, giving as it 
 does the history of a man for whose benefit Percy 
 
78 PERCY BYSS1IE SHELLEY. 
 
 Bysshe Shelley wrote and published a volume of 
 verse : — 
 
 From The Examiner, February 24th, 1811. 
 
 u The immediate cause of Mr. Finnerty's present 
 misfortune is well known to the public. He had 
 accompanied the expedition to Walcheren* at the 
 request of Sir Home Popham, in order to write an 
 account of it for publication, but was forced to return 
 home by an order to that effect by Lord Castlereagh, 
 the then Secretary of the War Department. Finding 
 himself deeply injured in profit, reputation, and health, 
 by a proceeding so directly calculated to put him to 
 loss and expense, to degrade his character, and to prey 
 upon his mind, he thought on his return of bringing 
 an action against his lordship, but was dissuaded from 
 it as of no use; and therefore he vented his feelings 
 in a letter to Lord Castlereagh, which was published in 
 The Morning Chronicle [and The Statesman], and in 
 which he plainly accused the Viscount of an intention 
 to harass and destroy him, — reminding his lordship at 
 the same time of the tyrannous and horrible cruelties 
 practised upon the people of Ireland during the noble 
 lord's administration in that country. In consequence 
 of this letter, the Attorney- General was directed to 
 
 * The Walcheren Expedition is best remembered at the present 
 day by the celebrated epigram, which has been published in a 
 variety of forms. The following is the original version, which I take 
 from The Morning Chronicle of Monday, Feb. 26th, 1810 : — 
 
 Abstract and Brief Chronicle of the Documents and Evidence 
 concerning the Expedition to the Scheldt. 
 Loed Chatham, with his sword undrawn, 
 Kept waiting for Sir Eichaed Steachan j 
 Sir Eichard, eager to be at 'em, 
 Kept waiting too — for whom ? — Loed Chatham 
 
LEIGH HUNT ON PETER FINNERTY. 79 
 
 file an information for libel against Mr. Finnerty, and 
 the result, as everybody knows, has been the imprison- 
 ment of that gentleman — a heavy expense in addition 
 to his past losses, and a prospect of total ruin in his 
 removal to a distant gaol, far from the scenes and 
 occupations in which his pen had hitherto enabled him 
 to procure a subsistence. 
 
 " But these later facts disclose little. It is naturally 
 asked why the Secretary of State, who suffered and 
 even encouraged other persons to accompany the 
 expedition, should demand back Mr. Finnerty alone ? 
 The Ministerialists easily satisfy themselves on the 
 occasion by saying ' his lordship must have had 
 excellent reasons -/ and The Morning Post, that epitome 
 of all that is accomplished and interesting, in order 
 to settle the matter for ever, informed the public that 
 Mr. Finnerty was a suspicious person, with a very 
 treasonable cast of mind. As the Ministers and their 
 friends, however, have been long discovered not to 
 abound in ' excellent reasons ' for anything, and as 
 decent people, who look to facts and events, are 
 accustomed to believe the reverse of what the said 
 Post advances, the public waited to hear what Mr. 
 Finnerty himself should produce on his trial in ex- 
 planation; and they were not surprised at discovering 
 that a long antipathy, common between my Lord 
 Castlereagh and his countrymen, had subsisted ever 
 since 1798 [1797] between his lordship and Mr. 
 Finnerty, in consequence of the view which each took 
 of the other's character — the former regarding his 
 opponent as a bad subject, the latter considering his 
 lordship as an execrable Minister. Here then the 
 parties are at issue : the dispute resolves itself into a 
 question of political character, and by looking a little 
 
Sd P Kin Y BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 at their past actions — by observing which of the two 
 
 has most offended honest people, and, consequently, 
 which of the two is most desirous of concealing the 
 wrong he has done — we shall quickly see to which of 
 the two the general support belongs, and to which the 
 universal contempt. 
 
 " To begin with Mr. Finnerty, who is the person 
 first accused. This gentleman, it must be confessed in 
 the outset, has one deadly sin in the eye of a number 
 of persons — he is an Irishman, a native of that country 
 where to feel for the people about you is to be 
 accused of bloodthirstiness, and to differ with the 
 propriety of cheating them is to show that you are 
 not fit to be trusted. What will at once determine 
 the persons aforesaid to conclude him guilty beyond 
 question is, that he long ago expressed those feelings 
 warmly, and has been in the habit of so doing when- 
 ever an opportunity offered. It was in this way, like 
 the rest of his countrymen, that he acquired the par- 
 ticular notice of Lord Castlereagh. In 1798 [1797], 
 Mr. Finnerty, at that time twenty years of age, was 
 following his business as a printer in Dublin, where he 
 was concerned in a paper called The Press. This 
 and another print called The Northern Star were the 
 only newspapers, it seems, which ventured to notice 
 the house-burnings, the scourgings, the pickettings, 
 the half-hangings, and other dreadful inflictions 
 then practised against suspected people — atrocities 
 which, in proportion to their iniquity, it was the 
 natural wish of the perpetrators to keep from the 
 knowledge of the people of England. The destruction 
 of the latter paper was effected, and The Press alone 
 remained to repeat the groans of the country, and to 
 waft them over to the ear of this nation ; but not 
 
FINNERTY THE FIRST PUBLISHER OF "THE PRESS." 8r 
 
 long-. If to speak the truth is accounted a punishable 
 offence even in England, where it may be spoken 
 without shaking everybody's conscience, what must it 
 be accounted in Ireland, where every scourge was 
 reeking, and every dungeon echoed, with the crimes of 
 the rulers? Mr. Finnerty was soon convicted of 
 libel, and the customary miscreants were not want- 
 ing to bring forward an accusation of treasonable 
 connexion. Another informer, whom the fellow 
 known by the appellation of Major Sirr (Town Major) 
 had been encouraging to make the same charge, con- 
 gratulated himself, as he afterwards declared in print, 
 on being ' relieved from the necessity of adding 
 another to the list of innocent men imprisoned through 
 his means.' 
 
 " Mr. Finnerty, after suffering a public punish- 
 ment which is inflicted on the lowest and vilest of our 
 species — the pillory — was committed to gaol, where he 
 had been but a short time when the superintendent 
 magistrate of Dublin, with a summary mode of pro- 
 ceeding perfectly astounding to all of us who are ac- 
 customed to regard our property as secure, took a party 
 of soldiers to The Press office, and c destroyed/ says 
 the affidavit, ( not only the papers ready for publication, 
 but the types and other printing materials, amount- 
 ing in value to about 500// This man was a creature of 
 Lord Castlereagh, who had been understood for some 
 time to hold the Secretaryship under the Lord 
 Lieutenant as locum tenens for Mr. Pelham, from 
 which circumstance and his predominant influence in 
 affairs the ostensible Administration was usually called 
 Lord Castlereagh's Government. Be that as it may, 
 his lordship openly succeeded to office during Mr. 
 Finnerty's imprisonment; and the latter, who was 
 
 G 
 
8 i p ERCY B YSSE E SEEL L ET. 
 
 confined in a gaol-room sixteen feet by nine, with four- 
 teen other persons, some of them convicted of capital 
 offences, and who Mas otherwise subjected to those 
 attendant circumstances of degradation and disgust 
 which render imprisonment trebly painful to decent 
 minds, wrote twice to his lordship on the subject, 
 stating the sickness and pain of mind which he suffered 
 in consequence of such treatment ; but no notice was 
 taken of the applications. Upon his liberation, finding 
 that he was in no way of procuring a subsistence, Mr. 
 Finnerty waited upon the noble lord to request a 
 passport for leaving the country, but this too he was 
 refused, not without harshness and insult ; and at last 
 he found himself under the necessity of escaping to 
 England in the disguise of a sailor. Here, where 
 printing-presses are not to be cut up by a magistrate, 
 and where fifteen people are not confined at a time 
 in a room sixteen feet by nine, Mr. Finnerty concluded 
 himself safe from persecution; and for a time past his 
 pen had enabled him to live comfortably in the metro- 
 polis ; but he formed a strange estimate of the mag- 
 nanimity or conscious virtue of his enemies, if he 
 thought that the decided part w T hich he continued to 
 manifest against their proceedings would induce them 
 to be regardless of his. To write warmly in news- 
 papers, to speak warmly at public meetings, and to 
 prepare the statements of aggrieved officers"* for the 
 public eye. w r ere so many stimulants that kept alive 
 their memory and their dislike ; and the first time Mr. 
 Finnerty subjected himself to the arm of power, he 
 felt it in all its weight. In addition to the vexation 
 
 * The " aggrieved officer" here alluded to by Leigh Hunt, was 
 the gallant Sir Home Popham, afterwards Admiral. The " state- 
 
THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION. 83 
 
 of being obliged to return from Walcheren, he had the 
 mortification of seeing his character become an object 
 of the lowest suspicion, in consequence of the sudden- 
 ness and apparent alarm of the order for that purpose ; 
 and people whose subserviency or whose temper inclines 
 them to believe anything on these occasions, were not 
 slow, as usual, to give the worst colour to what they 
 thought. Some of them, however, went beyond their 
 policy in so doing. A certain nobleman connected with 
 Lord Castlereagh was heard to say at a tavern in Middle- 
 hurst, in the presence of several officers, ' I wish some 
 one would shoot that fellow out of the way at once/ 
 Without pushing this speech to its extremity, and in- 
 sisting, as an Attorney-General might insist, that the 
 said nobleman being a malicious and murderous per- 
 son, and manifestly intending, conspiring, and devising 
 the death of the said Peter Finnerty, did hope to 
 stir up some person or persons to take a loaded mus- 
 ket and discharge said musket in the face of said 
 Peter— it may be fairly asserted that such an ebullition 
 of impatience argued a malicious feeling against him, 
 and showed that the person who uttered it was prepared 
 to chagrin and annoy him in order to gratify those 
 who wished his injury. And what could have dictated 
 the order for his return but his personal obnoxious- 
 ness to men in office ? So confident were those who 
 invited him to TTalcheren of the harmlessness of their 
 object in so doing, that they even proposed to him to 
 
 merit" of his case prepared by Mr. Finnerty will probably be found 
 in the " Full and Correct Beportof the Trial of Sir Home Popham." 
 &c. London: 1807. "And maybe had of the different book- 
 sellers in the seaport towns. 1 ' It is likely that Mr. Finnerty was 
 also the Editor of this volume, which contains an elaborate preface 
 extending to xxxii pages. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 PJSRCT BTSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 inform the commander of the expedition, beforehand, 
 of his intention to write a mere military account of it 
 for the public — a proposition which he very properly 
 rejected as humiliating and servile. What then could 
 it be ? His friend Sir Home Popham was in the 
 confidence of the Ministers ;* they would not willingly 
 let Us suppose that they were conscious of defects in 
 the military system not altogether fitted for the in- 
 spection of a shrewd observer ; and if the expedition 
 terminated in deadly disgrace, it is hardly to be sup- 
 posed that they anticipated such determination. It is, 
 
 * The preceding note has shown the connexion between Mr. 
 Finnerty and Sir Home Pophara. The treatment the former 
 received is the more remarkable from the high estimation in which 
 the gallant Admiral was held by many members of the govern- 
 ment. It is singular that the letter, about to be quoted, was 
 written by Sir E. Strachan, the most intimate friend of Sir Home 
 Popham and the godfather of one of his sons. Even in the 
 second generation a grandson of Sir Home Popham has " Strachan" 
 prefixed to a name of great historic interest, connected both with 
 Ireland and England in the reign of Elizabeth. The following 
 is the letter : — 
 
 " His Majesty's Ship Venerable, Downs, July 26, 1809. 
 
 " Meii. — It is my directions that the captains and commanders 
 of his Majesty's ships and vessels under my command do report 
 whether there is a person or gentleman of the name of Peter 
 Finnerty on board any of his Majesty's ships, and in what capa- 
 city, and if he is, to send him here. It is my directions that the 
 agents of transports make inquiry, and report the same. 
 
 " (Signed) E. Steachan. 
 
 " To the respective captains, &c. &c." 
 
 Case of Peter Finnerty. London: 1811, p. 7. 
 
 If a letter of this description had been addressed during the 
 Crimean war " to the respective captains" before Sebastopol, 
 referring to a " person or gentleman" named William Eussell, 
 we know what would have been the result. The injury to Mr. 
 
PETER EIXXERTY AND LORD CASTLEREAGH. 85 
 
 on the contrary, certain that they anticipated a signal 
 triumph ; that they expected the Dutch, on being put 
 to fire and sword, to fall affectionately into their arms, 
 and that my Loud Chatham intended to cover himself 
 with glory with as much ease and leisurely gaping as 
 he would put on his night-cap. But, says The Post, 
 Mr. Fixxerty had been suspected in Ireland of 
 treasonable connexion. Then, says common sense, 
 why was not the business investigated, when he him- 
 self repeatedly requested an investigation of this very 
 Lord Casteereagh in consequence of the language 
 held by his lordship against him ? But no ; the truth 
 is that he had annoyed the Irish Government ; in other 
 words,, he had been a libeller — a character which, when 
 regarded with reference to the definition lately given 
 of libel, and to the times and the country in which he 
 wrote, the first impulse of honest men is, I verily 
 believe, to look upon with respect. Had he written 
 in liquor of a different colour from ink — had he 
 practised the scourge against which he exclaimed — 
 his usage might have been very different ; for the 
 public will not easily forget that the same Govern 
 ment which recalled from an expedition a man wh( 
 had proved himself the foe of cruelty and oppression 
 
 Finnerty was really too serious to admit of jocularity, yet the 
 following squib or travesty of the letter which I have seen some- 
 where was absolutely written : — 
 
 "Sir HoiiE Pophaai axd Me. Fixxeety. 
 
 Sir R. Strachan to the Respective Captains. 
 
 Should Peter Finnerty be found 
 
 On board the Fleet to Walcheren bound, 
 
 You're ordered, sir, to stop him — 
 Too dangerous to be let to roam ; 
 Arrest the rogue , and pop him home, 
 
 In spite of Sir Home Popham !" 
 
86 PEROT BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 sent out with an expedition, in a situation of emolu- 
 ment and honour, a man who had been convicted upon 
 trial of both ; no less a man — no less a man, did I 
 say ? no less a monster — than Governor Picton. The 
 reader ought to remember that in consequence of the 
 anxieties which Mr. Finnerty underwent on this 
 occasion, he was seized with a severe illness which 
 affected his mind ; he ought to be told, also, that when 
 the defendant applied to the prosecutor's attorney to 
 be allowed a postponement of the trial on account of 
 the absence and distance of several persons whose 
 evidence he thought necessary on the occasion, he re- 
 ceived a peremptory refusal ; and, in fine, that no 
 littleness and pertinacity of annoyance might be want- 
 ing to the last stage of the business, he ought to be 
 informed that when another dangerous illness seized 
 Mr. Finnerty, and the trial was compelled to be post- 
 poned, a person who is understood to be a confidential 
 friend of Lord Castlereagh called upon the defendant's 
 attorney, and impatient, it should seem, at the delay, 
 loaded the sick man with opprobrium. 
 
 " Of the noble lord, who has the honour of being 
 better known than his antagonist, the reader may not 
 desire to hear much further. But it is right that he 
 should call to mind what Mr. Finnerty wished to 
 produce against his lordship in evidence of the truth ; 
 for let some judges contradict ot Iters as much as they 
 please in defining libel, no generous and just people 
 will ever endure to confound truth with falsehood 
 in any way, much less in determining between the 
 merits of two parties, one of whom is anxious to prove, 
 and the other to punish only. With his lordship's 
 private character, as far as it is distinguished, or can 
 be, from his public one, we have nothing to do. I 
 
TORTURES INFLICTED IN DUBLIN. 87 
 
 know that people differ with respect to the indissolubility 
 
 of the two ; and whatever I may think myself on the 
 matter, as far at least as regards principle, I cannot 
 but remember that Sir Robert "Walpole was an affec- 
 tionate husband, and that King Charles I. was as good 
 a master to his household as he was a bad one to his 
 country. Considering, therefore, the character of his 
 lordship in a light altogether public, it is impossible 
 to help a feeling of the ludicrous in hearing him com- 
 plain of an intention to bring it into contempt — 
 ' public hatred and contempt y is the phrase ; probably 
 the indictment would have been more correct had it 
 said ( hatred in Ireland/ and ' contempt in England/* 
 A\ hat makes the thing still more singular is, that he 
 should think such prosecutions as these a likely mode 
 of diminishing either. To look at England alone — 
 has his lordship forgotten two simple facts that are 
 quite sufficient for all reasonable detestation of his public 
 conduct : — 1st, his attempt to barter and trick away 
 a seat in the House of Commons, in flagrant violation 
 
 * In The Morning Chronicle, February nth, 181 1, is the fol- 
 lowing- epigram : — 
 
 To Loed Castleeeagh. 
 
 On some expressions respecting him in Mr. WliitbreaoV s Speech, 
 
 as reported hi The Chronicle of 26th ult. 
 
 " Quid immoventes hospites vexas, canis, 
 Ignarus adversum lupus ?" — Hoeace. 
 
 Wherefore, dread peer, thy heaviest vengeance shed 
 
 On luckless Finneety's offending head ? 
 
 Or at St. Stephen's, in sarcastic tone, 
 
 Why vent thy anger on Burdett alone ? — 
 
 A nobler, worthier foe is now in view, 
 
 For Whitbeead e'en proclaims thee cruel too ; 
 
 He calls in doubtful phrase, yet half unwilling, 
 
 Thy candour merciless, thy very kindness killing. 
 
88 PBRL Y S YSSHB 8HELLEY. 
 
 of his oaths and public faith; and 2nd, his concern 
 in planning and prosecuting the infamous expedition 
 above mentioned — an expedition which wanted no ex- 
 treme of negligence 1 , folly, and misfortune to render it 
 useless to our friends, ridiculous to our enemies, and 
 agonizing to ourselves ? Yet these are nothing to the 
 offences of which he is accused in Ireland. Mr. 
 FiNxiiRTY would have produced in court, had he been 
 suffered, above fifty affidavits charging his lordship 
 with the knowledge and sanction of the tortures 
 notoriously inflicted upon Irishmen. One of them, 
 as the public have seen, stated that in the year 1798, 
 floggings, half-hangings, &c, were practised in Dublin, 
 close to the Castle gate, where the Secretary of State's 
 office was, and that Lord Castlereagh must have heard 
 the cries ; another, that in the same year a Mr. 
 Dixon saw three persons whipped and tortured without 
 a trial; a third, from a Mr. Hughes, that he was seen 
 by Lord Castlereagh after suffering the torture which 
 had rendered his back raw and his shirt a mass of 
 gore ; and a fourth, that under his lordship's govern- 
 ment a father and son had been tortured side by side. 
 Had these four affidavits been allowed a hearing, there 
 would still have remained above six-and-forty ; so that 
 we have no alternative but to believe either that Lord 
 Castlereagh was the wicked Minister he is described 
 to have been, or that upwards of fifty persons have 
 voluntarily come forward to perjure themselves in a 
 court of justice, and subject themselves to the most 
 degrading penalties for the mere sake of obliging Mr. 
 Finnerty. It is true, we are ignorant of the character 
 of these persons, but then we are not ignorant of my 
 Lord Castlereagh's. If he could prove them guilty of 
 perjury, why, as Mr. Finnerty asked, did he not come 
 
MR. FINNERTY ENTITLED TO SYMPATHY. 89 
 
 forward and do so, instead of choosing a mode of trial 
 which stopped the mouth of proof? ' If he had pro- 
 ceeded against me by information/ said Mr. Finnerty, 
 ' he might have shown my statement was false ; if he 
 had proceeded by action, I might have sworn it 
 was true ; but no : he chooses to proceed criminally, 
 where neither can take place, and this he calls a 
 vindication of his character/ In fact, setting aside 
 Mr. Fixxerty's case altogether, and all the affidavits 
 that might rise up against his lordship from London- 
 derry to Cork, it is quite manifest that till Lord 
 Castle re agh can disprove the fact of his having 
 undertaken to market for a seat in Parliament, he 
 has no particular character to lose, and it is as 
 ridiculous for him to bluster on the subject as it 
 would be for a w^ooden leg to complain of a pain. 
 He may have something he chooses to call a cha- 
 racter, and may truly be afraid of having it touched ; 
 in like manner, a person with a false nose may afi'eet 
 to sneeze at taking snuff, and will be equally alarmed 
 at the approach of a fist — not for fear that the thing 
 itself should be hurt, but that the disguise should be 
 pulled off. 
 
 " Convinced, however, as any humane and indepen- 
 dent mind must be of the ill-treatment Mr. Finnerty 
 has undergone, and of the brightness of contrast with 
 which he comes from the side of Lord Castlereagh, 
 it does not appear that in his latter appearance in 
 court he had to complain of the interruption from the 
 Bench. There seemed to be two distinct features in 
 his case — the one general, arising from the ground upon 
 which his letter was declared libel; the other relative, 
 arising from contingencies which, in fact, he created 
 against himself. The former, which declares that truth 
 
»jo PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 is libel, and even aggravated libel, meets with the 
 unqualified and hearty indignation of all Englishmen 
 
 who value freedom of speech and of person; the latter, 
 while it excites their regret, does not allow them 
 wholly to exculpate Mr. Pinnebty when rigidly judged. 
 
 I allude to the hope under which he was induced, in 
 the first instance, to let judgment go by default, 
 thereby acknowledging in word, if not in deed, that he 
 had committed an offence worthy of punishment. I 
 know, as he afterwards declared, that such was not his 
 real opinion ; and I believe that he thought he was jus- 
 tified in availing himself of what he imagined would di- 
 minish the punishment, but on both these very accounts 
 the proceeding was unworthy of him. He felt that he 
 had spoken the truth, and he should have felt also 
 that it could do no honour and no good to that truth 
 to submit even to the smallest approaches towards a 
 double dealing, fit only for his and truth's opposers. 
 There are times, places, and classes of people in which 
 those approaches are considered as nothing, particularly 
 if the end of them, as they say, is good and patriotic ; 
 but there are other persons equally patriotic on this 
 subject who consider them as worse than useless, and are 
 inclined on that account, and on no other, either of 
 pride or affectation, to hold themselves aloof from those 
 who practise them. Mr. Finnerty has tried both; 
 and his spirit, in rising above the little clogs and 
 puddles of expediency, and proving itself equal to the 
 most elevated sentiments, has gratified beyond measure 
 the truest friend to reform. 
 
 1 Scarce vanish'd out of sight, 
 He buoys up instant and returns to light/ 
 
 The original cause for which this gentleman has ex- 
 posed himself to imprisonment and poverty must ever 
 
LETTER IN THE STATE PAPER OFFICE. 91 
 
 awaken but one feeling in the minds of freemen ; and 
 it rejoices us to see that the spirit he has evinced has 
 awakened as much sympathy in Englishmen as his 
 long suffering has endeared him to the Irish, and his 
 display of talent has raised him in the estimation of 
 every body." 
 
 On Thursday, February 7th, 181 1, Mr. Finnerty was 
 brought up for judgment. He was sentenced to be 
 imprisoned in the gaol of Lincoln for eighteen months, 
 and at the expiration of that period to give security 
 for his good behaviour for five years, himself in 500/., 
 and two sureties in 250^. each. 
 
 To conclude this portion of Mr. Finnerty's history, 
 the following additional facts, partly derived from 
 State Papers in the Record Office, may be given. The 
 arrival of Mr. Finnerty at Lincoln Gaol to commence 
 the long period of his imprisonment, is described at 
 considerable length in The Examiner of March 3rd, 
 t8ii, the article being taken from the Stamford News. 
 One passage may be quoted. 
 
 " We are happy to say that Mr. Finnerty has met 
 with good friends here ; some of the most wealthy and 
 most respectable gentryhave intimated that he may com- 
 mand any alleviation of his troubles they can furnish/'' 
 
 There is a curious letter in the State Paper Office 
 which has not been printed, confirmatory of the fore- 
 going allusion to the sympathy felt for Mr. Finnerty 
 by respectable inhabitants of Lincoln. The letter has 
 no address, but as the writer signs himself "D. P. M." 
 which may mean Deputy Post Master, it may have been 
 forwarded to Mr. Francis Freeling, afterwards Sir 
 Francis, the Secretary of the Post Office, of whom and to 
 whom there are numerous letters in the Record Office. 
 
V 2 PERCY BY8SHB 8RELLBY. 
 
 " Domestic, <!eo. III., 1812. No. 239. 
 
 " Lincoln, August 19th, :8i2. 
 " Sir, — I am much obliged to you for the Gazettes, 
 and many loyal inhabitants of this place were gratified 
 with a perusal of them ; but I am sorry to confess 
 that the disloyal party have very mueh increased here : 
 Mr. Drakard and Mr. Finnerty are the cause. The 
 latter I consider to be a dangerous character, and yet, 
 strange to tell, his conduct is admired by many 
 respectable people. 
 
 " I am, sir, your obliged servant, 
 
 " John Drury, D.P.M." 
 
 If the signature " D. P. M." means Divisional Police 
 Magistrate, the letter must have been addressed to one 
 of the Under-Secretaries of State, Mr. Ryder or Mr. 
 Becket. 
 
 Before Mr. Finnerty' s removal from King's Bench 
 Prison, London, he had been visited by the Hon. 
 Leicester Stanhope. This act of courtesy brought 
 down upon that gentleman the abuse of a scurrilous 
 magazine called The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, of 
 which thirteen volumes were published — 1808 to 1813. 
 Mr. Stanhope condescended to notice this attack, in 
 which the editor, a person of the name of G. Manners, 
 affected to be indignant that " a son of that univer- 
 sally respected nobleman, Lord Harrington, should 
 become the bearer of a message from Mr. Finnerty." 
 In his letter, the Hon. Leicester Stanhope calls Mr. 
 Finnerty " a high-minded and honourable man." — 
 Satirist, vol. ii. pp. 408, 504. 
 
 In Lincoln, as we have seen, the same feeling was 
 shown to Mr. Finnerty by persons of position outside 
 the prison ; but inside the case was very different. He 
 
MB. FINNERTT8 PET1T10X. 9^ 
 
 was treated with considerable harshness, pnt into an 
 unhealthy room, and deprived of the privilege of 
 taking exercise in the place usually assigned for 
 prisoners not convicted of felony. Charges of mis- 
 conduct were brought against him by the officials of 
 the gaol, and a very curious investigation took place 
 before the visiting magistrates, the whole of which is 
 given in a folio MS. in the Record Office, of con- 
 siderable length : " Domestic, Geo. III., No. 226." 
 The matter was also brought before Parliament several 
 times. Mr. Finnerty succeeded in obtaining a less 
 rigorous treatment, and the remainder of his imprison- 
 ment passed quietly. In the same collection of State 
 Papers is the original petition to the Prince Regent, 
 presented by Mr. Finnerty through the hands and by 
 the advice of Mr. 
 Whitbread. It 
 contains the re- 
 markable signa- 
 ture of Mr. Fin- C 
 nerty, May 23rd, 
 18 1 1, of which the above is a tracing. The 
 petition is substantially the same presented to Parlia- 
 ment about the same period. 
 
 Mr. Finnerty's sentence expired on the 7th of 
 August, 1812, as mentioned in the following extract 
 from The Dublin Weekly Messenger, August 22nd, 181 2, 
 the same journal, it will be recollected, which contains 
 the sin gular allusion to Shelley's poem : — 
 
 " Our countrymen will hear with pleasure that Mr. 
 Finnerty has been liberated from confinement, from 
 the incarceration which for eighteen months he had 
 suffered in the cause of truth, justice, and his country. 
 On Friday the 7th instant, a public dinner to celebrate 
 
 £& fim^<y 
 
94 PERC r B r.W/A' 8EEL LB Y. 
 
 his liberation was given at Lincoln, to which ^lr. 
 Finnerty was invited. George Lang-ton, Esq., a patriot 
 and a magistrate, took the chair." 
 
 In The Morning Chronicle, August 1 8th, 1812, there 
 is a fuller account of this dinner, which took place at 
 the Reindeer Inn, Lincoln. "Mr. Finnerty addressed 
 the meeting at considerable length, and expressed his 
 gratitude for the kindness and attention with which 
 he had been favoured." 
 
 The Mr. Drakard referred to in the letter of Mr. 
 Drury in the Record Office, w r as the proprietor and 
 editor of The Stamford News. In 1822 he published 
 a very excellent History of Stamford. He was 
 prosecuted in j 81 1 for printing in The Stamford News 
 an article on military punishment. Though ably 
 defended by Brougham, • he Avas sentenced on March 
 13th, 181 1, to precisely the same punishment as Mr. 
 Finnerty, whose imprisonment he shared. The trial 
 is reported in the following rare 4to tract. " Report 
 of the Proceedings on an Information filed by His 
 Majesty's Attorney-General against John Drakard, 
 Proprietor of The Stamford News, for publishing in 
 that Paper an Article on Military Punishment. Stam- 
 ford : printed and sold by J. Drakard; and sold by 
 Crosby and Co., Stationers' Court, London." It may 
 be interesting to note here that " Crosby and Co., 
 Stationers' Court, London/' were the publishers of 
 Shelley's poem which will presently be described, and 
 which appeared two days before the conviction of Mr. 
 Drakard.* 
 
 * In January, 1813, Mr. Drakard started in London Dra- 
 kard's Paper. A Weekly Political and Literary Journal. 
 In January, 1814, it changed its name to The Champion, and 
 became eventually the property of John Thelwall, 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE sympathy awakened by Mr. Finnerty's spirit 
 and ability, as shown by the article from The 
 Examiner quoted in our last chapter, was not confined 
 to Englishmen. It was felt throughout the three 
 kingdoms, and various local bodies were formed in the 
 chief towns of England, Scotland, and Ireland to 
 support the movement commenced by Sir FraDcis 
 Burdett* at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, London, 
 on the 20th of February, 1811, for the purpose of 
 sustaining Mr. Finnerty in prison. 
 
 These manifestations of public feeling do not ap- 
 pear very remarkable in the larger towns, where there 
 is always a considerable amount of political excitement 
 ready at any moment to be aroused. But one would 
 scarcely expect to find that the earliest voice of 
 sympathy and co-operation the London movement to 
 
 * Sir Francis Burdett caine in, of course, for a good deal of 
 abuse in Tory journals for the part he took in this movement. 
 Alluding to this, and to his duel with Mr. Paull, arising out of the 
 Westminster election, the following epigram is to be found in one 
 of the publications of the day : — 
 
 Epigeam 
 on petee eixxeetv's subsceiptiom". 
 
 Knights of the Post, of old, strove all 
 By robbing Peter to pay Paul ; 
 Sir Francis Burdett nicks it neater — 
 He pistols Paul and pensions Peter ! 
 
 The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, vol. viii. p. 33$. 
 
96 PERC Y B YSSHE SHEL L E V. 
 
 sustain Mr. Finnerty received, should come from the 
 
 tranquil city of Oxford and its learned University. 
 The meeting at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the 
 
 Strand, took place on Wednesday, February 20th, 181 1. 
 In the next ensuing publication of The Oxford Uni- 
 versity and City Herald, on Saturday, February 23rd, 
 only three days after, appears the following article, to 
 which we would draw the reader's special attention, in 
 connexion with the alleged letter of Shelley to the 
 Editor of The Statesman, dated the 22nd of February — 
 the day preceding. The tone, and occasionally the 
 language, of these two documents are so similar, 
 particularly when read in the light of a fact that will 
 subsequently be mentioned, that I have no difficulty 
 in believing that Shelley either wrote the article in 
 The Oxford Herald himself, or saw it in proof, the day 
 before the paper was published — the same day on 
 which he addressed the " Editor of The Statesman," 
 whom he must have believed to be Mr. Finnerty. 
 Here is the article which appeared in The Oxford 
 University and City Herald, February 23rd, 18 1 l : — 
 
 " We are happy to find that the case of Mr. Fin- 
 nerty has made a strong impression on the public 
 mind, and that, in consequence, the frequent informa- 
 tions which have been lately filed by the Attorney- 
 General will become the subject of parliamentary in- 
 quiry. Of Mr. Finnerty in his private capacity we 
 know nothing ;* but as Englishmen, and living under 
 what has always been esteemed and what we hope 
 
 * The language of Shelley's letters " to the Editor of The 
 Statesman " and " The Editor of The Examiner " is almost the 
 same : — " Although perfectly unacquainted with you privately, I 
 address you as a common friend to liberty" &c. 
 
"THE OXFORD HERALD" ON FINNERTY. 97 
 
 will always remain a free constitution, we are bound 
 to respect the Liberty of the Press, as far as it in- 
 volves a free discussion on the merits of public men, 
 and the probable consequence of public measures ; for 
 these are a public concern, are supported and carried 
 on by the public purse, and become the fair objects 
 of public praise or censure ; and our readers need not 
 be informed that a peculiar hardship attends the case 
 of informations filed ex-officio, as a heavy punishment 
 necessarily precedes the verdict ; for the individual 
 against whom the information is filed may be perfectly 
 innocent, and, though acquitted, may be previously 
 ruined by the expenses of a trial to which he is brought 
 by the will of the Attorney-General, and without the 
 case being submitted to a grand jury. For these 
 reasons we have just opened a subscription at The 
 Herald Office in favour of Mr. Finnerty — a measure 
 which will, without doubt, subject us to the invectives 
 of sycophants and flatterers, pensioners and expectants ; 
 a tribe of gentry, however, whom we heartily despise, 
 and will always endeavour to expose." 
 
 The Oxford Herald was not slow in making its 
 arrangements for the collection of the subscription 
 thus so warmly encouraged. In the same number the 
 following announcement is conspicuously given : — 
 
 " Liberty of the Press. — The friends to the 
 Liberty of the Press are informed, that a subscription 
 in behalf of Mr. Finnerty is opened at the office of 
 The Oxford Herald. 
 
 " Subscriptions already received : Proprietors of The 
 Oxford Herald, 5/. 55. ; Mr. Bird, il. is.; Mr. Hobbs, 
 il. is." 
 
 In the next number of The Oxford Herald, Saturday, 
 
 H 
 
9 S PERC Y B 78BHE SEEL L E I '. 
 
 March 2nd, 1811, the same announcement appears, and 
 
 is followed by the same list of subscribers, -\\ ith the addi- 
 tion of one name indeed — a name that will, we think, 
 be of some interest to our readers — namely, that of 
 
 "Mb. P. B. Shelley, \l is. od." 
 
 The circumstance that Shelley's name is not given 
 in the first list strengthens the alternative which I 
 have suggested above, that he was not himself the 
 writer of the article on Finnerty's case published on 
 the 23rd of February, but that he saw it in proof 
 when the rest of the paper was set up, and when it 
 was too late to have his name inserted as a subscriber 
 in that week's impression. 
 
 There are abundant reasons for believing that 
 Shelley must have been a constant visitor at this time 
 to the printing-office of John Munday, who was, we 
 have little doubt, the proprietor as well as the printer 
 of The Oxford Herald. Without attaching too much 
 importance to the fact that one of the poems which I 
 have ventured to suggest as having probably been 
 written by Shelley, appeared in the same paper with 
 the article on Finnerty, there is conclusive proof that 
 between February the 9th and March the 9th, 18 11, 
 Shelley, being then at Oxford, was engaged in printing 
 two works — one of them of fatal omen to him, the 
 tract entitled The Necessity of Atheism ; and the other 
 the missing and hitherto unknown poem, the title and 
 story of which I have been the first to discover and to 
 trace. 
 
 A strong corroboration of the view I am maintain- 
 ing, that Shelley had a very early acquaintance with 
 the articles, particularly on this subject of the Liberty 
 of the Press, as they appeared in The Oxford Herald, is 
 
SHELLEY'S SmSCRLPTIOX TO THE FINNERTY FUXD. 
 
 99 
 
 found in the fact that in the number for March 2nd; 
 181 ij which contains his own name as a subscriber to the 
 Finnerty Fund, there is a leading article on the triumph 
 of The Examiner in the special prosecution directed 
 against it. Our readers will remember that it was 
 on this very day, March 2nd, 1811, Shelley wrote 
 his first letter to Leigh Hunt, inspired probably by 
 the following remarks, as he had been the week before 
 by those on Finnerty : — 
 
 " The acquittal of the proprietors of The Examiner" 
 says The Oxford Herald, t{ for a libel, on a criminal 
 information filed ex- officio by the Attorney-General, 
 gives us extreme pleasure, as we conceive it will prove 
 a salutary check to the mode of proceeding which of 
 late has been so frequently adopted, and which, if 
 persevered in, will reduce the press to a state of tame- 
 ness and servility, and prevent that open and free 
 discussion which leads to the repeal of obnoxious laws, 
 and the general advantage and comfort of society." 
 
 The article does not end here, but the passage 
 quoted is sufficient for our purpose. It will remind 
 the reader as much of the letter to the supposed or 
 real " Editor of The Statesman," of the 22nd of Feb- 
 ruary, 181 1, as of that to Leigh Hunt on the 2nd of 
 March. 
 
 The story of the publication, or at least the intended 
 publication, of the unfortunate tract, The Necessity of 
 Atheism, though perhaps in chronological order it 
 should now be given, may be more conveniently de- 
 ferred until we treat of the termination of Shelley's 
 academical career at Oxford — a termination rather vio- 
 lently produced by the tract itself. 
 
 The name of Peter Finnerty, sentenced on the 7th 
 h 2 
 
(oo PERCY BYSSEE SHELLEY. 
 
 df February, 1811, first appears in The Oxford Herald 
 of the 23rd of February. Shelley's subscription to the 
 fund for his benefit is acknowledged in the number for 
 March 2nd, 18 1 1 ; and in the next number, for March 9th, 
 181 1, we find the following remarkable advertisement, 
 filling a space of about three inches, and printed in 
 the most conspicuous part of the paper, at the head of 
 the first column : — 
 
 literature. 
 
 Just published, Price Two Shillings, 
 A POETICAL ESSAY 
 
 Existing State of Things. 
 
 And Famine at, her bidding wasted wide 
 The Wretched Land, till in the Public way, 
 Promiscuous where the dead and dying lay, 
 Dogs fed on human bones in the open light of day. 
 
 Curse of Kehama. 
 BY A 
 
 GENTLEMAN of the University of Oxford. 
 For assisting to maintain in Prison 
 
 MR. PETEE FINNERTY, 
 
 IMPRISONED FOR A LIBEL. 
 
 London : Sold by B. Crosby and Co., 
 
 AND ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS. 
 l8ll. 
 
 This poem was written and published by Percy 
 Bysshe Shelley. In the absence of direct proof, it is 
 impossible to say with absolute certainty what the 
 precise character of the poem was. A pretty exact 
 
POETICAL ESS A Y ON EXISTING STATE OF THINGS. 101 
 
 inference, however, may be drawn from its title, and 
 from an allusion here and there in Shelley's letters 
 which may possibly refer to it. There can be very 
 little doubt that the Poetical Essay on the Existing 
 State of Things was a satire dealing with the condition 
 of Ireland, particularly in reference to the miseries of 
 the late rebellion, and the persistent misgovernment 
 of that country. The quotation from Southey points 
 to this. The powerful picture of famine there drawn, 
 and the phrase " the wretched land/' were in those 
 days unhappily too applicable to Ireland. The lines 
 are from the sixth part of The Curse of Kehama, en- 
 titled " The Enchantress/' and will be found at page 
 588, second column of the one- volume edition of 
 Southey's Poems. This quotation puts an end to one 
 of Mr. Hogg's most apocryphal stories. He tells us 
 that nearly a year after this period, when Shelley was 
 living at Keswick, during one of his visits to Greta 
 Hall, the residence of Southey, the elder poet, taking 
 an unfair advantage of his opportunity, locked the 
 door of his study on his young visitor, and mercilessly 
 read him to sleep from the MS. pages of The Curse oj 
 Kehama — a poem from which, in its published form, 
 Shelley had printed a quotation twelve months before. 
 The egotistical buffoonery which Mr. Hogg mistook 
 for humour, almost more than its want of reliability, 
 has been the ruin of his book. This farcical tendency 
 of Mr. Hogg's mind seems to have shown itself at a 
 very early period, and, if we may judge by the fol- 
 lowing character of him, was as little relished by his 
 friends then as by his readers now. Mr. Thornton 
 Hunt, in an article on Shelley in the Atlantic Monthly 
 (February, 1863), thus describes the future unsuccessful 
 biographer of the poet : — 
 
[da PERCY BY8SHE SHELLEY. 
 
 " His school-friend Hogg was a gentleman of inde- 
 pendent property. Shelley detected the sensitive 
 of his nature, and I know that the man lias been 
 capable of truly generous conduct. How is it then 
 that he has written such utterly unintelligible stuff, 
 and has descended to such evasions as to insert [qy. 
 invert ?*] initials, lest people should detect amongst 
 Shelley's correspondents a most admirable friend, 
 who happened, it is supposed, to be of plebeian origin ? 
 Mr. Thomas Jefferson Hogg, I surmise, was conscious 
 somewhat early in life that his better qualities were 
 not fully appreciated ; and his love of ease, his wit, 
 his perception of the ludicrous made him take refuge 
 in cynicism until he learned almost to forget the origin 
 of the real meaning of the things he talked about. 
 His account of Shelley is like a figure seen through 
 fantastically distorting panes of glass/'' 
 
 Shelley was at home during the Christmas vacation 
 of 1810. His first letter to Hogg was written there, 
 and is dated " Field Place, December 20th, iSic" He 
 mentions that his father had called upon " S." — that 
 is, Stockdale — in London, and we are prepared for the 
 quarrel that soon after took place between Shelley and 
 the publisher of St. Irvyne. Towards the end of 
 the letter is the following curious passage : — " I am 
 composing a satirical poem. I shall print it at Ox- 
 ford, unless I find, on visiting him, that R. [qy. 
 
 * TVs must refer to the letters addressed to Mr. Thomas Hook- 
 ham, ot New Bond Street, both by Shelley and Harriet, as given 
 in Hogg's Life, vol. ii. pp. 206—211. J'he initials are not "in- 
 serted," but inverted, " H. T." being invariably used for " T. H." 
 But might not this have been done to prevent careless readers from 
 confounding letters to "Thomas Hookham " with those addressed 
 to " Thomas Hogg ?" 
 
PROBABLE CHARACTER OF THE POEM. 103 
 
 Robinson ?] is ripe for printing whatever will sell. In 
 case of that, he is ray man/' — Hogg, vol. i. p. 143. 
 
 We have heard, and indeed we know, that " Shelley 
 was quick to conceive, and not less quick to execute ;" 
 but with all this rapidity of conception and facility of 
 execution it would almost have been impossible for 
 him to have written, printed, and published a poem 
 which from its price must have been at least as large 
 as Margaret Nicholson, in one fortnight. As I have 
 already pointed out, that was exactly the time that 
 elapsed from the first mention of Mx. Peter Finnerty's 
 name in The Oxford Herald, until a poem for his 
 benefit was announced in that paper as "just pub- 
 lished/'' It is plain that Shelley must have had some 
 poem ready, the title of which he had not decided on, 
 when his attention was drawn to this case of injustice, 
 as he conceived it to be, when it occurred to him to 
 connect his work with the charitable movement to 
 sustain Finnerty thus set on foot. The Poetical Essay 
 on the Existing State of Things I believe to be the 
 u satirical poem " above referred to. Whether it was 
 submitted to " Mr. R.," of Paternoster Row, or not is 
 uncertain ; but there is no improbability in supposing 
 that it was. The second letter in Mr. Browning's 
 suppressed volume is addressed to c: J. H. Graham, 
 Esq./** at whose house, 18, Sackville Street, Piccadilly, 
 as we know from Hogg's book (vol. i. pp. 388, 389, 
 417), Shelley occasionally stopped, and where he di- 
 rects his friend's letters to himself should be addressed. 
 This letter to Graham, if it be genuine, shows that 
 
 * Mr. Graham is represented in Mr. Hogg's book as being the 
 " factotum " of Mr. Shelley senior, the poet's father. — Life, vol. i. 
 
.04 PEROT BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Shelley was in the habit of sending him from Oxford 
 (for the letter is dated there — " University College, 
 February 26th, 1811") his poetical pieces according 
 as they were written, perhaps to have them ottered for 
 publication to some bookseller. The date admits the 
 possibility that the allusion may have referred to the 
 Poetical Essay. Mr. Graham may have suggested 
 that it was too slight for separate publication, to which 
 Shelley replies : " What I sent you last is not enough 
 for a pamphlet, I grant you, but I cannot help it. A 
 subject soon exhausts itself with me. You must get 
 some of your volume friends to spin the text for 
 you."* 
 
 Should the " satirical poem " referred to by Shelley 
 in his letter of the 10th December, 18 10, have been 
 the Poetical Essay, he was right for once in his esti- 
 mate of what was likely to u sell.'''' In a document 
 authenticated by himself, as we have seen, it is said to 
 have produced the sum of 100/. for the object it was 
 published to sustain. This alone is such a phenomenon 
 in the pecuniary results of Shelley's writings during 
 his lifetime, that it intensifies our desire to recover a 
 copy. No doubt it was bought, not for the sake of 
 the verse, but for the sake of the cause. Yet when we 
 are told that the Epipsychidion " fell dead from the 
 press — not a copy of it was sold — not a single review 
 noticed it " (Medwin, vol. ii. p. 76), and that the 
 Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things pro- 
 duced a profit of 100/., we have only an additional 
 
 * It is curious that Mr. Hogg makes no allusion to these poems 
 sent up to London for the approval of Mr. Graham. This is an 
 additional corroboration of the fact that Mr. Hogg did not 
 possess the entire confidence of Shelley. 
 
THE ' ' ESSA Y ON LO YE. " 105 
 
 proof of the seemingly capricious fate that so often 
 befalls poems as well as individuals. 
 
 The advertisement of the Poetical Essay in The Ox- 
 ford Herald of March 2nd, 181 1, though the earliest and 
 the most important, was not the only one which an- 
 nounced the publication of a work that would now be 
 read with an amount of interest and curiosity little 
 anticipated by the author or the public whom he ad- 
 dressed. In point of fact, it happens to have been the 
 last which I discovered in my researches into this most 
 curious subject. Before it occurred to me to inquire for 
 some Oxford paper of the period, and of course before 
 I had seen The Oxford Herald, I had worked my way 
 into a knowledge of the title of the poem. The 
 evidence of the fact that Shelley had published 
 some poem, the name of which is not given, in con- 
 nexion with the case of Mr. Finnerty, is contained, as 
 we have seen, in a newspaper, a copy of which Shelley 
 sent to Godwin from Dublin, the receipt of which is 
 acknowledged by Godwin in his letter to Shelley, 
 March 14th, 1812 {Hogg, vol. ii. p. 96). Shelley 
 himself makes no allusion to the Poetical Essay in his 
 letters to Godwin, unless indeed he may have referred 
 to it in the list of the "publications of my early 
 youth " under the altered title of the " Essay on Love/'' 
 " a little poem/'' which he gave to him in his letter from 
 " Keswick, January 16th, 18 12 " (Hogg, vol. ii. p. 62). 
 The word " Essay " gives great probability to this 
 supposition ; but whether this be true or not, I found 
 the Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things 
 advertised in The Morning Chronicle of March 15th and 
 March 21st, and in The Times of April 10th and 
 April nth, 181 1. It was thus more than a month 
 before the world, by which time, it may be presumed, 
 
i or, PERC 7 B Y&SHE shell EY. 
 
 the whole impression was bought up, as wc hear no 
 
 more about it except the allusion in The Dublin Weekly 
 Messenger of Saturday, March 7th, i<Sj2, which states 
 that a poem for the benefit of Mr. Pinnerty had been 
 
 published by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and that the sum 
 of nearly 100/. produced by the sale of that poem had 
 been presented to Mr. Pinnerty by the author. This 
 article, authenticated by Shelley himself as having been 
 forwarded by him to Godwin, will be given in dnv 
 course. We wish again to impress the fact on the 
 attention of our readers that Mr. Finnerty Avas still in 
 prison when this act of liberality on the part of the 
 young poet w r as publicly announced ; that he was in 
 communication with the paper in which it appeared ; 
 and that it is utterly impossible such a statement could 
 have passed uncontradicted if it were not true. 
 
 Reserving a further consideration of the Poetical 
 Essay on the Existing State of Things until we have to 
 speak of Shelley's first visit to Dublin in 1812, we 
 resume our account of his remaining literary efforts 
 while at Oxford.* 
 
 # The earliest London advertisement of the poem that I have 
 found is in The Courier, March nth, 1 811, two days after it 
 was announced in The Oxford Herald. The advertisement is 
 repeated in The Courier, March 15th, 18 11. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ITTLE dreaming that Shelley had printed and 
 published a poem after the appearance of the 
 Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, and 
 before the printing of The Necessity of Atheism, Mr. 
 Hogg thus proceeds in his history of the intellectual 
 progress of his friend : — 
 
 " The operation of Peg Nicholson was bland and 
 innoxious : the next work that Shelley printed was 
 highly deleterious, and was destined to shed a baneful 
 influence over his future progress" (vol. i. p. 269). 
 
 This work was the little tract entitled The Necessity 
 of Atheism, for which Shelley was expelled. 
 
 Mr. Hogg, whose statement has been adopted by 
 every succeeding writer, has said that this little 
 pamphlet " was never offered for sale," and that " it 
 was not addressed to an ordinary reader, but to the 
 metaphysician alone.'" That it was (C never offered for 
 sale" was certainly not the fault or the intention of 
 the author, as proved by the following advertisement, 
 which is now for the first time given in connexion 
 with Shelley's life. It was this bold and open an- 
 nouncement on the part of the author that the work 
 would be published and sold in the ordinary way, that 
 probably compelled the authorities of Oxford to take 
 notice of a tract, the existence of which they might 
 otherwise not have known. Had it been announced 
 
i oS PERCY BYS8HE 8HELLEY. 
 
 in the London papers that a work entitled The Necessity 
 of Atheism was about to be published, even " by a 
 gentleman of the University/' it would have provoked 
 little attention at Oxford, whither the waifs and strays 
 of blasphemy, ever floating in the metropolis, seldom 
 found their way. Far different was it when in a 
 journal circulating largely in the University, and 
 calling itself " The Oxford University and City 
 Herald/'' the following portentous announcement 
 appeared : — 
 
 Speedily will be published, 
 To be had of the Booksellers of London and Oxford, 
 
 THE 
 
 NECESSITY OF ATHEISM. 
 
 "Quod clara et perspieua demonstrations caveat pro vero habere, 
 mens omnino nequit humanae." — Bacon de Auyment. Scient. 
 
 This advertisement appears in The Oxford University 
 and City Herald of Saturday, Feb. 9th, 181 t. It has 
 hitherto been unknown. Should the authorities of 
 Oxford University require any defence for the manner 
 in which they acted towards the author, this advertise- 
 ment will, I think, show that it was scarcely possible 
 for them to overlook the carrying out of an intention 
 so audaciously announced. 
 
 In January, 181 1, this tract had been offered to 
 Mr. John Joseph Stockdale for publication. St. 
 Irvyne, Shelley's second prose romance, had just been 
 published by him. Mr. Hogg, as Shelley's friend, had 
 called on Stockdale, and appears to have impressed the 
 publisher very unfavourably. " I really did not credit/' 
 writes Mr. Stockdale, " that with, as I thought, a mind 
 so infinitely beneath that of his friend, he could be 
 the master spirit to lead him astray." Some inquiries 
 instituted by Mr. Stockdale, and the fact that Mr. 
 
MR. STOCKDALFS OPINION OF MR. HOGG. 109 
 
 Hogg* was made the medium of submitting to him for 
 publication the manuscript of The Necessity of Atheism, 
 removed all doubt from the conscientious mind of the 
 worthy publisher. The author of Shelley in Pall Mall 
 tells the story of the quarrel between the young author 
 and Mr. Stockdale, but Mr. Garnett does not give the 
 letter of Mr. Hogg to the latter, which has a double 
 interest : first, in evidently referring to the manuscript 
 of The Necessity of Atheism, ; and secondly, in alluding 
 to Mr. Peter Finnerty, whose conduct, it would seem, 
 had met with the approval even of the fastidious Mr. 
 Hogg. 
 
 Writing from Oxford, Jan. 21st, 181 1, he says : — 
 
 i( The bare mention of the MS. which I entrusted 
 to you was an unparalleled breach of confidence. There 
 have been instances of booksellers who have honourably 
 refused to betray the authors whose works they have 
 published, although actions were brought against them. 
 I believe that one gentleman had honour enough to sub- 
 mit to the pillory rather than disgrace himself by giving 
 up the name of one who had confided in him, however 
 unworthy he might be of such generous treatment." — 
 Stockdale's Budget, p. 34. 
 
 The gentleman who had honour enough to submit 
 to the pillory, there can be no doubt, was Mr. Finnerty. 
 The circumstance is alluded to in the article already 
 quoted from The Examiner, but which was known to 
 Mr. Hogg earlier, probably from the letter of Finnerty 
 himself — the so-called libel — which had been published 
 in The Statesman and The Morning Chronicle of 
 January 28th, 18 10. 
 
 The story of the expulsion of Shelley, and also of 
 Mr. Hogg, from Oxford, is too well known to be re- 
 
i i o PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 peated here; but one or two circumstances hitherto 
 unnoticed may be mentioned in connexion with his 
 residence at the University, which, though of no great 
 importance in themselves, may be useful to the future 
 biographer of Shelley. 
 
 In Mr. Hogg's book (vol. i. p. 396) there is a letter 
 of Shelley's to that gentleman, undated as usual, but 
 written probably about the end of April, 181 1. In 
 this letter, referring to his sister Elizabeth, he says : — 
 <c Elizabeth is indeed an unworthy companion of the 
 Muses. I do not rest much on her poetry now. 
 Miss Philipps betrayed twice the genius; greater 
 amiability, if to affect the feelings is a proof of the 
 excess of the latter." In another letter printed a few 
 pages earlier (p. 386), though written certainly after 
 the preceding, as it is dated from Rhayader, Shelley 
 again mentions the name of Philipps. 
 
 " I have at this moment no money, as Philipps 's and 
 the other debt have drained me." The u other debt" 
 may have been, perhaps, some part payment to Stock- 
 dale, as we have a letter of Shelley's from the same 
 place on August 1st, 181 1, promising to settle the 
 publisher's account as soon as possible. Mr. Hogg 
 gives us no information as to who the lady was in 
 whose poetry Shelley felt so interested, neither does 
 he explain what " Philipps's debt " could mean. The 
 accident of my finding on a book-stall a little volume 
 entitled " Poems by Janetta Phillips. Oxford : Printed 
 by Collingwood and Co., 18 11," may perhaps clear up 
 the mystery, and will exhibit Shelley in the amiable 
 light of being an active encourager of a youthful muse. 
 The little volume possesses a greater interest than this. 
 It is probably the only place where the names of 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley and Harriet Westbrook ever 
 
P 0E2TS B Y J A NETTA PHILIPPS. 1 1 1 
 
 appeared together in public before their marriage. 
 The poems are preceded by a long list of subscribers, 
 chiefly belonging to the various colleges of Oxford. 
 The particular copy which I picked up belonged to 
 one of these, Cf Mr. Coffin, University College/' whose 
 name is written on the cover. The list is an alphabe- 
 tical one. Under the letter " S." I had the pleasure of 
 finding the following entries : — 
 
 " Mr. P. B. Shelley — six copies. 
 " Miss Shelley, Field Place, Sussex. 
 " Miss Hellen Shelley." 
 
 In letter " M." we have " Thomas Medwin, Esq., 
 Horsham," and " Mr. Munday, bookseller, Oxford." 
 Elsewhere we find the names of " Mrs. Grove, Lin- 
 coln's Inn Fields — three copies," " C. Grove, Esq.," 
 "Mr. Graham, 29, Vine Street, Piccadilly." But 
 perhaps the most interesting name in the entire list is 
 that of " Miss H. TTestbrook." It should be noticed 
 that to Shelley's name the address " University 
 College " is not added. This is usually the case with 
 those subscribers who were members of the University. 
 Of this class there are upwards of eighty in the list. 
 This would imply that the printing of this part of the 
 volume at least was not completed until after Shelley 
 had left Oxford. The obtaining such a numerous list 
 of subscribers, among whom is the present venerable 
 Duke of Leinster, who left Oxford in 181 1, must have 
 taken a considerable time. With the exception of a 
 " Mr. Philipps," probably a relative of Janetta Philipps, 
 the author of the poems, who took six copies, no one 
 subscribed for so many as Shelley. This circumstance, 
 taken in connexion with the fact of so many of his 
 relatives and friends uniting to sustain the work, 
 
it2 PERCY BYSSEE SffELLET. 
 
 raises a strong presumption in my mind that Shelley 
 had undertaken the responsibility of bringing out the 
 volume, and that to this the phrase " Philipps's debt" 
 refers. The Oxford subscribers were probably secured 
 while Shelley was at the University, and those of his 
 sisters and Harriet Westbrook during the Christmas 
 vacation of 1810-11, when he was at home. It is not 
 at all improbable that Harriet Westbrook's name was 
 first obtained by Hellen Shelley, who was at school 
 with her at Clapham, and to this circumstance may be 
 attributed the first acquaintance of the poet with his 
 future wife. It may have been in return for this sub- 
 scription that Shelley, on January 1 lth, 181 1, requested 
 Stockdale to " send a copy of St. Irvyne to Miss 
 Harriet Westbrook, 10, Chapel Street, Grosvenor 
 Square," where she was at home with her father for 
 the Christmas holidays. 
 
 Shelley and his friend Mr. Hogg, as is well known, 
 were expelled on Lady-day, t8ii, and left Oxford for 
 London on the following morning. They took lodgings 
 at 15, Poland Street, Oxford Street, and remained 
 together for about three weeks, when Mr. Hogg went 
 to York, where he entered the chambers of a convey- 
 ancer. It is very curious that during the three weeks 
 they lived together in Poland Street, the Poetical Essay 
 on the Existing State of Things was advertised several 
 times in the London papers without Mr. Hogg being 
 let into the secret of the composition and publication 
 of this poem. Advertisements will be found in The 
 Times, April 10th and April nth — that is, about the 
 middle of that period of unrestricted confidence, as 
 Mr. Hogg would have us believe, in which the friends 
 lived together in London after their expulsion from 
 Oxford. 
 
MK. TIMOTHY SHELLEY AND MR. HOGG. 113 
 
 Mr. Timothy Shelley, the father of the poet, had, 
 during the Stoekdale affair, expressed an opinion that 
 Mr. Jefferson Hogg was " the original corruptor" of 
 his son's principles ; so at least Shelley had informed 
 his friend. Up to this time there was nothing but 
 eulogy and admiration expressed by Mr. Hogg in his 
 book towards " the divine poet/'' but now he had a 
 duty to discharge from which he did not shrink. " I 
 do not believe," says Mr. Hogg, " that Mr. T. Shelley 
 ever let fall the expressions which were imputed to 
 him" — thus charging Shelley with having written a 
 deliberate falsehood. " It is my duty to speak the 
 truth, the whole truth/'' says this veracious biographer, 
 " and therefore I cannot but confess that the poor 
 fellow [Shelley ! his " incomparable friend," the 
 " divine poet "] had many underhand ways ; these I 
 found out, sometimes long subsequent to the event" 
 (vol. i. p. 329). 
 
 The " underhand ways " here referred to may, per- 
 haps, mean those opinions on the character and conduct 
 of Mr. Hogg himself which, though unpublished, still 
 exist in the handwriting of Shelley. There was nothing 
 11 underhand " whatever in those communications. In 
 less direct language, Shelley had written to Mr. Hogg 
 himself on the same circumstance. And there cer- 
 tainly was nothing " underhand " in his breaking off 
 for twelve months all communication with his college 
 friend on account of the same transaction. The ex- 
 istence of these letters Mr. Hogg probably " found 
 out," and he thus attempts to prejudice the judgment 
 of the public when they shall have been given to the 
 world. But one notable instance at least of Shelley's 
 " underhand ways" he did not find out — namely, that 
 while to his guileless friend the romantic young poet 
 
1 i 4 PERC Y B 7SSEE s/l E I L E ) \ 
 
 appeared to be only thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw 
 in their trellised chamber in Poland Street, lie was 
 engaged in constant intercourse with Messrs. Crosby 
 and Co., of Stationers' Court, Ludgate Hill, and adver- 
 tising through them in the public papers a poem which 
 he had written and published without the knowledge 
 of Mr. Hogg. 
 
 Harriet Westbrook was the schoolfellow of Shelley's 
 sisters at a boarding-school kept by a lady of the name 
 of Fenning. I have already suggested that the ac- 
 quaintance between Shelley and Harriet arose out of 
 her subscription to the poems of Janetta Philipps. 
 With the usual carelessness attending every statement 
 made about Shelley, four different localities are as- 
 signed to the school at which Shelley's sisters and 
 Harriet Westbrook were fellow-pupils. Miss Hellen 
 Shelley, who was at the school, says " Clapham ;" 
 Lady Shelley, by a slip of the pen, writes " Brompton ;" 
 Mr. Hogg calls the place " Wandsworth ;" and Mr. 
 Middleton, " Balham Hill/' The following extracts 
 from unpublished letters of Harriet herself will show 
 that the school was situated at Clapham. The follow- 
 ing was written a few months after her marriage, to a 
 lady of whom we shall hear a good deal more in the 
 following pages : — 
 
 (From an unpublished letter of Harriet Shelley.) 
 " But I know you now, and this blessing I should 
 not have had if I had never been to Clapham. So I 
 must be content and think myself \ery happy that I 
 did go, though I was not aware of the happiness that 
 would result."" 
 
 In another unpublished letter to the same person 
 poor Harriet again fixes the locality of the school, 
 
UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF HARRIET SHELLEY. 115 
 
 and refers to the horror with which she had heard 
 while there of Shelley's peculiar opinions. 
 
 (From an unpublished letter of Harriet Shelley.) 
 " Being- brought up in the Christian religion, you 
 may conceive with what horror I first heard that 
 Percy was an Atheist — at least so it was given out at 
 Clapliam. At first I did not comprehend the mean- 
 ing of the word, therefore when it was explained I 
 was truly petrified. I wondered how he could live a 
 moment professing such principles, and solemnly de- 
 clared that he should never change mine." 
 
 Alas for human resolutions ! the sequel proves, un- 
 fortunately, how easily and how fatally they were 
 changed. 
 
 If we fix the first week in January, 181 1, as the 
 date at which Shelley became acquainted with Harriet 
 Westbrook, we find that either by letter or per- 
 sonal observation he had eight months to form an 
 opinion of her disposition and character before she 
 became his wife. The circumstances of the marriage 
 are well known. In the first week of September, 
 181 1, Shelley and Harriet proceeded to Edinburgh 
 and were married according to the Scottish law. 
 How Shelley then regarded her, and still regarded her 
 a year later, we shall have the opportunity of showing 
 a little further on from an unpublished letter of 
 Shelley himself. In 1813, two years after the 
 marriage, he dedicated to her Queen Mab. 
 " Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on, 
 And loved mankind the more ?" 
 
 Shelley asks in the dedication of this poem, and 
 answers his own question thus — " Harriet, on thine f 
 and yet the reality, or at least the intensity of 
 
 1 2 
 
j 1 6 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 his love for Harriet at any time has been questioned. 
 On the 24th of March, 1814, he re-married her at the 
 Church of St. George, Hanover Square, " in order," 
 as the certificate states, " to obviate all doubts that 
 have arisen or shall or may arise touching or concerning 
 the validity of the aforesaid marriage " in Scotland. 
 On the 28th of July in the same year — that is, in less 
 than four months after having thus made assurance 
 doubly sure — Shelley went off to the Continent with 
 Miss Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, accompanied by 
 Miss Clairmont, the daughter of Mr. Godwin's second 
 wife by a former marriage. 
 
 Mr. Garnett, in his interesting little volume, Relics 
 of She/ley, published in 1862, refers to certain un- 
 published letters of Shelley and Harriet which he 
 believes will place this painful matter in a more 
 favourable light than the circumstauces of the case 
 itself unfortunately present it. If any documents 
 exist showing that Harriet was a party to the se- 
 paration, they certainly should be published. It is 
 expressly denied on her own authority that she was 
 so, by Mr. Peacock, who saw her several times afteF 
 the occurrence. Should any such letters be forth- 
 coming they will put an end to the charge of 
 desertion as it is usually understood, but they scarcely 
 can excuse Shelley for a worse kind of abandonment — 
 the leaving a young girl, whose moral and religious 
 principles he had overthrown, to the guidance of those 
 fine-sounding philosophical axioms she had learned 
 from him, which he did not follow in the hour of trial, 
 and which brought her to destruction. 
 
