In the absence of positive evidence to the point, I do not hesitate to assume, as a matter of course, that whilst writing his friend’s history Hogg was aware of the gravest and most revolting suspicions entertained of him by Shelley. It may be just conceivable, but it is in the highest degree improbable, that Hogg survived Shelley without discovering the worst of the several evil things the poet thought, said, and wrote of him, towards the close of 1811 and in the earlier months of 1812. But even if it could be proved that, whilst discharging the functions of his friend’s biographer, Hogg was in this most improbable ignorance, it would be none the less certain that he was aware Shelley had deemed him an unsuitable companion for Harriett; had, in consequence of the monstrous notion, ceased for several months to correspond with him; and had moreover been deplorably communicative to certain of his acquaintance respecting his reasons, for breaking in so singular a manner with so particular a friend. Aware that he had for a time been the victim of Shelley’s marital jealousy, and that the disturbance of their friendship was known in the esoteric Shelleyan coteries to have resulted from this jealousy, the biographer reasonably determined (for his honour’s sake no less than for the sake of his friend’s honour) to exhibit to those coteries a document, so largely and precisely eloquent of the feelings and considerations that occasioned the breach. At the same time it was no less natural for the personal historian to shrink from calling universal attention to a matter, so little calculated to win respect and sympathy for the poet in whose honour the history was being written.
Wishing to deal frankly with the coteries, and less than frankly with the multitude, Hogg bethought himself how he could enlighten the coteries on a matter about which they had a claim to information, without offering Shelley to the whole world’s amusement in the equally ludicrous and ignoble character of an unreasonably jealous husband. Hence the biographer’s determination to misdescribe and manipulate the document, so that, whilst accepted in the coteries for what it was (viz. the poet’s confidential letter on matters of the nicest indelicacy), it should be read by the multitude, as what it was not,—a mere scrap of romantic fiction.
Several years have now passed since the Shelleyan enthusiasts, with much clucking over their own critical sagacity, discovered that the ‘fragment of a novel’ was a manipulated letter, and that Mr. Hogg was an inordinately deceitful person in dressing the letter so delusively. From every point of view the affair is one of the broadest comedy. The discoverers of the real letter under the false label were comically jubilant over their cleverness in discovering what was put under their noses,—jubilant like children, crying with delight at finding what was hidden from them only that they might have the pleasure of finding it. It was droll to see how, in their eagerness to expose the biographer’s dishonesty, these discoverers revealed to the irreverent multitude what the biographer hoped the enthusiasts of the coteries would keep to themselves, out of tenderness for the poet’s reputation. It was very droll to observe how Hogg was denounced for tampering fraudulently with the document, which he published thus cautiously for the enlightenment of the initiated Shelleyans,—could have safely withheld, as it was his own property; and would not have published even in so guarded a way, had he not desired to afford sufficient information, on a matter respecting which he had not the hardihood to be fully communicative.
It being certain that sooner or later the world will be authoritatively assured of the sufficiency of Shelley’s reasons for thinking Hogg designed and tried to seduce the girlish bride; and that the allegations to this effect will be made with the two-fold object of destroying the biographer’s credit and raising suspicions of Harriett’s discretion and modesty, even from the very commencement of her association with the poet, it is right that readers should be forewarned and fore-armed against such preposterous assertions, by a further exhibition of the influences that caused Shelley to think so ill of his heretofore closest friend, and by an adequate exposition of the superabundant reasons for declaring Hogg wholly and absolutely innocent of the wickedness, which has long been charged against him.
Enough has been said in a previous chapter of the incidents and influences, that caused Shelley to regard his wife’s intimacy with his friend as an association which, already fruitful of embarrassment to the former, threatened to become no less fruitful of moral injury to the latter. There is no need to remind readers of the train of circumstances closing with the flight from York to Keswick, or of the abundant documentary evidence that Shelley arrived at Keswick with undiminished confidence in his friend’s loyalty and honour, though with a lower respect for his discretion, considerateness, and moral robustness. Had he on entering Keswick imagined that Hogg had deliberately contemplated to lure Harriett from the ways of wifely dutifulness, and even taken steps to compass her seduction, Shelley could not have written to him from Keswick with the passionate affectionateness, that animates each and all of the several extant letters he sent his friend at York during the earlier weeks of the residence at Keswick.
