LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 FKOM 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 TO 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY, 
 
 AND OTHER CORRESPONDENTS. 
 
 1886. 
 
 New York : Privately Printed, 
 
 [,Not for Sale.) 
 
" Most of the qualities of a good letter-writer were 
 combined in Shelley ^ and Fortune also favoured the 
 
 development of his genius in this direction If 
 
 that age [the nineteenth century\ had any master of 
 epistolary composition among its wonderful poets^ it 
 •was Shelley : Shelley or none." 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 To Robert Southey. 
 
 Messrs. Longdill & Co., 
 5, Gray's Inn Square, 
 March 'jth, 1816. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 I cannot refrain from presenting you 
 with a little poem [Alastor], the product 
 of a few serene hours of the last beauti- 
 ful autumn. I shall never forget the 
 pleasure which I derived from your 
 conversation, or the kindness with 
 which I was received in your hospit- 
 able circle during the short period of 
 my stay in Cumberland some years 
 ago. The disappointment of some 
 
4 SHELLEY'S LETTERS, 
 
 youthful hopes, and subsequent mis- 
 fortunes of a heavier nature, are all 
 that I can plead as my excuse for 
 neglecting to write to you, as I had 
 promised, from Ireland. The true 
 weight of this apology you cannot 
 know. Let it be sufficient that, re- 
 garding you with admiration as a poet, 
 and with respect as a man, I send you, 
 as an intimation of those sentiments, 
 my first serious attempt to interest the 
 best feeHngs of the human heart, be- 
 lieving that you have so much general 
 charity as to forget, like me, how widely 
 in moral and political opinions we dis- 
 agree, and to attribute that difference 
 to better motives than the multitude 
 are disposed to allege as the cause of 
 dissent from their institutions. 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Percy B. Shelley. 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS, 
 
 LETTER 11. 
 To Robert Southey. 
 
 Pisa, 
 June 261/1, 1820. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Some friends of mine persist in 
 affirming that you are the author of a 
 criticism which appeared some time 
 since in the Quarterly Review on the 
 Revolt of Islam. 
 
 I know nothing that would give me 
 more sincere pleasure than to be able.to 
 affirm from your own assurance that you 
 were not guilty of that writing, I con- 
 fess I see such strong internal evidence 
 against the charge, without reference 
 to what I think I know of the generous 
 sensibility of your character, that had 
 
6 SHELLEY S I^ETTERS. 
 
 my own conviction only been con- 
 cerned, I should never have troubled 
 you to deny what I firmly believe you 
 would have spurned to do. 
 
 Our short personal intercourse has 
 always been remembered by me with 
 pleasure ; and when I recalled the 
 enthusiasm with which I then con- 
 sidered your writings, with gratitude for 
 your notice, we parted, I think, with 
 feelings of mutual kindness. The 
 article in question, except in reference 
 to the possibility of its having been 
 written by you, is not worth a moment's 
 attention. 
 
 That an unprincipled hireling, in 
 default of what to answer in a published 
 composition, should, without provoca- 
 tion, insult over the domestic calamities 
 of a writer of the adverse party — to 
 which perhaps their victim dares scarce- 
 ly advert in thought — that he should 
 make those calamities the theme of the 
 foulest and the falsest slander — that all 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 7 
 
 this should be done by a calumniator 
 without a name — with the cowardice, 
 no less than the malignity, of an as- 
 sassin — is too common a piece of 
 charity among Christians (Christ would 
 have taught them better), too common 
 a violation of what is due from man to 
 man among the pretended friends of 
 social order, to have drawn one remark 
 from me, but that I would have you 
 observe the arts practised by that party 
 for which you have abandoned the 
 cause to which your early writings were 
 devoted. I had intended to have called 
 on you, for the purpose of saying what 
 I now write, on my return to England ; 
 but the wretched state of my health 
 detains me here, and I fear leaves my 
 enemy, were he such as I could deign 
 to contend with, an easy, but a base 
 victory, for I do not profess paper 
 warfare. But there is a time for all 
 things. 
 
 I regret to say that I shall consider 
 
8 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 your neglecting to answer this letter a 
 substantiation of the fact which it is in- 
 tended to settle — and therefore I shall 
 assuredly hear from you. 
 
 Dear sir, accept the best wishes of 
 Yours truly. 
 P. B. Shelley. 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 9 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 To Robert Southey. 
 
