PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.*

THE author of this work having claimed to be the sole possessor of "data absolutely requisite for tracing Shelley's genius from its first germ up to its maturity, and forming an impartial judgment of his character," we sat down to its perusal, hoping to derive much fresh information respecting the remarkable person of whom he writes, and whose history and fate are so deeply interesting and affecting. Candour, however, constrains us to state that we have been in this respect greatly disappointed. The book is valuable. But what is really new and worth reading in it, with reference to Shelley, relates chiefly to his early life. The circumstances in which he was placed in his childhood and youth, were peculiarly unfavourable to the healthy development of his mind and affections. And to their unhappy influence may undoubtedly be traced most of the errors into which he fell, and much of the misery which he suffered. His parents were neither of them fitted to have the management of a temperament such as he possessed. His father is described as having been "a disciple of Chesterfield and Larochefoucauld, reducing all politeness to forms, and moral virtue to expediency." A more unamiable and repulsive man than Sir Timothy Shelley, we can scarcely imagine. It was impossible that his son could respect his character. And when we remember the example which Shelley saw at home, and his want of religious education, we cannot wonder at the sceptical tendencies which so early manifested themselves in him, and that he should have grown up with the impression that religion was identical with superstition. He beheld nothing but formality and practical infidelity, when he was young, around him, and, afterwards, "looking upon religion as it is professed, and above all practised, as hostile, instead of friendly, to the cultivation of those virtues that would make men brethren, he raised his voice against it, though, by so doing, he was perfectly aware of the odium he would incur, of the martyrdom to which he doomed himself."

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place, in Sussex, on the 4th of August, 1792. Until he was ten years old, he was taught at home, with his sisters, to whom he was warmly attached, by a kindhearted, but weak, Welch clergyman, whose name was Edwards. He was then sent to a school at Brentford, which was kept by a Scotch doctor of law and a divine, who is said to have been " a choleric man, of a sanguinary complexion, in a green old age, not wanting in good qualities, but very capricious in his temper, which, good or bad, was influenced by the daily occurrences of a domestic life not the most harmonious, and of which his face was the barometer and his hand the index." Such a teacher was not at all suited to a lad like Shelley; and Captain Medwin, who was his schoolfellow, informs us, that "Zion House" was a perfect hell to him. Sensitive, imaginative, and accustomed to the society and amusements of his sisters, he disliked the rough habits and boisterous sports of the boys, and refused to join them on the play-ground. And they, in their turn, when they found

The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. By Thomas Medwin. In 2 vols. London: T. C. Newby, 72, Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square. 1847.

that he was ignorant of their games, and had no love "of peg-top, or marbles, or leap-frog, or hop-scotch, or fives and crickets," made him the object of their derision. They had no sympathy with him in his musings or his sorrows, and he had often much to bear from their rudeness and tyranny. Though he did not seem to study, he acquired the dead languages easily, and his wonderfully tenacious memory enabled him easily to retain whatever he acquired.

From Brentford, Shelley was sent to Eton. There, we are told, he refused to fag, and again suffered from masters and boys in every way. But his was not a spirit to be broken by oppression, and the cruelty and injustice to which he was exposed only confirmed him the more strongly in his rebellion against usages which he deemed inhuman and degrading. He does not appear to have derived much advantage, or to have made many intimacies, at Eton. In the year 1810, he went to Oxford, and entered University College, at the commencement of Michaelmas term, at the end of October. The details of his academical career are brief and painful. In his earliest boyhood he had been sceptically inclined, and his course of reading and thinking, desultory and exciting as it was, had served rather to increase, than to lessen or remove the doubts and difficulties which his intellectual speculations occasioned. And now, in his nineteenth year, in conjunction with a College friend, he wrote and printed a little book, which was not, however, published, entitled "The Necessity of Atheism." It was an anonymous production, the fruit of an undisciplined mind, which was not naturally adapted to the steady and careful investigation of truth, and which required the aid of a stronger, clearer, and more thoroughly informed understanding to guide it through the mazes into which it had wandered. There can be no question that Shelley and his friend were guilty of a reckless and improper proceeding with regard to the publication and circulation of their syllabus. But, however dangerous the errors into which they had fallen, Shelley, as was ever the case with him, was thoroughly honest and sincere. He wished that his opinions might be investigated, and though guilty of a breach of the College regulations, he was not chargeable with wickedness. It was an act attended with the most serious consequences.