The Fragment of a Novel, which I regard as the last of the extant series of undated epistles from Keswick, affords abundant evidence that, almost up to the moment of the cessation of his correspondence with Hogg, Shelley accused his friend of nothing worse than indiscretion, weakness, insincerity, imbecility:—i.e. indiscretion, in allowing so much of passionate fervour to qualify his admiration of Harriett; weakness, in prolonging the intimacy that was causing him perilous excitement; insincerity, in trying to disguise from himself the nature of the feelings into which he had been betrayed; and imbecility, surpassing mere weakness, in declining to combat the feelings whose indulgence tended to wickedness. The force of some of the writer’s expressions, no doubt, exceeds the force of anything in his earlier expostulations with Harriett’s too frank and impulsive admirer; the greater energy of the language showing that Shelley was fast nearing the time, when he passed suddenly from the state of mind in which he accused Hogg of nothing worse than indiscretion, weakness, insincerity, and imbecility, to the state of mind in which he charged him with villany.
But even in this far more cogent and strenuous epistle one comes upon expressions that expressly acquit Hogg of the wickedness of wishing to seduce a simple girl, who had been his friend’s wife for only a few weeks. In answer to language, by which Hogg appears to have repelled an ungenerous suspicion, Shelley says in the letter, ‘I admit the distinction which you make between mistake and crime. I acquit you heartily of the latter.’ Whilst penning them, the writer of these words could not have imagined Hogg guilty of a design on Harriett’s virtue. In reply to other words, by which Hogg seems to have attempted to disperse certain of his correspondent’s absurd fancies, Shelley says, ‘I hope I have shown you that I do not regard you as a smooth-tongued traitor; could I choose such for a friend? could I still love him with affection unabated, perhaps increased?’ Curious and abnormal creature though he was, Shelley could not have written thus, whilst believing his correspondent guilty of the darkest treason.
After speaking of a letter Harriett has received from Hogg, Shelley says, ‘Harriett will write to you to-morrow.’ Could Shelley have in this manner sanctioned his wife’s correspondence with a man whom he believed guilty of trying to seduce her? Shelley’s idolaters answer this question in the affirmative. They are welcome to their opinion; but they must not ask me to insult him by holding it.
Within a few days of writing thus strenuously to Hogg, that he loved him as deeply and passionately as ever, and that his wife would write to him on the morrow, Shelley assured Miss Hitchener of Hurstpierpoint, that this same Hogg had attempted to seduce Mrs. Shelley. Taking possession of Shelley’s mind, at Keswick, towards the close of 1811, this morbid fancy held it for several months. The poet’s correspondence with the Hurstpierpoint schoolmistress affords conclusive testimony that, instead of being a quickly transient delusion, arising from an overdose of opium, and perishing with the nervous disturbance caused by the drug, this ghastly hallucination occupied the future poet’s brain, at least, from the middle of his sojourn at Keswick till the close of the ensuing spring.
It is in the nature of things for Platonic friendships to be mistaken by ordinary observers for less amiable and orderly attachments. When a young gentleman is seen sauntering about sylvan glades and rural lanes with a pretty milliner on his arm, or is known to be corresponding through the post with a publican’s daughter, the world is slow to think the intimacy of the young people, wholly independent of the motives and considerations that are usually more or less operative, when a young man of gentle rank lavishes attention on a young woman of plebeian quality. On the contrary, judging from appearances, with no excessive care for exceptional idiosyncrasies, the world is apt to refer the unequal association to certain of the most familiar affections. Though the avowal may move some readers to smile at my simplicity, I have little doubt Shelley’s liking for Miss Eliza Hitchener was from first to last a purely Platonic preference. It would, however, have been strange, had the people in and about Cuckfield and Hurstpierpoint taken this charitable view of an intimacy, that, causing no little gossip in and around those parishes, moved local tattlers to declare Miss Hitchener no better than she ought to be. Readers may not suppose that this view of Miss Hitchener’s character and relations with the poet was confined to the haunters of her father’s tavern. Having for some time regarded her nephew’s civility to the schoolmistress with suspicion, Mrs. Pilfold held a strong opinion in the spring of 1812, that the continuance of the intimacy, now he had married Harriett Westbrook, would be simply scandalous. Whether the lady wrote to her nephew on the subject does not appear. Anyhow, he learnt through some channel enough of his aunt’s unfavourable opinion of the curious friendship, to hold her chiefly accountable for certain Cuckfield gossip that, moving him to indignation in April, 1812, caused him, on the 29th of that month, to write from Nantgwilt to his friend at Hurstpierpoint, ‘I unfaithful to my Harriett! You a female Hogg! Common sense would laugh such an idea to scorn, if indignation would wait till it could be looked upon!’—words of evidence that at least to the end of April in 1812, the writer was held firmly by the fancy that caused him to break with Hogg towards the close of the previous year.