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We are sorry to be obliged to write thus severely of one who , we repeat , seems to desire to do well ; but 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 fear 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 ep och m 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
lady is called , at p . 317 , Miss Clare Claremont : her name was Jane Ularemont . 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 co ntest 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 Middleton calls
were not to be witnessed . " The Countess Guiccoli , Mr . " theCountess of Guiccoli" —which is assigning to 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 i mulation 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 ' 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 app arent harshness , it is because we regret to find that his desire to perform his task effectively should have led him into erro rs both of taste and judgment . Recollections of the Last Bays 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 t hat the volume before us is rather the production of a dashing , high-spirited gentleman , written in a style of characteristic freedom , picturesqueness , and sincerity , _ 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 . Irelawny has led a wild , fire-eating , salt-sea-roving kind of life ; and we are pleased to find his book partaking of the character of his adventures .
It was at the Tie Palazzi , on the Lunjj 'Arno , at Pisa , that Mr . Trelawny firfct saw Shelley . There is a 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 speaks 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 poet ] , Mrs . Shelley was twenty-seven . " According to this , the year in question must have been 1824 ; but we all know that Shelley was drowned in 1822 . This , however , in a book of reminiscences , is but a superficial blemish ; and so we pass to more important matters . On first visiting 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 just arrived . " Instantly afterwards , the poet glided in , " blushing like a , girl , ^ ttnd ^ holding-out-bathju 8 jian < js . _ thin stripling , and " wns habited like a boy in a black jacket and trousers , which ho seemed to have outgrown . " Mo had a book with him , and Mrs . Williuma aaked what it was . He answered quickly , and with u brightening face , " Calderon ' a Mat / ioo Prodigioso ; I am translating eomo passages in it . " Being asked to rcad , < a few of them , he , instead of doing so , made an extempore rendering of various parts , turning the one language into the other with marvellous caso and rapidity , analyzing the genius of the author with subtle power , and interpreting those portions of the story which ho 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 , . v * T m * 11 1 * ll . _ f ) 9 Ti n ^ m . % A / m 1 I m m **« * m * m w * ^>»^^ v ^^ 1 ^ 4 ^ # ^ ¦^ 4 ' * % w % v m * v ^ 1 miauia uuwi iu uumiu
* ** *^ * ^^** the norror 1 Xt Will Kill me 1 jlvj .. u ww , ii uuasible , 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 been looking about for him disconsolately , unable to bear her solitude any longer . On this , he hastily snatched up his books and papers , and departed , exclaiming , with a sigh , " Poor Mary I 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 . ' in constant intercourse with
For some few months , Mr . Trelawny was 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 sitnple pleasures , his light , seraphic movements and inspired face , and his passionate love of the water , and the trees , and the flowers , and the mountains , and the g lorious shows and changes of the elements in the bright country of his adoption . The buildin ^ of the boat Don Juan ( 'that fatal and perfidious bark' m which , like another Lycidas , he perished ) was a source of keen delight 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 m 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 o f spectators had gathered , including many richly-dressed ladies . Lime had been thrown on the bodies , indi colour Frankincensesalt
staining them " of a dark and ghastly go . " , , wine , and oil , were thrown on the funeral pyre , and the yellow flames , says Mr . Trelawny , glistened and quivered , while the hea t 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 Bvron , Mr . Trelawny does not give an agreeable picture . He
confirms the accounts of other writers , and shows that , though originally possessing some generosity 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 ol independence , the poet seemed in high spirits for the most part , and ^ would answer , "Do us 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 Moroa , he said to his friend , alluding to hia visit to Greece m early life —a brief period when ho had been very joyous— " I don ' know why it is , but I- feel us if the eleven long years of bitterness I have passed through since I was here wore taken off my shoulders , and I was scudding through tho Greek Archipelago with old Bathurst in his frigate . " During the period of Mr , Trelawny ' e acquaintanceship with him , Byron was by no „ : „*„„„„ * : _ u : « i ... k :. ^ tin tUn «/ - »« < r-nrv ho drunk scarcely nnvlumuio iiiwiM in tiio imuno ¦ — - -- ¦ ¦
„ purum . V __ _ »«*•»»••• , 7 > - T 1 llIftgTT ^ eT sWrio ^^ self . But ho atill retained his custom of sitting up to a late hour at night , writing , and of keeping in bed till about noon on tho following day . Mr . Trelawny gives an interesting narrative of tho part ho himsolt took in tho Greek struggle for liberty , and of his romantic adventures in tho high , fortified cavo of tlio chieftain Odysseus . The Groeka appear , with a tow exceptions , to have been a sot of thieving , lying , rapacious , treacherous , bigoted , and mutuully distrustful follows , engaged in constant conspiracies
Untitled Article
. 414 , February 27 , 1858 . 1 THE LEADER . 209
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 27, 1858, page 209, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2232/page/17/
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