The evidence of this conspiracy on the part of three, or two, of Shelley’s sisters for marrying him to Miss Harriett Westbrook, is fragmentary and flimsy; but few readers will question that divers facts point to the existence of an influence at Field Place that not only disposed, but determined, the poet to seek the young lady’s acquaintance. But for his sisters he would, probably, have never heard of Harriett Westbrook. Their speech about her must be held accountable for his desire to know her. On 11th January, 1811, he requested Stockdale to send her a copy of St. Irvyne. What but his sisters’ talk about her can have disposed Shelley to pay so considerable a compliment to the young lady, of whom he would probably never have heard, had it not been for them?
Just about the time when he paid her this remarkable attention, Miss Harriett Westbrook subscribed for a copy of the poems, on the point of being published, by Miss Janetta Phillips, a young lady in whom he was warmly interested; a young lady of whom she doubtless heard through him or his sisters, and whose name would probably have never come to her ear had it not been for him or them. It is suggested by Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy that Harriett Westbrook gave her name to the roll of Miss Janetta Phillips’s subscribers at the instance of Miss Hellen Shelley, and that the copy of St. Irvyne sent to Miss Harriett Westbrook was Shelley’s acknowledgment of her expression of concern in the enterprise of his literary protégée. Probably the affair should be taken the other way about. It is more likely that Miss Harriett’s subscription to Miss Janetta’s poems was consequent on Shelley’s gift of the copy of the novel. There is no evidence that subscribers for Miss Janetta’s poems were being sought so early as the Christmas holidays (1810-11), and there is good evidence that the list of those subscribers was not completed and made out for publication till after Lady-day, 1811. I am, therefore, more disposed to think Miss Harriett Westbrook subscribed for the poems at Shelley’s instance, and in acknowledgment of his civility in sending her the copy of St. Irvyne, than to regard the gift of the novel as the author’s acknowledgment of her complaisance in subscribing for the poems. But if Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy is right on this point, Miss Harriett Westbrook’s act in subscribing for the poems may be regarded as an act, done less for the gratification of one of Shelley’s sisters than for the gratification of Shelley himself, and must be regarded as an act done, more or less, for the gratification of the young man of whom she can have heard only through his sisters. Hence the young lady’s subscription for the poems becomes another indication of the existence of an influence at Field Place, disposing the poet to entertain feelings of friendliness for ‘the beauty’ of the Clapham boarding-school. Why, it has already been asked, was Miss Harriett Westbrook the only one of his sisters’ school-fellows to whom he sent a copy of his novel? Why, it must be also asked, was she the only one of their school-fellows to subscribe for the poems, for whose success he was so desirous? The questions can only be answered in a way, pointing to the existence at Field Place of an influence, to which the act of subscription was directly, or indirectly, referable.
Whilst readily admitting that the facts of the case sustain and justify a strong opinion that Miss Hellen Shelley (ætat. 11), and Miss Mary Shelley (ætat. 13), talked about their school-fellow Harriett, so as to make their brother curious about and interested in her, readers may fairly object (in respect to Miss Elizabeth Shelley) that it is unusual for a young gentlewoman of the mature age of sixteen years to use her influence, or be in a position to exercise any influence, over her brother (ætat. 18) to make him fall in love with a young lady he has not seen. It may also be further objected that, as she is not known to have been personally acquainted with Miss Harriett Westbrook, it is especially difficult to imagine that Miss Elizabeth Shelley made any efforts to compass her brother’s marriage with her younger sisters’ school-fellow. There is force in both of these objections. It must, however, be remembered that, as she had been a pupil at the Clapham Common school, Miss Elizabeth Shelley (now in her seventeenth year) may have been at school with Miss Harriett Westbrook, still only in her sixteenth year. She may (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) be fairly assumed to have known Miss Harriett Westbrook by personal observation as well as by report—to have remembered, as a delightful little girl, the same Harriett who was an unutterably beautiful ‘great girl’ in the eyes of Mary and Hellen.
