One of the noteworthy facts connected with Shelley’s journey in the autumn of 1813 to the Cumberland lakes, and Edinburgh, is that he made the trip in his own carriage drawn by post horses,—the costliest way of travelling seventy years since. In London he could get horses from a livery-stable on credit; but for post-horses taken for the stage, ‘the immediate heir to one of the first fortunes of England’ must have paid at once. As Peacock was at that time a poor man of letters he cannot be supposed to have contributed anything towards the cost of the journey, though he possibly paid his own hotel-bills. The charges of the trip must have fallen chiefly, if not altogether, on Shelley,—the young gentleman who, at this term of his career, is represented as wearing furbished-up clothes, because he could not afford to buy new ones. Mr. Medwin, of Horsham, could probably have told how his youthful client obtained the money that enabled him to execute this feat of prodigality.
Before the present narrative deals with incidents of 1814 notice should be taken of a trivial literary performance, and a piece of important literary labour, that pertain to the record of the year in which the poet attained his majority. Reprinting the Vegetarian Note to Queen Mab, with a few alterations and additions of no moment, he published it in the form of a tract that was offered for sale by a medical bookseller at eighteen pence a copy; the date of publication being subsequent to the secret issue of the poem. To the later months of the same year may also be attributed the labour of writing the Refutation of Deism, which is believed to have been published (at least in the legal sense of the term) at the beginning of 1814,—the year given on the title-page.
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW LOVE.
Shelley’s Refusal to join in the Resettlement of A and B—His Places of Residence in Two Years and Eight Months—A Refutation of Deism—Mr. Kegan Paul’s Inaccuracies—Discord between Shelley and Harriett—Their Remarriage—Miss Westbrook’s Withdrawal—Shelley’s Desertion of Harriett—The Desertion closes in Separation by mutual Agreement—‘Do what other women do!’—Causes of the Separation—How Shelley’s Evidence touching them should be regarded—Peacock’s Testimony for Harriett—Shelley in Skinner Street—‘The Mask of Scorn’—Mary Godwin not bred up to mate in Free Contract—Old St. Pancras Church—At Mary Wollstonecraft’s Grave—Claire’s Part in the Wooing—Excuses for Mary Godwin—The Elopement from Skinner Street—From London to Dover—From Dover to Calais—A ‘Scene’ at Calais—The Joint Journal—Mrs. Shelley convicted of Tampering with Evidence—The Six Weeks’ Tour—Shelley begs Harriett to come to him in Switzerland—Byron’s Hunger for Evil Fame—Shelley’s Self-Approbation and Self-Righteousness—Godwin’s Wrath with Shelley—Their subsequent Relations—Shelley’s Renewal of Intercourse with Harriett—Tiffs and Disagreements between Claire and Mary—Claire’s Incapacity for Friendship—She wants more than Friendship from Shelley.
On coming of age, Shelley was pressed to join in the resettlement of the estates A and B, in accordance with the directions of his grandfather’s will and codicil. Instead of yielding to this pressure, he firmly refused to join in the arrangement on which his father and grandfather were set; and by so refusing he forfeited for himself and issue all the interest assigned to him and them, in the far larger property, by the will. The choice was given to him to elect between surrendering the estate secured to him by existing settlements, and taking in lieu thereof the position and interest appointed to him by his grandfather’s will in the greater estate, or retaining his interest in A and B, and foregoing participation alike for himself and issue in C. Shelley deliberately elected to hold what was already secured to him, and to forego all interest under his grandfather’s will. On 21st June, 1813, he wrote to Mr. Medwin, Senr., in his own perverse way about what was his grandfather’s arrangement: ‘Depend upon it, that no artifice of my father’s shall induce me to take a life-interest in the estate;’ and he held to this resolution. By being as good as his word on this matter, he may be said to have disinherited himself and his issue out of the very large entailed estate, created by his grandfather’s wealth. Religious sentiment and political opinion had nothing whatever to do with the arrangement in which he refused to concur. There must be an end to the romantic notion that the poet was disinherited, or in some way extruded from his boyhood’s home and proper place in his family, by the merciless elders of his house, at the instigation of religious bigotry and political resentment.
Shelley’s refusal to concur in the arrangement could be more easily accounted for, if there were evidence before the world that his grandfather and father required him to take a mere life-interest in lieu of his larger interest in A and B, and during their lives to rely wholly on their generosity for an income, sufficient for his necessities and the payment of the considerable debts contracted by him during his minority,—debts for which he was responsible in honour, though not in law. But whilst there is no evidence before the world that the sire and grandsire made any such requirement, there exists considerable (though by no means conclusive) evidence that by acceding to the wishes of his domestic elders in respect to the resettlement of A and B, he would have a large assured income during their lives:—even (according to one account) so large an income as 2000l. a-year, which would certainly have been sufficient for his current necessities and the payment of his creditors. One would like to know more of the negotiations between the young man and his elders, that resulted in his final refusal to re-settle A and B, notwithstanding the purport of the momentous codicil. Field Place, doubtless, could impart the desired knowledge; but Field Place is not likely to throw fuller light on the romantic inaccuracies of Lady Shelley’s Shelley Memorials.
My impression is that Mr. Medwin, the elder, was mainly accountable for the action by which Shelley put himself outside his original domestic circle, and closed the doors of his ‘boyhood’s home’ against himself for ever. The solicitor, who undertook in the summer of 1813 to see his young friend ‘through his difficulties,’ had reasons of self-interest, and also of resentment, for drawing him into deeper difficulty. He had lent him money, and saw it would be more to his advantage to have for his client the tenant in tail male of A and B in remainder expectant, than to have for his client a young man with nothing but a contingent life-interest in an estate to which he might never succeed. At the same time, the Horsham solicitor participated in his youthful client’s animosity against the Squire of Field Place, who had on a recent occasion treated him with insolence, if not with personal violence. The evidence is clear that the lawyer encouraged his youthful client to oppose his father and grandfather; and like most wilful men, Shelley was ever easily managed by the person to whom he gave his confidence for the moment. The lawyer’s influence and his youthful client’s antagonism to the elders of his House are sufficient to account for Shelley’s firmness in ‘holding his own’ at a great sacrifice; but the evidences are still wanting for a perfect account of the motives which made him disinherit himself and his issue out of the bulk of the family property. After taking a course attended with painful consequences, it was like Shelley to call it the course of duty and self-sacrifice. Readers may dismiss with a smile the notion that he declined to resettle A and B as C, because his conscience would not permit him to join in an immoral arrangement which, whilst diminishing his own capacity for beneficent action, might put vast power in the hands of a fool or scoundrel. Religious sentiment and political morality had no more to do with Shelley’s refusal than with Sir Bysshe’s codicil.