 Pisa, 
 
 August I'jth, 1820. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Allow me to acknowledge the sincere 
 pleasure which I received from the first 
 paragraph of your letter. The dis- 
 avowal it contained was just such as I 
 firmly anticipated. 
 
 Allow me also to assure you, that no 
 menace implied in my letter could 
 have the remotest application to your- 
 self. I am net indeed aware that it 
 contained any menace. I recollect 
 expressing what contempt I felt, in the 
 hope that you might meet the wretched 
 hireling who has so closely imitated 
 your style as to deceive all but those 
 who knew you into a beUef that he 
 
lo SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 was you, at Murray's, or somewhere, 
 and that you would inflict my letter on 
 him, as a recompense for sowing ill-will 
 between those who wish each other all 
 good, as you and I do. 
 
 I confess your recommendation to 
 adopt the system of ideas you call 
 Christianity has little weight with me, 
 whether you mean the popular super- 
 stition in all its articles, or some more 
 refined theory with respect to those 
 events and opinions which put an end 
 to the graceful religion of the Greeks. 
 To judge of the doctrines by their 
 effects, one would think that this 
 religion were called the religion of 
 Christ and Charity, ut lucus a non 
 lucendo, when I consider the manner 
 in which they seem to have transformed 
 the disposition and understanding of 
 you and men of the most amiable 
 manners and the highest accomplish- 
 ments, so that even when recommend- 
 ing Christianity you cannot forbear 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. ii 
 
 breathing out defiance against the 
 express words of Christ. What would 
 you have me think ? You accuse me, 
 on what evidence I cannot guess, of 
 guilt — a bold word, sir, this, and one 
 which would have required me to write 
 to you in another tone, had you 
 addressed it to anyone except myself. 
 Instead, therefore, of refraining from 
 "judging that you be not judged," you 
 not only judge, but condemn, and that 
 to a punishment which its victim must 
 be either among the meanest or the 
 loftiest not to regard as bitterer than 
 death. But you are such a pure one 
 as Jesus Christ found not in all Judea 
 to throw the first stone against the 
 woman taken in adultery ! 
 
 With what care do the most tyran- 
 nical courts of judicature weigh 
 evidence, and surround the accused 
 with protecting forms; with what re- 
 luctance do they pronounce their cruel 
 and presumptuous decisions compared 
 
12 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 with you ! You select a single passage 
 out of a life otherwise not only spotless 
 but spent in an impassioned pursuit of 
 virtue, which looks like a blot, merely 
 because I regulated my domestic ar- 
 rangements without deferring to the 
 notions of the vulgar, although I might 
 have done so quite as conveniently had 
 I descended to their base thoughts — 
 this you call guilt. I might answer 
 you in another manner, but I take God 
 to witness, if such a Being is now 
 regarding both you and me, and I 
 pledge myself if we meet, as perhaps 
 you expect, before Him after death, to 
 repeat the same in His presence — that 
 you accuse me wiongfully. I am 
 innocent of ill, either done or intended ; 
 the consequences you allude to flowed 
 in no respect from me. If you were 
 my friend, I could tell you a history 
 that would make you open your eyes ; 
 but I shall certainly never make the 
 public my familiar confidant. 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 13 
 
 You say you judge of opinions by 
 the fruits ; so do I, but by their remote 
 and permanent fruits — such fruits of 
 rash judgment as Christianity seems to 
 have produced in you. The im- 
 mediate fruits of all new opinions are 
 indeed calamity to the promulgators 
 and professors ; but we see the end 
 of nothing, and it is in acting well, 
 in contempt of present advantage, that 
 virtue consists. 
 
 I need not to be instructed that the 
 opinion of the ruling party to which 
 you have attached yourself always 
 exacts, contumeliously receives, and 
 never reciprocates, toleration. " But 
 there is a tide in the affairs of men " — 
 it is rising while we speak. 
 
 Another specimen of your Christianity 
 is the judgement you form of the spirit 
 of my verses, from the abuse of the 
 Reviews. I have desired Mr. Oilier to 
 send you those last published ; they 
 may amuse you, for one of them — in- 
 
14 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 deed, neither have anything to do with 
 those speculations on which we differ. 
 
