The mere absence of reasonable grounds for the statement would not, however, justify a confident opinion that Shelley was guilty of deliberate untruth when he wrote on 2nd March, 1811, that, on coming of age, he would probably succeed to his father’s vacant place in the House of Commons. Enough has been said in previous pages of this work to show that, together with a capacity for saying what he knew to be untrue, the Oxonian Shelley, no less than the Shelley of later time, possessed a fancy so curiously vigorous and fertile of inventions, that it may be held in some degree accountable for some of his numerous misstatements. In their desire to shield him from the obloquy of wilful and habitual untruthfulness, some of the poet’s friends have, no doubt, exaggerated this consequence of his imaginative energy. In maintaining that his friend cordially detested falsehood, and in respect of his frequent inaccuracies of statement, was the mere ‘creature, the unsuspecting and unresisting victim, of his irresistible imagination,’ Hogg not only went beyond his evidences, but traversed and contradicted them in a manner to provoke suspicion of his own honesty. Even where he admits that the inaccuracies were referable, in a large measure, to untruthfulness, Peacock betrays a similar disposition to make the utmost of the singular imaginativeness, which he held no less accountable for the poet’s frequent deviations from veracity.
By those who would rate none too highly the testimony of these two notable witnesses to the poet’s character, allowance must of course be made for the partiality of friendship. On the other hand, it must be remembered that, whilst affording them opportunities for studying his character closely, their intimacy with so singular and interesting a companion, offered them the strongest inducements to judge him fairly and know him thoroughly. If it must be conceded that Hogg and Peacock would never have thought of referring their friend’s imperfect veracity to his excessive imaginativeness, had he been nothing more to them than a slight acquaintance, it must also be conceded that the circumstances of their close and affectionate intercourse with the poet, qualified them to give the true explanation of his most perplexing utterances and most pitiable infirmity. Having regard to the general trustworthiness of the witnesses, and also to the several obvious considerations which may well dispose the reader to receive their evidence with suspicion and incredulity, I cannot question that, however much they overstated their respective opinions out of tenderness for the poet’s fame, both Hogg and Peacock had reasonable grounds for believing that a quick and undisciplined fancy was far more, or scarcely less, accountable than moral obliquity for their friend’s untruthful assertions. For the moment, therefore (but only for the moment), let it be assumed that, whilst penning the lines to Leigh Hunt, the undergraduate of University College really believed he was likely to take his father’s seat in parliament in the course of the next two or three years.
The assumption puts the reader face to face with another difficulty. The Oxonian Shelley, who made this remarkable announcement to Leigh Hunt, was the same Oxonian Shelley, who used to declare himself indebted to Dr. Lind’s timely intervention for preservation from the madhouse, to which his father meant to consign him. Whilst there is evidence of some sort that one of Shelley’s hallucinations haunted him from boyhood to the last month of his existence, there is no evidence of any kind that his most transitory hallucinations perished within a few days of the hour, when he first came under their power. It took him more than a year to get the better of his morbid fancy that Hogg was set on seducing his first wife. It took him several weeks to survive his equally ludicrous and distressing fancy, that he was stricken with leprosy. There is no ground for suspecting he was visited by hallucinations so fleeting that they might be styled ‘illusions of the hour.’ If, at the time of writing to Leigh Hunt, he really believed he would enter parliament in his twenty-second year, the hallucination must be regarded as holding his mind for a considerable period, concurrently with the hallucination touching his father’s determination to confine him for life as a lunatic. If there are grounds for thinking he really hoped to enter parliament so soon through his father’s affectionate consideration, the grounds are still stronger for thinking he really apprehended incarceration in a madhouse, through his father’s cruelty. To believe his father capable of retiring from parliament for the advantage of a son who had occasioned much trouble and reasonable displeasure, it was necessary for Shelley to think his father a rare example of parental devotion and beneficence. To believe his father capable of locking him up in a madhouse, at the instigation of resentment and notions of domestic policy, it was necessary for Shelley to think his father a monstrous example of parental malice and cruelty.
If he thought his father capable of such self-sacrifice for his boy’s happiness, Shelley must have thought his father an admirably good parent. If he thought his father capable of such barbarity to his own offspring, Shelley must have deemed his father a superlatively cruel and wicked parent. To have believed his father capable of the parental self-sacrifice and the parental cruelty, Shelley must in the same moment of time have regarded his father as one of the very best and one of the very worst parents. It is not in the power of human sanity or human madness to think thus differently of the same person at the same moment. If Shelley really believed his father was watching for an opportunity to shut him up in a madhouse, he was fibbing when he wrote to Leigh Hunt, that his father would probably soon retire from parliament in his favour. If Shelley believed what he wrote to Leigh Hunt, he was fibbing when he talked to Hogg and others of his cruel father’s malignant purpose to shut him up in a lunatic asylum. Strange creature though he was, it is difficult to believe even of Shelley that, whilst seeing his father’s goodness, he could be so malignantly wicked to do his utmost to persuade his friends of his father’s inordinate badness. Perhaps it is even more difficult to imagine, strange being though he was, that whilst thinking his father an execrably bad parent, Shelley would be so perverse as to invent the story, which went to prove his father an extraordinarily good one.
