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    No. 414, February 27,1858.] THE LEADER, ...

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    Shelley And Byron. Shelley And His Writi...

    We are sorry to be obliged to write thus severely of one who , we repeat , seems to desire to do well ; tut we should fail in what we conceive to be the duty of all reviewers if we did not endeavour to check that habit of indiscriminate relation which is really embittering the lives of men of genius with the ear that , after their death , the most sacred recesses of their domestic existence maybe opened for the idle pleasure of the public . Unless the practice be put a stop to , those who are more highly gifted than their fellow men will be forced into a cold isolation and reserve which is utterly opposed to the warm and overflowing nature of genius . They will fear to allude in letters to their private affairs , or to those of their friends , lest the words written in confidence to-day are blurted out to the world , thirty years hence , by some heedless biographer who thinks that the public have a right of property in everything which concerns poets and novelists , statesmen and philosophers . Mr . Middleton , as we have said already , is by no means the first sinner ; we can only hope that he will be the last .

    In other respects , too , these volumes are faulty . The literary criticism , for the most part , is unsatisfactory , being affirmative instead of demonstrative , and abounding in such expressions as—" The tragedy of the Cenci is full of beauty , and marks an epoch in the development of the genius of its author "— " the villanous character of Count Cenci is finely depicted in the opening scene "— " any praise that I mig ht bestow on this must seem superfluous , " & c . Mr . Middleton , moreover , is not always right in his facts . At p . 286 of Vol . I ., he states that Shelley started in 1814 on a continental tour , " accompanied by Mary Godwin and another lady , a near relative of hers . " She was no relative , unless the daughter of a father ' s second wife by a previous husband can be so termed . This young lad v is called , at p . 317 , Miss Clare Claremont : her name was Jane

    Clareinont . At p . 345 , Vol . II ., Mr . Middleton asserts that " an amiable contest took place between Leigh Hunt and Mrs . Shelley" for the possession of the poet ' s heart after the body had been consumed by fire . He has , it is true , Lord Byron ' s authority for the assertion ; but we have reason to believe that no such contest ever took place . It is , indeed , improbable that a person with a nature so finely tempered as Leigh Hunt ' s could dispute with a widow for the custody of her dead husband ' s heart . In the following page it is asserted that Leigh . Hunt was so overcome at the cremation that he was unable " to go through the scene . " This was not so , as may be learnt from Mr . Hunt ' s Autobiography , where it is stated : — "I remained inside the carriage , now looking on , now drawing back with feelings that were not to be witnessed . The Countess Guiccoli , Mr . Middleton calls

    " the Countess of Guiccoli "—which is assigning to her a rank she never possessed . He overstates the nature of the intercourse between Shelley and Keats . It is quite a mistake to say " that much of their time was spent together , " and that their friendship was " dignified by a noble emulation in their art . " Shelley , as all the world knows from the Adonais , had an exalted opinion of Keats ' s genius , and Keats must certainly have perceived the marvellous character of Shelley ' s poetry ; but , as Mr . Middleton afterwards states ( very truly , but very inconsistently ) , Keats had a morbid fear that Shelley ' s superior rank would make him look down with coldness on the man of comparatively humble origin . It is also incorrect to say that Shelley wrote with rapidity . He corrected and elaborated his works with great care .

    The volumes before us constitute an interesting narrative , industrious , anecdotical , and lively ; but the Biography of Shelley has yet to be written . If we have spoken of the present author with apparent harshness , it is because we regret to find that his desire to perform his task effectively should have led him into errors both of taste and judgment . Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron . By E . J . Trelawny . ( Moxon . )—Mr . Trelawny is a Cornish gentleman who became acquainted with Shelley and Byron in Italy , about a year before the death of the former , and some three years before that of the latter . He is already known to the public as the author of a clever novel called The Adventures of a Younger Son ; but it must be confessed that the volume before us is rather the production of a dashing , high-spirited gentleman , written in a style of characteristic freedom , picturesqueness , and sincerjty , _ than the work of an artist , accustomed to literary expression . This , indeed , is admitted by Mr . Trelawny himself in his Preface ; and , after all , a book of personal recollections is the better for being composed in the gossiping manner adopted in extempore narration . Mr . Trelawny has led a . wild , fire-eating , salt-soa-roving kind o life ; and we are pleased to find his book partaking of the character of liis adventures .

