CHAPTER XVIII

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SHELLEY'S QUARREL WITH HOGG.

Shelley's Suspicion of Hogg--His Conviction of Hogg's Guilt--Did Hogg make the Attempt--The Manipulated Letter--Hogg's Object in publishing it--His Purpose in altering it--The Great Discovery--Evidence of Hogg's Guilt--Sources of the Evidence--Shelley's Correspondence with Miss Hitchener--His Letters from Keswick to Hogg--Their vehement Affectionateness--Eliza Westbrook in Office--Shelley under Training--Sisters in Council--Shelley's Conferences with Harriett--Proofs of Hogg's Innocence--_Primâ Facie_ Improbability--Why Hogg was not charged at York--His Arraignment at Keswick--Condemned in his Absence--The Reconciliation--Divine Forgiveness--Hogg's Restoration to Intimacy with Harriett--Shelley's subsequent Intimacy with Hogg--Hogg's Intimacy with Mary Godwin--Shelley's Acknowledgment of Delusion--He begs Pardon of Hogg--Hogg's Denials of the Charge--Hypothetical Letters--Concluding Estimate of Harriett's Evidence--If Hogg should be proved Guilty--Consequences to Shelley's Reputation.

Whilst telling William Godwin of his benevolent purpose towards Ireland, Shelley was silent on the subject to the incomparable Hogg. How was this? Hogg had fallen out of Shelley's favour. Incomparable till circumstances caused Miss Eliza Westbrook to regard him with enmity, Hogg became incomparably evil in Shelley's eyes before the trio bade the Calverts farewell with tearful emotion, and set their faces for Whitehaven. What evil had the alternately ductile and unmanageable Shelley been educated into thinking of his no longer incomparable friend?

There is no need to answer the question, readers having been already informed that Shelley did not leave Keswick, without coming to the conviction that Hogg had attempted to seduce Harriett, either on the journey from Edinburgh to York, or in the last-named city. Shelley did not charge Hogg with seducing Harriett, but only with _attempting_ to seduce. Had he charged Hogg with the larger offence, he would have preferred against his familiar friend the accusation that, even when it is supported by considerable _primâ facie_ evidence, is so often found on enquiry to have proceeded from unreasonable marital jealousy. In charging him with the mere attempt, Shelley charged his friend with an offence which, though no less flagitious, is by no means so easily proved as the more comprehensive crime. There are crimes, whose preliminary circumstances are necessarily too manifest and unequivocal to admit of any doubt of the culprit's purpose. But seduction is one of the secret and insidious offences, that are seldom preceded by circumstances affording evidence of clear and unmistakable attempt to perpetrate them. No doubt cases arise from time to time, where a seducer's measures for the accomplishment of his purpose may be fairly described as a manifest attempt to commit the crime. But these cases are rare. In most cases, where a man is charged with attempting to seduce, the accusation rests altogether on circumstances that, admitting of another construction, are compatible with the innocence of the accused person.

To Field Place, animated by bitter memories of the biographer's 'two volumes;' to the Shelleyan enthusiasts, quick to think evil of the personal historian, who, refusing to write the poet's life into harmony with the straight-nosed pictures, gave them a faulty instead of a faultless Shelley; and to the Free Lovers, who, disliking Hogg for his ridicule of their substitute for lawful marriage, see, in his alleged attempt on Harriett's virtue, a way of accounting creditably for the instability of the poet's devotion to his first wife,--Shelley's conviction is a sufficient proof of Hogg's guilt. Years since, it was enough for Hogg's enemies to hint vaguely that his intimacy with Harriett was in no slight degree accountable for the briefness of Shelley's affection for her. Of late, they have spoken of Hogg's iniquity with greater freedom and boldness. No long while since, an _Edinburgh_ Reviewer declared roundly that Hogg essayed to seduce Harriett within a few weeks of her wedding. At the present time it is the fashion of the Shelleyan specialists to speak of Hogg's egregious and revolting turpitude, as a matter admitting of no doubt. To readers, however, who, whilst delighting in Shelley's verse, are neither Shelleyan zealots, nor Free Lovers, nor Field Place partisans, it may appear well to make some enquiries respecting the nature and quality of the evidence that Hogg was so monstrous an example of perfidy and uncleanness. If Hogg (who, from certain points of view, was a typical English gentleman) can be proved innocent of the flagrant iniquity, with which he has been charged, it is desirable for the credit of his nation and race, that his innocence should be established. Even by his most vehement admirers it is admitted that, during his brief stay at Keswick, Shelley suffered from hallucination on another matter:--that he imagined he suffered from a violent assault, when no violence had been done him. According to one of his letters (26th January, 1812) Shelley, only a day or so earlier, was assailed by a robber, from whose felonious hands he escaped by falling fortunately _into_ Mr. Calvert's house. No robbery had been attempted on the poet's person: no robber had assaulted him. He was the victim of hallucination, in thinking himself attacked by a robber under the very eaves of his dwelling-place, and in imagining he escaped his assailant, by dropping within the bounds of his own temporary home. The whole affair was the mere whimsey of his own freakish imagination. If the fancy originated in nervous derangement caused by opium, it was none the less a delusion. This affair happened closely upon the time when Shelley came to think so ill of Hogg. Even by the most cautious readers it will be admitted that the young man, who experienced an imaginary attack on his person, was a likely young man to experience a no less imaginary attack on his honour. The evidence is superabundant that Shelley suffered at times from grotesque delusions. This is admitted by his more discreet apologists, who use the mental infirmity to account for circumstances that, but for the infirmity, would prove him superlatively untruthful. To show, therefore, that Shelley was deluded in thinking Hogg an incomparable villain, is only to exhibit him as suffering from mental disorder, to which he was certainly liable. Moreover, it is my purpose to show that my view of the circumstances, resulting in the transient severance of the two friends, is not more favourable to Hogg's reputation, than needful for Shelley's honour.

What is the evidence that Hogg made _the attempt_? At this distance from 1811, the evidence must be sought for in MSS. or printed pages, exhibiting,--(1), words written by Shelley, or credibly reported to have been spoken by him; (2), words written by Hogg, or credibly reported to have been spoken by him; (3), words written by Harriett, or credibly reported to have been spoken by her; (4), words written by persons, who (like Southey at Keswick, or Miss Hitchener at Hurstpierpoint) derived their information directly or indirectly from Shelley, Hogg, or Harriett, or from more than one of them, or credibly reported to have been spoken by persons, so informed directly or indirectly by Shelley, Hogg, or Harriett; (5), words proceeding from persons who, without being known, may be reasonably assumed to have derived their information from Hogg, Shelley, or Harriett. Of statements made by unreliable diarists, letter-writers, and other literary tattlers, who merely recorded gossip that came to them from uncertain sources, no account should be taken. There exists no small mass of matters (written or printed), to be placed in one or another of these five classes of evidential statements. It is in the nature of things that the information gained from such sources should be more or less unsatisfactory. No one of the givers of information can be cross-examined respecting his or her testimony; much need though there is for such cross-examination, in order to render the evidence fairly reliable. For the production of a credit-worthy account of the most puzzling business of Shelley's perplexing story, all one can do is to pick out from a mass of matters the apparently credit-worthy statements, and deal cautiously, whilst dealing inferentially, with them.

