Writing from Field Place to Hogg on 16th June, 1811, Shelley says, ‘I shall see you in July. I am invited to Wales, but I shall go to York; what shall we do? How I long again for your conversation!’ the invitation being to Cwm Elan, the place of his cousin, Thomas Grove, five miles distant from Rhayader, Radnorshire, whither he went for three or four weeks, towards the middle of July; one at least of his motives for the trip to Wales being that he might stay with the Westbrooks at Aberystwith. Writing from Field Place on 21st June, 1811, to Hogg, at York, Shelley says, ‘I shall leave Field Place in a fortnight. Old Westbrook has invited me to accompany him and his daughters to a house they have at Aberystwith, in Wales. I shall stay about a week with him in town; then I shall come to see you and get lodgings.’ Hence, at the date of this epistle, the writer’s purpose was to leave Field Place somewhere about 5th July, and, after staying a week under Mr. Westbrook’s roof, in Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square, to go viâ York to Wales, for the visits to Cwm Elan and Aberystwith. Changing his plans (for reasons to be mentioned in a later page), he deferred the visit to York, and went by a less circuitous route to Rhayader in Radnorshire, whence he wrote to Hogg somewhere about the middle of July, ‘Miss Westbrook, Harriett, has advised me to read Mrs. Opie’s Mother and Daughter. She has sent it hither, and has desired my opinion with earnestness.’ A few days later he wrote to Hogg, without dating his letter, ‘I shall see the Miss Westbrooks again soon; they were very well in Condowell, when I heard last; they then proceed to Aberystwith, where I shall meet them.’ Yet some other few days later (also in an undated epistle), he writes to Hogg, ‘Your jokes on Harriett Westbrook amuse me; it is a common error for people to fancy others in their own situation, but if I know anything about love, I am not in love. I have heard from the Westbrooks, both of whom I highly esteem.’ This disclaimer by Shelley of love for Harriett Westbrook, when he had for months been in love with her, may well remind readers of the way in which Byron disclaimed (in his private journal) all love for Miss Milbanke, when he had for months been loving her. ‘I am not in love,’ Shelley wrote from Wales within six weeks of eloping with Harriett Westbrook. ‘What an odd situation and friendship is ours! without one spark of love on either side!’ Byron wrote in his journal of the lady, to whom he had already made one offer and was still yearning to make his wife.
Including the time spent in journeying to and fro between London and Cwm Elan, Shelley spent some three weeks and three or four days on the Welsh trip, which he made in the hope of staying with the Westbrooks at Aberystwith. Leaving him in Radnorshire readers should return to the spring of the year, in order to take a view of the future poet’s relations with his sister, his mother and his Uncle Pilfold, from the date of his expulsion from Oxford to the midsummer of 1811.
Mr. Timothy Shelley’s withdrawal of the invitation he had given Hogg to visit Field Place, and his subsequent conflict with his son, did not cause the young men to relinquish their hope of becoming brothers-in-law. On the contrary, the new obstacles to the achievement of their purpose only quickened their desire for the realization of the romantic project. Whilst Shelley yearned to call Hogg his brother, the vein of romance, that mingled with the north-countryman’s lively humour and cynicism, caused him to be enamoured of the young lady, who was known to him only through her poetical compositions, her letters to her brother, and his report of her personal, mental, and moral endowments. But the brother, who loved her passionately so long as she worshipped him without presuming to oppose him in anything, had not been many days in conflict with his father, before he was disappointed in his sister, discovered faults in her poetry, suspected he had thought too highly of her intellect and courage, saw reason to bewail her mental narrowness, and to fear she was not worthy to be the wife of his incomparable friend. What caused this change of feeling and opinion?
On seeing the goal to which her brother’s influence and cautious teaching would carry her, Elizabeth started back in horror. Trustful in his superior wisdom so long as he only required her to think the legends of Christianity were in some particulars fabulous, she fell away from her confidence in the brother who had proclaimed himself an atheist. Instructed that Hogg’s influence had brought her brother to this extreme point of infidelity, she was of opinion that her father was right in determining to separate Bysshe from so hurtful a friend. Thinking that in this determination her father was only showing proper care for his son’s welfare, she thought Bysshe’s opposition to his father’s will undutiful and wicked. She was not brave enough to deny the existence of God; she had the courage to tell her brother he was not behaving like a good son. In the religious conflict, she was on the side of the Almighty. In the domestic conflict, she went with her father. No wonder Bysshe was disappointed by her servility and meanness of spirit. Hogg had barely left London when he was informed by Shelley of his sister’s deflection from the path of religious freedom and philosophy,—that she was lost to them. Hogg’s reply to this melancholy announcement was to the effect that, though lost for the moment, she was not lost for ever,—a sentiment which, on 26th April, 1811, moved the exile of Poland Street, to reply, ‘She is not lost for ever? How I hope that may be true! but I fear I can never ascertain; I can never influence an amelioration, as she does not any longer permit a philosopher to correspond with her. She talks of duty to her Father. And this is your amiable religion.’