 After a few weeks'' residence in Edinburgh the young 
 married couple were joined by Mr. Hogg. Towards the 
 end of October the whole party proceeded to York, where 
 
MYSTERIOUS INCIDENT AT YORK. 117 
 
 Mr. Hogg was to resume his attendance at Chambers. 
 On the morning after their arrival there Shelley was 
 compelled to go up to London to consult his father's 
 solicitor about some arrangements that were then 
 pending. According to Mr. Hogg, Harriet was left 
 in York under his own immediate protection. Other 
 evidence would show that she accompanied her 
 husband on this occasion, and that Mr. Hogg in this 
 part of his book mixes np and confuses two distinct 
 transactions. Something, however, unquestionably did 
 occur at York in the absence of Shelley, that neces- 
 sitated the arrival there of Eliza Westbrook, the elder 
 sister of Harriet, in the position, as Mr. Hogg sneer- 
 ingly admits, " of a guardian angel/" Shelley himself 
 returned from London or perhaps from Keswick, on 
 the following day, when the whole party got immediate 
 notice from their landlady to leave their lodgings. 
 A few days later Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza West- 
 brook, without telling Mr. Hogg of their intention, or 
 bidding him good-bye, abruptly left York and pro- 
 ceeded to Keswick. I have collected a good deal of 
 curious matter on this subject, which though most im- 
 portant in a complete survey of Shelley's life, would 
 occupy too large a space in this investigation. It is 
 enough to say that those who feel an interest in the 
 subject can get a tolerably clear idea of the circum- 
 stances which put an end to all intercourse between 
 Shelley and his friend Mr. Hogg for more than a year, 
 if they turn to the second volume, p. 490, of that 
 gentleman's so-called Life of the poet, and read there 
 what is very questionably called a " Fragment of a 
 Novel." The substitution of two real names for those 
 of " Charlotte" and " Albert," will greatly assist them 
 in understanding the true meaning of this singular 
 
1 1 8 PERC Y B TSSBE SHEL L E Y. 
 
 " Fragment," which there can be little doubt is a 
 portion, however altered, of a genuine letter. 
 
 Mr. Hogg doubtless had very good reason for repre- 
 senting this affair as a fiction, but in mere matters of 
 fact he is equally untrustworthy. On the 28th of 
 October, 1 8 1 1 , the day before he left York for 
 Keswick, without taking leave of Mr. Hogg, Shelley 
 wrote to the Duke of Norfolk the letter which has 
 been published by Mr. Philip H. Howard of Corby 
 Castle in Notes and Queries, Nov. 20th, 1838. Mr. 
 Hogg, owing to the estrangement which had taken 
 place, was not informed of this letter. Wishing it to 
 be supposed that a friendly intercourse still continued 
 between himself and the poet after the abrupt depar- 
 ture of the latter for Keswick, he says, " My instruc- 
 tions with regard to Shelley 's correspondence, were to 
 open all letters that should come to York for him, 
 and to despatch such only as appeared to me worth 
 the postage. Many letters arrived daily, but few of 
 them merited to be sent farther. One of the few was 
 an invitation, kindly and cordially worded from the 
 Duke of Norfolk, to visit him at Graystoke. It was 
 franked by his grace and dated November 7th, 18 11. 
 The letter was transmitted to Keswick, and the visit 
 was paid/' — vol. ii. p. 23. 
 
 This is really too good a specimen of Mr. Hogg's 
 power of invention to be passed over. The reason 
 alleged for not sending all Shelley's letters forward 
 was to save postage on those that were not worth it. 
 Now as the letter of the Duke of Norfolk was not 
 only " franked by his grace/'' but probably sealed with 
 his arms, one might expect that Mr. Hogg could have 
 let that important document pass without examina- 
 tion. But no. Mr. Hogg's instructions were too 
 
DIARY OF CHARLES, DUKE OF NORFOLK. 119 
 
 precise, and lie accordingly opened the ducal letter 
 and read in it " an invitation" ivhich it did not con- 
 tain. The substance of that letter is given in the 
 private Diary of Charles, Duke of Norfolk, still 
 preserved at Corby Castle, some interesting extracts 
 from which have been kindly transcribed for me by 
 Mr. Philip H. Howard, whose father was the executor 
 of his grace. So far from inviting Shelley to Grey- 
 stoke, in the letter so curiously misdescribed by Mr. 
 Hogg, the Duke of Norfolk seems to have thought 
 that the poet's father was not without justification in 
 the way he was acting towards his son. There is a 
 little of sternness in the reply of his grace to the 
 young poet's appeal, but he nevertheless proposes to 
 call on Shelley in York to speak to him more fully 
 on the subject of his letter. The invitation which 
 formed the subject of a second letter was not written 
 until the 23rd of November, and could never have 
 passed through the hands of Mr. Hogg. He knew, 
 however, that Shelley, his wife, and Eliza Westbrook 
 spent some days at Greystoke, and he not unnaturally 
 considered that the letter of the 7th of November to 
 York, " franked by his grace/' contained the *' invita- 
 tion/-' But he should not have said he " opened" 
 and read the letter, which from his misdescription of 
 its contents he certainly could not have done. 
 
 The following are the extracts kindly furnished me 
 by Philip II. Howard, Esq., of Corby Castle : — 
 
 " Diary of Charles } Duke of Norfolk, 
 
 " 1811, Nov. 7.— Wrote to T. Shelly that I would 
 come to Field Place on the 10th, to confer with 
 him on the unhappy difference with his son_. 
 from whom I have a letter before me. 
 
> PARC T B YSBRB SHELLEY. 
 
 "To Mr. B. Shelly in answer that I 
 should be glad to interfere, but fear with little 
 hope of success ; fearing that his father, and 
 not he alone, will sec his late conduct in a diffe- 
 rent point of view from what he sees it. 
 
 " That I propose going into the North next 
 week, and will come to York to see him, pro- 
 vided he will inform me when I may find him 
 there. 
 
 "Nov. io— Wrote to Mr. Shelly, dined at Hor- 
 sham. 
 
 "Nov. 23. — Wrote to Mr. B. Shelly to invite 
 him/* his wife, and her sister to meet me at 
 Greystoke. Came to Parlington, dined and 
 slept. 
 
 [Reaches Appleby it appears on the 25th.] 
 
 " Nov. 2,6. — Greystoke — Wrote to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Howard of Levens, inviting them to Greystoke, 
 to Mr. and Mrs. H. de C." (Howard of Corby, 
 the father and mother of Mr. Philip Henry 
 Howard), "to Mr. and Mrs. B. Shelly do. 
 
 '■ Dec. 1. — Mr. and Mrs. B. Shelly, his wife, and 
 her sister came. Wrote to his father thereon. 
 
 " Dec. 6. — Wrote in answer to Mayor of Thet- 
 ford, &c. 
 
 " In this week, Lady Musgrave, Mr. and 
 Mrs. H. de C, Messrs. Calvert, and James 
 Brougham at the castle. 
 
 "Dec. 9. — Came with Mr. Wybergh to Greta 
 Bridge. 
 
 * The date of this entry, "November 23rd," conclusively dis- 
 poses of Mr. Hogg's assertion that the invitation to Grevstoke was 
 given in the letter of November 7th, 181 1. 
 
A LL US IONS IN THE D UKE >S DIARY. 121 
 
 "Dec. 10. — To Parlington. 
 
 "Dec. 11. — To Doncaster. 
 
 "Dec. 12. — To Worksop [whence he writes many 
 letters, and one] " to T. Shelly, on subject of his 
 son, from whom I expected a letter, when he 
 should again hear from me." 
 
 Mr. Philip II. Howard not only favoured me with 
 this very interesting extract from the Diary of the 
 Duke of Norfolk, but kindly explained some of the 
 allusions. Thus, in reference to Parlington, he says : — 
 " Parlington named several times was the seat in 
 Yorkshire of Sir Thomas Gascoyne, the last Bart, 
 and male representative of that ancient family." 
 TVith regard to Lady Musgrave, he says — " The Lady 
 Musgrave named would be the widow of Sir John 
 Charden Musgrave, of Edenhall, a daught3r of Sir 
 Edmund Filrner, Bart., of Kent, a near neighbour." 
 He further adds, " Lady Musgrave, of Edenhall, Cum- 
 berland, and Hartley Castle, Cumberland, was a good 
 Italian scholar, and a person of considerable attain- 
 ments, the mother of the present and two preceding 
 Baronets. You will remember that an ancestor, Sir 
 Philip Musgrave, was the celebrated cavalier leader 
 (temp. Car. I.) The Shelleys seem to have left 8th 
 December, or perhaps the 9th. The Duke in his 
 Diary generally names my father and mother Mr. and 
 Mrs. H. de C, that is, Howard of Corby." 
 
 Mr. Calvert and Mr. James Brougham are also 
 described by Mr. Howard in his valuable letter, but 
 these I defer until the equally interesting extract 
 from his mother's Journal, describing the party at 
 Greystoke, is given. 
 
 There is a published letter from Shelley to Mr. 
 
i : 2 PERC Y B YSSHE SEEL L E V. 
 
 Medwin senior, referring to tliis intended visit to 
 Greystoke. It is well known, and has some distressing 
 passages in it. Two referring to his actual cir- 
 cumstances may be given. The letter is dated 
 " Keswick, Cumberland, November 30th, 1811, My Dear 
 Sir . . . . " We are now so poor as to be actually in 
 danger of every day being deprived, of the necessaries 
 of life/' . . . . " and it is nearly with our very last 
 guinea that we visit the Duke of Norfolk, at Grey- 
 stoke, to-morrow. We return to Keswick on Wednes- 
 day. I have very few hopes from this visit/ 5 — 
 Med win's Life of Shelley, i. p. 376. 
 
 The 30th of November, 18 11, fell upon a Saturday, 
 so that the visit was intended to last until Wednes- 
 day, the 4th of December. Mr. Howard con- 
 siders that the Shelleys remained at Greystoke until 
 the 8th, or perhaps the 9th. The following is the 
 extract from Mrs. Howard's Journal, sent by her son : — 
 
 " Extract from my Mother s Journal. 
 
 " Corby Castle, 181 I, December 1st, 2nd, 3rd. 
 
 " I had a terrible journey [to Greystoke], with 
 hail, snow, and sleet, and only arrived at half-past 
 six. 
 
 " I had the pleasure of finding the Duke of Norfolk 
 very well, and in good spirits. Lady [Musgrave ?*] 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Shelley, and Miss Westbrook, her 
 sister ; Mr. James Brougham, and Mr. Calvert, were 
 the party/'' 
 
 * The name is inadvertently omitted by Mrs. Howard in her 
 journal, but there can be no doubt from the entry in the Duke of 
 Norfolk's Diary, December 6th, that it must have been Lady 
 Musgrave who, with Mr. and Mrs. Howard, Mr. James Brougham, 
 and Mr. Calvert, met the Shelleys at Greystoke. 
 
EXTRA CT FROM MRS. HO WARD'S JOURNA L. 123 
 
 Mrs. Howard's journal being intended only for her 
 owu use, she doubtless thought it superfluous to 
 mention her husband. Her son says : "My father, 
 Henry Howard, will have been there all the time." 
 Of Mr. Brougham and Mr. Calvert mentioned in the 
 journal, Mr. Philip H. Howard says in his letter to 
 me : — " James Brougham, named as having met the 
 Shelleys at Greystoke, was second brother of the late 
 Lord Brougham. He represented Kendal in the first 
 reformed Parliament, having sat previously for Tregony 
 and Winchelsea. Mr. Calvert, of Greta Bank, was a 
 Cumberland Squire, very popular in his day." The 
 Calverts were neighbours of Southey, and became 
 Shelley's greatest friends at Keswick. We shall see 
 subsequently in what terms he spoke of Mrs. Calvert 
 in particular, in some of his unpublished letters. As 
 neither Mr. James Brougham nor Mr. Henry Howard 
 could have been correctly described as " elderly " in 
 181 1, the allusion in the following most interesting 
 extract from an unpublished letter of Shelley to a 
 friend, refers in all probability to Mr. Calvert :'* — 
 
 {From an unpublished letter of Shelley.) 
 
 . . . . " We met several people at the Duke's. One 
 in particular struck me. He was an elderly man, who 
 seemed to know all my concerns, and the expression 
 of his face, whenever I held the argument, which I do 
 
 * Mr. Howard, who met Shelley at Greystoke in 18 11, was 
 then fifty-four years of age. I am indebted for this information to 
 his son, Philip H. Howard, Esq., of Corby Castle, who tells me that 
 his father was born on July 2nd, 17^7, in the reign of George the 
 Second. Mr. James Brougham, the eldest brother of the first Lord 
 Brougham, was born January 16th, 1780, and was therefore in his 
 thirty-second year when he met Shelley at the Duke of Norfolk's. 
 
1 24 PERC Y B YSSHE SHEL LE Y. 
 
 everywhere, was such as I shall not readily forget. 
 1 shall bavc more to tell of him, for we have met him 
 before in these mountains, and his peculiar look struck 
 [me?] [and] Harriet." 
 
 The manuscript is a little illegible in the place I 
 have marked, but the two words do not affect the 
 sense. The latter part of the passage, referring to 
 Harriet and himself having met the " elderly man" 
 among the mountains, corroborates an impression 
 which I had previously entertained that Shelley had 
 removed to Keswick earlier than Mr. Hogg would 
 have us to believe. As already mentioned, another 
 passage, which will subsequently be given in full, 
 shows that Shelley had made the acquaintance of 
 Southey before the 20th of October, the day it will be 
 remembered on which he wrote to Mr. AVhitton from 
 Cuck field. 
 
 There is no record of Shelley having made any 
 other acquaintances at Keswick but Southey and the 
 Calverts. Coleridge unfortunately was not at the 
 lakes during the period of Shelley's visit. He thinks 
 he might have been of some use to the young philo- 
 sopher (for at that time he had published nothing 
 under his own name which could give even a faint 
 hope of his becoming a poet) had he been at Keswick, 
 but it so happened that he was not, and Southey re- 
 ceived him instead. This he considered a misfortune 
 for Shelley. " I might have been of use to him, and 
 Southey coild not; for I should have sympathized 
 with his poetics, metaphysical reveries, and the very 
 word metaphysics is an abomination to Southey, and 
 Shelley would have felt that I understood him." 
 Another celebrated writer who could not plead the 
 excuse of absence seems to have regretted in after 
 
COLERIDUE AND DE QUINCE T. 125 
 
 years that he did not at this period avail himself of 
 the opportunity of " showing some little attention to 
 a brother Oxonian and a man of letters." This was 
 Thomas De Quincey, who was then living at Grasmere, 
 thirteen miles from Keswick. From the very am- 
 biguous way in which De Quincey writes, some careless 
 readers, as well as Lady Shelley and Mr. Rossetti, 
 have inferred that he became acquainted though 
 slightly with Shelley. The simple fact, though in- 
 volved in a cloud of verbiage, is, that he did not call 
 on him. The fanciful description of Shelley, " that 
 he looked like an elegant and tender flower, whose 
 head drooped from being surcharged with rain/' was 
 one which De Quincey " had heard of him in some 
 company." It was probably six years later, when an 
 interest was created in his mind by the Revolt of 
 Islam, he remembered, no doubt with regret at not 
 having seen him, that the future author of that poem 
 had been a neighbour of his for four months. We 
 have, however, from De Quincey the fact, though in- 
 directly, that Shelley did not make the acquaintance 
 of Wordsworth, then residing at Grasmere, or of John 
 Wilson, whose Isle of Palms was published in the 
 year of Shelley's visit to the lakes. Though De 
 Quincey came, I think, somewhat late to the knowledge 
 of Shelley's writings, his essay conveys at ooce an 
 eloquent and a discriminating estimate both of the 
 genius and character of the poet. The opening 
 sentence is particularly true, and should always be 
 borne in mind by those who write or read of Shelley. 
 u There is no writer named amongst men," says De 
 Quincey, " of whom, so much as of Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley, it is difficult for a conscientious critic to 
 speak with the profound respect, on the one hand due 
 
1 16 PERO Y B YSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 to his exalted powers, and vet without offence on tlie 
 other, to feelings the most sacred which too memorably 
 he outraged" {Works, vol. v. p. i). The essay, how- 
 ever, is full of mistakes, one of which only need be 
 pointed out here. Like Coleridge, De Quincey seems 
 to have thought that he too would have been of more 
 use to Shelley than the Laureate. Speaking of the 
 attractions of Grasmere he says, " Finally, my own 
 library, which being rich in the wickedest of German 
 speculations would naturally have been more to 
 Shelley's taste than the Spanish library of Southey. 
 As Shelley at this time knew as little of German as 
 he did of Spanish, it is difficult to understand how he 
 could have been much interested in these departments 
 of either library. We learn, however, from De 
 Quincey the following interesting fact \ — " The 
 Shelley s," he tells us, " had been induced by one of 
 their new friends to take part of a house standing 
 about half a mile on the Penrith road, more I believe, 
 according to that friend's intention, for the sake of 
 bringing them within reach of his own hospitalities 
 than for any beauty in the place." Had this friend 
 been Southey, as Captain Med win suggests, De Quincey 
 would doubtless have been glad to set off this act of 
 kindness against what Coleridge calls the " harshness" 
 of the Laureate's later manner towards his young 
 neighbour. A more likely person w r as Mr. Calvert, 
 the " elderly man" whose acquaintance Shelley first 
 made at the Duke of Norfolk's. An unpublished 
 letter, written by Shelley on the 3rd of February, 
 j 81 2, immediately after his leaving Keswick, confirms 
 this supposition. An extract from that letter will be 
 given in its proper place. In one of the eight un- 
 dated letters to Hogg from Keswick, he says, " The 
 
RESIDENCE AT KESWICK. 127 
 
 thing is, wc are not in, but near Keswick." At- 
 tached to this house, but not belonging to their por- 
 tion of it, was the garden* in which with girlish sim- 
 plicity and innocence poor Harriet told some of her 
 lady visitors that Percy and herself were let to " run 
 about" when they were tired of sitting within doors. 
 Poor child ! what a race was that for her elsewhere 
 on a certain occasion in the " drear-nighted December" 
 of 1816! 
 
 From the very beginning of Shelley's residence at 
 Keswick, be appears to have been occupied witb those 
 questions connected witb the state of Ireland wbich 
 led to the extraordinary and romantic expedition to 
 Dublin in the following February. The quotation 
 from The Curse of Kehama, which he adapted to the 
 condition of Ireland, and prefixed as a motto to the 
 poem published to assist in maintaining an Irish 
 patriot in prison, shows that nearly twelve months 
 before his generous enthusiasm had been roused on 
 behalf of that ill-governed and badly treated country. 
 
 " And Famine, at her bidding, wasted wide 
 The wretched land, till in the public way, 
 Promiscuous where the dead and dying lay, 
 Dogs fed on human bones in the open light of day." 
 
 Instead of Southey setting his young visitor to sleep, 
 as absurdly narrated by Mr. Hogg, by reading tbis 
 poem in manuscript, when it bad already been pub- 
 lished a year, Shelley may possibly have made 
 Southey open his eyes in astonishment at finding The 
 
 * In a playful letter to Hartley Coleridge, June 13th, 1 807, 
 Southey has the following allusion to the Calverts' garden. " We 
 had one day hotter than had been remarked for fourteen years ; 
 the glass was at 85 in the shade ; in the sun in Mr. Calvert's 
 garden, at n8 c ." 
 
i:s PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 C>/rse of Kehama turned already to such vile usee 
 to supply a motto for a poem that absolutely expressed 
 some sympathy for the suffering Irish. There was a 
 time when Southey himself was not ashamed of sharing 
 and avowing feelings precisely similar. Those were 
 the days when from that very house in Keswick he 
 apostrophized the shade of Robert Emmett. Every 
 one knows the famous and touching entreaty of that 
 young enthusiast. " Let no one write my epitaph. 
 Let my character and my motives repose in obscurity 
 and peace till other times and other men can do them 
 justice. Then shall my character be vindicated, then 
 may my epitaph be written." Robert Southey thought 
 it would be hazardous to wait for " other times and 
 other men/'' when there was a man then living so 
 capable, perhaps alone capable, of doing this act of 
 justice to the memory of his martyred namesake. 
 
 Accordingly we have, from the future author of The 
 Vision of Judgment, this mild and modest expostulation 
 in reference to the last wish and the dying words of his 
 " young hero/'' 
 
 " Emmett, no ! 
 No withering curse hath dried my spirit up, 
 That I should now be silent, .... that my soul 
 Should from the stirring inspiration shrink, 
 Now when it shakes her, and withhold her voice, 
 Of that divinest impulse never more 
 Worthy, if impious I withheld it now, 
 Hardening my heart. Here, here in this free Isle, 
 To which in thy young virtue's erring zeal 
 Thou wert so perilous an enemy ; 
 Here in free England shall an English hand 
 Build thy imperishable monument." 
 
 Worhsy one vol. ed. p. 140. 
 
 Many persons believe that had the spirit of recent legis- 
 lation influenced the action of government in 1803, " the 
 
ROBERT SOUTJIEY AND ROBERT EMMETT. 129 
 
 often-widowed Erin" would not have had to u mourn 
 the loss" of one of " her brave young men" at least. 
 That gentler and wiser spirit commenced in 1829 with 
 the act of Catholic Emancipation, which great measure, 
 though not passed in his lifetime, had no sincerer 
 advocate than Robert Emmett. Eut what did his pane- 
 gyrist — he who raised an " imperishable monument" 
 of rather perishable blank verse to his memory — what 
 did he think in 18 n of that question, and of the 
 people who were so deeply interested in its settle- 
 ment ? Shelley will tell us. In the unpublished 
 letter of the 10th of October, 18 11, subsequently 
 referred to, he says : — 
 
 " Southey hates the Irish ;* he speaks against 
 Catholic Emancipation. In all these things we differ. 
 Our differences were the subject of a long conversation." 
 
 We shall find from another unpublished letter, 
 written immediately after his leaving Keswick three 
 months later, that the " differences" between Shelley 
 and Southey increased every day to such an extent 
 that the youthful admiration of Shelley for the author 
 of Thalaba was greatly cooled, if it was not wholly 
 extinguished, while at the same time he admits the 
 possibility of his many private virtues. 
 
 * Southey appears to have had during his life two contradictory 
 opinions and two opposite states of feeling about everything. In 
 180 1, when in Dublin, he rather liked "the Irish," and gave the 
 people generally some credit even for " genius." In a letter dated 
 Dublin, October 1 6th, 180 1, he says: — "Genius, indeed, imme- 
 diately appears to characterize them ; a love of saying good things, 
 which 999 Englishmen in 1000 never dream of attempting in 
 the course of their lives." — Life and Correspondence of Robert 
 Southey, vol. ii. p. 170. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HP HE preparation for the Irish campaign and the ex- 
 ceedingly interesting correspondence with Godwin 
 which Shelley commenced on the 3rd of January, 1 8 1 2, 
 fill up the whole of that month. The letters to and from 
 Godwin being among the valuable materials confided to 
 Mr. Hogg, he had no opportunity of exercising his 
 very perplexing ingenuity in suppressing, transposing, 
 or otherwise confusing any portion of their contents. 
 The reader is. therefore referred to that portion of 
 Mr. Hogg's book with perfect confidence. I shall only 
 make a few extracts in reference to the meditated 
 descent on Dublin to carry Catholic Emancipation and 
 to repeal the Union. 
 
 In the second letter to Godwin, January 1 6th, 1812, 
 he gives the philosopher a list of his writings up to 
 that period ; among them is an " Essay on Love," 
 " a little poem," which he says was written after he 
 had become acquainted with the profounder works of 
 his correspondent, seeming thereby to attach to it a 
 greater importance. I have already suggested that 
 this " Essay on Love" may have been nothing else 
 than the " Poetical Essay on the Existing State of 
 Things" under a new name. He then continues : 
 " In a few clays we set off to Dublin. I do not know 
 exactly when, but a letter addressed to Keswick will 
 find me. Our journey has been settled some time. 
 We go principally to forward as much as we (viz., 
 
LETTERS TO GODWIN. 13 r 
 
 Harriet, Eliza, and myself) can the Catholic Eman- 
 cipation. 
 
 " S out hey, the poet whose principles were pure and 
 elevated once, is now the paid champion of every abuse 
 and absurdity. I have had much conversation with 
 him. He says, c you will think as I do when you are 
 as old/ I do not feel the least disposition to be 
 Mr. S.'s proselyte." 
 
 On January 28th, 18 12, he again writes to Godwin : 
 " Your letter has reached me on the eve of our de- 
 parture for Dublin. I cannot deny myself the 
 pleasure of answering it, although we shall probably 
 have reached Irelaud before an answer to this can 
 arrive. You do us a great and essential service by 
 the enclosed introduction to Mr. Curran : he is a 
 man whose public character I have admired and 
 respected. You offer an additional motive for 
 hastening our journey 
 
 " With these sentiments I have been preparing an 
 address to the Catholics of Ireland, which, however 
 deficient may be its execution, I can by no means 
 admit that it contains one sentiment which can harm 
 the cause of liberty and happiness. It consists of 
 the benevolent and tolerant deductions of philosophy 
 reduced into the simplest language. I know it can 
 do no harm ; it cannot excite rebellion, as its main 
 principle is to trust the success of a cause to the energy 
 of its truth. It cannot " widen the breach between 
 the kingdoms/'' as it attempts to convey to the vulgar 
 mind sentiments of universal philanthropy ; and what- 
 ever impressions it may produce, they can be no other 
 but those of peace and harmony ; it owns no religion 
 but benevolence, no cause but virtue, no party but the 
 world. 1 shall devote myself with unremitting zeal, 
 
 k 2 
 
132 PERCY B YSBHE SEEL I. EY. 
 
 as far as an uncertain state of health will permit, 
 towards forwarding the great ends of virtue and 
 happiness in Ireland, regarding as I do the present 
 state of that country's affairs as an opportunity which, 
 
 if I, being thus disengaged, permit to pass unoccupied, 
 I am unworthy of the character which I have assumed." 
 It has been stated by Mr. Hogg, who was kept 
 in profound ignorance of all these proceedings, and 
 repeated by others on his unsupported assertions, that 
 it was owing to Shelley's disgust at the failure of the 
 project in Dublin that he left that city abruptly before 
 the expiration of the time he had arranged to stay 
 there. This will be found to be quite incorrect. 
 The subsequent residence in Wales was pre-arranged 
 before he left Keswick, and fixed with the same de- 
 liberation as the visit to Dublin itself. " We left 
 Dublin," Shelley says in an unpublished letter from 
 which more will be quoted, " because I had done all 
 that I could do." The following passage in the fore- 
 going letter to Godwin shows that before he went to 
 Dublin Shelley had planned the residence in Wales : — 
 
 " I will say no more of Wales at present. We 
 have determined next summer to receive a most dear 
 friend, of whom I shall speak hereafter, in some ro- 
 mantic spot. Perhaps I shall be able to prevail on 
 you and your wife and children to leave the tumult and 
 dust of London for awhile. However that maybe, I shall 
 certainly see you in London. I am not yet of age. At 
 that time I have great hopes of being enabled to offer 
 you a house of my own. Philanthropy is confined 
 to no spot. Adieu ! Direct your next c Post Office, 
 Dublin/ 
 
 " My wife sends her respects. 
 
SHELLEY'S "POEMS" TO BE PUBLISHED IN DUBLIN. 133 
 
 K Believe me, in all sincerity of heart, yours truly, 
 sincerely, " P. B. Shelley. 
 
 "To Mr. William Godwin, London." 
 
 The " dear friend" alluded to by Shelley was Miss 
 Eliza Hitchener of Hm'stpierpoint, Brighton, with whom 
 he was carrying on a voluminous correspondence at this 
 time. The antecedents of this lady's history will be 
 found a little further on, as sketched by no less a per- 
 sonage than the Right Hon. Thomas Pelham, Earl of 
 Chichester, joint Postmaster- General with the Earl 
 of Sandwich. This lady received intelligence, two days 
 earlier than Godwin, of the intended visit to Dublin. 
 The letter to her has not been published, but I am per- 
 mitted to make the following extract from it, which 
 contains some very curious information not hitherto 
 known : — 
 
 {From an unpublished letter of Shelley.) 
 
 " Keswick, January 26th, 181 2. 
 " All is prepared. I have been busily engaged in 
 an address to the Irish people which will be printed 
 as Paine's works were, and posted on the walls of 
 Dublin. My poems will be printed there" 
 
 I have italicized the last line for the singular 
 interest of the intention which it announces. Dublin, 
 the chosen city where the first collection of Shelley's 
 poems was to have been published ! What poems 
 can he have alluded to ? Were we to have Victor 
 without Cazire, and Fitz- Victor without Mr. Hogg? 
 That alone I think would have been a happy consum- 
 mation. But these were rather insignificant materials 
 to be called his " poems. " In this collection, beyond 
 all doubt, we would have had the Poetical Essay on the 
 
1 34 TBRi T B }'»//£ SHELLEY. 
 
 Existing State of Things and the Essay on Love, if they 
 were not the same. In every point of view it is to be 
 regretted that this idea was not carried out. What a 
 treasure would not that Dublin edition of Shelley's 
 early poems be, though printed in the style of the 
 Address to the Irish People or the Proposals for an 
 Association. It would have contained one poem at 
 least, which I think the world would not willingly let 
 die — a poem by Shelley on Robert Emmett ! That 
 might indeed have been the " imperishable monument" 
 which Southey, with almost incredible vainglory, had 
 considered his own to be. 
 
 In a subsequent letter, also unpublished, written after 
 his alleged disgust with Irish politics, Shelley says : — 
 " I have written some verses on Robert Emmett 
 which you shall see, and which I will insert in my 
 book of poems." I am sorry to say that the corre- 
 spondence from which we learn this interesting fact 
 does not contain the poem. The reference to the 
 Dublin edition of Paine's works is also curious, par- 
 ticularly if it be true that they were ever posted on 
 the walls of that city. Shelley may have alluded only 
 to his own Declaration of Rights, which was printed at 
 Dublin, expressly to be ts posted on the farmers' walls." 
 I do not remember having seen a Dublin edition of 
 Paine's works, but I have no doubt they were printed 
 there, as I have in my own possession a Dublin edition 
 of The Life of Thomas Pain, by Francis Oldys, A.M., 
 1 791.* The number of booksellers who took a share 
 
 * The Life of Thomas Pain, the author of the Rights of 
 Man, with a Defence of his Writings. By Francis Oldys, A.M. 
 of the University of Pensylvania. Dublin : Printed for R. Cross. 
 P. Byrne, P. Wogan, A. Grueber, J. Moore, J. Jones, T. Heery, 
 W. M'Kenzie, W. Jones, R. M'Alliston, and H. Watts, mdccxci. 
 
FINAL ESTIMATE OF SOUTHEY. 135 
 
 in this publication is in itself a striking proof of the 
 intellectual and commercial activity of Dublin before 
 the Union. 
 
 After his letter to the " dear friend" at Hurstpier- 
 point of the 26th of January, and his more elaborate 
 epistle to Godwin of the 28th, Shelley did not lose 
 much time in setting out on his adventurous expedi- 
 tion. The following letter, which is now published 
 for the first time, details the course of his journey 
 from Keswick to Dublin. It is most curious and 
 interesting in many respects. He must be cold 
 indeed who can read without emotion the sanguine 
 and exulting expectation of this generous young man, 
 going forth like a knight of romance to the champion- 
 ship of a nation. His final estimate of Southey is 
 also very interesting. It has been said that, even 
 after their first interview at Keswick, Shelley could 
 speak of Southey " as a great man." He must have 
 changed this opinion very soon, for in one of the un- 
 published letters so frequently referred to he says the 
 very reverse. Speaking of Southey, he emphatically 
 declares, "He is not the great man I first thought him 
 to be." It was in this latter mood that he penned the 
 following letter : — 
 
 (From an unpublished letter of Shelley.) 
 
 "Whitehaven, February 3rd, 1812. 
 " My dearest Friend, — 
 
 "We are now at Whitehaven — a miserable 
 manufacturing sea-port town. I write to you a short 
 letter to inform you of our safety, and that the wind 
 which will fill the sails of our packet to-night is favour- 
 able and fresh. Certainly it is laden with some of 
 your benedictions as with the breath of the disem- 
 
136 PER07 BYSSBE SHELLEY. 
 
 bodied virtues who smile upon our attempt. AVc set 
 off to-night at twelve o'clock, and arrive at the Isle of 
 Man, whence you will hear from us, to-morrow; then 
 we proceed, when the wind serves, to Dublin. We 
 may be detained some days in the Island ; if the 
 weather is fine, we shall not regret it; at all events 
 we shall escape this filthy town and horrible inn. . . . 
 " We felt regret at leaving Keswick. I passed 
 Southey's house without one sting. He is a man who 
 may be amiable in his private character, stained and 
 false as is his public one. He may be amiable, but, if he 
 is, my feelings are liars, and I have been so long accus- 
 tomed to trust to them in these cases, that the opinion 
 of the world is not the likeliest corrector to impeach 
 their credibility. But we left the Calverts [qy. with 
 regret] . I hope some day to show you Mrs. Calvert ; 
 I shall not forget her, but will preserve her memory 
 as another flower to compose a garland which I intend 
 to present to you. Harriet and Eliza in excellent 
 spirits bid you affectionate adieu. Adieu ! 
 
 « Your 
 
 " P. B. Shelley." 
 
 The phrase " but we left the Calverts," strengthens, 
 if it does not confirm, the suggestion already thrown 
 out, that it was in a part of their house " on the Penrith 
 road," as mentioned by De Quincey, that the Shelleys 
 were living.* The well-known letter of Southey, dated 
 
 * I had coine to this conclusion before I was favoured by Mr. 
 Philip H. Howard of Corby Castle with the following exact par- 
 ticulars : — " The residence of Greta Bank, which in 1 8 1 1 was the 
 property and home of Mr. Calvert, lies on the Keswick and Pen- 
 rith road to the north side of the beautiful stream and well-wooded 
 banks of the Greta. It cannot be much more than half a mile 
 from the town of Keswick. The railroad there running parallel to 
 
MR AND MRS. CALVERT. 137 
 
 January 14th, 18 12, describing " a man at Keswick, 
 who acted upon him as his own ghost would do," 
 says this man, or ghost, meaning Shelley, had "mar- 
 ried a girl of seventeen after being turned out of 
 doors by his father, and here they are both in lodgings, 
 living upon 200/. a year, which her father allows 
 them." Harriet was not seventeen, neither was 
 Shelley turned out of doors. The u 200L a year" from 
 Mr. TVestbrook may be admitted, as we find Shelley, 
 exactly one month after the date of this letter — on the 
 14th of February, 1812 — stating to Miss Hitchener 
 that he was then in receipt of " 400L per annum," 
 half of which must have come from his father, 
 and half from Mr. Westbrook. The other circum- 
 stance was one that Southey could not be misinformed 
 about. The Shelleys were " in lodgings," most pro- 
 bably in the house of one who received them, as De 
 Quincey says, merely for the opportunity it afforded 
 of paying them attention. This was Mr. Calvert, the 
 gentleman who had fascinated Shelley so much at the 
 Duke of Norfolk's. Mr. Philip H. Howard, of Corby 
 Castle, the extract from whose mother's journal had 
 led me to identify the " elderly man" of the dinner 
 party at Greystoke with Mr. Calvert, confirms that 
 conjecture in the following interesting passage from 
 one of his letters : — " It was doubtless Mr. Calvert, of 
 Greta Bank, near Keswick, who captivated the poet's 
 fancy; his thoughts were fresh, 'the dew was on 
 
 the south side of the river is a good deal nearer to the mansion 
 than the old coach road. Skiddaw forms a bold background to 
 the scenery." It is an interesting fact communicated to 
 Mr. Howard by Mr. Spedding of Mirehouse, Keswick, that there 
 is a lady still living in that neighbourhood who remembers Shelley's 
 appearance at this period. " He was very striking looking." 
 
i;,S PERCY BYSSHE SEELLEY. 
 
 them.' The Duke and his friends were very fond 
 of him; he promoted all local improvements, and 
 was a person of great vigour and originality of 
 mind." 
 
 Shelley left Whitehaven for the Isle of Man at 
 midnight on the 3rd of February, 181 2. He seems 
 to have stopped a few days in the Island, as he said 
 he would do, and reached Dublin after a stormy 
 voyage on the night of the 12th. This is twelve days 
 earlier than any date previously assigned to his ar- 
 rival. Mr. Hogg knowing nothing about the matter, 
 took the first letter that came to his hand referring 
 to the subject, and boldly assigned that as the date. 
 " A letter from Dublin of the 24th of February states 
 that they have just arrived there" (vol. ii. p. 76). 
 The letter, which was to Godwin, in reality states no 
 such thing. It mentions the delay of " a few days/' 
 during which period the first of his pamphlets, which 
 he encloses, had been printed. Yet this erroneous 
 date is repeated even by Mr. Rossetti. " Shelley 
 arrived in Dublin, with Harriet and Eliza, about the 
 24th of February, 1812." Mr. Rossetti had not be- 
 fore him, and probably had never seen, the first 
 pamphlet printed by Shelley in Dublin, but Mr. 
 Hogg professes to describe it in the very page in 
 which he gives this random guess at a date. That 
 pamphlet in which Shelley says he was then " a week 
 in Dublin," is dated " No. 7, Lower Sackville Street, 
 Feb. 22," that is, two days, and a week at least, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Hogg's showing, before Shelley had 
 actually arrived there. Even the name of his friend 
 Mr. Hogg could not transcribe correctly from the 
 title page of the second pamphlet. Quoting it in in- 
 verted commas he writes, " By Percy B. Shelly : 
 
SHELLETS ARRIVAL IN DUBLIN. 139 
 
 Dublin," whereas the name is printed in full cor- 
 rectly, as in the first pamphlet, (i Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley." The false spelling of Shelley's name in 
 this instance is also repeated by Mr. Rossetti through 
 that over-confidence in Mr. Hogg's assertions, which 
 seems strange in so acute a writer. Shelley's first 
 letter from Dublin puts an end to all doubt as to the 
 exact date of his arrival. It is very short, and is here 
 printed for the first time : — 
 
 (UnpublisJied letter of Shelley.) 
 
 "Dublin, February 13th, 18 12. 
 " My dearest Friexd, — 
 
 ff Last night we arrived safe in this city. It 
 was useless to have written to yon before. Now I have 
 only time to tell yon of our safety. We were driven 
 by a storm quite to the north of Ireland, and yester- 
 day was the end of our journey thence. Expect to 
 hear soon ; all is well. 
 
 "Your affectionate 
 
 " P. B. Shelley. 
 " Direct to me at Mr. Dunne's, 
 
 No. 7, Sackville Street, Dublin." 
 
 Remembering the bitterness with which he had 
 parted from Southey at Keswick, it seems a sort of 
 retribution that Shelley shonld have experienced the 
 same unfavourable weather in crossing the Channel 
 that had attended the visit of the elder poet to 
 Ireland eleven years before. A storm " drove him to 
 th/ Hibernian shore," as it had done Southey, and 
 drove both considerably out of their way in the same 
 direction. Southey in a letter to his wife, dated 
 October 14th, 1801, makes the cnrious mistake of saying 
 
1 40 PERC ) ' /: YSSHE SHE 1. 1 E Y. 
 
 that "the wind had drifted them so far south that no 
 possibility existed of their reaching Dublin that night/ 1 
 the fact being that, like Shelley, he had been driven 
 to the north of Dublin. "The captain/' says Southey, 
 " a good man and a good sailor, who never leaves his 
 deck, and drinks nothing but buttermilk, therefore 
 readily agreed to land us at Balbriggan, and there we 
 got ashore at two o'clock. Balbriggan is a fishing 
 and bathing town fifteen miles from Dublin, but miles 
 and money differ in Ireland from the English standard, 
 eleven miles being as long as fourteen English." 
 Southey must have thought the points of the compass 
 were differently arranged in Ireland also, when he 
 placed Balbriggan fifteen miles to the south of Dublin. 
 
 The fifteen miles which Southey crossed in his way 
 to the metropolis of Ireland were so bare of trees that 
 he could only account for it by the supposition that 
 they had all been cat down for pike-handles. The 
 tract, however, unlike that between Dan and 
 Beersheba, was not all barren. " One little town 
 we passed, once famous, — its name Swords : it has the 
 ruins of a castle, and a church with a round tower 
 adjoining the steeple, making an odd group. " As he 
 approached Glasnevin, the home of Addison, Tickell, 
 and Delany, as well as the occasional visiting place 
 of Swift, he saw u mountains near Dublin most 
 beautifully shaped." Even Dublin itself came up to 
 his expectations. He calls it " a very fine city — a 
 magnificent city — such public buildings, and the streets 
 so wide V 3 
 
 It was in the widest of those wide streets that 
 Shelley took up his residence in Dublin. Sackville 
 Street in 1812 did not present precisely the same 
 appearance which is now so familiar to us, either from 
 
SACKYILLE STREET, DUBLIN. 141 
 
 actual knowledge or through photographs. The 
 column to Nelson was onty in process of erection, 
 and the fine edifice of the Post-Office had not been 
 commenced ; but the effect of the view was equally 
 good, perhaps even better, than it is at present, as but 
 one majestic avenue seemed to unite the historic 
 circle of the Rotunda, where the Volunteers had often 
 assembled, with that beautiful building in which the 
 patriotic resolutions of Dungannon had been confirmed 
 by the Parliament of Ireland. Both of these struc- 
 tures must have been objects of great interest to 
 Shelley, and we shall find subsequently in what terms 
 he spoke of the then actual condition of the latter. 
 The house in which he lived was very favourably 
 situated ; from the balcony of it, which still remains, 
 and from which, as he tells us himself, he was accus- 
 tomed to fling copies of his pamphlet to whoever 
 appeared to him to be likely recipients, he could see 
 over the roofs of Trinity College and the Bank of 
 Ireland, some of those "beautifully shaped mountains " 
 which had attracted the attention of Southey. But 
 six houses separated him from the river : 
 
 " There was the Liffy rolling downe the lea." 
 
 And by his side at that time was one to whom with 
 truth could be applied the lines of Tickell. For surely, 
 notwithstanding all the native beauty that had been 
 mirrored in its wave, never before 
 
 " Did Liffy's limpid stream 
 Eeflect a sweeter face." 
 
 These allusions may be pardoned in one to whom that 
 street is very dear, who was born in it, who spent 
 the best part of his life close to it, and to whom the 
 
i 4 c> PERCY BYSSlIi: SHELLEY. 
 
 residence of Shelley therein gave an additional and an 
 enduring charm.* 
 
 We have already given the short note wliich 
 Shelley addressed to his friend at Hurstpierpoint the 
 
 day after his arrival in Dublin. On the following day 
 he again addressed the same lady in a long and 
 somewhat extravagant epistle. It has, however, a 
 many-sided interest, and I am permitted to make 
 some extracts from it which have not been printed. 
 
 {From an unpublished letter of Shelley.) 
 
 "Dublin, 7, Sackville Street, Feb. 14th, 1812. 
 " Mr. Dunne's, Woollen Draper. 
 
 " .... At length, however, you are free from 
 anxiety for onr safety, as here we have nothing to 
 apprehend bnt Government, which will not, assure 
 yourself, dare to be so barefacedly oppressive as to 
 attack my Address ; it will breathe the spirit of peace, 
 
 * On the 15th of August, 1835, I saw another famous poet 
 enter the house No. 7, Lower Sackville Street, which then belonged 
 to Messrs. Kohler & Co., who had succeeded Mr. Dunne. It was 
 Thomas Moore. I recognised him in Sackville Street in company 
 with a well-known vocalist of that day, Mr. Morrisson. They 
 entered the house on some business, and came out in a few minutes. 
 They proceeded to the theatre in Hawkins Street, and afterwards 
 to Trinity College. Moore's morning visit to the theatre is ex- 
 plained by the following entry in his diary : — " The playbill of 
 to-day and yesterday having announced the entertainments of this 
 evening to have been selected by me, &c. &c, went to look at the 
 box-book to see what sort of promise it gave " {Memoirs, vol, vii. 
 p. .102). Or that evening I attended the theatre, and had the 
 pleasure of hearing Moore address the house in acknowledgment of 
 his enthusiastic reception. He spoke from the third box to the right 
 facing the stage, in which sat his sister Ellen with some Dublin 
 friends. The speech, which is very slightly alluded to by Moore, 
 is given in full by Mr. James Burke, A.B., in his Memoir of 
 Thomas Moore (Dublin, 1852), p. 168. 
 
LETTER TO MISS II IT CHEN ER. 143 
 
 toleration, and patience. ... As my name, which 
 will be prefixed to the Address, will show that my 
 deeds are not deeds of darkness, nor my counsels 
 things of mystery and fear." " Dread nothing for 
 me ; the course of my conduct in Ireland (as shall the 
 entire course of my life) shall be marked by openness 
 and sincerity." 
 
 The importance which he attached to the junction 
 of his correspondent, even as a political ally, is shown 
 by the following and some succeeding passages : — 
 
 " We will meet you in Wales, and never part again. 
 You shall not cross the Channel alone. It will not 
 do. In compliance with Harriet's earnest solicita- 
 tions, I entreated you instantly to come and join our 
 circle, resign your school, all, everything for us and 
 the Irish cause. This could not be done. . . . But 
 summer will come. The ocean rolls between us. O 
 thou ocean, whose multitudinous billows ever wash 
 Erin's green isle, on whose shores this venturous arm 
 would plant the flag of liberty, roll on ! and with each 
 wave," &c. 
 
 A great many romantic apostrophes to the ocean, 
 to Ireland, and to his correspondent here follow. 
 The same feelings and the same hopes found expression 
 in verse, of which some fragments have been pre- 
 served. The following may be given as an example : — 
 
 To Ireland. 
 
 Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isle, 
 Sees summer on its verdant pastures smile, 
 Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweep 
 The billowy surface of thy circling deep. 
 Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic ga 76 
 Peace, wealth, and beauty to its friendly wave, 
 
1 44 PERC V B YSSHE SHELLE Y. 
 
 .... its blossoms fade ; 
 And blighted arc the leaves that cast its shade; 
 Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit, 
 Whose dullness struck a canker to its root. 
 Dublin, February, 1812. 
 
 The personal allusions in the remarkable letter from 
 which these lines are taken are still more interesting: — 
 
 " I ought to count myself a favoured mortal," says 
 Shelley, " with such a wife and friend." .... 
 
 " Your dear little Americans may come and live 
 with us. (Suppose there was a little stranger to play 
 with them.) This, however, is a hope which I do not 
 anticipate but at some distance." .... 
 
 " 400Z. per annum will be quite enough for us all. 
 Our publications would supply the deficiency." .... 
 
 " Have you heard a new Republic is set up in 
 Mexico ?" 
 
 He then introduces the following lines, which, 
 though printed in Mr. Rossetti's edition, as are the 
 preceding (vol. ii. pp. 528, 529), may here be given: — 
 
 The Mexican Bevoltttion. 
 1. 
 Brothers ! between you and me 
 
 Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar ; 
 Yet in spirit oft I see 
 
 On thy wild and winding shore 
 Freedom's bloodless banners wave, — 
 Feel the pulses of the brave 
 Unextinguished in the grave, — 
 
 See them drenched in sacred gore, — 
 Catch the warrior's gasping breath, 
 Murmuring " Liberty or death !" 
 
 11. 
 
 Shout aloud ! Let every slave, 
 
 Crouching at corruption's throne, 
 Start into a man, and brave 
 
 Racks and chains without a groan ; 
 
LIXES OX THE MEXICAX REVOLUTIOX. 145 
 
 And the castle's heartless glow, 
 
 And the hovel's vice and woe, 
 
 Fade like gaudy flowers that blow — 
 
 Weeds that peep, and then are gone ; 
 Whilst from misery's ashes risen, 
 Love shall burst the captive's prison. 
 
 Cotopaxi ! bid the sound 
 
 Through thy sister mountains ring, 
 
 Till each valley smile around 
 At the blissful welcoming ! 
 
 And thou stern Ocean deep, 
 
 Thou whose foamy billows sweep 
 
 Shores where thousands wake to weep 
 Whilst they curse a villain king ; 
 
 On the winds that fan thy breast 
 
 Bear thou news of Freedom's rest ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ere the daystar dawn of love, 
 
 Where the flag of war unfurled 
 Floats with crimson stain above 
 
 The fabric of a ruined world — 
 Never but to vengeance driven 
 When the patriot's spirit shriven 
 Seeks in death its native heaven ! 
 
 Then to desolation hurled, 
 Widowed love may watch thy bier, 
 Balm thee with its dying tear. 
 
 Dublin, 14th February, 18 12. 
 
 After this impassioned invocation, in which we may 
 already perceive the advancing power of the poet, he 
 reverts to the great business of his expedition and to 
 his forthcoming pamphlet. 
 
 " My Address will soon come out ; it will be in- 
 stantly followed by another with downright proposals 
 for instituting associations for bettering the condition 
 of human kind; at all events, we will have a 
 
 L 
 
i 4 6 PERCY BYSSHB 8H ALLEY. 
 
 debating society, and sec -what will come out of 
 that." .... 
 
 "Godwin lias introduced me to Curran; I took 
 the letter this morning. lie was not at home. I 
 shall see him soon." .... 
 
 Before adverting to this introduction, which Curran 
 was very slow in acknowledging, we must conclude 
 our extracts from this long and remarkable letter of 
 the 14th of February, 1812. The following paragraph, 
 though written in all seriousness, has a quiet though 
 unconscious touch of humour about it. He tells his 
 correspondent that Eliza Westbrook was going to 
 collect the " useful passages " out of Tom Paine' s 
 works and publish them, and then adds the rather in- 
 consequential piece of information from which we are 
 glad to learn that the good Eliza was at the moment 
 more " usefully " employed. " She is now making a 
 red cloak which will be finished before dinner." .... 
 ' ' Harriet sends her love. Eliza longs to see you." .... 
 
 The postscript is by Harriet. 
 
 " My dear Friend, — I have not yet answered your 
 kind letters, but depend upoii it I shall very soon ; 
 they are not lost upon me I assure you. In the mean- 
 time believe me, 
 
 "Your affectionate friend, 
 
 "H. S." 
 
 At the commencement of this long letter, hitherto 
 unpublished, from which we have taken the foregoing 
 interesting extracts, Shelley expressed a confident 
 expectation that the Government would not interfere 
 with his Address. On this subject he was a true 
 prophet. In the Record Office I have examined all 
 the State Papers of the Irish Government referring to 
 
TEE STATE PAPERS OF 1812. 147 
 
 this period, and while many important documents 
 have been discovered referring to the political 
 action of the Catholics in preparing for the great 
 meeting of the 28th of February, which had 
 been publicly announced, there is no reference 
 whatever to the eloquent pamphlets which Shelley 
 had printed, and one of which he had circulated 
 before that day. The Government, as may be seen 
 from the letter of the Duke of Richmond there pre- 
 served, seemed disposed at first to prohibit the 
 holding of this meeting. Wiser counsels however 
 prevailed, and the meeting took place. Special agents, 
 as might be expected, were sent by the Government 
 to give a private report of the proceedings, and their 
 resume of what took place is preserved among the 
 State Papers. It is curious that although Shelley 
 spoke at this meeting for more than an hour, and 
 produced the extraordinary effect which will be de- 
 scribed farther on by " an Englishman/'' who was an 
 eye-witness of the scene, one of the Government 
 reporters does not mention him at all, while the 
 other merely describes him as " Mr. Shelly, who 
 stated himself to be a native of England/'' Shelley 
 himself was not prepared for this indifference on the 
 part of the Government. He expected that the suspen- 
 sion of the Habeas Corpus Act at least would have 
 shown the alarm which his pamphlets had inspired. To 
 this possibility he refers in an unpublished letter from 
 Radnorshire immediately after leaving Ireland. Harriet 
 also alludes to it with some appearance of alarm in a 
 most interesting letter, a copy of which I have dis- 
 covered in the Record Office, and which will be given 
 subsequently in full. His youthful appearance may 
 have had something to do with this careks : ness on the 
 
 l 2 
 
148 PERCY BYSSHB SHELLEY. 
 
 part of the Government. He admits that it interfered 
 with the effect of his teaching on the public. " My 
 youth is much against me here/' he says, in an 
 unpublished letter, which will presently be given 
 almost entire. " To improve on this advantage" he 
 continues, " the servant gave out I was only fifteen 
 years of age." The servant here alluded to was Daniel 
 Hill, the hero of Barnstaple and Tanyrallt, of whom we 
 shall have much more to say. Whatever may have been 
 the cause of the inaction of the Irish Government, it is 
 certainly strange that the same documents which 
 excited so much alarm when discovered at Holyhead 
 and Barnstaple as to lead to a remarkable corre- 
 spondence with Ministers of State and the highest 
 functionaries of the Post Office, attracted no official 
 notice in Dublin, though sent gratuitously to sixty 
 public-houses, and flung openly from the windows of 
 the author's lodgings in the chief street of that 
 capital. 
 
 It will be seen from Shelley's letter of the 14th of 
 February that he had lost no time in presenting him- 
 self with Godwin's introduction at the house of the 
 Right Hon. John Philpot Curran, the Master of the 
 Rolls. Mr. Curran -was then residing in the fine mansion 
 on the south side of St. Stephen's Green, the same 
 house which was subsequently occupied by the emi- 
 nent lawyer and judge Mr. Burton. On Judge 
 Burton's death, the late Sir Benjamin Guinness, the 
 restorer of St. Patrick's Cathedral, purchased the 
 house for his town residence, and erected shortly 
 before his own demise the new and imposing front 
 and portico by which it is now easily recognised. In 
 18 1 1 Mr. Curran had been residing in Harcourt 
 Street, and in 1807 in Ely Place, to which the only 
 
CURRAN AND GODWIN. 149 
 
 letter of Godwin's to him which has been preserved 
 was directed. This letter, the original of which has 
 been kindly presented to me by a friend, and which 
 has not been published, will be found a little further 
 on.* 
 
 Considering the friendship which had long existed 
 between Curran and Godwin, it seems rather strange 
 that the Master of the Rolls should have taken no 
 notice whatever, for a considerable time, of the young 
 reformer who had been introduced to him by the 
 author of St. Leon. He seems studiously to have 
 kept out of his way, and Shelley did not succeed even 
 in seeing him until some time after the 18th of 
 March — a period of at least five or six weeks. God- 
 win had some misgivings as to the reception Shelley 
 possibly might meet with; for before the latter had 
 made any complaint of inattention, he wrote to him 
 in the following words : — " How did you manage with 
 Curran? I hope you have seen him. I should not 
 wonder, however, if your pamphlet has frighteoed him. 
 You should have left my letter with your card the first 
 time you called, and then it was his business to have 
 sought you" {Letter of March 4th, 181 2. Hogg's 
 Life of Shelley, vol. ii. p. 89). But this is precisely 
 what Shelley had done ten days before his pamphlet 
 was printed; and in those ten days it is plain that 
 Curran had not thought it his business to walk over 
 to Sackville Street to seek Shelley. The Address to 
 the Irish People was first announced for publication on 
 Tuesday, February 25th, 18 1 2. In The Dublin Evening 
 Post of that day is the following advertisement : — 
 
 * I am indebted to my friend W. J. Fitzpatrick, Esq., J.P., of 
 Kilmacud Manor, Stillorgan, for this very interesting document. 
 
1 50 PERC Y B YSSIIE S1IELLE Y. 
 
 " This day is published, price Fivepence, to be had of all 
 the Booksellers, 
 
 y\N ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 
 By PiiECY B. Shelley. 
 
 " Advertisement. — The lowest possible price is set on this 
 publication, because it is the intention of the Author to awaken in 
 the minds of the Irish poor a knowledge of their real state, sum- 
 marily pointing out the evils of that state, and suggesting rational 
 means of remedy. — Catholic Emancipation, and a Repeal of the 
 Union Act (the latter the most successful engine that England 
 ever wielded over the misery of fallen Ireland) being treated of in 
 the following Address, as grievances which unanimity and resolution 
 may remove, and associations, conducted with peaceable firmness, 
 being earnestly recommended as means for embodying that unani- 
 mity and firmness which must finally be successful." 
 
 The same advertisement appears in The Dublin 
 Evening Post of Saturday, February 29th, which also 
 contains the outline of Shelley's speech delivered at 
 the meeting of the clay before. It is given for the 
 last time in The Evening Post of March 3rd, 1812. Of 
 the second pamphlet — The Proposals — I have not been 
 able to discover an advertisement. 
 
 The Address to the Irish People seems to have left 
 the printer's hands on Monday, the 24th of February, 
 twelve days after Shelley's arrival in Dublin. On that 
 day he wrote to Godwin as follows : — " A most 
 tedious journey by sea and land has brought us to 
 our destination. I have delayed a few days informing 
 you of it, because I enclose with this a little pamphlet 
 which I have just printed, and thereby save a double 
 expense. I have wilfully vulgarized the language of 
 this pamphlet, in order to reduce the remarks it con- 
 tains to the taste and comprehension of the Irish 
 peasantry, who have been too long brutalized by vice 
 and ignorance. I conceive that the benevolent passions 
 of their breasts are in some degree excited, and indi- 
 
SEEL LETS VOYAGE TO DUBLIN. 151 
 
 vidua] interests in some degree generalized by Catholic 
 disqualifications and the oppressive influence of the 
 Union Act, that some degree of indignation has arisen 
 at the conduct of the Prince Regent, which might 
 tend to blind insurrections. A crisis like this ought 
 not to be permitted to pass unoccupied or unimproved. 
 I have another pamphlet in the press, earnestly recom- 
 mending to a different class the institution of a 
 philanthropic society. No unnatural unanimity can 
 take place if secessions of the minority on any ques- 
 tion are invariably made. It might segregate into 
 twenty different societies, each coinciding generically, 
 though differing specifically. 
 
 "We have had a most tedious voyage. We were 
 driven by a storm completely to the north of Ireland 
 in our passage from the Isle of Man. Harriet, my 
 wife, and Eliza, my sister-in-law, were very much 
 fatigued after twenty-eight hours' tossing in a galliot 
 during a violent gale. They are now tolerably re- 
 covered. I am exceedingly obliged by your letter of 
 introduction to Mr. Curran. His speeches had in- 
 terested me before I had any idea of coming to Ireland. 
 It seems that he was the only man who would engage 
 in behalf of the prisoners during the times of horror 
 of the Rebellions. I have called upon him twice, but 
 have not found him at home/' — Hogg, vol. ii. pp. 
 
 77. 78. 
 
 The allusion at the beginning of this letter to " a 
 tedious journey by sea and land" as well as the period 
 of the sea- voyage itself, " twenty-eight hours/' lead us 
 to the conclusion that Shelley, like Southey, had 
 landed at some northern sea-port, and had thence 
 proceeded by coach to Dublin. In this way he must 
 have passed through Swords and the scenery described 
 by Southey. 
 
1 5 2 PERC Y B Y8SHE QUELLE Y. 
 
 Godwin was not the first to whom Shelley sent a 
 specimen of his pamphlet. There is in existence a 
 sheet or page of a Dublin newspaper called The Corre- 
 spondent, on which is written by Shelley the following 
 unpublished note : — " I send you the first sheet of my 
 first Address as it comes out. The style of this, you 
 will perceive, is adapted to the lowest comprehension 
 that can read. It will be followed by another in my 
 own natural style, though in the same strain. This 
 one will make about thirty such pages as the 
 enclosed : the other as much. Expect to hear soon. 
 Happiness be with you. My dear friend, yours " 
 
 The first sheet of the pamphlet was enclosed in this 
 page of The Correspondent, on which the foregoing was 
 written. It was evidently the wrapper which came 
 from the printer, and is directed on one of the margins 
 " Mr. Percy Shelley." As in the case of the copy of 
 the pamphlet sent to Godwin, both were forwarded as 
 newspapers, and charged by the vigilant post -masters 
 according to their weight as letters. Godwin was the 
 greater sufferer, as the whole of the pamphlet was 
 included in his package. It must be admitted that 
 he bore his misfortune with good humour. The fol- 
 lowing allusion to the subject in his reply to Shelley 
 is amusing : — 
 
 " To descend from great things to small, I can per- 
 ceive that you are already infected with the air of that 
 countrv.* Your letter, with its enclosures, cost me 
 
 * According to Mr. Charles Phillips, Godwin had himself visited 
 Ireland as the guest of Mr. Curran. " Godwin had gone on a 
 visit to the Priory " [Curran's residence near Stillorgan, Co. Dublin], 
 " where he had at once an opportunity of enjoying the society of 
 his friend and of studying the manners of a new people." (Recol- 
 lections of Curran, p. 233.) As Godwin is reported to have 
 
FIRST PAMPHLET SENT THROUGH THE POST OFFICE. 153 
 
 by post ii. is. 8d. ; and you say in it that ' you send 
 it in this way to save expense/ The post always 
 charges parcels that exceed a sheet or two by weight, 
 and they should therefore always be forwarded by some 
 other conveyance." — Hogg, vol. ii. p. 90. 
 
 In Shelley's rejoinder to this letter, of the 8th of 
 March, he endeavours to console the philosopher by 
 the following explanation : — " I had no conception 
 that the packet I sent you would be sent by the 
 post ; I thought it would have reached you per coach/'' 
 —Hogg, vol. ii. p. 95. 
 
 It appears that there were three victims to this 
 rather expensive mode of anticipating the book-post — 
 Mr. Westbrook, Miss Hitchener, and Mr. Godwin. 
 In the copy of the letter of Harriet preserved in the 
 State Paper Office is the following passage : — 
 
 " I sent you two letters in a newspaper, which I 
 hope you received safe from the intrusion of the post- 
 masters. I sent one of the pamphlets to my father in a 
 newspaper, which was opened and charged, but which 
 was very trifling to what you and Godwin paid." — Copy 
 of Harriet's Letter in the Record Office. 
 
 This letter of Harriet, though not directed, was 
 written to Miss Hitchener under the name of 
 u Portia," and was a part of the seizure made at 
 Holyhead on the 30th of March, 1812, as will be 
 fully described in a subsequent page. Harriet's letter is 
 dated March 18th, but ten days earlier Shelley himself 
 
 heard one of Curran's great oratorical displays, and to have 
 admired nothing but " the manner " of the orator, the visit must 
 have been paid before 1806, when Curran became Master of the 
 Rolls. The story told by Mr. Phillips is rather apocryphal, but 
 the fact of the visit may be received, although Mr. William Henry 
 Curran makes no mention of it in the Life of his father. 
 
154 PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 had referred to the mistake of sending the first sheet 
 of the pamphlet as a newspaper, in the following 
 passage of an unpublished letter to Miss Hitehener. 
 Writing on March i oth, he says : " In a day or two I 
 shall make up a parcel to you, which will come per 
 coach. It is a terrible mistake that of the last ; the 
 blundering honest Irishman we have came without 
 it." Here a scapegoat had been found in the person 
 of Daniel Hill already referred to, and who thus makes 
 his second appearance in Shelley an story. 
 
 Shelley was evidently a little annoyed at the 
 inattention of Curran, though he makes no direct 
 complaint of it to Godwin. In an unpublished letter 
 of the 27th of February, 1812, he says : — 
 
 c< I have not yet seen Curran. I do not like him 
 for accepting the office of Master of the Rolls.'" 
 
 One would think from Shelley's remark that Curran 
 had accepted the office of Master of the Rolls in the 
 interval between the date of his own calling at his 
 house on the 14th of February and the 27th of the 
 same month, when he wrote as above to Miss 
 Hitehener. But Curran had been Master of the Rolls 
 since 1806. The opinion expressed by Shelley was 
 evidently formed from conversations which he had in 
 Dublin with persons who agreed with Lord Cloncurry 
 in thinking that Currants acceptance of office was a 
 somewhat lowering of the position which he had held 
 in the estimation of his countrymen.* There can be 
 very little doubt who some of those Dublin friends of 
 Shelley were, as will presently be pointed out. 
 
 * Personal Recollections of Valentine, Lord Cloncurry, 
 pp. 169, 170. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE letter of introduction to Curran which Shelley 
 received from Godwin has not been preserved. 
 Indeed it is remarkable that so few of the letters, 
 either written by Curran or addressed to him, have 
 been published. This renders the following letter the 
 more interesting, and it may perhaps serve as a sub- 
 stitute for that which Shelley presented to Curran 
 from Godwin. It is rendered still more interesting 
 by the unexpected and unintended explanations of 
 some of its allusions which I found in the Record 
 Office. As a letter written by Godwin to Curran, it 
 is in itself a document worth preserving, and may not 
 be considered wholly irrelevant to the subject in 
 hand. 
 
 Unpublished Letter of Godwin to Cwran. 
 
 " The Right Honourable the Master of the Bolls, 
 Ely Place, Dublin. 
 
 Soraers Town, London, March 7th, 1807. 
 
 " Dear Curran, — When last in England, you made 
 me two promises shall I say ? No, neither of them 
 was absolutely a promise, but both very interesting to 
 me. One had the word March, with which it was 
 connected in tenour, and the other the word Spring. 
 