"It was a fine spring morning, on Lady-day, in the year 1811, when,' observes Mr. Hogg, I went to Shelley's rooms; he was absent, but before I had collected our books he rushed in. He was terribly agitated. I anxiously inquired what had happened. I am expelled!' he said, as soon as he had recovered himself a little-'I am expelled! I was sent for suddenly a few minutes ago-I went to the common room, where I found our master and two or three of his fellows. The master produced a copy of the litttle syllabus, and asked me if I was the author of it; he spoke in a rude, abrupt and insolent tone. I begged to be informed for what purpose they put the question;-no answer was given, but the master loudly and angrily repeated, 'Are you the author of this book?' If I can judge from your manner, I said, you are resolved to punish me, if I should acknowledge that it is my work. If you can prove that it is, produce your evidence; it is neither just nor lawful to interrogate me in such a case, and for such a purpose. Such proceedings would become a court of Inquisitors, but not free men in a free country. Do you choose to deny that this is your composition?' the master reiterated, in the same rude and angry voice.'

"Shelley complained much of his violent and ungentlemanlike deportment, saying, I have experienced tyranny and injustice before, and I well know what vulgar virulence is, but I never met with such unworthy treatment. I told him calmly but firmly that I was determined not to answer any questions respecting the book on the table-he immediately repeated his demand; I persisted in my refusal, and he said furiously, Then you are expelled, and I desire that you will quit the College to-morrow morning at the latest.' One of the fellows took up two papers and handed me one of them; here it is:' he produced a regular sentence of expulsion, drawn up in due form under the seal of the College.

"Shelley was full of spirit and courage, frank and fearless; but he was likewise shy, unpresuming, and eminently sensitive. I have been with him on many trying occasions of his after-life, but I never saw him so cruelly agitated as on this occasion. A nice sense of honour shrinks from the most distant touch of disgrace-even from the insults of those men whose contumely can bring no shame. He sat on the sofa, repeating with convulsive vehemence the words, 'Expelled!-expelled!'-his head shaking with emotion, his whole frame quivering."

Shelley and his friend, thus harshly and summarily driven from Oxford, went to London; and Captain Medwin gives a painfully interesting account of his interview with the former, on his arrival in the metropolis.

"I remember, as if it occurred yesterday, his knocking at my door in Garden Court, in the Temple, at four o'clock in the morning, the day after his expulsion. I think I hear his cracked voice, with his well-known pipe, -Medwin, let me in-I am expelled;' here followed a sort of loud, halfhysteric laugh, and a repetition of the words-'I am expelled,' with the addition of, for Atheism.' Though greatly shocked, I was not much surprised at the news, having been led to augur such a close to his collegiate career, from the Syllabus' and 'The Posthumous Works of Peg Nicholson,' *and the bold avowal of his scepticism. My apprehensions, too, of the consequences of this unhappy event, from my knowledge of Sir Timothy's character, were soon confirmed; nor was his partner in misfortune doomed to a milder fate. Their fathers refused to receive them under their roofs. Like the old men in Terence, they compared notes, and hardened each other's hearts. This unmitigable hatred was continued down to the death of both. One had not the power of carrying his worldly resentment beyond the grave, but the other not only never forgave, or I believe ever would see his eldest son (for such he was, and presumptive heir to a large fortune), but cut him off, speaking after the manner of the Roman law, with a shilling."

It is hardly possible not to think, in pondering this portion of Shelley's history, how different might have been his course in afterlife, if a more judicious, and, we must add, a more Christian, line of conduct had been pursued towards him. If, instead of being cruelly and hastily banished from the University, his teachers had sent for him, and calmly and affectionately pointed out to him the manner in which he had broken the rules of his College,-endeavoured to shew him the unsoundness of his metaphysics,-set plainly before him the fallacy of his conclusions,-advised him as to the best books to be

While at Oxford, Shelley published a volume of Poems under the title of "The Posthumous Works of my Aunt Margaret Nicholson," a name derived from a mad washerwoman, who tried to stab George III. with a carving-knife. It consisted only of a few pages, but was printed in a way to attract attention, and sang of liberty in incoherent strains.

studied, and shewed a proper concern for his welfare,-we have but little doubt that one so open and ingenuous, and so alive to kindness, as Shelley, would have been sorry for the presumption and impropriety of his conduct, and we think it probable that an entire change might have been wrought in his views. As it was, the harsh and unfeeling manner of his expulsion made him cling to the opinions for which he was so severely punished, and fastened him to them for life. The bigotry of Oxford, the enduring frown of his father, the general denunciations of the public press, all contributed to harden him in his unbelief, and to inspire him with a deep and lasting aversion to Christianity,-at least in its popular forms and manifestations, -and to its ministers and professors.

