His days and nights at Oxford were dedicated to incessant study and composition, and soon after his arrival, he sent me a volume of poems published at Parkers’, entitled the “Posthumous works of my Aunt Margaret Nicholson,” in which were some stanzas to Charlotte Corday. It might easily be perceived that he had been reading the French revolutionary writers, from the terror of this wild, half-mad production, the poetry of which was well worthy the subject.
The author of “Shelley at Oxford,” gives the
following account of this extraordinary effort:—“A mad washerwoman named
Peg Nicholson, had attempted to stab
King George the Third, with a carving
knife—the story has been long forgotten, but it was then fresh in the
recollection of every one; it was proposed that we
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 87 |
“The idea gave an object and purpose to our burlesque, for
Shelley, although of a grave disposition,
had a certain sly relish in a practical joke, so that it was ingenious and abstruse,
and of a literary nature. To ridicule the strange mixture of sentimentality with the
murderous fury of revolutionists, that was so powerful in the compositions of the day,
amused him much, and the proofs were altered again to adapt them to their new scheme,
but still without any notion of publication. But the bookseller was pleased with the
whimsical conceit, and asked to be permitted to publish the book on his own account,
promising inviolate secrecy, and as many copies gratis as might be required. After some hesitation, permission was
granted, upon the plighted honour of the trade. In a few days, or rather in
88 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
“The first poem was a long one, condemning war in the lump, puling
trash that might have been written by a quaker, and could only have been published in
sober sadness by a society for the diffusion of that kind of knowledge which they
deemed useful—useful for some end which
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 89 |
“A few copies were sent as a special favour to trusty and sagacious
friends at a distance, whose gravity would not permit them to suspect a
hoax,—they read and admired, being charmed with the wild notes of liberty; some
indeed presumed to censure mildly certain papers, as having been thrown off in too bold
a vein. Nor was a certain success wanting; the remaining copies were rapidly sold in
Oxford, at the aristocratic price of half-a-crown per half dozen pages. We used to meet
gownsmen in High Street, reading the goodly volume, as-they walked, pensive, with grave
and sage delight,—some of them per-
90 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
“What a strange delusion to admire such stuff—the concentrated essence of nonsense! It was indeed a kind of fashion to be seen reading it in public, as a mark of nice discernment, of a delicate and fastidious taste in poetry, and the very criterion of a choice spirit!”
Without stopping to enquire whether Mr.
Hogg might not be mistaken in the sort of appreciation in which this
regicide production was held, one can hardly conceive, in comparing this with Queen Mab, which Shelley says was written at 18, in 1809, that they were by the same hand.
Though begun, it was not completed till 1812, nor the notes appended to it till the end of
1811, or the beginning of the succeeding year. It has been said, though I do not affirm it,
that for these he was much indebted to Godwin; and
certainly the correctness, I might say the elegance of the style which they display, and
the mass of
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 91 |
92 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
Compassion for his fellow creatures was the ruling motive that originated
this poem. “His sympathy was excited by the misery with which the world is
bursting. He witnessed the sufferings of the poor, and was aware of the evils of
ignorance. He desired to induce every rich man to despoil himself of superfluity, and
to erect a brotherhood of property and science, and was ready to be the first to lay
down the advantages of birth. He looked forward to a sort of millennium of freedom and
brotherhood. He saw in a fervent call on his fellow creatures to share alike the
blessings of the Creator, to love and serve each other, the noblest work that life and
time
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 93 |
Although by some anachronisms, I shall here, for the sake of avoiding
recurrences and repetitions, dispose of the subject. Intimate and confidential as we were,
Shelley never showed me a line of Queen Mab, which may, in some degree, be
accounted for by his knowing that our opinions on very many of the theories, or rather
hypotheses, contained in that book, were as wide apart as the poles, and that he was
sensible that I should have strongly objected to his disseminating them. Not that, although
he did print, he ever published Queen Mab—confining himself
to sending copies of it to many of the writers of the day; but falling into the hands of a
piratical bookseller, it soon got a wide circulation from his reprint. It is certain that
in its present form, Shelley would never have admitted it into a
collection of his works, and the modification of some of his opinions—though, in the
main, he never changed the more important ones—would have
94 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
“Having heard that a poem entitled Queen Mab has been surreptitiously published in London, and that legal proceedings have been instituted against the publisher, I request the favour of your insertion of the following explanation of the affair as it relates to me:—
“A poem, entitled Queen
Mab, was written by me at the age of eighteen, I dare say in a sufficiently
intemperate spirit, but even then was not intended for publication, and a few copies
only were struck off to be distributed among my personal friends. I have not seen this
production for several years. I doubt not that it is perfectly
worthless in point of literary composition; that in all that concerns moral and
political speculations, as well as in the subtler discriminations of metaphysical
and religious doctrine, it is still
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 95 |
I may here remark, that it is singular and unaccountable that the editor of the Examiner should not have complied with Shelley’s wishes in giving publicity to this letter, which could not but have proved beneficial to Shelley. He had so completely forgotten this poem of his youth, that in a letter to Mr. Horace Smith, he says, “If you happen to have a copy of Clarke’s edition of Queen Mab for me, I should like to see it. I hardly know what this poem may be about. I fear it is rather rough.” This letter bears date Sept. 14th, 1821.