 " I am very desirous of seeing you in March, and 
 that not only for the immediate pleasure it would give 
 me, but as connected with your visits of September 
 
156 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 and December last, it would be a pledge of the 
 frequency with which I might hope to see you j I 
 should then think of you as a neighbour ; I should 
 feel as if forty and not four hundred miles was the 
 distance that separated us. But alas ! this is the 7th 
 of March. I look in my almanac, and find that 
 Easter Term (curse on the technical phraseology !) 
 begins April 15th; I ruminate on human frailty, and 
 begin to suspect both that you are not Jupiter, and 
 that you have not sworn by Styx that you will come. 
 " The other subject I allude to, I am sorry to say, 
 is of a sordid and mercenary cast, such an one as we 
 shall not be obliged to think on, if ever we meet 
 hereafter in Utopia or Elysium. What you said of it 
 was not a promise; yet as it first occurred in 
 September, and was reconsidered at Christmas, I have 
 been compelled to rely upon it with some sanguineness 
 of hope, and, sordid and mercenary as it is, it is neces- 
 sary I should own that it is intimately connected with 
 the existence of myself and my family. My com- 
 mercial affairs are going on with sufficient prosperity 
 of promise. The Fables, as you know, have been 
 printed twice ; the Pantheon is much in request ; the 
 little History of England, which at first seemed to be 
 hardly noticed, I am now obliged instantly to send 
 again to the press, and the Shakspeare Tales I am 
 presse to bring out separately in twenty parts (three 
 are already finished), in which form I have reason to 
 think I shall sell ten or twenty thousand copies. Yet 
 amid all this plentifulness of prospect, I suffer a consi- 
 derable degree of famine of means. Great disburse- 
 ments are necessary, and you, who (happy, thrice 
 happy man !) were never entangled in affairs of com- 
 merce, can have no idea of the unconscionable credit 
 
rx PUBLISHED LETTER OF GODWIN TO CURRAN. 157 
 
 which traders in this commercial country demand and 
 must obtain. My books of course are principally sold 
 to the booksellers, by whom they are distributed 
 through the town and the empire ; and they will only 
 settle with the dealer once a year, at Christmas, when 
 their accounts are liquidated by bills at three, six, and 
 nine months after date. My demands against them for 
 last Christmas were comparatively small, being at most 
 solely for the two volumes of Fables, and it is therefore 
 impossible that I should find myself entirely at my 
 ease till Christmas next. I can indeed, and shall make 
 a forced sale of some of my books for an earlier pay- 
 ment, but that can only be to a small limited amount. 
 If I were to exceed that, I should part with them 
 almost for waste paper. I should have laboured, and 
 other men would enter into the fruits of my labour. 
 Thus circumstanced, it cannot be but that I shall have 
 to struggle with great difficulties, and to encounter 
 great anxieties during the present year; but this I 
 shall meet with the utmost chearfulness,"* if ease and 
 competence and peace seem likely to be the final 
 result. 
 
 " Having thus, my dear friend, [laid the state of my 
 position] before you, the first thing I have [to hope is 
 that you whom I relied entirely] on would not hold 
 me in suspense, [as I have pay]ments to make on the 
 
 * " Chearfulness." — This old-fashioned mode of spelling the 
 word was nearly extinct in Godwin's time. It is so written in a 
 letter from John Wilkes, dated Naples, May 25th, J 765. Eeferring 
 to Churchill, he says — " I have a present from Kome of a 
 sepulchral urn of alabaster, which I am going to inscribe to my 
 friend in his three great characters — a chearful companion, a 
 bitter sath'ist, and a true patriot." — See Notes and Queries, 4th 
 S. v. p. 48, January 8th, 1870. 
 
1 5 8 PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 2nd and following days [of June ?] to the amount of 
 300/. ;* and though I have not, and very probably 
 cannot find any adequate resources independently of 
 the hopes you have given me, yet the greatest calamity 
 that could happen to me would be to be kept to the 
 last moment in vain expectation. 
 
 " I have seen Lord Lauderdale twice somewhat in 
 the way of a message from Lord Holland. What will 
 come of it I am unable to say. 
 
 " I have just seen an account in a newspaper of 
 your having been taken ill in court, Feb. 26th. I hope 
 by the time this reaches you, you will just have forgotten 
 the circumstance. 
 
 " I am, my dear Curran, 
 
 ''With the sincerest regard and affection, 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 "W. Godwin. 
 
 " Mrs. Godwin begs me to add a line to say how 
 truly she joins in remembrance.'''' 
 
 Few authors, except those who, to use the language 
 of Lord Byron as applied to his friend Hobhouse, 
 aim at " foaming into patriots to subside in Newgate," 
 can expect that their works should undergo a critical 
 examination in the office of a Minister of State. Had 
 there been a Minister of Instruction, as in France, the 
 subject of the following paper would come legitimately 
 under his notice; but to add to the many labours 
 of the Secretary for the Home Department, the task 
 
 * Godwin had commenced writing another figure, I think 400Z., 
 which he changed to 300. The upright stroke of 4 makes the 
 figure 3 look like 8, but that appears to be too large a sum to ask 
 his friend, who was only one year on the Bench, to advance him. 
 
VISCOUNT SIDMOUTH. 159 
 
 of discovering the hidden and perhaps dangerous 
 meaning that may underlie the impenetrable pro- 
 fundity of this poet or of that proser, might deter 
 the most courageous from assuming the dignity and 
 undertaking the responsibilities of office. The Secre- 
 tary of State for the Home Department in 1813 was 
 Viscount Sidinouth, whose head in 1820 narrowly 
 escaped the honour of being put into a special bag 
 with Lord Castlereagh's by the Cato Street con- 
 spirators. He had another escape of a less tragic 
 kind two years earlier. At the earnest solicitation, 
 as it would seem, of Lady Donegal, he was left out of 
 The Fudge Family. Moore at first seemed reluctant 
 to yield the point. Alluding to a lady he had 
 spared, at his friend's request, the satirist proceeds, 
 " She is, however, safe, though it has already cost 
 me the strangling of two or three young epigrams 
 in their cradle. All, in fact, shall be safe, except 
 Lord Sidmouth ; but that the author of the Circular, 
 the patron of spies and informers, the father 
 of the Green Bag, the eulogist of the Knights of 
 Northampton (?), &c. &c, should not have a touch or 
 two, is out of the nature of things. I only promise 
 that he shall neither be called ' Doctor/ nor ( Old 
 Woman/ which is quite as much as his warmest 
 friends could expect."" — Moore to Lady Donegal, 
 Jan. 9th, 18 1 8. Moore's Memoirs, vol. ii. 131. 
 
 The friendly mantle, however, of Lady Donegal 
 protected the noble Viscount, as he does not figure in 
 The Fudge Family, or in any of Moore's satirical poems. 
 Shelley was made of sterner stuff. The rather in- 
 effective statesman whom Moore spared and Thistle- 
 wood had not the opportunity of decapitating, the 
 author of the Masque of Anarchy represented, only in 
 
1 6o PERCY B TSSEE 8HELLEY. 
 
 metaphor it must be admitted, as riding " on a 
 crocodile." 
 
 Clothed with the Bible as with light 
 And the shadow of the flight, 
 Like Sidmouth next, Hypocrisy 
 On a crocodile came by. 
 
 The Masque of Anarchy, st. vi. 
 
 For figuring so conspicuously in the Masque of 
 Shadows, which passed before the mind of the dreaming 
 poet as he " lay asleep in Italy/' Lord Sidmouth would 
 probably have forgiven the charge of hypocrisy. It is 
 scarcely necessary to say that any who professed to 
 believe in Christianity must have been a hypocrite in 
 Shelley's estimation. One who knew Lord Sidmouth's 
 private character thus speaks of him : " We were also 
 at that poor dear honest man's, Lord Sidmouth's, for a 
 few days. As to your wicked story of his getting 
 drunk and singing ballads with his royal master, there 
 is not a word of truth in it j it would be much more 
 like him in his cups to give him a high-flown dis- 
 course upon all the cardinal virtues and Christian 
 graces. Seriously, I believe him to be as honest, as 
 frank, and as open a character, as free from all little 
 meannesses as any man in the whole world/' — Miss God- 
 frey to Moore, Feb. 1816. Moore' 's Memoirs, vol. ii. 95. 
 
 This character of Lord Sidmouth, however, renders 
 it the more remarkable that he took no notice of the 
 following State Paper which endeavours to prove the 
 insidious artifice of Godwin in disseminating his 
 peculiar views under the harmless appearance of 
 children's books. The writer of the paper, whose 
 name is not given, probably calculated on the popular 
 estimate of Lord Sidmouth's religious principles for 
 his taking a special interest in the subject. In this 
 
GOD WIN'S JU YENILE LIBRA Ji Y. 1 6; 
 
 he was mistaken. "Whether Lord Sidmouth would 
 have preferred to " drink up Esil, eat a crocodile/' or 
 ride one, rather than read Godwin's Juvenile Library, 
 cannot be stated with absolute certainty ; but that he 
 did not do so is plain from the only endorsement 
 which appears on the back of the following remarkable 
 document, the brief but significant word " nil. - " The 
 paper is to be found in the Record Office : " Domestic, 
 Geo. Ill,, 1813. January to March. No. 217." 
 
 " a few particulars concerning godwin^ juvenile 
 Library which ought to be made generally 
 
 KNOWN. 
 
 u Godwin's Library was carried on for some time 
 in Hanway Yard, Oxford Street, without any name 
 either at the shop or on the several publications pub- 
 lished for it. The business has since been removed to 
 Skinner Street,* Snow Hill, for the last three or four 
 years ; for some time also it was called the Juvenile 
 Library; no name appeared. 
 
 " At length Mr. J. Godwinf was written on the 
 door-post in very small letters ; within a very few 
 months it appeared boldly in large letters over the 
 door; still it is very little known that the proprietor 
 
 * Curran, in a letter to Leonard MaeNally, gives the number 
 " Godwin's, 41, Skinner Street, Loudon." — Life of Curran, by his 
 Son, vol. ii. p. 172. 
 
 t This could scarcely be intended for John Godwin, an elder 
 brother of William, who was a member of the Inner Temple, and 
 died in 1805 {Notes and Queries, 3rd S. i. p. 503). Shelley, 
 writing from Field Place, Dec. 20th, 18 10, speaks of a John Godwin 
 then living. " It is not William Godwin who lives in Holborn — it 
 is John; no relative to the other" (Hogg, i. 144). In the same 
 letter Shelley says he had written to William Godwin. The 
 philosopher replied briefly, and addressed his correspondent as 
 '* Reverend." 
 
 M 
 
162 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 is Godwin, the author of Political Justice. There 
 appears to be a regular system through all his publi- 
 cations to supersede all other elementary books, and 
 to make his library the resort of preparatory schools, 
 that in time the principles of democracy and Theo- 
 philanthropy may take place universally. 
 
 " In order to allure schools of a moderate and a 
 lower class, he holds out the temptation of an allow- 
 ance of threepence in every shilling for such books as 
 are published by him. He publishes books with the 
 name of Edward Baldwin, Esq., which are said to be 
 his own writing. 
 
 " One of these, Baldwin s Mythology, has been in- 
 troduced at the Charter House. It is an insidious 
 and dangerous publication. The preface is calculated to 
 mislead well-disposed persons, w T ho may perhaps be too 
 indolent or misjudging to read through the whole 
 work ; it professes to exalt the purity and show the 
 superiority of Christianity over the heathen morality 
 taught in the Grecian and Roman mythology, and 
 then through the whole work improperly excites the 
 curiosity of young persons to read the grossest stories 
 on the subject, and artfully hints the wisdom of the 
 morality of the heathen world. The principal works he 
 has published are a Grecian, a Roman, and an English 
 History, all three of the size of Goldsmith's abridg- 
 ments. In these, every democratic sentiment is printed 
 in italics that they may not fail to present themselves 
 to a child's notice, and as a specimen of some ideas 
 contained in these works the following may be men- 
 tioned. In the History of Rome, instead of carrying 
 it down to the destruction of the Empire it leaves off 
 at the reign of Augustus, and in italics remarks that 
 it is useless to write the History of the tyrants who 
 
STATE PAPER ON GODWIN IN THE RECORD OFFICE. 163 
 
 governed for the remaining 400 years, for when it 
 ceased to be a Republic it ceased to deserve the name 
 of History. 
 
 " The History of England opens with some extra- 
 ordinary remarks on the subject of the Druids and 
 the subsequent introduction of Christianity into the 
 island. When it arrives at the reign of Elizabeth, 
 instead of noticing the Reformation it says she was 
 tinctured with superstition, though in other respects 
 a woman of abilities ; and the reign of George the 
 Third is only remarkable for two events — America 
 declaring her Independence and the Revolution in 
 France. 
 
 " Godwin hos also among his list Mylius's English 
 Dictionary, which has been inadvertently introduced 
 into Christ's Hospital. It is a pocket dictionary, the 
 danger of which consists in giving only one meaning to 
 words which have several, and omitting all such 
 words as philosophers of the present day do not like 
 to explain. For example, take the word f revolu- 
 tion/ the meaning given is, ' things returning to their 
 just state/ By their interpretation the Bible is no 
 longer to be understood The Book, but according to 
 it there are various bibles, one for every religious sect, 
 for example, the word ' Koran, the Bible of the 
 Mahometans/ 
 
 " The next publication is an abridgment of Home 
 Tooke's Diversions of Purley, by Haylets, simplified, as 
 it is pretended, for young people, to the price of 
 35. 6d., and again reduced to a one shilling publication. 
 Next, Fables Ancient and Modem, by Baldwin, which 
 are amplified to four pages for each fable. 
 
 " By these different publications it is evident there 
 is an intention to have every work published for the 
 
 m % 
 
164 PERCY B YSSHE 8HEL LB Y. 
 
 Juvenile Library that can be required in the early in- 
 struction of children, and thus by degrees to give an 
 opportunity for every principle professed by the 
 infidels and republicans of these days to be intro- 
 duced to their notice. 
 
 " By such means did Voltaire and his brethren 
 for twenty years before the Revolution in France 
 spread infidelity and disloyalty through the remotest 
 provinces of that country, and we know too well bow 
 they succeeded. 
 
 "In the Times' newspaper of this date (17 Feb. 
 1813) the various juvenile books of Mr. Godwin are 
 advertised with a positive statement at the head of 
 the advertisement that they are sanctioned by the 
 schoolmasters of Christ Hospital and used in that insti- 
 tution. 3 ' 
 
 There is no signature to this paper. No action 
 seems to have been taken upon it. To the last passage, 
 which is underlined, there is a " N.B." in pencil in the 
 margin. The only endorsement except the date, 
 "17 Feb. 1813," is, as I have said, the word "nil." 
 
 Retracing our steps after this digression about 
 Godwin, we resume our narrative of Shelley's pro- 
 ceedings in Dublin. 
 
 Shelley's Address to the Irish People came from the 
 printer's hand on the 24th of February, 1812. On 
 that day, as we have seen, he sent an early copy by 
 post to Godwin. On the following day, the 25th, 
 the pamphlet was published. The advertisement 
 which appeared in the Dublin Evening Post of that 
 date has already been given. We may be sure that 
 one of the earliest copies presented personally by 
 Shelley was to the Master of the Rolls. " I have not 
 
SHELLETS LETTER TO HAMILTON ROWAN. \6$ 
 
 seen Mr. Curran," says Shelley, in a letter to Godwin 
 of the 8th of March. " I have called repeatedly, left 
 my address and my pamphlet. I will see him before 
 I leave Dublin." On the day of publication he sent 
 a copy of the Address to the Irish People to Hamilton 
 Rowan, with the following letter : — 
 
 "7, Lower Sackville Street, Feb. 25th, 1812. 
 
 " Sir, — Although I have not the pleasure of being 
 personally known to you, I consider the motives which 
 actuated me in writing the inclosed sufficiently intro- 
 ductory to authorize me in sending you some copies, 
 and waiving ceremonials in a case where public 
 benefit is concerned. Sir, although an Englishman, 
 I feel for Ireland; and I have left the country in 
 which the chance of birth placed me for the sole 
 purpose of adding my little stock of usefulness to the 
 fund which I hope that Ireland possesses to aid me in 
 the unequal yet sacred combat in which she is 
 engaged. In the course of a few days more I shall 
 print another small pamphlet, which shall be sent to 
 you. I have intentionally vulgarized the language of 
 the enclosed. I have printed 1500 copies, and am 
 now distributing them throughout Dublin. 
 
 " Sir, with respect, 
 
 " I am your obedient humble servant, 
 
 " P. B. Shelley." 
 
 Mr. Middleton, in his work called Shelley and his 
 Writings, referring to this subject, says, " Dr. Drum- 
 mond tells us that ' Shelley selected Ireland as a 
 theatre the widest and fairest for the operations of 
 the determined friends of political and religious free- 
 dom' (vol. i. p. 210), and adds in a note, c See Life of 
 
1 66* PERC Y B YSSUE SIl EL I E Y. 
 
 Hamilton Rowan/ w It is quite evident that this 
 gentleman did not consult the work from which he 
 professes to quote. The observation about selecting 
 Ireland is not Dr. Drumniond's but Shelley's, and is to 
 be found in the postscript to his first pamphlet. No 
 one who had Dr. Drumniond's book before him could 
 fall into this mistake. He says, " In February, 1812, 
 the celebrated poet Percy Bysshc Shelley paid a visit 
 to Dublin, having, as he informs us, ( selected Ireland 
 as a theatre the widest and fairest for the operations 
 of the determined friends of religious and political 
 freedom' u (p. 388). In this extract, however, Dr. 
 Drummond himself has not transcribed the words quite 
 correctly. Shelley says, " the friend," not " the 
 friends " " of religious and political freedom." 
 
 The fact that Hamilton Rowan preserved, until the 
 day of his death, which took place on the 1st of No- 
 vember, 1834, when he had reached his eighty-fourth 
 year, both the pamphlet and letter of Shelley, shows 
 that he must have felt some interest both in the sub- 
 ject and in the writer. Could he have foreseen the 
 connexion which was ultimately to take place between 
 the daughter of his old friend Mary Wollstonecraft,* 
 and the young political enthusiast of 1 8 1 2, we may be 
 sure that in him Shelley would have found a sincere 
 
 * The fact that Mary Wollstonecraft's mother was an Irishwoman 
 may not have been without interest to Hamilton Rowan. " Her 
 father's name was Edward John," says Mr. Godwin, " and the name 
 of her mother Elizabeth, of the family of Dixons of Ballyshannon, 
 in the kingdom of Ireland " {Memoirs of the Author of a Vin- 
 dication of the Eight of Woman, p. 5). Some interesting particu- 
 lars of Mary Wollstonecraft's life in France during her connexion 
 with Mr. Gilbert Imlay may be found in The Autobiography of 
 Hamilton Mowan, by Dr. Drummond. 
 
COPY OF PAMPHLET SENT TO HAMILTON ROWAN. 167 
 
 and useful friend. Shelley in his letter speaks of 
 " copies" of his pamphlet, but one only it would ap- 
 pear was sent. This particular copy I have seen. On 
 the death of Mr. Rowan, after a brief delay, his papers 
 were placed in the hands of the Rev. Dr. Drummond, 
 one of the ministers of the Unitarian Meeting-house, 
 Strand Street, Dublin, and with these the letter and 
 pamphlet of Shelley. The Address to the Irish People 
 was inscribed on the title-page in Mr. Rowan's hand- 
 writing, " Mr. Shelley's pamphlet with a letter/'' The 
 letter as above stated was printed in the Autobiogra- 
 phy of Hamilton Rowan, and the original in this way 
 got separated from the pamphlet. This was sold a 
 few years ago, after the death of Dr. Drummond, at 
 the auction of his library. It was bought by a Dublin 
 bookseller, who deals almost exclusively in works re- 
 lating to Ireland,* and was resold by him, as he 
 informs me, to the late learned Dr. Todd, the Librarian 
 of Trinity College, Dublin, who purchased it either for 
 himself or the College library. On the sale of Dr. 
 Todd's valuable library, however, which commenced 
 on November 15th, 1869, it was not forthcoming; 
 neither had it been received at the library of Trinity 
 College a year later, when I inquired for it. 
 
 The two days that followed the writing of the 
 letter to Hamilton Rowan must have been busy and 
 exciting ones for Shelley. How he was occupied, and 
 the extraordinary steps he took to circulate his pam- 
 phlet among the people of Dublin, will be best shown 
 by the following copious extracts from a hitherto un- 
 
 * Mr. John O'Daly, of 9, Anglesea Street, Dublin, in whose 
 Bibliotheca Hihemica the Address to the Irish People, by Percy 
 Bysshe Shelley, was advertised at the time referred to. 
 
168 PBRO 7 n 78SHE 8EEL LE V. 
 
 published letter of Shelley to his philosophical female 
 friend at Hurstpierpoint in Sussex. Long as these 
 extracts are, they form only a portion of the letter. 
 I have selected only those passages that refer to the 
 public objects he had in view — such explanations as 
 seem needful will be given at the end. 
 
 From an unpublished letter of Shelley to Miss Hitchener. 
 " Feb. 27 [181 2], 7, Lower Sackville Street. 
 
 " I have already sent 400 of my Irish pamphlets 
 into the world, and they have excited a sensation of 
 wonder in Dublin. 1100 yet remain for distribution. 
 Copies have been sent to sixty public-houses. No 
 prosecution is yet attempted. I do not see how it can 
 be. Congratulate me, my friend, for everything pro- 
 ceeds well. I could not expect more rapid success. 
 The persons with whom I have got acquainted approve 
 of my principles .... but they differ from the 
 mode of my improving their principles *'.... [Re- 
 ferring to his wish to have his friend with him in 
 Dublin, he says that it did not arise from any private 
 partiality], "but because you would share with me the 
 high delight of awaking a noble nation from the 
 lethargy of its bondage. Expectation is on the tip- 
 toe. I send a man out every day to distribute copies, 
 with instructions where and how to give them. His 
 account corresponds with the multitudes of people who 
 possess them. I stand at the balcony of our window, 
 and watch till I see a man who looks likely. I throw 
 a book to him. On Monday my next book makes its 
 appearance : this is addressed to a different class, re- 
 commending and proposing associations. I have in 
 my mind a plan for proselytizing the young men at 
 
MODE OF DISTRIBUTING TEE PAMPHLET. 169 
 
 Dublin College. Those who are not entirely given up 
 to the grossness of dissipation are perhaps reclaimable." 
 . . . . " Whilst you are with ns in Wales I shall at- 
 tempt to organize one there" [that is, a " philanthro- 
 pic association"], which will co-operate with the 
 Dublin one. Might I not extend them all over Eng- 
 land, and quietly revolutionize the country ?".... 
 " My youtli is much against me here. Strange that 
 truth should not be judged by its inherent excellence, 
 independent of any reference to the utterer. To im- 
 prove on this advantage, the servant gave out I was 
 only fifteen years of age." .... Ci I have not yet 
 seen Curran. I do not like him for accepting the 
 office of Master" [of the Rolls] . " O'Connor, brother 
 to the rebel Arthur, is here." [I have] " written to 
 him. Do not fear what you say in your letters. I 
 am resolved. Good principles are scarce here. The 
 public papers are either Oppositionists or Ministerial. 
 One is as contemptible and narrow as the other. I 
 wish I could change this. I am of course hated by 
 both of those parties. The remnant of united Irish- 
 men whose wrongs make them hate England, I have 
 more hope of. I have met with no determined re- 
 publicans, but have found some who are democrat - 
 ifiable." . . . . " We shall leave this place at the end 
 of April. I must not be idle in Wales : there you 
 will come to us. Bring the dear little Americans, 
 resign your school, and live with us for ever." 
 
 The postscript is by Harriet. 
 
 " Percy has given me his letter to fill up, but what 
 Fm to say I really do not know. Oh, yesterday I 
 received a most affectionate letter from dear Mrs. 
 C " [probably Calvert]. "Now don't you be 
 
1 70 PBRO Y B Y3SEE SHELLBYi 
 
 jealous wlion T mention her name. She is afraid we 
 shall effect no good here, and thinks our opinions will 
 change of the Irish. We have seen very little of them 
 as yet, but when Percy is more known, I suppose we 
 shall know more at the same time. My pen is very 
 had, according to custom. I am sure you would 
 laugh were you to see us give the pamphlets. We 
 throw them out of window, and give them to men 
 that we pass in the streets. For myself I am ready to 
 die of laughter when it is done, and Percy looks so 
 grave. Yesterday he put one into a woman's hood 
 of a cloak. She knew nothing of it, and we passed 
 her and could hardly get on, my muscles (?) were so 
 irritated/' (?) 
 
 There is a second postscript by Shelley. 
 
 " I have been necessarily called away whilst Harriet 
 has been scribbling. You may guess how much my 
 time is taken up. Adieu — the post will go. You will 
 soon hear again from your affectionate and unalter- 
 able " Percy."" 
 
 The whole of these curious extracts will be read 
 with interest, particularly perhaps the girlish and 
 simple postscript of Harriet. The eleven hundred 
 copies of the Address to the Irish People which re- 
 mained for distribution seem to have been almost all 
 dispersed by the 18th of March, as we shall find by 
 Harriet's remarkable letter of that date which was 
 stopped at Holyhead, and a copy of which, sent to the 
 Home Secretary, is still preserved in the Record Office, 
 that few then remained in the possession of the author. 
 It is to be noticed that at the moment when Shelley 
 " could not expect more rapid success/' he had fixed 
 
the time of his intended departure from Ireland. This 
 disposes of the statement so frequently repeated that 
 Shelley abandoned his Irish project in disgust. The 
 man whom Shelley sent out every day to distribute 
 the pamphlets, was in all probability a the servant " 
 who gave out that Shelley was only fifteen years of 
 age. This was Daniel Hill, who accompanied the 
 Shclleys to Barnstaple, who was arrested and impri- 
 soned there, who turned up at a critical moment at 
 Tanyrallt, returned with the Shelleys to Dublin, and 
 eventually went with them to London. The letter of 
 Shelley corroborates the story told in the North 
 British Review, for November, 1847, in an article on 
 the Life and Writings of Shelley. The paper was 
 written by my lamented friend the late Dr. Anster, 
 the translator of Faust* He says : — " Shelley's 
 pamphlet is before us. Medwin it seems searched in 
 vain for a copy. Ours was obtained through an Irish 
 friend of Shelley's, whose acquaintance with the poet 
 originated accidentally. A poor man offered the 
 pamphlet for a few p'ence — its price stated on the 
 title-page was fivepence. On being asked how he 
 got it, he said a parcel of them were given him by a 
 
 * In the last letter which I had the pleasure of receiving from 
 the celebrated author of the History of Spanish Literature, Mr. 
 Ticknor makes the following allusion to Dr. Anster, under date 
 Boston, Aug. 29th, 1870. "I was touched and pleased to see your 
 extract from Anster 's Faustus, which I have liked ever since parts 
 of it appeared anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine. Indeed I 
 knew the author afterwards in Dublin in 1835, an< ^ ^ ave a C0 PJ °^ 
 the first part, which I value not a little as his gift. I dare say 
 you knew him. Yours very cordially, George Ticknor." This 
 tribute of the great American scholar, written a few months before 
 his death, to the memory of a highly accomplished, able, and 
 amiable man will be read with interest. 
 
1 7 2 PERCY B YSSHB 8HELLEY. 
 
 young gentleman, who told him to get what he could 
 for them — at all events to distribute them. Inquiry 
 was made at Shelley's lodgings to ascertain the truth 
 of the vendor's story. He was not at home ; but 
 when lie heard of it he went to return the visit, and 
 kindly acquaintanceship thus arose. The Shelleys — 
 husband and wife — were then Pythagoreans. Shelley 
 spoke as a man believing in the metempsychosis — and 
 they did not eat animal food. They seem however 
 to have tolerated it ; for on one occasion a fowl was 
 murdered for our friend's dinner. Of the first Mrs. 
 Shelley the recollection of our friend is faint, but it is 
 of an amiable and unaffected person ; very young 
 and very pleasing, and she and Shelley seemed much 
 attached/' After describing the Address to the Irish 
 People, Dr. Anster says (speaking of Shelley) : " And 
 he promises another pamphlet, in which he shall 
 reveal the plan and structure of the proposed associa- 
 tion. Whether he printed that pamphlet we have not 
 been able to learn." — North British Review, vol. viii. 
 Nov. 1847. 
 
 This last sentence raises considerable doubt as to 
 the extent of the personal acquaintance said to have 
 existed between Dr. Anster's friend and Shelley. A 
 person who had sought Shelley out in consequence of 
 the interest excited in him by the first pamphlet could 
 scarcely have been left in ignorance of the second. 
 Of the second pamphlet Dr. Anster's informant knew 
 nothing, probably from its not having been mentioned 
 by Medwin, who was equally ignorant of its existence. 
 It was published on Monday the 2nd of March, 
 1 81 2, about a week before the adoption of the Pytha- 
 gorean system of diet by Shelley and his wife. The time 
 at which they commenced to abstain from animal 
 
THE YOUNG MSN OF TRINITY COLLEGE. 173 
 
 food is fixed almost to the day by Harriet herself in 
 an Tin published letter which will subsequently be 
 quoted. In another part of Dr. Anster's very interest- 
 ing paper on Shelley, he speaks from the recollection 
 of the late Chief Baron Woulfe of Shelley's cold and 
 precise mode of addressing a public meeting. This 
 will be found to have arisen from some imperfect 
 recollection of the circumstance by the estimable 
 judge. 
 
 The plan for " proselytizing the young men at 
 Dublin College/' or at least such of them as were not 
 " entirely given up to the grossness of dissipation/' 
 has unfortunately not been revealed. We are left in 
 ignorance also whether it was to patriotism, philan- 
 thropy, or the Pythagorean system they were to be 
 converted. Whatever may have been the direction of 
 the intended reformation, there may be some who will 
 think that this project was not the least chimerical of 
 those that occupied the mind and heart of the young 
 poet when in Dublin. 
 
 The balcony in front of 7, Lower Sackville Street, 
 from which Shelley and Harriet threw the pamphlets 
 to whoever looked "likely," still remains. It runs 
 across the whole width of the house, so that Percy 
 and Harriet had each a window from which they 
 could bombard the astonished town with (< books/' 
 We have no doubt that he must have enjoyed this 
 mode of diffusing useful knowledge immensely — quite 
 as much as he did the following year at Lymouth 
 when he substituted for it his oil-skin boats and air- 
 tight bottles. The house then belonging to Mr. 
 Dunne was occupied for many years by Messrs. Kohler 
 and Co., and is now in possession of Messrs. Stark 
 Brothers, printsellers and artists. As long as the 
 
.74 P ERC Y 8 YSSHB SHELLEY. 
 
 balcony remains it will always be an object of interest 
 to those who regard with something like affection 
 even the " local habitation '' of an author whom they 
 love as well as admire. 
 
 The " O'Connor, brother to the rebel Arthur/' to 
 whom Shelley wrote, was the celebrated Roger 
 O'Connor, father of the perhaps still more famous 
 Fergus O'Connor. The history of Arthur O'Connor, 
 who became a general in the French service, is too 
 well known to be dwelt on here. Arthur and Ptoger 
 O'Connor were nephews of Viscount Longucvillc, and 
 the events of both their lives are full of romance and 
 mystery. The most famous event in the life of Roger 
 was the charge, for which he was tried and acquitted 
 in 1817, of having, with a band of his retainers, robbed 
 the Galway mail coach in 18 12., the year in which the 
 letter above alluded to was addressed to him by 
 Shelley. It is stated that plunder was not the 
 motive of this daring outrage ; but that certain docu- 
 ments of a political nature compromising both Roger 
 O'Connor and Sir Francis Burdett being known to 
 be in the mail bags, the attempt to secure them was 
 made and successfully carried out. The active agents 
 in the matter were, however, not so fastidious in their 
 tastes. Five of the gang were subsequently hanged 
 at Cavan for attempting to pass some of the bank- 
 notes plundered on this occasion. If there had been 
 any person of rank the leader or tempter in this out- 
 rage, the fidelity of these men is very remarkable. 
 From my own recollection I know that a popular 
 though unfounded impression exists in Ireland that 
 Roger O'Connor had something to do with the affair. 
 That seems to have arisen from an idea that there 
 was enough of the daring and romantic in the act as 
 
ROGER O COX NOR AND SIR FRANCIS BURDETT. 175 
 
 to make it not uncharacteristic of the man. There is 
 no evidence whatever worth a moment's consideration 
 that would in any way connect Sir Francis Burdett 
 with such a lawless proceeding. In fact, the circum- 
 stance of his coming to Ireland in 1817 to stand be- 
 side his friend, for whose independence of mind on 
 political matters he had a great regard, when Roger 
 O'Connor was tried for this offence and acquitted, 
 is an evidence not only of his own, but of his friend's 
 innocence in the matter. Those who care to read 
 " a sensational story " on the subject, should get the 
 sixth edition of Mr. Fitzpatrick's popular work 
 Ireland before the Union, as certain misappre- 
 hensions connected with Sir Francis Burdett, pre- 
 viously inserted in the work,, are corrected in that 
 edition. 
 
 Nothing further in Shelley's letter of the 27th of 
 February, 18 12, seems to require explanation. 
 
 The following extract is taken from another unpub- 
 lished letter of Shelley to Miss Hitchener. It is undated, 
 but was probably written some time after the preceding. 
 The intended visit to the printer could have no 
 reference to the second pamphlet, which was by that 
 time probably struck off, as it was published three 
 days later. It was more likely in connexion with The 
 Declaration of Rights, a broadside intended for posting 
 on walls, which he printed at Dublin, and which formed 
 part of the seizure at Holyhead on the 30th of March, 
 1812. The establishment of the very peculiar bank of 
 deposit referred to in the following extract, w 7 here the 
 common stock of the three travellers was kept for 
 security, was not a discreditable, and may have been 
 a wise precaution on the part of the much abused Eliza 
 Westbrook : — 
 
1 76 PERCY B YSSJIE SI J EL I E Y. 
 
 {From an unpullished letter of Shelley.) 
 
 11 . . . . Things go on in Ireland as you shall know. 
 1 haw much food for interest and occupation of mind 
 in the events of each day." .'..." Eliza keeps our 
 common stock of money for safety in some nook or 
 corner of her dress, but we are not dependent on her, 
 although she gives it out as we want it." . . . . " You 
 think too meanly of yourself, too highly of me." .... 
 " I proceed (?) in the next street after I have seen 
 the printer." 
 
 It may be mentioned that one of the sheets of The 
 Correspondent, a Dublin newspaper, previously re- 
 ferred to as having been sent to Miss Kitchener as a 
 wrapper to some enclosure, is part of the number for 
 "Friday, March 13th, 18 j 2." Both the pamphlets 
 were at that date printed and circulated. The other 
 sheet of The Correspondent must have belonged to 
 a different and earlier number of that paper, as Shelley 
 writes in it that he sent therewith the first sheet of 
 The Address to the Irish People. The second sheet of 
 The Correspondent, on which there is a rude pen-and- 
 ink drawing by Shelley, probably contained the proof 
 sheet of The Declaration of Rights, and this fixes the 
 time of its being printed, which was certainly before 
 the 1 8th of March, on which day it was forwarded to 
 Holyhead with all the copies of the pamphlets then 
 remaining in Shelley's hands. 
 
 This may be the fitting time to introduce the first 
 of these remarkable pamphlets, The Address to the 
 Irish People. Excepting an occasional correction of 
 some obvious error of the press, it is here printed 
 exactly as in the original. From many of the historical 
 parallels and deductions I entirely differ, as will 
 
WISE ADMONITION OF GODWIN. 177 
 
 doubtless most of my readers. Those who do not may 
 study with advantage the following judicious remarks 
 of Godwin to Shelley himself on the receipt of this 
 very pamphlet : — 
 
 " One principle that I believe is wanting to you, 
 and all our too fervent and impetuous reformers, is 
 the thought that almost every institution or form of 
 society is good in its place, and in the period of time 
 to which it belougs. How many beautiful and 
 admirable effects grew out of Popery and the monastic 
 institution, in the period when they were in their 
 genuine health and vigour. To them we owe almost 
 all our logic and our literature/' — Letter to Shelley, 
 March 4th, 1812* 
 
 * The great excuse of Shelley lies in " his want of religious 
 education at home," which his friend Captain Med win in the words 
 just quoted frankly admits {Life of Shelley, vol. ii. p, 357)* I n 
 that best of schools the feelings of love and reverence which are usually 
 implanted in the minds and hearts of most children seem to have 
 been entirely omitted in the case of the neglected Shelley. To his 
 ill-chosen college friend Mr. Hogg, with whom at the time he was 
 only acquainted six months, he could thus write of the most 
 hallowed circle in the world — that which is drawn around the 
 fireside of one's home. " Certain members of my family," says 
 Shelley, " are no more Christians than Epicurus himself" {Hogg, 
 vol. i. p. 377). We may deplore the sad condition of such a 
 childhood, but we cannot admit that the experience which is here 
 so painfully acknowledged prepared the writer to be either a just 
 or competent critic of the effects of religious teaching on the minds 
 of others who happily were subject to far different influences. As 
 for the supposed facts, historical and theological, in Shelley's 
 pamphlet, they are for the most part simply untrue. The uncon- 
 scious libel on the religion of the people he addressed, which he calls 
 " fair," is, under the circumstances of the case, absolutely amusing. 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 IRISH PEOPLE. 
 
 BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The lowest possible price is set on this publication, because it is the inten- 
 tion of the Author to awaken in the minds of the Irish "poor a know- 
 ledge of their real state, summarily pointing out the evils of that 
 state, and suggesting rational means of remedy. — Catholic Emanci- 
 pation, and a Repeal of the Union Act (the latter, the mos' successful 
 engine that England ever wielded over the misery of fallen Ireland) 
 being treated of in the following Address, as grievances which 
 unanimity and resolution may remove, and associations conducted 
 with peaceable firmness, being earnestly recommended as means for 
 embodying that unanimity and firmness which must finally be 
 successful. 
 
 Bublm 
 
 1812. 
 Price §d. 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 IEISH PEOPLE. 
 
 Fellow Men, — 
 
 I am not an Irishman, yet I can feel for 
 you. I hope there are none among yon who will read 
 this address with prejudice or levity, because it is 
 made by an Englishman ; indeed, I believe there are 
 not. The Irish are a brave nation. They have - a 
 heart of liberty in their breasts, but they are much 
 mistaken if they fancy that a stranger cannot have as 
 warm a one. Those are my brothers and my coun- 
 trymen who are unfortunate. I should like to know 
 what there is in a man being an Englishman, a 
 Spaniard, or a Frenchman that makes him worse or 
 better than he really is. He was born in one town, 
 you in another, but that is no reason why he should 
 not feel for you, desire your benefit, or be willing to 
 give you some advice, which may make you more 
 capable of knowing your own interest, or acting so as 
 to secure it. There are many Englishmen who cry 
 down the Irish, and think it answers their ends to 
 revile all that belongs to Ireland : but it is not because 
 these men are Englishmen that they maintain such 
 
1 82 . PERC Y B YSSUE SHELLE Y. 
 
 opinions, but because they wish to get money, and 
 titles, and power. They would act in this manner to 
 whatever country they might belong, until mankind is 
 much altered for the better, which reform, I hope, 
 will one day be effected. I address you, then, as my 
 brothers and my fellow men, for I should wish to see 
 the Irishman who, if England was persecuted as 
 Ireland is, who, if France was persecuted as Ireland 
 is, who, if any set of men that helped to do a public 
 service, were prevented from enjoying its benefits as 
 Irishmen are — 1 should like to see the man, I say, 
 who would see these misfortunes, and not attempt to 
 succour the sufferers when he could, just that I might 
 tell him that he was no Irishman, but some bastard 
 mongrel bred up in a court, or some coward fool who 
 was a democrat to all above him, and an aristocrat to 
 all below him. I think there are few true Irishmen 
 who would not be ashamed of such a character, still 
 fewer who possess it. I know that there are some, not 
 among you, my friends, but among your enemies, who, 
 seeing the title of this piece, will take it up with a 
 sort of hope that it may recommend violent measures, 
 and thereby disgrace the cause of freedom, that the 
 warmth of an heart desirous that liberty should be 
 possessed equally by all, will vent itself in abuse on 
 the enemies of liberty, bad men who deserve the con- 
 tempt of the good, and ought not to excite their 
 indignation to the harm of their cause. But these 
 men will be disappointed — I know the warm feeling 
 of an Irishman sometimes carries him beyond the 
 point of prudence. I do not desire to root out, but 
 to moderate this honourable warmth. This will dis- 
 appoint the pioneers of oppression, and they will be 
 sorry that through this address nothing will occur 
 
AX ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 183 
 
 which can be twisted into any other meaning but 
 what is calculated to fill yon with that moderation 
 which they have not, and make you give them that 
 toleration which they refuse to grant to you. You 
 profess the Roman Catholic religion which your fathers 
 professed before you. Whether it is the best religion 
 or not I will not here inquire : all religions are good 
 which make men good ; and the way that a person 
 ought to prove that his method of worshipping God is 
 best is for himself to be better than all other men. 
 But we will consider what your religion was in old 
 times and what it is now ; you may say it is not a fair 
 way for me to proceed as a Protestant, but I am not a 
 Protestant, nor am I a Catholic, and therefore not 
 being a follower of either of these religions, I am 
 better able to judge between them. A Protestant is 
 my brother, and a Catholic is my brother. I am 
 happy when I can do either of them a service, and no 
 pleasure is so great to me than that which I should 
 feel if my advice could make men of any profession of 
 faith, wiser, better, and happier. 
 
 The Roman Catholics once persecuted the Protes- 
 tants, the Protestants now persecute the Roman 
 Catholics. Should we think that one is as bad as the 
 other? No, you are not answerable for the faults of 
 your fathers any more than the Protestants are good 
 for the goodness of their fathers. I must judge of 
 people as I see them ; the Irish Catholics are badly 
 used. I will not endeavour to hide from them their 
 wretchedness ; they would think that I mocked at them 
 if I should make the attempt. The Irish Catholics now 
 demand for themselves and proffer for others un- 
 limited toleration, and the sensible part among them, 
 which I am willing to think constitutes a very large 
 
184 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 portion of their body, know that the gates of Heaven 
 are open to people of every religion, provided they are 
 good. But the Protestants, although they may think 
 so in their hearts, which certainly, if they think at all, 
 they must, seem to act as if they thought that God was 
 better pleased with them than with you ; they trust the 
 reins of earthly government only to the hands of their 
 own sect. In spite of this, I never found one of them 
 impudent enough to say that a Roman Catholic, or a 
 Quaker, or a Jew, or a Mahometan, if he was a virtuous 
 man, and did all the good in his power, would go to 
 Heaven a bit the slower for not subscribing to the 
 thirty-nine articles ; and if he should say so, how ridi- 
 culous in a foppish courtier not six feet high to direct 
 the spirit of universal harmony in what manner to 
 conduct the affairs of the universe ! 
 
 The Protestants say that there was a time when the 
 Roman Catholics burnt and murdered people of diffe- 
 rent sentiments, and that their religious tenets are 
 now as they were then. This is all very true. You 
 certainly worshrp God in the same way that you did 
 when these barbarities took place, but is that any reason 
 that you should now be barbarous ? There is as much 
 reason to suppose it as to suppose that because a man's 
 great-grandfather, who was a Jew, had been hung for 
 sheepstealing, that I, by believing the same religion 
 as he did, must certainly commit the same crime. Let 
 us then tee what the Roman Catholic religion has been. 
 No one knows much of the early times of the Christian 
 religion until about three hundred years after its be- 
 ginning; two great Churches, called the Roman and 
 the Greek Churches, divided the opinions of men. They 
 fought for a very long time — a great many words were 
 wasted, and a great deal of blood shed. 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 185 
 
 This, as you may suppose, did no good. Each 
 party, however, thought they were doing God a service, 
 and that he would reward them. If they had looked 
 an inch before their noses, they might have found that 
 fighting and killing men, and cursing them and hating 
 them, was the very worst way for getting into favour 
 with a Being who is allowed by all to be best pleased 
 with deeds of love and charity. At last, however, 
 these two religions entirely separated, and the popes 
 reigned like kings and bishops at Rome, in Italy. 
 The Inquisition was set up, and in the course of one 
 year 30,000 people were burnt in Italy and Spain 
 for entertaining different opinions from those of the 
 pope and the priests. There was an instance of shock- 
 ing barbarity which the Roman Catholic clergy com- 
 mitted in France by order of the Pope. The bigoted 
 monks of that country, in cold blood, in one night 
 massacred 80,000 Protestants; this was done under 
 the authority of the Pope, and there was only one 
 Roman Catholic bishop who had virtue enough to 
 refuse to help. The vices of monks and nuns in their 
 convents were in those times shameful. People thought 
 that they might commit any sin, however monstrous, 
 if they had money enough to prevail upon the priests 
 to absolve them. In truth, at that time the priests 
 shamefully imposed upon the people ; they got all the 
 power into their own hands; they persuaded them that a 
 man could not be entrusted with the care of his own 
 soul, and by cunningly obtaining possession of their 
 secrets, they became more powerful than kings, princes, 
 dukes, lords, or ministers. This power made them 
 bad men ; for although rational people are very good 
 in their natural state, there are now, and ever have 
 been, very few whose good dispositions despotic power 
 
.86 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 does not destroy. I have now given a fair description 
 of what your religion was ; and Irishmen, my brothers 
 will you make your friend appear a liar, when he takes 
 upon himself to say for you that you are not now what the 
 professors of the same faith were in times of yore. Do 
 I speak false when I say that the Inquisition is the 
 ohject of your hatred ? Am I a liar if I assert that 
 an Irishman prizes liberty dearly, that he will preserve 
 that right, and if it be wrong, does not dream that 
 money can give to a priest, or the talking of another 
 man erring like himself, can in the least influence the 
 judgment of the eternal God ? I am not a liar if I 
 affirm in your name, that you believe a Protestant 
 equally with yourself to be worthy of the kingdom of 
 Heaven, if he be equally virtuous, that you will treat 
 men as brethren wherever you may find them, and 
 that difference of opinion in religious matters shall not, 
 does not, in the least on your part obstruct the most 
 perfect harmony on every other subject. Ah ! no, 
 Irishmen, I am not a liar. I seek your confidence, 
 not that I may betray it, but that I may teach you to 
 be happy and wise and good. If you will not repose 
 any trust in me I shall lament ; but I will do everything 
 in my power that is honourable, fair, and open to gain 
 it. Some teach you that others are heretics, that you 
 alone are right ; some teach that rectitude consists in 
 religious opinions, without which no morality is good. 
 Some will tell you that you ought to divulge your 
 secrets to one particular set of men. Beware, my 
 friends, how you trust those who speak in this way. 
 They will, I doubt not, attempt to rescue you from 
 your present miserable state, but they will prepare a 
 worse. It will be out of the frying-pan into the 
 fire. Your present oppressors, it is true, will then 
 
.4 "V ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. [87 
 
 oppress you no longer, but you will feel the lash of a 
 master a thousand times more bloodthirsty and cruel. 
 Evil designing men will spring up who will prevent 
 you thinking as you please — will burn you if you do 
 not think as they do. There are always bad men 
 who take advantage of hard times. The monks and 
 the priests of old were very bad men; take care no 
 such abuse your confidence again. You are not blind 
 to your present situation ; you are villanously treated ; 
 you are badly used. That this slavery shall cease, I 
 will venture to prophesy. Your enemies dare not to 
 persecute you longer, the spirit of Ireland is bent, but 
 it is not broken, and that they very well know. But 
 I wish your views to embrace a wider scene — I wish 
 you to think for your children and your children's 
 children ; to take great care (for it all rests with you) 
 that whilst one tyranny is destroyed, another more 
 terrible and fierce does not spring up. Take care 
 then of smooth-faced impostors, who talk indeed of 
 freedom, but who will cheat you into slavery. Can there 
 be worse slavery than the depending for the safety of 
 your soul on the will of another man ? Is one man 
 more favoured than another by God ? No, certainly, 
 they are all favoured according to the good they do, and 
 not according to the rank and profession they hold. 
 God values a poor man as much as a priest, and has 
 given him a soul as much to himself. The worship 
 that a kind Being must love, is that of a simple affec- 
 tionate heart, that shows its piety in good works, and 
 not in ceremonies, or confessions, or burials, or proces- 
 sions, or wonders. Take care then that you are not 
 led away. Doubt everything that leads you not to 
 charity, and think of the word " heretic" as a word 
 which some selfish knave invented for the ruin and 
 
1 88 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 misery of the world, to answer his own paltry and 
 narrow ambition. Do not inquire if a man be a heretic, 
 if he be a Quaker, a Jew, or a Heathen ; but if he be a 
 virtuous man, if he loves liberty and truth, if he wish 
 the happiness and peace of human kind. If a man be 
 ever so much a believer and love not these things, he 
 is a heartless hypocrite, a rascal, and a knave* Despise 
 and hate him as ye despise a tyrant and a villain. 
 Oh, Ireland ! thou emerald of the ocean, whose sons 
 are generous and brave, whose daughters are honour- 
 able and frank and fair, thou art the isle on whose 
 green shores I have desired to see the standard of 
 liberty erected — a flag of fire — a beacon at which the 
 world shall light the torch of Freedom ! 
 
 We will now examine the Protestant religion. Its 
 origin is called the Reformation. It was undertaken 
 by some bigoted men who showed how little they 
 understood the spirit of reform by burning each other. 
 You will observe that these men burnt each other, 
 indeed they universally betrayed a taste for destroy- 
 ing, and vied with the chiefs of the Roman Catholic 
 religion in not only hating their enemies, but those 
 men who least of all were their enemies, or anybody's 
 enemies. Now do the Protestants or do they not 
 hold the same tenets as they did when Calvin burnt 
 Servetus ? They swear that they do. We can have no 
 better proof. Then with what face can the Protestants 
 object to Catholic Emancipation on the plea that 
 Catholics once were barbarous ; when their own esta- 
 blishment is liable to the very same objections, on the 
 very same grounds ? I think this is a specimen of bare- 
 faced intoleration, which I had hoped would not have 
 disgraced this age ; this age, which is called the age 
 of reason, of thought diffused, of virtue acknowledged, 
 
AN ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 189 
 
 and its principles fixed — oh ! that it may be so. I 
 have mentioned the Catholic and Protestant religions 
 more to show that any objection to the toleration of 
 the one forcibly applies to the non-permission of the 
 other, or rather to show that there is no reason why 
 both might not be tolerated ; why every religion, every 
 form of thinking might not be tolerated. But why do 
 I speak of toleration ? This word seems to mean that 
 there is some merit in the person who tolerates : he 
 has this merit if it be one, of refraining to do an evil 
 act, but he will share the merit with every other 
 peaceable person who pursues his own business, and 
 does not hinder another of his rights. It is not a 
 merit to tolerate, but it is a crime to be intolerant : it 
 is not a merit in me that I sat quietly at home without 
 murdering any one, but it is a crime if I do so. 
 Besides, no act of a national representation can make 
 anything wrong which was not wrong before ; it 
 cannot change virtue and truth, and for a very plain 
 reason : because they are unchangeable. An Act 
 passed in the British Parliament to take away the 
 rights of Catholics to act in that assembly, does not 
 really take them away. It prevents them from doing 
 it by force. This is in such cases the last and only 
 efficacious way. But force is not the test of truth ; 
 they will never have recourse to violence who acknow- 
 ledge no other rule of behaviour but virtue and 
 justice. 
 
 The folly of persecuting men for their religion will 
 appear if we examine it. Why do we persecute 
 them ? to make them believe as we do. Can any- 
 thing be more barbarous or foolish. For although we 
 may make them say they believe as we do, they will 
 not in their hearts do any such thing, indeed they 
 
1 9© PERCY B YSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 cannot; this devilish method can only make them 
 false hypocrites. For what is belief? We cannot 
 believe just what we like, but only what we think to be 
 true ; for you cannot alter a man's opinion by beating 
 or burning, but by persuading him that what you 
 think is right, and this can only be done by fair words 
 and reason. It is ridiculous to call a man a heretic 
 because he thinks differently from you ; he might as 
 well call you one. In the same sense the word 
 orthodox is used ; it # signifies " to think rightly/'' and 
 what can be more vain, presumptuous in any man or 
 any set of men, to put themselves so out of the ordi- 
 nary course of things as to say — " What we think is 
 right, no other people throughout the world have 
 opinions anything like equal to ours." Anything 
 short of unlimited toleration, and complete charity 
 with all men, on which you will recollect that Jesus 
 Christ principally insisted, is wrong, and for this 
 reason. What makes a man to be a good man ? Not 
 his religion, or else there could be no good men in 
 any religion but one, when yet we find that all 
 ages, countries, and opinions have produced them. 
 Virtue and wisdom always so far as they went pro- 
 duced liberty or happiness long before any of the 
 religions now in the world have ever [been ?] heard 
 of. The only use of a religion that ever I could see, 
 is to make men wiser or better ; so far as it does this 
 it is a good one. Now if people are good, and yet have 
 sentiments differing from you, then all the purposes 
 are answered which any reasonable man could want, 
 and whether he thinks like you or not is of too little 
 consequence to employ means which must be disgust- 
 ing and hateful to candid minds ; nay, they cannot 
 approve of such means. For, as I have before said, 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 191 
 
 you cannot believe or disbelieve what you like — 
 perhaps some of you may doubt this, but just try. I 
 will take a common and familiar instance. Suppose 
 you have a friend of whom you wish to think well ; he 
 commits a crime which proves to you that he is a 
 bad man. It is very painful to you to think ill of 
 him, and you would still think well of him if you 
 could. But mark the word, you cannot think well of 
 him, not even to secure your own peace of mind can 
 you do so. You try, but your attempts are vain. This 
 shows how little power a man has over his belief, or 
 rather, that he cannot believe what he does not think 
 true. And what shall we think now ? What fools 
 and tyrants must not those men be who set up a par- 
 ticular religion, say that this religion alone is right, and 
 that every one who disbelieves it ought to be deprived 
 of certain rights which are really his, and which would 
 be allowed him if he believed. Certainly if you 
 cannot help disbelief, it is not any fault in you. To take 
 away a man's rights and privileges, to call him a 
 heretic, or to think worse of him, when at the same 
 time you cannot help owning that he has committed 
 no fault, is the grossest tyranny and intoleration. 
 From what has been said I think we may be justified 
 in concluding that people of all religions ought 
 to have an equal share in the State, that the words 
 heretic and orthodox were invented by a vain villain, 
 and have done a great deal of harm in the world, and 
 that no person is answerable for his belief whose 
 actions are virtuous and moral, that the religion is 
 best whose members are the best men, and that no 
 person can help either his belief or disbelief. Be in 
 charity with all men. It does not therefore signify 
 what your religion was, or what the Protestant 
 
1 9 2 PERC Y B YBSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 religion was, we must consider them as we find them. 
 What are they now ? Yours is not intolerant j indeed, 
 my friends, I have ventured to pledge myself for you 
 that it is not. You merely desire to go to Heaven 
 in your own way, nor will you interrupt fellow 
 travellers, although the road which you take may not 
 be that which they take. Believe me that good- 
 ness of heart and purity of life are things of more 
 value in the eye of the Spirit of Goodness, than idle 
 earthly ceremonies and things which may have anything 
 but charity for their object. And is it for the first or 
 the last of these things that you or the Protestants con- 
 tend ? It is for the last. Prejudiced people indeed 
 are they who grudge to the happiness and comfort of 
 your souls, things which can do harm to no one. They 
 are not compelled to shares in these rites. Irishmen ! 
 knowledge is more extended than in the early period 
 of your religion, people have learned to think, and 
 the more thought there is in the world, the more 
 happiness and liberty will there be : — men begin now 
 to think less of idle ceremonies and more of realities. 
 From a long night have they risen, and they can 
 perceive its darkness. I know no men of thought 
 and learning who do not consider the Catholic 
 idea of purgatory much nearer the truth than the 
 Protestant one of eternal damnation. Can you think 
 that the Mahometans and the Indians, who have done 
 good deeds in this life, will not be rewarded in the 
 next ? The Protestants believe that they will be eter- 
 nally damned, at least they swear that they do. I 
 think they appear in a better light as perjurers 
 than believers in a falsehood so hurtful and un- 
 charitable as this. I propose unli raited toleration, 
 or rather the destruction both of toleration and in- 
 
AN ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 193 
 
 toleration. The act permits certain people to worship 
 God after such a manner, which/ in fact, if not done, 
 would as far as in it lay prevent God from hearing 
 their address. Can we conceive anything more pre- 
 sumptuous, and at the same time more ridiculous, 
 than a set of men granting a licence to God to receive 
 the prayers of certain of his creatures ? Oh, Irishmen ! 
 I am interested in your cause ; and it is not because 
 you are Irishmen or Roman Catholics that I feel with 
 you and feel for you j but because you are men and 
 sufferers. Were Ireland at this moment peopled with 
 Brahmins, this very same Address would have been 
 suggested by the same state of mind. You have 
 suffered not merely for your religion, but some other 
 causes which I am equally desirous of remedying. 
 The Union of England with Ireland has withdrawn the 
 Protestant aristocracy and gentry from their native 
 country, and with these their friends and connections. 
 Their resources are taken from this country, although 
 they are dissipated in another j the very poor people 
 are most infamously oppressed by the weight of burden 
 which the superior ranks lay upon their shoulders. I 
 am no less desirous of the reform of these evils (with 
 many others) than for the Catholic Emancipation. 
 
 Perhaps you all agree with me on both these 
 subjects. We now come to the method of doing these 
 things. I agree with the Quakers so far as they 
 disclaim violence, and trust their cause wholly and 
 solely to its own truth. If you are convinced of the 
 truth of your cause, trust wholly to its truth ; if you 
 are not convinced, give it up. In no case employ 
 violence ; the way to liberty and happiness is never to 
 transgress the rules of virtue and justice. Liberty and 
 happiness are founded upon virtue and justice ; if you 
 
 o 
 
1 94 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 destroy the one you destroy the other. However ill 
 others may act, this will be no excuse for you it' you 
 follow their example ; it ought rather to warn you from 
 pursuing so bad a method. Depend upon it, Irishmen, 
 your cause shall not be neglected. I will fondly hope 
 that the schemes for your happiness and liberty, as well 
 as those for the happiness and liberty of the world, 
 will not be wholly fruitless. One secure method of 
 defeating them is violence on the side of the injured 
 party. If you can descend to use the same weapons 
 as your enemy, you put yourself on a level with him on 
 this score : you must be convinced that he is on these 
 grounds your superior. But appeal to the sacred 
 principles of virtue and justice, then how is he awed 
 into nothing ? How does truth show him in his real 
 colours, and place the cause of toleration and reform 
 in the clearest light ? I extend my view not only to 
 you as Irishmen, but to all of every persuasion, of 
 every country. Be calm, mild, deliberate, patient ; 
 recollect that you can in no measure more effectually 
 forward the cause of reform than by employing your 
 leisure time in reasoning or the cultivation of your 
 minds. Think and talk and discuss : the only subjects 
 you ought to propose are those of happiness and 
 liberty. Be free and be happy, but first be wise and 
 good. For you are not all wise or good. You are a 
 great and a brave nation, but you cannot yet be all 
 wise f r good. You may be at some time, and then 
 Ireland will be an earthly paradise. You know what 
 is meant by a mob. It is an assembly of people who, 
 without foresight or thought, collect themselves to 
 disapprove of by force any measure which they dislike. 
 An assembly like this can never do anything but 
 harm ; tumultuous proceedings must retard the period 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 195 
 
 -when thought and coolness will produce freedom and 
 happiness, and that to the very people who make the 
 mob. But if a number of human beings, after thinking 
 of their own interests, meet together for any conversa- 
 tion on them, and employ resistance of the mind, not 
 resistance of the body, these people are going the 
 right way to work. But let no fiery passions carry 
 them beyond this point. Let them consider that in 
 some sense the whole welfare of their countrymen 
 depends on their prudence, and that it becomes them 
 to guard the welfare of others as their own. Associa- 
 tions for purposes of violence are entitled to the 
 strongest disapprobation of the real reformist. Always 
 suspect that some knavish rascal is at the bottom of 
 things of this kind, waiting to profit by the confusion. 
 All secret associations are also bad. Are you men of 
 deep designs, whose deeds love darkness better than 
 light ? Dare you not say what you think before any 
 man ? Can you not meet in the open face of day in 
 conscious innocence ? Oh, Irishmen, ye can ! Hidden 
 arms, secret meetings, and designs violently to separate 
 England from Ireland are all very bad. I do not 
 mean to say the very end of them is bad ; the object 
 you have in view may be just enough, whilst the way 
 you go about it is wrong — may be calculated to produce 
 an opposite effect. Never do evil that good may come ; 
 always think of others as well as yourself, and 
 cautiously look how your conduct may do good or 
 evil, when you yourself shall be mouldering in the 
 grave. Be fair, open, and you will be terrible to your 
 enemies. A friend cannot defend you, much as he 
 may feel for your sufferings, if you have recourse to 
 methods of which virtue and justice disapprove. No 
 cause is in itself so dear to liberty as yours. Much 
 
 o % 
 
196 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 depends on you ; far may your efforts spread either 
 hope or despair : do not then cover in darkness 
 wrongs at which the face of day and the tyrants who 
 bask in its warmth ought to blush. Wherever has 
 violence succeeded ? The French Revolution, although 
 undertaken with the best intentions, ended ill for the 
 people, because violence was employed. The cause 
 which they vindicated was that of truth, but they gave 
 it the appearance of a lie by using methods which 
 will suit the purposes of liars as well as their own. 
 Speak boldly and daringly what you think ; an Irish- 
 man was never accused of cowardice, do not let it be 
 thought possible that he is a coward. Let him say 
 what he thinks ; a lie is the basest and meanest 
 employment of men : leave lies and secrets to courtiers 
 and lordlings. Be open, sincere, and single-hearted. 
 Let it be seen that the Irish votaries of Freedom dare 
 to speak what they think ; let them resist oppression, 
 not by force of arms, but by power of mind and 
 reliance on truth and justice. Will any be arraigned 
 for libel — will imprisonment or death be the conse- 
 quences of this mode of proceeding ? Probably not. 
 But if it were so ? Is danger frightful to an Irishman 
 who speaks for his own liberty and the liberty of his 
 wife and children ? No ; he will steadily persevere, and 
 sooner shall pensioners cease to vote with their bene- 
 factors than an Irishman swerve from the path of 
 duty. But steadily persevere in the system above laid 
 down, its benefits will speedily be manifested. Perse- 
 cution may destroy some, but cannot destroy all, or 
 nearly all ; let it do its will. Ye have appealed to 
 truth and justice, show the goodness of your religion 
 by persisting in a reliance on these things, which must 
 be the rules even of the Almighty's conduct. But 
 
AN ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 197 
 
 before this can be done with any effect, habits of 
 Sobriety, Regularity, and Thought must be entered 
 into, and firmly resolved upon. 
 
 My warm-hearted friends who meet together to 
 talk of the distresses of your countrymen until social 
 chat induces you to drink rather freely, as ye have 
 felt passionately, so reason coolly. Nothing hasty can 
 be lasting j lay up the money with which you usually 
 purchase drunkenness and ill-health to relieve the pains 
 of your fellow sufferers. Let your children lisp of 
 freedom in the cradle — let your deathbed be the 
 school for fresh exertions — let every street of the city 
 and field of the country be connected with thoughts 
 which liberty has made holy. Be warm in your cause, 
 yet rational and charitable and tolerant — never let 
 the oppressor grind you into justifying his conduct 
 by imitating his meanness. 
 
 Many circumstances, I will own, may excuse what 
 is called rebellion, but no circumstances can ever make 
 it good for your cause, and however honourable to 
 your feelings, it will reflect no credit on your judg- 
 ments.. It will bind you more closely to the block of 
 the oppressor, and your children's children, whilst they 
 talk of your exploits, will feel that you have done 
 them injury instead of benefit. 
 
 A crisis is now arriving which shall decide your 
 fate. The King of Great Britain has arrived at the 
 evening of his days. He has objected to your eman- 
 cipation ; he has been inimical to you ; but he will in 
 a certain time be no more. The present Prince of 
 Wales will then be king. It is said that he has 
 promised to restore you to freedom : your real and 
 natural right will, in that case, be no longer kept from 
 you. I hope he has pledged himself to this act of 
 
198 PERCY BYSSEE SIIELLEY. 
 
 justice, because there will then exist some obligation 
 to bind him to do right. Kings are but too apt to 
 think little as they should do : they think everything 
 in the world is made for them ; when the truth is, 
 that it is only the vices of men that make such people 
 necessary, and they have no other right of being 
 kings but in virtue of the good they do. 
 
 The benefit of the governed is the origin and 
 meaning of government. The Prince of "Wales has 
 had every opportunity of knowing how he ought to 
 act about Ireland and liberty. That great and good 
 man Charles Fox, who was your friend and the friend 
 of freedom, was the friend of the Prince of Wales. 
 He never nattered or disguised his sentiments, but 
 spoke them openly on every occasion, and the Prince 
 was the better for his instructive conversation. He 
 saw the truth, and he believed it. Now I know not 
 what to say; his staff is gone, and he leans upon a 
 broken reed ; his present advisers are not like Charles 
 Fox, they do not plan for liberty and safety, not for 
 the happiness but for the glory of their country ; and 
 w 7 hat, Irishmen, is the glory of a country divided from 
 their happiness ? It is a false light hung out by the 
 enemies of freedom to lure the unthinking into their 
 net. Men like these surround the Prince, and whether 
 or no he has really promised to emancipate you — 
 whether or no he will consider the promise of a 
 Prince of Wales binding to a King of England, is yet 
 a matter of doubt. We cannot at least be quite 
 certain of it : on this you cannot certainly rely. But 
 there are men who, wherever they find a tendency to 
 freedom, go there to increase, support, and regulate 
 that tendency. These men, who join to a rational 
 disdain of danger a practice of speaking the truth, 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 199 
 
 and defending the cause of the oppressed against the 
 oppressor — these men see what is right and will pursue 
 it. On such as these you may safely rely : they love 
 you as they love their brothers ; they feel for the un- 
 fortunate, and never ask whether a man is an English- 
 man or an Irishman, a catholic, a heretic, a christian, or a 
 heathen, before their hearts and their purses are opened 
 to feel with their misfortunes and relieve their neces- 
 sities : such are the men who will stand by you for 
 ever. Depend then not upon the promises of princes, 
 but upon those of virtuous and disinterested men : 
 depend not upon force of arms or violence, but upon 
 the force of the truth of the rights which you have to 
 share equally with others, the benefits and the evils of 
 government. 
 