It has long been our conviction that the increase of scepticism and infidelity in the Christian world, is very much to be attributed to the unwise and uncandid manner in which those who are suspected of a departure from what are called orthodox standards of faith, are regarded. Speculative difficulties will sometimes present themselves to the intellect, in connection with religious subjects, when the heart is right with God; and they ought not to place him who is harassed with them beyond the reach of our respect and love. We do not mean to represent that sceptical persons are always themselves blameless for their unsettled state of mind. This would be a very foolish affectation of liberality. There are unquestionably causes of doubt and unbelief which imply the existence of culpable habits and dispositions. But the history of many a good man's mental struggles proves that there may be doubt and hesitation respecting the truth and authority of Revelation, where there is no positive, deliberate wickedness. We will not profess to witness such a state of mind, in any human being, with indifference. No serious and consistent Christian can fail to lament it deeply, especially in any for whose virtue and happiness he feels a lively interest. But we are persuaded that if all who are strong in their convictions of the divine origin of the gospel, were only careful to treat those who have not their firm faith in a truly Christian spirit, there would be much less scepticism in society than now exists. It is wonderful that professing Christians should not more generally see and feel that persecution, in all the various forms which it has assumed, has almost always had the effect of sealing the mind against the opinions which the individual is coerced to embrace. And they who employ it, display their want of what is, after all, greater than faith,-the divine principle of Charity. The effects of a stern, denunciatory temper, upon persons inclined to scepticism, are often of the saddest kind, and, as in the case of Shelley, frequently produce life-long injury. The sense of wrong rankles in the mind, and renders it averse to further inquiry. And the bigotry and unreasonableness of a narrow sectarianism, are ascribed, alas! to the pure religion of Jesus,-a religion emphatically of long-suffering and of love.

At the time of Shelley's expulsion from the University, he was warmly attached to a young lady, Miss Grove, with whom, he was immediately informed, he must hold no further communication. All tender ties between them were severed, her family, and she herself, shrinking from the idea of her union with an Atheist. In the month of

August, 1811, Shelley eloped with the daughter of a London hotelkeeper, and a schoolfellow of one of his sisters. She was only sixteen years of age, and utterly unsuited to him. They had not met half-adozen times before their marriage. They were entirely unacquainted with each other's dispositions, habits or pursuits. It was an ill-judged step, and was attended with bitter results. In 1813, they separated, and in 1816, she drowned herself,-an event which cost Shelley a fit of insanity. During her life, the children who were the fruits of the union had remained with the family of their mother; and after her death, by a decree of the Court of Chancery, Lord Eldon, on account of their father's Atheism, gave the custody of them to the maternal grandfather, a decision which was acutely felt by Shelley. Two years before this, he had gone abroad with two ladies, one of whom, the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wolstoncroft, the present Mrs. Shelley, as soon as it was in his power, he married. At Geneva, they met Lord Byron, a man with whose character and conduct, selfish and profligate as they were, Shelley, however far his notions of moral propriety, and some of his actions, were from what is right, could not have had any sympathy. He lived six years after his second marriage, travelling from place to place, at home and abroad; abstemious in his habits; fond of study; writing poetry which critics abused, and but few purchased; adored by his wife and those to whom he was really known; performing, occasionally, the most kind and generous actions; making sacrifices, as he had ever been ready to do, for the good of others; cherishing a fellow-feeling with the poor and the oppressed; and indulging hopes of better and happier times for the cause of liberty, civil and religious, such as he had from his youth delighted to cherish.

In the autumn of 1820, Captain Medwin saw him, after nearly seven years' separation, and he says,

"I should immediately have recognized him in a crowd. His form was emaciated, and somewhat bent, owing to near-sightedness, and his being forced to lean over his books with his eyes almost touching them; his hair, still profuse and curling naturally, was partially interspersed with gray; but his appearance was youthful, and his countenance, whether grave or animated, strikingly intellectual. There was also a freshness and purity in his complexion which he never lost."

The following extract gives an interesting account of the poet's manner of life during that winter. He was subject to great prostration, though never querulous or out of temper, and never by an irritable word wounding the feelings of those about him.

"He was ever, indeed, engaged in composition or reading, scarcely allowing himself time for exercise or air; a book was his companion the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. He told me he always read himself to sleep. Even when he walked on the Argine, his favourite winter walk,-he read, and sometimes through the streets, and he generally had a book on the table by his side at dinner, if his abstemious meal could be called one. So little impression did that which contributes one of the main delights of ordinary mortals, make on him, that he sometimes asked, 'Mary, have I dined?' Wine he never drank; water, which is super-excellent at Pisa, being his chief beverage. . . . At times he was sportive as his child, (with whom he would play by the hour on the floor,) and his wit flowed in a continuous stream,-not that broad humour which is so