Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

but, like a glittering moth, she flew at the glare, which at first seemed only to soil her gentle wings, but in the end it drew her into its terrible vortex, which resulted in her destruction!

CHAPTER XXVII.

Shelley's acquaintance with Mr. Peacock-With William Godwin-With Mary Godwin-Character of Mary Godwin-Shelley's visit to the Continent-Arrival at Calais-At Paris-A pedestrian tour-Shelley purchasing an ass-Arrival at Neufchâtel-Description of the Alps-Arrival at Lucerne-The AssassinsVoyage down the Reuss-Down the Rhine-Arrival in Holland-Return to England.

THE exact period of Shelley's meeting with Mary Woolstonecraft Godwin does not appear. It has been hinted that her father, William Godwin, assisted the poet in compiling the notes to Queen Mab," but for the truth of this not the slightest evidence exists, and it is most probable that, various and arduous as that labour was,

[ocr errors]

it was one which Shelley accomplished without assistance.

He was very solicitous for literary friendships, and his habit of writing to those whose works he admired, facilitated the means, while it directed him almost exclusively towards those whose kindred thoughts and aspirations seemed already to have established between him and them a communion of soul.

His earliest intimacy of this nature was with Mr. T. L. Peacock, author of " Headlong Hall,"

Nightmare Abbey," &c., to whom the majority of his letters from abroad are addressed in terms. of the most refined 'friendship; and in this instance, literary excellence was by no means the occasion, for Mr. Peacock had not yet written. his first work of fiction.

This gentleman, while yet a very young man, had shared some, if not all of the poet's wanderings in Wales. At this time, he had his way to make in the world, which, in his case was to strive against contending circumstances and the frowns of fortune, which only served to awaken Shelley's generous sympathies, and to bring into action those higher qualities of his truly

noble nature.

Left, by the separation from his wife, unshackled in his literary pursuits, it is most probable that Shelley's intimacy with William Godwin, and subsequently with his highly-gifted and accomplished daughter, was pursued soon after that event.

Freed, as he considered himself, from his first engagement, he proceeded, in the spirit of Milton's doctrines, to pay his court to another lady, nor is it to be wondered at that he should have been attracted by the many graces of person and mind of Mary Godwin.

Risen like the young Phoenix from the ashes of her mother, the celebrated authoress of "The Rights of Women," the radiance of whose fame surrounded the dawn of her existence with a halo of light; living likewise in the lustre of the great genius of her father; gifted herself with powers that either might have borne witness to with more than parental pride; when Shelley first met her, she appeared before him with all those associations and attractive qualities which could appeal at once to his intellect. Added to these, the graces of her person, the charms of * Leigh Hunt.

her conversation, the fine sensibility and delicacy of her highly-wrought and impassioned nature, which, like his own, sought the beautiful and the good in all things; and, above all, the strong heart of love which distinguished her ;she was in every way calculated to respond to his highest and best wishes, as well as to strike upon the finest chords of his own burning heart.

Nor was Shelley less calculated, by the grasp of mind, the spirituality of his talk, or the strange, unearthly beauty of his face, to attract and enthral the highly-sensitive and accomplished girl, just blushing into womanhood.

She had been reared, too, under a code of morals which Shelley had long since deeply imbibed from her father, and had already preached; one which, however pure and simple in itself, however suited to better natures, and a more perfect state of existence, is open to every kind of abuse and licence with the vicious of this or any other age, and can, therefore, only be adopted with safety by such as have thoroughly convinced themselves of the purity of their motives, and the utter unselfishness of their

« PředchozíPokračovat »