 The crisis to which I allude as the period of your 
 emancipation is not the death of the present King, 
 or any circumstance that has to do with kings, but 
 something that is much more likely to do you good : 
 it is the increase of virtue and wisdom which will 
 lead people to find out that force and oppression are 
 wrong and false ; and this opinion, when it once gains 
 ground, will prevent government from severity. It 
 will restore those rights which Government has taken 
 away. Have nothing to do with force or violence, 
 and things will safely and surely make their way to 
 the right point. The Ministers have now in Parlia- 
 ment a very great majority, and the Ministers are 
 against you. They maintain the falsehood that, were 
 you in power, you would prosecute [persecute ?] and 
 burn, on the plea that you once did so. They maintain 
 many other things of the same nature. They command 
 the majority of the House of Commons, or rather the 
 part of that assembly who receive pensions from Govern* 
 
aoo PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 merit or whose relatives receive them. These men of 
 course are against you, because their employers are. But 
 the sense of the country is not against you ; the people of 
 England are not against you — they feel warmly for you 
 — in some respects they feel with you. The sense of the 
 English and of their governors is opposite — there must 
 be an end of this ; the goodness of a Government con- 
 sists in the happiness of the governed. If the governed 
 are wretched and dissatisfied, the government has failed 
 in its end. It wants altering and mending. It will 
 be mended, and a reform of English government will 
 produce good to the Irish — good to all human kind, 
 excepting those whose happiness consists in others' 
 sorrows, and it will be a fit punishment for these to 
 be deprived of their devilish joy. This I consider as 
 an event which is approaching, and which will make 
 the beginning of our hopes for that period which may 
 spread wisdom and virtue so wide as to leave no hole 
 in which folly or villany may hide themselves. I wish 
 you, O Irishmen, to be as careful and thoughtful of 
 your interests as are your real friends. Do not drink, 
 do not play, do not spend any idle time, do not take 
 everything that other people say for granted — there are 
 numbers who will tell you lies to make their own 
 fortunes : you cannot more certainly do good to your 
 own cause than by defeating the intentions of these 
 men. Think, read, and talk ; let your own condition 
 and that of your wives and children fill your minds ; 
 disclaim all manner of alliance with violence : meet 
 together if you will, but do not meet in a mob. If 
 you think and read and talk with a real wish of bene- 
 fiting the cause of truth and liberty, it will soon be 
 seen how true a service you are tendering, and how 
 sincere you are in your professions ; but mobs and 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 201 
 
 violence must be discarded. The certain degree of 
 civil and religious liberty which the usage of the 
 English Constitution allows,, is such as the worst of 
 men are entitled to, although you have it not; but 
 that liberty which we may one day hope for, wisdom 
 and virtue can alone give you a right to enjoy. This 
 wisdom and this virtue I recommend on every account 
 that you should instantly begin to practise. Lose not 
 a day, not an hour, not a moment. Temperance, 
 sobriety, charity, and independence will give you 
 virtue ; and reading, talking, thinking, and searching 
 will give you wisdom; when you have those things 
 you may defy the tyrant. It is not going often to 
 chapel, crossing yourselves, or confessing that will 
 make you virtuous ; many a rascal has attended re- 
 gularly at mass, and many a good man has never gone 
 at all. It is not paying priests or believing in what 
 they say that makes a good man, but it is doing good 
 actions or benefiting other people ; this is the true 
 way to be good, and the prayers and confessions and 
 masses of him who does not these things are good for 
 nothing at all. Do your work regularly and quickly : 
 when you have done, think, read, and talk; do not 
 spend your money in idleness and drinking, which so 
 far from doing good to your . cause, will do it harm. 
 If you have anything to spare from your wife and 
 children, let it do some good to other people, and put 
 them in a way of getting wisdom and virtue, as the 
 pleasure that will come from these good acts will be 
 much better than the headache that comes from a 
 drinking bout. And never quarrel between each other ; 
 be all of one mind as nearly as you can ; do these 
 things, and I will promise you liberty and happiness. 
 But if, on the contrary of these things, you neglect to 
 
202 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 improve yourselves, continue to use the word heretic, 
 and demand from others the toleration which you are 
 unwilling to give, your friends and the friends of 
 liberty will have reason to lament the death-blow of 
 their hopes. . I expect better things from you : it is 
 for yourselves that I fear and hope. Many English- 
 men are prejudiced against you ; they sit by their own 
 firesides, and certain rumours artfully spread are 
 ever on the wing against you. But these people who 
 think ill of you and of your nation are often the 
 very men who, if they had better information, would 
 feel for you most keenly. Wherefore are these reports 
 spread ? How do they begin ? They originate from the 
 warmth of the Irish character, which the friends of 
 the Irish nation have hitherto encouraged rather than 
 repressed ; this leads them in those moments, when 
 their wrongs appear so clearly, to commit acts which 
 justly excite displeasure. They begin therefore from 
 yourselves, although falsehood and tyranny artfully 
 magnify and multiply the cause of offence. Give no 
 offence. 
 
 I will for the present dismiss the subject of the 
 Catholic Emancipation ; a little reflection will con- 
 vince you that my remarks are just. Be true to your- 
 selves, and your enemies shall not triumph. I fear 
 nothing, if charity and sobriety mark your.proceedings. 
 Everything is to be dreaded — you yourselves will be 
 unworthy of even a restoration to your rights, if you 
 disgrace the cause, which I hope is that of truth and 
 liberty, by violence ; if you refuse to others the toleration 
 which you claim for yourselves. But this you w T ill not 
 do. I rely upon it, Irishmen, that the warmth of your 
 character will be shown as much in union with Eng- 
 lishmen and what are called heretics, who feel for you 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 203 
 
 and love you, as in avenging your wrongs, or forward- 
 ing their annihilation. It is the heart that glows and 
 not the cheek. The firmness, sobriety, and consis- 
 tence of your outward behaviour will not at all show 
 any hardness of heart, but will prove that you are 
 determined in your cause, and are going the right 
 way to work. I will repeat that virtue and wisdom 
 are necessary to true happiness and liberty. The 
 Catholic Emancipation, I consider, is certain. I do 
 not see that anything but violence and intolerance 
 among yourselves can leave an excuse to your enemies 
 for continuing your slavery. The other wrongs und3r 
 which you labour will probably also soon be done 
 away. You will be rendered equal to the people of 
 England in their rights and privileges, and will be in 
 all respects, so far as concerns the State, as happy. 
 And now, Irishmen, another and a more wide prospect 
 opens to my view. I cannot avoid, little as it may 
 appear to have anything to do with your present situa- 
 tion, to talk to you on the subject. It intimately 
 concerns the well-being of your children and your 
 children's children, and will perhaps more than any- 
 thing prove to you the advantage and necessity of 
 being thoughtful, sober, and regular ; of avoiding foolish 
 and idle talk, and thinking of yourselves as of men 
 who are able to be much wiser and happier than you 
 now are ; for habits like these will not only conduce 
 to the successful putting aside yGur present and im- 
 mediate grievances, but will contain a seed which in 
 future times will spring up into the tree of liberty, 
 and bear the fruit of happiness. 
 
 There is no doubt but the world is going wrong, or 
 rather that it is very capable of being much improved. 
 "What I mean by this improvement is, the inducement 
 
2<M PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 of a more equal and general diffusion of happiness and 
 liberty. Many people are very rieh and many are 
 very poor. Which do you think are happiest ? I can 
 tell you that neither are happy, so far as their station 
 is concerned. Nature never intended that there 
 should be such a thing as a poor man or a rich one. 
 Being put in an unnatural situation, they can neither 
 of them be happy, so far as their situation is concerned. 
 The poor man is born to obey the rich man, though 
 they both come into the world equally helpless and 
 equally naked. But the poor man does the rich no 
 service by obeying him — the rich man does the poor 
 no good by commanding him. It would be much 
 better if they could be prevailed upon to live equally 
 like brothers — they would ultimately both be happier. 
 But this can be done neither to-day nor to-morrow ; 
 much as such a change is to be desired, it is quite 
 impossible. Violence and folly in this, as in the other 
 case, would only put off the period of its event. 
 Mildness, sobriety, and reason are the effectual methods 
 of forwarding the ends of liberty and happiness. 
 
 Although we may see many things put in train 
 during our life-time, we cannot hope to see the work 
 of virtue and reason finished now ; we can only lay the 
 foundation for our posterity. Government is an evil ; 
 it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that 
 make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and 
 wise, government will of itself decay. So long as men 
 continue foolish and vicious, so long will government, 
 even such a Government as that of England, continue 
 necessary in order to prevent the crimes of bad men. 
 Society is produced by the wants, government by the 
 wickedness, and a state of just and happy equality by 
 the improvement and reason of man. It is in vain to 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 205 
 
 hope for any liberty and happiness without reason and 
 virtue, for where there is no virtue there will be crime, 
 and where there is crime there must be government. 
 Before the restraints of government are lessened, it is 
 fit that we should lessen the necessity for them. 
 Before government is done away with, we must reform 
 ourselves. It is this work which I would earnestly 
 recommend to you. O Irishmen, Reform Yourselves, 
 and I do not recommend it to you particularly because 
 I think that you most need it, but because I think 
 that your hearts are warm and your feelings high, and 
 you will perceive the necessity of doing it more than 
 those of a colder and more distant nature. 
 
 I look with an eye of hope and pleasure on the 
 present state of things, gloomy and incapable of im- 
 provement as they may appear to others. It delights 
 me to see that men begin to think and to act for the 
 good of others. Extensively as folly and selfishness 
 have predominated in this age, it gives me hope and 
 pleasure at least to see that many know what is 
 right. Ignorance and vice commonly go together : he 
 that would do good must be wise. A man cannot be 
 truly wise who is not truly virtuous. Prudence and 
 wisdom are very different things. The prudent man 
 is he who carefully consults for his own good : the 
 wise man is he who carefully consults for the good of 
 others. 
 
 I look upon Catholic Emancipation and the restora- 
 tion of the liberties and happiness of Ireland, so far as 
 they are compatible with the English Constitution, as 
 great and important events. I hope to see them soon. 
 But if all ended here, it would give me little pleasure. 
 I should still see thousands miserable and wicked ; 
 things would still be wrong. I regard then the 
 
?o6 PERCY BTSSEE SHELLEY. 
 
 accomplishment of these things as the road to a greater 
 reform, that reform after which virtue and wisdom 
 shall have conquered pain and vice — when no govern- 
 ment will he wanted but that of your neighbour's 
 Opinion. I look to these things with hope and 
 pleasure, because I consider that they will certainly 
 happen, and because men will not then be wicked and 
 miserable. But I do not consider that they will or can 
 immediately happen ; their arrival will be gradual, and 
 it all depends upon yourselves how soon or how late 
 these great changes will happen. If all of you to- 
 morrow were virtuous and wise, government which 
 to-day is a safeguard, would then become a tyranny. 
 But I cannot expect a rapid change. Many are obsti- 
 nate and determined in their vice, whose selfishness 
 makes them think only of their own good, when in fact 
 the best way even to bring that about is to make others 
 happy. I do not wish to see things changed now, 
 because it cannot be done without violence, and we may 
 assure ourselves that none of us are fit for any change, 
 however good, if we condescend to employ force in a 
 cause which we think right. Force makes the side that 
 employs it directly wrong, and as much as we may 
 pity we cannot approve the headstrong and intolerant 
 zeal of its adherents. 
 
 Can you conceive, O Irishmen ! a happy state of 
 society — conceive men of every way of thinking 
 living together like brothers ? The descendant of the 
 greatest prince would then be entitled to no more 
 respect than the son of a peasant. There would be no 
 pomp and no parade; but that which the rich now 
 keep to themselves would then be distributed among, 
 the people. None would be in magnificence, but the 
 superfluities then taken from the rich would be sufficient 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 207 
 
 when spread abroad to make every one comfortable. 
 
 No lover would then be false to his mistress, no mistress 
 
 could desert her lover. No friend would play false ; 
 
 no rents, no debts, no taxes, no frauds of any kind 
 
 would disturb the general happiness : good as they 
 
 would be, wise as they would be, they would be daily 
 
 getting better and wiser. No beggars would exist, 
 
 nor any of those wretched women who are now reduced 
 
 to a state of the most horrible misery and vice by men 
 
 whose wealth makes them villainous and hardened; 
 
 no thieves or murderers, because poverty would never 
 
 drive men to take away comforts from another when 
 
 he had enough for himself. Vice and misery, pomp and 
 
 poverty, power and obedience, would then be banished 
 
 altogether. It is for such a state as this, Irishmen, 
 
 that I exhort you to prepare. " A camel shall as soon 
 
 pass through the eye of a needle, as a rich man enter 
 
 the kingdom of heaven." This is not to be understood 
 
 literally. Jesus Christ appears to me only to have 
 
 meant that riches have generally the effect of hardening 
 
 and vitiating the heart ; so has poverty. I think 
 
 those people then are very silly, and cannot see one 
 
 inch beyond their noses, who say that human nature is 
 
 depraved; when at the same time wealth and poverty, 
 
 those two great sources of crime, fall to the lot of a 
 
 great majority of people ; and when they see that 
 
 people in moderate circumstances are always most wise 
 
 and good. People say that poverty is no evil : they 
 
 have never felt it, or they would not think so ; that 
 
 wealth is necessary to encourage the arts — but are not 
 
 the arts very inferior things to virtue and happiness ? — 
 
 the man would be very dead to all generous feelings who 
 
 would rather see pretty pictures and statues than a 
 
 million free and happy men. 
 
2o8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 It will be said that my design is to make you dis- 
 satisfied with your present condition, and that I wish 
 to raise a Rebellion. But how stupid and sottish must 
 those men be who think that violence and uneasiness of 
 mind have anything to do with forwarding the views of 
 peace, harmony, and happiness. They should know 
 that nothing was so well fitted to produce slavery, 
 tyranny, and vice as the violence which is attributed 
 to the friends of liberty, and which the real friends of 
 liberty are the only persons who disdain. As to your 
 being dissatisfied with your present condition, anything 
 that I may say is certainly not likely to increase that 
 dissatisfaction. I have advanced nothing concerning 
 your situation but its real case ; but what may be proved 
 to be true. I defy any one to point out a falsehood 
 that I have uttered in the course of this Address. It 
 is impossible but the blindest among you must see 
 that everything is not right. This sight has often 
 pressed some of the poorest among you to take some- 
 thing from the rich man's store by violence, to relieve 
 his own necessities. I cannot justify, but I can pity him. 
 I cannot pity the fruits of the rich man's intempe- 
 rance. I suppose some are to be found who will 
 justify him. This sight has often brought home to a 
 day-labourer the truth which I wish to impress upon 
 you that all is not right. But I do not merely wish to 
 convince you that our present state is bad, but that 
 its alteration for the better depends on your own 
 exertions and resolutions. 
 
 But he has never found out the method of mending 
 it who does not first mend his own conduct, and then 
 prevail upon others to refrain from any vicious habits 
 which they may have contracted, much less does the 
 poor man suppose that wisdom as well as virtue is 
 
AX ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 209 
 
 necessary, and that the employing his little time in 
 reading and thinking, is really doing all that he has 
 in his power to do towards the state, when pain and vice 
 shall perish altogether. 
 
 I wish to impress upon your minds that without virtue 
 or wisdom there can be no liberty or happiness ; and 
 that temperance, sobriety, charity, and independence of 
 soul will give you virtue, as thinking, inquiring, 
 reading, and talking will give you wisdom. Without 
 the first the last is of little use, and without the last 
 the first is a dreadful curse to yourselves and others. 
 
 I have told you what I think upon this subject, 
 because I wish to produce in your minds an awe and 
 caution necessary, before the happy state of which I 
 have spoken can be introduced. This cautious awe is 
 very different from the prudential fear which leads 
 you to consider yourself as the first object, as, on the 
 contrary, it is full of that warm and ardent love for 
 others that burns in your hearts, O Irishmen ! and 
 from which I have fondly hoped to light a flame that 
 may illumine and invigorate the world. 
 
 I. have said that the rich command and the poor 
 obey, and that money is only a kind of sign which 
 shows that according to government the rich man has 
 a right to command the poor man, or rather that the 
 poor man being urged by having no money to get 
 bread, is forced to work for the rich man, which 
 amounts to the same thing. I have said that I think 
 all this very wrong, and that I wish the whole business 
 was altered. I have also said that we can expect 
 little amendment in our own time, and that we must 
 be contented to lay the foundation of liberty and 
 happiness by virtue and wisdom. This then shall be 
 my work ; let this be yours, Irishmen. Never shall that 
 
 p 
 
1 1 o PERCY B YSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 glory fail, which I am anxious that you shall deserve — 
 the glory of teaching to a world the first lessons of 
 virtue and wisdom. 
 
 Let poor men still continue to work. I do not wish 
 to hide from them a knowledge of their relative con- 
 dition in society, I esteem it next [to] impossible to do 
 so. Let the work of the labourer, of the artificer — let 
 the work of every one, however employed, still be 
 exerted in its accustomed way. The public communi- 
 cation of this truth ought in no manner to impede 
 the established usages of society, however it is fitted 
 in the end to do them away. For this reason it ought 
 not to impede them, because if it did, a violent and unac- 
 customed and sudden sensation [cessation ?] would take 
 place in all ranks of men, which would bring on violence 
 and destroy the possibility of the event of that which 
 in its own nature must be gradual however rapid, and 
 rational however warm. It is founded on the reform 
 of private men, and without individual amendment it 
 is vain and foolish to expect the amendment of a state 
 or government. I would advise them, therefore, whose 
 feelings this Address may have succeeded in affecting 
 (and surely those feelings which charitable and tempe- 
 rate remarks excite can never be violent and intole- 
 rant), if they be, as I hope those whom poverty has 
 compelled to class themselves in the lower orders of 
 society, that they will as usual attend to their business 
 and the discharge of those public or private duties 
 which custom has ordained. Nothing can be more 
 rash and thoughtless than to show in ourselves singular 
 instances of any particular doctrine before the general 
 mass of the people are so convinced by the reasons of 
 the doctrine, that it will be no longer singular. That 
 reasons as well as feelings may help the establishment 
 
AN ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 211 
 
 of happiness and liberty, on the basis of wisdom and 
 virtue, be our aim and intention. Let us not be led 
 into any means which are unworthy of this end, nor, as 
 so much depends upon yourselves, let us cease carefully 
 to watch over our conduct, that when we talk of 
 reform it be not objected to us, that reform ought to 
 begin at home. In the interval that public or private 
 duties and necessary labours allow, husband your time 
 so that you may do to others and yourselves the most 
 real good. To improve your own minds is to join 
 these two views; conversation and reading are the 
 principal and chief methods of awaking the mind to 
 knowledge and goodness. Reading or thought will 
 principally bestow the former of these — the benevolent 
 exercise of the powers of the mind in communicating 
 useful knowledge will bestow an habit of the latter : 
 both united will contribute so far as lies in your indi- 
 vidual power to that great reform which will be per- 
 fect and finished the moment every one is virtuous 
 and wise. Every folly refuted, every bad habit con- 
 quered, every good one confirmed, are so much gained 
 in this great and excellent cause. 
 
 To begin to reform the government is immediately 
 necessary, however good or bad individuals may be; 
 it is the more necessary, if they are eminently the 
 latter, in some degree to palliate or do away [with ?] the 
 cause, as political institution has even [ever ?] the 
 greatest influence on the human character, and is that 
 alone which differences the Turk from the Irishman. 
 
 I write now not only with a view for Catholic 
 Emancipation, but for universal emancipation; and 
 this emancipation complete and unconditional, that 
 shall comprehend every individual of whatever nation 
 or principles, that shall fold in its embrace all that 
 
 p % 
 
212 PERCY B YSSHE SUEL LEY. y 
 
 think and all that feel : the Catholic cause is subor- 
 dinate, and its success preparatory to this great cause, 
 which adheres to no sect but society, to no cause but 
 that of universal happiness, to no party but the people. 
 I desire Catholic Emancipation, but I desire not to 
 stop here ; and I hope there are few who having 
 perused the preceding arguments who will not concur 
 with me in desiring a complete, a lasting, and a happy 
 amendment. That all steps however good and salu- 
 tary which may be taken, all reforms consistent with 
 the English constitution that may be effectuated, can 
 only be subordinate and preparatory to the great 
 and lasting one which shall bring about the peace, 
 the harmony, and the happiness of Ireland, England, 
 Europe, the World. I offer merely an outline of that 
 picture which your own hopes may gift with the 
 colours of reality, 
 
 Government will not allow a peaceable and reason- 
 able discussion of its principles by any association of 
 men who assemble for that express purpose. But 
 have not human beings a right to assemble to talk 
 upon what subject they please ? Can anything be more 
 evident than that as government is only of use as it 
 conduces to the happiness of the governed, those who 
 are governed have a right to talk on the efficacy of 
 the safeguard employed for their benefit? Can any topic 
 be more interesting or useful than on [one ?] discussing 
 how far the means of government is or could be 
 made in a higher degree effectual to producing the 
 end ? Although I deprecate violence, and the cause 
 which depends for its influence on force, yet I can by 
 no means think that assembling together merely to 
 talk of how things go on — I can by no means think 
 that societies formed for talking on any subject, 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 213 
 
 however Government may dislike them, come in any- 
 way under the head of force or violence — I think 
 that associations conducted in the spirit of sobriety, 
 regularity, and thought are one of the best and most 
 efficient of those means which I would recommend 
 for the production of happiness, liberty, and virtue. 
 
 Are you slaves or are you men ? If slaves, then 
 crouch to the rod and lick the feet of your op- 
 pressors ; glory [in ?] your shame : it will become you, if 
 brutes, to act according to your nature. But you are 
 men : a real man is free, so far as circumstances will 
 permit him. Then firmly yet quietly resist. When 
 one cheek is struck, turn the other to the insulting 
 coward. You will be truly brave : you will resist and 
 conquer. The discussion of any subject is a right 
 that you. have brought into the world with your heart 
 and tongue. Resign your heart's blood before you 
 part with this inestimable privilege of man. For it 
 is lit that the governed should inquire into the pro- 
 ceedings of government, which is of no use the moment 
 it is conducted on any other principle but that of 
 safety. You have much to think of. Is war neces- 
 sary to your happiness and safety ? The interests of 
 the poor gain nothing from the wealth or extension of 
 a nation's boundaries, they gain nothing from glory, 3, 
 word that has often served as a cloak to the ambition 
 or avarice of statesmen. The barren victories of 
 Spain, gained in behalf of a bigoted and tyrannical 
 government, are nothing to them. The conquests in 
 India, by which England has gained glory indeed, 
 but a glory which is not more honourable than that 
 of Buonaparte, are nothing to them. The poor pur- 
 chase this glory and this wealth at the expense of 
 their blood and labour and happiness and virtue. 
 
2H PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 They die in battle for this infernal cause. Their 
 labour supplies money and food for carrying it into 
 effect; their happiness is destroyed by the oppression 
 they undergo ; their virtue is rooted out by the de- 
 pravity and vice that prevail throughout the army, 
 and which under the present system are perfectly un- 
 avoidable. Who does not know that the quartering of 
 a regiment on any town will soon destroy the inno- 
 cence and happiness of its inhabitants ? The advocates 
 for the happiness and liberty of the great mass of the 
 people, who pay for war with their lives and labour, 
 ought never to cease writing and speaking until nations 
 see, as they must feel, the folly of fighting and killing 
 each other in uniform for nothing at all. Ye have 
 much to think of. The state of your representation in 
 the House, which is called the collective representation 
 of the country, demands your attention. 
 
 It is horrible that the lower classes must waste their 
 lives and liberty to furnish means for their oppressors 
 to oppress them yet more terribly. It is horrible that 
 the poor must give in taxes what would save them and 
 their families from hunger and cold ; — it is still more 
 horrible that they should do this to furnish further 
 means of their own abjectedness and misery. But 
 what words can express the enormity of the abuse that 
 prevents them from choosing representatives with 
 authority to inquire into the manner in which their 
 lives and labour, their happiness and innocence, are 
 expended, and what advantages result from their ex- 
 penditure which may counterbalance so horrible and 
 monstrous an evil ? There is an outcry raised against 
 amendment ; it is called innovation and condemned 
 by many unthinking people who have a good fire and 
 plenty to eat and drink. Hard-hearted or thought- 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 215 
 
 less beings, how many are famishing whilst you 
 deliberate, how many perish to contribute to your 
 pleasures ? I hope that there are none such as these 
 native Irishmen, indeed I scarcely believe that there 
 are. 
 
 Let the object of your associations (for I conceal 
 not my approval of assemblies conducted with regu- 
 larity, peaceableness, and thought for any purpose) be 
 the amendment of these abuses, it will have for its 
 object universal emancipation, liberty, happiness, and 
 virtue. There is yet another subject, " the Liberty of 
 the Press." The liberty of the Press consists in a right 
 to publish any opinion on any subject which the 
 writer may entertain. The Attorney-General in 
 1793, on the trial of Mr. Percy, said, " I never will 
 dispute the right of any man fully to discuss topics 
 respecting Government, and honestly to point out what 
 he may consider a proper remedy of grievances." The 
 liberty of the Press is placed as a sentinel to alarm 
 us when any attempt is made on our liberties. It is 
 this sentinel, oh, Irishmen, whom I now awaken ! I 
 create to myself a freedom which exists not. There 
 is no liberty of the Press for the subjects of British 
 government. 
 
 It is really ridiculous to hear people yet boasting 
 of this inestimable blessing, when they daily see it 
 successfully muzzled and outraged by the lawyers 
 of the Crown, and by virtue of what are called ex- 
 officio informations. Blackstone says, that " if a person 
 publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he 
 must take the consequences of his own temerity." 
 And Lord Chief Baron Comyns defines libel as " a 
 contumely, or reproach, published to the defamation 
 of the Government, of a magistrate, or of a private 
 
216 PERCY BYSSUE SUELLEY. 
 
 person. " Now I beseech you to consider the words 
 mischievous, improper, illegal, contumely, reproach, 
 or defamation. May they not make that mischievous 
 or improper which they please ? Is not law with 
 them as clay in the potter's hand ? Do not the 
 words contumely, reproach, or defamation express all 
 degrees and forces of disapprobation ? It is impossible 
 to express yourself displeased at certain proceedings of 
 Government, or the individuals who conduct it, with- 
 out uttering a reproach. We cannot honestly point 
 out a proper remedy of grievances with safety, because 
 the very mention of these grievances will be reproach- 
 ful to the personages who countenance them ; and 
 therefore will come under a definition of libel. For 
 the persons who thus directly or indirectly undergo 
 reproach, will say for their own sakes that the ex- 
 posure of their corruption is mischievous and im- 
 proper ; therefore the utterer of the reproach is a fit 
 subject for three years' imprisonment. Is there any- 
 thing like the liberty of the Press in restrictions so 
 positive yet pliant as these ? The little freedom 
 which we enjoy in this most important point comes 
 from the clemency of our rulers, or their fear lest 
 public opinion, alarmed at the discovery of its enslaved 
 state, should violently assert a right to extension and 
 diffusion. Yet public opinion may not always be so 
 formidable, rulers may not always be so merciful or 
 so timia ; at any rate, evils, and great evils, do result 
 from the present system of intellectual slavery, and 
 you have enough to think of if this grievance alone 
 remained in the constitution of society. I will give 
 but one instance of the present state of our Press. 
 
 A countryman of yours is now confined in an 
 English gaol. His health, his fortune, his spirits 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. ill 
 
 suffer from close confinement. The air which comes 
 through the bars of a prison-grate does not invigorate 
 the frame nor cheer the spirits. But Mr. Finnerty, 
 much as he has lost, yet retains the fair name of truth 
 and honour. He was imprisoned for persisting in the 
 truth. His judge told him on his trial that truth and 
 falsehood were indifferent to the law, and that if he 
 owned the publication, any consideration whether the 
 facts that it related were well or ill-founded, was 
 totally irrelevant. Such is the libel law : such the 
 liberty of the Press — there is enough to think of. The 
 right of withholding your individual assent to war, 
 the right of choosing delegates to represent you in the 
 assembly of the nation, and that of freely opposing in- 
 tellectual power to any measure of Government of 
 which you may disapprove, are, in addition to the 
 indifference with which the Legislative and the Execu- 
 tive power ought to rule their conduct towards pro- 
 fessors of every religion, enough to think of. 
 
 I earnestly desire peace and harmony : — peace, that 
 whatever wrongs you may have suffered, benevolence 
 and a spirit of forgiveness should mark your conduct 
 towards those who have persecuted you : — harmony, 
 that among yourselves may be no divisions, that Pro- 
 testants and Catholics unite in a common interest, and 
 that whatever be the belief and principles of your 
 countryman and fellow sufferer, you desire to benefit 
 his cause at the same time that you vindicate your 
 own. Be strong and unbiassed by selfishness or pre- 
 judice — for, Catholics, your religion has not been 
 spotless, crimes in past ages have sullied it with a 
 stain, which let it be your glory to remove. Nor, 
 Protestants, hath your religion always been charac- 
 terized by the mildness of benevolence which Jesus 
 
1 1 8 PERC Y B YSSIIE SHELLE Y. 
 
 Christ recommended. Had it anything to do with 
 the present subject I could account for the spirit of 
 intolerance which marked both religions ; I will, how- 
 ever, only adduce the fact, and earnestly exhort you to 
 root out from your own minds everything which may 
 lead to uncharitableness, and to reflect that yourselves 
 as well as your brethren may be deceived. Nothing 
 on earth is infallible. The priests that pretend to it 
 are wicked and mischievous impostors ; but it is an 
 imposture which every one more or less assumes who 
 encourages prejudice in his breast against those who 
 differ from him in opinion, or who sets up his own 
 religion as the only right and true one, when no one 
 is so blind as to see that every religion is right and 
 true which makes men beneficent and sincere. I 
 therefore earnestly exhort both Protestants and 
 Catholics to act in brotherhood and harmony, never 
 forgetting because the Catholics alone are heinously 
 deprived of religious rights, that the Protestants and 
 a certain rank of people of every persuasion, share 
 with them all else that is terrible, galling, and intole- 
 rable in the mass of political grievance. 
 
 In no case employ violence or falsehood. I cannot 
 too often or too vividly endeavour to impress upon 
 your minds that these methods will produce nothing 
 but wretchedness and slavery — that they will at the 
 same time rivet the fetters with which ignorance and 
 oppression bind you to abjectness, and deliver you over 
 to a tyranny which shall render you incapable of 
 renewed efforts. Violence will immediately render 
 your cause a bad one. If you believe in a provi- 
 dential God, you must also believe that he is a good 
 one. And it is not likely a merciful God would 
 befriend a bad cause. Insincerity is no less hurtful 
 
^V ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 219 
 
 than violence ; those who are in the habit of either, 
 would do well to reform themselves. A lying bravo 
 will never promote the good of his country — he can- 
 not be a good man. The courageous and sincere may 
 at the same time successfully oppose corruption, by 
 uniting their voice with that of others, or individually 
 raise up intellectual opposition to counteract the 
 abuses of Government and society. In order to bene- 
 fit yourselves and your country to any extent, habits 
 of sobriety, regularity, and thought are previously so 
 necessary, that without these preliminaries all that you 
 have done falls to the ground. You have built on sand ; 
 secure a good foundation and you may erect a fabric 
 to stand for ever — the glory and the envy of the world. 
 
 I have purposely avoided any lengthened discussion 
 on those grievances to which your hearts are from 
 custom and the immediate interest of the circum- 
 stances, probably most alive at present. I have not, 
 however, wholly neglected them. Most of all have I 
 insisted on their instant palliation and ultimate re- 
 moval ; nor have I omitted a consideration of the 
 means which I deem most effectual for the accomplish- 
 ment of this great end. How far you will consider 
 the former worthy of your adoption, so far shall I 
 deem the latter probable and interesting to the lovers 
 of human kind. And I have opened to your view a 
 new scene — does not your heart bound at the bare 
 possibility of your posterity possessing that liberty 
 and happiness of which during our lives powerful 
 exertions and habitual abstinence may give us a fore- 
 taste ? Oh ! if your hearts do not vibrate at such as 
 this, then ye are dead and cold — ye are not men. 
 
 I now come to the application of my principles, 
 the conclusion of my Address ; and, O Irishmen, what- 
 
120 PERCY BYSSBE SHELLEY. 
 
 ever conduct yc may feel yourselves bound to pursue, 
 the path which duly points to lies before me clear and 
 unobscured. Dangers may lurk around it, but they 
 are not the dangers which lie beneath the footsteps of 
 the hypocrite or temporizer. 
 
 For I have not presented to you the picture of hap- 
 piness on which my fancy doats as an uncertain meteor 
 to mislead honourable enthusiasm, or blindfold the 
 judgment which makes virtue useful. I have not 
 proposed crude schemes, which I should be incompe- 
 tent to mature, or desired to excite in you any virulence 
 against the abuses of political institution ; where I have 
 had occasion to point them out, I have recommended 
 moderation whilst yet I have earnestly insisted upon 
 energy and perseverance ; I have spoken of peace, yet 
 declared that resistance is laudable ; but the intel- 
 lectual resistance which I recommend, I deem essential 
 to the introduction of the millennium of virtue, whose 
 period every one can, so far as he is concerned, forward 
 by his own proper power. I have not attempted to 
 show that the Catholic claims, or the claims of the 
 people to a full representation in Parliament, or any 
 of these claims to real rights, which I have insisted 
 upon as introductory to the ultimate claim of all, to 
 universal happiness, freedom, and equality; I have not 
 attempted, I say, to show r that these can be granted 
 consistently with the spirit of the English Constitu- 
 tion ;* this is a point which I do not feel myself in- 
 clined to discuss, and which I consider foreign to my 
 
 * The excellence of the Constitution of Great Britain appears 
 to me to be its indefiniteness and versatility, whereby it may 
 be unresistingly accommodated to the progression of wisdom 
 and virtue. Such accommodation I desire ; but I wish for the cause 
 before the effect. 
 
AN ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 221 
 
 subject. But I have shown that these claims have 
 for their basis truth and justice, which are immutable, 
 and which iu the ruin of governments shall rise like 
 a phoenix from their ashes. 
 
 Is any one inclined to dispute the possibility of 
 a happy change in society? Do they say that the 
 nature of man is corrupt, and that he was made for 
 misery and wickedness ? Be it so. Certain as are 
 opposite conclusions, I will concede the truth of this 
 for a moment. What are the means which I take for 
 melioration ? Violence, corruption, rapine, crime ? 
 Do I do evil that good may come ? I have recom- 
 mended peace, philanthropy, wisdom. So far as my 
 arguments influence, they will influence to these ; and if 
 there is any one now inclined to say that u private 
 vices are public benefits/" and that peace, philan- 
 thropy, and wisdom will, if once they gain ground, 
 ruin the human race, he may revel in his happy 
 dreams ; though were /this man I should envy Satan's 
 hell. The wisdom and charity of which I speak 
 are the only means which I will countenance for the 
 redress of 'your grievances and the grievances of the 
 world. So far as they operate, I am willing to stand 
 responsible for their evil effects. I expect to be ac- 
 cused of a desire for renewing in Ireland the scenes of 
 revolutionary horror which marked the struggles of 
 France twenty years ago. But it is the renewal of that 
 unfortunate era which I strongly deprecate, and which 
 the tendency of this Address is calculated to obviate. 
 For can burthens be borne for ever, and the slave 
 crouch and cringe the while ? Is misery and vice so 
 consonant to man's nature that he will hug it to his 
 heart? But when the wretched one in bondage 
 beholds the emancipation near, will he not endure his 
 
222 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 misery awhile with hope and patience, then spring to 
 his preserver's arms, and start into a man ? 
 
 It is my intention to observe the effect on your 
 minds, O Irishmen, which this Address, dictated 
 by the fervency of my love and hope, will produce. I 
 have come to this country to spare no pains where 
 expenditure may purchase you real benefit. The 
 present is a crisis which of all others is the most valu- 
 able for fixing the fluctuation of public feeling ; as far 
 as my poor efforts may have succeeded in fixing it to 
 virtue, Irishmen, so far shall I esteem myself happy. 
 I intend this Address as introductory to another. The 
 organization of a society whose institution shall serve 
 as a bond to its members for the purposes of virtue, 
 happiness, liberty, and wisdom., by the means of intel- 
 lectual opposition to grievances, would probably be 
 useful. For the formation of such society I avow 
 myself anxious. 
 
 Adieu, my friends ! May every sun that shines on 
 your green island see the annihilation of an abuse, 
 and the birth of an embryon of melioration ! Your 
 own hearts — may they become the shrines of purity 
 and freedom, and never may smoke to the Mammon of 
 unrighteousness ascend from the unpolluted altar of 
 their devotion ! 
 
 No. 7, Lower Sackville Street, Feb. 22nd. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 I have now been a week in Dublin, during which 
 time I have endeavoured to make myself more accurately 
 acquainted with the state of the public mind on those 
 great topics of grievances which induced me to select 
 
AN ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 223 
 
 Ireland as a theatre, the widest and fairest, for the 
 operations of the determined friend of religious and 
 political freedom. 
 
 The result of my observations has determined me to 
 propose an association for the purposes of restoring 
 Ireland to the prosperity which she possessed before 
 the Union Act; and the religious freedom which the 
 involuntariness of faith ought to have taught all 
 monopolists of Heaven long, long ago, that every one 
 had a right to possess. 
 
 For the purpose of obtaining the emancipation of 
 the Catholics from the penal laws that aggrieve them, 
 and a repeal of the Legislative Union Act, and 
 grounding upon the remission of the church-craft and 
 oppression, which caused these grievances ; a plan of 
 amendment and regeneration in the moral and political 
 state of society, on a comprehensive and systematic phil- 
 anthropy which shall be sure though slow in its pro- 
 jects ; and as it is without the rapidity and danger 
 of revolution, so will it be devoid of the time-servingness 
 of temporizing reform — which in its deliberate capacity, 
 having investigated the state of the Government of 
 England, shall oppose those parts of it, by intellectual 
 force, which will not bear the touchstone of reason. 
 
 For information respecting the principles which I 
 possess, and the nature and spirit of the association 
 which I propose, I refer the reader to a small pamphlet, 
 which I shall publish on the subject in the course of 
 a few days. 
 
 I have published the above Address (written in 
 England) in the cheapest possible form, and have taken 
 pains that the remarks which it contains should be 
 intelligible to the most uneducated minds. Men are 
 not slaves and brutes because they are poor; it has 
 
224 PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 been the policy of the thoughtless or wicked of the 
 higher ranks (as a proof of the decay of which policy 
 I am happy to see the rapid success of a comparatively 
 enlightened system of education) to conceal from the 
 poor the truths which I have endeavoured to teach them. 
 In doing so I have but translated my thoughts into 
 another language ; and as language is only useful 
 as it communicates ideas, I shall think my style so 
 far good as it is successful as a means to bring about 
 the end which I desire on any occasion to accomplish. 
 
 A Limerick paper, which I suppose professes to sup- 
 port certain loyal and John Bullish principles of freedom, 
 has in an essay for advocating the liberty of the Press 
 the following clause : " For lawless licence of dis- 
 cussion never did we advocate, nor do we now." What 
 is lawless licence of discussion ? Is it not as indefinite 
 as the words contumely, reproach, defamation, that 
 allow at present such latitude to the outrages that are 
 committed on the free expression of individual senti- 
 ment ? Can they not see that what is rational will 
 stand by its reason, and what is true stand by its truth, 
 as all that is foolish will fall by its folly, and all that 
 is false be controverted by its own falsehood ? Liberty 
 gains nothing by the reform of politicians of this stamp, 
 any more than it gains from a change of Ministers in 
 London. What at present is contumely and defama- 
 tion, would at the period of this Limerick amendment 
 be " lawless licence of discussion/'' and such would be 
 the mighty advantage which this doughty champion of 
 liberty proposes to effect. 
 
 I conclude with the words of Lafayette, a name en- 
 deared by its peerless bearer to every lover of the human 
 race, " For a nation to love liberty it is sufficient that she 
 knows it, to be free it is sufficient that she wills it." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HP HE allusion towards the end of this Address to 
 -*■ Peter Finnerty who had been then twelve months 
 a prisoner in the Castle of Lincoln, will arrest the 
 attention of all readers who remember the singular 
 story I have told of the poem which Shelley had pub- 
 lished for his benefit a year before. It shows that his 
 interest in him was undiminished, and strengthens 
 the suggestion I have thrown out, that in the volume 
 of poems which Shelley had proposed to publish in 
 Dublin, The Poetical Essay on the Existing State of 
 Things would have been included. 
 
 The Limerick paper which Shelley sarcastically al- 
 ludes to as proposing " to support certain loyal and John 
 Bullish principles of freedom," was The Limerick Evening 
 Post, then recently established. The article was re- 
 printed in The Dublin Freeman's Journal, Tuesday, 
 February 1 8th> 1812, where Shelley must have seen it. 
 It is thus introduced : — 
 
 " Irish Press. — The following judicious observations 
 we have extracted from a newly established paper in 
 Limerick — namely, The Limerick Evening Post." 
 
 Shelley it is evident formed a very different estimate 
 of this article. He considered it lacked spirit. It is 
 plain that at this period he thought it extremely 
 probable that his own pamphlets which were about 
 to appear would have to bear the brunt of a government 
 prosecution. He must therefore have considered it 
 
 Q 
 
226 PERCY BYSSIIi: 8HELLEY. 
 
 rather unfortunate thai a Liberal paper thus eulogized 
 by a metropolitan journal of influence should, as it 
 were, encourage the Executive in limiting the right of 
 public discussion on political questions. 
 
 The opening passages which provoked his comment 
 may be given as a specimen of the article thus preserved 
 from oblivion by the quotation of the poet : — 
 
 u The prosecutions so perseveringly continued 
 against the Press of Ireland — against the journals of 
 the capital, deserving, we think, that title by pre- 
 eminence, must anxiously interest every reflecting mind 
 — every feeling heart. So generally allowed and 
 axiomatically fixed is the grand right of a Free Press — 
 in other words, of free thought and free discussion — 
 that the greatest enemies of that greatest bulwark of 
 human privileges never dared to assail it but in disguise 
 — but under some factious colourable principle ; its 
 bitterest foes, at least since the days of the Star 
 Chamber, have uniformly avowed themselves as friends. 
 For lawless licence of discussion never yet did we 
 advocate, nor do we now/'' &c. 
 
 Whether the paper made any reply to the observa- 
 tions of Shelley it is now impossible to say : its very 
 name is almost forgotten in Limerick, although some 
 files of it of a much later date are still preserved 
 in the library of the Royal Dublin Society. 
 
 The next important movement made by Shelley in 
 his Dublin crusade took place three days after the 
 publication of his Address to the Irish People. That 
 pamphlet had appeared on Tuesday, the 25th of 
 February, 1812, and on the Friday following, the 28th 
 of the same month, the long announced Aggregate 
 Meeting of the Catholics of Ireland took place in the 
 
TEE CATHOLIC COMMITTEE. 227 
 
 historic little theatre in Fishamble Street; Shelley at- 
 tended that meeting, and spoke to an important 
 resolution for the space of an hour. An outline of 
 that speech, taken from three different reports in con- 
 temporary journals, as well as his own remarks upon 
 it extracted from one of his unpublished letters, will be 
 given in due course. 
 
 To understand the position of affairs at that period, 
 and to show the absolute impossibility (even had he 
 been more guarded in the expression of his anti-religious 
 fanaticism) of being able to establish a new political 
 association in Dublin when the Government was abso- 
 lutely discussing the expediency of suppressing this 
 one solitary meeting, it will be necessary to take a 
 brief review of the attitude both of the Catholics and 
 of the Executive. This is founded principally on 
 original documents preserved among the State Papers 
 in the Record Office. 
 
 The insidious promises held out to the Catholics, at the 
 time of the Union had been abandoned, and a system of 
 still stricter and more unconstitutional coercion perse- 
 vered in. The Catholics were rapidly increasing in 
 number and in wealth. Headed by every man of rank and 
 by most of the men of talent of their own communion, 
 and generously assisted by many enlightened Protestants 
 of character and position, they were gradually forming 
 into that compact organization which eventually 
 triumphed. The powerful mind and the indomitable 
 energy of O'Connell had already made themselves felt. 
 The body known as the " Catholic Committee" was 
 formed, which very soon attracted to itself the notice of 
 the Government. It had no secrets. Had there been any- 
 thing to conceal, dishonest and mercenary instruments 
 were not wanting to betray it. The State Papers un- 
 ci % 
 
*28 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 fortunately supply abundant proof of this treachery. Mr. 
 Wellesley Pole, writing from Dublin Castle on the 1 9th 
 of October, j8ii, to the Right Hon. Richard Ryder, 
 Secretary of State for the Home Department, in re- 
 ference to one of the Meetings of the Committee, says, 
 w I send you a report from one of our spies." The report 
 is enclosed, signed "F. W." There is in the Record Office 
 an elaborate paper consisting of twenty-six quarto pages, 
 written closely on both sides, which is in part a com- 
 plete history of the Catholic Committee for three years. 
 It is called " Precis of the Formation and Proceedings of 
 the Catholic Committee in Ireland, 1809, 18 10, 181 1." 
 Referring to 18 10 we have the following allusion to Mr. 
 Peter Finnerty, the object of Shelley's poetical sympathy 
 in 1811 : — 
 
 " On the 2nd of November, 181:0, an aggregate 
 meeting took place : Mr. Finnerty recommended a 
 Petition to Parliament for the Catholic Emancipation, 
 one fbr Parliamentary Reform, and one for the 
 Repeal of the Union. The thanks of the meeting 
 were voted to Mr. Finnerty, and it was resolved, That 
 the Catholic Committee should have the sole management 
 of Catholic affairs' 3 
 
 Another entry in the same Precis is as follows : — 
 " On the 9th of July (181 1) the aggregate meeting 
 assembled at the Private Theatre, Fi shamble Street : it 
 was very numerous." Among other resolutions it was 
 resolved, " That the Committee be appointed ; that the 
 Catholic Peers, Baronets, and the survivors of 1793 have 
 the management of Catholic affairs ; that 500/. be given 
 to Mr. Hay (the Secretary); 500Z. to Mr. W. Todd Jones; 
 and that a subscription be made for Mr. Finnerty." 
 
 The speech made by Mr. Finnerty at the Catholic 
 
LETTER OF MR. WELLESLEY POLE. 329 
 
 meeting referred to in the first of these extracts, is a 
 memorable one. But for it, Mr. Wellesley Pole in- 
 formed the Imperial Parliament on the 4th of March 
 181 1, the Convention Act would not have been 
 enforced in Ireland, and the proclamation of the Duke 
 of Richmond would not have been issued. The speech 
 was delivered at an adjourned meeting of the Catholics 
 held at the Repository in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, 
 on Friday the 2nd of November, 18 10. This speech 
 was delivered at the request of the meeting, and pro- 
 duced immense enthusiasm, and, what was more dange- 
 rous in the eyes of Mr. Wellesley Pole, unanimity. 
 
 Mr. Wellesley Pole subsequently notified to the 
 Secretary of State that a subscription had been opened 
 in Dublin for Mr. Finnerty. The following extract 
 is taken from a letter in the Record Office : — 
 
 Ireland, 181 1, January to June. No. 652. 
 
 " Young Mr. Curran, son of the Master of the 
 Rolls, has been very active in soliciting from the 
 Catholics subscriptions for Mr. Finnerty, and letters 
 from persons associated in London for promoting that 
 object have been addressed to the Catholics here. 
 " I have the honour to be, 
 
 " &c. &c. &c. 
 
 " W. W. Pole. 
 " The Right Honourable Richard Ryder." . 
 
 The speech of Mr. Finnerty formed the subject of 
 debate in the House of Commons, March 4th, 181 1. 
 The debate is fully reported in the Examiner, March 
 Toth. Mr. Finnerty's speech is given at great length 
 in The Dublin Weekly Messenger, November 10th, 
 1 8 10. A copy of the first two volumes of that paper 
 
?3o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 In a tract entitled Proceedings of the Catholic Com- 
 mittee, as taken from their Accredited Papers, Dublin, 
 1811, a report of the speech fills ten pages. 
 
 A more formidable personage than Mr. Peter Fin- 
 nertv was at this time also under the watchful eye of 
 Mr. Wcllesley Pole.* In a letter dated " Irish Office, 
 March nth, 181 1" he sends to the Home Secretary, 
 the Right Hon. Richard Ryder, a lengthy report of 
 the proceedings at a the Aggregate Meeting of the 
 Catholics held in Dublin on Friday last, the 8th in- 
 stant/' Towards the end of it Mr. O'Connell is 
 alluded to in the following words : — 
 
 " It would appear from Mr. O'ConnelPs speech as 
 if a repeal of the Legislative Union was now become 
 as serious an object to the Catholic Managers as 
 general Emancipation. He expressed himself thus, 
 ' That the country had been involved in deep calamity 
 ever since the baneful measure of the Union had been 
 forced upon distracted Ireland/ M This passage, it may 
 
 * There is a still earlier allusion to Mr. O'Connell, and to the 
 demand for a Eepeal of the Union, in the State Papers. It is a 
 private report of the Aggregate Meeting, September 18th, 1810. 
 The document is marked " Enclosure No. 2 :" — 
 
 " Hutton, a trader (brother to the late Alderman), of the Pres- 
 byterian Party, moved a petition to the King to insist on the 
 Repeal of the Union. 
 
 " Counsellor O'Connell seconded the motion (he is a Catholic). 
 Motion carried unanimously." The onl\ r names given in this 
 private report are those of Hutton, MacXally, and O'Connell. 
 The following observation is added : — " The people who have en- 
 gaged in this business will persevere, and they ought to be attended 
 to — they ought to be watched." The benevolent gentleman who 
 gave this advice seems to have been a certain Mr. u T. Mulock." — 
 [Ireland, J 8 10. August to December. No. 648.] 
 
SECRET AGENTS OF THE GOVERNMENT. 231 
 
 be remarked, reads amazingly like that which Shelley 
 subsequently wrote in the advertisement of his first 
 pamphlet. In language stronger than that of Mr. 
 O'Connell, but yet resembling it, he calls the Union 
 Act " the most successful engine that England ever 
 wielded over the misery of fallen Ireland." Mr. Pole, 
 in the continuation of his letter to Mr. Ryder, thus 
 refers to one of that useful class whom he had in 
 more direct but less elegant ianguage called 
 " spies i" — 
 
 " One of the most intelligent and secret agents 
 employed by the Irish Government states, that in 
 his judgment their last meeting and debate has most 
 evidently depressed the Protestant party, who have 
 opposed the claims of the Catholics, and has increased 
 their Protestant advocates. Many Protestants were 
 present, and the Theatre was full in every part. It is 
 remarkable, however, that there was no crowd at the 
 door : great pains having been taken, particularly by 
 the Catholic clergy, to keep the lower orders from 
 attending in the streets. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, &c. &c, 
 
 " W. W. Pole. 
 
 " Eight Honourable Richard Ryder."* 
 
 The morning of Friday the 28th of February, 18 12, 
 must have been an exciting one for the three propagan- 
 dists of philanthropy — Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza West- 
 brook, as they met together in the drawing-room of 
 No. 7, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin. The youthful 
 Shelley was on that day to present himself before an 
 
 * From State Papers, "Ireland, 181 1, January to June. 
 No. 652." 
 
232 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 immense assembly, and to put to the test his power of 
 addressing or influencing an audience. The ladies we 
 may be sure had determined to accompany him to the 
 meeting, and with all her confidence in the ability of 
 Percy, we can have little doubt that the gentle 
 Harriet was full of anxiety as to his success. The 
 presence of ladies at these great gatherings of the 
 rank and talent of the Irish Catholics was one of 
 their most attractive features. The following descrip- 
 tion of a meeting which took place a year before 
 may serve for that at which Shelley spoke, and we 
 have no doubt Harriet listened : — 
 
 " Fishamble Street Theatre, where the recent Ag- 
 gregate Meeting of the Roman Catholics was held in 
 Dublin," says the Morning Chronicle of March J4th, 
 1811, "was brilliantly illuminated, and had a most 
 interesting effect. The boxes were filled with ladies 
 full dressed, and the whole is represented as having a 
 very imposing effect. The presence of their fair country- 
 women was certainly calculated to prolong the discus- 
 sion, as the orators were all anxious to display their 
 eloquence to the greatest advantage/'' 
 
 Fishamble Street Theatre, where Shelley spoke and 
 Handel played, where the deep tones of O'ConnelFs 
 wonderful voice so often roused and controlled the 
 people ; the scene of so much festivity, the centre of so 
 many recollections, is now levelled to the ground, but 
 a slight sketch of its history may not be uninteresting. 
 
 The street itself, like that 
 
 " Where London's column, towering to the skies, 
 Like a tall bully lifts its head — and lies," 
 
 derives its name from being the place where fish was 
 
FISH AMBLE STREET, DUBLIN. 233 
 
 exposed for sale to the citizens. In old municipal 
 documents the Dublin Fish-shamble Street is frequently- 
 styled " Vicus Piscariorum/''* The boats could lie at 
 the river's bank at the foot of the street, which rises 
 in a zigzag direction, like the walls of a fortress, to the 
 top of the slight hill or elevation on which " the Castle 
 still stands." From its vicinity to the Cathedral of 
 the Holy Trinity or Christ Church, to the Courts of 
 Law, and to the Castle, Fishamble Street occupied 
 an important position in the old city. The names of 
 several famous hostelries are connected with it, in 
 which for many years various clubs, musical, masonic, 
 or simply convivial, were in the habit of assembling. 
 The Protestant parish church of St. John still stands 
 midway on the western side of the street, and nearly 
 opposite to it, divided from Fishamble Street by a 
 short and narrow lane, is the Catholic Church of SS. 
 Michael and John, built upon the foundations of the 
 celebrated Smock- alley Theatre. f In the first named 
 Church of St. John, on the 3rd of July, 1746, was 
 baptized a child destined to be for ever memorable in 
 the history of Ireland — Henry Grattan — whose father 
 and grandfather had long been residents in the then 
 flourishing, but now desolate and still decaying Fish- 
 amble Street. Five years before the birth of Henry 
 Grattan, the building first called the new Music Hall, 
 but subsequently the Private Theatre, was erected. The 
 building owed its existence to the necessities of a 
 
 * In a record of the 19th year of Kichard II. it is called " Vicus 
 Piscatorius, in parochia Sancti Johannis." 
 
 t " The only vestige now existing of Smock-alley Theatre is a 
 portion of an arched passage on the south-eastern side of this 
 church." — Gilbebt's History of Dublin, vol. ii. p. III. 
 
234 PERCY BYSS1IE SHELLEY. 
 
 musical club called the " Bull's Head " Society, which 
 after various migrations from the old tavern from 
 which it derived its name, finally settled in the new 
 Music Hall. The " Bull's Head " Society always had 
 hung upon the outskirts of the Cathedral of Christ 
 Church, and from time to time decoyed to its reunions 
 various of the minor dignitaries of that ancient foun- 
 dation. So ancient indeed, that an inquisition in the 
 reign of Richard the Second declared that it was 
 " founded and endowed by divers Irish- men whose 
 names were unknown, time out of mind, and long 
 before the Conquest of Ireland." St. Patrick's Cathe- 
 dral, which may be called the Cathedral founded by 
 the Anglo-Norman colony in Ireland in a sort of 
 rivalry to the old Irish Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, 
 lay also in dangerous proximity to the head-quarters 
 of the " Bull's Head " Society, and some of its worthy 
 officers who had " music in their souls >} joined their me- 
 lodious brethren of Christ Church occasionally at their 
 festive gatherings. A sort of whimsical anathema, 
 called by him an " exhortation," was hurled at the 
 heads of these delinquents in 1741 by Dean Swift, the 
 Dean of St. Patrick's. « It reads very like what 
 Curran the « Prior " of " The Monks of the Screw " 
 might have issued about forty years later to his rather 
 lax community. In T741 " the Dean" requested his 
 sub-dean and Chapter to punish such vicars as should 
 appear at the " Club of Fiddlers in Fishamble Street," 
 " as songsters, fiddlers, pipers, trumpeters, drummers, 
 drum- majors, or in any sonal quality, according to the 
 flagitious aggravation of their respective disobedience, 
 rebellion, perfidy, and ingratitude." " I also," adds 
 Swift, " require my sub-dean to proceed to the ex- 
 tremity of expulsion, if the said vicars should be found 
 
HANDEL IN DUBLIN. 735 
 
 ungovernable, impenitent, or self- sufficient, especially 
 Taberncr, Phipps, and Church, who, as I am informed, 
 have in violation of my sub-dean's and Chapter's 
 order iu December last, at the instance of some 
 obscure persons unknown, presumed to sing and fiddle 
 at the Club above mentioned/'* 
 
 In 1 741 the President of the "Club of Fiddlers in 
 Fishainble Street " was John O'Neil, or Neal, a pub- 
 lisher of music. It was through his exertions the 
 new Music Hall was erected. This is recorded in a 
 contemporary poem, from which we may take the four 
 following lines : — 
 
 " As Amphion built of old the Theban wall, 
 So Neal has built a sumptuous Musick Hall : 
 The one by pow'rful touches of his lute ; 
 The other by the fiddle and the flute. " 
 
 But the fiddle and the flute were not to be the only 
 instruments to resound within the new structure. Six 
 weeks after it was opened the hand of a great master 
 was to awaken new harmonies within its walls, perhaps 
 not thought of by the original projectors. Handel 
 came to Dublin ; " banished to Ireland," says the 
 index to the Dunciad, " by the English nobility" : — 
 
 " Strong in new arms, lo ! Giant Handel stands, 
 Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands ; 
 To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes, 
 And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums. 
 Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no more — 
 She heard, and drove him to th' Hibernian shore." 
 
 A year later than Handel's visit to Dublin, Pope 
 paid a graceful compliment to Ireland in his lines to 
 
 * Gilbert's History of Dublin, vol. i. pp. 69, Jo. 
 
7 36 PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Southern. Alluding to the figure of the harp woven 
 into the texture of the Irish linen tablecloth hospitably 
 spread before the aged poet, who was himself a native 
 of Dublin, he says : — 
 
 " And Ireland, mother of sweet singers, 
 Presents her harp still to his fingers." 
 
 The " mother of sweet singers >} could not do less 
 than give Handel a cordial reception. She had 
 already presented her harp in some of its most attrac- 
 tive utterances to that " sweet son of song/'' The 
 melodies of Ireland, half a century before Moore 
 was born, delighted Handel. He is said to have 
 declared that he would willingly resign the fame 
 he had acquired by his most celebrated compositions 
 for the glory of being the inventor of the air Aiken 
 Aroon* 
 
 From 1741, when the genius of Handel threw an un- 
 expected glory over the new Music Hall in Fishamble 
 Street, until 1812, when the apparition of Shelley 
 within its walls 
 
 " Bequeathed, like sunset to the skies, 
 The splendour of its prime," 
 
 a period of seventy-one years had elapsed. The 
 gradual decay of the. street had by this time advanced, 
 and with it that of the theatre. This building lay 
 almost out of view. It was approached by a wooden 
 porch or verandah in an angle of the street as you 
 descend from Werburgh Street and Hoey's Court (the 
 birthplace of Swift) towards the river. Many changes 
 
 * An Account of the Visit of Handel to Dublin ; with Incidental 
 Notices of his Life and Character. By Horatio Townsend, Esq., 
 Barrister-at-Law, p. 64. Dublin, 1832. 
 
FISH AMBLE STREET THEATRE. 237 
 
 had taken place in the locality. " Hell" itself was 
 proved not to have heen eternal. The famous passage 
 or gateway so-called, surmounted by a black figure of 
 the devil carved in oak, had stood nearly opposite the 
 theatre in St. John's Lane. At the time of Shelley's 
 visit, Burns, if he had been living, would have had to 
 seek elsewhere for an illustration of the truth of the 
 story he told in " Death and Doctor Hornbook" — 
 
 " But this that I am gaun to tell, 
 Which lately on a night befell, 
 Is just as true as the Deil's in Hell 
 Or Dublin City." 
 
 The (t Deil" had disappeared or been metamorphosed 
 into snuffboxes !"* 
 
 Fishamble Street Theatre survived for something 
 over half a century after Shelley's visit. In the de- 
 caying street there was one flourishing establishment. 
 To that exceptional sign of prosperity it owed its de- 
 struction. The growing needs of an enterprising 
 firm adjoining required larger accommodation. The 
 theatre was taken down, and the open show-yard of a 
 thriving iron factory now occupies the space on which 
 it stood.f 
 
 The vigilance exercised by the Irish Government in 
 ascertaining through their secret agents the arrange- 
 ments of the Catholics for the intended meeting of 
 
 *,One of these the author remembers having seen in his boy- 
 hood. The box bore on a silver lid the following inscription, which 
 was read with all due awe : — 
 
 w Prime your nose well, and I'd have you be civil, 
 For this box it was made of a part of the Devil !" 
 
 t The site is well defined. It is in the angle of the street, and. 
 separates the two establishments of Messrs. Kennan and Sons. 
 
itf PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 February 28th, 1812, did not relax when the meeting 
 took place. Two persons were sent to Fishamble 
 Street Theatre to furnish special reports of the pro- 
 ceedings. Both reporters were connected with the 
 police — one a chief constable, Mr. Michael Farrell, 
 well known in the local history of the period j the 
 other, a Mr. Manning, who held an inferior position. 
 These reports are preserved among the State Papers in 
 the Record Office. Unfortunately they give us little 
 or no information on the subject of Shelley. In one 
 he is not mentioned at all ; in the other he is barely 
 alluded to. Of the two reports, that signed Thos. K. 
 Manning is the longest. In this Shelley's name does 
 not appear. Another young man, afterwards very 
 distinguished, the late Sir Thomas Wyse, the English 
 Ambassador in Greece, made his first appearance in 
 public at the same meeting. He proposed the reso- 
 lution to which Shelley spoke, and is thus described 
 by Mr. Manning : — 
 
 " On this resolution, Mr. Wise, a young boy, de- 
 livered a speech of considerable length and replete 
 with much elegant language ; the principal matter it 
 contained of notice was, that he lamented that the 
 Regent should abandon Mr. Fox's principles and join 
 in a shameful coalition, or that he had been so far 
 womanized — here he was interrupted by a question of 
 order." 
 
 In 18 1 2, Mr. Wyse was twenty-one years of age, 
 having been born in 1791 ; the description " a young 
 boy" could therefore be scarcely applicable to him. 
 Shelley was nineteen years and six months old, but 
 looked so young that his servant could give out with 
 some appearance of truth that he was but fifteen. 
 
SIR THOMAS WTSE. 239 
 
 The full report of the elaborate speech of Mr. Wyse 
 is now before us, and it contains no language in the 
 slightest degree disrespectful to the Prince Regent, 
 neither was the speaker called to order. In fact, the 
 business of the meeting was to adopt an address to 
 his Royal Highness, and the observations alluded to 
 by the reporter could scarcely have been used by any 
 one who had been selected by the managers to take 
 an important part in its proceedings. Shelley's speech 
 was volunteered. His strong feelings towards the Prince 
 at this time we know from his own letters, and he may 
 easily have strayed into the expression of them. In 
 one of his letters, hitherto unpublished, an extract 
 from which will presently be given, he tells us that 
 some of his observations met with interruption. On 
 the whole we think that Mr. Manning, in copying his 
 notes, transferred the description from Shelley to Mr. 
 Wyse. 
 
 The second reporter, Mr. Farrell, the peace officer, 
 mentions Shelley but very slightly. He says : — 
 
 " Lord Glentworth said a few words — a Mr. Bennett 
 spoke, also Mr. Shelley, who stated himself to be a 
 native of England.'" 
 
 With these manuscript reports the Lord Lieutenant 
 forwarded to the Home Secretary a copy of The Dublin 
 Evening Post of Saturday, the 29th February, 181 2, 
 containing a full report of the proceedings at the 
 meeting which took place the day before, It is from 
 this paper that the only version of Shelley's speech 
 hitherto published has been taken. It was originally 
 extracted by the present writer, from whose transcript 
 it was copied into Mr. Middleton's Shelley and his 
 Writings (vol. i. p. 212). There are two other versions 
 
2 4 o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 of the speech which have not previously been known. 
 One of these is indeed very short, but as it expressly 
 mentions the kind manner in which the youthful 
 speaker was received by the meeting, it is very valuable 
 as part of the refutation of the calumnious statement 
 made. years after by Mr. Hogg, which has been so 
 improperly repeated by others who reject Mr. Hogg's 
 testimony when they dislike it, and adopt it when it 
 is in accordance with their own prejudices. This brief 
 report appeared on the morning after the meeting in 
 The Freeman's Journal of Saturday, Feb. 29th, 181 2. 
 It was repeated in The Hibernian Journal, or Daily 
 Chronicle of Liberty, Dublin, Monday, March 2nd, 
 1812. And again in a more accessible shape in 
 Walker's Hibernian Magazine for February, 18 12, 
 p. 83. As it was the earliest report, it may be here 
 given first : — 
 
 Shelley's Speech at Fishamble Street Theatre, Dublin, 
 
 Feb. 28th, 1812. 
 
