| LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 213 |
Let us turn to more cheering contemplations:
With a view of in some degree renovating his health, which had suffered
from intense study, his strict Pythagorean system of diet, that by no means agreed with his
constitution, and the immoderate use of laudanum, in which he sought for an opiate to his
harassed feelings, and in the hope, by the distraction of new scenes, to dull their
irritability, on the 28th of July 1814, Shelley, as appears by the
second volume of the Posthumous
Works, left London, accompanied by the present Mrs.
Shelley, the daughter of Godwin and
Mary Wollstonecraft, and another lady. With that contempt of danger from an element
ever his delight, which characterised him, he embarked with them in an open boat from
Dover, and not without exposure to a gale of wind on the passage, succeeded in reaching
Calais, and thence proceeded to Paris, There, after remaining a week, they resolved to walk
through France. He went to the Marché des Herbes, purchased an ass, and thus pilgrimaging,
the gipsy
| 214 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
The destitution and ruin which the Cossacks had, locust like, left everywhere behind them in their pestilential march,—the distress of the plundered inhabitants,—their roofless cottages, the rafters black, and the walls dilapidated, made a deep impression on Shelley’s mind, and gave a sting to his detestation of war and despotism.
Further pedestrianism being rendered impossible by a sprained ancle, he now
bought an open voiture, on four wheels, for five napoleons, and hired a man with a mule,
with eight more, to convey them to Neufchatel, which, after many inconveniences en route,
they reached. A magical effect was produced on the travellers by the first sight of the
Alps. They were, says the tourist, “a hundred miles distant, but reach so high in
the heavens, that they look like those accumulated clouds of dazzling white, that
ar-
| LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 215 |
With the improvidence peculiar to Shelley in pecuniary matters, he found that on his arrival at Neufchatel,
his money was exhausted, and after obtaining thirty-eight pounds on the discount of a bill
for forty pounds, at three months, (pretty good interest,) they journeyed on to Lucerne. On
reaching the lake of Uri, they hired a boat. This romantic lake, remarkable for its deep
seclusion and sacred solitude, is thus described: “The lake of Lucerne is
encompassed on all sides by high mountains, that rise abruptly from the water.
Sometimes their base points downwards perpendicularly, and casts a black shadow on the
waves,—sometimes they are covered with thick wood, whose dark foliage is
interspersed by the brown, bare crags, on which the trees have taken root. In every
part where
| 216 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
After much search after a habitation, they at length domiciled themselves
in two unfurnished rooms, in an ugly big house at Brunen, called the Chateau. These they
hired at a guinea a month, had beds moved into them, and the next day took possession. It
was a wretched place, with no comfort or convenience. It was with some difficulty that they
could get any food prepared. As it was cold and rainy, they ordered a fire. They lighted an
immense stove, which occupied a corner of the room, and when heated, they were obliged to
throw open the windows, to prevent a kind of suffocation; added to this, there was but one
person in Brunen who could speak French, a barbarous sort of German being the language of
this part of Switzerland. It was
| LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 217 |
He commenced a romance on the subject of the Assassins. The fragment will be found in his
Prose Works, and evinces much power,
being a wonderful improvement on his former attempts of the kind. He drew his inspiration
from the scenes that were before his eyes. “Nature undisturbed,” he
says, “had become an enchantress in these solitudes. She had collected here all
that was divine and wonderful from the armoury of her own omnipotence. The very winds
breathed health and renovation, and the joyousness of youthful courage. Fountains of
chrystalline water played perpetually among the aromatic flowers, and mingled a
freshness with their odour. The pine boughs became instruments of exquisite
contrivance, among which the ever varying breeze waked music of new and more delightful
melody. Such scenes of chaotic confusion and harrowing sublimity, surrounding and
shutting
| 218 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
I have thought that the following passage bears some allusion to himself.
“An Assassin, accidentally the inhabitant of a civilized country, would wage
unremitting war from principle against the predilections and distastes of the many. He
would find himself compelled to adopt means which they would abhor, for the sake of an
object which they could not conceive that he should propose to himself. Secure and
self-enshrined in the magnificence and preeminence of his conceptions, spotless as the
light of heaven, he would be the victim among men, of calumny and persecution.
