SHELLEY AND HIS WRITINGS.

CHAPTER I.

Birth of Shelley-Antiquity of his family-Opulence of his father-Prospects at birth-Originality of character -His failings-His desire to do good-Vanity in!cident to youth-Pugnacity-Vicissitudes of his lifeCharacter of his father-Of his mother-His sisters -Early education-Arrives at Brentford.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, only son of Sir Timothy Shelley, of Castle Goring, Baronet, was born at Field Place, Horsham, in the county of Sussex, on the fourth of August, 1792. Sir Thomas, the founder of the family, fought and fell in the cause of Richard the Second; but

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from that period, down to the present century, no individual had raised the name of Shelley to historical eminence, notwithstanding a close connection with the noble blood of the Sydneys; wealth, however, had made amends, as well as it could, for the absence of fame, since at the close of the eighteenth century, Sir Timothy was reckoned among the most opulent heirs in the kingdom.

These circumstances might have appeared to promise Percy, at his birth, a career of ease and splendour, since there was no position in English. society, which, with diligence, conduct, and enterprize, he might not have reached. He despised, however, the ordinary ambition of the world, and struck out a path for himself, rough and strewn thickly with thorns, but with extraordinary glory at the goal. He trod it manfully, often sinned against and sinning; he bore up with firmness. against persecution, which in many instances he provoked; by his friends he was singularly beloved; by his enemies he was hated with unappeasable rancour; he speculated, he invented, he wrote, dazzling the world equally by the brilliance of his genius, and the wildness of his

opinions, which he loved to exhibit, in the most formidable and startling shapes, in order to astonish and irritate those who, from the malevolence of their dispositions, would have assailed him, had he displayed the persuasive gentleness of Keats, or the sparkling conviviality of Shakespeare.

It is not my intention in this work to become an assailant or an apologist, but a faithful biographer. There are those who believe that Shelley's faults and failings outweighed his good qualities; but there are others who are as profoundly convinced that, with all his errors and irregularities, he possessed a humane and generous heart; that when he appeared to be most open to censure, he was either carried away by the violence of his passions, or by the influence of a delusive theory; and that he endeavoured steadily, according to the best of his ability, to promote the general happiness of mankind.

That he was sometimes mistaken and betrayed into wrong courses, cannot be denied; but had it not appeared to me, that the purpose of his life was good, and that his general behaviour was in harmony with his principles, I would not

have been at the pains to study as I have the events which characterized the few and evil days which were allotted to him.

Had he attained the age of Shakespeare or Milton, I think it is reasonable to infer, from the tenor of his writings, and the circumstances which characterized his later years, that everything in his early life, calculated to give offence, would have been completely obliterated by the energy of his virtue, and the imaginative beauty of his philosophy. We must take him, however, as he was; and even so, whoever accompanies me with candour and impartiality to the end of this narrative will, I think, adopt the conclusion, that though wilful and wayward in his opinions, and at times reprehensible in his conduct, he was upon the whole benevolent and unselfish, and beyond most persons, desirous of promoting the public good, though he often mistook the means by which that great end was to be attained.

In the earlier part of his career, the vanity incident to youth often led him to confound convictions with prejudices, and to take a mischievous delight in running counter to the received opinions of the world. Because dog

matism is overbearing and offensive, his gallant spirit led him to combat it; but at the same time he omitted to draw the necessary distinction between dogmatic truth and dogmatic falsehood, and therefore gave no more quarter to the one than to the other. Deriving pleasure from shocking people, and exciting their astonishment, he gradually acquired the habit, or rather, I should say, the vice of pugnacity, and was always ready to contend with anybody or anything. This gave him the spirit and air of a martyr, and in other days, in all probability, would have brought him to terminate his life at the stake; nor would he have shrunk even from that, for his courage was as unbounded as his love of contest.

His character therefore, considered apart from actual power, must be acknowledged to have been no ordinary one; and as he possessed from the beginning the prestige of a great fortune, high connections, and distinguished abilities, with the determination to pursue an original course, his lifecould hardly fail to possess extraordinary interest. It is, in fact, more like romance than history. Voluntary sometimes, and sometimes by accident, he entangled himself, or became entangled in