 From The Freeman s Journal, Dublin, Feb. 29th, 18 12. 
 
 " On the fifth [it should have been the sixth'] 
 resolution being proposed, Mr. Shelley, an English 
 gentleman (very young), the son of a Member of Par- 
 liament, rose to address the meeting. He was received 
 with great kindness, and declared that the greatest 
 misery this country endured was the Union Law, the 
 Penal Code, and the state of the representation. He 
 drew a lively picture of the misery of the country, 
 which he attributed to the unfortunate Act of Legis- 
 lative Union." 
 
 On the evening of the same day, in the Dublin 
 Evening Post of Saturday, the 29th of February, 1812, 
 
REPORTS OF SHELLETS SPEEC$> 241 
 
 a fuller report of the speech is given. The italics are 
 in the original. 
 
 Shelley's Speech. 
 From TJie Dublin Evening Post, Saturday, 29th Feb. 181 2. 
 
 " Mr. Shelley requested a hearing. He was an 
 Englishman, and when he reflected on the crimes com- 
 mitted by his nation on Ireland, he could not but blush 
 for his countrymen, did he not know that arbitrary 
 power never failed to corrupt the heart of man. (Loud 
 applause for several minutes.) 
 
 " He had come to Ireland for the sole purpose of 
 interesting himself in her misfortunes. He was deeply 
 impressed with a sense of the evils which Ireland en- 
 dured, and he considered them to be truly ascribed to 
 the fatal effects of the legislative union with Great 
 Britain. 
 
 u He walked through the streets, and he saw the 
 fane of liberty converted into a temple of Mammon. 
 (Loud applause.) He beheld beggary and famine in 
 the country, and he could lay his hand on his heart 
 and say that the cause of such sights was the union 
 with Great Britain. (Hear, hear.) He was resolved 
 to do his utmost to promote a Repeal of the Union. 
 Catholic Emancipation would do a great deal towards 
 the amelioration of the condition of the people, but 
 he was convinced that the Repeal of the Union was of 
 more importance. He considered that the victims 
 whose members were vibrating on gibbets were driven 
 to the commission of the crimes which they expiated 
 by their lives by the effects of the Union/'' 
 
 The third and longest report of Shelley 's speech is 
 
 R 
 
i 4 i PERCY BYSSHE SIIELLEY. 
 
 as follows. It is taken from The Patriot, Dublin, 
 2nd March, 1812 : — 
 
 " Mr. Shelly then addressed the Chair. He hoped 
 he should not be accounted a transgressor on the time 
 of the meeting. He felt inadequate to the task he 
 had undertaken, but he hoped the feelings which 
 urged him forward would plead his pardon. He was 
 an Englishman ; when he reflected on the outrages 
 that his countrymen had committed here for the last 
 twenty years he confessed that he blushed for them. 
 He had come to Ireland for the sole purpose of 
 interesting himself in the misfortunes of this country, 
 and impressed with a full conviction of the necessity 
 of Catholic Emancipation, and of the baneful effects 
 which the union with Great Britain had entailed upon 
 Ireland. He had walked through the fields of the 
 country and the streets of the city, and he had in 
 both seen the miserable effects of that fatal step. He 
 had seen that edifice which ought to have been the 
 fane of their liberties converted to a temple of 
 Mammon. Many of the crimes which are daily com- 
 mitted he could not avoid attributing to the effect of 
 that measure, which had thrown numbers of people 
 out of the employment they had in manufacture, and 
 induced them to commit acts of the greatest despera- 
 tion for the support of their existence. 
 
 " He could not imagine that the religious opinion 
 of a man should exclude him from the rights of society. 
 The original founder of our religion taught no such 
 doctrine. Equality in this respect was general in the 
 American States; and why not here ? Did a change 
 of place change the nature of man ? He would beg 
 those in power to recollect the French Revolution : 
 
SHELLEY'S OWN COMMENT ON HIS SPEECH. itf 
 
 the suddenness, the violence with which it burst forth, 
 and the causes which gave rise to it. 
 
 " Both the measures of Emancipation and a Repeal 
 of the Union should meet his decided support, but he 
 hoped many years would not pass over his head when 
 he would make himself conspicuous at least by his zeal 
 for them."* 
 
 In these versions of the speech, which are the only 
 ones I have been able to find in the Irish papers of 
 the period, or rather in those of them that are still 
 extant, there is no suggestion that Shelley met with 
 the slightest discourtesy from those he addressed. 
 Indeed, it would be strange if he had. His youth, 
 his enthusiasm, his eloquence, as we will find, 
 delighted the assembly by which, as we are told in 
 The Freeman's Journal, "he was received with great 
 kindness." Some slight interruption he did meet with 
 at the beginning, but that was, as he tells us himself 
 in the unpublished letter we have referred to, when 
 he spoke of " religion " In this letter, which is dated 
 "17, Grafton Street, Dublin, March 14, 1812," he 
 says : — 
 
 " My speech was misinterpreted. I spoke for more 
 than an hour. The hisses with which they greeted 
 me when I spoke of religion, though in terms of 
 respect, were mixed with applause when I avowed my 
 mission. The newspapers have only noted that which 
 did not excite disapprobation/" 
 
 Without attributing any over-sensitiveness to the 
 
 * I find that this version of the speech appeared first in 
 Saunders's News-Letter, Saturday, February 29th, 18 12, the day 
 after the meeting. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 PERCY J1YSSI/E SHELLEY. 
 
 meeting, we may well imagine that Shelley's mode of 
 speaking of religion, " though in terms of respect," 
 was not that which would reeommend itself very 
 favourably to an assembly of Irishmen who had not 
 been " educated" (to use the expression of a modern 
 statesman) in the higher mysteries of philanthropy. 
 In his second pamphlet, which was issued four days 
 after he delivered this speech, there are passages 
 which, if spoken amid the excitement of a public 
 meeting, would indeed run some chance of being 
 " misinterpreted/'' People could not have time to 
 decide with accuracy as to what he exactly meant by 
 " the eyeless monster Bigotry, whose throne has 
 tottered for two hundred years" (p. 3). Perhaps they 
 would only have laughed if he had exclaimed as he 
 has written, " I hear the teeth of the palsied beldame 
 Superstition chatter, and I see her descending to the 
 grave ! Reason points to the open gates of the 
 Temple of Religious Freedom, Philanthropy kneels at 
 the altar of the common God" (p. 3). By the " pal- 
 sied beldame Superstition" Shelley of course under- 
 stood the " religion" of the great majority of the 
 people he addressed, and which he spoke of in such 
 " terms of respect." 
 
 That, however, is not the view which Mr. Hogg, 
 the poet's biographer, takes of the matter, and here 
 we shall give that veracious gentleman's statement in 
 full. We must remind the reader of the mysterious 
 affair at York, of which something has been said in 
 the earlier portion of this book. Owing to that -event 
 a total estrangement for a while took place between 
 Shelley and his college friend. At the time we speak of 
 (February, 1812) no intercourse whatever had existed 
 between them for several preceding months, nor was it 
 
ALLEGED STATEMENT OF SHELLEY. 745 
 
 renewed for nearly a year afterwards. Shelley had not 
 sent his late friend his Irish pamphlets, he did not write 
 to him on any subject, he gave him no account of his 
 proceedings. At a later period, which Mr. Hogg does 
 not particularize, when his injured friend had gene- 
 rously forgiven him, and let him a little into his con- 
 fidence once more, he says that Shelley spoke to him 
 " twice, not oftener," he believed, " of his Irish 
 mission." Before this conversation recurred to Mr. 
 Hogg's memory he had made a statement as if on his 
 own authority concerning this very mission. " There 
 was one meeting of philanthropists," says the truthful 
 biographer, " for it was reported in a newspaper, and 
 probably puffed a little, perhaps for a valuable con- 
 sideration. Whether there were more meetings does 
 not appear. Poor Bysshe made a speech, and pro- 
 posed his scheme, but it did not succeed." {Life of 
 Shelley, vol. ii. p. 108.) It is scarcely necessary to 
 say that there is not one word of truth in all this. 
 There was no u meeting of philanthropists ;" it was 
 never " puffed a little in a newspaper ;" Shelley never 
 made a speech at a meeting of " philanthropists," and 
 never " proposed his scheme." It is no wonder there- 
 fore, under these circumstances, that " it did not 
 succeed." After pages of malevolent and ill-concealed 
 contempt for Shelley, and openly avowed hatred of 
 Ireland, Mr. Hogg resumes his narrative. In the 
 passage quoted he had drawn on his imagination for 
 his facts ; he now draws on his memory for his imagi- 
 nation : — 
 
 " Twice — not oftener, I believe — he spoke to 
 me of his Irish mission. On one occasion he told 
 me that at a meeting — probably at the meeting of 
 
246 PERCY BYSS1JE SHELLEY. 
 
 philanthropists — so much ill-will was shown towards 
 the Protestants, that thereupon he was provoked to 
 remark that the Protestants were fellow Christians, 
 fellow subjects, and as such were entitled to equal 
 rights, to equal charity, toleration, and the rest. He 
 was forthwith interrupted by savage yells ; a tre- 
 mendous uproar arose, and he was compelled to be 
 silent. At the same meeting and. afterwards he was 
 even threatened with personal violence. This un- 
 reasonable display of Popish and party bigotry went 
 far to disgust him with his rash enterprise, to open 
 his eyes, and to convince him that Irish grievances 
 consisted not in a denial of equal rights — these the 
 Philanthropic Association did not seek— but the power 
 and opportunity to tyrannize over and oppress their 
 Protestant brethren. - " (Hogg's Life of Shelley, vol. ii. 
 pp. 113, 114.) 
 
 Out of the pages of the much maligned Ferdinand 
 Mendez Pinto — that " liar of the first magnitude," 
 who must have been indeed but " the type " of this 
 cynical biographer — there could not be found within 
 the same space a greater number of reckless misre- 
 presentations than these, if we must not call them 
 by a shorter and more emphatic title. That Shelley 
 ever made them is incredible. They are contradicted 
 by his own letters at the time, by the facts of the 
 case, by the evidence already adduced, and by the 
 important letter of an unimpeachable witness who 
 happened to be present at the meeting, and whose 
 unwilling testimony to the cordiality of Shelley's 
 reception, and the enthusiasm he produced, puts an 
 end for ever to the monstrous fable of Mr. Hogg. 
 That fable has unfortunately been adopted by others 
 
From a lithograph by Haverty, jr.(JD. 1&&9. 
 JAr Y7yse, subsequently the Bight Hon. Sir 
 Thomas Wyse, K.O.I$. } late British Jfiinister at 
 Ji.thens. commenced public life at the meeting 
 in Fishamble Street Theatre, (Dublin, Feb. ggth 
 1^12. He seconded the resolution to which 
 Shelley spoke. See p. £4.7. 
 
REFUTATION OF MR. HOGG'S CALUMNIES. 247 
 
 -who Lave publicly impeached the veracity of the 
 authority on which it is founded. It would be easy 
 to point out the injury that is done to society by 
 disseminating statements which a slight examination 
 would prove to be untrue, particularly when such 
 calumnies have no result except in perpetuating and 
 keeping alive national and religious animosities. The 
 subject would however be painful, and perhaps out of 
 place here. It is to be hoped that in future " Shelley 
 Memorials " and " Memoirs " a very different account 
 from that which disfigures those at present in existence 
 will be given of the manner in which the poet was 
 received by those he went to serve. 
 
 The Resolution to which Shelley spoke would in 
 itself disprove the story of Mr. Hogg. 
 
 " Resolved, That the grateful thanks of this 
 Meeting are due, and hereby returned to Lord Glent- 
 worth, the Right Hon. Maurice Fitzgerald, and the 
 other Distinguished Protestants who have this day 
 honoured us with their presence." 
 
 This Resolution, which was passed by acclamation 
 by the assembly, was spoken to by Lord Glent worth, 
 a Protestant nobleman, as well as by the philanthropic 
 Shelley, and was seconded by the distinguished gentle- 
 man already referred to, the late Sir Thomas Wyse — 
 then Mr. Wyse — a Catholic. The eloquent speech of 
 Mr. Wyse is given at great length in the Dublin 
 newspaper sent by Shelley to Godwin on the 8th of 
 March, 18.12. The concluding passage seems as if it 
 were addressed to the young poet and philanthropist 
 who stood by his side. We print it exactly as it is 
 given in the newspaper. 
 
i 4 8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 n On that day of Peace/' said Mr. Wyse, " when 
 national animosity is sepulchred beneath the trophies 
 of national harmony, we shall remember with gratitude 
 the Protestant who stood by us in our struggle, and 
 bore our broken standard to the front of the battle, 
 whilst we prepare the Sacrifice to the Spirit of Un- 
 distinguished Brotherhood and Universal Emanci- 
 pation." — The Weekly Messenger, Saturday, March 
 7th, 1 812* 
 
 * This, the maiden speech of the late Sir Thomas Wyse, which 
 fills nearly four columns of The Weekly Messenger, March 7th, 
 18 1 2, is thus introduced by the editor of that journal : — 
 
 " Me. Wise, June. 
 
 '* The report which we now give of the speech delivered by this 
 gentleman, at the late aggregate meeting of the Catholics of Ireland, 
 will be observed by our readers to be the most correct and most 
 accurate as yet presented to the public. It will be found, we hope, 
 that some justice is done to those talents which excited such general 
 applause. That the lover of his country, and the admirer of the 
 growing genius of our Island, will find great satisfaction in the 
 perusal of the following speech, we have no doubt. We trust that 
 every effort which shall hereafter be made by our countrymen will 
 rival the talents which we have already witnessed, and that the 
 eloquence of our young advocate may be a presage of the advantages 
 which the British empire shall hereafter reap from their full and 
 unqualified possession." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PHE following important letter, now for the first 
 time given in connexion with the life of Shelley, 
 while it disposes of the calumny so readily believed and 
 so recklessly diffused as to his reception at a public 
 meeting, referred to in the preceding chapter, settles also 
 the interesting question, which has often been raised, 
 of Shelley's probable success as an orator had he 
 devoted himself to the cultivation of eloquence instead 
 of poetry. 
 
 Medwin, Trelawny, and Captain Williams the 
 partner of his fate, spea.k highly of the elevation of 
 Shelley's ordinary conversation, which rose occasio- 
 nally into an unstudied eloquence. But they never 
 heard him address a public assembly. The only one 
 hitherto recorded — except the anonymous writers 
 subsequently to be mentioned — who had this oppor- 
 tunity, and made some allusion to it, was the late 
 Chief Baron Woulfe. His description leaves the 
 impression that Shelley was a cold, methodical, and 
 ineffective speaker. Chief Baron Woulfe was in bad 
 health when he is reported to have mentioned his 
 recollection of Shelley's manner. Many years had 
 elapsed, and Shelley could have scarcely been recalled 
 to his memory except by an effort. Of far different 
 value is the testimony wrung most reluctantly at the 
 moment from an unwilling witness. That testimony 
 
2 5 o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 is contained in the following letter, which was pub- 
 lished in the Government organ of the day, The Dublin 
 Journal, a paper originally started by George Faulkner, 
 the publisher of Swift : — 
 
 Shelley as an orator, described by 
 "An Englishman" in 1812. 
 
 " To the Editor of The Dublin Journal. 
 
 "Saturday, March 7th, 18 12. 
 " Sir, — Our public meetings now-a-days, instead of 
 exhibiting the deliberations of men of acknowledged 
 wisdom and experience, resemble mere debating so- 
 cieties, where unfledged candidates for national dis- 
 tinction rant out a few trite and commonplace obser- 
 vations with as much exultation and self-applause as 
 if they possessed the talents or eloquence of a Saurin 
 or a Burke. This remark is particularly applicable 
 to almost the whole of the rqeetings which have been 
 assembled within the last twelve months by the 
 Catholics ; at which young gentlemen of this descrip- 
 tion have constantly intruded themselves upon the 
 public notice, and by the unseasonable and injudicious 
 violence of their language, have not a little prejudiced 
 the cause they attempted to support. Curiosity and 
 the expected gratification of hearing a display of 
 oratory by some of the leading members of the 
 Catholic body led me on Friday, for the first time, to 
 the Aggregate Meeting in Fishamble Street. Being 
 rather late I missed the orations of Mr. Connell [sic] 
 and the leading orators, and only heard a dry mono- 
 tonous effusion from Counsellor , and, to me, a 
 
 most disgusting harangue from a stripling, with whom 
 1 am unacquainted, but who, I am sorry to say, styled 
 
SHELLEY AS AN ORATOR IN 1812. 251 
 
 himself my countryman — an Englishman. This young 
 gentleman, after stating that he had been only a 
 fortnight in Ireland, expatiated on the miseries which 
 this country endured in consequence of its con- 
 nexion with his own, and asserted (from the know- 
 ledge, I presume, which his peculiar sagacity enabled 
 him to acquire in so short a period) that its cities 
 were depopulated, its fields laid waste, and its in- 
 habitants degraded and enslaved ; and all this by its 
 union with England. If it revolted against my prin- 
 ciples, Mr. Editor, to hear such language from one of 
 my own countrymen, you will readily conceive that my 
 disgust was infinitely heightened to observe with what 
 transport the invectives of this renegade Englishman 
 against his native country were hailed by the assembly 
 he addressed. Joy beamed in every countenance and 
 rapture glistened in every eye at the aggravated detail : 
 the delirium of ecstasy got the better of prudential 
 control ; the veil was for a moment withdrawn. I 
 thought I saw the purpose, in spite of the pretence, 
 written in legible characters in each of their faces, and 
 though emancipation alone flowed from the tongue, 
 separation and ascendancy were rooted in the heart. 
 
 " As for the young gentleman alluded to, I con- 
 gratulate the Catholics of Ireland on the acquisition 
 of so patriotic and enlightened an advocate; and 
 England, I dare say, will spare him without regret. 
 I must, however, remark that as the love of his 
 country is one of the strongest principles implanted 
 in the breast of man by his Maker, and as the affec- 
 tions are more ardent in youth than in maturer years, 
 that this young gentleman should at so early an 
 age have overcome the strongest impulses of nature, 
 seems to me a complete refutation of the hitherto 
 
»5« PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 supposed infallible maxim that Nemo fuit repente 
 turpissiiuus. 
 
 " An Englishman." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that instead of being "interrupted 
 by savage yells/' as Mr. Hogg and Lady Shelley would 
 have us believe, this " stripling," this " renegade Eng- 
 lishman," as he is called by his indignant countryman, 
 w was hailed with delight" by his Irish audience ; "joy 
 beamed in every countenance and rapture glistened in 
 every eye ;" and if there was disposition to " threaten 
 him with personal violence," we may now safely 
 infer from what quarter it would be likely to have 
 come. 
 
 The same day, the 7th of March, 1812, on which The 
 Dub/in Journal published this sarcastic allusion to the 
 speech of " a stripling" it does not condescend to name, 
 is memorable in the life of Shelley as that on which he 
 is first spoken of openly in terms of enthusiastic admira- 
 tion and praise. With the exception of his appearing 
 among the subscribers to the Poems of Janetta Philipps, 
 and to the Oxford Fund in Sustainment of Peter Fin- 
 nerty, as previously mentioned, the following is the 
 earliest public allusion to him that can be discovered. 
 It appeared in The Weekly Messenger, another Dublin 
 journal, but differing very widely in politics from that 
 which contains the letter of "An Englishman." Shelley 
 seems to have been rather proud of the notice, as he 
 sent it at once to Godwin. Writing to the philosopher 
 on the following day, he says, " You will see the 
 account of me in the newspapers. I am vain, but not 
 so foolish as not to be rather piqued than gratified at 
 the eulogia of a journal." 
 
 The following is this very interesting article, the 
 
FIRST PUBLIC NOTICE OF SHELLEY. 253 
 
 first public notice of Shelley. It is printed exactly 
 as in the original : — 
 
 From The Weekly Messenger, Dublin, Saturday, March 7th, 181 2. 
 " Pierce Byshe Shelly, Esq. 
 
 " The highly interesting appearance of this young 
 gentleman at the late Aggregate Meeting of the 
 Catholics of Ireland, has naturally excited a spirit of 
 enquiry, as to his objects and views, in coming forward 
 at such a meeting ; and the publications which he has 
 circulated with such uncommon industry, through the 
 Metropolis, has set curiosity on the wing to ascertain 
 who he is, from whence he comes, and what his preten- 
 sions are to the confidence he solicits, and the character 
 he assumes. To those who have read the productions 
 we have alluded to, we need bring forward no evidence 
 of the cultivation of his mind — the benignity of his 
 principles — or the- peculiar fascination with which he 
 seems able to recommend them. 
 
 " Of this gentleman's family we can say but little, 
 but we can set down what we have heard from respect- 
 able authority. That his father is a member of the 
 Imperial Parliament, and that this young gentleman, 
 whom we have seen, is the immediate heir of one of 
 the first fortunes in England. Of his principles and 
 his manners we can say more, because we can collect 
 from conversation, as well as from reading, that he 
 seems devoted to the propagation of those divine and 
 Christian feelings which purify the human heart, give 
 shelter to the poor, and consolation to the unfortunate. 
 That he is the bold and intrepid advocate of those 
 principles which are calculated to give energy to truth, 
 and to depose from their guilty eminence the bad and 
 
^54 PERCY DYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 vicious passions of a corrupt community ; — that a 
 universality of charity is his object, and a perfectibility 
 of human society his end, which cannot be attained by 
 the conflicting dogmas of religious sects, each priding 
 itself on the extinction of the other, and all existing by 
 the mutual misfortunes which flow from polemical war- 
 fare. The principles of this young gentleman em- 
 brace all sects and all persuasions. His doctrines, 
 political and religious, may be accommodated to all ; 
 every friend to true Christianity will be his religious 
 friend, and every enemy to the liberties of Ireland will 
 be his political enemy. The weapons he wields are 
 those of reason, and the most social benevolence. He 
 deprecates violence in the accomplishment of his views, 
 and relies upon the mild and merciful spirit of tole- 
 ration for the completion of all his designs, and the 
 consummation of all his wishes. To the religious 
 bigot such a missionary of truth is a formidable op- 
 ponent, by the political monopolist he will be considered 
 the child of Chimera, the creature of fancy, an ima- 
 ginary legislator who presumes to make laws without 
 reflecting upon his materials, and despises those con- 
 siderations which have baffled the hopes of the most 
 philanthropic and the efforts of the most wise. It is 
 true, human nature may be too depraved for such a 
 hand as Mr. Shelly's to form to anything that 
 is good, or liberal, or beneficent. Let him but take down 
 one of the rotten pillars by which society is now 
 propped, and substitute the purity of his own princi- 
 ples, and Mr. Shelly shall have done a great and lasting 
 service to human nature. To this gentleman Ireland 
 is much indebted, for selecting her as the theatre of 
 his first attempts in this holy work of human regenera- 
 tion : the Catholics of Ireland should listen to him with 
 
FIRST PUBLIC NOTICE OF SHELLEY. 255 
 
 respect, because they will find that an enlightened 
 Englishman has interposed between the treason of 
 their own countrymen and the almost conquered 
 spirit of their country ; that Mr. Shelly has come 
 to Ireland to demonstrate in his person that there are 
 hearts in his own country not rendered callous by six 
 hundred years of injustice ; and that the genius of 
 freedom, which has communicated comfort and content 
 to the cottage of the Englishman, has found its way 
 to the humble roof of the Irish peasant, and promises 
 by its presence to dissipate the sorrows of past ages, to 
 obliterate the remembrance of persecution, and close 
 the long and wearisome scene of centuries of human de- 
 pression. We extract from Mr. Shelly' s last production, 
 which he calls " Proposals for an Association, &c." 
 
 A long quotation from this pamphlet follows, which, 
 as it is printed entire in this book, need not be given. 
 The writer in The Weekly Messenger concludes his 
 observations with the following important paragraph : — 
 
 " We have but one word more to add. Mr. Shelly, 
 commiserating the sufferings of our distinguished 
 countryman Mr. Finerty, whose exertions in the 
 cause of political freedom he much admired, wrote a 
 very beautiful poem, the profits of which we under- 
 stand, from undoubted authority, Mr. Shelly remitted 
 to Mr. Finerty; we have heard they amounted to 
 nearly an hundred pounds. This fact speaks a volume 
 in favour of our new friend." 
 
 Here then is the statement which has led to the 
 whole of this investigation. It seemed incredible that 
 a poem thus mentioned to the writer of the foregoing 
 article, evidently by Shelley himself, should have re- 
 
356 PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 maincd unknown to every one who lived in familiar 
 intimacy with the poet, or who has written about him 
 since his death. The fact of Shelley sending this 
 statement to Godwin without a word of correction con- 
 firms its truth. The name of the poem is not given. 
 There was no clue but the fact that the profits of the 
 sale were remitted to Mr. Finnerty. That however, as 
 I have shown, proved sufficient to enable me to identify 
 this "very beautiful poem" with the Poetical- Essay on 
 the Existing State of Things, published, as it is stated, 
 for the purpose of " assisting to maintain in prison Mr. 
 Peter Finnerty, imprisoned for a libel." 
 
 Before alluding to the probable writer of this article 
 in The Weekly Messenger, I will here give a 
 letter reflecting upon it, and upon Shelley, who is still 
 not named, which appeared a fortnight later in Faulk- 
 ner's Dublin Journal. The " stripling's" pretensions 
 to be a poet, on the strength of this poem about 
 Finnerty, are sarcastically referred to. The writer now 
 calls himself "a Dissenter" instead of "an Englishman." 
 
 " To the Editor of The Dublin Journal. 
 
 "Saturday, March 21st, 18 12. 
 
 " Sir, — T question the propriety of contributing to 
 the public introduction of those literary nondescripts 
 and political adventurers who figure occasionally on the 
 Catholic stage. Men there are who, preferring dis- 
 tinction procured by infamy to inglorious obscurity, do 
 not hesitate at the violation of any law, civil or sacred, 
 in order to attain it : swimming at the surface by their 
 own putrescence, these merit not our attention ; silence 
 and contempt are all we owe to the individual whose 
 sole ambition is to become the idol of a mob, and who 
 
A DUBLIN "DISSENTER," 1812, ON SHELLEY. 257 
 
 like Herostratus, could fire a temple the wonder of the 
 world, merely for the sake of transmitting to posterity 
 a name which might otherwise rot. 
 
 " Through the medium of your paper, however, the 
 attention of the public has been called to another of the 
 Catholic performers, and a late worthy correspondent 
 has obliged you with some deserved and judicious 
 animadversions upon his debut. In a weekly paper, the 
 appearance of this ( very interesting' personage is 
 announced with as much parade as if Dogberry, Verges, 
 and the Watch graced the scene. c Oh, a stool and a 
 cushion for the sexton/ ' An two men ride of a horse, 
 one must ride behind/ f The ewe that will not hear 
 her lamb when it baes, will never answer a calf when 
 he bleats/ His panegyrist has described him with the 
 minuteness of an interested biographer ; the prospects 
 and the talents of the ( stranger' and his generosity, his 
 amazing generosity to an incarcerated individual [Mr. 
 Peter Finnerty] , whose crime was not loyalty, are made 
 the subjects of commendation ; and in illustration of the 
 excellence of this modern Apollonius, who travels but 
 for the improvement of the human race, a specimen of 
 his composition is printed and circulated. I do not find 
 that he, like the Gappadocian, has laid claims to mira- 
 culous powers, but he is a poet, and his very prose is 
 so full of poetic fire, so vivid, so redundant with words, 
 which, like those often used by a celebrated female 
 novelist, were probably never intended to represent any 
 specific idea — one is tempted to think he must now and 
 then compose under the influence of the moon. Now, 
 sir, though I really can neither ( make occasions/ nor 
 f improve those that offer/ for perusing the whole of a 
 production which is scarcely to be paralleled in the 
 ravings of Diderot, the rhapsodies of Rousseau, or the 
 
i 5 8 PERCY BYS8HE SHELLEY. 
 
 soft sentimental stuff of the Prebend of York, I have 
 read enough of this specimen to confirm me in the 
 old-fashioned but honest and conscientious prejudices 
 which it is evidently the wish of its author to eradicate. 
 He proposes to l exterminate the eyeless monster 
 Bigotry/ and ' make the teeth of the palsied beldame 
 Superstition chatter/ This, which is doubtless de- 
 signed as an allegorical allusion to the Romish Church, 
 must, if actually accomplished, be its death ; and when 
 • the teeth of the beldame chatter/ her brats may go beg ; 
 he proposes to make us all ' kneel at the altar of the 
 common God/ and to ' hang upon that altar the garland 
 of devotion/ figures which Deism borrows from the old 
 Heathen mythology, which are mere poetic smoke, and 
 resemble most the steams of a perfumer's shop, or the 
 smock of an Eastern bride smelling of ' myrrh, aloes, 
 and cassia/ 
 
 " In a style less elevated and Heliconian this 
 modern annihilator of moral and political evil roundly 
 proposes an association throughout Ireland for the 
 attainment of ' Catholic Emancipation and the repeal 
 of the Union Act/ That the abolition of the aris- 
 tocracy of the country is a feature in his picture of 
 Utopian amelioration, though, for reasons obvious, but 
 lightly touched, and as yet kept in the shade, is evi- 
 dent from the manner and connexion in which he 
 disapproves ' of other distinctions than those of virtue 
 and talent ' — a disapproval specious indeed, worthy 
 the head of him who expects a new Jerusalem on 
 earth, or seeks divine perfection among created beings. 
 But ignorant, shamefully ignorant, must they be of 
 human nature, and of the awful events which have 
 taken place in Europe of late years, who can be gulled 
 by such a pretext now. It is l Vox et prceterea nihil/ 
 
SATIRICAL ALLUSIONS TO SHELLEY IN 1812. 259 
 
 the very cant of republicans. J would suspect the 
 cause which recommends itself by such a pretext, as 
 I would the chastity of a wanton assuming the dress of 
 a nun — the loyalty of a friar or a presbyter armed with 
 a pike, or the honesty of a beggar with a casquet of 
 jewels. f No distinctions but those of virtue and 
 talent ' was the pretext of Monsieur Egalite, of 
 Legendre the butcher, of the bloody Roland, and of 
 that monster in human shape Marat, who proposed, 
 and was applauded by a . banditti of ruffians calling 
 themselves a National Convention for professing, the 
 cutting off one hundred and fifty thousand heads as a 
 sovereign specific for the disorders of France. 
 
 " It is said in a book to whose pages the ' very in- 
 teresting ' Philanthropist seems not to be a stranger, 
 that ' burning lips and a wicked heart ' are ' like a 
 potsherd covered with silver/ the man I mean has 
 himself quoted the phrase ' a tree is known by its 
 fruits/ and if I mistake not, such expressions warrant 
 the opinion that from certain noisy but worthless 
 characters nothing but what is noxious can be ex- 
 pected. Men whose private life and known habits 
 make them the refuse of the political, and the terror 
 or the stain of the moral world, would make but sorry 
 reformers of public abuse. I need not whisper l whence 
 I steal the waters ' when I say, c Physician, heal thy- 
 self/ It is usual to commend the Catholic body 
 for their loyalty ; that they are generally loyal is 
 sometimes acknowledged even by those who, in their 
 official situations, reprobate the proceedings of the 
 Catholic Committee. That there are loyal Catholics, 
 both lay and clerical, is, I believe, probable, but it 
 would puzzle a conjuror to reconcile with loyalty, as 
 it is by loyalists understood, some of the Catholic 
 
 s 2 
 
s6o PERCY BYSSIIE SEBLLEY. 
 
 measures." [Some passages not referring to Shelley 
 are here omitted.] " Leaving this 'interesting stranger' 
 to amuse the admirers of the Catholic Drama by puff- 
 ing at l the meteors ' of his own creation, ( which play 
 over the loathsome pool ' of his own pantomimic 
 invention, I will ask you, sir, what has the Protestant 
 cause, and what has that consummation of political 
 wisdom the British constitution, to fear from a party 
 which has to shelter in the shade of such paltry and 
 unmeaning bombast ? The Philanthropist talks bigly 
 of ( blossoms to be matured by the summer sun of 
 improved intellect and progressive virtue/ — but if his 
 root be rotten his blossoms will be dust. . . . From 
 such corrections and such apologists, and from the 
 machinations of all pseudo-philanthropists, may the 
 good Lord deliver us ! 
 
 u I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 " Yours, &c, 
 
 " A Dissenter."* 
 
 This letter finally disposes of Mr. Hogg's absurd 
 story, and shows the quarter from which alone Shelley 
 received any actual opposition when in Dublin. The 
 " hint from the police" is equally apocryphal. Shelley's 
 and Harriet's letters prove that he received none. 
 
 This may be the most suitable place to reprint the 
 second pamphlet. As a publication it differs in one 
 important particular from the other. It has the 
 printer's name. I have not been able to find an 
 " I. Eton, Winetavern Street," in any of the Dublin 
 Directories. Shelley was greatly interested in the 
 notorious Daniel Isaac Eaton, of London, as proved 
 
 * Extracted from Faulkner s Dublin Journal, Saturday, March 
 2 1 st, 1812. 
 
A DUBLIN STOCKDALK 261 
 
 by the Letter to Lord EUenborough. He would scarcely 
 have invented his Irish namesake. It is, however, a 
 rather curious coincidence to have not only a Dublin 
 Stockdale, but a Dublin Eaton or Eton. Mr. John 
 Stockdale was the actual printer of The Press news- 
 paper, the celebrated organ of the United Irishmen in 
 1797. The registered printer was Peter Finnerty. On 
 the arrest and imprisonment of the latter, December 
 23rd, 1797, the name of Arthur O'Connor was sub- 
 stituted as printer, and continued until the suppression 
 of the paper, March 13th, 1798.* 
 
 * On Tuesday, the 27th of February, 1798, Mr. John Stockdale 
 was brought for the second time to the bar of the Irish House of 
 Lords. On the preceding Saturday he had been before the same 
 tribunal, and declining to answer the question of the Lord Chan- 
 cellor as to whether The Press newspaper was printed at his house, 
 62, Abbey Street, Dublin, was discharged. On being summoned 
 for the second time, no time was lost in putting superfluous ques- 
 tions. He was directly charged with being the publisher of The 
 Press: was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, and to pay a 
 fine of 500Z. As the editor of The Press said, " His accusation, 
 his trial, his conviction, his sentence and its execution were de- 
 spatched with the rapidity of a cabalistic charm." — Beauties of The 
 Press. London: Printed 1800, p. 555. 
 
 Dr. Madden tells us that Mr. Stockdale died in Abbey Street, 
 Dublin, January nth, 18 13. — The United Irishmen, Second 
 Series, p. 246. 
 
PROPOSALS 
 
 ASSOCIATION 
 
 PHILANTHR OPISTS, 
 
 WHO CONVINCED OF THE INADEQUACY OF THE MORAL AND POLITICAL 
 STATE OF IRELAND TO PRODUCE BENEFITS WHICH ARE NEVERTHELESS 
 ATTAINABLE ARE WILLING TO UNITE TO ACCOMPLISH ITS RE- 
 GENERATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Qufclm ; 
 
 PRINTED BY I. ETOX, WIXETAVERX-STREET. 
 
 [1812.] 
 
PEOPOSALS 
 
 AN ASSOCIATION, &c. 
 
 I propose an association which shall have for its immediate objects, 
 Catholic Emancipation, and the Repeal of the Act of Union between 
 Great Britain and Ireland ; and grounding on the removal of these 
 grievances, an annihilation or palliation, of whatever moral or po- 
 litical evil, it may be within the compass of human power to assuage 
 or eradicate. 
 
 Man cannot make occasions, but he may seize those 
 that offer. None are more interesting to philanthropy 
 than those which excite the benevolent passions, that 
 generalize and expand private into public feelings, and 
 make the hearts of individuals vibrate not merely for 
 themselves, their families, and their friends, but for 
 posterity, for a people ; till their country becomes the 
 world, and their family the sensitive creation. 
 
 A recollection of the absent, and a taking into con- 
 sideration the interests of those unconnected with our- 
 selves, is a principal source of that feeling which 
 generates occasions wherein a love for human kind 
 may become eminently useful and active. Public 
 topics of fear and hope, such as sympathize with 
 general grievance, or hold out hopes of general amend- 
 ment, are those on which the philanthropist would 
 dilate with the warmest feeling. Because these are 
 
866 PERCY BY88HE SHELLEY. 
 
 accustomed to place individuals at a distance from 
 self; for in proportion as he is absorbed in public 
 feeling, so will a consideration of his proper beuefit be 
 generalized. In proportion as he feels with or for a 
 nation or a world, so will man consider himself less as 
 that centre to which we are but too prone to believe 
 that every line of human concern does or ought to 
 converge. 
 
 I should not here make the trite remark, that 
 selfish motive biasses, brutalizes, and degrades the 
 human mind, did it not thence follow, that to seize 
 those occasions wherein the opposite spirit predo- 
 minates, is a duty which Philanthropy imperiously 
 exacts of her votaries ; that occasions like these are 
 the proper ones for leading mankind to their own 
 interest by awakening in their minds a love for the 
 interest of their fellows. A plant that grows in every 
 soil, though too often it is choked by tares before its 
 lovely blossoms are expanded. Virtue produces plea- 
 sure, it is as the cause to the effect; I feel pleasure 
 in doing good to my friend, because I love him. I 
 do not love him for the sake of that pleasure. 
 
 I regard the present state of the public mind in 
 Ireland to be one of those occasions which the ardent 
 votary of the religion of Philanthropy dare not leave 
 unseized. I perceive that the public interest is excited, 
 I perceive that individual interest has, in a certain 
 degree, quitted individual concern to generalize itself 
 with universal feeling. Be the Catholic Emancipation 
 a thing of great or of small misfortune [importance ?] , 
 be it a means of adding happiness to four millions of 
 people, or a reform which will only give honour to a 
 few of the higher ranks, yet a benevolent and disin- 
 terested feeling has gone abroad, and I am willing that 
 
P BOP OS A LS FOR AN A SSOCIA TION. 26 7 
 
 it should never subside. I desire that means should 
 be taken with energy and expedition in this impor- 
 tant yet fleeting crisis, to feed the unpolluted flame 
 at which nations and ages may light the torch of 
 Liberty and Virtue ! 
 
 It is my opinion that the claims of the Catholic 
 inhabitants of Ireland, if gained to-morrow, would in 
 a very small degree aggrandize their liberty and 
 happiness. The disqualifications principally affect the 
 higher orders of the Catholic persuasion, these would 
 principally be benefited by their removal. Power and 
 wealth do not benefit, but injure the cause of virtue 
 and freedom. I am happy, however, at the near 
 approach of this emancipation, because I am inimical 
 to all disqualifications for opinion. It gives me plea- 
 sure to see the approach of this enfranchisement, not 
 for the good which it will bring with it, but because 
 it is a sign of benefits approaching, a prophet of good 
 about to come; and therefore do I sympathize with 
 the inhabitants of Ireland in this great cause ; a cause 
 which though in its own accomplishment will add not 
 one comfort to the cottager, will snatch not one from 
 the dark dungeon, will root not out one vice, alleviate 
 not one pang, yet it is the foreground of a picture, 
 in the dimness of whose distance I behold the lion 
 lay down with the lamb, and the infant play with the 
 basilisk. For it supposes the extermination of the 
 eyeless monster Bigotry, whose throne has tottered 
 for two hundred years. I hear the teeth of the palsied 
 beldame Superstition chatter, and I see her descending 
 to the grave ! Reason points to the open gates of 
 the Temple of Religious Freedom, Philanthropy kneels 
 at the altar of the common God ! There, wealth and 
 poverty, rank and abjectness, are names known but as 
 
268 PERCY B ¥8SBE S1IELLK Y. 
 
 memorials of past time : meteors which play over the 
 loathsome pool of vice and misery, to warn the wan- 
 derer where dangers lie. Does a God rule this illi- 
 mitable universe? Are you thankful for his benefi- 
 cence — do you adore his wisdom — do you hang upon 
 his altar the garland of your devotion ? Curse not 
 your brother, though he hath en wreathed with [it?] his 
 flowers of a different hue j the purest religion is that 
 of Charity, its loveliness begins to proselyte the hearts 
 of men. The tree is to be judged of by its fruit. I 
 regard the admission of the Catholic claims and the 
 Repeal of the Union Act as blossoms of that fruit 
 which the summer sun of improved intellect and pro- 
 gressive virtue is destined to mature. 
 
 I will not pass unreflected on the Legislative Union 
 of Great Britain and Ireland, nor will I speak of it as 
 a grievance so tolerable or unimportant in its own 
 nature as that of Catholic disqualification. The latter 
 affects few, the former affects thousands. The one 
 disqualifies the rich from power, the other impoverishes 
 the peasant, adds beggary to the city, famine to the 
 country, multiplies abjectedness, whilst misery and 
 crime play into each other's hands, under its withering 
 auspices. I esteem, then, the annihilation of this 
 second grievance to be something more than a mere 
 sign of coming good. I esteem it to be in itself a 
 substantial benefit. The aristocracy of Ireland — (for 
 much as I may disapprove other distinctions than 
 those of virtue and talent, I consider it useless, hasty, 
 and violent, not for the present to acquiesce in their 
 continuance) — the aristocracy of Ireland suck the 
 veins of its inhabitants and consume the blood in 
 England. I mean not to deny the unhappy truth 
 that there is much miserv and vice in the world. I 
 
PP. OP OS A LS FOR AN A SSOCIA Tl ON. 7 69 
 
 mean to say that Ireland shares largely of both. — 
 England has made her poor; and the poverty of a 
 rich nation will make its people very desperate and 
 wicked. 
 
 I look forward then to the redress of both these 
 grievances,, or rather, I perceive the state of the public 
 mind, that precedes them as the crisis of beneficial 
 innovation. The latter I consider to be the cause of the 
 former, as I hope it will be the cause of more compre- 
 hensively beneficial amendments. It forms thatoccasion 
 which should energetically and quickly be occupied. 
 The voice of the whole human race ; their crimes, 
 their miseries, and their ignorance, invoke us to the 
 task. For the miseries of the Irish poor, exacerbated 
 by the union of their country with England, are not 
 peculiar to themselves. England, the whole civilized 
 world, with few exceptions, is either sunk in dispro- 
 portioned abjectness, or raised to unnatural elevation. 
 The Repeal of the Union Act will place Ireland on a 
 level, so far as concerns the well-being of its poor, with 
 her sister nation. Benevolent feeling has gone out 
 in this country in favour of the happiness of its inha- 
 bitants ; may this feeling be corroborated, methodized, 
 and continued ! May it never fail ! But it will not 
 be kept alive by each citizen sitting quietly by his own 
 fireside, and saying that things are going on well, be- 
 cause the rain does not beat on him, because he has 
 books and leisure to read them, because he has money 
 and is at liberty to accumulate luxuries to himself. 
 Generous feeling dictates no such sayings. When the 
 heart recurs to the thousands who have no liberty and 
 no leisure, it must be rendered callous by long con- 
 templation of wretchedness, if after such recurrence it 
 can beat with contented evenness. "Why do I talk 
 
2 ;o PERC Y B YSSHE SHEL I E ) '. 
 
 thus? Is there any one who doubts that the present 
 state of politics and morals is -wrong ? They Bay 
 show us a safe method of improvement. There is no 
 safer than the corroboration and propagation of gene- 
 rous and philanthropic feeling, than the keeping con- 
 tinually alive a love for the human race, than the 
 putting in train causes which shall have for their con- 
 sequences virtue and. freedom, and because I think that 
 individuals acting singly, with whatever energy, can 
 never effect so much as a society; I propose that all 
 those whose views coincide with those that I have 
 avowed, who perceive the state of the public mind in 
 Ireland, who think the present a fit opportunity for 
 attempting to fix its fluctuations at Philanthropy, 
 who love all mankind, and are willing actively to 
 engage in its cause, or passively to endure the perse- 
 cutions of those who are inimical to its success ; I 
 propose to these to form an association for the pur- 
 poses, first, of debating on the propriety of whatever 
 measures may be agitated ; and secondly, for carrying, 
 by united or individual exertion, such measures into 
 effect when determined on. That it should be an 
 association for discussing [diffusing?] knowledge and 
 virtue throughout the poorer classes of society in Ire- 
 land, for co-operating w r ith any enlightened system of 
 education ; for discussing topics calculated to throw 
 light on any methods of alleviation of moral and poli- 
 tical evil, and, as far as lays in its power, actively in- 
 teresting itself, in whatever occasions may arise for 
 benefiting mankind. 
 
 When I mention Ireland, I do not mean to confine 
 the influence of the association to this or to any other 
 country, but for the time being. Moreover, I would 
 recommend that this association should attempt to 
 
PROPOSA LS FOR AN A SSOCIA TIOX. 1 7 1 
 
 form others, and to actuate them with a similar spirit, 
 and I am thus indeterminate in my description of the 
 association which I propose, because I conceive that 
 an assembly of men meeting to do all the good that 
 opportunity will permit them to do, must be in its 
 nature as indefinite and varying as the instances of 
 human vice and misery that precede, occasion, and 
 call for its institution. 
 
 As political institution and its attendant evils con- 
 stitute the majority of those grievances which philan- 
 thropists desire to remedy, it is probable that existing 
 Governments will frequently become the topic of their 
 discussions, the results of which may little coincide 
 with the opinions which those who profit by the 
 supineness of human belief desire to impress upon the 
 world. It is probable that this freedom may excite 
 the odium of certain well-meaning people, who pin 
 their faith upon their grandmother's apron-string. 
 The minority in number are the majority in intellect 
 and power. The former govern the latter, though it 
 is by the sufferance of the latter that this originally 
 delegated power is exercised. This power is become 
 hereditary, and hath ceased to be necessarily united 
 with intellect, 
 
 It is certain, therefore, that any questioning of 
 established principles would excite the abhorrence and 
 opposition of those who derived power and honour 
 (such as it is) from their continuance. 
 
 As the association which I recommend would ques- 
 tion those principles (however they may be hedged in 
 with antiquity and precedent) which appeared ill 
 adapted for the benefit of human kind, it would pro- 
 bably excite the odium of those in power. It would 
 be obnoxious to the Government, though nothing 
 
: : i PSMC Y B TS8HE SHELLEY. 
 
 would be farther from the views of associated philan- 
 thropists than attempting to subvert establishments 
 forcibly, or even hastily. Aristocracy would oppose 
 it, whether oppositionists or ministerialists (for philan- 
 thropy is of no party), because its ultimate views look 
 to a subversion of all factitious distinctions, although 
 from its immediate intentions I fear that aristocracy 
 can have nothing to dread. The priesthood would 
 oppose it, because a union of Church and State — con- 
 trary to the principles and practice of Jesus, contrary 
 to that equality which he fruitlessly endeavoured to 
 teach mankind — is of all institutions that from the 
 rust of antiquity are called venerable, the least quali- 
 fied to stand free and cool reasoning, because it least 
 conduces to the happiness of human kind; yet did 
 either the minister, the peer, or the bishop know their 
 true interest, instead of that virulent opposition which 
 some among them have made to freedom and philan- 
 thropy, they would rejoice and co-operate with the 
 diffusion and corroboration of those principles that 
 would remove a load of paltry equivocation, paltrier 
 grandeur, and of wigs that crush into emptiness the 
 brains below them, from their shoulders, and by per- 
 mitting them to reassume the degraded and vilified 
 title of man would preclude the necessity of mystery 
 and deception, would bestow on them a title more 
 ennobling, and a dignity which, though it would be 
 without the gravity of an ape, would possess the ease 
 and consistency of a man. 
 
 For the reasons above alleged, falsely, prejudicedly, 
 and narrowly will those very persons whose ultimate 
 benefit is included in the general good, whose promo- 
 tion is the essence of a philanthropic association, will 
 they persecute those who have the best intentions 
 towards them, malevolence towards none. 
 
PROrOSA LS FOR A N ASSOCIA TION. « 7 3 
 
 I do not, therefore, conceal that those who make 
 the favour of Government the sunshine of their moral 
 day, eon lido in the political creed makers of the hour, 
 arc willing to think things that are rusty and decayed 
 venerable, aud are uninquiringly satisfied with evils as 
 these are, because they find them established and un- 
 questioned as they do sunlight and air when they 
 come into existence ; that they had better not even 
 think of philanthropy. I conceal not from them that 
 the discountenance which Government will show to 
 such an association as I am desirous to establish will 
 come under their comprehensive definition, of danger : 
 that virtue, and any assembly instituted under its 
 auspices, demands a voluntariness on the part of its 
 devoted individuals to sacrifice personal to public 
 benefit ; and that it is possible that a party of beings 
 associated for the purposes of disseminating virtuous 
 principles, may, considering the ascendancy which long 
 custom has conferred on opposite motives to action, 
 meet with inconveniences that may amount to personal 
 danger. These considerations are, however, to the 
 mind of the philanthropist as is a drop to an ocean; 
 they serve by their possible existence as tests whereby 
 to discover the really virtuous man from him who calls 
 himself a patriot for dishonourable and selfish purposes. 
 I propose then, to such as think with me, a Philan- 
 thropic Association, in spite of the danger that may 
 attend the attempt. I do not this beneath the shroud 
 of mystery and darkness. I propose not an Associa- 
 tion of Secrecy. Let it [be ?] open as the beam of 
 day. Let it rival the sunbeam in its stainless purity, 
 as in the extensiveness of its effulgence. 
 
 I disclaim all connexion with insincerity and con- 
 cealment. The latter implies the former, as much as 
 
274 PERCY B Y> -///. SEEL LE Y. 
 
 the former stands in need of the latter. It is a 
 very latitudiharian system of morality that permits its 
 professor to employ bad means for any end whatever. 
 Weapons which vice can use are unfit for the hands of 
 virtue. Concealment implies falsehood ; it is bad, and 
 can therefore never be serviceable to the cause of 
 philanthropy. 
 
 I propose therefore that the association shall be 
 established and conducted in the open face of day, 
 with the utmost possible publicity. It is only vice 
 that hides itself in holes and corners, whose effrontery 
 shrinks from scrutiny, whose cowardice lets I dare not 
 wait upon I would, like the poor cat in the adage. 
 But the eye of virtue, eagle-like, darts through the 
 undazzling beam of eternal truth, and from the un- 
 diminished fountain of its purity gathers wherewith to 
 vivify and illuminate a universe. 
 
 I have hitherto abstained from inquiring whether 
 the association which I recommend be or be not con- 
 sistent with the English Constitution. And here it is 
 fit, briefly to consider what a constitution is. 
 
 Government can have no rights, it is a delegation 
 for the purpose of securing them to others. Man 
 becomes a subject of government, not that he may be 
 in a worse, but that he may be in a better state than 
 that of unorganized society. The strength of govern- 
 ment is the happiness of the governed. All govern- 
 ment existing for the happiness of others is just only 
 so far as it exists by their consent, and useful only 
 so far as it operates to their well-being. Constitu- 
 tion is to government what government is to law. 
 Constitution may, in this view of the subject, be 
 defined to be not merely something constituted for 
 the benefit of any nation or class of people, but some- 
 
PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 275 
 
 tiling constituted by themselves for their own benefit. 
 The nations of England and Ireland have no con- 
 stitution, because at no one time did the individuals 
 that compose them constitute a system for the general 
 benefit. If a system determined on by a very few, at a 
 great length of time; if Magna Charta, the Bill of 
 Rights, and other usages for whose influence the im- 
 proved state of human knowledge is rather to be 
 looked to, than any system which courtiers pretend 
 to exist, and perhaps believe to exist — a system whose 
 spring of agency they represent as something secret, 
 undiscoverable, and awful as the law of nature ; if 
 these make a constitution, then England has one. 
 But if (as I have endeavoured to show they do not) a 
 constitution is something else, then the speeches of 
 kings or commissioners, the writings of courtiers, and 
 the journals of Parliament, which teem with its glory, 
 are full of political cant, exhibit the skeleton of 
 national freedom, and are fruitless attempts to hide 
 evils in whose favour they cannot prove an alibi. As 
 therefore, in the true sense of the expression, the spot 
 of earth on which we live is destitute of constituted 
 government, it is impossible to offend against its 
 principles, or to be with justice accused of wishing to 
 subvert what has no real existence. If a man was 
 accused of setting fire to a house, which house never 
 existed, and from the nature of things could not have 
 existed, it is impossible that a jury in their senses 
 would find him guilty of arson. The English Consti- 
 tution then could not be offended by the principles of 
 virtue and freedom. In fact, the manner in which 
 the Government of England has varied since its earliest 
 establishment, proves that its present form is the result 
 of a progressive accommodation to existing principles. 
 
 T 2 
 
176 PEROT BYSSHE 8HELLEY. 
 
 It has been a continual struggle for liberty on the 
 part of the people, and an uninterrupted attempt at 
 tightening the reins of oppression, and encouraging 
 ignorance and imposture by the oligarchy to whom 
 the first William parcelled out the property of the 
 aborigines at the conquest of England by the Normans. 
 1 hear much of its being a tree so long growing which 
 to cut down is as bad as cutting down an oak where.' 
 there are no more. But the best way, on topics 
 similar to these, is to tell the plain truth, without the 
 confusion and ornament of metaphor. I call ex- 
 pressions similar to these political cant, which, like the 
 songs of " Rule Britannia" and " God save the King/' 
 are but abstracts of the caterpillar creed of courtiers, 
 cut down to the taste and comprehension of a mob ; 
 the one to disguise to an alehouse politician the evils 
 of that devilish practice of war, and the other to 
 inspire among clubs of all descriptions a certain feel- 
 iug which some call loyalty and others servility. A 
 Philanthropic Association has nothing to fear from 
 the English Constitution, but it may expect danger 
 from its government. So far, however, from thinking 
 this an argument against its institution, establishment, 
 and augmentation, I am inclined to rest much of the 
 weight of the cause, which my duties call upon me to 
 support, on the very fact that government forcibly in- 
 terferes when the opposition that is made to its pro- 
 ceedings is profoundly and undeniably nothing but 
 intellectual. A good cause may be shown to be good, 
 violence instantly renders bad what might before have 
 been good. " Weapons that falsehood can use are 
 unfit for the hands of truth" — truth can reason, and 
 falsehood cannot. 
 
 A political or religious system may burn and im- 
 
PROP OSALS FOR A N ASSOCIA TIOX. 2 7 7 
 
 prison those who investigate its principles ; but it is 
 an invariable proof of their falsehood and hollowness. 
 Here there is another reason for the necessity of a 
 Philanthropic Association, and I call upon any fair 
 and rational opponent to controvert the argument 
 which it contains ; for there is no one who even calls 
 himself a philanthropist that thinks personal danger 
 or dishonour terrible in any other light than as it 
 affects his usefulness. 
 
 Man has a heart to feel, a brain to think, and a 
 tongue to utter. The laws of his moral as of his phy- 
 sical nature are immutable, as is everything of nature ; 
 nor can the ephemeral institutions of human society 
 take away those rights, annihilate or strengthen the 
 duties that have for their basis the imperishable rela- 
 tions of his constitution. 
 
 Though the Parliament of England were to pass 
 a thousand bills, to inflict upon those who determined 
 to utter their thoughts a thousand penalties, it could 
 not render that criminal which was in its nature 
 innocent before the passing of such bills. 
 
 Man has a right to feel, to think, and to speak, 
 nor can any acts of legislature destroy that right. 
 He will feel, he must think, and he ought to give 
 utterance to those thoughts and feelings with the 
 readiest sincerity and the strictest candour. A man 
 must have a right to do a thing before he can have 
 a duty ; this right must permit before his duty 
 can enjoin him to any act. Any law is bad which 
 attempts to make it criminal to do what the plain 
 dictates within the breast of every man tell him that 
 he ought to do. 
 
 The English Government permits a fanatic to as- 
 semble any number of persons to teach them the most 
 
PERCY BYSSEB SHELLEY. 
 
 extravagant and immoral systems of faith ; but a few 
 men meeting to consider its own principles arc marked 
 
 with its hatred and pursued by its jealousy. 
 
 The religionist who agonizes the death-bed of the 
 cottager, and by picturing the hell which Ik arts black 
 
 and narrow as his own alone could have invented, 
 and which exists but in their cores, spreads the un- 
 charitable doctrines which devote heretics to eternal 
 torments, and represents heaven to be what earth is. 
 a monopoly in the hands of certain favoured ones 
 whose merit consists in slavishness, whose success is 
 the reward of sycophancy. Thus much is permitted. 
 but a public inquiry that involves any doubt of their 
 rectitude into the principles of government is not per- 
 mitted. "When Jupiter and a countryman were one 
 day walking out, conversing familiarly on the affairs 
 of earth, the countryman listened to Jupiter's asser- 
 tions on the subject for some time in acquiescence, at 
 length happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter threatened 
 him with his thunder. " Ah, ah,'"' says the country- 
 man, " now, Jupiter, I know that you are wrong ; you 
 are always wrong when you appeal to your thunder. - " 
 The essence of virtue is disinterestedness. Disinte- 
 restedness is the quality which preserves the character 
 of virtue distinct from that of either innocence or 
 vice. This, it will be said, is mere assertion. It is 
 so : but it is an assertion whose truth, I believe, the 
 hearts of philanthropists are disinclined to deny. 
 Those who have been convinced by their grandam 
 of the doctrine of an original hereditary sin, or by 
 the apostles of a degrading philosophy of the neces- 
 sary and universal selfishness of man, cannot be phil- 
 anthropists. Now as an action, or a motive to action, 
 is only virtuous so far as it is disinterested, or par- 
 
PROP OS A LS FOR AN A SSO CIA TION. 2 7 9 
 
 takes (I adopt this mode of expression to suit the 
 taste of some) of the nature of generalized self-love, 
 thou reward or punishment, attached even by omni- 
 potence to any action, can in no wise make it either 
 good or bad. 
 
 It is no crime to act in contradiction to an English 
 judge or an English legislator, but it is a crime to 
 transgress the dictates of a monitor which feels the 
 spring of every motive, whose throne is the human 
 sensorium, whose empire the human conduct. Con- 
 science is a government before which all others sink 
 into nothingness ; it surpasses, and wbere it can act 
 supersedes, all other as nature surpasses art, as God 
 surpasses man. 
 
 In the preceding pages, during the course of an 
 investigation of the possible objections which might be 
 urged by philanthropy to an association such as I 
 recommend, as I have rather sought to bring forward 
 than conceal my principles, it will appear that they 
 have their origin from the discoveries in the sciences 
 of politics and morals which preceded and occasioned 
 the revolutions of America and France. It is with 
 openness that I confess, nay, with pride I assert, that 
 they are so. The names of Paine and Lafayette will out- 
 live the p[o]etic aristocracy of an expatriated Jesuit,* 
 as the executive of a bigoted policy will die before the 
 disgust at the sycophancy of their eulogists can sub- 
 side. 
 
 It will be said perhaps that much as principles 
 such as these may appear marked on the outside with 
 peace, liberty, and virtue, that their ultimate tendency 
 is to a Revolution which, like that of France, will end 
 
 # See Memoires de Jacobinisme, par l'Abbe Baruel. 
 
iSo PERC Y B YSSIIE S1JELLE Y. 
 
 in bloodshed, vice, and slavery. I must offer there- 
 fore my thoughts on that event which so suddenly 
 and so lamentably extinguished tlie overstrained hopes 
 of liberty which it excited. I do not deny that the 
 Revolution of France was occasioned by the literary 
 labours of the encyclopedists. When we see two 
 events together, in certain cases we speak of one as 
 the cause, the other the effect. We bave no other 
 idea of cause and effect but that which arises from 
 necessary connexion ; it is therefore still doubtful 
 whether D'Alembert, Boulanger, Condorcct, and other 
 celebrated characters, were the causes of the overthrow 
 of the ancient monarchy of France. Thus much is 
 certain, that they contributed greatly to the extension 
 and diffusion of knowledge, and that knowledge is 
 incompatible wdth slavery. The French nation was 
 bowed to the dust by ages of uninterrupted despotism. 
 They were plundered and insulted by a succession of 
 oligarchies, each more bloodthirsty and unrelenting 
 than the foregoing. In a state like this her soldiers 
 learned to fight for Freedom on the plains of America, 
 whilst at this very conjuncture a ray of science burst 
 through the clouds of bigotry that obscured the moral 
 day of Europe. The French were in the lowest state 
 of human degradation, and when the truth, unaccus- 
 tomed to their ears, that they were men and equals, 
 was promulgated, they were the first to vent their 
 indignation on the monopolizers of earth, because they 
 were most glaringly defrauded of the immunities of 
 nature. 
 
 Since the French w r ere furthest removed by the so- 
 phistications of political institution from the genuine 
 condition of human beings, they must have been most 
 unfit for that happy state of equal law r which proceeds 
 
PROPOSALS FOR A X A SSOCIA TION. i S i 
 
 from consummated civilization, and which demands 
 habits of the strictest virtue before its introduction. 
 
 The murders during the period of the Fi'ench Re- 
 volution, and the despotism which has since been 
 established, prove that the doctrines of philanthropy 
 and freedom were but shallowly understood. Nor 
 was it until after that period that their principles 
 became clearly to be explained, and unanswerably to 
 be established. 
 
 Voltaire was the flatterer of kings, though in his 
 heart he despised them — so far has he been instru- 
 mental in the present slavery of his country. Rousseau 
 gave licence by his writings to passions that only in- 
 capacitate and contract the human heart — so far hath 
 he prepared the necks of his fellow-beings for that 
 yoke of galling and dishonourable servitude which at 
 this moment it bears. Helvetius and Condorcet 
 established principles, but if they drew conclusions, 
 their conclusions were unsystematical, and devoid of 
 the luminousness and energy of method. They were 
 little understood in the Revolution. But this age of 
 ours is not stationary. Philosophers have not de- 
 veloped the great principles of the human mind that 
 conclusions from them should be unprofitable and 
 impracticable. We are in a state of continually pro- 
 gressive improvement. One truth that had been dis- 
 covered can never die, but will prevent the revivifi- 
 cation of its apportioned opposite falsehood. By 
 promoting truth and discouraging its opposite, the 
 means of philanthropy are principally to be forwarded. 
 Godwin wrote during the Revolution of France, and 
 certainly his writings were totally devoid of influence 
 with regard to its purposes. Oh ! that they had not ! 
 In the Revolution of France were engaged men whose 
 
a s 2 PKUi Y II TSSHE 8HEL I E Y. 
 
 names arc inerasable from the records of Liberty. 
 
 Their genius penetrated with a glance the gloom and 
 glare which Church-craft and State-craft had spread 
 before the imposture and villany of their establish- 
 ments. They saw the world. Were they men? Yes! 
 They felt for it ! They risked their lives and happi- 
 ness for its benefit ! Had there been more of those 
 men France would not now be a beacon to warn us 
 of the hazard and horror of Revolutions, but a pattern 
 of society rapidly advancing to a state of perfection, 
 and holding out an example for the gradual and 
 peaceful regeneration of the world. I consider it to 
 be one of the effects of a Philanthropic Association to 
 assist in the production of such men as these, in an 
 extensive development of those germs of excellence 
 whose favourite soil is the cultured garden of the 
 human mind. 
 
 Many well-meaning persons may think that the 
 attainment of the good which I propose as the ulti- 
 matum of philanthropic exertion is visionary and 
 inconsistent with human nature; they would tell me 
 not to make people happy for fear of overstocking 
 the world, and to permit those who found dishes 
 placed before them on the table of partial nature to 
 enjoy their superfluities in quietness, though millions 
 of wretches crowded around but to pick a morsel,"* 
 which morsel was still refused to the prayers of 
 agonizing famine. 
 
 I cannot help thinking this an evil, nor help en- 
 deavouring, by the safest means that I can devise, to 
 palliate at present, and in fine to eradicate this evil. 
 War, \ice, and misery are undeniably bad, they embrace 
 
 * See Mai thus on Population. 
 
PHOPOSA LS FOR A X ASSOCIA TIOX. 283 
 
 all that we can conceive of temporal and eternal evil. 
 Arc we to be told that these are remediless, because 
 the earth would, in case of their remedy,, be over- 
 stocked ? That the rich are still to glut, that the 
 ambitions are still to plan, that the fools whom these 
 knaves mould, are still to murder their brethren and 
 call it glory, and that the poor are to pay with their 
 blood, their labour, their happiness, and their inno- 
 cence for the crimes and mistakes which the here- 
 ditary monopolists of earth commit ? Rare sophism ! 
 How will the heartless rich hug thee to their bosoms, 
 and lull their conscience into slumber with the opiate 
 of thy reconciling dogmas ! 
 
 But when the philosopher and philanthropist con- 
 templates the universe, when he perceives existing 
 evils that admit of amendment, and hears tell of other 
 evils, which, in the course of sixty centuries, may again 
 derange the system of happiness which the amend- 
 ment is calculated to produce, does he submit to pro- 
 long a positive evil, because if that were eradicated, 
 after a millennium of 6oco years (for such space of 
 time would it take to people the earth) another evil 
 would take place. 
 