96 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
I have marked in italics the passages in these extracts that show his change of opinions—his regret of the publication as a literary composition, and his fear of its tendency, although perhaps Mrs. Shelley is right in including Queen Mab among her lamented husband’s works, from its wide dissemination, and her utter inability to suppress it. Everything is valuable that came from his pen, inasmuch as it assists to show the progress of his master-mind, the elements on which the superstructure of his philosophy was reared. I cannot help observing, en passant, that a copy of Queen Mab was hunted out by his father-in-law, and that the proceedings in Chancery, which I shall have to detail at some length, were principally based on the opinions laid down in that work.
But to proceed: I was acquainted with Sir
Thomas Lawrence, not the great painter, but a knight of Malta, whom I met
first at Paris, and afterwards in London. He had purchased his knighthood in the French
metropolis, where
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 97 |
When I saw him in town, he was always wading at the British Museum, in the stagnant pool of genealogy, endeavouring in spite of his system, to discover the flaw in his escutcheon a mistake, and when he failed in so doing, used to contend that the only real nobility was in the female line. To what absurdity will not an idée fixe impart conviction, or the semblance of conviction!
After the publication of this strange History of the Nairs, he sent it with a letter to
Shelley, referring him to a note in Queen Mab hostile to
98 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
A decided anti-matrimonialist, the historian of the Nairs was by no means
convinced by this argument. One evening he persuaded me to accompany him to the Owenite
chapel, in Charlotte-street. In the ante-room, I observed a man at a table, on which were
laid for sale, among many works on a small scale, this History of the Nairs, and Queen Mab, and after the discourse by Owen—a sort of doctrinal rather than moral essay, in
which he promised his disciples a millennium of roast beef and fowls, and
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 99 |
“How long ought the sexual connection to last? What law ought to specify the extent of the grievance that should limit its duration? A husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love one another. Any law that should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection, would be a most intolerable tyranny, and most unworthy of toleration.”
If Lord Melbourne did not hold similar
opinions, he at least thought there was no harm in
100 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 101 |
This edition of Queen Mab, that has led to the above quotation, bore the name of Brooks as publisher. It contains a beautiful frontispiece illustrative of the death of Ianthe, and as a motto, the well-known line from some Greek dramatist—probably Æschylus—which may be rendered:
Give me whereon to stand, I’ll move the earth. |
102 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 103 |
It is much to be desired that Mrs. Shelley should endeavour to obtain this Queen Mab of Mr. Brooks. I have no doubt that he would estimate it at a price far beyond my means, nor have I made any overtures to him for the purchase, invaluable as its acquisition would be to me at this moment.
Before leaving Queen Mab I have a few words to add:—
There is a vast deal of twaddle in Moore’s Life of Byron, respecting early scepticism, where he
says, “It and infidelity rarely find an entrance into youthful minds,”
adding, “It is fortunate
104 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 105 |
106 | LIFE OF SHELLEY. |
Shelley’s scepticism produced different
fruits—he would never have joined with Matthews, Hobhouse, Scrope Davies, and “beasts after their
kind,” in those orgies which were celebrated at Newstead, when with Byron for an Abbot, they travestied themselves in monkish
dresses, and the apparatus of beads and crosses, and passed their nights in intemperance
and debauchery. No, his
LIFE OF SHELLEY. | 107 |
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