Were evidence weighty in proportion to the number of the sources, from which it is gathered, the evidence of Hogg's guilt would not be light. But the testimony of a single scrap of paper may countervail and even annihilate the testimony of a hundred different documents. One fact in this affair of manifold uncertainties is, however, indisputable:--that for several months from some date of his residence at Keswick, Shelley believed Hogg to have made an attempt on Harriett's honour. Shelley spoke and wrote too freely of Hogg's iniquity for there to be any room for doubt whether he really thought so ill of his friend. And it cannot be questioned, that, had Shelley been constituted like most other young Englishmen of his social degree,--had he been as discreet in judgment, as accurate in statement, as unlikely to be carried away from common-sense by the forces of a lawless imagination, as exempt from proneness to delusion, as most young English gentlemen,--his bare utterance of his deliberate conviction, that Hogg had essayed to compass Harriett's dishonour, would be strong _primâ facie_ evidence that the conviction was no less reasonable than dismal. But Shelley was not constituted like other young men. Instead of being evenly balanced, his mind was often swayed by delusive fancies. He was habitually inaccurate in his statements. At the very time of thinking so ill of his friend, he suffered from hallucination on another subject. Instead of being an accurate observer of facts, he could believe himself assailed by a robber, when no one attacked him. The young man who thought Hogg capable of trying to seduce his wife, was the young man who thought his father was set on locking him up in a lunatic asylum. To see how far Shelley's conviction about Hogg was reasonable or unreasonable, it is needful to know the facts that determined his judgment in the matter. My view of those facts will soon be given. But before it is submitted to readers of this chapter, it is well for them to be reminded that the original mere facts, pointing to Hogg's infamy, can, in the first instance, have been known to no one but Hogg, Harriett, and Shelley. It is inconceivable that Hogg attempted to seduce Harriett under the very eyes of her sister. Whatever he _did_ to provoke the hideous charge must have been done at some time prior to Miss Eliza Westbrook's arrival at York; and her knowledge of the criminatory facts must have been derived from one or more of the three. As Hogg cannot be imagined to have given her any evidence against himself, she must have gained her knowledge of the criminatory facts from Shelley or her sister, or from both. Shelley's knowledge of _facts_, which he came to regard as evidential of his friend's guilt, may have resulted altogether from his own personal observation; but he may be presumed to have gathered the knowledge from his wife's words, no less than from personal observation. Hogg certainly was not likely to tell his friend, or any other person, anything that could fairly be construed into evidence that he was a villain. As the criminatory _facts_ (_i.e._ of Hogg's conduct) cannot have been known in the first instance to anyone but Shelley, Hogg, and Harriett, all our knowledge of those facts (in whatever forms and through whatever channels it has reached us) must have proceeded originally from Hogg, Shelley, or Harriett. It is not to be supposed that Hogg either confessed having made the attempt, or admitted to anyone that he had done aught incompatible with his innocence of so serious an offence. It follows, therefore, that our knowledge of facts, in any degree evidential of Hogg's guilt, is referable, in some way or other, to the _ex-parte_ statements of the husband or wife, or both of them.

That Shelley went from York to Cumberland without thinking that Hogg had made an attempt on Harriett's virtue, appears,--(1), from the passionate affectionateness with which he wrote to Hogg from Keswick; (2), from the fact that, for some time, Hogg was permitted to write letters to Harriett at Keswick; (3), from the fact that Harriett was permitted and encouraged by her husband to answer the letters she received at Keswick from Hogg. It is inconceivable that Shelley would have allowed his young bride to correspond with the man who, to his belief, had only a few weeks since tried to seduce her; that he would himself have continued to write letters, overflowing with protestations of friendship and love, to the man whom he regarded as having essayed to compass her ruin and her husband's dishonour. Is it suggested that Shelley's peculiar notions, touching the intercourse of the sexes, qualified him to live in amity with a man so lately desirous of seducing his wife? There is conclusive evidence that he was not a man to consent thus tamely to his own dishonour. On coming to the conviction that Hogg had been guilty of _the attempt_, Shelley broke with him promptly, and ceasing to correspond with him denounced him for a villain. It was thus Shelley acted towards Hogg, after he had been fully educated into thinking Hogg had not only admired Harriett with embarrassing and dangerous fervour, but had actually tried to seduce her. Here, surely, is sufficient proof that, had he thought so ill of Hogg on leaving York, he could not have written affectionately to him from Keswick, and at the same time have encouraged Harriett to correspond with him.

Whilst requiring Hogg to keep away from Harriett, till his admiration of her should have survived an enthusiasm too passionate for her ease and his safety, Shelley wrote to him from Keswick, 'Think not I am otherwise than your friend:--a friend to you now more fervent, more devoted than ever, for misery endears to us those whom we love. You are, you shall be, my bosom friend:'--words to be found in the heart of the long and remarkable epistle, which Hogg published in the second volume of the unfinished _Life_ (_vide_ pp. 490-497), describing it as a 'Fragment of a Novel,' and saying of it lightly--'This epistle from Albert to Werter is forcibly written, with great power and energy; but it wants the warmth, the tenderness, of Goethe and Rousseau.' The more effectually to disguise the real nature of the composition from his ordinary readers, the biographer substituted 'Charlotte' for 'Harriett' in his printed copy of the epistle.

What was the object of this mystification? Why did Hogg thus misdescribe the letter, and substitute Charlotte for Harriett? These questions are answered in two very different ways,--by the wildest of the Shelleyan idolaters, who believe that the biographer (unquestionably guilty of declining to write Shelley's story into harmony with the delusive portraits) must have been an unutterably wicked person; and by those of the poet's discreet admirers, who, whilst recognizing in Hogg's _Life_ many inaccuracies and a considerable element of untruthfulness, believe the book to have been written on the whole with a sincere design of giving the world a fair view of the poet's life and nature.

By the wildest of the Shelleyan idolaters it is maintained that Hogg had scarcely set eyes on his friend's girlish bride, when he tried to lure her from the ways of wifely goodness; that entertaining this infamous design on the young lady, who but for him would not have been married at all, Hogg set about seducing her either at Edinburgh, or on the road from Edinburgh to York, or in the dingy dwelling of the dingy milliners; that Shelley withdrew her precipitately from York, in order to remove her from the baneful influence of his false friend; and that, after vainly combating Hogg's wicked passion with affectionate expostulations, Shelley broke with the man who had proved himself so unworthy of his regard, and ceasing to answer his letters, held no intercourse with him for a considerable period. To those, who take this view of Hogg's character and of the incidents that unquestionably resulted in a temporary estrangement of the two friends, it appears obvious that the misdescription and misleading alterations of the letter proceeded from Hogg's desire to conceal the shameful circumstances that caused it to be written.