    It was at the Tre Palazzi , on the Lung 'Arno , at Pisa , that Mr . Trelawny first saw Shelley . There is ft sad confusion of dates in the present volume ; but it is certain that Mr . Trelawny ' s introduction to the poet was not many months previous to his death . As an instance of this confusion , we may note that Mr . Trelawny spealcs of Mrs , Shelley as having been born in 1797 , adding—" so that , at the time lam speaking of [ the period of his introduction to the poetj , Mrs . Shelley was twenty-seven . " According to this , the year in question must have been 1824 ; but wo all know that Shelley was drowned in 1822 . This , however , in a book of reminisconces , is but a superficial blemish ; and so we pass to more important matters . On first viaiting the dwelling of the poet , Mr . Trelawny was received by Mrs . Williams , the wife of the gentleman who was drowned with Shelley .

    It was dusk , and , looking through the open door of the room , the visitor saw a pair of glittering eyes steadily fixed on his own . Going to the door , Mrs . Williams said , laughingly , Come in , Shelley ; its only our friend Tre juat arrived . " Instantly afterwards , the poet glided in , " blushing like a girl , " and holding out both his hands . Ho had the appearance of a tall , - —thin-strip lingrand- " -wns-habited-like-a-boy- 'in-a-bluek—jaoket-and ^ -trouaersj which ho seemed to have outgrown . " He had a book with him , and Mrs . Williams asked what it was . Ho answered quickly , and with a brightening face , " Caldoron ' s Maqioo Prodigioso ; I am translating some passages in it . " Being asked to road a few of them , he , instead of doing bo , made an extempore rendering of various parts , turning the one language into the other with marvellous ease nnd rapidity , analyzing the genius of the author with subtle power , and interpreting those portions of the story which lie did

    not read . Abruptly ceasing , he suddenly vanished ; for Mr . Trelawny , looking up from the rapt abstraction into which he had been thrown , found that the enchanter was no longer in his presence . " "Where is he ? " he asked . Mrs . Williams rejoined , " Who ? Shelley ? Oh , he comes and goes like a spirit , no one knows when or where : " Presently , he returned with his -wife , who asked eagerly for the last fashionable news from London and Paris . Mrs . Shelley , indeed , though a woman of faculty , and of a sensitive nature , loved society as much as her husband abhorred it ; and this diversity of taste was sometimes embarrassing to both . Shelley , as Mr . Trelawny relates , said one day , with a rueful expression of face , " Mary" ( his wife . ) " has threatened me . " He was asked , in some surprise , " With what ? " " Mary says she will have a party , " he replied . " Oh , the horror ! It will kill me 1 " Mr . Williams undertook to obtain , if possible , a reversal of this sentence ; but he could only procure a commutation . The party was simply to include old friends , instead of strangers , as first of all proposed . One morning , Mr . Trelawny discovered the poet in a dreamy trance beside a dark pool of water in the heart of a black pine forest . He was told that his wife had be en looking abo ut for him disconsolately , unable to hear her solitude anv lonser . On this , he hastily snatched up his books

    and papers , and departed , exclaiming , with a sigh , " Poor Mary ! hers is a sad fate . She can ' t bear solitude , nor I society—the quick coupled with the dead ! " They soon met with the lady , " her clear grey eyes and thoughtful brow expressing the love she could not speak . To stop Shelley's self-reproaches , or to hide her own emotions , she began , in a bantering tone , chiding and coaxing him . " . m For some few months , Mr . Trelawny was in constant intercourse with Shelley , and he has given a delightful picture of the poet ' s character and habits—his sweet , self-sacrificing disposition , his purity , his tendency to believe in whatever is exalted and ennobling , his devotion to study , his wild outbursts of spirits , alternating with deep despondency , his shyness with

    strangers , his childlike contentment with simple pleasures , his light , seraphic movements and inspired face , and his passionate love of the wate r , and the trees , and the flowers , and the mountains , and the glorious shows and changes of the elements in the bright country of his adoption . The building of the boat Don Juan ( 'that fatal and perfidious bark ' in which , like another Lycidas , he perished ) was a source of keen delig ht to him ; but unfortunately , the vessel was constructed on a model which Mr . Williams had taken a fancy to , but of which better judges did not think so highly . Some English sailors who went out in her for a trial reported ' that she was a ticklish boat to manage : ' perhaps , had she been less so , Shelley might still have been alive .

