Gentlemen given to gushing often say more than they mean. I cannot conceive Mr. Garnett means all he says in his perplexing article. I have vainly worked through Stockdale’s Budget in search for the proofs, that Stockdale was forcibly impressed by the intellectual energy and moral loveliness of the author of St. Irvyne. But the ‘Shelleyan enthusiasts’ are so apt to weaken their case by exaggeration; they are so excessive in their statements. The notion that Stockdale the Libeller was a man to be captivated by moral beauty is comical.
CHAPTER XII.
MR. MACCARTHY’S DISCOVERIES TOUCHING THE OXONIAN SHELLEY.
A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things—Evidence that the Poem was Published—Reasons for Thinking it may never have been Published—Reasons for Thinking that, if the Poem was Published, it was promptly Suppressed—Did Shelley contribute Prose and Poetry to the Oxford Herald?—Spurious Letter to the Editor of the Statesman—Shelley’s First Letter to Leigh Hunt—His way of Introducing himself to Strangers—Did he at the Same Moment Think Well and Ill of his Father?—Miss Janetta Phillips’s Poems—E. & W. Phillips, the Worthing Printers.
Before returning from Field Place to Oxford at the close of the Christmas Vacation (1810-11), readers who, in addition to a perfect view of Shelley’s life at the University, wish to have a knowledge of all that has been written about that part of his career, will do well to consider certain matters with which Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy may be said to have cumbered the highway of the poet’s academic story. Considerations of prudence for himself, and of care for the interests of his readers, forbid the present writer to pass over these matters in silence, as though he were not cognizant of their existence. At the same time, he is disinclined to notice them in a chapter, where they would interrupt the narrative of the undergraduate’s second term of residence at University College. He therefore decides to deal with them in a separate chapter, that may be lightly ‘skimmed’ or altogether skipt by the busy peruser of these volumes, whose curiosity respecting the poet’s life is unattended by a keen appetite for details of Shelleyan controversy.
I. With magniloquence, that may seem comical to persons deficient in Mr. Forman’s ability to venerate every scrap of paper blotted by the poet’s pen, Mr. MacCarthy declares himself to ‘have discovered the surrounding light that indicates the presence of a star,’ without being so fortunate as to have ‘detected its nucleus.’ This is only Mr. MacCarthy’s figurative and beautiful way of saying that, without coming upon a copy of the work, he has come upon evidence that Shelley, towards the close of his second term of residence at Oxford, published A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, for the benefit of Mr. Peter Finerty, then undergoing imprisonment in Lincoln Gaol for libel on Lord Castlereagh,—that this poem was a very beautiful poem,—and that it differed from all the poet’s earlier and all his later writings, in having a quick and large sale.
Readers, who take Mr. MacCarthy’s view and estimate of the evidence, have no doubt that the sale of this remarkable poem, after paying the costs of its production, yielded nearly one hundred pounds to the fund that was raised for Mr. Finerty’s sustenance and comfort in captivity. To persons who remember the wretched quality of the Oxonian Shelley’s prose and verse, it can scarcely be obvious why a lost poem by his still feeble pen should be likened to a star, and why the shadowy evidence that he wrote the poem should be comparable with the surrounding light of the heavenly body. Let that pass, however; and let it be conceded that evidence of so successful a poem, by the youthful and hitherto unfortunate aspirant to literary fame, would be a matter of some interest, even to persons in no degree touched with Shelleyan madness. What is the evidence that Shelley produced this successful poem, no copy of which has ever come under the notice of living man? The evidence consists of,—