On the other hand, to those who can admire Shelley's poetry without shutting their eyes to his various infirmities, and who on more than sufficient grounds hold a strong opinion that Hogg never entertained evil designs on his friend's wife, and that Shelley was under an equally absurd and monstrous hallucination in thinking his familiar comrade capable of such wickedness, it is no less obvious that the mystification Hogg practised in his way of dealing with the epistle, instead of resulting from care for his own honour, proceeded altogether from delicate concern for the poet's reputation.

In the absence of positive evidence to the point, I do not hesitate to assume, as a matter of course, that whilst writing his friend's history Hogg was aware of the gravest and most revolting suspicions entertained of him by Shelley. It may be just conceivable, but it is in the highest degree improbable, that Hogg survived Shelley without discovering the worst of the several evil things the poet thought, said, and wrote of him, towards the close of 1811 and in the earlier months of 1812. But even if it could be proved that, whilst discharging the functions of his friend's biographer, Hogg was in this most improbable ignorance, it would be none the less certain that he was aware Shelley had deemed him an unsuitable companion for Harriett; had, in consequence of the monstrous notion, ceased for several months to correspond with him; and had moreover been deplorably communicative to certain of his acquaintance respecting his reasons, for breaking in so singular a manner with so particular a friend. Aware that he had for a time been the victim of Shelley's marital jealousy, and that the disturbance of their friendship was known in the esoteric Shelleyan coteries to have resulted from this jealousy, the biographer reasonably determined (for his honour's sake no less than for the sake of his friend's honour) to exhibit to those coteries a document, so largely and precisely eloquent of the feelings and considerations that occasioned the breach. At the same time it was no less natural for the personal historian to shrink from calling universal attention to a matter, so little calculated to win respect and sympathy for the poet in whose honour the history was being written.

Wishing to deal frankly with the coteries, and less than frankly with the multitude, Hogg bethought himself how he could enlighten the coteries on a matter about which they had a claim to information, without offering Shelley to the whole world's amusement in the equally ludicrous and ignoble character of an unreasonably jealous husband. Hence the biographer's determination to misdescribe and manipulate the document, so that, whilst accepted in the coteries for what it was (viz. the poet's confidential letter on matters of the nicest indelicacy), it should be read by the multitude, as what it was not,--a mere scrap of romantic fiction.

Several years have now passed since the Shelleyan enthusiasts, with much clucking over their own critical sagacity, discovered that the 'fragment of a novel' was a manipulated letter, and that Mr. Hogg was an inordinately deceitful person in dressing the letter so delusively. From every point of view the affair is one of the broadest comedy. The discoverers of the real letter under the false label were comically jubilant over their cleverness in discovering what was put under their noses,--jubilant like children, crying with delight at finding what was hidden from them only that they might have the pleasure of finding it. It was droll to see how, in their eagerness to expose the biographer's dishonesty, these discoverers revealed to the irreverent multitude what the biographer hoped the enthusiasts of the coteries would keep to themselves, out of tenderness for the poet's reputation. It was very droll to observe how Hogg was denounced for tampering fraudulently with the document, which he published thus cautiously for the enlightenment of the initiated Shelleyans,--could have safely withheld, as it was his own property; and would not have published even in so guarded a way, had he not desired to afford sufficient information, on a matter respecting which he had not the hardihood to be fully communicative.

It being certain that sooner or later the world will be authoritatively assured of the sufficiency of Shelley's reasons for thinking Hogg designed and tried to seduce the girlish bride; and that the allegations to this effect will be made with the two-fold object of destroying the biographer's credit and raising suspicions of Harriett's discretion and modesty, even from the very commencement of her association with the poet, it is right that readers should be forewarned and fore-armed against such preposterous assertions, by a further exhibition of the influences that caused Shelley to think so ill of his heretofore closest friend, and by an adequate exposition of the superabundant reasons for declaring Hogg wholly and absolutely innocent of the wickedness, which has long been charged against him.

Enough has been said in a previous chapter of the incidents and influences, that caused Shelley to regard his wife's intimacy with his friend as an association which, already fruitful of embarrassment to the former, threatened to become no less fruitful of moral injury to the latter. There is no need to remind readers of the train of circumstances closing with the flight from York to Keswick, or of the abundant documentary evidence that Shelley arrived at Keswick with undiminished confidence in his friend's loyalty and honour, though with a lower respect for his discretion, considerateness, and moral robustness. Had he on entering Keswick imagined that Hogg had deliberately contemplated to lure Harriett from the ways of wifely dutifulness, and even taken steps to compass her seduction, Shelley could not have written to him from Keswick with the passionate affectionateness, that animates each and all of the several extant letters he sent his friend at York during the earlier weeks of the residence at Keswick.

The _Fragment of a Novel_, which I regard as the last of the extant series of undated epistles from Keswick, affords abundant evidence that, almost up to the moment of the cessation of his correspondence with Hogg, Shelley accused his friend of nothing worse than indiscretion, weakness, insincerity, imbecility:--_i.e._ _indiscretion_, in allowing so much of passionate fervour to qualify his admiration of Harriett; _weakness_, in prolonging the intimacy that was causing him perilous excitement; _insincerity_, in trying to disguise from himself the nature of the feelings into which he had been betrayed; and _imbecility_, surpassing mere weakness, in declining to combat the feelings whose indulgence tended to wickedness. The force of some of the writer's expressions, no doubt, exceeds the force of anything in his earlier expostulations with Harriett's too frank and impulsive admirer; the greater energy of the language showing that Shelley was fast nearing the time, when he passed suddenly from the state of mind in which he accused Hogg of nothing worse than indiscretion, weakness, insincerity, and imbecility, to the state of mind in which he charged him with villany.

But even in this far more cogent and strenuous epistle one comes upon expressions that expressly acquit Hogg of the wickedness of wishing to seduce a simple girl, who had been his friend's wife for only a few weeks. In answer to language, by which Hogg appears to have repelled an ungenerous suspicion, Shelley says in the letter, 'I admit the distinction which you make between mistake and crime. I acquit you heartily of the latter.' Whilst penning them, the writer of these words could not have imagined Hogg guilty of a design on Harriett's virtue. In reply to other words, by which Hogg seems to have attempted to disperse certain of his correspondent's absurd fancies, Shelley says, 'I hope I have shown you that I do not regard you as a smooth-tongued traitor; could I choose such for a friend? could I still love him with affection unabated, perhaps increased?' Curious and abnormal creature though he was, Shelley could not have written thus, whilst believing his correspondent guilty of the darkest treason.