 I cannot hope that you will be candid 
 enough to feel, or if you feel, to own, 
 that you have done ill in accusing, 
 even in your mind, an innocent and 
 a persecuted man, whose only real 
 offence is the holding opinions some- 
 thing similar to those which you once 
 held respecting the existing state of 
 society. Without this, further corre- 
 spondence, the object for which I 
 renewed it being once obtained, must, 
 from the differences in our juggment, be 
 irksome and useless. I hope some day 
 to meet you in London, and ten 
 minutes' conversation is worth ten 
 folios of writing. Meanwhile assure 
 yourself that, among all your good 
 wishers, you have none who wish you 
 better than, dear Sir, 
 
 Your very faithful and 
 
 Obedient servant, 
 
 P. B. Shelley. 
 
p 
 
 SHELLEY'S LETTERS, 15 
 
 P.S. I ought not to omit that I 
 have had sickness enough, and that at 
 this moment I have so severe a pain in 
 the side that I can hardly write. All this 
 is of no account in the favour of what 
 you, or anyone else, calls Christianity ; 
 surely it would be better to wish me 
 health and healthful sensations. / hope 
 the chickens will not come home to 
 roost ! 
 
1 6 SHELLEY'S LETTERS, 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 To Mr. Kitchener. 
 
 Nantgwillt, Rhayader, 
 Radnorshire, South Wales, 
 [Thursdayl April zoth, 1812. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I am your daughter's friend, of whom 
 you may have heard her speak. You 
 will consider it a sufficient introduction 
 when her peace of mind is the subject 
 of this intrusion. 
 
 The late letters which I have received 
 from my friend have evinced consider- 
 able distress of mind, arising from 
 reports circulated to the disadvantage 
 of her reputation, which reports appear 
 not to be without connexion with me 
 and my little circle. It was not until 
 we had determined on the plan of 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 17 
 
 living together, of pursuing conjointly 
 those avocations for which we had 
 severally acquired a taste, that any of 
 these calumnies reached her ears : and 
 they would have passed unremarked by 
 her and me, in the silence of merited 
 contempt, if some infatuation had not 
 gained them a sufficient degree of credit 
 from you to disapprove of the plan on 
 which we had determined. 
 
 Sir, my moral character is unim- 
 peached and unimpeachable. I hate 
 not calumny so much as I despise it. 
 What the world thinks of my actions 
 ever has, and I trust ever will be, a 
 matter of the completest indifference. 
 Your daughter shares this sentiment 
 with me ; and we both are resolved to 
 refer our actions to one tribunal only — 
 that which Nature has implanted within 
 us. I am married. My wife loves your 
 daughter : she laughs at whatever the 
 scandal of a few gossips out of employ- 
 ment might whisper, nor is she willing 
 
i8 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 to sacrifice the inestimable society of 
 her friend to the good opinion of the 
 good people of Hurst or Horsham 
 at the tea-party or card-table assembled. 
 So far as myself and Mrs. Shelley are 
 concerned, we are irrevocably resolved 
 that no expedient shall be left untried 
 on our part to induce our friend to 
 share the prosperity or adversity of her 
 lot with us. Much as the strong affec- 
 tion which she bears you has prejudiced 
 me in your favour, yet I would take my 
 own opinion, particularly when it springs 
 from my reasonings and feelings, before 
 that of any man. And you will forfeit 
 the esteem I have thus acquired for 
 your character if you endeavour by 
 parental command to change the de- 
 cisions of a free-born soul. 
 
 I understand that there is woven in 
 the composition of your character a 
 jealous watchfulness over the encroach- 
 ments of those who happen to be born 
 to more wealth and name than your- 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 19 
 
 self : you are perhaps right. It need 
 not be exerted now. / have no taste 
 for displaying genealogies, nor do I 
 wish to seem more important than 
 I am. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 P. B. Shelley. 
 
20 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 To Mr. Kitchener. 
 
 Nantgwillt, Rhayader, 
 
 Radnorshire, South Wales, 
 
 [Thtirsdayl May 14//?, 18 12. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 If you have always considered 
 character a possession of the first con- 
 sequence, you and 1 essentially differ. 
 If you think that an admission of your 
 inferiority to the world leaves any cor- 
 ner by which yourself and character 
 may aspire beyond its reach, we differ 
 there again. In short, to be candid, I 
 am deceived in my conception of your 
 character. 
 
