[358] Autobiography, II, p. 59.
[359] After Shelley’s meeting with Byron in Switzerland in 1816, before they met again in Venice, there had been a lapse of two years bridged only by a not always pleasant correspondence relating to Allegra, Byron’s natural daughter. Shelley occupied the unenviable position of mediator between him and Jane Clairmont, the child’s mother. Yet when the two men met again in August, 1818, it was at first on the terms recorded in Julian and Maddalo. Byron’s influence served as a stimulus to this and to other poems of the same period. By December of that year Shelley’s opinion of Byron had changed; on the 22d, he wrote to Peacock of Childe Harold in terms that show how quickly his views could alter: “The spirit in which it is written, is, if insane, the most wicked and mischievous insanity that was ever given forth. It is a kind of obstinate and self-willed folly, in which he hardens himself. I remonstrated with him in vain on the tone of mind from which such a view of things alone arises.... He (Byron) associates with wretches who seem to have lost the gait and physiognomy of man, and who do not scruple to avow practices, which are not only not named, but I believe seldom even conceived in England. He says he disapproves, but he endures. He is heartily and deeply discontented with himself; and contemplating in the distorted mirror of his own thoughts the nature and destiny of man, what can he behold but objects of contempt and despair? But that he is a great poet, I think the address to Ocean proves. And he has a certain degree of candour while you talk to him, but unfortunately it does not outlast your departure. No, I do not doubt, and for his own sake, I ought to hope, that his present career must soon end in some violent circumstance.” (Works of Shelley, VIII, pp. 80-81.)
From the close of 1818 until 1821, they were again separated. Their correspondence, as previously, related chiefly to Allegra and was of a still less agreeable nature. Byron had refused to deal directly with Jane Clairmont and all communications had to pass through Shelley’s hands. In the interval, as though in retaliation, Byron had believed the Shiloh story, a fabrication by a nurse of the Shelleys that Jane Clairmont was Shelley’s mistress, but he does not seem to have condemned such a state of affairs. (Letters and Journals, V, p. 86, October, 1820.) Yet he testified in his letters his great admiration of Shelley’s poetry (Ibid., VI, p. 387), and after his death he called him “The best and least selfish man I ever knew.” (Ibid., VI, p. 98; August 3, 1822.) But before 1821, a reversal of the opinion formed in Shelley’s mind at the time of Byron’s Venetian excesses, came about. November 11, 1820, he wrote to Mrs. Hunt: “His indecencies, too, both against sexual nature, and against human nature in general, sit very awkwardly upon him. He only affects the libertine; he is, really, a very amiable, friendly and agreeable man, I hear.” (Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 139.) This corroborates Thornton Hunt’s statement that Byron had risen in Shelley’s estimation before 1821 and that otherwise The Liberal would never have been started. (Atlantic Monthly, February, 1863.)
At Byron’s invitation they met again in Ravenna. Shelley’s letters dated from there show unstinted admiration of Byron’s genius and of the man himself. He wrote in August, 1821, that he was living a “life totally the reverse of that which he led at Venice.... (Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 211, August 7, 1821.) L. B. is greatly improved in every respect. In genius, in temper, in moral views, in health, in happiness.... He has had mischievous passions, but these he seems to have subdued, and he is becoming what he should be, a virtuous man.... (Ibid., VIII, p. 217, August 10, 1821.) Lord Byron and I are excellent friends, and were I reduced to poverty, or were I a writer who had no claims to a higher station than I possess—or did I possess a higher than I deserve, we should appear in all things as such, and I would freely ask him any favour. Such is not now the case. The daemon of mistrust and pride lurks between two persons in our station, poisoning the freedom of our intercourse. This is a tax and a heavy one, which we must pay for being human.” Of Don Juan he wrote: “It sets him not only above, but far above, all the poets of the day—every word is stamped with immortality. I despair of rivalling Lord Byron, as well I may, and there is no other with whom it is worth contending. (Ibid., VIII, p. 219, August 10, 1821.) During the visit Shelley served as ambassador to the Countess Guiccioli in persuading her not to go to Switzerland, and in the same capacity to Byron in the arrangement of Allegra’s affairs. It was then settled that Byron should reside for the winter at Pisa. Shelley had misgivings about such an arrangement on his own and on Miss Clairmont’s account, for he had previously intended to settle in the same vicinity. He finally decided not to let it make any difference in his plans. In January, 1822, Shelley wrote from Pisa to Peacock: “Lord Byron is established here, and we are his constant companions. No small relief this, after the dreary solitude of the understanding and the imagination in which we passed the first years of our expatriation, yoked to all sorts of miseries and discomforts.... if you before thought him a great poet, what is your opinion now that you have read Cain?” (Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 249; January 11, 1822.) During the same month he wrote to John Gisborne: “What think you of Lord Byron now? Space wondered less at the swift and fair creations of God, when he grew weary of vacancy, than I at this spirit of an angel in the mortal paradise of a decaying body.” (Ibid., VIII, p. 251, January, 1822.)
A letter to Leigh Hunt gives the first intimation of the return of the ill-feeling toward Byron: “Past circumstances between Lord B. and me render it impossible that I should accept any supply from him for my own use, or that I should ask for yours if the contribution could be supposed in any manner to relieve me, or to do what I could otherwise have done.” (Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 253, January 25, 1822.) This referred to more entanglements with Byron about Allegra. Shelley wrote to Jane Clairmont: “It is of vital importance, both to me and yourself, to Allegra even, that I should put a period to my intimacy with Lord Byron, and that without éclat. No sentiments of honour and of justice restrain him (as I strongly suspect) from the basest suspicion, and the only mode in which I could effectually silence him I am reluctant (even if I had proof) to employ during my father’s life. But for your immediate feelings, I would suddenly and irrevocably leave the country which he inhabits, nor even enter it but as an enemy to determine our differences without words.” (The Nation, XLVIII, p. 116.)
[360] Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 258.
[361] Ibid., VIII, p. 235, August 26, 1821.
[362] Correspondence, I, p. 172, September 21, 1821.
[363] Ibid., I, p. 174, November 16, 1821.
[364] Byron, Letters and Journals, IV, p. 129, June 4, 1817.