After speaking of a letter Harriett has received from Hogg, Shelley says, 'Harriett will write to you to-morrow.' Could Shelley have in this manner sanctioned his wife's correspondence with a man whom he believed guilty of trying to seduce her? Shelley's idolaters answer this question in the affirmative. They are welcome to their opinion; but they must not ask me to insult him by holding it.

Within a few days of writing thus strenuously to Hogg, that he loved him as deeply and passionately as ever, and that his wife would write to him on the morrow, Shelley assured Miss Hitchener of Hurstpierpoint, that this same Hogg had attempted to seduce Mrs. Shelley. Taking possession of Shelley's mind, at Keswick, towards the close of 1811, this morbid fancy held it for several months. The poet's correspondence with the Hurstpierpoint schoolmistress affords conclusive testimony that, instead of being a quickly transient delusion, arising from an overdose of opium, and perishing with the nervous disturbance caused by the drug, this ghastly hallucination occupied the future poet's brain, at least, from the middle of his sojourn at Keswick till the close of the ensuing spring.

It is in the nature of things for Platonic friendships to be mistaken by ordinary observers for less amiable and orderly attachments. When a young gentleman is seen sauntering about sylvan glades and rural lanes with a pretty milliner on his arm, or is known to be corresponding through the post with a publican's daughter, the world is slow to think the intimacy of the young people, wholly independent of the motives and considerations that are usually more or less operative, when a young man of gentle rank lavishes attention on a young woman of plebeian quality. On the contrary, judging from appearances, with no excessive care for exceptional idiosyncrasies, the world is apt to refer the unequal association to certain of the most familiar affections. Though the avowal may move some readers to smile at my simplicity, I have little doubt Shelley's liking for Miss Eliza Hitchener was from first to last a purely Platonic preference. It would, however, have been strange, had the people in and about Cuckfield and Hurstpierpoint taken this charitable view of an intimacy, that, causing no little gossip in and around those parishes, moved local tattlers to declare Miss Hitchener no better than she ought to be. Readers may not suppose that this view of Miss Hitchener's character and relations with the poet was confined to the haunters of her father's tavern. Having for some time regarded her nephew's civility to the schoolmistress with suspicion, Mrs. Pilfold held a strong opinion in the spring of 1812, that the continuance of the intimacy, now he had married Harriett Westbrook, would be simply scandalous. Whether the lady wrote to her nephew on the subject does not appear. Anyhow, he learnt through some channel enough of his aunt's unfavourable opinion of the curious friendship, to hold her chiefly accountable for certain Cuckfield gossip that, moving him to indignation in April, 1812, caused him, on the 29th of that month, to write from Nantgwilt to his friend at Hurstpierpoint, 'I unfaithful to my Harriett! You a female Hogg! Common sense would laugh such an idea to scorn, if indignation would wait till it could be looked upon!'--words of evidence that at least to the end of April in 1812, the writer was held firmly by the fancy that caused him to break with Hogg towards the close of the previous year.

Eliza Westbrook was chiefly accountable for Shelley's passage from the state of mind, in which he regarded Hogg as nothing worse than Harriett's inconveniently emotional but loyal admirer, to the state of mind, in which he regarded him as a treacherous libertine, set on seducing her. Even as she had been at York the influence to carry Shelley from a condition of unqualified confidence in his friend's discretion and moral robustness into a condition of feverish apprehension for the consequences of his tempestuous sentimentality, Eliza Westbrook became at Keswick the baneful tutor, who educated him into thinking Hogg an egregious villain.

From the moment of her arrival at Keswick, to the moment when she could congratulate herself on having effected her purpose, the woman whom Hogg had hoped and tried to separate from her sister and brother-in-law, found her chief occupation in bringing Shelley to the conviction that Hogg was a black-hearted knave. In justice to the woman who accomplished this evil work, it should be remembered that she had received no ordinary provocation. She may have imagined she was rendering good service to her childish and inexperienced sister. Though she was a person of some culture and more than average cleverness, it is not to be supposed that John Westbrook's elder daughter had, together with the superficial refinement, acquired the delicate sensibility of a gentlewoman. Whilst there is nothing to countenance an opinion that Miss Westbrook was remarkable for mental purity and elevation, there is abundant evidence that in feeling and temper she resembled the average womankind of the London _bourgeoisie_. Born in a tavern, reared from infancy to girlhood's later term in a bar-parlour, and shaping her course in accordance with Miss Warne's canons of feminine propriety, she held on numerous questions the views and notions, generally favoured, by people of the decent but unrefined class, in which she had found her earliest teachers. It was natural for her to think no young man could approach her beautiful sister without regarding her passionately, and seizing the earliest occasion for the gratification of his desire. Taking this view of Hogg and his peculiar intimacy with Harriett, it is conceivable that Miss Westbrook was at times less mindful of her strictly personal reasons for disliking the young gentleman, than of the dangers from which she desired to save her sister. It is not surprising that she resolved to put an end to an intimacy so likely to tarnish Harriett's reputation, and even make her a faithless wife.

Nor is it surprising that Miss Westbrook accomplished at Keswick the purpose she formed at York,--the purpose she could scarcely have accomplished at York, or anywhere else, so long as Shelley was in daily personal intercourse with his incomparable friend. At York, with his radiant smiles and racy humour, his cordial looks and sympathetic hints, Hogg was more than a match for the enemy who, so long as he was on the spot to answer precise charges of wickedness, could only hint that her dear Harriett was embarrassed by his extravagant gallantry. But at Keswick Shelley was altogether at the mercy of the quick-witted spinster, who, recalling to his memory countless trivial incidents, knew well how to give them a suspicious colour, and manipulate them into evidence that, instead of being Harriett's chivalric admirer, Hogg had been her wicked pursuer.

Resembling Byron in being easily governed by any woman with whom he was thrown, so long as he was pleased with her, Shelley went to Keswick in the best of humours with his wife's sister. Grateful to her for favouring his pursuit of Harriett, and cheering him in sisterly fashion at a moment of many troubles, he magnified her considerable cleverness into marvellous sagacity, and discovered angelic sweetness in her transient complaisance. At Keswick, and for several weeks after leaving Keswick, the youngster, who had found a tyrant in his kindly father and rebelled against his mother's mild control, surrendered himself to the government of his wife's sister with comical submissiveness. When a freakish and petulant man consents to petticoat rule, he usually reserves his freedom of action in regard to a few matters of minor importance. But for awhile no spirit of petty mannishness put a limit to Miss Westbrook's authority over her brother-in-law. Pleased to be managed by her in great things, such as his attitude towards Hogg, he was no less pleased to be governed by so wonderful a woman in the smallest things. So long as he delighted in his marvellous sister-in-law, Shelley was content to go about with empty pockets, and take his sixpences from the diplomatic Eliza as he wanted them. 'Eliza,' he wrote meekly from Dublin to Miss Hitchener, 'keeps our common stock of money for safety in some nook or corner of her dress, but we are not dependent on her, although she gives it out as we want it.'