 To how contemptible a degradation of grossest credu- 
 lity will not prejudice lower the human mind ! We 
 see in winter that the foliage of the trees is gone, that 
 they present to the view nothing but leafless branches — 
 we see that the loveliness of the flower decays, though 
 the root continues in the earth. What opinion should 
 we form of that man who, when he walked in the 
 freshness of the spring, beheld the fields enamelled 
 with flowers, and the foliage bursting from the buds, 
 should find fault with all this beautiful order, and 
 murmur his contemptible discontents because winter 
 
i U PERCY BYSSIIE SUELLEY. 
 
 must come, and the landscape be robbed of its beauty 
 for ii while again? Yet this man is Mr. Malthus. 
 
 Do we not see that the laws of nature perpetually act 
 by disorganization and reproduction, each alternately 
 becoming cause and effect. The analogies that we can 
 draw from physical to moral topics are of all others 
 the most striking. 
 
 Docs any one yet question the possibility of inducing 
 radical reform of moral and political evil ? Does 1 \ 
 object from that impossibility to the association which 
 I propose, which I frankly confess to be one of the 
 means whose instrumentality I would employ to attain 
 this reform. Let them look to the methods which I 
 use. Let them put my object out of their view and 
 propose their own, how would they accomplish it? 
 By diffusing virtue and knowledge, by promoting 
 human happiness. Palsied be the hand, for ever dumb 
 be the tongue that would by one expression convey 
 sentiments differing from these : I will use no bad 
 means for any end whatever. Know then, ye philan- 
 thropists, to whatever profession of faith, or whatever 
 determination of principles, chance, reason, or educa- 
 tion may have conducted you, that the endeavours of 
 the truly virtuous necessarily converge to one point, 
 though it be hidden from them what point that is, 
 they all labour for one end, and that controversies con- 
 cerning the nature of that end serve only to weaken 
 the strength which for the interest of virtue should be 
 consolidated. 
 
 The diffusion of true and virtuous principles (for in 
 the first principles of morality none disagree) will pro- 
 duce the best of possible terminations. 
 
 I invite to an Association of Philanthropy those of 
 whatever ultimate expectations, who will employ the 
 
PROPOSA LS FOR A N A SSOCIA TIOX. 7 8 5 
 
 same means that I employ; let their designs differ as 
 much as they may from mine, I shall rejoice at their 
 co-operation; because if the ultimatum of. my hopes 
 be founded on the unity of truth, I shall then have 
 auxiliaries in its cause, and if it be false I shall 
 rejoice that means are not neglected for forwarding 
 that which is true. 
 
 The accumulation of evil which Ireland has for the 
 last twenty years sustained, and considering the un- 
 remittingness of its pressure I may say patiently sus- 
 tained ; the melancholy prospect which the unforeseen 
 conduct of the Regent of England holds out of its 
 continuance, demands of every Irishman whose pulses 
 have not ceased to throb with the life-blood of his 
 heart, that he should individually consult, and unitedly 
 determine on some measures for the liberty of his 
 countrymen. That those measures should be pacific 
 though resolute, that their movers should be calmly 
 brave and temperately unbending, though the whole 
 heart and soul should go with the attempt, is the 
 opinion which my principles command me to give. 
 
 And I am induced to call an association such as 
 this occasion demands, an Association of Philan- 
 thropy, because good men ought never to circum- 
 scribe their usefulness by any name which denotes 
 their exclusive devotion to the accomplishment of its 
 signification. 
 
 When I began the preceding remarks I conceived 
 tli at on the removal of the restrictions from the 
 Regent a ministry less inimical than the present to 
 the interests of liberty would have been appointed. I 
 am deceived, and the disappointment of the hopes of 
 freedom on this subject affords an additional argument 
 towards the necessity of an Association. 
 
i B6 PEUC Y /: YSSH B SUE I. L E Y. 
 
 I conclude these remarks, which I have indited 
 principally with a view of unveiling my principles, 
 with a proposal for an Association for the purposes i i' 
 Catholic Emancipation, a repeal of the Union Act, 
 and grounding upon the attainment of these objects 
 a reform of whatever moral or political evil may be 
 within its compass of human power to remedy. 
 
 Such as are favourably inclined towards the insti- 
 tution would highly gratify the Proposer if they would 
 personally communicate with him on this important 
 subject, by which means the plan might be matured, 
 errors in the Proposer's original system be detected, 
 and a meeting for the purpose convened with that 
 resolute expedition which ihe nature of the present 
 crisis demands. 
 
 No. 7, Lower Sackville Street. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 # # * The two allusions to the " unforeseen conduct" of the Prince 
 Regent with which in the preceding page Shelley concludes this 
 pamphlet, are identical in spirit with the observations attributed to 
 one of the speakers at the meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre on 
 the 28th of February. 181 2, four days before the pamphlet ap- 
 peared. The report, which I have extracted from the State Papers 
 in the Record Office, has already been given at p. 2 38. The private 
 Reporter for the Government, referring to a certain resolution, thus 
 writes: — " On this resolution, a young boy delivered a speech of 
 considerable length and replete with much elegant language," &c. 
 At p. 239 I have suggested that in transcribing his notes the Re- 
 porter substituted by accident the name of " Mr. Wyse" for " Mr. 
 Shelley." The passages in the pamphlet establish almost conclu- 
 sively that this surmise is correct. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 T^ROM some unpublished letters of Shelley and Har- 
 riet Shelley, particularly from that most interest- 
 ing one from Harriet seized at Holyhead, which the 
 present writer discovered in the Record Office, and 
 which hitherto has been unknown, a tolerably com- 
 plete account can be given of Shelley's remaining 
 stay in Dublin. The letters to Godwin, which may 
 be seen in the second volume of Mr. Hogg's incom- 
 plete Life of the poet, are extremely vague, and give 
 no precise details. Both poet and philosopher were 
 merely showing off to each other in profound and ab- 
 stract essays. Mr. Godwin could scarcely have been 
 the friend of Curran if he was not in favour of that 
 " political justice " to Ireland which he advocated for 
 all mankind. The great point with him in his replies 
 to the young " Philanthropist " was to show that 
 Shelley had no right to deduce the principle, or at 
 least the expediency of " association" from the pages 
 of Political Justice. His only allusion to the affairs 
 of Ireland was a comparison of Shelley with Robert 
 Emmett, which I dare say gave intense enjoyment to 
 the poet. Shelley died before the peaceful triumph 
 of the " Catholic Association " proved that he was 
 right and Godwin wrong as to the mode of obtaining 
 political amelioration under the British Constitution. 
 Mr. Godwin himself received the office, which happily 
 
PERCY BTSSHE 8HELLE7. 
 
 made his Latter days comfortable, from a Government 
 which was mainly floated into power by the Reform 
 League. The duties of yeoman-usher of the Exche- 
 quer were not so excessive as to prevent him looki' g 
 
 occasionally into his collection of old letters. It 
 would be curious to have seen him read the following 
 passage from one of them addressed to him in 1812 
 from Dublin, by the young man in whose "letters and 
 history" "all the females of his family, Mrs. 0., and 
 three daughters " were so much interested {Hoyy, vol. 
 ii. p. 100). Shelley, writing from Sackville Street, 
 Dublin, March 8th, 1812, says, " I am not forgetful or 
 unheeding of what you said of association. But 
 Political Justice w r as first published in 3793; nearly 
 twenty years have elapsed since the general diffusion 
 of its doctrines. What has followed ? Have men 
 ceased to fight ? Have vice and misery vanished from 
 the earth ? Have the fireside communications which 
 it recommends taken place ? Out of the many who 
 have read that inestimable book, how many have been 
 blinded by prejudice ? How many, in short, have taken 
 it up to gratify an ephemeral vanity, and when the 
 hour of its novelty had passed, threw it aside, and 
 yielded with fashion to the arguments of Mr. Mal- 
 thus?" — Hogg,\o\. ii. p. 92.* 
 
 * In Shelley's second pamphlet, Proposals for an Association, 
 <fcc , there is, as we have seen, the following brief allusion to Godwin, 
 which that philosopher must have read with amazement in the copy 
 presented to himself. Perhaps the whole pamphlet may not have been 
 sent to Godwin, Shelley confining himself to those parts extracted 
 in The Weekly Messenger, March 7th, J 81 2, the receipt of which 
 Godwin acknowledged: — "Godwin wrote during the Revolution of 
 France, and certainly his writings were totally devoid of influence 
 with regard to its purposes — Oh! that they had not!" — Propo- 
 sals for an Association, &c, p. 14. 
 
INTEREST OF GODWIN'S FAMILY IN SHELLEY. 289 
 
 These unpleasant allusions were too much for the 
 philosopher. So in his next letter he addresses his 
 young catechist in these abrupt terms : — " Shelley, 
 you are preparing a scene of blood/' &c. " I wish to 
 my heart you would come immediately to London. I 
 have a friend who has contrived a tube to convey pas- 
 sengers sixty miles an hour. Be youth your tube ! 
 I have a thousand things I could say orally, more than 
 I can say in a letter on this important subject. Away ! 
 You cannot imagine how much all the females of my 
 family, Mrs. G. and three daughters, are interested 
 in your letters and your history." — Hogg, vol. ii. pp. 
 99, ICO. 
 
 The most interesting part of Godwin's letter is that 
 which gives a sort of foreshadowing of the atmospheric* 
 mode of locomotion and the swiftness of the " Irish 
 Mail/' which latter " conveys passengers" without the 
 aid of " a tube" (except the bridge at Bangor) exactly 
 in the time calculated on by Godwin's friend. 
 
 Before the Toth of March, 18 12, Shelley had re- 
 moved from 7, Lower Saekville Street, Dublin, to 17, 
 Grafton Street, in the same city. In 1812 the house 
 17, Grafton Street, was occupied by " Robert Williams, 
 goldsmith and jeweller." It now forms part of the 
 large establishment of Messrs. Brown, Thomas, and Co. 
 Long as the following extracts are, they form but a 
 portion of an exceedingly interesting and hitherto un- 
 published letter, the joint composition of Shelley and 
 Harriet, which was addressed to their friend at Hurst- 
 pierpoint. I shall give the extracts first, and then 
 offer such explanations as may seem necessary : — 
 
aoo PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Shelley to Miss Hitchener. 
 
 "17, Grafton Street, March 10th, 181 2. 
 " My dear Friend, — .... I cannot recount all the 
 horrible instances of unrestricted and licensed tyranny 
 that have met my ears : an Irishman has been torn from 
 his wife and family in Lisbon because he was a patriot, 
 and compelled to serve as a common soldier in the 
 Portuguese army by that monster of anti-patriotic in- 
 humanity, Beresford, the idol of the belligerents. You 
 will soon see a copy of his letter, and soon hear of my 
 
 and Sir F. Burdett's exertion in his favour "We 
 
 shall be free ; this nation shall awaken It is 
 
 attended with circumstances singularly characteristic 
 of cowardice and tyranny. My blood boils to think 
 of it. A poor boy, whom I found starving in a hiding- 
 place of unutterable filth and misery, whom I rescued 
 and was about to teach to read, has been snatched on 
 a charge of false and villanous effrontery to a magis- 
 trate of Hell, who gave him the alternative of the 
 [illegible ; perhaps " treadmill"] or military servitude. 
 He preferred neither, yet was compelled to be a soldier. 
 This has come to my knowledge this evening. I am 
 resolved to present this business to the very jaws of 
 Government, snatching if possible the poison from 
 
 its fangs I am sick of this city, and long to be 
 
 with you in peace. The rich grind the poor into ab- 
 jectedness, and then complain that they are abject. 
 They grind them to famine, and hang them if they 
 steal a loaf Your new suggestion of our join- 
 ing you at Hurst is divine. It shall be so. I have 
 not shown Harriet or E. your letter yet; they are 
 walking with a Mr. Lawless (a valuable man) whilst I 
 write this In a day or two I shall make up 
 
SHELLEY ON THE SOCIAL STATE OF DUBLIN. 291 
 
 a parcel to you which will come per coach ; it is a 
 terrible mistake that of the last — the blundering 
 honest Irishman we have came without it. Send me 
 the Sussex papers. Insist or make them insert the 
 account of me. It may have a good effect on the 
 mind of the people as a preparation. I send you two 
 [probably "papers"] to-night. The association pro- 
 ceeds slowly, and I fear will not be established 
 
 I may succeed, but I fear I shall not in the main 
 object [i.e., of establishing an association.] Dublin is 
 the most difficult of all. In Wales I fear not. In 
 Lewes fear is ridiculous." 
 
 Harriet's Postscript. 
 
 " Has Percy mentioned to you a very amiable man 
 of the name of Lawless ? He is very much attached 
 
 to the cause, yet not in it We have this 
 
 morning been introduced to his wife. She is a very 
 
 nice woman, though not equal to him What 
 
 has the Duke of Norfolk been saying of us ? Now tell 
 
 me, as I think I can confute his Lordship 
 
 We have heard from Godwin. Such letters ! You 
 
 must long to read them, I am sure But I 
 
 know you now, and this blessing I should not have 
 had if I had never been to Clapham. So I must be 
 content, and think myself very happy that I did go, 
 though I was not aware of the happiness that would 
 result." 
 
 The page is signed " P. B. S." 
 
 Except for the date and place, " Keswick, Jan. 7th, 
 1 81 2" assigned by Mr. Rossetti to the poem entitled 
 Mother and Son, which is published by him in 
 his edition of Shelley (vol. ii. p. 526), we should have 
 
 v % 
 
iy. PERC 7 B YSSHE 8HEL I /. Y. 
 
 attributed the inspiration of that effusion to the inci- 
 dents recorded in the foregoing letter written from 
 Dublin, March ioth. icSi2. The compulsory enlist- 
 ment of the Irish patriot in Lisbon and the treatment 
 of the boy seem to be referred to in the following 
 lines : — 
 
 " But when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child 
 For his cursed power unhallowed anus to wield." 
 
 It may, however, have been the former incident 
 alone, which perhaps he beard of at Keswick, that 
 formed the subject of the poem Mother and Son. The 
 charge against the boy referred to in Shelley's letter 
 of March ioth, vras for stealing a roll, " value one 
 penny." The "magistrate of helP may have been 
 the famous Major Sirr. The allusion to Sir Francis 
 Burdett is curious. A year later, as is evident from 
 the interesting papers in the Record Office referring 
 to Shelley's proceedings at Lymouth, he was in 
 constant correspondence with that celebrated per- 
 sonage. In fact his letters to Sir Francis Burdett 
 were so numerous as to attract the notice of the post- 
 master at Barnstaple, who communicated the circum- 
 stance to Mr. — subsequently Sir — Francis Freeling. 
 These letters, if preserved, would possess a singular 
 interest. After the lapse of so many years, and the 
 settlement of most of the questions discussed therein, 
 no impropriety would be involved in their being made 
 public. From some inquiries, however, which I have 
 made. I am inclined to believe that the letters are not 
 now in existence. The mention of Mr. Lawless is 
 important. This remarkable man, who is still well 
 remembered even in England under his popular title 
 of " Honest Jack/'' seems to have been the only friend 
 of any literary or social position (of course excepting 
 
MR. JOHN LA WLESS. 293 
 
 Curran, with whom he dined twice) that Shelley made 
 in Dublin. Lawless was, we have little doubt, the 
 writer of the article in The Weekly Messenger* which 
 appeared on the Saturday preceding the day on which 
 Harriet and Eliza Westbrook were introduced to his 
 wife. Shelley's and Harriet's liking for Mr. and Mrs. 
 Lawless was shared even by the cynical Mr. Hogg, as 
 we find from that eccentric gentleman's account of 
 his own visit to Dublin in 1813. At present we can 
 only refer to Mr. Lawless in connexion with Shelley's 
 first visit. Before doing so it will be more convenient 
 to conclude our explanation of the remaining allusions 
 in Shelley's and Harriet's letter of March 10th. The 
 mistake in sending the pamphlets by post both to 
 Miss Hitchener and Godwin has already been men- 
 tioned. The " blundering honest Irishman" was 
 Daniel Hill, who, as we afterwards shall find, suffered 
 six months imprisonment at Barnstaple for distri- 
 buting some of Shelley's political broadsides there, 
 though he had done precisely the same thing in 
 Dublin without any hindrance. 
 
 The two papers sent to Miss Hitchener were pro- 
 bably The Weekly Messenger and The Dublin Journal 
 of March 7th, 18 12. "The account of me" which he 
 requests his friend to get inserted in the Sussex 
 papers, was doubtless the same " account of Me" 
 referred to by Shelley in his letter to Godwin of 
 
 * The first editor of The Weekly Messenger was Frederick 
 William Conway, subsequently the well-known editor and pro- 
 prietor of The Dublin Evening Post. Mr. Lawless was after- 
 wards editor of The Weekly Messenger, to which he had been a 
 contributor from the beginning. For a curious statement of Mr. 
 Conway in reference to Shelley's visit to Dublin, see post, p. 304. 
 
2 94 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 March 8th — the article headed "Pierce By she Shelly, 
 Esq./" which we have already given. 
 
 The following letter of Harriet Shelley, which is 
 now printed for the first time, will be read with pain- 
 ful interest. One cannot help regretting that the 
 peaceful future she once pictured to herself was not 
 her fate. The letter may be considered something 
 in the light of a general confession made to one who 
 was singularly ill-suited and incompetent to be her 
 directress : — 
 
 Harriet Shelley to Miss Hit chener ; from an 
 unpublished letter. 
 " 17, Grafton Street, Dublin, March 14th, 1812. 
 "... When I lived with my father I was not likely 
 to gain much knowledge, as our circle of acquaintances 
 was very limited, he not thinking it proper that we should 
 mix much with society. In short, we very seldom visited 
 those places of fashionable amusement which for our age 
 might have been expected : 'twas but seldom I visited 
 my home, school having witnessed the greater part of 
 my life; but do not think from this I was ignorant 
 of what was passing in the great world. Books and 
 newspapers were sufficient to inform me of these. 
 Though then a silent spectator, yet did I look with a 
 fearful eye upon the vices of the great, and thought to 
 myself "'twas better to gain my bread with my needle 
 than be the inhabitant of those great houses where 
 misery and famine howl around. I will tell you my 
 faults, knowing what I have to expect from your friend- 
 ship. Kemember my youth, and if any excuse can be 
 made let that suffice. In London, you know, there 
 are military as everywhere else; when quite a child I 
 admired these red-coats, and I thought the military 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HARRIET. 295 
 
 the best and most fascinating men in the world, though 
 at the same time I used to declare my determination 
 never to marry one. This was not so much on account 
 of their vices, as from the idea of their being killed. I 
 thought if I married any one it should be a clergyman. 
 Strange idea this, was it not? But being brought 
 up in the Christian religion, 'twas this first gave rise 
 to it. You may conceive with what horror I first 
 heard that Percy was an atheist. At first I did not 
 comprehend the meaning of the word, therefore when 
 it was explained I was truly petrified. I wondered 
 how he could live a moment professing such prin- 
 ciples, and solemnly declared that he never should 
 change mine/"' 
 
 The remainder of this autobiographical sketch may 
 be given at another time. I pass on to that portion 
 of it referring to Shelley. The following passage 
 fixes the date at which the poet first began to abstain 
 from the use of animal food. In this, as in every- 
 thing else, poor Harriet adopted the views of her hus- 
 band. The change in their mode of living, which on 
 the whole must be considered to have been an unwise 
 one for both, commenced at Dublin on or about thk 
 1st of March, 18 12. Harriet, continuing her letter to 
 Miss Hitchener, says : — 
 
 " You do not know that we have forsworn meat and 
 adopted the Pythagorean system; about a fortnight 
 has elapsed since the change, and we do not find our- 
 selves the worse for it. . . . Have you heard any- 
 thing of the Habeas Corpus Act being suspended ? I 
 have been very much alarmed at the intelligence, 
 though I hope it is ill-founded. If it is not, where we 
 shall be is not known, as from Percy's having made 
 
296 PJBSCT BYSSHB 8HBLLBY* 
 
 himself so busy in the cause of this poor country, 
 he has raised himself many enemies who would take 
 advantage of such a time and instantly exercise their 
 vengeance upon him." . . . 
 
 In the same letter Shelley writes : — 
 
 " I do not like Lord Fingal or any of the Catholic 
 aristocracy. Their intolerance can be equalled by 
 nothing but the hardy wickedness and falsehood of 
 the Prince. My speech was misinterpreted. I spoke 
 for more than an hour. The hisses with which they 
 greeted me when I spoke of religion, though in terms 
 of respect, were mixed with applause when I avowed 
 my mission. The newspapers have only noted that 
 which did not excite disapprobation. As to an Asso- 
 ciation, my hopes daily grow fainter on this subject, as 
 my perception of its necessity strengthens. I shall 
 soon, however, have the command of a newspaper with 
 Mr. Lawless, of whom I shall tell more. This will be 
 a powerful engine of amelioration. Mr. L., though 
 he regards my ultimate hope as visionary, is willing to 
 acquiesce in my views. He is a republican. Adieu. 
 Believe that we are yours. We will live with you at 
 Hurst. What think you of a journey to Italy in the 
 autumn ?" 
 
 There is little requiring explanation in this post- 
 script of Shelley. The few hisses which he received 
 at the meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre seemed to 
 have rested on his mind more than the enthusiastic 
 applause which we learn from " An Englishman" he 
 received. Southey mentions an Eastern proverb which 
 declares that the feeling of pain produced by the 
 smallest thorn of the rose far exceeds that of pleasure 
 which its sweetest perfume can bestow. So it was 
 
SHELLEY ENGAGED ON A HLSTORY OF LRELAND. 297 
 
 with the sensitive young orator. As to the "intole- 
 rance" of Lord Fingal and the Catholic aristocracy, 
 ire may safely limit it to a disinclination to listen 
 to Shelley's mode of speaking of "religion" even 
 " though in terms of respect." 
 
 The expectation of having a newspaper at his com- 
 mand in conjunction with Mr. Lawless is very curious. 
 It was evidently a part of the same project alluded to 
 in the following letter, written six days later, to Mr. 
 Medwin senior, which has hitherto been a puzzle to 
 Shelley's numerous biographers : — 
 
 " Dublin, No. 17, Grafton Street, 
 "March 20th, 181 2. 
 
 "My dear Sir, — The tumult of business and 
 travelling has prevented my addressing you before. 
 
 " I am now engaged with a literary friend in the 
 publication of a voluminous History of Ireland, of 
 which two hundred and fifty pages are already printed, 
 and for the completion of which I wish to raise two 
 hundred and fifty pounds. I could obtain undeniable 
 security for its payment at the expiration of eighteen 
 months. Can you tell me how I ought to proceed? 
 The work will produce great profits. As you will see 
 by the Lewes paper, I am in the midst of overwhelming 
 engagements. My kindest regards to all your family. 
 Be assured I shall not forget them or you. 
 " My dear Sir, yours very truly, 
 
 " P. B. Shelley. 
 " T. C. Medwin, Esq., Horsham, Sussex, England." 
 
 The name of this " literary friend" of Shelley has 
 hitherto baffled inquiry. There can be no doubt that 
 he was Mr. John Lawless, and that the History of 
 Ireland alluded to by Shelley, of which two hundred 
 and fifty pages were printed in 18 12, was the Compen- 
 
?o8 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 dium of the History of Ireland, published by Mr. Law- 
 less in 1814.* 
 
 A sketch of the life of this remarkable man would 
 be interesting and valuable, but the limits of this pub- 
 lication preclude the possibility of my entering upon it 
 at present. An account of his death, and an interesting 
 letter from his son Philip Lawless, Esq., Barrister-at- 
 law, to the author, with some extracts from the State 
 Papers, will be found at the end of this volume, Appen- 
 dix No. 2. 
 
 One fact, however, must be mentioned in this 
 place, not for its possible reference to Mr. Lawless, 
 though that he was the person alluded to by the 
 writer about to be quoted there can be little doubt, 
 but for the singular interest it possesses of being the 
 first instance recorded of Shelley's pecuniary generosity 
 to his friends — few in number indeed, but making up 
 by their concentrated avidity for the more diffuse vo- 
 raciousness of a wider circle. To what extent those 
 inroads not only on Shelley's purse, but occasionally 
 on the very furniture of his house, were earned, may 
 be learned from the curious statement in the second 
 series of Miss Mitford's Letters, recently published. 
 
 * " Compendium of the History of Ireland, from the Earliest 
 Period to the Reign of George I. By John Lawless, Esq., a 
 Member of the Catholic Board. Dublin: 1814." The work, though 
 not published till that year, was well known to be in preparation 
 shortly after Shelley left Dublin. The following curious allusion 
 to it will be found in Dr. Brenan's Milesian Magazine for July, 
 1812, p. 87. " Jack Squintura" was the sobriquet of John Lawless 
 in this scurrilous publication : — 
 
 "Jack Squintum's Histoby of Ibelaxd. The public will 
 learn, with much attention, that a history of Ireland, from the 
 Creation to the present hour, is about to be published by that illus- 
 trious literator Jack Squintum." 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE. 299 
 
 From this suggestive picture of the domestic life of 
 Shelley it will be seen that the airy and pleasant Mr. 
 Harold Skimpole — that self-denying sybarite, content 
 indeed with " claret and Naples biscuits," but pocket- 
 ing in one sum a thousand pounds of his friend's 
 money as if it were a delicious bit of pleasantry — 
 quite a trifle indeed where two such men of genius 
 were concerned — could carry off the same friend's 
 chairs and tables when the more direct resources of 
 his purse were exhausted. Another well-drawn figure 
 in Miss Mitford's View of an Interior is that of the 
 philosophical Mr. Godwin. In 1807, as we have seen, 
 the author of Political Justice had some difficulty 
 about his " little bills," and applied to an Irish Judge, 
 the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, for the 
 modest sum of 300/., which he probably obtained. 
 If St. Leon did not discover the Elixir of Life, he 
 certainly found the Philosopher's Stone, and contrived 
 to turn the enthusiasm of his friends into a good deal 
 of solid gold. In 18 17, Shelley stood in a nearer re- 
 lationship to Godwin than he had done in 18 12, when 
 he received from his future father-in-law the letter of in- 
 troduction to Curran. The Philosophers Stone had by 
 that time lost a little of its virtue, perhaps from over use, 
 so that the author of Mandeville had to work on the 
 original of that character by a more potent talisman. 
 After mentioning the clean sweep of Shelley's " chairs 
 and tables and bedsteads V by Mr. Skimpole, the 
 merciless Miss Mitford thus continues : — " And Mr. 
 • Godwin, his papa-in-law, was much worse : he used to 
 threaten to stab himself if his dutiful son-in-law 
 would not accept his bills. Only fancy him down on 
 his knees, flourishing a drawn dagger, and talking 
 tragedy \" — Miss Mitford' s Letters, Second Series^ 
 
300 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Miss Mitford adds to these curious details the pithy- 
 remark, " But it was no joke to poor Mr. Shelley." 
 It certainly was not. There was very little comedy 
 on his side in the intercourse between himself and his 
 friends. On the whole it was rather tragic. Speak- 
 ing of one of the earliest chosen and the most boastful 
 of the number, Shelley, in a letter still extant, thus 
 wrote within three months after his marriage with 
 Harriet Westbrook— " He attempted to seduce my 
 wife \ 33 That attempt, it is to be feared, was the 
 beginning of his greatest misfortune, if it had not a 
 more direct bearing on the catastrophe of Harriet's 
 suicide. It is to be hoped that this deliberate inten- 
 tion to u filch" from him his " good name," and what 
 ought to be dearer to him almost than that, was a 
 solitary crime ; but of the rest of Iago's speech one 
 line was certainly applicable to Shelley. Of the 
 " trash" which was seldom allowed to remain long in 
 the purse of the poet, he might well have said, 
 alluding to almost any of his friends : — 
 
 " 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands." 
 
 We have seen that it was in Dublin Shelley received 
 his first recognition as a poet. That was in the interest- 
 ing article in The Weekly Messenger of March 7th, 1 812. 
 It is a curious fact that the earliest introduction of 
 Shelley's name to the English public did not take place 
 until four years and nine months after this date ! If 
 the reader refers to the article alluded to, p. %$$ of the 
 present volume, and compares its warm and generous 
 tone with the frigid and half-apologetic terms in which 
 so late as December, 1816, Leigh Hunt for the first 
 time mentions the name of Shelley, he will not only 
 be surprised, but perhaps enlightened as to the popular 
 
YOUNG POETS. 301 
 
 fallacy of Hunt's early knowledge and appreciation of 
 Shelley's genius. Nearly six years after Shelley wrote 
 to him from'Oxford — more than five years after Shelley 
 had published a poem in sustainment of a man whose 
 story had been told at such length by Leigh Hunt 
 himself — more than three years after Queen Mab had 
 been printed and presumably presented to the editor 
 of The Examiner, and more than two years after the 
 author of that poem is represented as visiting the in- 
 carcerated editor — " the wit in the dungeon/'' as Lord 
 Byron in a sudden fit of good humour called him — 
 we find Shelley thus spoken of by Leigh Hunt. It 
 will be seen that Shelley had sent some poetical con- 
 tributions to The Examiner, which the editor had not 
 thought worth preserving. The article is devoted to 
 three i: Young Poets/' It is curious that as much 
 space is given to the only one of the three that failed 
 to realize the expectations formed of him as to the 
 other two. These were Shelley and Keats. Eleven 
 timid lines are given to Shelley. It will be perceived 
 that Leigh Hunt confesses he had seen no specimen 
 of Shelley's poetry up to December 1st, T816, except 
 those manuscript contributions offered to The Exa- 
 miner, which speedily found their way to the waste- 
 paper basket. It is thus — 
 
 " With bated breath and whispering humbleness" 
 
 that Leigh Hunt introduces to the British public the 
 name of Percy Bysshe Shelley : — 
 
 "Young Poets. 
 
 " The object of the present article is merely to no- 
 tice three young writers, who appear to us to promise 
 a considerable addition of strength to the new school. 
 
302 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Of the first who came before us, we have, it is true, 
 yet seen only one or two specimens, and these were 
 no sooner sent us than we unfortunately mislaid them ; 
 but wc shall procure what he has published, and if the 
 rest answer to what we have seen, we shall have no 
 hesitation in announcing him for a very striking and 
 original thinker. His name is Percy Bysshe Shelley, 
 and he is the author of a poetical work, entitled 
 A las tor, or the Spirit of Solitude." — The Examiner, 
 Dec. ist } 1816. 
 
 It is sad to think that the deplorable suicide of 
 Harriet Shelley must in all probability have occurred 
 a day or two after the appearance of this first public 
 recognition (in England) of her husband. Shelley 
 legalized his connexion with Mary Godwin on the 
 30th of December, 18 1 6. The article in The Examiner 
 appeared on the 1st December. Harriet's suicide 
 took place in the same month. " In December, 18 16," 
 says Mr. Peacock, " Harriet drowned herself in the 
 Serpentine river, and to her father's house in Chapel- 
 street his daughter's body was carried" (Fraser*s 
 Magazine, January, i860, p. 100). The exact date is 
 not given, but it is almost certain that the catastrophe 
 occurred very early in the month. The commonest 
 decency or humanity, not to speak of legal impedi- 
 ments, including the holding of a coroner's inquest, 
 which doubtless took place, though no report of it has 
 been yet discovered, might be supposed to have neces- 
 sitated a delay of over three weeks before the formal 
 ceremony of marriage was gone through by Shelley 
 and his second wife. This brings us very near the 
 1st of December, on which day this perhaps fatal 
 notice of " a very striking and original thinker" — and 
 
SUICIDE OF HARRIET. 303 
 
 actor — was published. " His name is Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley/' says Leigh Hunt, introducing with rather 
 faint eulogy his recently discovered friend to the 
 English public. There was one at least in England 
 who, unhappily for herself, knew that name too well. 
 For five years she had borne it. Three years before 
 this " young poet" was openly spoken of in an English 
 journal, she had been " the inspiration of his song" 
 and his sole public. Who can doubt the bitterness of 
 her recollection if she read (as there can be but little 
 doubt that she did read) the paragraph in The Exa- 
 miner ? What a contrast to the pride and joy with 
 which more than four years earlier she must have 
 drank in with delighted eyes the far more emphatic 
 praises of her husband in The Dublin Weekly Mes- 
 senger of 7th March, 18 12 ! She was then the 
 associate in his plans, the sharer of his dreams and of 
 his hopes — his " purer mind." Well might Shelley 
 say, as if alluding to that period, and addressing 
 her (though the lines are capable of another interpre- 
 tation) — 
 
 " That time is dead for ever, child, 
 Drowned, frozen, dead for ever I" 
 
 And what was she in December, 18 16? As yet we 
 do not fully know. But the end is given in the line 
 just quoted, written nearly a year afterwards — 
 
 " Drowned, frozen, dead for ever !" 
 
 That is the practical answer which we have to those 
 frenzied questionings which doubtless drove the poor 
 abandoned " child" to despair. It is no mere fancy 
 to read in the paragraph of The Examiner the death 
 warrant of Harriet Shelley. 
 
 Nearly five years before this period Shelley had 
 
304 PSROY B YSSHB 8HEL 1 8 Y. 
 
 been publicly proclaimed in Dublin not only <c a very 
 striking and original thinker," but A Poet. At about 
 the same date, and in the same city, it would appear 
 from the following statement that another fact was 
 discovered, more interesting to Shelley's personal 
 friends than to himself. The amiable weakness of 
 the poet in leaving not only his purse but his credit 
 to the discretion, or indiscretion, of his associates was 
 first exhibited in Dublin. The curious fact transpired 
 about thirty years ago in a correspondence which the 
 present writer had with the editor of The Dublin 
 Evening Post on the poetical genius of Shelley. 
 Roused by a slighting allusion to a poet, whom I may 
 say I had discovered for myself about eleven years 
 previously, which had appeared in that paper, I wrote 
 several letters in defence of Shelley, which may be 
 found in The Dublin Evening Post, Nov. 24th, 1842, 
 Dec- 6th, 1842, and Dec. 8th, 1842. I had made 
 reference to Shelley's visit to Dublin in 181 2, and to 
 this the editor, after some courteous allusions to the 
 enthusiasm of my letters, the authorship of which he 
 was not aware of, thus alludes : — 
 
 " As to the rest, we need say nothing. Politics 
 with Shelley was a sentiment, and we honour him for 
 the clothing it assumed. We knew him a little at 
 the time mentioned. And we know also that he was 
 made the pecuniary dupe of a person not less sincere 
 in his politics, but in money matters less honest/'' — 
 The Dublin Evening Post, Thursday Evening, Nov. 1 7th, 
 1842. 
 
 The editor of The Dublin Evening Post in 1842 
 had been the editor of The Weekly Messenger in 181 2. 
 Frederick William Conway and John Lawless had 
 life-long differences, which commenced about the 
 
CURIOUS STATEMENT ABOUT SHELLEY. 305 
 
 latter period, and ended only with the death of Mr. 
 Lawless in J 837. There can be little doubt that Lawless 
 was the writer of the article on Shelley so frequently 
 alluded to. In Shelley's hitherto unpublished letters, 
 from which so many interesting extracts have been 
 taken, there is no mention of Conway, while Lawless 
 is spoken of frequently in terms of affection. Conway, 
 as editor of the paper, must have known something, 
 though perhaps inaccurately, of the efforts made by 
 Shelley, as proved by the letter to Mr. Medwin, to 
 assist Lawless in bringing out his History of Ireland. 
 Captain Medwin, with his usual incompleteness and 
 often inaccuracy of detail, does not inform us whether 
 Shelley's instructions to Mr. Medwin, senior, to raise 
 the sum of 250/. for the completion of this work were 
 or were not carried out. From a circumstance in 
 connexion with the affair at Lymouth in the August 
 of the same year, and from the fact that it was to the 
 house of Mr. John Lawless Shelley and Harriet fled, 
 as it were, in March, 1813, after the extraordinary 
 affair at Tanyrallt, there is a strong probability that ths 
 money, or some portion of it, was advanced to Mr. 
 Lawless. Knowing what we now know of similar and 
 less excusable transactions — the 1000/. given in a lump 
 to Leigh Hunt — the rather doubtful 500/. to Mr. 
 Madocks for the breakwater at Tremadoc — the 100/. 
 a year to Mr. Peacock — the bills accepted at the 
 dagger's point for Mr. Godwin — the proceeds of carted 
 furniture for Mr. Skimpole, and many other acts of 
 unreflecting and extorted generosity, this contribution 
 to the History of Ireland by Mr. Lawless, which 
 Shelley was sure would be repaid " at the expiration 
 of eighteen months," looks in comparison more like a 
 clever speculation, a safe investment of the poet, than 
 
 x 
 
3 o6 PERCY BYS1SUE SHELLEY. 
 
 a deliberate intention to defraud on the part of the 
 historian. Mr. Lawless died in 1837, and was there- 
 fore unable to return the fire of his old antagonist. 
 His explanation of all the circumstances of his acquain- 
 tance with Shelley would have been most interesting. 
 There can be no chance of such explanation now. He 
 would probably have demurred to the right of his 
 assailant to sit in judgment on his private intercourse 
 with Mr. Shelley until the censor had explained his 
 own secret correspondence with Lord Sidmouth. In 
 any case Mr. Lawless would have read u with a wild 
 surmise" the following letter, the original of which is 
 to be found in the Record Office : — 
 
 State Papers, " Ireland, 18 12. August — December. 
 No. 657." 
 
 " Dublin, November 27th, 1812. 
 " My Lord, — I have the honour of enclosing the 
 'Address' which will be published to-morrow by the 
 Catholic Bishops. I think the Document important, 
 as although your Lordship may have received a 
 Manuscript Copy previously, yet lest that should not 
 prove to be the case I have ventured to trouble you 
 with the only copy that has yet left the Printer's 
 possession. 
 
 " I shall have the honour of resuming my corre- 
 spondence to-morrow with Mr. Beckett. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, my Lord, 
 " Your Lordship's most obedient and 
 " most faithful Servant, 
 
 " F. W. Conway/' 
 " Eight Hon. Lord Sidmouth." 
 
 The document referred to in the foregoing letter is 
 
MR. COX WAY, LORD SIDMOUTH, AND MR. BECKETT. 307 
 
 also preserved in the Record Office. It is a small 
 pamphlet, the title of which is as follows : — 
 
 "The Address of the Roman Catholic Prelates, assem- 
 bled in Dublin on the 18th of November, 181 2. To 
 the Clergy and Laity of the Roman Catholic Church in 
 Ireland. Published by Authority. Dublin. Printed and 
 Published by H. Fitzpatrick, Capel Street/'' 
 
 By another memorandum in a separate letter it 
 appears that the opinion of the Attorney General and 
 Solicitor General was taken as to the legality of the 
 publication in question. It was also under the con- 
 sideration of the Chancellor. The paper containing 
 these facts is not signed. It contains the following 
 observations : — " The course of proceedings with re- 
 gard to these publications appears to be a matter of 
 much public importance and of some delicacy/'' 
 
 Leaving Mr. Conway to resume his secret corre- 
 spondence with Lord Sidmouth and Mr. Beckett, we 
 return with a sense of relief to our more immediate 
 subject. 
 
 On the 1 8 th of March, 1812, Shelley wrote to 
 Godwin as follows : — 
 
 t( My dear Sir, — I have said that I acquiesce in 
 your decision, nor has my conduct militated with the 
 assertion. I have withdrawn from circulation the 
 publications in which I erred, and am preparing to 
 quit Dublin." 
 
 Two days after this open recantation we find Shelley 
 negotiating for a loan of two hundred and fifty pounds 
 for the completion of a History of Ireland. That pro- 
 ject he kept a profound secret from his vigilant 
 director. The Declaration of Rights, a broadside 
 
 X 2, 
 
303 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 which Shelley had printed in Dublin for the purpose 
 of being " posted on the farmers' walls/' and which 
 was the last of his political experiments, he seems not 
 to have had the courage to send to Godwin. It was, 
 however, forwarded to his friend at Hurstpierpoint, 
 and to that circumstance we owe its preservation. 
 
 On the 1 8th of March, 1812, the day on which 
 Shelley wrote his last letter from Dublin to Godwin, 
 u a large deal box" had been filled by him with all 
 the copies of his two pamphlets and Declaration of 
 Rights then remaining in his possession, which was for- 
 warded by the Holyhead packet, with the address — 
 
 " Miss Hitchener, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex." 
 
 Shelley could only pay the freight to Holyhead; he 
 expected the box would have been forwarded to Hurst, 
 when the additional charges would have been paid. 
 After remaining some days at Holyhead, no one ap- 
 pearing to pass the box, the Surveyor of Customs 
 opened it, as was his duty, in order to ascertain if it 
 contained any excisable articles, the ports of England 
 and Ireland being then watched for this purpose with 
 greater vigilance than are those of France and Eng- 
 land at the present day. The discovery of a case of 
 Orsini shells, had such instruments been then invented, 
 could scarcely have created a greater amount of con- 
 sternation among all the officials of the quiet little 
 harbour of Holyhead than did the contents of the box. 
 The discovery was first made by Pierce Thomas, the 
 Surveyor of Customs. He at once communicated the 
 fact to William D. Fellowes, who, in the Almanac for 
 181 1 and 1813, under the heading of the General 
 Post Office, is described as " agent for the Packet 
 Boats" at Holyhead. This will account for the narrative 
 
THE PA MPELETS SEIZED A T EOL YHEA D. 309 
 
 of the seizure Laving been forwarded both to the 
 Secretary of the Post Office and to the Secretary of 
 State. The letters and documents sent to Mr. — after- 
 wards Sir — Francis Freeling remained in his private 
 possession for many years, and appear to have been 
 sold after his death. In 1870 they were advertised in 
 the catalogue of a London bookseller, and were for- 
 tunately bought by the Right Hon. Chichester For- 
 tescue, M.P., President of the Board of Trade, who 
 in the kindest manner confided them to my hands 
 for the purpose of transcription and incorporation into 
 this work. The letter of Pierce Thomas, the Surveyor 
 of Customs, was not sent to the head of his own de- 
 partment, but to the Right Hon. Richard Ryder, 
 Secretary of State. In this way it has been preserved 
 in the Record Office, where it rewarded my search in 
 December, 1870. I am not aware that any allusion 
 has ever been made to it or to the exceedingly inte- 
 resting letter of Harriet Shelley, a copy of which it 
 contains. There is with this communication a copy of 
 the Declaration of Rights. Another copy is also in the 
 Record Office in connexion with the affair at Barnstaple 
 in the following year. The third and only remaining 
 copy now known to be in existence is in the collection 
 already alluded to, purchased by the Right Hon. 
 Chichester Fortescue, M.P., which also contains a copy 
 of the Proposals for an Association (Shelley's second 
 Irish pamphlet), as well as the autograph letters of 
 Mr. Fellowes and Lord Chichester. This collection is 
 properly inscribed by one of its possessors, certainly 
 not by Sir Francis Freeling, " Percy Bysshe Shelley/' 
 " Inflammatory Irish Papers/' &c. &c. — a phrase bor- 
 rowed from the letter of poor Harriet. 
 
 Although the letter of Pierce Thomas in the Record 
 
3 1 o PERCY B YSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 Office is dated a day earlier, it will perhaps be more 
 satisfactory to give the documents forwarded to the 
 Postmaster General, Lord Chichester, as well as his 
 own contribution to the materials which he uncon- 
 sciously contributed to the biography of Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley. All the letters are given as they w r erc written, 
 no correction of names or spelling being made. 
 
 Letter of William D. Fellowes, Esq., Post Office Agent 
 at Holyhead, to Francis Freeling, Esq., Secretary 
 of the General Post Office, London. 
 "Most Private." "Holyhead, March 31st, 18 12. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — The Surveyor of the Customs 
 consulted me yesterday on having discovered in the 
 Custom House, a few days since, a Large deal box, 
 directed to ' Miss Hitchener, Hurst per pier, Brighton, 
 Sussex, England/ which had been landed from one 
 of the Packets from Ireland. It contained, besides a 
 great quantity of Pamphlets and printed papers, an 
 open letter, of a tendency so dangerous to Govern- 
 ment, that I urged him to write without further loss 
 of time, a confidential letter, either to the Secretary 
 of State, or to Mr. Percival, and enclose the letter, 
 and one of each of the Pamphlets and printed Decla- 
 rations (as they are styled), which he accordingly did 
 by yesterday's Post, to Mr. Percival. 
 
 H As the Letter in question, which the Surveyor 
 gave me to read contained a paragraph injurious to 
 the revenue of the P. Office, I think it my duty 
 to make you acquainted with it — it is as follows : — 
 
 " ' Percy has sent you a box full of inflammatory* 
 matter, therefore I think I may send this/ 
 
 * The word is " inflammable" in Mr. Pierce Thomas's tran- 
 script of Harriet's letter. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE POST OFFICE. 311 
 
 " f I sent you two letters in nevis Papers, which I 
 hope you received safe from the Intrusion of Post 
 Masters. I sent a Pamphlet to my Father some time 
 since in the same way/ 
 
 " 'Disperse the Declarations, Percy says the Farmers 
 are fond of having them stuck on their walls.' 
 
 " Mr. Thomas, the gentleman who gave me this 
 information, having acted by my advice, in order to 
 avoid the delay of reporting to the Custom House, 
 and the possibility of its being considered as a common 
 seizure, of which there are a great many every year — 
 has requested that I would not mention it — and I 
 therefore request you to consider this as confidential. 
 I will send you a Pamphlet in the course of a day or 
 two, but I trust in the mean time this communication 
 may enable the office to detect any future corre- 
 spondence between the parties under the cover of a 
 news Paper. 
 
 " I have the honour to remain, 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " Your faithful humble servant, 
 
 "William D. Fellowes. 
 " Francis Freeliiig, Esq." 
 
 " It is a very common custom with the people in 
 Ireland to write in news Papers. I open all that come 
 through my hands, and have charged many from 
 being written in. 
 
 " The Person whose letter I have quoted from 
 appears to be English, and to have lately gone to 
 Ireland. I have no doubt but an extensive corre- 
 spondence will be attempted in the way mentioned. 
 There is no signature to the letter or address." 
 
 This letter is endorsed by Sir Francis Freeling in 
 
3H PERCY BYSS1IE SHELLEY. 
 
 his well-known autograph, of which there are nume- 
 rous specimens among the State Papers. " 3 1 March, 
 181 2, Holyhead, W. D. Fellowes, Esq. Most Private." 
 " No. I n is added in another hand. 
 
 The next document in this collection of " Inflam- 
 matory Irish Papers " is a short note of Mr. Fellowes, 
 which explains itself: — 
 
 W. D. Fellowes, Esq., to Francis Freeling, Esq. 
 
 "April 1st, 18 12. 
 " My dear Sir, — I send you the Pamphlet, and 
 Declaration of Rights, which I mentioned in my letter 
 of yesterday, and remain yours faithfully, 
 
 " William D. Fellowes." 
 Endorsed by Mr. Freeling : — 
 "April 1st, 181 2, Holyhead, W. D. Fellowes, Esq. (2.)" 
 
 These letters of Mr. Fellowes, the copy of Shelley's 
 second pamphlet and of the Declaration of Rights, 
 were duly forwarded by Mr. Francis Freeling, the 
 Secretary of the Post Office, to his chief, the Earl of 
 Chichester, one of the Postmasters General. His 
 Lordship, though ex officio a man of letters, was a 
 little defective in his orthography, but I have thought 
 it better to give the letter precisely as it is, than to 
 attempt any corrections. The opinions formed upon 
 the social position of Shelley's wife by the magnates 
 of Sussex are very curious, as is also the sketch of the 
 antecedents of Miss Hitchener. Altogether the letter 
 is full of interest. 
 
 The Earl of Chichester, Postmaster General, to Francis 
 Freeling, Esq., Secretary to the General Post Office. 
 
 "Stanmer, April 5th, 1812. 
 
 " Dear Freeling, — I return the Pamphlet and De- 
 
LETTER OF TEE EARL OF CHICHESTER. 313 
 
 claration, the writer of the first is son of Mr. Shelley, 
 member for the Rape of Bramber, and is by all accounts, 
 a most extraordinary man. I hear that he has married 
 a Servant, or some person of very low birth ; he has 
 been in Ireland some time, and I heard of his speak- 
 ing at the Catholic Convention. 
 
 " Miss Hichener, of Hurstperpoint, keeps a school 
 there, and is well spoken of: her Father keeps a 
 Publick House in the neighbourhood, he was origi- 
 nally a smugler,* and changed his name from Yorke to 
 Tichener [Hitchener], before he took the publick House. 
 
 <: I shall have a watch upon the Daughter, and dis- 
 cover whether there is any connexion between her and 
 Shelley. 
 
 " I shall come to Town on Wednesday. 
 
 " As I am to see Mr. Scott to-morrow, I shall keep 
 the Brighton Papers until 1 I have seen him. 
 
 " Yours most sincerely, 
 
 " Chichester. 
 
 " I send my Receipt enclosed ; you will be so good 
 as to pay the salary to Messrs. Hoare's." 
 
 This letter is endorsed by Mr. Ereeling: — " 5th April, 
 1 812. Stanmer. Earl of Chichester. 'Inflammatory 
 Irish Papers addressed to Hurst Perpoint, seized at Holy- 
 head.' " Mr. Ereeling's private address, " Rotting- 
 dean," &c, is added. 
 
 The Earl of Chichester, by whom the foregoing letter 
 was written, was joint Postmaster General with the 
 Earl of Sandwich. The letter is dated from Stanmer 
 Park, Sussex. This will account for Lord Chichester 
 knowing something, though incorrectly, of the private 
 
 * So written. 
 
3 ' 4 PERCY B YSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 affairs of the Shelleys. Why ho mistook the place for 
 which Mr. Timothy Shelley was Memher of Parlia- 
 ment, was strange. Mr. Shelley, I believe, never sat 
 for any place but Shoreham. William Wilberforce, 
 who had been member for Yorkshire in 1 8 1 1, was mem- 
 ber for Bramber in 1813, having probably been elected 
 for the latter place at the general election of 18 12. 
 
 11 The Brighton Papers" mentioned by Lord Chi- 
 chester, probably had no reference to Shelley's affair. 
 It should be remembered, however, that in Shelley's 
 unpublished letter to Miss Hitchener (March 10th, 
 18 1 2), from which I have given a few extracts, he was 
 most anxious that the "Sussex papers" should report his 
 proceedings in Dublin. " Send me the Sussex papers," 
 he says. " Insert, or make them insert the account 
 of me :" evidently referring to the account of " Pierce 
 Byshe Shelly, Esq.," which had appeared three days be- 
 fore in The Weekly Messenger of March 7th, 18 10. 
 
 The following letters in the Record Office, which 
 have hitherto been unknown, refer to the same seizure 
 at Holyhead as described in the foregoing papers. 
 They are, I think, of greater interest than those already 
 given. 
 
 Documents in the State Paper Office, referring to Shelley, 
 not previously published. 
 
 "Ireland. January to April, 181 2. No. 655." 
 
 Letter of the Surveyor of Customs at Holyhead to the 
 Secretary of State for the Home Department. 
 
 " Confidential." "Holyhead, March 30th, 1812. 
 
 " Sir, — The important contents of the enclosed 
 letter, with a Pamphlet and a Declaration of rights 
 
LETTERS IX STATE PAPER OFFICE ON THE SEIZURE. 315 
 
 (forming part of the contents of a box detained by 
 .me), which I feel it my dnty to transmit to you, will, 
 I trust, he a sufficient apology for addressing myself 
 to you in the first instance. Holding as I do an 
 official situation under the Board of Customs, it would 
 perhaps have been more strictly regular to have first 
 communicated them to my own Board, and if the not 
 having done it should appear to you to be informal, I 
 must trust to your candour in not implicating me for 
 my zealous intentions. Some days since a large deal 
 box, directed to Miss Hitchener, Hurstpierpoint, 
 Brighton, England, was landed from on board one of 
 the Holyhead Packets, and brought to the Custom 
 House, where, as Surveyor and Searcher of the Cus- 
 toms, I opened it, and found the enclosed open letter 
 — the tendency of which at this moment I need not 
 point out ; and it still remains in my custody. If it 
 should be your desire to have them transmitted to 
 London, and withheld from the person to whom they 
 are addressed, I should be glad to be honoured with 
 your confidential opinion and commands in what way 
 I ought to forward it, consistent with my public duty 
 as an officer of the Customs, and the respect due to 
 my Board. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, 
 
 " Your very obedient servant, 
 
 " Pierce Thomas." 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " The Eight Honble. E. Ryder, Secretary." 
 
 The communication forwarded by Mr. Pierce 
 Thomas to the Secretary of State was a copy of the 
 " open letter" found in the box containing so much 
 u inflammable matter" in the shape of pamphlets and 
 Declarations of Bights. This letter, which was written 
 
3 1 6 PERCY B YSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 by Harriet Shelley, seems to have been considered 
 by the officials at Holyhead as a far more dangerous 
 document than the printed Address to the Irish People, 
 and the other papers that accompanied it. This per- 
 haps arose from the fact that the letter was not signed 
 by the writer, and that the person to whom it was 
 written was addressed under the disguise of a classical 
 name. By the " Portia" of poor Harriet's letter was 
 of course meant Porcia, the daughter of Cato and the 
 wife of Brutus. This famous name was given to Miss 
 Kitchener by " Percy's little circle" (to borrow a 
 phrase from one of Shelley's unpublished letters), not 
 only in compliment to the republicanism of their cor- 
 respondent at Hurstpierpoint, but to escape a diffi- 
 culty which arose from Miss Hitchener's Christian 
 name being the same as Miss Westbrook's — they were 
 both Elizas. In Shelley's hitherto unpublished letter 
 from Whitehaven, Feb. 3rd, 181 2, written on his way 
 to Dublin, from which we have quoted largely in an 
 earlier portion of this book, he alludes to this incon- 
 venience. At that time he was urging Miss Hitchener 
 at any risk to join him in Dublin — " resign your 
 school, all, everything for us and the Irish cause." He 
 concludes his letter of February 3rd, 1812, in these 
 words, which I have reserved in order to explain the 
 circumstance of Harriet addressing Miss Hitchener by 
 an adopted name. Shelley says — 
 
 " Pray what are you to be called when you come to 
 us, for Eliza's name is Eliza, and Miss Hitchener is 
 too long, too broad, and too deep ? Adieu. 
 
 " Your 
 
 " P. B. Shelley." 
 
MISS KITCHENER ADDRESSED AS "PORTIA." 517 
 
 To prevent this clashing of Eliza Westbrook and 
 Eliza Hitchener, the heroic name of Porcia was 
 adopted for the latter. Had Shelley known as much 
 of his fair and philosophical friend at Hurstpierpoint as 
 did the Earl of Chichester, perhaps her real name of 
 * Yorke" would not have been found " too long/' 
 "too broad," or "too deep" either for friendly intercourse 
 or correspondence. It would, however, have wanted 
 the delicious romance of suggesting a certain resem- 
 blance in principle at least between the heroine of 
 Hurst and the wife of Brutus. By that name, though 
 slightly misspelt by the good and gentle Harriet, she was 
 addressed in the following most interesting letter : — 
 
 Record Office. "Ireland. January to April, 1812. 
 No. 655." 
 
 Harriet Shelley to Eliza Hitcliener. 
 
 "Dublin, March 18th [1812.] 
 
 " My dear Portia, — As Percy has sent you such a 
 large Box so full of inflammable matter, I think I may 
 be allowed to send a little but not [of] such a nature 
 as his. I sent you two letters in a newspaper, which 
 I hope you received safe from the intrusion of Post 
 masters. I sent one of the Pamphlets to my Father 
 in a newspaper, which was opened and charged, but 
 which was very trifling when compared to what you 
 and Godwin paid. 
 
 " I believe I have mentioned a new acquaintance 
 of ours, a Mrs. Nugent, who is sitting in the room 
 now and talking to Percy about Virtue. You see how 
 little I stand upon ceremony. I have seen her but 
 twice before, and I find her a very greeable, sensible 
 woman. She has felt most severely the miseries of 
 
3i8 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 her country in which she has been a very active mem- 
 ber. She visited all the Prisons in the time of the 
 Rebellion to exhort the people to have courage and hope. 
 She says it was a most dreadful task ; but it was her 
 duty, and she would not shrink from the performance 
 of it. This excellent woman, with all her notions of 
 Philanthropy and justice, is obliged to work for her 
 subsistence — to work in a shop which is a farrier's ; 
 there she is every day confined to her needle. Is it 
 not a thousand pities that such a woman should be so 
 dependent upon others ? She has visited us this 
 evening for about three hours, and is now returned 
 home. The evening is the only time she can get out 
 in the week ; but Sunday is her own, and then we are 
 to see her. She told Percy that her country was her 
 only love, when he asked her if she was married. She 
 called herself Mrs. I suppose on account of her age, 
 as she looks rather old for a Miss. She has never been 
 out of her own country, and has no wish to leave it. 
 
 " This is St. Patrick's night,"* and the Irish always 
 get very tipsy on such a night as this. The Horse 
 Guards are pacing the streets and will be so all the 
 night, so fearful are they of disturbances, the poor 
 people being very much that way inclined, as Provi- 
 sions are very scarce in the southern counties. Poor 
 Irish People, how much I feel for them. Do you 
 know, such is their ignorance that when there is a 
 drawing-room held they go from some distance to see 
 the people who keep them starving to get their 
 
 * This shows that Harriet's letter was written on the 17th of 
 March, and not on the " 18th," as she has dated it. Unless, 
 indeed, the usual St. Patrick's Ball at the Castle of Dublin was for 
 some reason held on the 18th of March instead of the 17th in the 
 year 181 2. 
 
ST. PATRICK'S NIGHT DESCRIBED BY HARRIET. 319 
 
 luxuries j they will crowd round the state carriages in 
 great glee to see those within who have stripped them 
 of their rights, and who wantonly revel in a profusion 
 of ill-gotten luxury whilst so many of those harmless 
 people are wanting Bread for their wives and children. 
 What a spectacle ! People talk of the fiery spirit of 
 these distressed creatures, but that spirit is very much 
 broken and ground down by the oppressors of this 
 poor country. I may with truth say there are more 
 Beggars in this city than any other in the world. 
 They are so poor they have hardly a rag to cover 
 their naked limbs, and such is their passion for drink 
 that when you relieve them one day you see them in 
 the same deplorable situation the next. Poor crea- 
 tures, they live more on whiskey than anything, for 
 meat is so dear they cannot afford to purchase any. 
 If they had the means I do not know that they would, 
 whiskey being so much cheaper and to their palates 
 so much more desirable. Yet how often do we hear 
 people say that Poverty is no evil. I think if they 
 had experienced it they would soon alter their tone. 
 To my idea it is the worst of all evils, as the miseries 
 that flow from it are certainly very great ; the many 
 crimes we hear of daily are the consequences of 
 Poverty, and that, to a very great degree; I think, the 
 Laws are extremely unjust — they condemn a Person 
 to Death for stealing 13 shillings and' 4 pence. 
 
 (i Disperse the Declarations. Percy says the farmers 
 are very fond of having something posted upon their 
 walls. 
 
 "Percy has sent you all his Pamphlets with the 
 Declaration of Rights, which you will disperse to 
 advantage. He has not many of his first Address, 
 having taken great pains to circulate them through 
 this city. 
 
320 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 " All thoughts of an Association are given up as 
 impracticable. We shall leave this noisy town on 
 the 7th of April, unless the Habeas Corpus Act should 
 be suspended, and then we shall be obliged to leave 
 here as soon as possible. Adieu." 
 
 Note on the "Declaration of Rights." 
 
 On this interesting subject it may be useful to supplement 
 vrhat has been already said by a fact of some importance. 
 
 Of the original broadside containing the Declaration of Rights 
 there are probably but four copies in existence. Three of these I 
 have seen. Two of them are in the Record Office, one in the 
 papers connected with the seizure at Holyhead in 1812, the other 
 with those describing the affair at Barnstaple in 181 3. The 
 papers are marked respectively, " Ireland, January to April, 18 12. 
 No. 65$." " Domestic. George III. Nos. 239, 240." A third 
 copy, in the possession of the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P., 
 also formed a part of the seizure at Holyhead. It was sent to 
 Mr. Freeling, the Secretary of the Post Office, and remained in 
 his hands. Mention is made of a fourth copy in Lowndes' Bib- 
 liographical Manual, Bonn's ed. p. 2374, as follows: — " Queen 
 Mab, by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Privately printed without a title 
 page, with a hand-bill, called Declaration of Rights, drawn up 
 by Shelley and distributed in Ireland." What has become of this 
 interesting volume is unknown. It is extremely probable that 
 Clark's and Carlile's editions of Queen Mab, 1821, 1822, were 
 printed from this copy. It is a singular fact, not previously 
 known, that during the life-time of Shelley the Declaration of 
 Rights was reprinted by the same Carlile, apparently without his 
 knowing who was the writer. It will be found in the fifth number 
 of The Republican, London, Friday, Sept. 24th, 18 19. R. Carlile, 
 Printer, 55, Fleet Street, London, p. 75. I am indebted to Mr. 
 John Wilson, Great Russell Street, for a copy of this interesting 
 number of The Republican. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TT would appear from an endorsement in the hand- 
 writing of Mr. Wellesley Pole, that the copy of 
 Harriet's letter given in the last chapter, with the 
 communication of Mr. Pierce Thomas, were forwarded 
 from the Home Secretary's office in London to the 
 office of the Secretary for Ireland in Dublin. " Mr. 
 Goulbum" is also written on one of them, he being 
 the joint under-secretary with Mr. Beckett. All the 
 documents, on which no action seems to have been 
 taken, were sent back to London in an envelope, 
 which still retains the seal with the motto " Toilet 
 virtus" The only observation made by Mr. Wellesley 
 Pole is as follows : — 
 
 "The enclosed are returned with Mr. Pole's com- 
 pliments. 
 
 "Irish Office, April 8th, 1812." 
 
 The chief interest of poor Harriet's letter lies in 
 the additional evidence which it gives of her intelli- 
 gence, good nature, and innocence. Other matters, 
 however, are decided by it. The abandonment of the 
 Association seems in no way to have been affected by 
 the remonstrances of Godwin. The project was given 
 up because it was found to be " impracticable." The 
 letters of Godwin did not accelerate the departure of 
 Shelley from Dublin by one day. He left that city 
 at the precise time he had originally arranged to leave 
 
 Y 
 
322 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 it. The police had nothing to do with his movements. 
 He received no intimation from them that he should 
 " quit the country." The laconic observation of Mr. 
 Wellesley Pole as to the wonderful mare's-nest dis- 
 covered by Mr. Pierce Thomas at Holyhead, shows 
 the profound indifference of the Irish Government to 
 his proceedings. What became of the large box of 
 pamphlets is uncertain. It was probably forwarded 
 to Miss Kitchener, who doubtless brought it with her 
 when she joined " Percy's little circle/' either in 
 Wales or Devonshire a few months later. At Ly- 
 mouth, in August, 1812, according to the letter of 
 the town clerk of Barnstaple, " Mr. Shelley had with 
 him large chests, which were so heavy that scarcely 
 three men could lift them, which were supposed to 
 contain papers." These " papers" must have been 
 some copies of the Address to the Irish People, a larger 
 supply of the Proposals for an Association, possibly 
 the whole impression of the Declaration of Rights, also 
 of the poem called The Devil's Walk, which like the 
 former was printed as a broadside, but on larger paper. 
 Those "large chests," too, may have contained the 
 Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, the 
 Verses on Robert Emmett, and all the other materials 
 for the edition of his poems which Shelley had pro- 
 jected bringing out in Dublin. 
 
 As the Declaration of Rights was printed in Dublin, 
 and as it formed part of the seizure made at Holy- 
 head, it may appropriately be introduced here as the 
 concluding exploit of Shelley's wonderful expedition to 
 Ireland in 18 1 %. It has been recently printed by 
 Mr. Rossetti* from a transcript made in the Record 
 
 * In TJie Fortnightly Review for January, 187 1. But see note 
 to last chapter, page 320. 
 
"DECLARATION" AN ABRIDGMENT OF "PROPOSALS." 3*3 
 
 Office, not from the Holyhead documents, but from 
 those connected with the Lymouth and Barnstaple 
 affair of August, 18 1 2, which are also preserved among 
 the State Papers. These will be subsequently referred 
 to, and some corrections and additional information 
 supplied. The transcript from which Mr. Rossetti 
 has printed the Declaration of Rights was made by a 
 foreigner, which will account for some of the mistakes 
 which have crept into the published version. There 
 is also an attempt here and there to correct the 
 grammar of the original : occasionally a word is 
 omitted, capital letters and italics, not used by Shelley, 
 are introduced capriciously. Altogether the reprint is 
 unsatisfactory : the Declaration of Rights is here repro- 
 duced faithfully without any wilful deviation from the 
 original. Mr. Rossetti has drawn attention to certain 
 resemblances between Shelley's Declaration of Rights 
 and " the two most famous of similar documents in 
 the history of the great French Revolution — the one 
 adopted by the Constituent Assembly in August, 1789, 
 and the other proposed in April, 1793, by Robespierre. " 
 For this ingenious parallel, the reader is referred to the 
 pages of the Review in which it appeared. It is, how- 
 ever, probable that Shelley manufactured his Declara- 
 tion of Rights out of materials nearer to his hand. It 
 is a mere condensation or abridgment of what he had 
 already printed at greater length in his second pam- 
 phlet, the Proposals for an Association. "The open- 
 ing thunder-clap " of the Declaration, as Mr. Rossetti 
 calls it, is given almost in the same words as in the 
 Proposals. 
 