It is of more importance for readers to remember how unusual were the relations in which Elizabeth stood to her elder brother. It is on the record (so as to put the facts beyond dispute) that, throughout his suit to and correspondence with his cousin Harriett, Shelley made a confidante of his sister respecting his passion for that lovely girl; that he especially commissioned his eldest sister to plead for him to the object of his passion; and that in his disappointment at the failure of his suit to his cousin, he threw himself on his sister for sympathy, consolation, and counsel. It is no less clear on the record that, during those Christmas holidays of 1810-11, Miss Elizabeth Shelley, whilst sympathizing with his sorrow, was for some days in fear that in the agitations of his grief he would destroy himself. It matters not that Shelley never seriously thought of committing suicide; it is enough that his sister believed him to be meditating and capable of self-destruction. ‘My eldest sister,’ Miss Hellen Shelley wrote in 1855, or thereabouts, ‘has frequently told me how narrowly she used to watch him, and accompany him in his walks with his dog and gun.’ Moreover, whilst Shelley was in his trouble seeking consolation and counsel from his eldest sister, he was influencing her to fall in love with a young man she had never seen, and to that end was speaking to her of his friend Hogg in terms which made her fully aware of his purpose. Under these circumstances it would not be surprising, could it be shown that sister (whom for her happiness he was training and luring to love a man she had never seen) conceived a purpose of turning the tables upon him, and making him (for his happiness) fall in love with a girl on whom he had not set eyes. Under these circumstances, what more natural than for her to do him a service corresponding to the service he was set openly on doing her?
Anyhow, it is certain, that having conceived an interest in Miss Harriett Westbrook, when he can have known nothing of her except from his sisters, Shelley did not return to Oxford at the close of the Christmas vacation, without having seen the young lady, and made arrangements for corresponding with her.
In his article on Shelley in Pall Mall, Mr. Garnett is good enough to promise that, when it shall suit his convenience to do so, he will lay before the world ‘an interesting but unpublished document,’ in evidence that the poet first saw Harriett Westbrook in January 1811. It is very kind of Mr. Garnett to make this promise; but as it has been known for more than a quarter of a century to all the world (with the exception of Shelleyan specialists) that Shelley made Miss Harriett Westbrook’s acquaintance in that month, Mr. Garnett may as well keep his ‘interesting but unpublished document’ to himself, if it cannot afford any further information about the poet. In an extremely entertaining letter, to which reference has been made in a previous chapter of this work (a letter to be found in Hogg’s much-abused Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley), Mr. Charles Henry Grove, the poet’s cousin, says:—
‘During the Christmas vacation of that year, and in January 1811, I spent part of it at Field Place, and when we returned to London, his sister Mary sent a letter of introduction with a present to her schoolfellow, Miss Westbrook, which Bysshe and I were to take to her. I recollect we did so, calling at Mr. Westbrook’s house.’
It has been often represented that Shelley was indebted to ‘little Hellen’ for his first introduction to the girl who became, a few months later, his first wife. It has been no less often represented that Shelley made his first wife’s acquaintance only a few weeks before their marriage; that he made her acquaintance at Mrs. Fenning’s house; and that he was inveigled into the marriage without being allowed the usual opportunities for studying the girl’s character. Readers, therefore, will do well to observe that he saw her for the first time under her father’s roof; that he made her acquaintance there because he went there for the purpose of making it; that, on the occasion of this first visit to Mr. Westbrook’s house, he went there with a letter of introduction to the young lady from his sister Mary; that he, on the same occasion, brought the young lady a present from his sister Mary; that he made this call upon the young lady in the company of one of the gentlemen of his family; that this visit must be assumed to have been paid with the cognizance of Miss Elizabeth Shelley (his eldest sister); that, from the date of this visit, he and the young lady were in the habit of exchanging letters; that he did not marry her till he had corresponded with and otherwise known her intimately for eight full months; that he did not marry her till he had lured her from Christianity into atheism; that, instead of marrying her (a sixteen-years-old child) with her father’s consent, he stole her from her father’s keeping, even as (less than three years later) he lured another sixteen-years-old girl from the roof of her father, who was his intimate friend.
All these statements are matters of fact, and yet Mr. Garnett says the time will come, when ‘it will for the first time be clearly understood how slight was the acquaintance of Shelley and Harriet, previous to their marriage; what advantage was taken of his chivalry of sentiment, and her compliant disposition, and the inexperience of both.’
Returning to Oxford for the Lent term, after making Miss Harriett Westbrook’s acquaintance, Shelley returned to the same kind of life, in which he found various excitements and congenial diversions in the eight weeks preceding the Christmas holidays. There was no diminution in his familiarity with and affection for Hogg. Again, the young men took long walks in the neighbourhood of Oxford, and committed boyish extravagances of costume and demeanour that made the gownsmen titter over their wine in the common rooms. They still hoped to be brothers-in-law, and looked forward to the Easter Vacation as a time for winning Miss Elizabeth Shelley’s acquiescence in their project for the union of their respective families. They wrote letters, and got through a good deal of desultory reading, in company with one another. They resumed their old practice of talking with much volubility and vehemence on subjects of which they knew little, from ten p.m. till two hours past midnight. Whilst Hogg persisted in reading for honours, Shelley turned over a good many books for amusement. Instead of writing to Miss Harriett Grove, he wrote letters to Miss Harriett Westbrook. At the same time he was making efforts to lengthen the list of subscribers for Miss Janetta Phillips’s poems.