Incapable of distinguishing his motives, they would rank him among the vilest and most
atro-
| LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 219 |
Such were some of his contemplations,—the prognostics, though not of his future destiny—to that extent—of a moral crucifixion. Speaking of the Fragment, Mrs. Shelley says, “There is great beauty in the sketch as it stands,—it breathes that spirit of domestic peace and general brotherhood, founded on love, which he afterwards developed in the Prometheus Unbound;” and she might have added, in other of his works.
It had been the intention of the party to cross the St. Gothard, at the
foot of which they were, and make an excursion into the north of Italy, but the idea was
soon abandoned. They resolved to return to England, from which they were distant eight
hundred miles. Was it possible,
| 220 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
After a land-adventure, the breaking down of a caleche at Mumph, they with some difficulty reached Basle, and
where, taking their passage
| LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 221 |
“We were carried down,” says the tourist, “by a dangerously rapid current, and saw on each side, hills covered with vines and trees, craggy cliffs, crowned by desolate towers and wooded islands, whose picturesque ruins peeped from between the foliage, and cast the shadows of their forms on the troubled waters without defacing them.”
Having reached Rotterdam, they embarked for England, and encountering another storm on the bar, where they were for some time aground, landed in London, on the 13th August.
I have heard Shelley frequently dilate with rapture on the descent of the Rheuss and the Rhine. The remembrance of both, never faded from his memory, and furnished additional stores to his poetic mind, to be treasured up for after days, and reproduced in forms of surpassing sublimity and loveliness.
Yet though his imagination had been en-
| 222 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
When arrived there, he had to look forward to four months before he could
hope to receive a single pound note of his anticipated allowance. His father’s heart
was steeled in obduracy, and with that hatred between fathers and sons which
| LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 223 |
The estate, as it was supposed, was strictly entailed; consequently his coming into the property depended on his surviving his father. His own life was not insurable, and was in so precarious a state that he had no possibility of raising money on his contingency. He was now destined, therefore, to suffer all the horrors of destitution. He says in the Cenci,—
“The eldest son of a rich nobleman, Is heir to all his incapacities,— He has great wants, and scanty powers.” |
How he contrived to live during almost a year in the metropolis, I know not; but he pathetically describes his situation in Rosalind and Helen:—
“Thou knowest what a thing is poverty, Among the fallen on evil days; ’Tis crime, and fear, and infamy, And houseless want, in frozen ways Wandering, ungarmented, and pain; And worse than all, that inward stain, |
| 224 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
Foul self-contempt, which drowns in tears Youth’s starlight smiles, and wakes its tears, First like hot gall, then dry for ever. And well thou knowest, a mother never Would doom her children to this ill,— And well he knew the same.” |
Under the prospect of being forced to support himself by a profession, he applied his talents to medicine, which he often told me he should have preferred to all others, as affording greater opportunities of alleviating the sufferings of humanity. He walked a hospital, and became familiar with death in all its forms,—“a lazar house, it was,”—I have heard him quote the passage—
“wherein were laid Numbers of all diseased—all maladies Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture—qualms Of heart-sick agony—all feverish kinds;” |
“Despair Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch.” |
| LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 225 |
He was not at that time acquainted with one, of whom I have often heard him speak with a gratitude and respect so justly due, and who is as much distinguished for the qualities of his heart as his talents;—why should I not name him?—Horace Smith. To his generous sympathy Shelley was throughout the latter part of his life greatly indebted. His purse was ever open to him, and in those pecuniary embarrassments, which his extreme generosity to others often entailed on him, he never applied to his valued friend in vain.
But at the beginning of the year 1815, his worldly prospects brightened;
the Shelley set-
| 226 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
He was thus enabled to dispose of it by will as he pleased; and not only
this, he had the means of raising money to supply his necessities. Sir Timothy was well aware of his son’s position,
but was not prepared for the discovery of it. The news fell upon him like a thunderbolt, he
was furious; but being desirous of benefitting his family, by the advice of a solicitor,
made some arrangement; but whether on a post obit, or what terms, I know not, with
Shelley, for an annuity of eight hundred pounds
| LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 227 |
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