 " Government has no rights ; it is a delegation 
 from several individuals for the purpose of securing 
 their own/' says the Declaration. 
 
 Y 2 
 
334 PERCY BYSSI1E SUELLEY. 
 
 11 Government can have no rights ; it is a delegation 
 for the purpose of securing them to others/' says the 
 pamphlet. 
 
 Most of the other apothegms of the Declaration of 
 Rights may be found in the Proposals for an Associa- 
 tion, the inspiration of both being doubtless the famous 
 historical documents referred to by Mr. Rossetti. 
 
 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 
 
 i. 
 
 Government has no rights ; it is a delegation from 
 several individuals for the purpose of securing their 
 own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by 
 their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their 
 well-being. 
 
 %. 
 
 If these individuals think that the form of govern- 
 ment which they or their forefathers constituted is ill 
 adapted to produce their happiness, they have a right 
 to change it. 
 
 3- 
 Government is devised for the security of Rights. 
 The rights of man are liberty, and an equal participa- 
 tion of the commonage of Nature. 
 
 4- 
 As the benefit of the governed is, or ought to be, 
 the origin of government, no men can have any autho- 
 rity that does not expressly emanate from their will. 
 
 5- 
 
 Though all governments are not so bad as that of 
 Turkey, yet none are so good as they might be. The 
 
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 325 
 
 majority of every country have a right to perfect their 
 government. The minority should not disturb them ; 
 they ought to secede, and form their own system in 
 their own way. 
 
 6. 
 
 All have a right to an equal share in the benefits 
 and burdens of Government. Any disabilities for 
 opinion imply, by their existence, barefaced tyranny on 
 the side of Government, ignorant slavishness on the 
 side of the governed. 
 
 7. 
 
 The rights of man, in the present state of society, 
 are only to be secured by some degree of coercion to 
 be exercised on their violator. The sufferer has a 
 right that the degree of coercion employed be as slight 
 as possible. 
 
 8. 
 
 It may be considered as a plain proof of the hollo w- 
 ness of any proposition if power be used to enforce 
 instead of reason to persuade its admission. Govern- 
 ment is never supported by fraud until it cannot be 
 supported by reason. 
 
 9- 
 
 No man has a right to disturb the public peace by 
 personally resisting the execution of a law, however 
 bad. He ought to acquiesce, using at the same time 
 the utmost powers of his reason to promote its 
 repeal. 
 
 10. 
 
 A man must have a right to act in a certain 
 manner, before it can be his duty. He may, before 
 he ought. 
 
326 PERCY EYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 II. 
 
 A man has a right to think as his reason directs; 
 it is a duty he owes to himself to think with freedom, 
 that he may act from conviction. 
 
 12. 
 A man has a right to unrestricted liberty of dis- 
 cussion. Falsehood is a scorpion that will sting itself 
 to death. 
 
 J 3- 
 A man has not only a right to express his thoughts, 
 but it is his duty to do so. 
 
 14. 
 No law has a right to discourage the practice of 
 truth. A man ought to speak the truth on every 
 occasion. A duty can never be criminal; what is not 
 criminal cannot be injurious. 
 
 15- 
 
 Law cannot make what is in its nature virtuous or 
 innocent to be criminal, any more than it can make 
 what is criminal to be innocent. Government cannot 
 make a law; it can only pronounce that which was 
 the law before its organisation ; viz., the moral result 
 of the imperishable relations of things. 
 
 16. 
 The present generation cannot bind their posterity : 
 the few cannot promise for the many. 
 
 *7- 
 
 No man has a right to do an evil thing that good 
 may come. 
 
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 327 
 
 18. 
 
 Expediency is inadmissible in morals. Politics are 
 only sound when conducted on principles of morality : 
 they are, in fact, the morals of nations. 
 
 19. 
 
 Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no 
 excuse that he does so in uniform : he only adds the 
 infamy of servitude to the crime of murder. 
 
 20. 
 
 Man, whatever be his country, has the same rights 
 in one place as another — the rights of universal 
 citizenship. 
 
 21. 
 
 The government of a country ought to be perfectly 
 indifferent to every opinion. Religious differences, 
 the bloodiest and most rancorous of all, spring from 
 partiality. 
 
 22. 
 
 A delegation of individuals, for the purpose of 
 securing their rights, can have no undelegated power 
 of restraining the expression of their opinion. 
 
 2 3- 
 Belief is involuntary ; nothing involuntary is meri- 
 torious or reprehensible. A man ought not to be 
 considered worse or better for his belief. 
 
 24. 
 A Christian, a Deist, a Turk, and a Jew., have 
 equal rights : they are men and brethren. 
 
328 PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 25- 
 
 If a person's religious ideas correspond not with 
 your own, love him nevertheless. How different 
 would yours have been had the chance of birth placed 
 you in Tartary or India ! 
 
 26. 
 
 Those who believe that Heaven is, what earth has 
 been, a monopoly in the hands of a favoured few, 
 would do well to reconsider their opinion; if they 
 find that it came from their priest or their grand- 
 mother, they could not do better than reject it. 
 
 27. 
 No man has a right to be respected for any other 
 possesssions but those of virtue and talents. Titles are 
 tinsel, power a corruptor, glory a bubble, and exces- 
 sive wealth a libel on its possessor. 
 
 28. 
 
 No man has a right to monopolise more than he can 
 enjoy ; what the rich give to the poor, whilst millions 
 are starving, is not a perfect favour, but an imperfect 
 right. 
 
 29. 
 
 Every man has a right to a certain degree of 
 leisure and liberty, because it is his duty to attain 
 a certain degree of knowledge. He may before he 
 ought. 
 
 3°- 
 Sobriety of body and mind is necessary to those 
 who would be free ; because, without sobriety, a high 
 sense of philanthropy cannot actuate the heart, nor 
 cool and determined courage execute its dictates. 
 
DECLARATION OF BIGHTS. 329 
 
 3 T - 
 The only use of government is to repress the vices 
 of man. If man "were to-day sinless, to-morrow he 
 would have a right to demand that government and 
 all its evils should cease. 
 
 Man ! thou whose rights are here declared, be no 
 longer forgetful of the loftiness of thy destination. 
 Think of thy rights, of those possessions which will 
 give thee virtue and wisdom, by which thou mayest 
 arrive at happiness and freedom. They are declared 
 to thee by one who knows thy dignity, for every hour 
 does his heart swell with honorable pride in the con- 
 templation of what thou mayest attain — by one who is 
 not forgetful of thy degeneracy, for every moment 
 brings home to him the bitter conviction of what 
 thou art. 
 
 Awake ! — arise ! — or be for ever fallen. 
 
 Mr. Hogg says, in complete ignorance of what he 
 was writing about, " The Irish dream which com- 
 menced so abruptly being brought as abruptly to an 
 end, the youthful dreamer awoke; then suddenly 
 vanished, and reappeared in "Wales" (vol. ii. p. 1 18). We 
 have proved the reverse of all these statements. The 
 Irish dream did not commence " abruptly," it was 
 not brought to an end " abruptly," and if the youthful 
 dreamer awoke, he did not " suddenly" vanish. Every 
 step that Shelley took in his Irish dream had been 
 taken with his eyes open. The time of his coming, 
 the time of his leaving, had all been pre-arranged, 
 while the period devoted to his preparation for the 
 enterprise and its accomplishment exceeded in length 
 the whole time of his then intercourse with Mr. 
 
330 PERCY BYSSJ1E SHELLEY. 
 
 Hogg. But that gentleman makes one statement 
 which cannot be controverted, Shelley "reappeared 
 in Wales." It was not, however, to Mr. Hogg that 
 he announced his resurrection ; it was to his philo- 
 sophical friends Miss Kitchener and Mr. Godwin. 
 The following unpublished letter to the former, though 
 undated, appears to have been the first he wrote after 
 leaving Dublin on the 7th of April, 1812 : — 
 
 Shelley to Miss Hitchener. 
 
 " Nantgwilt, Rhayader, Radnorshire. 
 
 " "Wc left Dublin and arrived at Holyhead 
 
 after a passage of unusual length You have ere 
 
 this received our box and its contents. I paid the car- 
 riage as far as I could, that is, across the Channel, and 
 I am positive that it did not come by the post. The 
 Declaration of Rights would be useful in farmhouses. It 
 was by a similar expedient that Franklin promulgated 
 his commercial opinions among the Americans. Y T our 
 letter enjoined us to leave Dublin ; we received it a 
 short time before we had settled to depart. The 
 Habeas Corpus Act has not been suspended ; nor 
 probably will they do it. We left Dublin because I 
 had done all that I could do. If its effects were 
 beneficial, they were not greatly so. I am dissatisfied 
 with my success, but not with the attempt. Although 
 the expense of our journey was considerable, I ever 
 bear in my mind that ' economy is the best generosity/ 
 
 I have written some verses on Robert Emmett, 
 
 which you shall see, and which I will insert in my 
 book of poems. We are now embosomed in the soli- 
 tude of mountains, woods, and rivers, silent, solitary, 
 and old, far away from any town, six miles from 
 Rhayader, which is nearest. A ghost haunts this 
 
DESCRIPTION OF NANTGWILT. 331 
 
 house, which has frequently been seen by the servants. 
 We have several -witches in our neighbourhood, and 
 are quite stocked with fairies and hobgoblins of every 
 description. Well, my dearest friend, I have no larger 
 paper, and therefore must say adieu. Recollect that 
 I am still your friend completely and unalterably. 
 Harriet and Eliza send their love; Harriet is now 
 writing to Mrs. Nugent, an excellent woman whom 
 we discovered in Dublin, and of whom she will tell 
 you. Adieu ! 
 
 " Yours eternally, 
 
 ,c P. B. Shelley." 
 
 Shelley was not at this time aware of the fate which 
 had befallen his box at Holyhead, and that Harriet's 
 descriptive letter of Mrs. Nugent had been under the 
 inspection of the Secretary of State for the Home De- 
 partment in England, and the Irish Secretary in 
 Dublin. I have endeavoured to ascertain something 
 about this Mrs. Nugent, but without success. It is 
 pleasant to find that both Shelley and Harriet retained 
 a kindly feeling towards this benevolent woman after 
 they had left Ireland. 
 
 The first published letter of Shelley from Nantgwilt 
 is dated April 25th, 18 12, eighteen days after he left 
 Dublin. It is to Godwin, and seems to have been 
 written after the preceding. This letter contains a 
 reference to his Dublin experience, which,, as faithful 
 chroniclers of this period of his history, we cannot 
 omit : — 
 
 u We are no longer in Dublin. Never did I behold 
 in any other spot a contrast so striking as that which 
 grandeur and misery form in that unfortunate country. 
 How forcibly do I feel the remark which you put into 
 
332 PERCY BYS8HE SHELLEY. 
 
 the mouth of Fleetwood, that the distress which in the 
 country humanizes the heart by its infrequency, is 
 calculated in a city, by the multiplicity of its demands 
 for relief, to render us callous to the contemplation of 
 wretchedness ! Surely the inequality of rank is not 
 felt so oppressively in England ! Surely something 
 might be devised for Ireland, even consistent 
 with the present state of politics, to ameliorate 
 its condition ! Curran at length called on me. I 
 dined twice at his house. Curran is certainly a man 
 of great abilities, but it appears to me that he under- 
 values his powers when he applies them to what is 
 usually the subject of his conversation. I may not 
 possess sufficient taste to relish humour, or his inces- 
 sant comicality may weary that which I possess. He 
 does not possess that mould of mind which I have 
 been accustomed to contemplate with the highest feel- 
 ings of respect and love. In short, though Curran 
 indubitably possesses a strong understanding and a 
 brilliant fancy, I should not have beheld him with the 
 feelings of admiration which his first visit excited had 
 he not been your intimate friend." — Letter to Godwin, 
 Hogg, vol. ii. pp. 122, 123. 
 
 In the poetic organization of Shelley there was one 
 great want. He had no genuine humour. Anything 
 he has written in this way never raised a laugh, never 
 perhaps produced a smile. In this respect he was 
 unlike some of the great poets whom in their serious 
 moods he rivalled. The greatest poets, with the ex- 
 ception of Dante, were as remarkable for their playful 
 humour as for their sublimity or their pathos. Homer, 
 Chaucer, Shakspeare, Calderon, Goethe, what would 
 they have been without the comic element ? What 
 in Byron is likely to last but his humour — the 
 
GODWIN'S ESTIMATE OF CURRAN. 333 
 
 humour of his letters as well as of his poems ? Shelley 
 had nothing of this either in his conversation or in his 
 writings. All was pervaded by a dignified but rather 
 grave seriousness. The poor jaded Master of the 
 Rolls, after a day of exhausting judicial drudgery, 
 thought perhaps that at his dinner-table he might bid 
 a momentary adieu to 
 
 " Wrangling courts and stubborn law." 
 
 There at least he might have hoped to escape for a 
 brief interval 
 
 " The tedious forms, the solemn prate, 
 The pert dispute, the dull debate" — 
 
 and all the other horrors conjured up by the graceful 
 Muse of Sir William Blackstone. But that would not 
 suit Shelley. He evidently expected that the expe- 
 diency of his political pamphlets, and the wisdom of his 
 Declaration of Rights, would have been the chief topic 
 of conversation at the table of the Master of the Rolls, 
 and we dare say he looked even a shade graver while 
 Curran cracked his jokes, than on the memorable 
 occasion when he poked a pamphlet into the hood of 
 an old woman's cloak. Godwin, who knew much more 
 of Curran than Shelley did, and who was not himself 
 particularly jocular, thus speaks both of the convivial 
 as well as forensic talents of John Philpot Curran. The 
 following appeared two days after the death of Mr. 
 Curran in The Morning Chronicle of the 1 6th of October, 
 1817:— 
 
 " Mr. Curran is almost the last of that brilliant 
 phalanx, the contemporaries and fellow-labourers of 
 Mr. Fox, in the cause of general liberty. Lord 
 Erskine in this country, and Mr. Grattan in Ireland, 
 still survive. 
 
334 PERCY BYSSL7E SHELLEY. 
 
 " Mr. Curran is one of those characters which the 
 lover of human nature and its intellectual capacities 
 delights to contemplate : he rose from nothing j he 
 derived no aid from rank and fortune ; he ascended 
 by his own energies to an eminence which throws rank 
 and fortune into comparative scorn. Mr. Curran was 
 the great ornament of his time of the Irish bar, and 
 in forensic eloquence has certainly never been exceeded 
 in modern times. His rhetoric was the pure emana- 
 tion of his spirit, a warming and a lighting up of the 
 soul, that poured conviction and astonishment on his 
 hearers. It flashed in his eye, and revelled in the 
 melodious and powerful accents of his voice. His 
 thoughts almost always shaped themselves into imagery, 
 and if his eloquence had any fault, it was that his 
 images were too frequent ; but they were at the same 
 time so exquisitely beautiful, that he must have been 
 a rigorous critic that could have determined which of 
 them to part with. His wit was not less exuberant 
 than his imagination, and it was the peculiarity of Mr. 
 Currants wit, that even when it took the form of a 
 play on words, it acquired dignity from the vein of 
 imagery that accompanied it. Every jest was a meta- 
 phor. But the great charm and power of Mr. Currants 
 eloquence lay in its fervour. It was by this that he 
 animated his friends and appalled his enemies, and the 
 admiration which he thus excited was the child and 
 brother of love 
 
 " Mr. Curran had his foibles and his faults ; which 
 of us has not? At this awful moment it becomes us 
 to dwell on his excellences : and as his life has been 
 illustrious, and will leave a trail of glory behind, this 
 is the part of him that every man of a pure mind will 
 choose to contemplate. We may any of us have his 
 
GODWIX INVITED TO WALES. 335 
 
 faults — it is his excellences that we could wish, for 
 the sake of human nature, to excite every man to copy 
 in his proportion to do so." 
 
 Had Mr. Godwin lived to read the attempted bio- 
 graphy of his illustrious son-in-law, he would scarcely 
 have found in the immaculate biographer Mr. Hogg 
 one of those men of "pure mind " who choose to con- 
 template the brighter rather than the darker side of 
 an illustrious man's character. 
 
 One other passage may be given from Shelley's 
 letter to Godwin, April 25th, 18 1 2. Speaking of the 
 country near Rhayader, he says : — 
 
 u The cheapness, beauty, and retirement make this 
 place in every point of view desirable. Nor can I 
 view this scenery — mountains and rocks seeming to 
 form a barrier round this quiet valley, which the tumult 
 of the world may never overleap ; the guileless habits 
 of the Welsh — without associating your presence with 
 the idea, that of your wife, your children, and one 
 other friend, to complete the picture which my mind 
 has drawn to itself of felicity. Steal, if possible, my 
 revered friend, one summer from the cold hurry of 
 business, and come to Wales. Adieu \" — Hogg, vol. ii. 
 pp. 123, 124. 
 
 Careless readers of Mr. Hogg's book might imagine 
 that the " one other friend" referred to in this passage 
 was Mr. Hogg himself. No one who has accompanied 
 us so far can fall into that mistake ; the " one other 
 friend" was Miss Hitchener. 
 
 The interest which Shelley took in Miss Hitchener 
 was altogether intellectual and ideal, arising exclu- 
 sively from the identity of their opinions, and his ad- 
 
3 3 6 PERCY B YSSHE SEE LIE Y. 
 
 miration of the courage with which she avowed and 
 maintained her principles. It was no wonder, however, 
 that a Platonic affection of this kind should be mis- 
 understood. An unpublished letter of Shelley, dated 
 "Nantgwilt, April 29th, 1812/'' refers to some gossip 
 on the subject which had been circulating at Cuckfield, 
 the authorship of which he attributes to Mrs. Pilford, 
 the wife of his uncle. He was indignant at these 
 misrepresentations, which he communicated to Miss 
 Kitchener in the most undisguised manner, and ex- 
 claimed, in the remarkable passage already quoted : — 
 
 " I unfaithful to my Harriet ! You a female 
 H — g \" [The reader can easily supply the missing 
 letters written fully in the original.] "Common sense 
 should laugh such an idea to scorn, if indignation 
 would wait till it could be looked upon V 
 
 In the same letter he says, as the most convincing 
 proof of the innocence of his motives : — 
 
 " My Harriet's attachment to you will even exceed 
 mine." 
 
 Finally, he entreats his correspondent to disregard 
 such calumnies. The opinions of others should be in- 
 different to her. If any doubt arose in her mind as 
 to these matters, her course was simple : — 
 
 " Ask what would Percy's little circle say to this ?" 
 
 Mr. Rossetti, epitomizing the supposed facts of 
 Shelley's life at this period, says : — 
 
 " Somewhere about the end of March, the Shell eys 
 and Eliza left Dublin. They passed through the Isle 
 of Man; ranged about North and South Wales in 
 search of a residence ; paused at, and again left a 
 
ABSURD STORY OF CAPTAIN M EDWIN. 337 
 
 haunted' house at Nant-Gwilt, near Rhayader; 
 uitted through Cwm Elan; and at last, from the 5th 
 of July, settled down for a short while at Lymouth, 
 iu North Devonshire." — Memoir of Shelley, p. lxii. 
 
 A year later, iu the Fortnightly Review, January, 
 1871, Mr. Rossetti makes the date of Shelley's depar- 
 ture from Dublin a little earlier. " Towards the middle 
 of March, the Shelleys and Miss Westbrook left Ire- 
 land." These misstatements were of course uninten- 
 tional on the part of Mr. Rossetti, they seemed neces- 
 sary to him to sustain the reckless assertions of Mr. 
 Hogg as to the <l abrupt " termination of Shelley's 
 "Irish dream," and his "sudden" vanishing out of 
 Dublin. Harriet's letter of the 18th March, 1812, in 
 the Record Office, shows that this " sudden " flight took 
 three weeks to prepare for. " We shall leave this 
 noisy town on the 7th of April/' says Harriet; and 
 accordingly they left Dublin on that day, and reached 
 Holyhead after a somewhat longer passage than the 
 average. " We left Dublin, and arrived at Holyhead," 
 writes Shelley to Miss Hitchener, " after a passage of 
 unusual length." The absurdity of making Shelley 
 " pass through the Isle of Man," on his way from 
 Dublin to Holyhead, originated with Captain Medwin. 
 Anything more ludicrously untrue than the following 
 story by the gallant captain was never written : — 
 
 * His departure from Ireland was occasioned, as he 
 told me, by a hint from the police, and he, in haste, 
 took refuge in the Isle of Man — that then imperium in 
 imperio — that extra-judicial place where the debtor was 
 safe from his creditors, and the political refugee found 
 an asylum in his obscurity from the myrmidons of 
 the law. He remained, however, at Douglas but a 
 
 z 
 
338 PSRCT BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 short time, and on his passage to some port in Wales 
 had a very narrow escape from his fatal element. He 
 had embarked in a small trading vessel which had only 
 three hands on board. It was the mouth of November > 
 and the weather, boisterous when they left the harbour, 
 increased to a dreadful gale. The skipper attributed 
 to Shelley's exertions so much the safety of the vessel, 
 that he refused on landing to accept his fare." — 
 Medium's Life of Shelley, vol. i. pp. 176, j 77. 
 
 Making every allowance for Captain Medwin having 
 confounded something which he may have heard rela- 
 tive to the storm which Shelley encountered when going 
 to Ireland, with the return voyage in April, it is im- 
 possible, unless Shelley was guilty of a deliberate un- 
 truth, that he could have told Captain Medwin the other 
 circumstances of this marvellous narrative. He received 
 no hint from the police ; he never " took refuge " in 
 the Isle of Man, either " in haste " or with delibera- 
 tion. Travelling from Whitehaven to Dublin in Feb- 
 ruary, he " passed through the Isle of Man/'' because 
 it was his direct route. He never crossed the Channel 
 in the " month of November/'' The time at which he 
 actually left Dublin was the balmy season of early 
 April. u We left Dublin and arrived at Holyhead 
 after a passage of unusual length," is the simple fact 
 out of which Captain Medwin has constructed " a 
 political refugee " — et & small trading vessel with only 
 three hands on board " — an apocryphal ' ' month of 
 November " — an imaginary " skipper " — the undaunted 
 Shelley — and the generous refusal of the "fare. 1 " 
 And yet this absurd story, and these unfounded state- 
 ments, have been repeated with a sort of parrot-like 
 iteration by every subsequent writer who has under- 
 
MISTAKES OF MR. PEACOCK. 339 
 
 taken to give us an account of Shelley's life, except 
 indeed Mr. Hogg-, who generally commits himself to 
 no one's nonsense but his own. They are adopted 
 without the slightest hesitation by 'Lady Shelley and 
 Mr. Rossetti (not to speak of Mr. Middleton) ; but 
 what is stranger still, they are given with several 
 other inaccuracies by Mr. Peacock. This gentleman's 
 remarkable papers in Fraser's Magazine were written, 
 as he tells us, for the purpose of " Commenting on 
 what has been published by others " about Shelley, 
 and for " correcting errors.'''' In the following passage 
 of his own paper there is an error almost in every word. 
 " They then went to Ireland, landed at Cork, visited 
 the lakes of KUlarney, and stayed some time in Dublin, 
 where Shelley became a warm repealer and eman- 
 cipator. They then went to the Isle of Man." — 
 Fraser's Magazine, June, 1858. Shelley never landed 
 at Cork ; he visited the lakes of Killarney a year later 
 from Dublin ; he was a repealer and emancipator 
 before he went to Ireland ; and he did not go to the 
 Isle of Man at all at the time referred to. So 
 much for the correction of previous errors by Mr. 
 Peacock. 
 
 Shelley, who had spent something less than a fort- 
 night in traversing "the whole of North, and part of 
 South Wales fruitlessly" in search of a house, was 
 " at length in a manner settled " at Nantgwilt, near 
 Rhayader, in Radnorshire, about the 21st of April, 
 
 181 2. We have had already his own description of 
 this house in the playful letter to Miss Hitchener, 
 which he wrote from Nantgwilt shortly after his 
 arrival there. Mr. Peacock, who visited Wales in 
 
 1 8 1 3, gives the following minute particulars about the 
 place : — 
 
 z 2 
 
340 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 "Nant Gwillt, the Wild Brook, flows into the 
 Elan (a tributary of the Wye), about five miles above 
 Rhayader. Above the confluence, each stream runs 
 in a rocky channel, through a deep narrow valley. In 
 each of these valleys is or was a spacious mansion, 
 named from the respective streams. Cwm Elan House 
 was the scat of Mr. Grove, whom Shelley had visited 
 there before his marriage in j8 l i . Nant Gwillt House, 
 when Shelley lived in it in 1812, was inhabited by a 
 farmer, who let some of the best rooms in lodgings. 
 At a subsequent period/' continues Mr. Peacock, " I 
 stayed a day in Rhayader, for the sake of seeing this 
 spot. It is a scene of singular beauty/' — Frastr's 
 Magazine, June, 1858, p. 652. 
 
 Shelley resided at Nantgwilt for seven weeks. He 
 changed his residence, not through any restlessness of 
 disposition, for it is evident he was reluctant to leave 
 it, but perhaps owing to the doubts of the " farmer" 
 as to the security of his rent. Such is the interpreta- 
 tion I put upon the following passage in a letter to 
 Godwin, dated " Cwm-Rhayader, June nth, 1812: — 
 
 " We are unexpectedly compelled to quit Nantgwilt. 
 I hope, however, before long time has elapsed to find 
 a home. These accidents are unavoidable to a minor." 
 — Hogg, vol. ii. p. 129. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A FTER the date of the letter with which the last 
 chapter concludes, the Shelleys could have stopped 
 but a day or two longer in Wales, as we find them 
 settled at Lynton, near Lymouth, seventeen miles 
 from Barnstaple, North Devonshire, at the beginning 
 of July. It would seem that Godwin having heard 
 from Shelley that he was " compelled" to leave Nant- 
 gwilt, had recommended to him the house of a friend 
 of Mrs. Godwin, a Mr. Eton, in the neighbourhood of 
 Lymouth. Shelley, who was at this time expecting 
 the visit not only of his long-looked-for friend and 
 correspondent, Miss Hitchener, but of Godwin and 
 his " estimable family," found Mr. Eton's house 
 too small. He selected another residence which, 
 though less imposing in appearance, had more accom- 
 modation. Writing to Godwin on the 5th of July 
 from Lymouth, after some days had been spent in 
 this fruitless negotiation with Mr. Eton, he says, " We 
 now reside in a small cottage, but the poverty and 
 humbleness of the apartments is compensated for by 
 their number, and we can invite our friends with a 
 consciousness that there is enclosed space wherein 
 they may sleep, which was not to be found at Mr. 
 Eton's. , . . . The climate is so mild that myrtles of 
 an immense size twine up our cottage, and roses blow 
 
3 4 1 PERC Y B YSSEE SIIELLE Y. 
 
 in the open air in winter." " Come, thou venerated 
 and excellent friend/' he says in a letter dated two 
 days later, " and make us happy/' — Hoyy, vol. ii. 
 
 PP- *34j ^37> Ho. 
 
 For some reason or another the rejection of Mr. 
 Eton's house seems to have ruffled the philosopher 
 more than might be expected from so slight a cause. 
 He is absolutely sharp and sarcastic in his reply to the 
 first letter. There is the faintest trace of a sneer in 
 the phrase, " This would sound well to Mr. Eton from 
 the eldest son of a gentleman of Sussex, with ample 
 fortune" (p. 142). The secret of his displeasure may 
 be found in the following passages of Shelley's letter 
 of July 5th, 1 8 J 2 : — 
 
 " I have a friend ; but first I will make you in 
 some measure acquainted with her. She is a woman 
 with whom her excellent qualities made me acquainted. 
 Though deriving her birth from a very humble source, 
 she contracted, during youth, a very deep and refined 
 habit of thinking ; her mind, naturally inquisitive and . 
 penetrating, overstepped the bounds of prejudice. She 
 formed for herself an unbeaten path of life. 
 
 " By the patronage of a lady whose liberality of 
 mind is singular, this woman, at the age of twenty, 
 was enabled to commence the conduct of a school. 
 She concealed not the uncommon modes of thinking 
 which she adopted, and publicly instructed youth as a 
 Deist and a Republican. When I first knew her, she 
 had not read Political Justice, yet her life appeared to 
 me in a great degree modelled upon its precepts. Such 
 is the woman who is about to become an inmate of 
 our family. She will pass through London, and 
 I shall take the liberty of introducing her to you, one 
 
MISS JI1TCIIEXER AND MR. GODWIN. 343 
 
 whom I do not consider unworthy of the advantage." 
 —Hogg, vol. ii. pp. 135, 136. 
 
 There was something in this proposed introduction 
 of the estimable " Deist and Republican" of Hurst- 
 picr point, who imparted openly to the little girls of 
 her school the same " useful knowledge" that Mr. 
 Godwin had been surreptitiously inculcating under the 
 pseudonym of Edward Baldwin, that evidently dis- 
 pleased the philosopher. In his next letter he passes 
 over the allusion to Miss Hitchener in complete silence. 
 Possibly he could not forgive her for having practised 
 the principles of Political Justice without having read 
 the book. The Prophet Joe Smith would probably have 
 condemned a bigamist who ventured to take a second 
 wife without having been strengthened, if not in his 
 faith, at least in his practice, by the Book of Mormon. 
 In the very letter which contains the suggestion that 
 Godwin should take the strong-minded Miss Hitchener 
 under his wing and fly away to Ly mouth to make 
 " Percy and his little circle" happy, Shelley writes : — 
 
 u As soon as we recover our financial liberty we 
 mean to come to London." 
 
 There is a slight flavour of Mr. Micawber's euphuistic 
 eloquence in the expression " financial liberty/' It 
 seemed in Mr. Godwin's estimation a strange way to 
 u recover" it to fill his cottage at Lymouth with " a 
 Deist and Republican" from Hurstpierpoint, accom- 
 panied doubtless by " the dear little Americans," of 
 whom we have already heard, and a Sage from Snow 
 Hill, surrounded by his " estimable family." The 
 philosopher was too old a bird to be caught by chaff, 
 and so let the ci-devant schoolmistress find her way to 
 
344 PERCY BYSSIJE SHELLEY. 
 
 Lymouth alone, as we shall find she was very well 
 able to do. She got the start of Godwin himself, who 
 eventually paid a solitary visit to Lymouth, with what 
 result will be told in due course. 
 
 Another member of Shelley's household at Ly- 
 mouth was Daniel Hill, the Irish servant who had so 
 w improved " the success of his master's political 
 efforts in Dublin, by giving out that the projector of 
 the Philanthropic Association was only fifteen years of 
 age. The distribution of the pamphlets in Dublin 
 had been doubtless a very amusing occupation for 
 Daniel ; he found to his cost that it was rather a serious 
 matter to do the same thing in Devonshire. 
 
 Between the first week in July when Shelley was 
 settled at Lymouth, and the 19th of August when 
 this man Daniel Hill was arrested in the streets of 
 Barnstaple for circulating the Declaration of Rights, 
 Miss Hitchener must have arrived at the poet's cot- 
 tage, bringing with her the " large deal box " contain- 
 ing the Irish pamphlets and other printed papers of 
 Shelley opened at Holyhead by the surveyor of 
 Customs, but doubtless forwarded to its address on 
 the full charges being paid. She evidently was the 
 person supposed to be a foreigner, who was Shelley's 
 companion among the rocks at Lymouth when he 
 sent his frail navy afloat, freighted with " inflammable " 
 matter so graphically described by the town-clerk of 
 Barnstaple in 181 1. 
 
 The curious papers in the Record Office, referring 
 to this extraordinary episode in Shelley's life at Ly- 
 mouth, have been published by Mr. Rossetti in the 
 Fortnightly Review for January, 1871, and therefore 
 need not be further referred to here. Mr. Rossetti 
 was not aware that an outline of this very singular 
 
LITERAR Y HISTOR 7 OF BA RNSTA PLE. 345 
 
 story, derived from local information, was published 
 some years ago, before the existence of the papers in 
 the Record Office was known. It is given in the fol- 
 lowing very interesting work : — 
 
 " SKETCHES OF THE LITERARY HISTORY OF 
 
 BARNSTAPLE, &c 
 
 By John Robeets Chantee. 
 
 Barnstaple: Printed and sold by E. J. Arnold, High-street." 
 
 [1866.] 
 
 A correspondence with the author of this attractive 
 volume, Mr. Chanter, as well as with Lionel Bencraft, 
 Esq., the present town-clerk of Barnstaple, who in the 
 most obliging manner responded to my inquiries, en- 
 ables me to correct previous errors, as well as to supply 
 some additional information of a very interesting kind 
 relative to other literary ventures of Shelley at this 
 period. The following extract from Mr. Chanter's 
 work shows that the Letter to Lord Ellenboroitgh was 
 not printed "in London," as Mr. Hogg says, giving 
 as a quotation from a letter of Shelley a paragraph 
 which is not to be found in it, but at Barnstaple. 
 Of Mr. Syle, the printer of this pamphlet, Mr. 
 Chanter thus speaks : — 
 
 " Mr. Syle, whose name appears as the publisher 
 of the works before mentioned, and who, by the assis- 
 tance and encouragement he afforded to young authors, 
 and in helping forward the literary aspirations of that 
 day, may well be called the f John Murray' of Barn- 
 staple, was also a cultivator of the muses himself, 
 having contributed several poems and sketches to the 
 pages of the periodicals he published, and the news- 
 paper he subsequently edited. He was the principal 
 bookseller at Barnstaple for a long period of years. 
 
346 PERCY B Y SSI IE SB EL L E V. 
 
 " In connexion with Mr. Syle, I would here intro- 
 duce an interesting local episode, referring to that 
 exquisite poet and wild dreamer, ' Percy Bysslie 
 Shelley/ 
 
 "About the year 1812, just after [a year after] his 
 ill-omened marriage with Harriet Westbrook, Shelley 
 and his wife took up their residence at Lynton. He was 
 then notorious for favouring the most wild and absurd 
 ideas on religious and political freedom, and had been 
 expelled from Oxford for publishing a pamphlet On 
 the Necessity of Atheism. During this period Shelley 
 came into Barnstaple, and called at Mr. Syle's print- 
 ing-office, bringing with him a bundle of MSS., of 
 which he desired Mr. Syle to have one thousand copies 
 printed. This was done, Shelley coming in from time 
 to time to read the copy and- correct the press. The 
 pamphlet was entitled ' A Letter to Lord Ellen- 
 borough, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, on the 
 prosecution of Daniel Isaac Eaton for the publication 
 of Paine's Age of Reason.' 
 
 " This Daniel Isaac Eaton was a bookseller ; he was 
 sentenced to stand in the pillory for one hour, which 
 sentence was carried into effect. The contents of the 
 pamphlet were of the most extreme, not to say violent 
 character; but the language was, as is the case in all 
 Shelley's works, forcible and grand, and full of strong 
 and indignant remarks on the prosecution, or as 
 Shelley considered it, persecution of the mere pub- 
 lisher of a work on a theological subject. I am 
 enabled by the kindness of Mr. Barry to give a line 
 as a specimen. The writer is drawing a contrast 
 between error and truth, and at the close of it 
 exclaims, e Error skulks in holes and corners, letting 
 I dare not wait upon I would, like the poor cat i' th' 
 
ARREST OF DANIEL BILL. 347 
 
 adage, but the eagle eye of truth darts through the 
 undazzliug sunbeam of the immutable arid just, 
 gathering wherewith to vivify and illumine the uni- 
 verse V* Shelley had about fifty copies as they were 
 printed; but before publication a strange circum- 
 stance occurred. A poor labouring manf of the 
 neighbourhood was taken up for posting bills about 
 the town and neighbourhood, headed e Government 
 has no Rights/ It being seditious, he was tried and 
 sentenced to three months' imprisonment. J His 
 defence was, that a geutleman between Lynton and 
 Barnstaple had given him the bills to post, and paid 
 him 2S. 6d. for doing the job. This gentleman was 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mr. Brooke, who has fur- 
 nished some of these particulars, and who superintended 
 the printing of the pamphlet, has one of these bills, which 
 was printed in London § and brought down here by 
 
 * See note on this passage, p. 349. 
 
 f This, of course, is a mistake. The papers in the Record 
 Office show that the person arrested was Daniel Hill, the Irish 
 servant of Shelley, the same who had distributed the pamphlets in 
 Dublin, and who had given out that his master was only fifteen 
 years of age. 
 
 X The sentence was six months' imprisonment or a penalty of 
 200/. The Town Clerk of Barnstaple, writing to Lord Sidmouth, 
 says: — "Daniel Hill has been convicted by the Mayor in ten 
 penalties of 20I. each, for publishing and dispersing Printed Papers 
 without the printer's name being on them, under the Act of 
 39 George III. c. 79, and is now committed to the common Gaol of 
 this Borough for not paying the penalties, and having no goods on 
 which they could be levied." — State Papers, Domestic, George III. 
 No. 240. 
 
 § The Declaration of Rights was printed in Dublin, as shown 
 by the hitherto unpublished letters of Shelley already given. 
 Shelley was not in London between his leaving Dublin, on the 
 7th of April, 18 12, and his residence of a few days at the St. 
 James's Coffee House in the November of the same year. 
 
3 4 s PERC T B YSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 Shelley, who had at that time very wild and crude 
 notions as to government and the regeneration of 
 society. 
 
 " This circumstance naturally alarmed Mr. Syle, as 
 the pamphlet was quite as seditious in its tone and 
 contents. He at once suppressed and destroyed the 
 remaining sheets, and had several interviews with 
 Shelley to endeavour to get back the ones previously 
 delivered, but unsuccessfully, as they had been mostly 
 distributed.* One copy came into the hands of Mr. 
 Barry, and was given by him a few years since to 
 Leigh Hunt, the friend and biographer of Shelley, 
 though, I believe, neither the circumstances I have 
 narrated nor the pamphlet itself have ever been 
 noticed or included in any biography of the poet or 
 collection of his works ; but the incident as stated is 
 strictly correct." — Literary History of Barnstaple, 
 PP- 55> 56- 
 
 The documents recently discovered in the Record 
 Office confirm substantially the whole of this interest- 
 ing statement, which Mr. Chanter gave from the recol- 
 lection of some of his fellow-townsmen of Barnstaple. 
 Some of the mistakes and discrepancies have been 
 pointed out in the notes I have appended to Mr. 
 Chanter's narrative. A few more remain to be men- 
 tioned. The copy of the Letter to Lord Ellenborovgh, 
 presented by Mr. Barry to Leigh Hunt, was probably 
 the one from which Lady Shelley has printed the 
 greater portion of it in her Shelley Memorials. The 
 " omitted portions," we are informed, "are the pas- 
 
 * The fifty copies received from Mr. Syle were, as we have seen, 
 sent up to Mr. Hookham, of New Bond Street, on the i8th of 
 August, the day before the arrest of Daniel Hill. 
 
NOTES TO QUEEN MAB. 349 
 
 sages which Shelley introduced into the notes to 
 Queen Mab, and which are printed in the collected 
 edition of his works/'' But the striking passage 
 quoted by Mr. Chanter in his Literary History of 
 Barnstaple cannot be found either in the " greater 
 part" of the Letter published by Lady Shelley, or 
 * the omitted portions " introduced into the notes to 
 Queen Mab* We have therefore as yet no complete 
 copy of the Letter to Lord Ellenborough. The notes to 
 Queen Mab are said also to contain the whole of the 
 tract entitled The Necessity of Atheism, but the quota- 
 tion alleged to be taken from Lord Bacon's treatise 
 Be Augmentis, given in the solitary advertisement of 
 the tract which I have discovered, is not to be met with 
 in the notes to Queen Mab, neither have I been able to 
 find it in the treatise itself. 
 
 As the Barnstaple papers deserve to be reprinted 
 whenever a faithful and detailed Life of Shelley shall 
 
 * It is very singular to find that this passage alleged by Mr. 
 Chanter to be quoted from the Letter to Lord Ellenborough, is 
 substantially the same as that in Shelley's second Irish pamphlet, 
 the Proposals, which the reader will find at p. 274 of the present 
 volume. Shelley may possibly have introduced it again, with some 
 verbal alterations, into the Letter, but that is not likely. It will 
 be recollected, that along with the fifty copies of the Letter to 
 Lord Ellenborough, Shelley had also sent Mr. Hookham the 
 " two pamphlets " which he had " printed and distributed in 
 Ireland" {Shelley Memorials, p. 38). It may have been that 
 a copy of the Irish pamphlet, the Proposals, was left by Shelley 
 with the Barnstaple printer as a guide or pattern for the Letter. 
 In this way the passage may have remained in the memory of 
 Mr. Brooke, the actual printer, or of Mr. Barry, who is mentioned 
 as the direct authority, and been quoted years after by either of 
 them as having been cor:tained in the Letter to Lord Ellen- 
 borough, when in reality it was in the Proposals for an Associa- 
 tion. 
 
350 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 be published, I may be permitted to point out one or 
 two mistakes in Mr. Rossetti's edition of these papers, 
 into which he was led by the occasionally unfaithful 
 
 transcript used by him. The following is perhaps the 
 most important. Speaking of the Declaration of Rights, 
 Mr. Ilossetti says, " On the back of the copy in Hill's 
 possession was written ' Samuel Brembridge, of Barn- 
 staple, 19th August, 1812/ being, I presume, the 
 person to whom Shelley intended this copy to be 
 delivered/' — The Fortnightly Review, January, 1871, 
 pp. 72, 73. 
 
 This is in every way a mistake. In the first place, 
 the name is not " Brembridge," but " Breniridge," 
 and secondly, Daniel Hill had many copies of the 
 Declaration of Rights in his possession. Evidence was 
 taken on one, and this one endorsed by the magistrate 
 before whom Hill was in the first instance taken, was 
 sent up to London to Lord Sidmouth. Lionel Ben- 
 craft, Esq., the present town-clerk of Barnstaple, 
 informs me that " Samuel Bremridge was clerk to 
 the county justices in 18 12." Mr. Chanter has kindly 
 supplemented this information by the following fact : 
 "Samuel Bremridge was junior alderman in 1812, 
 and as such would be also an acting magistrate." 
 
 In the letter of Henry Drake, town-clerk (Fortnightly 
 Review, p. 79, line 3), "some of these small boxes" 
 is printed for " one of these small boxes," a mistake 
 which the context itself plainly points out. 
 
 The letter of Henry Drake was referred to " Mr. 
 Litchfield" for his advice. Mr. Rossetti suggests 
 that he may have been " the standing counsel em- 
 ployed by the Home Office." The position held by Mr. 
 Litchfield was that of " Solicitor to the Treasury." 
 
 Among the papers found on the person of Daniel 
 
"77/ A' DEVI US WALK." 351 
 
 Hill when arrested, was a second printed broadside 
 containing a poem called The Devil's Walk. A 
 Ballad. It is printed in three columns, and contains 
 143 lines. Mr. Rossetti, who reproduces it in the 
 Fortnightly Review (not without two or three trifling 
 errors of the press), says/ ' Probably The Devil's Walk 
 was written only a short time before Daniel Hill was 
 commissioned to distribute it, in August, 1 8 1 2 ; if so, 
 Shelley had now already begun the writing of Queen 
 Mab." Unless Shelley had commenced the writing 
 of Queen Mab in Dublin this is incorrect. Miss 
 Hitchener had been living with Shelley at Lymouth 
 for some time when Daniel Hill was arrested, pro- 
 bably from the first week or two of his residence there. 
 Now there is in existence a long unpublished letter 
 addressed to her previously, containing the greater part 
 of The Devil's Walk, in manuscript. Speaking of the 
 stanzas he sends, he says, " perhaps they may amuse 
 you."" It is plain from Mr. Brooke's silence that The 
 Devil's Walk was not printed at Mr. Syle's office in 
 Barnstaple. It was probably printed, as well as written, 
 in Dublin. The poem itself has little merit : composed 
 almost avowedly in imitation of the well-known pieces 
 of Southey and Coleridge, it lacks the humour and 
 the lyrical felicity of its models. There is occa- 
 sionally a vigorous line. The following stanza is quite 
 in the spirit of the motto from The Curse of Kehama 
 prefixed to the Poetical Essay on the Existing State of 
 Things. In the first line Mr. Rossetti has omitted 
 " the " from before " death-birds." The allusion seems 
 to be to the same subject as that on which the verses 
 Mother and Son were written. 
 
 The poet is describing no less a personage than " the 
 first gentleman in Europe ;" — 
 
PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 " Fat as the death-birds on Erin's shore, 
 That glutted themselves in her dearest gore, 
 
 And flitted round Castlereagh,* 
 When they snatched the Patriot*! heart, that his grasp 
 Had torn from its widow's maniac clasp, 
 
 And fled at the dawn of day." 
 
 The prison books now existing at Barnstaple do not 
 go back so far as 1812, and therefore there is no record 
 of the time at which Daniel Hill was discharged. The 
 matter is not of much importance, except that Mr. 
 Hogg tells us that " the penalty was paid," and that, 
 " marvellous to relate, Bysshe took the released bill- 
 sticker into his service" (vol. ii. p. 213). The latter 
 observation shows how completely ignorant Mr. Hogg 
 was of this period of his friend's life. It is not likely 
 that Shelley could have raised 200/. to release his ser- 
 vant, when he had to leave Lymouth in debt to his 
 landlady, who kindly borrowed 3/. also for him from 
 a neighbour. For this debt and this loan, Godwin 
 tells us that Shelley left with the " good creature, the 
 woman of the house," " a draft upon the Honourable 
 Mr. Lawleys [Lawless], brother to Lord Cloncurry." 
 Unfortunately Lord Cloncurry had no brother. AVe 
 
 * Perhaps there was but oue point on which Shelley and Lord 
 Castlereagh ever agreed, and that was in extravagant admiration of 
 Lady Morgan's Missionary, which was published by John Joseph 
 Stockdale in 18 11. Lady Morgan's literary executor in her 
 Memoirs says that — "His lordship was, perhaps, the greatest 
 admirer the Missionary ever found," vol. i. p. 424. He had a 
 formidable rival in Shelley, who several times speaks of " Miss 
 Owenson's Missionary, an Indian Tale." "It is really a divine 
 thing," he writes in one of his letters. " Luxima, the Indian, is 
 an angel. What a pity that we cannot incorporate these creations 
 of fancy ; the very thoughts of them thrill the soul ! Since I have 
 read this book I have read no other." — Hogg, vol. i. p. 397 ; see 
 also pp. 392 and 407. 
 
SHELLEY AT TANYRALLT. 353 
 
 have 110 doubt that the draft was on Mr. John Law- 
 less, Shelley's " literary friend" in Dublin, not the 
 brother, but a distant relation of Lord Cloncurry. We 
 trust that the good Mrs. Hooper at Lymouth was 
 not kept out of her money until the " enormous pro- 
 fits" which Shelley so sanguinely expected from the 
 publication of The History of Ireland were realized. 
 We hear no more of Daniel Hill until six months 
 later — a period which exactly coincides with the term 
 of his imprisonment — when he turned up at Tanyrallt, 
 in North Wales, the day preceding the night on which 
 the celebrated so-called attempted assassination took 
 place there. 
 
 As soon as Shelley could make his arrangements 
 after this untoward affair about his servant, he left 
 Lymouth, and crossing the Bristol Channel proceeded 
 to Wales, where, after moving about a little, he at 
 length settled near Tremadoc in a handsome lodge 
 called Tan-yr-allt, built by W. A. Madocks, M.P. 
 for Boston.* Three weeks after the Shelleys left 
 Lymouth, poor Godwin paid the long-expected visit. 
 " The Shelleys were gone V as he himself exclaims 
 in a letter addressed to his wife, which will be 
 found in Lady Shelley's Memorials. Mr. Hogg, who 
 suffered a disappointment precisely similar six months 
 later in Dublin, describes the philosopher's bewilder- 
 ment with some humour. But the facts, as stated by 
 
 * In an interesting portrait of this gentleman in my possession, 
 painted by J. Ramsay, engraved by C. Turner, he is called " W. 
 A. Madocks, Esq., Fellow of All Souls College, and M.P. for 
 Boston." Through the open window there is a pleasing view of 
 the sea and the little town of Tremadoc. Mr. Madocks is repre- 
 sented pointing to the " plan of the embankment at Tre-Madoc, 
 &c," which lies outspread before him. 
 
354 PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 him, arc all invented, as may be seen by reading 
 Godwin's own account of the matter. 
 
 Shelley, speaking of his new residence, says : — 
 
 " We simple people live here in a cottage extensive 
 and tasty enough for the villa of an Italian prince. 
 The rent, as you may conceive, is large, but it is an 
 object with us that they allow it to remain unpaid till 
 I am of age." 
 
 Tanyrallt seems to have been a favourite resting- 
 place for other wandering bards besides Shelley. 
 Rogers passed a night in it the year before. Writing 
 to Moore from Aberystwith, Sept. 19th, 181 1, the 
 author of The Pleasures of Memory says : — 
 
 " I slept a night at Wm. Madocks's. He is a 
 great lord in his little city of Tre-Madoc — has built a 
 church, and a market-place, and a town-hall, and a 
 square, and a street, where the sea roared a year or 
 two ago; and this week holds an Eysteddfodd, or 
 Meeting of Bards. The comet is very brilliant here, and 
 every evening makes a brilliant path across the water." 
 — Moore's Memoirs, vol. viii. p. 94. 
 
 In [812 the sea roared again so dreadfully around 
 this creation of Mr. Madocks's taste and public spirit 
 as to threaten it with destruction. Shelley exerted 
 himself in the most praiseworthy manner in endea- 
 vouring to raise a fund for the preservation of the 
 breakwater, on the stability of which the existence of 
 new Tremadoc depended. He even went to London, 
 it is said, to use his influence with the Duke of Nor- 
 folk and others for the same good object. It is stated 
 that Shelley headed the subscription list with one from 
 himself of 500/. This is scarcely credible, unless indeed 
 it was understood that the subscription, like his rent, 
 
THE EMBANKMENT AT TRE-MA DOC. 355 
 
 was not to be paid till he came of age. We shall find 
 that in addition to the ordinary expenses of his house- 
 hold and the cost of going up to London with Harriet 
 and the two Elizas on this and perhaps other business, 
 he had to pay, " with a heavy heart and an unwilling 
 hand," the " stipend" of the amiable " Deist and Re- 
 publican," whom he had disturbed in her self-support- 
 ing, if not very useful, calling at Hurstpierpoint. It 
 is surely impossible that Shelley could have allowed 
 his servant Daniel Hill to remain all this time con- 
 fined as a criminal in the gaol of Barnstaple, when 
 perhaps a third of the sum alleged to be so generously 
 presented to Mr. Madocks would have relieved him. 
 Daniel Hill had been Shelley's agent, and was vica- 
 riously suffering for his master's indiscretion. If, 
 after spending six months in prison, he heard of such 
 an uncalled-for and, in Shelley's circumstances at the 
 time, extravagant outlay, one would be disposed to 
 forgive him if, as has been argued, he got up the so- 
 called attempted assassination at Tanyrallt, not for the 
 purpose of doing Shelley any positive harm, but of 
 frightening him a little — of " paying him out," as it 
 has been called, for the scrape into which he had been 
 brought by his philanthropic young master. 
 
 In November, 1812, Shelley went up to London to 
 forward the subscription for the Tremadoc embank- 
 ment. He had another object, perhaps not less impor- 
 tant to him — namely, to get rid of Miss Hitchener. 
 That lady, with Harriet and Eliza Westbrook, accom- 
 panied Shelley on this short visit. They all put up 
 at the St. James's Coffee House, in St. James's Street. 
 Mr. Hogg says he visited them there, and witnessed 
 the departure of Miss Hitchener from this hotel on a 
 certain Sunday evening. " The chronology of such 
 
 A A 2, 
 
356 PERCY BYSSHE SUELLEY. 
 
 an interview/' says Mr. Hogg, " need not be exact." 
 Exact chronology is certainly not the failing of Mr. 
 Hogg's book ; and so we have two events which must 
 have occurred on the same day and in the same place, 
 separated in his book by two hundred pages."* These 
 are his dining with Bysshe, Harriet, and Eliza West- 
 brook at " a hotel near St. James's Palace" " during 
 Shelley's brief visit to London in November, 1812/' 
 and the departure or dismissal of Miss Hitchener. I 
 have made ample notes of all the discrepancies of 
 his story, but they would take up too much space 
 here. 
 
 Mr. Hogg tells us, that after the departure of Miss 
 Hitchener from the hotel, on the evening he dined 
 with Shelley, Harriet and Eliza Westbrook withdrew 
 to pack up for their journey next day to Tanyrallt. 
 He also tells us that the day was Sunday ; but from 
 Shelley's letter of the 7th November to Mr. Williams 
 (vol. ii. p. 1 75), we know that it must have been Wed- 
 nesday, the nth. The Shelley s and Eliza Westbrook 
 returned to Tanyrallt on the 1 2th. Thus the " brief 
 visit" lasted little more than a week, and Miss Hitch- 
 ener was with them up to the eve of their departure. 
 And yet we have the following curious statement by 
 Lady Shelley: — 
 
 " During his visit to London, Shelley made the 
 personal acquaintance of Godwin, with whom he lived 
 for a time ; and to the philosopher's daughter Fanny 
 he addressed the subjoined letter, after having rather 
 abruptly left their house." — Shelley Memorials, p. 43. 
 
 * It is amusing to compare the two descriptions. See Hogg, 
 vol. ii. p. 171, and the same volume, p. 36$. 
 
WHO WAS " FA NNY GOD WIN " ? 35 7 
 
 The reader is referred to the letter in the Memorials : 
 it is a very singular one. But how could Shelley 
 have " lived with Godwin for a tiroe" during this 
 brief visit ? Did he go alone, leaving " Harriet and 
 the ladies " (who must have been Eliza Westbrook 
 and Eliza Hitchener) at the St. James's Coffee 
 House ?* Or did the whole party migrate together to 
 Skinner Street? The latter supposition is scarcely 
 probable. Another curious matter is, that Lady 
 Shelley calls " Fanny Godwin" " the philosopher's 
 daughter." This she certainly was not, as any one 
 who reads attentively the Memoirs of the Author of a 
 Vindication of the Rights of Woman will see. Fanny, 
 or Frances, was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft 
 and Gilbert Imlay. She was born at Havre, on the 
 14th of May, 1794; so that when she wrote to Shelley 
 in 181 2, she had just passed her eighteenth year. 
 This mistake about " Fanny Godwin" is now corrected 
 for the first time.. The latest and on the whole the 
 most correct biographer of Shelley thus repeats it : — 
 
 " The household of Godwin consisted, besides him- 
 self, of his second wife, who had been previously mar- 
 ried to a Mr. Clairmont ; Mary, his daughter by his 
 first wife ; Fanny, his daughter by his second wife ; 
 and Clare and Charles Clairmont, the children of the 
 second wife by her first marriage." — Rossetti's Memoir 
 of Shelley, p. lxxviii. 
 
 This list is inaccurate in two ways. In addition to 
 the mistake about Fanny, it omits the only child of 
 Godwin by his second marriage, William his son, who 
 died of cholera in 1832, and a memoir of whom has 
 
 * Letter to Mr. Williams, the agent of Mr. Madocks, St. 
 James's Coffee House, Nov. 7th, 18 12. See Hogg, vol. ii. p. 175. 
 
358 PERCY BY8SHE SHELLEY. 
 
 been written by his father. This second marriage of 
 Godwin took place in 1801. Were Fanny even his 
 eldest child by that marriage, she could only have 
 been ten years of age in 18 12. It is evident that 
 Shelley's letter published in the Memorials was not 
 written to a child of that age. This is but a sample 
 of the incredible number of mistakes that disfigure all 
 the published Lives of Shelley, and destroy their authen- 
 ticity. As to Mr. Hogg, it is doubtful if he has told 
 one single fact truly. 
 
 It is a most melancholy thought if we recall the 
 fact that this poor Fanny Imlay or Godwin, like Har- 
 riet Shelley, committed suicide by drowning. Less 
 sad, but almost equally singular, is it to remember that 
 her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, when abandoned, or 
 at least neglected by Imlay, attempted the same fate 
 from Putney Bridge.* When we add to these the cata- 
 strophe of Shelley himself, we have a series of coin- 
 
 * This event occurred in October, 1795. ^ e details, as pub- 
 lished by Mr. Godwin, may be here given. 
 
 " She resolved to plunge herself in the Thames ; and, not being 
 satisfied with any spot nearer to London, she took a boat, and rowed 
 to Putney. Her first thought had led her to Battersea Bridge, 
 but she found it too public. It was night when she arrived at 
 Putney, and by that time had begun to rain with great violence. 
 The rain suggested to her the idea of walking up and down the 
 bridge, till her clothes were thoroughly drenched and heavy with 
 the wet, which she did for half-an-hour without meeting a human 
 being. She then leaped from the top of the bridge, but still 
 seemed to find a difficulty in sinking, which she endeavoured to 
 counteract by pressing her clothes closely round her. After some 
 
 time she became insensible After having been for a 
 
 considerable time insensible, she was recovered by the exertions of 
 those by whom the body was found." — Memoirs of the Author 
 of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman. By William Godwin. 
 London, 1798, pp. 132, 133, 134. 
 
TEE BROWN DEMON. 
 
 359 
 
 cideuces that is exceedingly painful, if not awful to 
 reflect on. 
 
 But we must draw this investigation to a close, not 
 indeed through any defect of matter, but from want 
 of space. We shall briefly allude to what is called 
 " the Tanyrallt Mystery/'' and suggest an explanation 
 not previously given. 
 
 Three weeks after Shelley's return to Tanyrallt, he 
 thus writes to Mr. Hogg, whose offence at York in the 
 preceding year had by this time been forgiven. " The 
 Brown Demon" was of course Miss Hitchener, who 
 but nine months before Shelley had invited to " give 
 up her school, abandon everything, and live with him 
 for ever." 
 
 "Tanyrallt, Dec. 3rd, 1 812. 
 Cf . . . . The Brown Demon, as we call our late tor- 
 mentor and schoolmistress, must receive her stipend ; I 
 pay it with a heavy heart and an unwilling hand ; but 
 it must be so. She was deprived by our misjudging 
 haste of a situation where she was going on smoothly ; 
 and now she says that her reputation is gone, her 
 health ruined, her peace of mind destroyed by my 
 barbarity. This is not all fact ; but certainly she is 
 embarrassed and poor, and we being in some degree 
 the cause, we ought to obviate it. She is an artful, 
 superficial, ugly, hermaphroditical beast of a woman, 
 and my astonishment at my fatuity, inconsistency, and 
 bad taste was never so great as after living four months 
 with her as an inmate. What would Hell be, were 
 such a woman in Heaven?" — Hogg, vol. ii. p. 194. 
 
 We have here the position in which the parties 
 stood towards each other on the 3rd of December, 
 1812 : the lady asserting that her reputation was gone, 
 
360 PERCY BYSS1IE SHELLEY. 
 
 her health mined, and her peace of mind destroyed by 
 the barbarity of the poet, the poet using towards the 
 lady nearly the most offensive language that could be 
 applied to a woman. What Shelley said to Mr. Hogg 
 he may have repeated to others, perhaps to Miss 
 Hitchener herself. In any case she must have known 
 the utter loathing felt for her by her late admirer. 
 We are not told what was the amount of the " stipend/' 
 or if it was ever paid. She was dismissed, as we have 
 seen, on the nth of November. It is plain that 
 Shelley's letter of the 3rd of December alludes only 
 to a promise to pay. On the I ith of February three 
 months stipend would be due. Between the 11th 
 and 26th there is just sufficient time for repeated 
 demands, threats, &c, until the crisis came. 
 
 That Shelley had received some threats is certain 
 from Harriet's well-known letter, written from the house 
 of Mr. John Lawless, 35, Cuffe Street, Dublin* " On 
 
 * It has been conjectured by Dr. Madden in his Life of Lady 
 Blessington (second edition, vol. in. p. 418), that Shelley's selec- 
 tion of this locality arose from his straitened circumstances at the 
 time. Mr. Middleton, in his Shelley and his Writings, quoting 
 the passage says, " He took up his abode at No. 35, CufFe Street, 
 Stephen's Green, a locality sufficient to show the nature of the 
 pecuniary circumstances in which Shelley was placed." This is 
 an entire mistake. Shelley did not go to CufFe Street because it 
 was a cheap place of residence, which it scarcely could have been. 
 He went there because his friend Mr. John Lawless resided there. 
 We have seen how intimately he had been connected with him 
 the year before. The History of Ireland, the efforts to raise 
 money for its production, the curious assertion of the editor of 
 The Dublin Evening Post, and the draft on Mr. Lawless given 
 by Shelley to his landlady at Ly mouth, all show how intimate 
 that connexion had been. But the reflection on the street itself 
 is unfounded. In 18 13 it was inhabited chiefly by professional 
 people, barristers, proctors, and attorneys. The house was a pri- 
 vate one, and when Mr. Hogg called there in March, 18 13, the 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OUTRAGE AT TANYRALLT. 361 
 
 Friday night, the 26th of February, we retired to bed 
 between ten and eleven o'clock. We had been in bed 
 about half an hour, when Mr. Shelley heard a noise 
 proceeding from one of the parlours. He imme- 
 diately went downstairs with two pistols, which he had 
 loaded that night, expecting to have occasion for them" 
 The circumstances of the attack are too well known to 
 be repeated here. Mrs. Shelley continues : " We all 
 assembled in the parlour, where we remained for two 
 hours. Mr. S. then advised us to retire, thinking it 
 impossible he would make a second attack. We left 
 Bysshe and one man-servant [Mr. Hogg's version of 
 the letter gives " our man-servant "] , who had only 
 arrived that day, and who knew nothing of the house, 
 to sit up." Three hours after this, when " Bysshe 
 had sent Daniel to see what hour it was," the second 
 attack was made. The would-be assassin fired at 
 Shelley, the ball passing through his flannel gown. 
 Bysshe fired at his assailant, but the pistol would not 
 go off. " He then aimed a blow at him with an old 
 sword which we found in the house. The assassin 
 attempted to get the sword from him, and jufct as he 
 was getting it away, Dan rushed into the room, 
 when he made his escape." — Shelley Memorials, p. 59. 
 By some writers the whole of this alleged attack is 
 supposed to be an entire delusion on the part of 
 
 door was opened by " a man-servant." And yet the most recent 
 biographer of Shelley improves upon his authority by transferring 
 the mistaken description of the street to the house. " After a 
 short stay in an uninviting house, No. 35, Great Cuffe Street, 
 Dublin," &c. (Rossetti's Memoir, p. lxvi.). That it was not " an 
 uninviting house " in one sense at least, Mr. Hogg had some 
 pleasant reasons for remembering, as the reader will find by refer- 
 ring to the second volume of the Life of Shelley, p. 238. 
 
/•; PERCY BYSSHB 8HBLLBY. 
 
 Shelley; but Harriet's letter is too circumstantial to 
 admit of such an explanation. It is said that Eliza 
 AY est brook in after life spoke frequently with terror of 
 the events of this night. Shelley himself it is plain 
 expected an attack, having loaded his pistols that night, 
 " expecting to have occasion for them." A later solu- 
 tion of the difficulty is, that the whole thing was a 
 practical joke on the part of Daniel Hill, who had 
 arrived on that day, probably after the expiration of 
 his imprisonment, at Barnstaple, the whole term of 
 which would have expired on the 18th of February. 
 In this case he must have had a confidant, who ran 
 the risk of being shot by Shelley; or if he escaped 
 that fate, of being detected and prosecuted for the 
 outrage. It is much more probable that the attack 
 was made in ignorance of the addition to the Tany- 
 rallt garrison, occasioned by the unexpected arrival of 
 Daniel Hill, and that it was frustrated by that fortu- 
 nate circumstance. 
 
 The attack then seems to have been a real one. 
 Shelley evidently had reason for believing that he had 
 provoked the enmity of some one. This hostility was 
 not confined to himself. Harriet says in her post- 
 script to Shelley's first letter of two lines to Mr. 
 Hookham — " It is no common robber we dread, but a 
 person who is actuated by revenge, and who threatens 
 my life, and my sister's as well/'' All this shows that 
 Shelley and Harriet had been anticipating for some 
 time the violence of a person who was meditating re- 
 venge against the whole party. This person was one 
 who had some private injury to revenge. The injury 
 was one for which Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza West- 
 brook were equally responsible. The strange threats 
 of their assailant which Harriet so courageously re- 
 
PROBABLE SOLUTION OF THE MYSTERY. 363 
 
 peats prove this. The enemy was " no common 
 robber," but one who was ff actuated by revenge/' 
 who threatened her own life and her sister's as well 
 as Shelley's. 
 
 Now in Shelleyan history up to this period, as far 
 as it has yet been revealed to us, there was but one 
 person who had any grounds of complaint against 
 Shelley, Harriet Shelley, and Eliza Westbrook. That 
 person was Miss Hitchener. We know the terms in 
 which Shelley spoke of her, and the charges of " bar- 
 barity" she brought against Shelley. Mr. Hogg un- 
 consciously unites the three in the indictment which 
 Miss Hitchener had evidently framed in her mind 
 against them. Speaking of the " Brown Demon," he 
 says : — 
 
 "At first she possessed some influence over the 
 young couple : but the charming Eliza would not tole- 
 rate any influence but her own. She had worked 
 upon Harriet's feelings, and the good Harriet had 
 succeeded in making his former favourite odious to 
 Bysshe." — Vol. ii. p. 366. 
 
