In the first of these letters (a letter dated from Keswick on 3rd January, 1812, though it is one of the many blunders of Mr. Kegan Paul’s book about Godwin to insist that it was written from Keswick ten months before Shelley set foot in the place) Shelley assures the addressee of the epistle that ‘the name of Godwin has been used to excite in him feelings of reverence and admiration;’ that he has been ‘accustomed to consider’ the sublime Godwin as ‘a luminary too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him;’ and that after long regarding the sublime Godwin regretfully as one of ‘the honourable dead,’ as a personage ‘the glory of whose being had passed from this earth of ours,’ he has learned with ‘inconceivable emotions’ that so great a benefactor of his species still has an earthly existence and an earthly habitation in Skinner Street, in the City of London. ‘It is not so,’ ejaculates the writer of the adulatory epistle; ‘you still live, and, I firmly believe, are still planning the welfare of human kind.’ It was in this strain of extravagant and obsequious reverence that Shelley approached, in January, 1812, the man whose house he entered some months later, whose hospitality he accepted freely as it was proffered, and whose sixteen-years-old daughter he lured into Free Love two and a half years later. It is also well for the reader to know and remember, that at the time of writing this characteristic epistle, the singularly truth-loving Shelley had not recently discovered with inconceivable emotion that Godwin was still living and following his trade in Skinner Street. The evidences are clear that the sentimental words about the writer’s regret for the death of the too dazzling luminary were untrue words.
The dazzling luminary, who would perhaps have left the letter unanswered, had not its adulation tickled his self-complacence agreeably, replied in terms that caused the young enthusiast to produce an autobiographic fragment for his correspondent’s enlightenment. Writing from Keswick on 10th January, 1812, to the philosopher of Skinner Street, Shelley (after the customary announcement of his filial relation to ‘a man of fortune in Sussex’) remarks that his habits of thinking never coincided with his father’s habits of thinking; that it was his misfortune in childhood to be ‘required to love, because it was his duty to love’ his father, a system of coercion which, of course, rendered it impossible for him to love his father; and that he published his two novels (St. Irvyne and Zastrozzi) before he was seventeen years of age,—a statement not a little wide of historic truth. Instead of publishing these books when he was at Eton, and only sixteen years of age, he was seventeen years and ten months old when he published the earlier story, and eighteen years and four months old when he published the later tale, both romances having appeared whilst he was a member of University College, Oxford. These inaccuracies are followed in the letter by a more remarkable example of the writer’s inaccuracy in statements touching his personal affairs. Representing that he read Godwin’s Political Justice, and adopted its views, whilst he was at Eton, he adds, ‘No sooner had I formed the principles which I now profess than I was anxious to disseminate their benefits. This was done without the slightest caution. I was twice expelled, but recalled by the interference of my father.’ All this is represented to have taken place at Eton before he ‘went to Oxford;’ yet it is certain that he never published anything controversial on the questions raised in the Political Justice whilst he was at Eton, and no less certain that he was not twice expelled from the school for doing so. Though he left Eton prematurely, and with a bad name, his dismissal from the school differed so widely from expulsion, that he would not have been justified in speaking of himself as having been expelled once.
In the same letter (of 10th January, 1812, to Godwin) Shelley says of the circumstances of his expulsion from Oxford,
‘I printed a pamphlet, avowing my opinions and its occasion.... Mr. ——, at Oxford, among others, had the pamphlet; he showed it to the Master and the Fellows of University College, and I was sent for. I was informed that in case I denied the publication, no more would be said. I refused and was expelled.’
It is scarcely needful for me to remind the readers of this work, that the collegiate authorities never told him he could escape punishment by disclaiming the publication; never urged him to deny the publication; never expelled him for refusing to deny it. The whole statement is untrue in every particular. What made him pen these untruths, with or without cognizance of their absolute untruthfulness? Ever taking the most charitable view of his friend’s most perplexing infirmity, Hogg maintains that Shelley had no intention of misstating the case when he misstated it so egregiously.
‘This is incorrect,’ says Hogg; ‘no such offer was made, no such information was given; but musing on the affair, as he was wont, he dreamed that the proposal had been declined by him, and thus he had the gratification of believing that he was more of a martyr than he really was.’
Yet further Shelley writes in the same delusive style in the same epistle:—
‘It will be necessary, in order to elucidate this part of my history, to inform you that I am heir by entail to an estate of £6000 per annum.... My father has ever regarded me as a blot, a defilement of his honour. He wished to induce me by poverty to accept of some commission in a distant regiment, and in the interim of my absence to prosecute the pamphlet, that a process of outlawry might make the estate on his death devolve to my younger brother. These are the leading points of the history of the man before you.... I am married to a woman whose views are similar to my own. To you, as the regulator and former of my mind, I must ever look with real respect and veneration.’
Readers should notice and remember each of the several untruthful statements of this extract. (1) It was untrue that the Squire of Field Place had ‘ever regarded’ his son ‘as a blot and defilement of his honour.’ (2) It was untrue that the Squire had endeavoured to force his son to accept a commission in a distant regiment in order that, during his absence on military service, he might deprive him by legal process of his birthright to the advantage of his younger brother. (3) It was untrue that the Squire had put pressure on his son to enter the army, though it has been suggested by one of the poet’s several friendly biographers that, soon after his expulsion from Oxford, it may perhaps have been suggested to the unruly boy that he should adopt the military profession, like his cousin Tom Medwin, who went from the University into a cavalry regiment. (4) The father who had dealt so leniently and tenderly with his son on first hearing of his academic disgrace, never for an instant entertained a thought of compassing the prosecution of the author and printer of the scandalous tract. Of the malicious purpose and scheme, attributed to the kindly though irascible Squire of Field Place by the boy to whom he had been a considerate and good father, Hogg says justly:—
‘It is only in a dream that the prosecution, outlawry, and devolution of the estate could find place. The narration of such proceedings would have been too strong and strange for a German romance; it would have been too large a requisition upon the reader’s credulity to ask him to credit them in the father of Zastrozzi....’