the poet to leave Oxford; that Hogg was a nauseous villain, who attempted to seduce his friend’s wife within a few weeks of her wedding-day; that the first Mrs. Shelley broke her marriage-vow; that William Godwin, instead of feeling like the honest man he affected to be at his daughter’s flight, chuckled in his sleeve at his girl’s good fortune in winning a rich baronet’s son for her paramour and eventual husband; that Lord Chancellor Eldon was an unjust judge, who delivered a monstrous decree at the instigation of religious bigotry and political resentment; that Peacock was either a simpleton or traitor in bearing testimony to the first Mrs. Shelley’s conjugal goodness; that William Jerdan was a virulent slanderer; that Sir John Taylor Coleridge was a malignant calumniator; that Byron, whom Shelley throughout successive years honoured as a supremely great man, and for a while worshipt as a god, was the meanest, paltriest, dirtiest knave that ever broke a sacred trust, and stole a letter. It is thus that the creators of the romantic Shelley deal with the persons most influential on the poet’s career and reputation. It is true they have good words for the hard-swearing Windsor apothecary, who gave the Etonian Shelley lessons in commination and chemistry; and for Leigh Hunt, the equally insatiable and charming parasite, who took all he could get from his young friend’s pocket. The Squire of Field Place, Dr. Greenlaw, Dr. Keate, Mr. Bethell, the Master and Tutors of University College, Hogg, William Godwin, Lord Eldon, Peacock, William Jerdan, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, Byron, were all odious in different ways. The only good and true men, of all the many notable men, Shelley encountered on his way through life, were Dr. Lind and Leigh Hunt. Surely there must be something wrong in the story, that slays so many reputations, whilst it selects Dr. Lind and Leigh Hunt for approval.

Were there not another and very different side to the story, this book would not have been written. Unless I read it amiss (and I am sure I read it aright, for I have studied it carefully, and in doing so have found it to have been perused only in parts, and in some parts with strange carelessness, by all previous biographers), it stands out clear upon the record, that from his boyhood Shelley was disposed to rise in rebellion against all persons placed in authority over him; that instead of having the gentle nature attributed to him by fanciful historians, he was quick-tempered and resentful; that without being desperately wicked, his heart was strangely deceitful towards himself; that he was a bad and disloyal son to a kind-hearted and well-intentioned father, and by no means a good son to a gentle-natured and conscientious mother; that he was a bad husband to his first wife, and far from a faultless husband to his second wife; that, together with several agreeable characteristics, he possessed several dangerous qualities; and that he was, at least towards one person, a bad friend.

So strangely has Shelley’s story been mistold, that this last assertion is likely to make readers start with surprise and revolt against the author. Let it, therefore, be justified at once. The poet had a familiar friend, from whom he had received much kindness, for whom he professed cordial veneration, and with whom he lived in close intimacy. This friend had an only daughter, a bright, lively, romantic, lovely girl, still only sixteen years old. Reared within the lines of religious orthodoxy, this young girl had been educated to think of marriage just as other young English girls are usually taught to think of it. Though he had in former time been an advocate of the Free Contract, her father had changed his views about marriage before her birth, and had abandoned his Free Contract views when she was still a nursling. Soon after making this girl’s acquaintance, Shelley passed into discord with his wife; and soon after ceasing to love his wife, he fixed his affections on his friend’s daughter. Without speaking to his friend on the subject, or giving him occasion to suspect what he was about, Shelley paid his addresses to this child, and had won her heart, ere ever it occurred to her father that they might be living too intimately and affectionately with one another. It was with great difficulty Shelley overcame the child’s notions of right in which she had been educated; but, eventually, he accomplished his purpose. A few days later, leaving his wife in England, Shelley stole this young child from her home, and, carrying her off to the Continent, lived with her as though she were his wife. He did this, though she was his most intimate friend’s only daughter, though she was only sixteen years old, and though he had no prospect of ever being able to marry her. The creators of the romantic Shelley deal with this episode of Shelley’s story as though it were a pleasant and unusually interesting love-passage. Some of them are unable to see that Shelley was at all to blame in the business. Those of them, who admit it was not altogether right of him to act thus towards so young a girl, maintain that the author of such superlatively fine poetry as Adonais and The Cenci cannot have been very wrong in the affair, and should not be judged in respect to the matter, as though he were a young man incapable of writing fine poetry. No one of them has a word of compassion for the girl’s father. Mr. Froude is of opinion that in this matter Shelley was guilty of nothing worse than ‘the sin of acting on emotional theories of liberty,’ and should be judged tenderly, because he was young and enthusiastic! Differing from Mr. Froude, I venture to say that, in acting thus ill towards the girl, Shelley was guilty of very hateful treason towards his friend. I ask English fathers with young children about them, and English brothers with young sisters for playmates, to judge between me and my adversary.

Since it dismissed Hogg with scant courtesy for being too realistic and communicative, Field Place has done much to gratify the Shelleyan enthusiasts and socialists. Soon after publishing the uniformly erroneous Shelley Memorials, Field Place promised to produce, in due season, evidence that Shelley was not seriously to blame in his treatment of his first wife. For years Field Place has gathered evidences for the poet’s vindication. Field Place aided Mr. Buxton Forman in producing his stately and careful edition of the poet’s works. In comparatively recent time the Field Place muniments have enabled a well-known writer to produce the memoir of the poet’s father-in-law (William Godwin), and a memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft, in which she is styled Gilbert Imlay’s wife, and is said to have thought herself his wife before God and man, though they were never married. And now Field Place is enabling another writer to produce another authoritative history of Shelley and Mary, that shall raise Mary Godwin yet nearer to the angels, and bring her husband’s story into more perfect harmony with the straight nose and symmetrical lineaments of Clint’s composition.

It is not surprising that Field Place should wish to produce some more adequate memoir of its poet than Lady Shelley’s Shelley Memorials; from Authentic Sources. But however cleverly it may be executed, only the most hopeful can hope that the promised biography will afford satisfaction to the general public. It is simply impossible for it to satisfy those who want the truth about Shelley, and at the same time to satisfy the enthusiasts who would be pained by the truth, and the Shelleyan Socialists who are chiefly desirous that the truth should not be told. To satisfy those who want the truth and the whole of it: to produce a memoir that shall be worth the paper on which it is printed, it will be necessary for the official biographer to