Instead of writing to him in her old vein of enthusiastic and worshipful admiration, Elizabeth had the presumption to remind him of his and her duty to their parents; sending him the letters that moved him to charge her with ‘talking cant and twaddle.’ Had he not cause to think with sorrow and bitterness of the ‘young female,’ who, after asserting for a brief while her ‘claim to an unfettered use of reason,’ had returned to the sway of the bigots. How could he be sanguine of again reclaiming her from the darkness of mediæval superstition to the clear sunshine of philosophy, when to do so he must conquer her countless hateful prejudices, teach her to despise the world’s opinion; nerve her to repudiate the doctrines of ‘the tremendous Gregory,’ and purge her mind of the absurd notion that she ought to respect her father’s wishes. Fretted by her letters, he was depressed by her subsequent silence. On returning to Field Place in the middle of May, 1811, it was a relief to him to learn that, instead of resulting from unconcern for his misery, this silence was due to an attack of scarlet fever. At times, during her convalescence from this illness, he could hope faintly that even yet she would show herself worthy of his former confidence, and not unworthy to be the wife of his incomparable Hogg. But these passages of flickering hope closed in a renewal of his conviction, that she was far too weak a creature for the high place and service to which he had too hastily appointed her. There were moments when, instead of thinking her changed for the worse, he attributed her apparent deterioration to his own recently acquired power of perceiving mental and moral infirmities to which he had been formerly blinded by fraternal partiality. Possibly the sister, whom he used to adore and extol to Hogg, had been a creature of his imagination. Obviously it was his duty to put this view of the case before Hogg, so that so excellent a man should not be under misconceptions, arising from a friend’s imaginativeness and delusive speech, link himself for life with an uncongenial and miserably insufficient spouse. To Shelley it was no small trouble that his pen was powerless to make Hogg believe, either that Elizabeth was greatly altered, or that she had been greatly misrepresented to him. Whilst the humorous Hogg laughed secretly at the change of Shelley’s regard for his sister, the romantic Hogg declined to think either that she had changed for the worse, or that she had been offered in delusive colours to his fancy. To the humorous and romantic law student, it was clear that the change in Elizabeth was wholly referable to her brother’s changefulness, and to the lightness and activity of his imagination. Whilst Hogg refused to be enlightened, Shelley despaired of showing him by written words, so much less potent than speech, how ‘a change, a great and important change, had taken place in’ the girl who had been offered to him in marriage. Oh, that he could speak with his dear Hogg face to face! ‘Unwilling as I am,’ Shelley wrote from Horsham, on 16th June, 1811, ‘conviction stares me in the face. Oh, that you were here!’
This wish may have caused Hogg to entertain the notion of making a clandestine visit to Field Place, to inspect the home of the young lady he hoped to marry, and to get a furtive view of her personal attractions, which were still known to him only by her brother’s report. Or the wish may have been followed by a definite proposal from Bysshe that his friend should come to him. Anyhow, the friends now entertained a project for seeing one another in Sussex.
The Squire having recalled his invitation to Hogg, and Shelley (in consideration of his 200l. a-year allowance being under bond to hold no personal communication with his former college-friend), Hogg could not visit Field Place openly. It was therefore arranged that he should enter the house secretly, and by night, and that during his clandestine sojourn in the mansion, he should share Shelley’s study and bedroom,—two rooms never entered by Elizabeth (under the new rules for limiting her intercourse with her brother), and never entered by any one but Shelley himself, and the servant who attended to them. Taking his sleep by day, it was arranged that Hogg should take his exercise by night, when he would be able to pass through a window into the garden without fear of being observed. Through the same window, commanding a view of the lawn, he would be able to get a view of Elizabeth, when she walked in the garden. This project for a secret meeting of the separated ‘Inseparables’ at Field Place was dropt, probably on account of the risks the conspirators would run in carrying it into effect. But though it was not pursued to a point, at which the intruder could have been ejected ignominiously from the Sussex mansion, the boyish scheme came to the Squire’s knowledge,—possibly from the lips of a treacherous servant, in whom the future poet had confided; but more probably from a letter Shelley had written and forgotten to post to his especial friend. The project for a clandestine meeting at Field Place having fallen to the ground, Shelley (albeit, bound by honour, and the terms of his 200l. a-year allowance to have no personal intercourse with Hogg) bethought himself he would go to Wales viá York, and pass a few days with his peculiar friend at the archiepiscopal city. Could he do so without risk of forfeiting his allowance, he would go there openly on the way to Wales. Should ‘old Killjoy’ be too sharp for him he would outwit the ‘old buck’ by running from Wales to York under the assumed name of Peyton, in order that his movements should be less likely to come to the knowledge of the tyrant, who eventually threatened to stop the allowance, should his son carry out his purpose of paying Hogg a visit.
