Chapter 2
It is said that in the spring of 1817 Shelley and Keats agreed that each of them would undertake an epic, to be written in a space of six months: Shelley produced _The Revolt of Islam_ (originally entitled _Laon and Cythna_), and Keats produced _Endymion_. Shelley's poem, the longer of the two, was completed by the early autumn, while Keats's occupied him until the winter which opened 1818. On 8th October, 1817, Keats wrote to a friend, 'I refused to visit Shelley, that I might have my own unfettered scope; meaning presumably that he wished to finish _Endymion_ according to his own canons of taste and execution, without being hampered by any advice from Shelley. There is also a letter from Keats to his two brothers, 22nd December, 1817, saying: 'Shelley's poem _Laon and Cythna_ is out, and there are words about its being objected to as much as _Queen Mab_ was. Poor Shelley, I think he has his quota of good qualities.' As late as February 1818 He wrote, 'I have not yet read Shelley's poem.' On 23rd January of the same year he had written: 'The fact is, he [Hunt] and Shelley are hurt, and perhaps justly, at my not having showed them the affair [_Endymion_ in MS.] officiously; and, from several hints I have had, they appear much disposed to dissect and anatomize any trip or slip I may have made.' It was at nearly the same date, 4th February, that Keats, Shelley, and Hunt wrote each a sonnet on _The Nile_: in my judgment, Shelley's is the least successful of the three.
Soon after their marriage, Shelley and his second wife settled at Great Marlow, in Buckinghamshire. They were shortly disturbed by a Chancery suit, whereby Mr. Westbrook sought to deprive Shelley of the custody of his two children by Harriet, Ianthe and Charles. Towards March 1818, Lord Chancellor Eldon pronounced judgment against Shelley, on the ground of his culpable conduct as a husband, carrying out culpable opinions upheld in his writings. The children were handed over to Dr. Hume, an army-physician named by Shelley: he had to assign for their support a sum of £120 per annum, brought up to £200 by a supplement from Mr. Westbrook. About the same date he suffered from an illness which he regarded as a dangerous pulmonary attack, and he made up his mind to quit England for Italy; accompanied by his wife, their two infants William and Clara, Miss Clairmont, and her infant Allegra, who was soon afterwards consigned to Lord Byron in Venice. Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke, who was Keats's friend from boyhood, writes: 'When Shelley left England for Italy, Keats told me that he had received from him an invitation to become his guest, and in short to make one of his household. It was upon the purest principle that Keats declined his noble proffer, for he entertained an exalted opinion of Shelley's genius--in itself an inducement. He also knew of his deeds of bounty, and from their frequent social intercourse he had full faith in the sincerity of his proposal.... Keats said that, in declining the invitation, his sole motive was the consciousness, which would be ever prevalent with him, of his being, in its utter extent, not a free agent, even within such a circle as Shelley's--he himself nevertheless being the most unrestricted of beings.' Mr. Clarke seems to mean in this passage that Shelley, _before_ starting for Italy, invited Keats to accompany him thither--a fact, if such it is, of which I find no trace elsewhere. It is however just possible that Clarke was only referring to the earlier invitation, previously mentioned, for Keats to visit at Great Marlow; or he may most probably, with some confusion as to dates and details, be thinking of the message which Shelley, when already settled in Italy for a couple of years, addressed to his brother-poet--of which more anon.
Shelley and his family--including for the most part Miss Clairmont--wandered about a good deal in Italy. They were in Milan, Leghorn, the Bagni di Lucca, Venice and its neighbourhood, Rome, Naples, Florence, Pisa, the Bagni di Pisa, and finally (after Shelley had gone to Ravenna by himself) in a lonely house named Casa Magni, between Lerici and San Terenzio, on the Bay of Spezzia. Their two children died; but in 1819 another was born, the Sir Percy Florence Shelley who lived on till November 1889. They were often isolated or even solitary. Among their interesting acquaintances at one place or another were, besides Byron, Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne (the latter had previously been Mrs. Reveley, and had been sought in marriage by Godwin after the death of Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797); the Contessina Emilia Viviani, celebrated in Shelley's poem of _Epipsychidion_; Captain Medwin, Shelley's cousin and schoolfellow; the Greek Prince, Alexander Mavrocordato; Lieutenant and Mrs. Williams, who joined them at Casa Magni; and Edward John Trelawny, an adventurous and daring sea-rover, who afterwards accompanied Byron to Greece.