Of course the lady, who gave money to her two children as they wanted it, was aware that, to control them for any considerable period, she must be mindful of their humours and govern them with gentleness; that to retain her power over them she must drive with a light rein and seldom crack the whip. Having opened Shelley's eyes to Hogg's iniquity, she was clever enough to see and say what he saw and said on questions of poetry and social science. To reward her brother-in-law for banishing the perfidious Hogg from his breast, she promised to receive Miss Hitchener to her heart in the ensuing summer, when the Sussex schoolmistress should come to them in North Wales. In his altercations with Southey she was, of course, altogether on her brother-in-law's side. If she doubted whether _The Address_ would do all the author hoped of it, for the good of the Irish people, she kept the doubt to herself. It may also be assumed confidently that, on entering Dublin with Harriett's husband, she had never expressed in his hearing any misgiving of his ability to emancipate the Catholics and cancel the Act of Union. Miss Westbrook did not govern her erratic brother-in-law for any long period; but her control over him would have been less enduring by several months, had she not known that to rule a freakish and wayward man on matters of moment a woman must agree with him on matters about which she is indifferent.

How far in her measures for Hogg's humiliation Miss Westbrook was aided by Shelley's bride; how far the assistance Harriett gave her sister to this end was given with a clear knowledge of the object for which the latter was working; and how far Mrs. Shelley was in her sister's confidence, are questions for differences of opinion. It cannot, however, be questioned that, either with malice aforethought, or in the heedlessness of girlish simplicity, Harriett contributed to the matters of testimony which brought the future poet to the amazing conclusion that Hogg, at some time or times before the flight from York, had wished and essayed to seduce her. It is conceivable that from first to last in this unsavoury business the sisters were in perfect mutual confidence; but I cannot believe that so young a girl as Mrs. Shelley deliberately conspired with her sister at York to trump up so monstrous a charge against her husband's closest friend. I can, however, imagine that in her amazement at the view taken by Shelley of some of her admissions respecting Hogg's demeanour to her, she may have lacked the courage to protest against the misconstruction put on innocent occurrences, and may have been betrayed by such weakness at Keswick into acquiescing in a hideous story which she knew to be untrue. I can imagine that _after_ her arrival at Keswick she was schooled and terrorized by her elder sister into conspiring with her to impose the vile romance on her husband. After practising alternately on Harriett's imagination and Shelley's imagination, Miss Westbrook may, by sheer force of will, have constrained Harriett to think that, to preserve her husband's confidence, it was necessary for her to affect to think what he thought of Hogg,--that by speaking in Hogg's defence she would cause Shelley to suspect her of having connived at his wicked design. Miss Westbrook may even have talked Harriett at Keswick into thinking Hogg had tried to make her a faithless wife. It must be remembered how young and inexperienced Harriett was,--and how greatly under her sister's influence.

But I think it more probable that Harriett was never admitted fully into her sister's confidence,--was never permitted either by Miss Westbrook or Shelley to know all the evil they thought of Hogg. Perplexed by the conditions of her recent association with Hogg, it was natural in the young wife at York to wish to escape for awhile from an intimacy that, during her husband's absence, had exposed her to the suspicion of the prying milliners. On Miss Westbrook's arrival at the lodging-house, it was natural for the girlish bride to speak to her sister of the uneasiness and the mingled feelings of irritation and shame she had experienced. On Shelley's reappearance it was no less natural for her to speak to him on the same subjects. She may have felt that her position would have been less trying if Mr. Hogg had been something less attentive to her; that he would have shown greater delicacy in either withdrawing from the lodgings, or spending his evenings elsewhere so long as Shelley was away. Feeling this, she may have said so to Shelley as well as to her sister. It cannot be questioned that she joined her sister in urging Shelley to withdraw hurriedly from York; but in doing so Harriett may not have been actuated, like her sister, by a desire to offer Mr. Hogg a great affront. She may have been told by Miss Westbrook that Hogg was aware what would take place during his absence. Anyhow it is certain that Harriett left York without thinking Hogg guilty of harbouring infamous designs on her honour, and also without conceiving her sister and Shelley suspected him of such wickedness. Had she thought either the one or the other, it is inconceivable that she would have written friendly letters to him from Cumberland.

At Keswick, during the earlier weeks of November, Shelley and Harriett had several conversations about Hogg and his behaviour to her; conversations in which they reviewed all the circumstances of his sojourn with them at Edinburgh and at York; conversations in which Shelley questioned and cross-questioned her respecting the incidents of her life in the dingy lodging-house, whilst he was absent from the cathedral town; conversations in which they examined critically the letters Hogg had sent her from York since her arrival at Keswick. Whilst there is good reason to believe Harriett spoke freely with her husband in these Cumberland conferences, there is no reason to think she spoke otherwise than honestly. But it is in the nature of such conferences (where the memory of one speaker feeds the curiosity of another) to magnify words and deeds of no moment into matters of the highest moment, and to play strange tricks with the colour and quality of remembered circumstances. Unconscious inventiveness is ever at hand to help the memory. If Harriett's recollections were severely historic, and wholly free from the delusive effects of mental excitement, she was a strangely cold and unsympathetic young woman. Instead of being offered to a listener of sober intellect and judicial temper, her recollections were offered to a young man of quick fancy, impetuous spirit, vehement emotionality. Given to such a mind, the recollections were necessarily fruitful of false impressions.

In these conversations Harriett unquestionably played into the hands of Miss Westbrook, and greatly furthered her elder sister's machinations for Hogg's chastisement; but I have a strong (though possibly erroneous) opinion that this aid was rendered by Mrs. Shelley in ignorance of all her sister's purpose. She certainly had no strong liking for Hogg. She disliked him to the extent of wishing to be relieved of an embarrassing intimacy with him, and may even have desired her husband to regard him coldly. In proportion as she is young and foolish, a bride is apt to regard her husband's closest male friend with jealousy and antagonism. Harriett was a mere girl, and no wiser than most girls of her age. Of her own mere motion she would have been sure to think Hogg was overvalued by her husband. Living so much under Eliza's influence she necessarily wished him to stand lower in her husband's favour. But I cannot think she did or said anything for the purpose of causing Shelley to imagine Hogg had made an attempt on her virtue.

