For in these days, to please both sets of zealots, it is not enough for a biographer to delight in Shelley’s verse; to render homage to his genius; to think him—as all men of culture and poetical sensibility concur in thinking him—the brightest, most strenuous, and most musical of lyric poets; and at the same time, taking a charitable view of his failings and indiscretions, to palliate them in all honest ways, or look away from them, when they admit of no honest palliation. This is not enough for the enthusiasts, who insist that the poet’s character and career were altogether in harmony with his art. It only exasperates the most strenuous of the social innovators, who honouring him for his social philosophy even more than for his poetry, have no word of cordial censure, and scarcely a word of regret, for the way in which he acted on ‘his emotional theories of liberty.’ Readers must not blink the fact, that the more able and resolute of the Shelleyan enthusiasts recognize in Shelley a great social teacher and regenerator, as well as a great poet. To Mr. Buxton Forman, the author of Laon and Cyntha is ‘that Shelley who, in some circumstances, might have been the Saviour of the World.’ It is needless for me to express my opinion of the comparison instituted by these words. It is enough for me to say that the words are Mr. Buxton Forman’s words, and that he represents favourably the learning and sentiment of a body of gentlemen, whose generous fervour appears to me more commendable than their discretion.
When it is possible for such words to be written by an eminent Shelleyan specialist, and to be read with approval by men of high culture, it must surely be admitted that Shelleyan enthusiasm has gone quite far enough; and that it is well for a writer to produce a truthful account of the poet, who is thus offered to universal homage.
I have not discovered the Real Shelley. The poet of these volumes is the same Real Shelley, who appears in his most agreeable aspects in Hogg’s biography, the delightful book that was stopped midway, because its realism offended the Hunts and Field Place. I mean to show that Shelley was judged fairly, though severely, by those of his contemporaries who, whilst recognizing his genius, condemned his principles, conduct, and social theories. In respect to the Real Shelley, I shall merely bring to light what has been hurtfully withdrawn, or hurtfully withheld from view. As for the fictitious Shelley, with which the Real Shelley has been replaced, I mean to demolish it. In destroying it, I shall be animated by a desire to do something before I go away, to counteract the strong stream of literature—a literature of books, pamphlets, magazine-articles, and articles in powerful journals—which for more than a quarter of a century has been educating people to approve or tolerate the pernicious social philosophy, that requires sound-hearted England to abolish marriage and replace it with the Free Contract.
CHAPTER II.
THE SHELLEYS OF SUSSEX.
Medwin’s Blunders—Lady Shelley’s Statement of The Case—The Michelgrove Shelleys—Sir William Shelley, Justice of The Common Pleas—The Castle Goring Shelleys—Their Pedigree at the Heralds’ College—Evidences of the Connexion of the Two Families—John Shelley, ‘Esquire and Lunatic’—Timothy Shelley, the Yankee Apothecary—Bysshe Shelley’s Career—His Runaway Match with Catherine Michell—His Marriage with the Heiress of Penshurst—His Great Wealth—The Poet’s Alleged Pride in his Connexion with the Sidneys—His Gentle, but not Aristocratic, Lineage.
So much has been written in the ways of sycophancy or vaingloriousness about Shelley’s Norman descent and aristocratic quality, it is necessary to glance at some of the facts of his ancestral story.
The poet’s friend, from the time when they were schoolfellows at Brentford, Thomas Medwin the Younger, was also the poet’s kinsman—his third cousin, through Sir Bysshe Shelley’s marriage with Mary Catherine Michell, and his second cousin, through Sir Timothy Shelley’s marriage with Elizabeth Pilford. It might have been supposed that a biographer, thus related to Shelley by blood and friendship, would know the prime facts of his friend’s pedigree, and state them without egregious error. But poor Tom Medwin was not remarkable for accuracy.