It was only towards the summer of 1819 that Shelley read the _Endymion_. He wrote of it thus in a letter to his publisher, Mr. Ollier, September 6, 1819. 'I have read ... Keats's poem.... Much praise is due to me for having read it, the author's intention appearing to be that no person should possibly get to the end of it. Yet it is full of some of the highest and the finest gleams of poetry: indeed, everything seems to be viewed by the mind of a poet which is described in it. I think, if he had printed about fifty pages of fragments from it, I should have been led to admire Keats as a poet more than I ought--of which there is now no danger.' Shelley regarded the Hymn to Pan, in the first Book of _Endymion_, as affording 'the surest promise of ultimate excellence.'
The health of Keats having broken down, and consumption having set in, Shelley wrote to him from Pisa urging him to come over to Italy as his guest. Keats did not however go to Pisa, but, along with the young painter Joseph Severn, to Naples, and thence to Rome. I here subjoin Shelley's letter.
'Pisa--27 July, 1820.
'MY DEAR KEATS,
'I hear with great pain the dangerous accident you have undergone [recurrence of blood-spitting from the lungs], and Mr. Gisborne, who gives me the account of it, adds that you continue to wear a consumptive appearance. This consumption is a disease particularly fond of people who write such good verses as you have done, and with the assistance of an English winter, it can often indulge its selection. I do not think that young and amiable poets are bound to gratify its taste: they have entered into no bond with the Muses to that effect. But seriously (for I am joking on what I am very anxious about) I think you would do well to pass the winter in Italy, and avoid so tremendous an accident; and, if you think it as necessary as I do, so long as you continue to find Pisa or its neighbourhood agreeable to you, Mrs. Shelley unites with myself in urging the request that you would take up your residence with us. You might come by sea to Leghorn (France is not worth seeing, and the sea is particularly good for weak lungs)--which is within a few miles of us. You ought, at all events, to see Italy; and your health, which I suggest as a motive, may be an excuse to you. I spare declamation about the statues and paintings and ruins, and (what is a greater piece of forbearance) about the mountains and streams, the fields, the colours of the sky, and the sky itself.
'I have lately read your _Endymion_ again, and even with a new sense of the treasures of poetry it contains--though treasures poured forth with indistinct profusion. This people in general will not endure; and that is the cause of the comparatively few copies which have been sold. I feel persuaded that you are capable of the greatest things, so you but will. I always tell Ollier to send you copies of my books. _Prometheus Unbound_ I imagine you will receive nearly at the same time with this letter. _The Cenci_ I hope you have already received: it was studiously composed in a different style.
"Below the _good_ how far! but far above the _great_[3]!"
In poetry I have sought to avoid system and mannerism. I wish those who excel me in genius would pursue the same plan.
'Whether you remain in England, or journey to Italy, believe that you carry with you my anxious wishes for your health and success--wherever you are, or whatever you undertake--and that I am
'Yours sincerely,
'P.B. SHELLEY.'
Keats's reply to Shelley ran as follows:--
'Hampstead--August 10, 1820.
'MY DEAR SHELLEY,
'I am very much gratified that you, in a foreign country, and with a mind almost over-occupied, should write to me in the strain of the letter beside me. If I do not take advantage of your invitation, it will be prevented by a circumstance I have very much at heart to prophesy[4]. There is no doubt that an English winter would put an end to me, and do so in a lingering hateful manner. Therefore I must either voyage or journey to Italy, as a soldier marches up to a battery. My nerves at present are the worst part of me: yet they feel soothed that, come what extreme may, I shall not be destined to remain in one spot long enough to take a hatred of any four particular bedposts.