 I had some difficulty in stifling an 
 indignant surprise on reading the sen- 
 tence of your letter in which you refuse 
 my invitation to your daughter. How 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 21 
 
 are you entitled to do this ? Who made 
 you her governor? Did you receive 
 this refusal from her, to communicate 
 to me ? No, you have not. How are 
 you then constituted to answer a ques- 
 tion which can only be addressed to 
 her 2 Believe me, such an assumption 
 is as impotent as it is immoral. You 
 may cause your daughter much anxiety, 
 many troubles; you may stretch her 
 on a bed of sickness ; you may destroy 
 her body : — but you are defied to shake 
 her mind. She is now very ill. You 
 have agitated her mind until her frame 
 is seriously deranged. Take care, sir : 
 you may destroy her by disease, but her 
 mind is free : that you cannot hurt. 
 
 Your ideas of propriety — or, to ex- 
 press myself clearer, of morals — are 
 all founded on considerations oi profit. 
 I do not mean money, but profit in 
 its extended sense. 
 
 As to your daughter's welfare, — in 
 that she is competent to judge ; or at 
 
22 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 least she alone has a right to decide. 
 With respect to your own comfort, you 
 of course do right to consult it : that 
 she has done so, you ought to be more 
 grateful than ycu appear. But how 
 can you demand as a right what has been 
 generously conceded as a favour ? You 
 do right to consult your own comfort, 
 but the whole world besides may surely 
 be excused. Neither the laws of Nature 
 nor of England have made children 
 private property. 
 
 Adieu. When next I hear from you, 
 I hope that time will have liberalized 
 your sentiments. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 P. B. Shelley. 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 23 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 To Hamilton Rowan. 
 
 Dublin, 
 
 7 Lower Sackville St., 
 [Tuesdayl February 2$/ A, 18 1 2. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Although I have not the pleasure of 
 being personally known to you, I con- 
 sider the motives which actuated me in 
 writing the enclosed sufficiently intro- 
 ductory to authorize me in sending you 
 some copies, and waiving ceremonials 
 in a case where public benefit is con- 
 cerned. 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 
 
\ 
 
 m 
 
 0' 
 
 24 SHELLEY'S I^ETTERS. 
 
 aid her in the unequal yet sacred com- 
 bat 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 vul- 
 garized 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. 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 25 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 Chevalier James de Laurence. 
 
 Lynmouth, Barnstaple, Devon, 
 August I'jth, 181 2. 
 Sir, 
 
 I feel peculiar satisfaction in seizing 
 the opportunity, which your politeness 
 places in my power, of expressing to 
 you (personally, as I may say) a high 
 acknowledgment of my sense of your 
 talents and principles, which, before I 
 conceived it possible that I should ever 
 know you, I sincerely entertained. Your 
 Empire of the Nairs^ which I read this 
 spring, succeeded in making me a per- 
 fect convert to its doctrines. I then 
 retained no doubts of the evils of mar- 
 riage — Mrs. Wollstonecraft reasons too 
 
26 SHELLEY'S LETTERS, 
 
 well for that ; but I had been dull 
 enough not to perceive the greatest 
 argument against it, until developed in 
 the Nairs^ viz : prostitution both legal 
 and illegal. 
 
 I am a young man not yet of age, 
 and have now been married a year to 
 a woman younger than myself. Love 
 seems inclined to stay in the " prison ; " 
 and my only reason for putting him in 
 chains, whilst convinced of the unholi- 
 ness of the act, was a knowledge that 
 in the present state of society, if Love 
 is not thus villainously treated, she who 
 is most loved will be treated worse by a 
 misjudging world. In short, seduction, 
 which term could have no meaning 
 in a rational society, has now a most 
 tremendous one: the fictitious merit 
 attached to chastity has made that a 
 forerunner of the most terrible of ruins 
 which in Malabar would be a pledge 
 of honour and homage. If there is any 
 enormous and desolating crime of 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 27 
 
 which I should shudder to be accused, 
 it is seduction. 
 
 I need not say how much I admire 
 Love; and, little as a British public 
 seems to appreciate its merit, in never 
 permitting it to emerge from a first 
 edition, it is with satisfaction I find that 
 justice has conceded abroad what 
 bigotry has denied at home. 
 