Whilst these conversations (having for their avowed object the discovery of the degree in which Hogg's admiration of Mrs. Shelley had exceeded the limits of conventional propriety and virtuous behaviour) gave an unhealthy direction to the thoughts of the girlish bride, they worked the nervous and emotional Shelley into states of excitement favourable to Miss Westbrook's designs. Each of his conversations with Harriett may be presumed to have been followed by confidential talk with Eliza, in which Shelley gave her the particulars of Harriett's latest admissions, and she (in Harriett's absence) taught Shelley what views to take of those admissions, what inferences he should draw from them. The preciseness with which Shelley wrote to Miss Hitchener about Hogg's iniquity justifies a strong suspicion that Miss Westbrook's operations on her brother-in-law's jealousy and credulity closed with some definite statement to Hogg's infamy. It is difficult to imagine that even Shelley could have been brought to the final conviction by mere hints and inferential suggestions. On the other hand, it is difficult to conceive any statement, likely to have been made by Miss Westbrook for her brother-in-law's conviction of Hogg's guilt, that would not have rudely shaken his confidence in the virtue of his wife, who had herself written to Hogg from Keswick in friendly terms. It is enough that the moment came when Shelley wrote of Hogg to the Hurstpierpoint schoolmistress, 'He attempted to seduce my wife.'

Chivalry being the last quality I should think of attributing to Shelley, it is not for me to show how his action in writing thus grossly on so delicate a subject is compatible with the chivalric delicacy and generosity for which he is so extravagantly applauded by his idolaters. It is for them to explain how so chivalric a creature wrote thus coarsely to the Sussex schoolmistress, whom he had known for only a few months. Chivalry influences a man's demeanour to men as well as to women,--to his enemies and friends of the sterner sex as well as to the women whom he reverences, and the women whom he holds in disesteem. It is also a self-respecting quality, disposing a man to be thoughtful for his own honour. People's notions differ, of course, about chivalry, as well as everything else; but most readers will concur with the present writer in thinking that, on discovering in his familiar friend such guilt and baseness as Shelley imagined himself to have discovered in Hogg, a chivalric man would punish the traitor in accordance with prevailing laws of honour, or decide to leave him to the punishment of his own conscience, and then be silent for ever of him and his infamy. Living in the days of duelling, it was open to Shelley, if not incumbent on him, to do his best to slay the man, whom he believed to have meditated and essayed his wife's seduction. It was open to him to refrain from this vindictive course on conscientious grounds; but it was _not_ open to him, as a man of honour and chivalry, to tattle and gossip of such an affair to any sempstress of his acquaintance. Whether he fought Hogg, or left him to go his own way to perdition, he should, out of tragic regard for their former friendship, and sublime pity for the once-loved friend, have committed the ghastly business to _altum silentium_. Had he been a chivalrous man, he could not have written about a matter, implicating his wife's honour and delicacy in so hideous a way, to a young woman of Miss Hitchener's social degree.

Writing to Miss Hitchener letters on this subject, about which he should have told her nothing, Shelley, of course, wrote to other persons, on the same unsavoury business. As the monstrous story came to Southey's ears from Shelley's own lips, whilst 'the trio' were at Keswick, it is not unfair to assume that Harriett's husband was no less communicative on the revolting topic, by word of mouth, to divers persons, who, knowing little of him, had no personal knowledge whatever of Hogg. There is rumour in the air that other letters by Shelley, in addition to those he is known to have sent Miss Hitchener, will be produced, sooner or later, in evidence of Hogg's criminality. But instead of being evidence that Hogg felt and acted vilely, such letters will only be so much additional evidence that Shelley thought unjustly and ignobly of his old college-friend, who at no point of his career was any more guilty of trying to seduce his friend's wife, than the Squire of Field Place was guilty of wishing to lock his son up in a madhouse. At the most, such letters, even though numbering several hundreds, can only afford additional evidence respecting the strength of Shelley's unreasonable conviction, and the number of the persons to whom he wrote about the unreasonable conviction.

Why is it so certain that in thinking thus ill of Hogg, Shelley was only labouring under an hallucination,--the wildest and most grotesque, though not the most obstinate, of the several hallucinations that possessed him at different times of his career?

(1.) Though the _primâ facie_ improbable often happens in this strange world, the charge against Hogg is discredited by its egregious improbability. No one has ever questioned the force and sincerity of Hogg's affection for Shelley up to the time of the poet's first marriage. Nothing has ever been proved against Hogg to countenance even a suspicion that he had in early life any strong propensity for vicious ways,--unless freedom in philosophic speculation is to be designated a vice. A young gentleman by birth and culture, he had the tastes and habits of a gentleman. His moral influence over Shelley had been in some particulars distinctly beneficial. It was due to him that, instead of making Harriett a mere mistress, Shelley made her his wife. There was a vein of poetry, a strong vein of romance, in Hogg's comparatively cold nature. In 1811, he and Shelley were both at a time of life when well-born and well-bred youngsters are influenced most strongly by generous sentiments. They had been close friends at College; and it is no exaggeration to say, that the mutual affection of two such college friends surpasses the love of brothers. Their romantic love of one another having continued without abatement until the September of 1811, Shelley married a charming girl,--marrying her lawfully (instead of taking her without a marriage-rite), only because Hogg argued him into doing so. Hastening to Edinburgh to rejoice in his friend's happiness, Hogg there sees his friend's wife for the first time, almost, if not actually, on the morrow of her marriage. He is charged with pursuing her wickedly from so early a date of their acquaintance; that he (_ætat._ 19) tried to seduce her before he had known her more than eight weeks. Is it probable that he did any such thing?

(2.) Only eight weeks elapsed between Hogg's first introduction to Harriett, at Edinburgh, and her departure from York. It is curious that the persons who insist most strongly on the truth of the accusation are the persons who insist most strongly that, instead of passing all this short time in Hogg's society, Harriett spent some ten days of it in journeying with her husband fro and to, between York and Sussex. The story, which Southey heard, was that the attempt on Mrs. Shelley's virtue was made during the journey from Scotland. But let no deduction be made from the eight weeks. Is it conceivable that in so short a time Hogg did that of which he is accused?

(3.) Certainly nothing took place either at Edinburgh or York under Shelley's observation, to induce him at either of those places to believe his friend so wicked. This is proved by the fact that he wrote to Hogg from Keswick a series of vehemently affectionate letters,--letters he could not have written whilst believing Hogg guilty of the most revolting offence a man can commit against his friend. It is certain that before she left York nothing had occurred to make Harriett imagine herself so injured and outraged as the accusation represents her to have been. For otherwise, it is inconceivable she would at Keswick have corresponded with him through the post. No less certain is it that nothing occurred at York under her observation, which Miss Westbrook could venture to report to Shelley, as certain evidence of the crime charged against Hogg a few weeks later; for had any such thing occurred, she would not have failed to report it to Shelley at once, and forthwith put his guilt beyond question.