'I am glad you take any pleasure in my poor poem--which I would willingly take the trouble to unwrite if possible, did I care so much as I have done about reputation.
'I received a copy of _The Cenci_, as from yourself, from Hunt. There is only one part of it I am judge of--the poetry and dramatic effect, which by many spirits nowadays is considered the Mammon. A modern work, it is said, must have a purpose; which may be the God. An artist must serve Mammon: he must have "self-concentration"--selfishness perhaps. You, I am sure, will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furled for six months together. And is not this extraordinary talk for the writer of _Endymion_, whose mind was like a pack of scattered cards? I am picked up and sorted to a pip. My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk.
'I am in expectation of _Prometheus_ every day. Could I have my own wish effected, you would have it still in manuscript, or be but now putting an end to the second Act. I remember you advising me not to publish my first blights, on Hampstead Heath[5]. I am returning advice upon your hands. Most of the poems in the volume I send you [this was the volume containing _Lamia, Hyperion_, &c.] have been written above two years[6], and would never have been published but for hope of gain: so you see I am inclined enough to take your advice now.
'I must express once more my deep sense of your kindness, adding my sincere thanks and respects for Mrs. Shelley. In the hope of soon seeing you I remain
'Most sincerely yours,
'JOHN KEATS.'
It may have been in the interval between writing his note Of invitation to Keats, and receiving the reply of the latter, that Shelley penned the following letter to the Editor of the _Quarterly Review_--the periodical which had taken (or had shared with _Blackwood's Magazine_) the lead in depreciating _Endymion_. The letter, however, was left uncompleted, and was not dispatched. (I omit such passages as are not directly concerned with Keats):--
'SIR,
'Should you cast your eye on the signature of this letter before you read the contents, you might imagine that they related to a slanderous paper which appeared in your Review some time since.... I am not in the habit of permitting myself to be disturbed by what is said or written of me.... The case is different with the unfortunate subject of this letter, the author of _Endymion_, to whose feelings and situation I entreat you to allow me to call your attention. I write considerably in the dark; but, if it is Mr. Gifford that I am addressing, I am persuaded that, in an appeal to his humanity and justice, he will acknowledge the _fas ab hoste doceri_. I am aware that the first duty of a reviewer is towards the public; and I am willing to confess that the _Endymion_ is a poem considerably defective, and that perhaps it deserved as much censure as the pages of your Review record against it. But, not to mention that there is a certain contemptuousness of phraseology, from which it Is difficult for a critic to abstain, in the review of _Endymion_, I do not think that the writer has given it its due praise. Surely the poem, with all its faults, is a very remarkable production for a man of Keats's age[7]; and the promise of ultimate excellence is such as has rarely been afforded even by such as have afterwards attained high literary eminence. Look at book 2, line 833, &c., and book 3, lines 113 to 120; read down that page, and then again from line 193[8]. I could cite many other passages to convince you that it deserved milder usage. Why it should have been reviewed at all, excepting for the purpose of bringing its excellences into notice, I cannot conceive; for it was very little read, and there was no danger that it should become a model to the age of that false taste with which I confess that it is replenished.
'Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state of mind by this review, which, I am persuaded, was not written with any intention of producing the effect--to which it has at least greatly contributed--of embittering his existence, and inducing a disease from which there are now but faint hopes of his recovery. The first effects are described to me to have resembled insanity, and it was by assiduous watching that he was restrained from effecting purposes of suicide. The agony of his sufferings at length produced the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs, and the usual process of consumption appears to have begun. He is coming to pay me a visit in Italy; but I fear that, unless his mind can be kept tranquil, little is to be hoped from the mere influence of climate.