To escape from this tangle of difficulties, from this dilemma of four horns, readers are at liberty to assume that the Oxonian Shelley believed no tittle of either of the marvellous stories. Dismissing the assumption that the youngster wrote to Leigh Hunt in good faith and simple honesty, they may take it as proved that, in bragging about the seat he would have in parliament as soon as he should have taken his degree, the undergraduate was fibbing, in order that the newspaper editor should form something more than an adequate notion of his correspondent’s importance. They may also take it as proved, that the undergraduate was no more sincere in talking about his wicked father’s design to lock him up in a madhouse, than in writing that his father would probably retire from parliament in his favour. The time, doubtless, came when Shelley believed his worst fictions to his father’s discredit, even as tellers of untruths usually come in course of time to believe the fabrications which they persist in repeating steadily and earnestly:—even as ‘the nobleman, who recently languished in captivity at Portland,’ has doubtless succeeded in persuading himself that he is the veritable Sir Roger Tichborne.
But before fancies, born of fierce and violent resentments, acquired the complexion and force of hideous truths to his disordered judgment, it is conceivable—ay, it cannot be doubted—that Shelley passed through states of mental and moral disturbance, which were fruitful of impressions and misconceptions, so curiously composed of fact and fancy, of truth and chimera, that he might be well described as a victim of semi-delusions. Between the period when he was altogether sane and the period when he suffered from steady hallucination, at least on one subject, and transient hallucinations on other subjects, there was a period during which he was neither absolutely free from delusions nor wholly possessed by any delusion respecting his father’s character and conduct.
IV. Yet another ‘discovery’ respecting the Oxonian Shelley, for which the ‘Shelleyan enthusiasts’ overflowed with gratitude to Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy. To believe all that is told to his honour in Shelley’s Early Life is to believe that Shelley made himself responsible for the costs and charges of publishing the little volume of verse, which gave Miss Janetta Phillips her modest place in literary annals. That Miss Janetta was writing poetry whilst Shelley kept terms at Oxford, that she rose to a high place in his poetical regard in the spring of 1811, and that whilst waging war with bigotry and superstition in academic circles, he was at much pains to get subscribers for her book of poems, are matters of historic certainty. In the April of that year, when Miss Elizabeth Shelley was fast falling from her brother’s favour, he wrote to Hogg, ‘Elizabeth is, indeed, an unworthy companion of the Muses. I do not rest much on her poetry now. Miss Phillips betrayed twice the genius; greater amiability, if to affect the feelings is a proof of the excess of the latter.’ The long list of subscribers to Poems by Janetta Phillips. Oxford: Printed by Collingwood and Co., 1811, affords conclusive evidence that, whilst regarding her poetical ability with approval, Shelley bestirred himself in Oxford, London, and Sussex, to further Miss Janetta’s literary venture. Subscribing himself for six copies of the work, he induced his sister Elizabeth to put her name down for a copy of the metrical effusions, which ‘betrayed twice the genius’ of her compositions. Miss Hellen Shelley at the Clapham Boarding School, and her friend Miss Harriett Westbrook, also produced half-crowns from their little purses for the benefit of Miss Janetta Phillips. Other members of Shelley’s circle ordered the book at his instance. Mr. Medwin, of Horsham, ordered a copy; Mr. Charles Grove took a copy; Mrs. Grove, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, put her name down for three copies. It was, doubtless, at Shelley’s solicitation that his Oxford bookseller consented to subscribe for Miss Janetta’s little volume. It is probable that the young lady had other friends besides Shelley in the University, where she found no less than eighty subscribers for her Poems. Still, it may be safely assumed, she was considerably indebted to Shelley’s influence in the colleges for the sympathy and money of so many gownsmen. That Shelley admired Miss Janetta’s poetry, and pushed the fortunes of her book to the utmost of his ability, is certain.
But what proof is there that he generously took upon himself the charges of publication, and thereby incurred a debt that drained his pocket a few months later? What are the facts that to this extent ‘exhibit Shelley in the amiable light of being an active encourager of a youthful muse?’ Here is Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy’s evidence to the fact. In one of the undated letters, which he wrote in the summer (say July) of 1811, from Radnorshire to Hogg at York, Shelley says—‘I have at this moment no money, as Philipps’ and the other debt have drained me.’ What evidence to the point! In the spring of the year Miss Janetta Phillips published a little book, which was so largely subscribed for that, besides paying the charges of production, it must have put a good many guineas into the author’s pocket. Three or four months later Shelley writes from Wales that ‘Philipps’ and the other debt have drained’ him so completely that he is without money. It follows, according to Mr. MacCarthy, that at the time of writing the letter Shelley was suffering from his generosity to Miss Janetta Phillips. The ‘Shelleyan enthusiasts,’ who mistook Mr. MacCarthy for a prophet because he wrote abusively of Hogg, may be assured that neither of the debts referred to in the epistle had anything to do with Miss Janetta Phillips’s book. Printed whilst the young lady’s poetry was passing through the press at Oxford, Shelley’s tract on The Necessity of Atheism—the publication that resulted in his expulsion from University College, Oxford—was printed by E. and W. Phillips, of Worthing. I have not thought it worth my while to inquire about Miss Janetta’s parentage and history; but I should not be surprised to learn she was the daughter of one of these Worthing printers, and that Shelley’s efforts for the success of her book proceeded in some degree from friendliness for the printers, who were just then rendering him secret and confidential service. One thing is certain about Miss Janetta. Though it occasioned him considerable trouble at the moment, the publication of her poems caused him no subsequent discomfort. The debts, referred to in the letter, were the debt to Stockdale for the production of St. Irvyne, and the debt to the Messrs. E. and W. Phillips, of Worthing, for printing The Necessity of Atheism. Mr. MacCarthy’s precious discovery is ‘a mare’s-nest’ for the cynical reader to chuckle over.