(4.) It follows that Shelley's conviction of Hogg's guilt cannot have resulted immediately from observations, made either by him or by Harriett, before they left York. At best it was due to his recollections of matters which at Keswick he imagined to have taken place several weeks since at Edinburgh or York, or between the two places; to similar recollections by Harriett; to Miss Westbrook's statements, and to Shelley's inferences from those recollections and statements. Hogg during his absence was, in fact, arraigned and tried at Keswick for flagrant treason against his friend, and his friend's wife, in a court where Shelley sat as judge and acted at the same time as witness; where Miss Westbrook acted in the threefold capacity of accuser, judicial-assessor, and witness; and where Harriett was a witness,--perhaps, only a subordinate witness. Shelley's evidence for the prosecution consisted of his recollections of matters that, at the time of their occurrence, cannot have made him think Hogg seriously at fault. Mrs. Shelley's evidence consisted of her recollections of matters, that did not prevent her from corresponding with Hogg after her arrival at Keswick. Miss Westbrook's statements consisted in equal parts of recollection and invention, and of inference from her own recollections and inventions, and from the recollections of the other two witnesses. No defence was offered for the absent Hogg. What was the evidential value of Shelley's recollection,--the reminiscences of the man who could not at any time of his life be trusted to give an accurate account of any business in which he was strongly interested? What was the evidential value of Mrs. Shelley's recollections,--the recollections of the sixteen-years-old girl, who wrote friendly letters from Keswick to the man, soon to be declared guilty of having attempted to seduce her before she left York? What evidential value may be assigned to Miss Westbrook's statements? How about the judicial faculty of the judge? What witnesses! What evidence! What a tribunal!

(5.) But the strongest evidence that Shelley's conviction of his friend's guilt was mere hallucination remains to be stated. In a few months, certainly less than twelve months, he had got the better of the morbid fancy that caused him to break for a while with Hogg, and, having come out of the delusion and returned to his right mind, he at once declared in the most impressive manner that he had thought and spoken of Hogg with injustice. And having so declared in the most impressive manner his own error and his friend's innocence, Shelley held steadily to this declaration to his last hour. How was the declaration made? By deeds as well as by words.

(6.) Migrating from York to London, when he had passed twelve months in the chambers of his first legal instructor, Hogg became a Middle Temple law-student in the late spring, or early summer, of 1812. Eating his dinners in the hall of his Inn, and spending his days in the chambers of the Special Pleader with whom he was reading, the hard-working student usually passed his evenings in rooms he occupied in a lodging-house, at some distance from the Inns of Court. Having recently returned from the country, at the close of the Long Vacation of 1812, Hogg was sitting in his quiet lodgings late one evening at the beginning of November, with a book under his eyes and a tea-pot near at hand, when he heard a violent knocking at the street-door. Another minute and some one ran furiously upstairs. Another instant, and Percy Bysshe Shelley rushed into the student's room. Certainly for more than nine months, possibly for eleven months, Hogg had received no letter from his friend, had heard nothing of his movements. For so long a period--a long period in the life of the young--there had been a total severance of the two friends. How much Hogg knew then of Shelley's reasons for ceasing to write to him does not appear. But he knew Shelley was deeply offended with him, and knew the displeasure was connected with his attentions to Harriett. Though, from concern for his friend's honour, he could not tell the ludicrous and painful story outright in pages designed to commemorate the poet's finer and nobler qualities, Hogg indicates thus much in the _Life_ with sufficient clearness to all readers capable of reading 'between the lines' of a printed record. For more than nine months, possibly for eleven months, the friends had lived asunder; and now they were together again, by the act of the one who had caused the severance. Having got the better of his hallucination, and come to London in his right mind, Shelley had hunted for Hogg at Lincoln's Inn; hunted for him at the Temple; discovered the chambers where he was a student; declined to wait till the morning for the much-desired interview with his old college chum; constrained 'the clerk at chambers' to give him Hogg's address; and gone off impetuously in quest of the incomparable Hogg at his lodgings, though it was already near the hour when quiet lodging-houses were usually closed for the night. Thus it was that Shelley returned to the friend whom he had charged with trying to seduce his wife. Surely, this return to friendly relations with the man whom he had imagined capable of such iniquity should be regarded as a declaration of Hogg's innocence, as an avowal by Shelley that he had misjudged his friend, and in consequence of monstrous misconception had calumniated him.

(7.) Shelley's merciless, slanderous idolaters say otherwise. These 'friends' (may heaven preserve all future poets from such friends!) insist that, when he thus threw himself into his friend's arms, Shelley still believed Hogg had tried to seduce his wife; still believed him capable of trying to seduce her, and was only showing his superhuman generosity and his divine faculty of forgiving, when he thus _forgave_ the man who, twelve months since, had tried to perpetrate so foul and revolting a crime. Not by the men who are mindful of his human infirmities, but by the men who declare his virtuous nature had no alloy of evil, is it asserted that Shelley rushed into Hogg's arms with these words on his lips: 'It is true you strove to corrupt my bride twelve months since; but I forgive you that little error; so let by-gones be by-gones, and once again let us be "friends for ever!"' Superhuman generosity! divine faculty of forgiveness! If this is divine forgiveness, I can only say that, so far as I am concerned, divine beings are welcome to their monopoly of so vicious a virtue. It is a matter for congratulation that human nature is seldom capable of such generosity. I am alive to Shelley's failings, but I decline to join with his idolaters in crediting him with so peculiar a generosity--a generosity only to be possessed by the meanest of mankind.

(8.) Having thus returned at a late hour of the evening to Hogg's heart, Shelley insisted the next day on taking him to an hotel near St. James' Palace, in order that he should there be re-introduced to Harriett, and once again brought into close and affectionate intimacy with her. Can I be wrong in saying that, in thus re-introducing Hogg to his wife, Shelley declared his previous conviction of his friend's guilty purpose to have been pure misconception?--that Shelley could not have been so careless of his wife's honour, her virtue, his own honour, as to have thus restored Hogg in the November of 1812 to his previous intimacy with Mrs. Shelley, whilst still believing he tried to seduce her in the October of 1811? The Shelleyan zealots declare me altogether wrong. They maintain that in the November of 1812 Shelley still believed Hogg made an attempt on Harriett's virtue in October, 1811, still believed him capable of so dark a crime. They admit it was strange and remarkable that, under these circumstances, Shelley should have again invited Hogg to live, and made him live, in close intimacy with Harriett--still in her eighteenth year. But they insist that a sufficient explanation of conduct so strange and remarkable is afforded by Shelley's superhuman generosity and divine faculty of forgiving.

(9.) Having thus returned to friendship with Hogg, Shelley lived in friendship with him to the last;--so living in friendship with him (the Shelleyan zealots insist) whilst he all the while believed him to have tried to seduce Harriett within eight weeks of her marriage.

(10.) After breaking with Harriett, and joining hands in Free Love with Mary Godwin, Shelley took an early occasion for inviting Hogg to live as intimately with Mary, as he had in former time lived with Harriett. Is it conceivable that Shelley would have invited to this intimacy with his second spouse the man whom he still believed guilty of trying to corrupt his first spouse?