'But let me not extort anything from your pity. I have just seen a second volume, published by him evidently in careless despair. I have desired my bookseller to send you a copy: and allow me to solicit your especial attention to the fragment of a poem entitled _Hyperion_, the composition of which was checked by the review in question. The great proportion of this piece is surely in the very highest style of poetry. I speak impartially, for the canons of taste to which Keats has conformed in his other compositions are the very reverse of my own. I leave you to judge for yourself: it would be an insult to you to suppose that, from motives however honourable, you would lend yourself to a deception of the public.'
The question arises, How did Shelley know what he here states--that Keats was thrown, by reading the _Quarterly_ article, into a state resembling insanity, that he contemplated suicide, &c.? Not any document has been published whereby this information could have been imparted to Shelley: his chief informant on the subject appears to have been Mr. Gisborne, who had now for a short while returned to England, and some confirmation may have come from Hunt. As to the statements themselves, they have, ever since the appearance in 1848 of Lord Houghton's _Life of Keats_, been regarded as very gross exaggerations: indeed, I think the tendency has since then been excessive in the reverse direction, and the vexation occasioned to Keats by hostile criticism has come to be underrated.
Shelley addressed to Keats in Naples another letter, 'anxiously enquiring about his health, offering him advice as to the adaptation of diet to the climate, and concluding with an urgent invitation to Pisa, where he could assure him every comfort and attention.' Shelley did not, however, re-invite Keats to his own house on the present occasion; writing to Miss Clairmont, 'We are not rich enough for that sort of thing.' The letter to Miss Clairmont is dated 18 February, 1821, and appears to have been almost simultaneous with the one sent to Keats. In that case, Keats cannot be supposed to have received the invitation; for he had towards the middle of November quitted Naples for Rome, and by 18 February he was almost at his last gasp.
Shelley's feeling as to Keats's final volume of poems is further exhibited in the following extracts, (To Thomas Love Peacock, November, 1820.) 'Among the modern things which have reached me is a volume of poems by Keats; in other respects insignificant enough, but containing the fragment of a poem called _Hyperion_, I dare say you have not time to read it; but it is certainly an astonishing piece of writing, and gives me a conception of Keats which I confess I had not before.' (To Mrs. Leigh Hunt, 11 November, 1820.) 'Keats's new volume has arrived to us, and the fragment called _Hyperion_ promises for him that he is destined to become one of the first writers of the age. His other things are imperfect enough[9], and, what is worse, written in the bad sort of style which is becoming fashionable among those who fancy that they are imitating Hunt and Wordsworth.... Where is Keats now? I am anxiously expecting him in Italy, when I shall take care to bestow every possible attention on him. I consider his a most valuable life, and I am deeply interested in his safety. I intend to be the physician both of his body and his soul,--to keep the one warm, and to teach the other Greek and Spanish. I am aware indeed, in part, that I am nourishing a rival who will far surpass me; and this is an additional motive, and will be an added pleasure.' (To Peacock, 15 February, 1821.) 'Among your anathemas of the modern attempts in poetry do you include Keats's _Hyperion_? I think it very fine. His other poems are worth little; but, if the _Hyperion_ be not grand poetry, none has been produced by our contemporaries.' There is also a phrase in a letter to Mr. Ollier, written on 14 May, 1820, before the actual publication of the _Lamia_ volume: 'Keats, I hope, is going to show himself a great poet; like the sun, to burst through the clouds which, though dyed in the finest colours of the air, obscured his rising.'
Keats died in Rome on 23 February, 1821. Soon afterwards Shelley wrote his _Adonais_. He has left various written references to _Adonais_, and to Keats in connexion with it: these will come more appropriately when I speak of that poem itself. But I may here at once quote from the letter which Shelley addressed on 16 June, 1821, to Mr. Gisborne, who had sent on to him a letter from Colonel Finch[10], giving a very painful account of the last days of Keats, and especially (perhaps in more than due proportion) of the violence of temper which he had exhibited. Shelley wrote thus: 'I have received the heartrending account of the closing scene of the great genius whom envy and ingratitude[11] scourged out of the world. I do not think that, if I had seen it before, I could have composed my poem. The enthusiasm of the imagination would have overpowered the sentiment. As it is, I have finished my Elegy; and this day I send it to the press at Pisa. You shall have a copy the moment it is completed, I think it will please you. I have dipped my pen in consuming fire for his destroyers: otherwise the style is calm and solemn[12].
