Crossing a rough sea from Dublin to Holyhead, the trio (attended probably by their Dublin bill distributor, who was certainly in their service in the ensuing summer) traversed Anglesey, made the passage of the Menai Straits, and journeying leisurely through North Wales into the southern shires of the Principality, came, somewhere about 21st April, 1812, to Nantgwillt, five miles from Rhayader, Co. Radnor, where they resided for about seven weeks at Nantgwillt House, at that time in the hands of an insolvent farmer. Delighted with the house, in a familiar part of Radnorshire, and the thought of having his cousin, Tom Grove, for a sociable neighbour, Shelley conceived a desire to settle at Nantgwillt for a considerable time, if not for ever. Here was a bankrupt farmer on the point of leaving a delightful place. Here was a delightful place, whose proprietor would, of course, be only too glad to have so eligible a tenant as the heir of the Castle Goring Shelleys. What, thought Shelley, could be more agreeable to him than to turn farmer? With a bailiff at his elbow to look after matters of vulgar business, he could farm to a profit. The holding comprised a hundred and thirty acres of land under cultivation, and seventy acres of wood, scrub, briery, and mountain; woods in which he and Harriett and Eliza could saunter with their friends, when the summer’s sun should be oppressive; hills they could climb in the colder seasons for the enjoyment of the invigorating breeze. Whilst the farm would yield them corn and milk, fruit and vegetables, it would also yield them just the additional money that was needful for their requirements. Whilst the farm would afford them prosperity, they would have leisure for their intellectual pursuits, and larger ability to help their poorer neighbours. The rent for this alluring farm was positively under a hundred a-year. It was only 98l. a-year; and the lease and stock, including the furniture of the house, could be had for 700l. at the outside price! Even this small sum need not be paid till he should have come of age; as the assignees under the bankruptcy would give him credit for eighteen months, provided he found a sufficient friend to be security for the payment of the money, a year and half hence. Feeling he should not let such a chance escape him, Shelley had not been three days at Nantgwillt before he hurried to Cwm Elan to talk the matter over to Tom Grove. Poor talkers, the Groves were excellent listeners; and Mr. Thomas Grove listened whilst Shelley declared his wish to turn Welsh farmer and settle at Nantgwillt. After hearing the poet’s statement of the case, Mr. Grove, without offering to supply the needful money, opened his lips to remark that he should have much pleasure in finding his cousin a suitable person to look after his interests at the valuation. Duly sensible of his kinsman’s kindness, Shelley lost no time in writing the characteristic letter (vide Medwin’s Life of Shelley) in which he asked Mr. Medwin, the Horsham lawyer, to become security for the payment of the 600l. or 700l.
Mr. Medwin may well have perused this letter with a sense of amusement. No long time had passed since he was entreated to supply 250l. for the literary venture, that could not fail to bring the littérateur money and fame; and now he was required to become security for the payment of seven hundred pounds, to put the man of letters into a Welsh farm. Mr. Medwin had a good practice and money of his own, as well as the command of money belonging to his clients. He had, moreover, made up his mind to draw his young kinsman into his hands, both for the sake of making money out of him, and in order to annoy the Squire of Field Place and old Sir Bysshe, whom he did not love. But knowing Percy would not be happy at Nantgwillt for twelve months, there were obvious reasons why he should think twice before drawing a cheque or signing a bond, to put the youngster into the farm in the loveliest spot of all Radnorshire.
Writing, on 25th April, 1812, to Sussex for the means of taking the farm, Shelley wrote on the same day to London for the friends whom he should need a few months later, for his full enjoyment of the delightful place. His new home was surrounded by scenes of unutterable beauty. Defended by rocks and mountains, that shut out the world’s tumult, his chosen valley, peopled by guileless peasants, would afford him all he needed of earthly happiness, when he should have the honour and delight of entertaining the revered William Godwin, together with Mrs. Godwin and all the Skinner-Street family. The philosophic bookseller was entreated to escape from the cold hurry of business, and come with his wife and children to Wales.
How Mr. Medwin, of Horsham, answered Shelley’s letter does not appear; but he seems from the event to have dissuaded his youthful client from throwing himself so impulsively into a business of which he knew nothing. Anyhow, Shelley’s scheme for turning farmer fell through, and on June 11, 1812, he wrote to Skinner Street, explaining that he could no longer look forward to the pleasure of receiving the Godwins at Nantgwillt House, as he had already retired from that delightful abode to temporary quarters at Cwm-Rhayader.
‘We are,’ he wrote to the sage of Skinner Street, ‘unexpectedly compelled to quit Nantgwillt. I hope, however, before long time has elapsed, to find a home. These accidents are unavoidable to a minor. I hope wherever we are, you, Mrs. Godwin, and your children will come to us this summer.’
Homeless for the moment, the minor deferred the happiness of seeing his London friends until he had found a home in which to receive them. From this light and airy announcement of his sudden and enforced withdrawal from Nantgwillt House, Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy is inclined to infer that the farmer told the trio to leave his homestead, because he questioned their ability to pay for their entertainment.
‘Shelley,’ says the author, whose abuse of Hogg determined some of the Shelleyan enthusiasts to declare him a high authority on the poet’s ‘Early Life,’ ‘resided at Nantgwillt for seven weeks. He changed his residence, not through any restlessness of disposition, for it is evident he was reluctant to leave it, but, perhaps, owing to the doubts of the “farmer” as to the security of his rent. Such is the interpretation I put on the following passage in a letter to Godwin, dated “Cwm-Rhayader, June 11th, 1812:—“We are unexpectedly compelled to quit Nantgwillt. I hope, however, before long time has elapsed, to find a home. These accidents are unavoidable to a minor.”’
Shelley’s letter to Mr. Medwin disposes of the suspicion which should not have been entertained by the authoritative writer on Shelleyan evidences, though it may well have occurred to Godwin in June, 1812, as a reasonable way of accounting for the unexpected change of residence. Coming to Nantgwillt House at the very moment when the bankrupt farmer was about to leave the holding, and his assignees were looking out for some one to take the remainder of his lease, Shelley may be assumed to have retired from the house at the request of an incoming tenant, who required all the rooms for his own use. In the failure of his attempt to take the farm, there is enough to account for Shelley’s way of speaking of his change of abode as unexpected and involuntary. The incoming tenant’s conceivable reluctance to entertain lodgers would be another disappointment of the poet’s expectations. There is no direct evidence that Shelley was just then suffering from financial distress in a degree to make the Nantgwillt farmer suspect his solvency. On the contrary, his ability to continue his southward journey within a few days of his retirement from the farmhouse points to the opposite conclusion.