    The account given by Mr . Trelawny of the dreadful event which robbed the world of so great a brain and heart is extremely interesting , and furnishes some new details . The bodies had been temporarily buried in the sand ; but they were dug out , and were found in a dreadfully mangled condition . The flesh hung in tatters , and the bones were loose . It was a wild , lonely spot , backed by the Apennines ; a hot sun glared down through a windless atmosphere on the corpses and the mourners , on the salt foam and the arid sands ; and at a little distance a crowd of spectators had gathered , including many richly-dressed ladies . Lime had been thrown on the bodies , fitair . injT them " of a dark and ghastly indigo colour . " Frankincense , salt ,

    wine , and oil , were thrown on the funeral pyre , and the yellow flames , says Mr . Trelawny , glistened and quivered , while , the heat from the sun and fire made the atmosphere tremulous and wavy . The corpse of Shelley fell open , and the heart ( which , strange to say , was not consumed ) was laid bare . The frontal bone of the skull fell off , and the brains boiled and bubbled for a long time . At this , Byron was so overcome -with horror that he withdrew to the beach , and swam off to the ship Bolivar . Some time before , he had exhibited not a little of his scoffing and sardonic mood ; but he seemed to feel the loss of his friend , nevertheless . Of Byron , Mr . Trelawny does not give an agreeable picture . He confirms the accounts of other writers , and shows that , though originally poss ^ inv some ffenerositv of nature , he had been parched by disappointments

    into a cynic , and corrupted by town life into a kind of intellectual Prince Regent . His temper was irritable and sullen ; he would often say cruel things to people without provocation ; he possessed a pitiable vanity on the score of his accomplishments as a swimmer , and exhibited a lamentable ultra-sensitiveness with respect to his lame feet . He threatened to haunt his man-servant Fletcher , after death , if anybody ever saw his lower extremities . Mr . Trelawny , however , when looking for the last time at the corpse of the poet , got Fletcher out of the room by a pretext , and uncovered the feet . Both were clubbed , and the legs were withered to the knee .

    Leigh Hunt used to tell Byron that the most genial part of his nature always showed itself most when he was drunk—a remark , indeed , which is applicable to most men ; but Byron appeared also to soften while at sea . When ho and Trelawny were on their way to Greece , to aid the war of independence , the poet seemed in high spirits for the most part , and ^ would answer , " l ) o as you like" to the questions that were put to him with respect to the working of the ship . On passing any serene nook on the coast of Sicily , ho would exclaim , " There I could be happy ; " and , as they sighted the Moron , ho said to his friend , alluding to hie visit to Greece in earl y life —a brief period when he had been very joyous— " I don ' know why it is , but I feel as if the eleven loner vears of bitterness I have passed through

    since I was here were taken oiF my shoulders , and I was scudding through the Greek Archipelago with old Bathurst in his frigate . " During the period of Mr . Trelawny ' s acquaintanceship with him , Byron was by no meuns intemporute in his habile . On the contrary , he drunlc scarcely anything ,-ncv « r-smoked ,-und ,-out , af ™ a-fear , oCgQ ^ self . But he still retained his custom of Bitting up to a lute hour at nignt , writing , nnd of keeping in bod till about noon on the following day . Mr . Treluvvny gives an interesting narrative of the part ho lumselt took in the Greek struggle for liberty , and of his romantic adventures in the high , fortified cavo of the chieftain Odysseus . The Grceka appear , with a tow exceptions , to have been a eot of thieving , lying , rapacious , treacherous , bigoted , and mutually distrustful follows , engaged in constant conspiracies

    No. 414, February 27,1858.] The Leader, ...

    No . 414 , February 27 , 1858 . ] THE LEADER , 209

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 27, 1858, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27021858/page/17/