 Here we have the three persons against whom the 
 mysterious assailant at Tanyrallt declared open war, all 
 united in an actual depreciation and an implied injury 
 against Miss Hitchener. She declared in some way 
 which Shelley could not misunderstand, that by his 
 conduct towards her she had lost her health, her re- 
 putation, and her peace of mind. She was promised 
 some compensation, but we have no evidence that it 
 was paid. Even if it were, the sense of injury would 
 have remained. On her expulsion from " Percy's 
 little circle" in London on the nth of November, 
 iSiz, she returned in all likelihood to her father's 
 
364 P BRCY B YSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 house. The Earl of Chichester has told us in his 
 letter to Sir Francis Freeling, that Miss Kitchener's 
 father, whose original name was Yorke, had been a 
 smuggler, and was then a publican at Hurstpierpoint. 
 Surely here is material enough for the romance of 
 Tanyrallt, without dragging in poor Daniel Hill and 
 an imaginary confederate of his — a " gaol-bird" from 
 Barnstaple, who had travelled all the way to Tremadoc, 
 and ran the imminent risk of being shot or hanged 
 merely to oblige " Dan." The wrongs of Miss Hitch- 
 ener we can have little doubt were discussed around 
 the paternal bar at Hurstpierpoint. The " stipend" 
 may not have been paid. Who knows but that it was 
 after an ineffectual demand, by an agent either of the 
 father or the daughter, for the first quarter's instal- 
 ment, which was due a few days before the memorable 
 26th of February, and the threats that may have fol- 
 lowed the disappointment, that Shelley may have 
 thought it expedient to load his pistols, " expecting to 
 have occasion for them ?" This may not be the solu- 
 tion of the mystery, but it is the most reasonable that 
 has been yet suggested. 
 
 This investigation for the present must terminate 
 here. It extends only over the period of a few years, 
 and yet has resulted in the discovery of some new facts 
 of great importance, and the correction of many errors. 
 If it contained nothing but the history of the Poetical 
 Essay, the facts and circumstances connected with 
 which have been so curiously discovered and traced by 
 the present writer, it would form no unimportant addi- 
 tion to our previous knowledge of the poet's life. 
 Many notes referring to the subsequent career of Shelley 
 have already been compiled by the author, the result 
 
SHELLEY'S HOUSE NEAR LERICI. 365 
 
 of much investigation not only in England but in 
 Italy.* The publication of these notes is for the pre- 
 sent postponed, in the hope that they may include at 
 no distant day a review of the long-promised justifica- 
 tion or apologia of Shelley for that circumstance which 
 his warmest admirers must,, for the present, consider 
 the most unhappy and the least excusable event of his 
 life. 
 
 * As an example of the careless way in which the Italian portion 
 of Shelley's life has been written, it may be mentioned that the 
 name of the village near Lerici, beside which stands the celebrated 
 house Casa Magni, in which Shelley last resided, has never been 
 correctly given in any Life of the poet. From Mrs. Shelley to Mr. 
 Rossetti it has been called " Sant' Arenzo." Its real name, 8. Te- 
 renzio, is given in the following quotation from the Guida Pit- 
 torica del Golfo della Spezia, which I bought at Spezia (June 
 15, 1862) in one of two visits which I paid to this interesting 
 house : — 
 
 " Presso S. Terenzio, sulla punta che chiude il seno di Lerici, 
 s'innalza la fortezza di S. Teresa, che incrocicchia con l'opposta di 
 S. Maria. 
 
 " Sulle alture circostanti osservasi la Merigola, amena ville- 
 giatura del Marchese Olandini. Ombrosi boschetti le fanno roman- 
 tico serto ; sorprendente e il panorama del Golfo che di lassii si 
 presenta alio sguardo. Nel 1822 su quei verdi poggi sedeva.no due 
 celebri cantori di Albione, vaghi di contemplare la magnificenza 
 del migliore tra i golfi, Byron cioe coll amico Shelley; ma oime, 
 che quest' ultimo era destinato a perire miseramente tra quelli stessi 
 tratti di mare, che allora in estasi di ammirazione il rapivano." — 
 p. 40. Spezia, 1861. 
 
 The allusion to Shelley in the foregoing extract is in itself very 
 interesting. 
 
SUPPLEMENT, 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 SHELLEY'S POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 
 
 PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND. 
 
 In order to render this collection of Shelley's Political 
 Pamphlets complete, it has been thought advisable to 
 include in the present volume the two tracts wlrich he 
 published in 1817 under the name of The Hermit of 
 Marlow. The pamphlets have been sometimes con- 
 founded with each other, and are nearly as scarce as 
 those which Shelley printed in Ireland. 
 
a proposal 
 
 FOR PUTTING 
 
 REFORM TO THE VOTE 
 
 THROUGHOUT THE KINGDOM. 
 
 BY THE HERMIT OF MARLOW. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PEINTED FOR C. AND J. OLLIER, 
 WELBECK STKEET, CAVENDISH SQUARE, 
 By C. H. Reynell, 21, Piccadilly. 
 
 1817. 
 
 B B 
 
A PROPOSAL, &c. 
 
 A GREAT question is now agitating in this nation, 
 which no man or party of men is competent to 
 decide ; indeed there are no materials of evidence 
 which can afford a foresight of the result. Yet on its 
 issue depends whether we are to be slaves or free men. 
 It is needless to recapitulate all that has been said 
 about Reform. Every one is agreed that the House 
 of Commons is not a representation of the people. 
 The only theoretical question that remains is, whether 
 the people ought to legislate for themselves, or be 
 governed by laws and impoverished by taxes originat- 
 ing in the edicts of an assembly which represents 
 somewhat less than a thousandth part of the entire 
 community. I think they ought not to be so taxed 
 and governed. An hospital for lunatics is the only 
 theatre where we can conceive so mournful a comedy 
 to be exhibited as this mighty nation now exhibits : 
 a single person bullying and swindling a thousand 
 of his comrades out of all they possessed in the 
 world, and then trampling and spitting upon them, 
 though he were the most contemptible and degraded 
 of mankind, and they had strength in their arms 
 and courage in their hearts. Such a parable realized 
 in political society is a spectacle worthy of the utmost 
 indignation and abhorrence. 
 b b 2 
 
372 PERCY BYSSEE SHELLEY. 
 
 The prerogatives of Parliament constitute a sove- 
 reignty which is exercised in contempt of the People, 
 and it is in strict consistency with the laws of human 
 nature that it should have been exercised for the 
 People's misery and ruin. Those whom they despise, 
 men instinctively seek to render slavish and wretched, 
 that their scorn may be secure. It is the object of 
 the Reformers to restore the People to a sovereignty 
 thus held in their contempt. It is my object, or I 
 would be silent now. 
 
 Servitude is sometimes voluntary. Perhaps the 
 People choose to be enslaved ; perhaps it is their will 
 to be degraded and ignorant and famished ; perhaps 
 custom is their only God, and they its fanatic wor- 
 shippers will shiver in frost and waste in famine 
 rather than deny that idol, perhaps the majority of 
 this nation decree that they will not be represented in 
 Parliament, that they will not deprive of power those 
 who have reduced them to the miserable condition in 
 which they now exist. It is their will — it is their 
 own concern. If such be their decision, the cham- 
 pions of the rights and the mourners over the errors 
 and calamities of man, must retire to their homes in 
 silence, until accumulated sufferings shall have pro- 
 duced the effect of reason. 
 
 The question now at issue is, whether the majority 
 of the adult individuals of the United Kingdom of 
 Great Britain and Ireland desire or no a complete 
 representation in the Legislative Assembly. 
 
 I have no doubt that such is their will, and I 
 believe this is the opinion of most persons conversant 
 with the state of the public feeling. But the fact 
 ought to be formally ascertained before we proceed. 
 If the majority of the adult population should solemnly 
 
PROPOSAL FOR PUTTING REFORM TO THE VOTE. 373 
 
 state their desire to be, that the representatives whom 
 they might appoint should constitute the Commons 
 House of Parliament, there is an end to the dispute. 
 Parliament would then be required, not petitioned, to 
 prepare some effectual plan for carrying the general 
 will into effect ; and if Parliament should then refuse, 
 the consequences of the contest that might ensue 
 would rest on its presumption and temerity. Parlia- 
 ment would have rebelled against the People then. 
 
 If the majority of the adult population shall, when 
 seriously called upon for their opinion, determine on 
 grounds, however erroneous, that the experiment of 
 innovation by Reform in Parliament is an evil of 
 greater magnitude than the consequences of mis- 
 government to which Parliament has afforded a con- 
 stitutional sanction, then it becomes us to be silent; 
 and we should be guilty of the great crime which I 
 have conditionally imputed to the House of Commons, 
 if after unequivocal evidence that it was the national 
 will to acquiesce in the existing system we should, by 
 partial assemblies of the multitude, or by any party 
 acts, excite the minority to disturb this decision. 
 
 The first step towards Reform is to ascertain this 
 point. For which purpose I think the following plan 
 would be effectual : — 
 
 That a Meeting should be appointed to be held at 
 
 the Crown and Anchor Tavern on the of , 
 
 to take into consideration the most effectual measures 
 for ascertaining whether or ' no, a Reform in Parlia- 
 ment is the will of the majority of the individuals of 
 the British Nation. 
 
 That the most eloquent and the most virtuous 
 and the most venerable among the Friends of Liberty, 
 should employ their authority and intellect to per- 
 
374 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 suade men to lay aside all animosity and even dis- 
 cussion respecting the topics on which they are dis- 
 united, and by the love which they bear to their 
 suffering country conjure them to contribute all their 
 energies to set this great question at rest — whether 
 the Nation desires a Reform in Parliament or no ? 
 
 That the friends of Reform, residing in any part of 
 the country, be earnestly entreated to lend perhaps 
 their last and the decisive effort to set their hopes and 
 fears at rest ; that those who can should go to London, 
 and those who cannot, but who yet feel that the aid 
 of their talents might be beneficial, should address a 
 letter to the Chairman of the Meeting, explaining 
 their sentiments : let these letters be read aloud, let 
 all things be transacted in the face of day. Let Re- 
 solutions, of an import similar to those that follow be 
 proposed. 
 
 i. That those who think that it is the duty of the 
 People of this nation to exact such a Reform in the 
 Commons House of Parliament, as should make that 
 House a complete representation of their will, and 
 that the People have a right to perform this duty, 
 assemble here for the purpose of collecting evidence 
 as to how far it is the will of the majority of the. 
 People to acquit themselves of this duty, and to exer- 
 cise this right. 
 
 2. That the population of Great Britain and Ireland 
 be divided into three hundred distinct portions, each 
 to contain an equal number of inhabitants, and three 
 hundred persons be commissioned, each personally to 
 visit every individual within the district named in his 
 commission, and to inquire whether or no that indi- 
 vidual is willing to sign the declaration contained in 
 the third Resolution, requesting him to annex to his 
 
PROPOSAL FOR PUTTING REFORM TO THE VOTE. 37 
 
 signature any explanation or exposure [exposition ?] of 
 his sentiments which he might choose to place on 
 record. That the following Declaration be proposed 
 for signature : — 
 
 3. That the House of Commons does not represent 
 the will of the People of the British Nation ; we the 
 undersigned therefore declare, and publish, and our 
 signatures annexed shall be evidence of our firm and 
 solemn conviction that the liberty, the happiness, and 
 the majesty of the great nation to which it is our 
 boast to belong, have been brought into danger and 
 suffered to decay through the corrupt and inadequate 
 manner in which Members are chosen to sit in the 
 Commons House of Parliament ; we hereby express, 
 before God and our country, a deliberate and unbiassed 
 persuasion, that it is our duty, if we shall be found in 
 the minority in this great question, incessantly to 
 petition ; if among the majority, to require and exact 
 that that House should originate such measures of 
 Reform as would render its Members the actual Re- 
 presentatives of the Nation. 
 
 4. That this Meeting shall be held day after day, 
 until it determines on the whole detail of the plan for 
 collecting evidence as to the will of the nation on the 
 subject of a Reform in Parliament. 
 
 5. That this Meeting disclaims any design, however 
 remote, of lending their sanction to the revolutionary 
 and disorganizing schemes which have been most 
 falsely imputed to the Friends of Reform, and declares 
 that its object is purely constitutional. 
 
 6. That a subscription be set on foot to defray the 
 expenses of this Plan. 
 
 In the foregoing proposal of Resolutions, to be 
 submitted to a National Meeting of the Friends of 
 
376 PERC Y B Y88HB BHBL I B V. 
 
 Reform, I have purposely avoided detail. If it shall 
 prove that I have in any degree afforded a hint to 
 men who have earned and established their popularity 
 by personal sacrifices and intellectual eminence such 
 as I have not the presumption to rival, let it belong 
 to them to pursue and devclope all suggestions relating 
 to the great cause of liberty which has been nurtured 
 (I am scarcely conscious of a metaphor) with their 
 very sweat, and blood, and tears : some have tended 
 it in dungeons, others have cherished it in famine, all 
 have been constant to it amidst persecution and 
 calumny, and in the face of the sanctions of power : — 
 so accomplish what ye have begun. 
 
 I shall mention therefore only one point relating 
 to the practical part of my Proposal. Considerable 
 expenses, according to my present conception, would 
 be necessarily incurred : funds should be created by 
 subscription to meet these demands. I have an income 
 of a thousand a year, on which I support my wife and 
 children in decent comfort, and from which I satisfy 
 certain large claims of general justice. Should any 
 plan resembling that which I have proposed be deter- 
 mined on by you, I will give 100/., being a tenth part 
 of one year's income, towards its object ; and I will 
 not deem so proudly of myself, as to believe that I 
 shall stand alone in this respect, when any rational 
 and consistent scheme for the public benefit shall have 
 received the sanction of those great and good men 
 who have devoted themselves for its preservation. 
 
 A certain degree of coalition among the sincere 
 Friends of Reform, in whatever shape, is indispensable 
 to the success of this proposal. The friends of Uni- 
 versal or of Limited Suffrage, of Annual or Triennial 
 Parliaments, ought to settle these subjects on which 
 
PROPOSAL FOR PUTTING REFORM TO THE VOTE. 377 
 
 they diagsree, when it is known whether the Nation 
 desires that measure on which they are all agreed. 
 It is trivial to discuss what species of Reform shall 
 have place, when it yet remains a question whether 
 there will be any Reform or no. 
 
 Meanwhile, nothing remains for me but to state 
 explicitly my sentiments on this subject of Reform. 
 The statement is indeed quite foreign to the merits of 
 the Proposal in itself, and I should have suppressed it 
 until called upon to subscribe such a requisition as I 
 have suggested, if the question which it is natural to 
 ask, as to what are the sentiments of the person who 
 originates the scheme, could have received in any other 
 manner a more simple and direct reply. It appears 
 to me that Annual Parliaments ought to be adopted 
 as an immediate measure, as one which strongly tends 
 to preserve the liberty and happiness of the Nation ; 
 it would enable men to cultivate those energies on 
 which the performance of the political duties belong- 
 ing to the citizen of a free state as the rightful guar- 
 dian of its prosperity essentially, depends ; it would 
 familiarize men with liberty by disciplining them to 
 an habitual acquaintance with its forms. Political in- 
 stitution* is undoubtedly susceptible of such improve- 
 ments as no rational person can consider possible, so 
 long as the present degraded condition to which the 
 vital imperfections in the existing system of govern- 
 ment has reduced the vast multitude of men, shall 
 subsist. The securest method of arriving at such 
 beneficial innovations, is to proceed gradually and 
 with caution; or in the place of that order and free- 
 
 * Shelley uses the same phrase in the second Irish pamphlet, 
 the Proposals. See p. 271. 
 
378 PERCY BYSSJJE SHELLEY. 
 
 dom which the Friends of Reform assert to be violated 
 now, anarchy and despotism will follow. Annual 
 Parliaments have ,my entire assent. I will not state 
 those general reasonings in their favour which Mr. 
 Cobbett and other writers have already made familiar 
 to the public mind. 
 
 With respect to Universal Suffrage, I confess I 
 consider its adoption, in the present unprepared state 
 of public knowledge and feeling, a measure fraught 
 with peril. I think that none but those who register 
 their names as paying a certain small sum in direct 
 taxes ought at present to send Members to Parlia- 
 ment. The consequences of the immediate extension 
 of the elective franchise to every male adult, would 
 be to place power in the hands of men who have been 
 rendered brutal and torpid and ferocious by ages of 
 slavery. It is to suppose that the qualities belonging 
 to a demagogue are such as are sufficient to endow a 
 legislator. I allow Major Cartwright's arguments to 
 be unanswerable ; abstractedly it is the right of every 
 human being to have a share in the government. But 
 Mr. Paine's arguments are also unanswerable ; a pure 
 republic may be shown, by inferences the most obvious 
 and irresistible, to be that system of social order the 
 fittest to produce the happiness and promote the 
 genuine eminence of man. Yet nothing can less 
 consist with reason, or afford smaller hopes of any 
 beneficial issue, than the plan which should abolish 
 the regal and the aristocratical branches of our con- 
 stitution, before the public mind, through many gra- 
 dations of improvement, shall have arrived at the 
 maturity which can disregard these symbols of its 
 childhood. 
 
"WE PITY THE PLUMAGE, BUT FORGET 
 THE DYING BIRD." 
 
 AN 
 
 ADDRESS to the PEOPLE 
 
 ON 
 
 The Death of the Princess Charlotte. 
 
 BY 
 
 W$t permit of Jttarlofo. 
 
AN ADDRESS, &c. 
 
 I. The Princess Charlotte is dead. She no longer 
 moves, nor thinks, nor feels. She is as inani- 
 mate as the clay with which she is about to mingle. 
 It is a dreadful thing to know that she is a putrid 
 corpse, who but a few days since was full of life 
 and hope ; a woman young, innocent, and beautiful, 
 snatched from the bosom of domestic peace, and 
 leaving that single vacancy which none can die and 
 leave not. 
 
 II. Thus much the death of the Princess Charlotte 
 has in common with the death of thousands. How 
 many women die in childbed and leave their fami- 
 lies of motherless children and their husbands to 
 live on, blighted by the remembrance of that heavy 
 loss ? How many women of active and energetic 
 virtues ; mild, affectionate, and wise, whose life is 
 as a chain of happiness and union, which once being- 
 broken, leaves those whom it bound to perish, have 
 died, and have been deplored with bitterness, which 
 is too deep for words ? Some have perished in 
 penury or shame, and their orphan baby has sur- 
 vived, a prey to the scorn and neglect of strangers. 
 Men have watched by the bedside of their expiring 
 wives, and have gone mad when the hideous death- 
 
38 2 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 rattle was heard within the throat, regardless of the 
 rosy child sleeping in the lap of the unobservant 
 nurse. The countenance of the physician had been 
 read by the stare of this distracted husband, till the 
 legible despair sunk into his heart. All this has been 
 and is. You walk with a merry heart through the 
 streets of this great city, and think not that such 
 are the scenes acting all around you. You do not 
 number in your thought the mothers who die in 
 childbed. It is the most horrible of ruins : — In 
 sickness, in old age, in battle, death comes as to his 
 own home ; but in the season of joy and hope, when 
 life should succeed to life, and the assembled family 
 expects one more, the youngest and the best be- 
 loved, that the wife, the mother — she for whom 
 each member of the family was so dear to one 
 another, should die ! — Yet thousands of the poorest 
 poor, whose misery is aggravated by what cannot 
 be spoken now, suffer this. And have they no affec- 
 tions ? Do not their hearts beat in their bosoms, 
 and the tears gush from their eyes ? Are they not 
 human flesh and blood ? Yet none weep for them — 
 none mourn for them — none when their coffins are 
 carried to the grave (if indeed the parish furnishes 
 a coffin for all) turn aside and moralize upon the 
 sadness they have left behind. 
 
 III. The Athenians did well to celebrate, with 
 public mourning, the death of those who had guided 
 the republic with their valour and their understand- 
 ing, or illustrated it with their genius. Men do well 
 to mourn for the dead : it proves that we love some- 
 thing beside ourselves; and he must have a hard 
 heart who can see his friend depart to rottenness and 
 
WE PITY THE PLUMAGE. 383 
 
 dust, and speed him without emotion on his voyage 
 to " that bourne whence no traveller returns/'' To 
 lament for those who have benefited the State, is a 
 habit of piety yet more favourable to the cultivation 
 of our best affections. When Milton died it had 
 been well that the universal English nation had been 
 clothed in solemn black, and that the muffled bells 
 had tolled from town to town. The French nation 
 should have enjoined a public mourning at the deaths 
 of Rousseau and Voltaire. We cannot truly grieve 
 for every one who dies beyond the circle of those 
 especially dear to us ; yet in the extinction of the 
 objects of public love and admiration, and gratitude, 
 there is something, if we enjoy a liberal mind, which 
 has departed from within that circle. It were well 
 done also, that men should mourn for any public 
 calamity which has befallen their country or the 
 world, though it be not death. This helps to main- 
 tain that connexion between one man and another, 
 and all men considered as a whole, which is the bond 
 of social life. There should be public mourning 
 when those events take place which make all good 
 men mourn in their hearts, — the rule of foreign or 
 domestic tyrants, the abuse of public faith, the wrest- 
 ing of old and venerable laws to the murder of the 
 innocent, the established insecurity of all those, the 
 flower of the nation, who cherish an unconquerable 
 enthusiasm for public good. Thus, if Home Tooke 
 and Hardy had been convicted of high treason, it 
 had been good that there had been not only the 
 sorrow and the indignation which would have filled 
 all hearts, but the external symbols of grief. When 
 the French Republic was extinguished, the world 
 ought to have mourned. 
 
3S4 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 IV. But this appeal to the feelings of men should 
 not be made lightly, or in any manner that tends 
 to waste, on inadequate objects, those fertilizing 
 
 streams of sympathy, which a public mourning should 
 be the occasion of pouring forth. This solemnity 
 should be used only to express a wide and intel- 
 ligible calamity, and one which is felt to be such 
 by those who feel for their country and for man- 
 kind ; its character ought to be universal, not par- 
 ticular. 
 
 V. The news of the death of the Princess Charlotte, 
 and of the execution of Brandreth, Ludlam, and 
 Turner, arrived nearly at the same time. If beauty, 
 youth, innocence, amiable manners, and the exer- 
 cise of the domestic virtues could alone justify public 
 sorrow when they are extinguished for ever, this in- 
 teresting Lady would well deserve that exhibition. 
 She was the last and the best of her race. But there 
 were thousands of others equally distinguished as she, 
 for private excellences, who have been cut off in 
 youth and hope. The accident of her birth neither 
 made her life more virtuous nor her death more 
 worthy of grief. For the public she had done nothing 
 either good or evil; her education had rendered her 
 incapable of either in a large and comprehensive 
 sense. She was born a Princess ; and those who are 
 destined to rule mankind are dispensed with acquir- 
 ing that wisdom and that experience which is neces- 
 sary even to rule themselves. She was not like Lady 
 Jane Grey, or Queen Elizabeth, a woman of profound 
 and various learning. She had accomplished no- 
 thing, and aspired to nothing, and could understand 
 nothing respecting those great political questions 
 
BUT FORGET TEE DYING BIRD. 385 
 
 which involve the happiness of those over whom she 
 was destined to rule. Yet this should not he said in 
 blame, but in compassion : let us speak no evil of the 
 dead. Such is the misery, such the impotence of 
 royalty — Princes are prevented from the cradle from 
 becoming anything which may deserve that greatest 
 of all rewards next to a good conscience, public ad- 
 miration and regret. 
 
 VI. The execution of Brandreth, Ludlam, and 
 Turner is an event of quite a different character 
 from the death of the Princess Charlotte. These 
 men were shut up in a horrible dungeon for many 
 months, with the fear of a hideous death and of 
 everlasting hell thrust before their eyes ; and at last 
 were brought to the scaffold and hung. They too 
 had domestic affections, and were remarkable for the 
 exercise of private virtues. Perhaps their low station 
 permitted the growth of those affections in a degree 
 not consistent with a more exalted rank. They had 
 sons, and brothers, and sisters, and fathers, who loved 
 them, it should seem, more than the Princess Char- 
 lotte could be loved by those whom the regulations of 
 her rank had held in perpetual estrangement from 
 her. Her husband was to her as father, mother, and 
 brethren. Ludlam and Turner were men of mature 
 years, and the affections were ripened and strength- 
 ened within them. What these sufferers felt shall not 
 be said. But what must have been the long and 
 various agony of their kindred may be inferred from 
 Edward Turner, who, when he saw his brother dragged 
 along upon the hurdle, shrieked horribly and fell in a 
 fit, and was carried away like a corpse by two men. 
 How fearful must have been their agony, sitting in 
 
 c c 
 
386 PERCY BYSS1IE SHELLEY. 
 
 solitude on that day when the tempestuous voice of 
 horror from the crowd, told them that the head so 
 dear to them was severed from the body ! Yes — 
 they listened to the maddening shriek which burst 
 from the multitude : they heard, the rush of ten 
 thousand terror-stricken feet, the groans and the 
 Lootings which told them that the mangled and dis- 
 torted head w r as then lifted into the air. The sufferers 
 were dead. "What is death ? Who dares to say that 
 which will come after the grave ?* Brandreth was 
 calm, and evidently believed that the consequences 
 of our errors were limited by that tremendous barrier. 
 Ludlam and Turner were full of fears, lest God should 
 plunge them in everlasting fire. Mr. Pickering, the 
 clergyman, was evidently anxious that Brandreth 
 should not by a false confidence lose the single op- 
 portunity of reconciling himself with the Ruler of the 
 future world. None knew what death was, or could 
 know. Yet these men were presumptuously thrust 
 into that unfathomable gulf, by other men, who knew 
 as little and who reckoned not the present or the 
 future sufferings of their victims. Nothing is more 
 horrible than that man should for any cause shed the 
 life of man. For all other calamities there is a remedy 
 or a consolation. When that Power through which 
 we live ceases to maintain the life which it has con- 
 ferred, then is grief and agony, and the burthen which 
 must be borne : such sorrow improves the heart. But 
 when man sheds the blood of man, revenge, and hatred, 
 and a long train of executions, and assassinations, and 
 proscriptions, is perpetuated to remotest time. 
 
 * " Your death has eyes in his head — mine is not painted so." 
 
 Cymbeline. 
 
WE PITY THE PLUMAGE, 387 
 
 VII. Such are the particular, and some of the 
 geueral considerations depending on the death of these 
 men. But however deplorable, if it were a mere 
 private or customary grief, the public as the public 
 should not mourn. But it is more than this. The 
 events -which led to the death of those unfortunate 
 men are a public calamity. I will not impute blame 
 to the jury -who pronounced them guilty of high 
 treason, perhaps the law requires that such should be 
 the denomination of their offence. Some restraint 
 ought indeed to be imposed on those thoughtless men 
 who imagine they can find in violence a remedy for 
 violence, even if their oppressors had tempted them to 
 this occasion of their ruin. They are instruments of 
 evil, not so guilty as the hands that wielded them, 
 but fit to inspire caution. But their death, by hang- 
 ing and beheading, and the circumstances of which it 
 is the characteristic and the consequence, constitute a 
 calamity such as the English nation ought to mourn 
 with an unassuageable grief. 
 
 VIII. Kings and their ministers have in every age 
 been distinguished from other men by a thirst for ex- 
 penditure and bloodshed. There existed in this country, 
 until the American war, a check, sufficiently feeble and 
 pliant indeed, to this desolating propensity. Until 
 America proclaimed itself a Republic, England was 
 perhaps the freest and most glorious nation subsisting 
 on the surface of the earth. It was not what is to 
 the full desirable that a nation should be, but all that 
 it can be, when it does not govern itself. The conse- 
 quences, however, of that fundamental defect soon 
 became evident. The government which the imper- 
 fect constitution of our representative assembly threw 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 PERCY BY tSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 into the hands of a few aristocrats, improved the 
 method of anticipating the taxes by loans, invented by 
 the ministers of William III., until an enormous debt 
 had been created. In the war against the Republic 
 of France, this policy was followed up, until now, the 
 mere interest of the public debt amounts to more than 
 twice as much as the lavish expenditure of the public 
 treasure, for maintaining the standing army, and the 
 royal family, and the pensioners, and the placemen. 
 The effect of this debt is to produce such an unequal 
 distribution of the means of living, as saps the foun- 
 dation of social union and civilized life. It creates a 
 double aristocracy, instead of one which was suffi- 
 ciently burthensome before, and gives twice as many 
 people the liberty of living in luxury and idleness on 
 the produce of the industrious and the poor. And it 
 does not give them this because they are more wise 
 and meritorious than the rest, or because their leisure 
 is spent in schemes of public good, or in those exercises 
 of the intellect and the imagination, whose creations 
 ennoble or adorn a country. They are not like the 
 old aristocracy, men of pride and honour, sans peur et 
 sans tache, but petty peddling slaves who have gained a 
 right to the title of public creditors, either by gambling 
 in the funds, or by subserviency to government, or 
 some other villainous trade. They are not the " Co- 
 rinthian capital of polished society," but the petty and 
 creeping weeds which deface the rich tracery of its 
 sculpture. The effect of this system is, that the day 
 labourer gains no more now by working sixteen hours 
 a day than he gained before by working eight. I put 
 the thing in its simplest and most intelligible shape. 
 The labourer, he that tills the ground and manufac- 
 tures cloth, is the man who has to provide, out of 
 
BUT FORGET THE DYING BIRD. 389 
 
 what he would bring home to his wife and children, 
 for the luxuries and comforts of those whose claims 
 are represented by an annuity of forty-four millions 
 a year levied upon the English nation. Before, he 
 supported the army and the pensioners, and the royal 
 family, and the landholders ; and this is a hard neces- 
 sity to which it was well that he should submit. Many 
 and various are the mischiefs flowing from oppression, 
 but this is the representative of them all — namely, 
 that one man is forced to labour for another in a 
 degree not only not necessary to the support of the 
 subsisting distinctions among mankind, but so as by 
 the excess of the injustice to endanger the very foun- 
 dations of all that is valuable in social order, and to 
 provoke that anarchy which is at once the enemy of 
 freedom, and the child and the chastiser of misrule. 
 The nation, tottering on the brink of two chasms, 
 began to be weary of a continuance of such dangers 
 and degradations, and the miseries which are the con- 
 sequence of them ; the public voice loudly demanded 
 a free representation of the people. It began to be 
 felt that no other constituted body of men could meet 
 the difficulties which impend. Nothing but the nation 
 itself dares to touch the question as to whether there 
 is any remedy or no to the annual payment of forty - 
 four millions a year, beyond the necessary expenses of 
 State, for ever and for ever. A nobler spirit also 
 went abroad, and the love of liberty, and patriotism, 
 and the self-respect attendant on those glorious emo- 
 tions, revived in the bosoms of men. The government 
 had a desperate game to play. 
 
 IX. In the manufacturing districts of England dis- 
 content and disaffection had prevailed for many years ; 
 
3Q0 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 
 
 this was the consequence of that system of double 
 aristocracy produced by the causes before mentioned. 
 The manufacturers, the helots of our luxury, are left 
 by this system famished, without affections, without 
 health, without leisure or opportunity for such instruc- 
 tion as might counteract those habits of turbulence 
 and dissipation, produced by the precariousness and 
 insecurity of poverty. Here was a ready field for any 
 adventurer who should wish for whatever purpose to 
 incite a few ignorant men to acts of illegal outrage. 
 So soon as it was plainly seen that the demands of the 
 people for a free representation must be conceded if 
 some intimidation and prejudice were not conjured up, 
 a conspiracy of the most horrible atrocity was laid in 
 train. It is impossible to know how far the higher 
 members of the government are involved in the guilt 
 of their infernal agents. It is impossible to know how 
 numerous or how active they have been, or by what 
 false hopes they are yet inflaming the untutored mul- 
 titude to put their necks under the axe and into the 
 halter. But thus much is known, that so soon as the 
 whole nation lifted up its voice for parliamentary re- 
 form, spies were sent forth. These were selected from 
 the most worthless and infamous of mankind, and dis- 
 persed among the multitude of famished and illiterate 
 labourers. It was their business if they found no 
 discontent to create it. It was their business to find 
 victims, no matter whether right or wrong. It was 
 their business to produce upon the public an impres- 
 sion, that if any attempt to attain national freedom, or 
 to diminish the burthens of debt and taxation under 
 which we groan, were successful, the starving multi- 
 tude would rush in, and confound all orders and dis- 
 tinctions, and institutions and laws, in common ruin. 
 
WE PITT THE PLUMAGE, 391 
 
 The inference "with which they were required to arm 
 the ministers was, that despotic power ought to be 
 eternal. To produce this salutary impression, they 
 betrayed some innocent and unsuspectiug rustics into 
 a crime whose penalty is a hideous death. A few 
 hungry and ignorant manufacturers, seduced by the 
 splendid promises of these remorsebss blood-conspira- 
 tors, collected together in what is called rebellion 
 against the State. All was prepared, and the eighteen 
 dragoons assembled in readiness, no doubt, conducted 
 their astonished victims to that dungeon which thej 
 left only to be mangled by the executioner's hand. 
 The cruel instigators of their ruin retired to enjoy the 
 great revenues which they had earned by a life of vil- 
 lany. The public voice was overpowered by the timid 
 and the selfish, who threw the weight of fear into the 
 scale of public opinion, and Parliament confided anew 
 to the executive government those extraordinary 
 powers which may never be laid down, or which may 
 be laid down in blood, or which the regularly consti- 
 tuted assembly of the nation must wrest out of their 
 hands. Our alternatives are a despotism, a revolution, 
 or reform. 
 
 X. On the 7th of November, Brandreth, Turner, 
 and Ludlam ascended the scaffold. We feel for Bran- 
 dreth the less, because it seems he killed a man. 
 But recollect who instigated him to the proceedings 
 which led to murder. On the word of a dying man, 
 Brandreth tells us, that " Oliver brought him to this" 
 — that, u but fol' Oliver he would not have been 
 there." See, too, Ludlam and Turner, with their 
 sons, and brothers, and sisters, how they kneel toge- 
 ther in a dreadful agony of prayer. Hell is before 
 
392 PERCY B YSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 their eyes, and they shudder and feel sick with fear, 
 lest some unrepented or some wilful sin should seal 
 their doom in everlasting lire. With that dreadful 
 penalty before their eyes — with that tremendous sanc- 
 tion for the truth of all he spoke, Turner exclaimed 
 loudly and distinctly, while the executioner was putting 
 the rope round his neck, " this is all Oliver and the 
 Government." What more he might have said we 
 know not, because the chaplain prevented any further 
 observations. Troops of horse, with keen and glitter- 
 ing swords, hemmed in the multitudes collected to 
 witness this abominable exhibition. " When the 
 stroke of the axe was heard, there was a burst of 
 horror from the crowd.* The instant the head was 
 exhibited, there was a tremendous shriek set up, and 
 the multitude ran violently in all directions, as if 
 under the impulse of sudden frenzy. Those who re- 
 sumed their stations, groaned and hooted/'' It is a 
 national calamity, that we endure men to rule over 
 us, who sanction for whatever ends a conspiracy which 
 is to arrive at its purpose through such a frightful 
 pouring forth of human blood and agony. But when 
 that purpose is to trample upon our rights and liberties 
 for ever, to present to us the alternatives of anarchy 
 and oppression, and triumph when the astonished 
 nation accepts the latter at their hands, to maintain 
 a vast standing army, and add year by year to a 
 public debt, which already, they know, cannot be dis- 
 charged ; and which, when the delusion that supports 
 it fails, will produce as much misery and confusion 
 through all classes of society as it has continued to 
 
 * These expressions are taken from The Examiner, Sunday, 
 Nov. 9th. — Author s JSote. 
 
BUT FORGET TEE DYING BIRD. 393 
 
 produce of famine and degradation to the undefended 
 poor; to imprison and calumniate those who may- 
 offend them at will 3 when this, if not the purpose, is 
 the effect of that conspiracy, how ought we not to 
 mourn ? 
 
 XI. Mourn then people of England. Clothe your- 
 selves in solemn black. Let the bells be tolled. Think 
 of mortality and change. Shroud yourselves in soli- 
 tude and the gloom of sacred sorrow. Spare no 
 symbol of universal grief. Weep — mourn — lament. 
 Fill the great city — fill the boundless fields, with 
 lamentation and the echo of groans. A beautiful 
 Princess is dead : — she who should have been the 
 Queen of her beloved nation, and whose posterity 
 should have ruled it for ever. She loved the domestic 
 affections, and cherished arts which adorn, and valour 
 which defends. She was amiable and would have be- 
 come wise, but she was young, and in the flower of 
 youth the destroyer came. Liberty is dead. Slave ! 
 I charge thee disturb not the depth and solemnity of 
 our grief by any meaner sorrow. If One has died 
 who was like her that should have ruled over this 
 land, like Liberty, young, innocent, and lovely, know 
 that the power through which that one perished was 
 God, and that it was a private grief. But man has 
 murdered Liberty, and whilst the life was ebbing from 
 its wound, there descended on the heads and on the 
 hearts of every human thing, the sympathy of an 
 universal blast and curse. Fetters heavier than iron 
 weigh upon us, because they bind our souls. We 
 move about in a dungeon more pestilential than damp 
 and narrow walls, because the earth is its floor and 
 the heavens are its roof. Let us follow the corpse of 
 
394 PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY. 
 
 British Liberty slowly and reverentially to its tomb : 
 and if some glorious Phantom should appear, and 
 make its throne of broken swords and sceptres and 
 royal crowns trampled in the dust, let us say that the 
 Spirit of Liberty has arisen from its grave; and left 
 all that was gross and mortal there, and kneel down 
 and worship it as our Queen. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 *#* Whence Shelley derived the curious title of 
 this pamphlet, " We pity the plumage, but forget the 
 dying bird," has not previously been pointed out. It 
 is possible that he found it in the first number of The 
 Reflector, which appeared in October, 1810, the month 
 of his matriculation at Oxford. The Reflector was a 
 quarterly magazine, edited by Leigh Hunt, of which 
 I have two volumes, to December, 1 8 1 1 . The original 
 passage will probably be found in one of Paine's tracts, 
 of which, since I alluded to them at page 1 34, I have 
 recently seen a Dublin edition. 
 
 " It was pertinently said of the pathetic language 
 which Mr. Burke, in his later writings, occasionally 
 held on constitutional topics, that he pitied the plumage, 
 but neglected the wounded and suffering bird" — The 
 Reflector, vol. i. p. 17. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 "THE LATE ME. FINNERTr." 
 
 From the Morning Chronicle, May i$th, 1822. 
 
 IT is with no ordinary regret that we announce the 
 death of Mr. Peter Finnerty, twenty years a Parlia- 
 mentary reporter on this journal. For some time his 
 health had been on the decline, but always solicitous to 
 perform his duties, it was only within the last month that 
 the violence of his complaiDt compelled him to withdraw 
 himself from the more active duties of his situation. 
 
 " Mr. Finnerty, from the strength of his mind and the 
 warmth of his feelings, has either so acted or suffered in the 
 public events of his country that such a man ought not to 
 be allowed to descend to his grave as a common individual. 
 He was the son of a tradesman in the town of Loughrea, in 
 the county of Gralway, who with slender means had reared 
 and educated a numerous family. Mr. Finnerty, the eldest 
 son, was in early age cast upon his fortunes in the metro- 
 polis of Ireland ; brought up a printer, he, at the awful 
 crisis of 1798, succeeded [preceded] Mr. Arthur O'Connor 
 as the [registered! printer of the most popular and ably 
 conducted paper which ever appeared in that country' — ■ 
 The Press. Such a situation naturally brought Mr. Fin- 
 nerty into perilous contact with the irritated and coercive 
 Government of that day. It was no ordinary predicament 
 in which so young a man, being then scarcely of age, was 
 placed. Under the process of the laws as then administered 
 in Ireland, he was visited with all the penalties of a vin- 
 
396 APPENDIX. 
 
 dictive prosecution, and the property of the establishment 
 was ultimately demolished by military force. On his trial 
 he had the honour of being defended by Mr. Curran, an 
 advocate whose powers rose with the demands of his country 
 for their exertion, and who seemed to have been destined 
 to the great but dangerous distinction of displaying talents 
 in defence of virtue commensurate to the wrongs which 
 had called them forth. In that court he charged the 
 Government of that day with a vindictive warfare against 
 the only printer who dared to whisper the liberties of 
 Ireland. Mr. Emnerty was sentenced to a punishment 
 more ignominious to the law than to the criminal, but had 
 the honour of being attended by Lord Edward Fitzgerald 
 and many other public characters. The sentence was exe- 
 cuted also under the bayonets of a large military force, but 
 could not repress that burst of popular sympathy which 
 attended the first address that he ever made to his suffering 
 countrymen. He passed those dreadful years of '98 and '99 
 in the prison of Newgate, Dublin, when too frequently 
 the guest of the breakfast-table, as he himself has often 
 described, was hurried forth to sudden execution. Such 
 was the persecution with which he had to contend in 
 consequence of the subversion of his establishment, that 
 he remained for months unemployed before he could obtain 
 a passport for England ! Arrived in London, he entered 
 into an engagement on the press, and commenced Parlia- 
 mentary reporter. The faithful and able manner in which 
 he discharged the important duties of such a trust is well 
 known to all who have had any connexion with the press 
 of the metropolis. Having professionally attended the 
 court-martial which was held at Portsmouth, he became 
 acquainted with Sir Home Popham, and an intimacy com- 
 menced which terminated only by his death.* "When the 
 expedition to Walcheren took place, Mr. Einnerty, at the 
 
 * A copy of The Trial of Sir Home Popham, probably edited by Peter 
 Finnerty, is in the London Institution, Finsbury Circus. A Memoir of 
 Sir Home Riggs Popbain is given in Public Characters of 1806. 
 London, 1806, p. 399. 
 
APPENDIX. 397 
 
 request of Sir Home, sailed with Captain Bartholomew 
 from "Woolwich for the avowed purpose of writing the 
 history of that expedition. An order had, however, been 
 circulated through the squadron in the Downs to send 
 Mr. Finnerty on shore if found on board this fleet. This 
 order was ineffectual, as Mr. Finnerty, unaware of its 
 existence, had arrived at Walcheren, and on being made 
 acquainted with it, immediately waited upon the naval 
 commander-in-chief. He was received with great kind- 
 ness, and after a delay of some weeks, he returned to Eng- 
 land in a frigate. Under the irritation of feelings natu- 
 rally excited by such a strange exercise of authority, he 
 addressed, through this paper, a letter to a noble member 
 of the Administration who held a conspicuous place in the 
 recent and melancholy history of Ireland. That noble 
 person immediately commenced a prosecution against the 
 publisher of this journal. Mr. Finnerty, who had been 
 frequently warned by the late Mr. Perry as to the conse- 
 quences which would result from the publication of the 
 letter, with the frankness and decision of character which 
 belonged to him, immediately requested that the manu- 
 script should be given up, that the prosecution might 
 affect only the real author. He allowed judgment to go 
 by default ; but on being brought up for judgment, he 
 defended the libel on the ground of the provocations which 
 he had received, as well as the truth of his allegations, 
 which he was then prepared with affidavits to sustain. He 
 was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment, that was so 
 rigorously carried into effect, that his constitution received 
 a shock from which it never recovered. While in prison, 
 by an appeal to Parliament he procured an inquiry,* the 
 
 * It may perhaps be interesting to mention, that the whole report on 
 this very curious inquiry, with the original affidavits of the parties con- 
 cerned, is preserved in the Record Office. (Domestic, George III., 
 January to March, 1811. No. 226.) The original petition to the 
 Prince RegeDt, signed in the remarkable autograph of Peter Finnerty, 
 is in the collection of papers, No. 227. Domestic, Geo. III., April to 
 May, 18 t 1. See also p. 93 of this volume. 
 
3Q8 APPENDIX. 
 
 result of which not only led to a mitigation of his own suf- 
 ferings, but to the general amelioration of the prison dis- 
 cipline. On his liberation, he resumed his duties with 
 this paper. His mind, naturally strong and original, was 
 invigorated by an experience of the world that enabled 
 him, with no common acuteness, to perceive both the sub- 
 stance and form of truth, and detect the sophistries of the 
 most specious imposition. He had a natural eloquence of 
 a vivid and masculine character, and his colloquial powers 
 were peculiar and fascinating. But his leading charac- 
 teristic was an instinctive hatred of oppression whatever 
 shape it assumed, or by whatever influence it was attempted 
 to be enforced. We will mention one instance. In the 
 recent State Trials Mr. Finnerty was the individual who 
 first discovered that the infamous Thomas Reynolds, per- 
 sonally unknown to his brother-jurors, was actually a 
 member of the grand jury of the metropolitan court of 
 England. No sooner was the fact ascertained, and pend- 
 ing the trials in Westminster Hall, than he communicated 
 the circumstance to a member of the House of Commons, 
 who in consequence made a disclosure, the electric effect 
 of which upon the House was only equalled by the indigna- 
 tion that it excited throughout the country. 
 
 " From the original information of his mind, his un- 
 bending devotedness to the interests of his country, and 
 hatred of its oppressors, he had drawn upon himself much 
 political hostility ; but for that he was highly compensated 
 by having the good fortune to enjoy the proud distinction 
 of being known to Mr. Fox, Mr. Whitbread, and Sir 
 Samuel Romilly, and of having as his personal and inti- 
 mate friends Mr. Curran, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Grattan, 
 as well as some of the most eminent public men now 
 living. Having made this plain and simple statement, we 
 have only to add that while the memory of Mr. Finnerty 
 is identified with the history of his country, it will long be 
 cherished by those associates, who having had the best 
 opportunity of knowing his good qualities, have the most 
 reason to deplore him." 
 
 The respect thus entertained for Mr. Finnerty by those 
 
APPENDIX. 399 
 
 who best knew him, seems to have been shared even by 
 Lord Castlereagh himself. The Examiner, August 26th, 
 1822, p. 533, in an article on the unhappy suicide of that 
 nobleman has the following passage : — 
 
 " The Tyne Mercury says, ' The late Mr. Einnerty, who 
 was for many years at known declared and active enmity 
 with the Marquis of Londonderry, has often mentioned to 
 us that his lordship was accustomed to how to him as he 
 passed him.' " 
 
 Mr. Einnerty died on the nth of May, 1822, at "West- 
 minster. In the affidavits prefixed to the report of his 
 trial in 181 1, he is described as Peter Einnerty, of Clement's 
 Inn, in the county of Middlesex, gentleman. His age at 
 the time of his death is stated by some writers to have been 
 fifty-six years ; but this must be a mistake. In his letter to 
 The Morning Chronicle, published in that journal Tuesday, 
 January 23rd, 18 jo, which was the alleged libel for which 
 he suffered his second imprisonment, he has the following 
 passage referring to the period subsequent to the expiration 
 of his sentence at the end of 1 799» when he sought for a 
 passport to go into England, and was refused : — 
 
 " What will the public think of Castlereagh' s feelings, 
 when I state that at the period of which I am writing I 
 was not twenty-one years of age ?" 
 
 At the time of his death therefore, in 1822, Mr. Ein- 
 nerty was only forty -three years old. 
 
 Twelve years before Percy Bysshe Shelley conferred 
 upon Peter Einnerty the honour of publishing a poem for 
 his benefit, the following lines appeared in the 43rd No. 
 of The Press, January 6th, 1798. With this early tribute 
 to his worth, we may take our leave of a man who is likely 
 to obtain a new lease of fame from the singular connexion 
 with Shelley, which it has been the good fortune of the 
 present writer to discover, and his anxious effort to explain 
 to the best of his ability in this book : — 
 
4 oo A PPENDIX. 
 
 " Lines Addressed to Mr. Finerty. 
 
 " Array'd ip virtue, and in freedom's cause, 
 What honest breast but pays to thee applause ? 
 Who thee beholds, amid a dungeon's gloom, 
 For years incarcerated (awful doom !) 
 Who, but in sorrow, heaves the pitying sigh ? 
 Victim to sickness, or — perhaps to die ! 
 Then nor lament, nor wail a patriot's fate, 
 You — far superior to the empty great ! 
 A grateful race shall homage pay to thee, 
 Thou firm, undaunted friend of Liberty ; 
 Tho' juries triumph, judges judgment give, 
 Iu honour's records thou shalt ever live. 
 January 6th, 1798." Extracts from The Press, 
 
 Philadelphia, 1802, p. 281 
 
 No. II. 
 ME. JOHN LAWLESS. 
 
 The following correspondence between the Earl of Moira 
 and the Eight Honourable Eichard Eyder, Secretary of 
 State for the Home Department, is extracted from the 
 Collection of State Papers in the Eecord Office, labelled 
 "Domestic, Greorge III. 181 1. No. 231." The ori- 
 ginal letters are endorsed by Mr. Eyder, " 27th October, 
 1 81 1. Lord Moira and Mr. Lawless." 
 
 The Earl of Moira to the Bight Honourable Richard Ryder. 
 
 "Donington, Oct. 27th, 181 1. 
 " My dear Sib, — A Mr. Lawless, brother to an officer 
 of high rank in Bonaparte's army, left Ireland secretly last 
 year and went to Paris ; about a month ago he returned 
 privately to Dublin, and took care to be as little seen as 
 possible. He has just now quitted Ireland in the same 
 mysterious way, and as he took that route, very probably is 
 still in London. My informant did not obtain the know- 
 ledge of this in due time. I am not at liberty to disclose 
 from whom I have the communication, but you may depend 
 
APPENDIX. 4 oi 
 
 upon its accuracy. Lawless's object is probably to get to 
 Heligoland, that having been his former track to the 
 Continent. The arresting him would not be likely to lead 
 to any discovery. But if you could make him out, there 
 would be a chance of getting at his business by fixing a 
 spy upon him. He is a shallow, incautious man, therefore 
 any clever person pretending to go to Heligoland to sell 
 guineas, might worm himself into Lawless's confidence, 
 and find out to whom in Ireland he has been the bearer of 
 messages or letters. Grreat secrecy must be observed or 
 it might be traced how I got the information, and the 
 source is one which it is important to preserve. 
 " I have the honour, my dear Sir, 
 
 " To remain your very obedient 
 
 and humble servant, 
 
 " Moiea. 
 "The Right Hon. R. Ryder, &c." 
 
 The Right Honourable Richard Ryder to the Earl of Moira. 
 "Private. "Whitehall, Oct. 31st, 1811. 
 
 " My deah Lobd, — I am much obliged to your Lordship 
 for your communication upon the subject of Mr. Lawless. 
 I have since taken all the steps in my power to ascertain 
 when such a person embarks for Heligoland, if he should 
 take that route, with a view to any ulterior measures that 
 may be thought advisable; but no circumstances being 
 mentioned by your informant from which either the time 
 of his arrival here, or the part of the town where he may 
 be, or the places he may be supposed to frequent, or his 
 person can be described, or even the fact known whether 
 he is in London or not can be learnt, I much doubt, after 
 the inquiries I have made, whether there are any [means] 
 except the chances of accident to take advantage of his 
 information." [The remainder of the letter is taken up 
 with the case of a certain " William Richmond," and con- 
 cludes], 
 
 " I am, &c. &c, 
 
 "RlCHABD RtDEB. 
 "The Earl of Moira, &c." 
 
 D D 
 
402 APPENDIX. 
 
 Should Mr. John Lawless have been the person alluded 
 to by the Earl of Moira, the description certainly is not 
 flattering. It is one, however, that might easily be drawn 
 from the hostile allusions to Mr. Lawless in the satirical 
 publications of the day. These attacks commenced with 
 the Eight Honourable John Wilson Croker, in his Familiar 
 Epistles, and culminated in the scurrility of Dr. Brenan, in 
 The Milesian, and Watty Cox, in the Irish Magazine. A 
 certain airiness, not to say flightiness, of manner was 
 always very unfairly seized on by Mr. Lawless's enemies 
 as a point of attack. An instance of this occurred so late 
 as 1 82 1, on the occasion of George IV. 's visit to Ireland. 
 " It appears," says a journal of the period, " by a letter 
 from Mr. John Lawless, of The Irishman, published in a 
 contemporary print, that that gentleman did not leap into 
 the sea to shake hands with his Majesty, as stated in one 
 of the papers — 
 
 "Jack Lawless says it was not be 
 
 Clung to the Royal Boat, 
 Yet surely wonder should not he 
 
 That things so light should float." 
 
 There is, however, a slight difficulty in identifying with 
 absolute certainty the "Mr. Lawless" of Lord Moira 1 s 
 letter with John Lawless. This arises from the fact that 
 the latter had two relatives who were " officers in Bona- 
 parte's army." One w r as his uncle and one his brother. 
 In the Memoirs of Miles Byrne, Chef de Bataillon in the 
 service of France, Officer of the Legion of Honour, Knight 
 of St. Louis, §c, Paris, 1 836, we have a good account of 
 both. Of the two, his uncle attained the higher rank. 
 At the battle of Lowenberg, in Silesia, on the 19th of 
 August, 181 3, Colonel Lawless commanded the Irish 
 Regiment. " On the 2 1st of August, the second day 
 after," says Miles Byrne, " Colonel Lawless, at the passage 
 of the Bober, at the town of Lowenberg, and in the pre- 
 sence of Napoleon, had his leg shot off by a cannon ball " 
 (torn. iii. p. 36). Colonel Lawless was subsequently- 
 made General, and died on the 25th of December, 1824. 
 
 The phrase " an officer of high rank in the army of 
 
APPENDIX. 403 
 
 Bonaparte," would of course apply especially to Colonel 
 Lawless ; but I do not find any allusion to a brother of his 
 residing in Dublin at the period mentioned. The officer 
 referred to by Lord Moira must, I think, have been Luke 
 Lawless, the brother of John Lawless. He too held a 
 commission in the French service, but of inferior rank to 
 his uncle. Colonel Miles Byrne devotes several pages to 
 him in his Memoirs. He was a Lieutenant and subse- 
 quently Captain on the Staff of the Duke of Feltre. After 
 the downfall of Napoleon, in 181 5, the Irish Begiment 
 was disbanded, and Captain Lawless with other officers 
 emigrated to America. He resumed his profession as an 
 advocate, greatly distinguished himself at the American 
 bar, and was eventually raised to the rank of Judge at 
 Saint Louis. — See Memoirs of Miles Byrne, t. iii. pp. 97, 
 
 98. 
 
 As there is nothing further on this affair of " Mr. Law- 
 less" in the State Papers, Lord Moira perhaps soon disco- 
 vered that his informant's zeal had outrun his discretion 
 in the officious communication he had made to him. Mr. 
 John Lawless, if he was the person alluded to, had pro- 
 bably gone to London on private business, and returned 
 shortly after, as we find him in Dublin at the end of 
 February, 18 12, the associate of Shelley. The reply of 
 the Bight Honourable Bichard Byder to Lord Moira's 
 letter is studiously polite, but unmistakably satirical. 
 " Poor Lord Moira," says Moore in one of his letters, 
 when he began to perceive that his noble patron* was 
 
 * Lord Moira seems to have played the amiable part of patron- general 
 to young poets and romance writers, before he accepted the more sub- 
 stantial position of Governor-General of India. In 1804 we find 
 "Monk" Lewis dedicating to him The Bravo of Venice — a singular 
 offering to a statesman. A copy of this curious book, presented ''with 
 Mr. Lewis' compliments" to one of his friends is in my possession. It 
 seems to have been the model on which Shelley constructed his not 
 more absurd Romances of Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne. Monk Lewis seems 
 to have been as fond of the letter Z as Shelley himself. We have 
 Parozzi, Struzza, and Baluzzo — names that may well pair with the 
 Zastrozzi and Verezzi of his imitator. 
 
4 04 APPENDIX. 
 
 about to proceed to " India's coral strand" without him — 
 " poor Lord Moira ! his good qualities have been the ruin 
 of him! 
 
 " Que lea vertus sont dangereuses 
 Dans un homme satis jug ement." 
 
 Letter to Miss Godfrey, Nov. 6th, 1812. 
 
 Moore's Memoirs, vol. i. page 312. 
 
 "Whether the Eight Honourable Eichard Eyder considered 
 the suggestion that a spy should be placed on the move- 
 ments of a man whose only crime seemed to have been his 
 want of caution (a strange defect in a supposed confiden- 
 tial agent of Napoleon), was a sample of those " good 
 qualities" that "ruined" Lord Moira, or not, it is impos- 
 sible to say ; but he certainly must have seen in the letter 
 of his lordship, which supplied not the slightest fact that 
 could be acted on, a remarkable proof of his want of 
 "judgment." 
 
 I have been favoured with the following interesting 
 letter from Philip Lawless, Esq., Barister-at-law, the only 
 surviving son of Shelley's "literary friend" in Dublin. 
 
 "February 16th, 1870. 
 " I have to apologize to you for not sooner acknowledging 
 yours of the nth inst., and thanking you for your kind ex- 
 pressions about my father. I would be happy to give you 
 any particulars bearing on the subject of your inquiries, but 
 unfortunately anything of the kind in my possession are 
 not worth mentioning. I have a perfect recollection of 
 my father describing the agreeable society which he enjoyed 
 with the poet P. B. Shelley, chiefly, I think, at the house 
 of our great countryman, John Philpot Curran. I think he 
 said it was about the time you mention, 18 12 or 18 j 3. My 
 father unfortunately seldom ever kept papers or documents. 
 You are perhaps aware that he was prevented by Lord 
 Clare going to the bar, and this clouded and surrounded 
 with difficulties his after life. I ought to mention that I 
 also recollect my father stating that Shelley lived or lodged 
 in the same street as himself, Cuffe Street, or in its im- 
 mediate neighbourhood. The first edition of The History 
 
APPENDIX. 405 
 
 of Ireland must Lave come out in j8 12 or 1813.** I have 
 a copy of the second edition published in 1815. In 1819 
 he commenced the publication of The Irishman in Belfast, 
 and continued it there for about eight years, when he 
 removed to Dublin, and resumed the publication of it. I 
 am sorry I cannot give you some more assistance as to my 
 father's acquaintance with the poet. I have often thought 
 of putting together in a memoir shape whatever materials 
 I could collect, with the hope of doing some justice to my 
 father's memory, and of showing the important and pro- 
 minent part taken by him, but I have always been deterred 
 by the meagreness of the information in my hands. Again 
 begging you to excuse my delay in writing, 
 " I am, &c. &c, 
 
 "Philip Lawless. 
 
 "D.F. M. C., Esq." 
 
 Description oe John Lawless. 
 
 " Jack Lawless had many distinguished qualifications as 
 a public speaker. His voice was deep, round, and mellow, 
 and was diversified by a great variety of rich and harmo- 
 nious intonations. His action was exceedingly graceful 
 and appropriate ; he had a good figure, which by a pur- 
 posed swell and dilation of the shoulders, and an elaborate 
 exactness, he turned to good account, and by dint of an 
 easy fluency, of good diction, a solemn visage, an aquiline 
 nose of no vulgar dimensions, eyes glaring underneath a 
 shaggy brow with a certain fierceness of emotion, a quiz- 
 zing-glass, which was gracefully dangled in any pause of 
 thought or suspension of utterance, and above all by a cer- 
 tain attitude of dignity which he assumed in the crisis of 
 eloquence, accompanied with a flinging back of his coat, which 
 rounded his periods beautifully, ' Honest Jack ' soon became 
 one of the most popular and efficient speakers at the Catholic 
 Board." — Life and Times of Daniel O'Connell, with Sketches 
 of some of his Contemporaries, by C. M. O'Xeefe. Dublin, 
 1864, vol. ii. p. 23. 
 
 * The History of Ireland was not published until 18 14, as previously 
 stated. 
 
406 APPENDIX. 
 
 Death of Mr. Lawless. 
 
 From The Morning Chronicle, Thursday, August ioth, 1837. 
 
 " This gentleman, who for many years has occupied so 
 large a space in the public view, as connected with the 
 politics of Ireland, has terminated his earthly career. He 
 was taken ill on Saturday last, and died on Tuesday, at 
 twenty minutes past twelve, at his lodgings in Cecil Street. 
 Mr. Lawless was at all times a most energetic and uncom- 
 promising advocate of his principles, which were decidedly 
 of a liberal character." 
 
 The following account of the death of Mr. Lawless is 
 quoted in The Times of the same date, from a " Ministerial 
 paper." It is erroneous in two particulars. Mr. Lawless 
 was never called to the bar, and did not receive, he pro- 
 bably would not have accepted, " a small appointment in 
 Ireland." The article in the "Ministerial paper " is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Death of Mr. Lawless. 
 
 " "We regret to announce the death of this gentleman, 
 familiarly known in Ireland as ' Honest Jack Lawless.' 
 This event took place yesterday afternoon, at his lodgings 
 in Cecil Street, Strand. Mr. Lawless was early in life a law 
 student, but the Irish Lord Chancellor (Clare) prevented his 
 call on account of his political principles. Later in life, 
 however, he was called in times of less trouble and more 
 freedom. He was one of the leading agitators of the Irish 
 associations, and also connected with the Liberal press, both 
 in Dublin and Belfast. Mr. Lawless had in his declining 
 years, shortly since, obtained some small appointment in 
 Ireland. His eloquence was sometimes declamatory, but 
 ever sincere, and in all the actions of his life John Lawless 
 deserved well of his countrymen." 
 
 The following passage is taken from an article on the 
 death of Mr. Lawless in The Morning Herald of the same 
 period. As Mr. Lawless had never been called to the bar, 
 the story of the prominent high "legal" appointment is 
 probably unfounded. 
 
 " It is strongly rumoured that the ' sickening pangs of 
 
APPENDIX. 4 o 7 
 
 hope deferred,' which Mr. Lawless was doomed to expe- 
 rience had a considerable effect in hastening his end. A 
 few days prior to his decease intelligence was commu- 
 nicated to Mr. Lawless by an illustrious individual that a 
 high legal appointment would shortly be conferred on 
 him, and by many his rather sudden decease is attributed 
 to the excess of joy caused by this announcement." 
 
 Funeral of John Lawless. 
 
 From The Morning Chronicle, Friday, August 18th, 1837. 
 
 " The mortal remains of ' Honest Jack ' were yesterday 
 deposited in the vault attached to the Catholic chapel in 
 Moorfields. Several friends of the deceased wished to offer 
 the Irish patriot the tribute of a public funeral ; but the 
 absence of almost all his political confreres from town in- 
 duced those more immediately interested to adopt a different 
 course. Our readers are aware that Mr. Lawless died on 
 Tuesday, the 8th inst., at his apartments in Cecil Street ; 
 but those who were invited to follow him to the grave 
 met at the residence of Henry Williams, Esq., 14, Lin- 
 coln's Inn Fields, whence they proceeded to Cecil Street 
 in three mourning coaches. The hearse being in readiness, 
 the procession moved slowly along the Strand. 
 
 " The first coach contained Philip Lawless, the eldest 
 son of the deceased, Captain Lawless (his brother), Henry 
 Williams, Esq., and Dr. Best ; in the second were Sheridan 
 Knowles, Mr. J. O. Cumming Hill, Mr. Witham, and Mr. 
 Ireland ; while the third was occupied by Captain Eoberts, 
 E.K, Dr. Alley, Mr. Eoberts, and Mr. Shee. The funeral 
 rites were solemnized by the Hon. and Eev. Mr. Spencer, 
 brother of Earl Spencer, and the Eev. Mr. Hall. The 
 ceremony was highly affecting, every individual present 
 having for years been ' linked in bonds of closest amity * 
 with the departed. 
 
 " Strangulated hernia was the proximate cause of poor 
 Lawless' s death, and the disease, though ultimately acute, 
 had been (if we may be pardoned the expression) consti- 
 tutionally chronic for some time. When Dr. Lawrence, 
 his medical attendant, suggested the absolute necessity of 
 
4 o8 APPENDIX. 
 
 submitting to an operation, the patient inquired ' whether 
 it was an affair of life or death ?' Dr. Lawrence answered, 
 ' That it might become so if prompt measures were not 
 adopted.' ' Then proceed, sir,' said Lawless ; ' delays are 
 dangerous, and I'm quite ready. I did hope that I might t 
 have had time to write to my wife and the boys ; but go 
 on, sir — I am prepared.' 
 
 "After the operation had been performed, the sufferer ral- 
 lied for a short time, and said, 'That Lawrence is a wonderful 
 fellow ; I am a better man by a thousand pounds.' His ' ruling 
 passion strong in death ' was powerfully developed. He 
 raised himself from his pillow, and with his wonted anima- 
 tion reprobated the conduct of the Middlesex electors 
 towards Hume, at the same time expressing his firm convic- 
 tion that * The Boys of Kilkenny' would do their duty. 
 A friend who sat by his bedside delicately hinted that 
 other subjects ought to engross his attention, and inquired 
 whether the reading of a prayer would be agreeable. 
 Lawless thanked the gentleman, and while in this com- 
 munion with his God he expired. 
 
 " No groan, no sigh to speak his soul's release." 
 
 It would be curious, considering the connexion which, 
 existed between Shelley and John Lawless in 1 8 1 % and 1 8 1 3, 
 if the Captain Eoberts, E.N., who attended the funeral of 
 Lawless in 1837, was the same Captain Eoberts, E.JS"., 
 who from the top of the lighthouse at Leghorn, on the 
 fatal 8th of July, 1822, watched with his eyeglass the 
 homeward track of Shelley's vessel until it disappeared in 
 the sudden storm which overwhelmed it. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ~\