 I shall take the liberty of sending 
 you any little publication I may give to 
 the world. Mrs. S. joins with me 
 hoping, if we come to London this 
 winter, we may be favoured with the 
 personal friendship of one whose writ- 
 ings we have learned to esteem. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
28 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 To Mr. Hume. 
 
 Pisa, 
 February, \*jth, 1820. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I regret exceedingly that a mistake 
 occasioned by a temporary pressure of 
 affairs should have caused the annuity 
 awarded to my children to have re- 
 mained a quarter in arrear. If you 
 will take the trouble to present the 
 enclosed note to my friend Mr. Smith 
 of the Stock Exchange any day after 
 the 25 th of March, that quarter, to- 
 gether with the quarter in arrear, w^ill 
 be paid ; and such measures are taken 
 as will prevent any possible future mis- 
 understanding on the subject. 
 
 Allow me to take this opportunity of 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 29 
 
 enquiring into the present state of 
 the health and intellectual improve- 
 ment of my children. I feel assured, 
 although I have not the pleasure of a 
 personal acquaintance with you, that 
 you will excuse and comply with this 
 request of a father who is the victim of 
 the unexampled oppression of being for- 
 bidden the exercise of his parental 
 duties ; suffering in his own person the 
 violation of those rights and those ties 
 which until this instance the fiercest 
 religious persecutions had ever con- 
 sidered sacred. I only advert to my 
 own wrongs — for the hour of redress is 
 yet to arrive — that I may anticipate the 
 gratitude which I shall owe to yourself 
 and Mrs. Hume for the kindness and 
 attention with which you doubtless 
 perform all those (duties I can hardly 
 call them) to my unfortunate children, 
 except those which none but a parent 
 can perform. I doubt not when they 
 shall be restored to me but that the 
 
30 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 period which they have spent under 
 your care will be remembered both 
 by them and by me as having in 
 some degree softened the inevitable 
 ill of this unnatural separation. 
 
 Pray render acceptable to Mrs. 
 Hume my best compts. 
 
 I remain, Sir, 
 
 Your obliged and obedient servant, 
 Percy B. Shelley. 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 To William Laing. 
 
 London, 
 September, 2^1/1, 18 15. 
 
 Mr. William Laing, 
 
 Bookseller, Edinburgh. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 On unpacking the books which 
 arrived from Edinburgh, I discover the 
 following have been omitted, doubt- 
 less thro' mistake : 
 
 Drummond's Academical Questions. 
 
 Euripides Hippolytus (Marsh.) 
 
 Euripides Heraclida Elmslen. 
 
 Hoogeran de Porticulis. 
 I should feel myself much obliged if 
 
32 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 you would send these books, which 
 have undoubtedly been mislaid and 
 confounded with yours — addressed to 
 me at Mr. Hookham, Old Bond 
 Street. 
 
 Your obedient Servt. 
 
 P. B. Shelley. 
 
SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 33 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 26 Marchmont Street, 
 
 Brunswick Square, 
 
 April 24M, 1 8 16. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 In reply to the proposal made by you 
 some months since to me on the part 
 of Dr. Bethune, I wrote the other day 
 to say that I would sell him the rever- 
 sion at a fair price. In answer to your 
 request as to the nature of the title I 
 can convey accept the following state- 
 ment. The estates of which this of 
 Dr. Bethune is a part are given, by 
 settlements dated August 1 791, to my 
 father for life to me in remainder. On 
 my father's death by recovery I obtain 
 the fee of these estates. I can make a 
 deed which shall be binding upon my- 
 self in case I survive my father, and 
 which shall be binding upon my infant 
 
34 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. 
 
 son if I do not survive my father, either 
 to alienate any particular estate, or to 
 pay a certain sum of money. I have 
 levied a fine and acquired this power, 
 which I believe is called a base fecy 
 which as I have before stated I am 
 fully competent to convey. If I and 
 my infant son should die before my 
 father the security falls to the ground. 
 But Dr. B. or any person might in- 
 sure my life against my father's to 
 whatever amount he should be bene- 
 ficially interested. He need sustain no 
 loss in any case ; and would only fail in 
 his object of obtaining possession of 
 the farm in question, if, what is very 
 improbable, my father should survive 
 not only me, but both myself and my 
 infant son. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 Your very obliged servant, 
 Percy B. Shelley. 
 
PM.3-^3J 
 
H'r