Too prudent to take openly a step that might result in a withdrawal of the allowance, and at the same time too wary to ask for a direct liberation from his promise to keep away from Hogg, the wily and diplomatic Shelley bethought himself of alluding to his purpose of visiting York in a letter, which his father might neglect to answer, or might answer without referring to the particular project. In either of those cases silence could be construed as consent; and to any subsequent expressions of displeasure at his breach of a chief article of their agreement, the son could reply by pleading that he had not gone to York without giving his father timely notice of his wish, or without grounds for supposing he had his father’s tacit permission to go there. In thus ‘trying it on’ with ‘the old buck,’ at a peculiarly inauspicious moment, Shelley encountered a rebuff for which he was not unprepared. Instead of overlooking the announcement, or treating it with indifference, the Squire of Field Place answered promptly, ‘Go to York if you like; but not with my money.’ Finding his father thus resolute in holding him to the terms of their compact, Shelley deferred his trip to the north, and went straight to Radnorshire. At the same time he determined that before many weeks had passed he would go to York under a false name, and breaking his promise do secretly what he dared not do openly. ‘Do not think, however, but that I shall come to see you long before you come to reside in London; but open warfare will never do, and Mr. Peyton, which will be my nom-de-guerre, will easily swallow up Mr. Shelley.’ In a later letter from Radnorshire, Shelley says of his motives for deceiving his father in this business:—‘When I come, I will not come under my own name. It were to irritate my father needlessly; this is entirely a philautian argument, but without the stream, of which he is the fountain-head, I could not get on. We must live; that is, we must eat, drink, and sleep, and money is the necessary procurer of these things!’ This from the young gentleman whose averseness to underhand ways is extolled so cordially by Lady Shelley!
Whilst the future poet was thus at open war and hollow truce with his father, the evidence is conclusive that he was treated (from the date of his expulsion from Oxford to the date of his first marriage) with sympathetic and conciliatory tenderness by his mother, who has been charged by successive historians with coldness and severity towards her perplexing and troublesome son. In the letter (of 28th April, 1811), which declares his disgust at the intolerance of his sister, who ‘talks cant and twaddle,’ Shelley speaks of his mother as a woman ‘who is mild and tolerant,’ though ‘narrow-minded.’ On the 15th of May, when the exile has come to terms with his father, and returned to the home from which he had been so inhumanly excluded, Shelley writes to Hogg, ‘My mother is quite rational.’ She says, ‘I think prayer and thanksgiving are of no use. If a man is a good man, philosopher, or Christian, he will do very well in whatever future state awaits us. This I call liberality.’ It was not in the nature of the callow philosopher and atheist, who wrote so bitterly of his sister’s ‘cant and twaddle,’ to bear this evidence to his mother’s liberality, had she vexed him with sorrowful censure or irritated him with bootless opposition. Between the naturally indignant father and the unnaturally rebellious son, this anxious and sorely troubled wife and mother seems to have played a difficult part with exemplary dutifulness and affectionateness to the husband she honoured and the boy she loved. It is conceivable, that once and again the Squire of Field Place may have had grounds for charging her with defective loyalty during the cruel contention, but the unruly boy certainly had no right to complain of the imperfect devotion of the mother who, in her desire to hold his affection and confidence, assured him she was tenderly interested in his friend at York.
Yet biographers have insisted that Shelley suffered in heart and fortune from the intolerance and frigid hardness of his mother; the intolerant mother who spoke to him on their differences of religious opinion with so much leniency and forbearance and large-hearted sympathy that he was constrained to extol her liberality: the unsympathetic mother who won so large a measure of his confidence, that he submitted some of Hogg’s letters to her perusal, and (probably because he had cautiously sounded her on the subject) was assured she would not use her influence to prevent the marriage of his sister to his friend.