Unaware how completely Godwin had abandoned certain of his earlier views respecting wedlock (i.e. (1) that in the existing state of English society the existence of mutual love was a sufficient sanction of the conjugal association of a man and woman; (2) that where such love existed it was better for spouses to live together in the liberty of Free Love than in the bondage of lawful marriage; and (3) that the institution of lawful matrimony was a demoralizing interference with the liberty of individuals), Shelley regarded his marriage as a domestic incident, from which he would suffer in the philosopher’s esteem, unless he were duly informed of the considerations which had determined Harriett’s husband to accommodate his conjugal arrangements to the prejudices of society. But though he wrote thus apologetically of his marriage, in order to place himself higher in the philosopher’s favour, Shelley wrote honestly. From his Eton days he had been a favourer of Free Love. But for Hogg, he would have taken Harriett to his embrace without marrying her. He did not relinquish his purpose of uniting himself to her in the loose and easy fashion, until Hogg had made him see the enormity of the disadvantages that would ensue to him and her from the arrangement. The principal reasons he gave in January, 1812, for having married her were the same reasons he gave in the previous August for determining to marry her.
Another thing to be noticed in this statement to Godwin is its evidence how precisely he saw, and how fully he realized, the shameful character of the position held by a woman living conjugally with a man not her lawful husband,—the position in which he, ere long, placed his intimate friend’s sixteen-years-old daughter. Whilst the male partner of such an association merely acquired a reputation for gallantry and spirit, the female lost all title to social respect. Whilst he became the gallant keeper of a mistress, she became nothing less contemptible than a kept mistress. The youngster of birth and breeding, who saw this in the January of 1812, saw it no less clearly in the summer of 1814, when he determined to become the gallant keeper of a mistress, and, in violation of one of the most sacred laws of hospitality, prevailed on his intimate friend’s sixteen-years-old daughter to accept the position of a mistress.
Shelley did not leave Keswick without a plan for making away with time agreeably in the ensuing summer, when he should have emancipated the Irish Catholics, repealed the Act of Union, and withdrawn from the land he had endowed with perpetual felicity. On 16th January, 1812, he wrote to Godwin: ‘In the summer we shall be in the north of Wales. Dare I hope that you will come to see us? Perhaps this would be an unfeasible neglect of your avocations. I shall hope it until you forbid me.’ Twelve days later (28th January, 1812), whilst referring lightly to this project for a meeting in Wales, Shelley ventured to express his hope that in the ensuing summer he and Harriett would entertain Mr. and Mrs. Godwin, and their children, in the same romantic spot, where it was their purpose to receive another ‘most dear friend.’ This ‘most dear friend’ was Miss Eliza Hitchener of Hurstpierpoint in Sussex, whose acquaintance Shelley had formed whilst staying under his Uncle Pilford’s roof at Cuckfield.
Philosopher, Deist, and Republican, Miss Eliza Hitchener kept a school for little girls at Hurstpierpoint, and seems to have enjoyed, in her particular parish of Sussex, a larger measure of social respect than was accorded to her father, the keeper of a public-house in the same neighbourhood, who had been in some way or other concerned in the contraband trade of the Sussex coast, before he changed his name from Yorke to Tichener and joined the noble army of licensed victuallers. Thus much was discovered about Miss Hitchener and her father from the letter, written by Joint-Postmaster-General, the Earl of Chichester, to the Secretary of the General Post Office on 5th April, 1812:—‘Miss Hichener,’ the Earl wrote, ‘of Hurstpierpoint, keeps a school there, and is well spoken of; her Father keeps a Publick House in the neighbourhood; he was originally a smugler, and changed his name from Yorke to Tichener, before he took the Publick House.’ The statesman, who spelt smuggler with a single ‘g,’ and described Mrs. Shelley as ‘a servant, or some person of very low birth,’ cannot be said to merit unqualified confidence for the accuracy of his spelling and personal intelligence; but he may have been right in representing that the whilom ‘smugler’ and his daughter assumed different surnames. As an instructress of children, Miss Hitchener may have had a professional motive for getting away from her papa’s assumed surname, even as he had a sound prudential motive for getting away from a proper name, disagreeably familiar to the ‘smuglers’ of the Sussex coast.
Anyhow, the lady figures as Miss Eliza Hitchener in Shelleyan annals. Opinions differ respecting Miss Hitchener’s character and conduct. Shelley had not known her long before he thought much ill of her. But there are sufficient grounds for a confident opinion that she was neither the angelic creature he imagined her, whilst cherishing her with platonic affection, nor the superlatively evil being he imagined her when he came to denounce her, in shrillest notes of abhorrence, for being a brown demon and an hermaphrodite.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SHELLEY’S QUARREL WITH HOGG.
Shelley’s Suspicion of Hogg—His Conviction of Hogg’s Guilt—Did Hogg make the Attempt—The Manipulated Letter—Hogg’s Object in publishing it—His Purpose in altering it—The Great Discovery—Evidence of Hogg’s Guilt—Sources of the Evidence—Shelley’s Correspondence with Miss Hitchener—His Letters from Keswick to Hogg—Their vehement Affectionateness—Eliza Westbrook in Office—Shelley under Training—Sisters in Council—Shelley’s Conferences with Harriett—Proofs of Hogg’s Innocence—Primâ Facie Improbability—Why Hogg was not charged at York—His Arraignment at Keswick—Condemned in his Absence—The Reconciliation—Divine Forgiveness—Hogg’s Restoration to Intimacy with Harriett—Shelley’s subsequent Intimacy with Hogg—Hogg’s Intimacy with Mary Godwin—Shelley’s Acknowledgment of Delusion—He begs Pardon of Hogg—Hogg’s Denials of the Charge—Hypothetical Letters—Concluding Estimate of Harriett’s Evidence—If Hogg should be proved Guilty—Consequences to Shelley’s Reputation.