As I have already said, the last residence of Shelley was on the Gulf of Spezzia. He had a boat built named the Ariel (by Byron, the Don Juan), boating being his favourite recreation; and on 1 July, 1822, he and Lieut. Williams, along with a single sailor-lad, started in her for Leghorn, to welcome there Leigh Hunt. The latter had come to Italy with his family, on the invitation of Byron and Shelley, to join in a periodical to be called _The Liberal_. On 8 July Shelley, with his two companions, embarked to return to Casa Magni. Towards half-past six in the evening a sudden and tremendous squall sprang up. The Ariel sank, either upset by the squall, or (as some details of evidence suggest) run down near Viareggio by an Italian fishing-boat, the crew of which had plotted to plunder her of a sum of money. The bodies were eventually washed ashore; and on 16 August the corpse of Shelley was burned on the beach under the direction of Trelawny. In the pocket of his jacket had been found two books--a Sophocles, and the _Lamia_ volume, doubled back as if it had at the last moment been thrust aside. His ashes were collected, and, with the exception of the heart which was delivered to Mrs. Shelley, were buried in Rome, in the new Protestant Cemetery. The corpse of Shelley's beloved son William had, in 1819, been interred hard by, and in 1821 that of Keats, in the old Cemetery--a space of ground which had, by 1822, been finally closed.
The enthusiastic and ideal fervour which marks Shelley's poetry could not possibly be simulated--it was a part, the most essential part, of his character. He was remarkably single-minded, in the sense of being constantly ready to do what he professed as, in the abstract, the right thing to be done; impetuous, bold, uncompromising, lavishly generous, and inspired by a general love of humankind, and a coequal detestation of all the narrowing influences of custom and prescription. Pity, which included self-pity, was one of his dominant emotions. If we consider what are the uses, and what the abuses, of a character of this type, we shall have some notion of the excellences and the defects of Shelley. In person he was well-grown and slim; more nearly beautiful than handsome; his complexion brilliant, his dark-brown but slightly grizzling hair abundant and wavy, and his eyes deep-blue, large, and fixed. His voice was high-pitched--at times discordant, but capable of agreeable modulation; his general aspect uncommonly youthful.
The roll of Shelley's publications is a long one for a man who perished not yet thirty years of age. I append a list of the principal ones, according to date of publication, which was never very distant from that of composition. Several minor productions remain unspecified.
1810. Zastrozzi, a Romance. Puerile rubbish.
" Original Poetry, by Victor and Cazire. Withdrawn, and ever since unknown.
" Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson. Balderdash, partly (it would appear) intended as burlesque.
1811. St. Irvyne, or The Rosicrucian, a Romance. No better than Zastrozzi.
1813. Queen Mab. Didactic and subversive.
1817. Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude, and other Poems. The earliest volume fully worthy of its author.
1818. Laon and Cythna--reissued as The Revolt of Islam. An epic of revolution and emancipation in the Spenserian Stanza.
1819. Rosalind and Helen, a modern Eclogue, and other Poems. The character of 'Lionel' is an evident idealisation of Shelley himself.
1819. The Cenci, a Tragedy. Has generally been regarded as the finest English tragedy of modern date.
" Prometheus Unbound, a Lyrical Drama, and other Poems. The Prometheus ranks as at once the greatest and the most thoroughly characteristic work of Shelley.
1819. Oedipus Tyrannus, or Swellfoot the Tyrant. A Satirical Drama on the Trial of Queen Caroline.
1821. Epipsychidion. A poem of ideal love under a human personation.
" Adonais.
1822. Hellas. A Drama on the Grecian War of Liberation.
1824. Posthumous Poems. Include Julian and Maddalo, written in 1818, The Witch of Atlas, 1820, The Triumph of Life, 1822, and many other compositions and translations.