(11.) By his will (dated 18th February, 1817, when he, Hogg, and Mary Godwin were living in affectionate intimacy: and proved more than twenty-two years after his death, _i.e._ on 1st November, 1844), Shelley left Hogg a legacy of 2000_l._--a substantial proof of the affectionate regard in which Shelley to his last hour held his old college friend. It is unusual for a testator to bequeath 2000_l._ to a man whom he believes to have tried to seduce his wife.

(12.) Declaring by acts, and by steady persistence in the friendship never again to be broken or shaken, that he had misjudged Hogg and quarrelled with him through misconception, Shelley by his pen put it upon record that he had wronged his early friend in thinking him vile and treacherous. Of all the egotisms of _Laon and Cythna_, few are of greater biographic value than the stanzas in which the author, speaking of himself in the character of Laon, records how in his youth he was so far misled by envious and deceitful tongues as to bewail the falsehood of his heart's dearest friend, and in due course discovered that, instead of having been really found false, his comrade had only seemed so. In the second canto of the poem it is written:--

'Yes, oft beside the ruined labyrinth Which skirts the hoary caves of the green deep, Did Laon and his friend on one grey plinth, Round whose worn base the wild waves hiss and leap, Resting at eve, a lofty converse keep: And that his friend was false, may now be said Calmly--that he like other men could weep Tears which are lies, and could betray and spread Snares for that guileless heart which for his own had bled.'

It is not till he has been torn from Cythna, confined on the column's dizzy height, freed from bondage, cured of madness, and despatched to lead the revolutionary patriots of the Golden City, that Laon encounters again the friend from whom he parted in grief and misconception, and discovers how wrong he was to think evil of him. Recounting in the poem's fifth canto the incidents of his first night and morning in the patriots' camp, Laon says:--

'And now the Power of Good held victory, So, thro' the labyrinth of many a tent, Among the silent millions who did lie In innocent sleep, exultingly I went; The moon had left Heaven desert now, but lent From eastern morn the first faint lustre showed An armèd youth--over his spear he bent His downward face.--"A friend!" I cried aloud; And quickly common hopes made freemen understood.

I sate beside him while the morning beam Crept slowly over Heaven, and talked with him Of those immortal hopes, a glorious theme! Which led us forth, until the stars grew dim: And all the while, methought, his voice did swim, As if it drownèd in remembrance were Of thoughts which make the moist eyes overbrim: At last, when daylight 'gan to fill the air, He looked on me, and cried in wonder--"Thou art here!"

Then, suddenly, I knew it was the youth In whom its earliest hopes my spirit found; But envious tongues had stained his spotless truth, And thoughtless pride his love in silence bound, And shame and sorrow mine in toils had wound, _Whilst he was innocent, and I deluded_; The truth now came upon me, on the ground Tears of repenting joy, which fast intruded, Fell fast, and o'er its peace our mingled spirits brooded.'

Thus it was that, in the poem written during the six brightest months of 1817 (_i.e._ of the summer following the execution of his will), Shelley gave a penitential account of his quarrel _with_, and transient severance _from_, his heart's best friend, taking all the error and shame of the miserable affair to himself; acknowledging he did his friend black injustice in thinking him false, confessing his weak submissiveness to the false and envious tongues that misled him; declaring himself altogether _deluded_, and Hogg altogether innocent of the offences charged against him--altogether blameless in the whole wretched business, unless it was that he had been silent from a proud sense of injury, when by free and candid speech he might have utterly discredited the 'envious tongues,' and dispelled the misconceptions and delusions resulting from their slanderous

## activity. In the way of poetry, what fuller acquittal, what larger

acknowledgment of the wrong done him, could Hogg require than the single line: 'Whilst _he_ was innocent and I deluded?'

(13.) Some readers may think the acknowledgment would have been more effective in simple prose,--may think the avowal suffers in force from the artificiality of its terms,--may think it a pity Shelley did not say in less artful language what he put so gracefully in verse. One may be sure the impetuous Shelley poured the same confession in half a hundred forms of vehement speech into Hogg's private ear. Moreover, he did not pass from the world without putting the same pathetic confession and prayer in less than forty words of strenuous prose. When Hogg, some thirty-five long years after the poet's death, came for the first time on the MS. of _An Essay on Friendship_--the essay mentioned in a previous chapter of this work--he found these dedicatory words on the paper: 'I once had a friend, whom an inextricable multitude of circumstances has forced me to treat with apparent neglect. To him I dedicate this essay. If he finds my own words condemn me, will he not forgive?' In Shelley's hand-writing, these words may well have affected Hogg acutely and profoundly! Penned for his eye, they penetrated his heart! No writer (that I am aware of) has ventured to deny boldly and honestly that this dedicatory note was meant for Hogg, or even to question seriously whether it was not intended for some one else; but petty scribblers by the score have sneered at Hogg's egotism and impudence in taking to himself the dedicatory note, that certainly was meant for no one else.

What more can readers require in the way of evidence that, in respect to the morbid notion which caused his transient quarrel with Hogg, Shelley was the victim of monstrous hallucination? Those who require more evidence on this point, are persons to whom The Real Shelley will never be known.

In arguing this case, I have striven to argue evenly on both sides, as though I were retained by both plaintiff and defendant to discover the truth. I have kept cautiously within my evidences. Possibly, evidences touching the matter have not come under my notice. But I do not think I have missed any writing likely to affect my arguments or conclusions materially. All reliable information respecting the affair must come to us in some way or other from Shelley, Harriett, or Hogg. Any additional statement from Shelley to Hogg's disadvantage would be the mere statement of a sufferer from delusion. Possibly, papers exist, in which Harriett, whilst stating precisely that Hogg attempted to seduce her, gives minute

## particulars of the alleged attempt. Let us assume that, in her

correspondence with Miss Hitchener, and other persons, she was thus communicative, and that Field Place is in a position to produce a bundle of letters, in each of which she accuses Hogg of trying to seduce her, and describes minutely the means by which he tried to achieve his purpose. Such letters, however numerous and precise, would be the mere statements, in chief, of a witness, whom it is impossible to cross-examine,--a witness whose veracity is not unimpeachable; a witness who has been freely charged by Shelleyan apologists with untruth, in respect to several of her numerous statements to her husband's discredit; a witness, moreover, who, to use Mr. William Rossetti's words, was, in her seventeenth year, philosophized by Shelley himself out of the ordinary standard of feminine propriety. It is no uncommon thing for a young woman to imagine an attempt has been made on her honour, when no such attempt has been made. Women have been known to imagine themselves the victims of seduction when no one has seduced them. A case occurred no long while since in one of our law courts, where evidence of a woman's criminal intercourse with her alleged seducer was afforded by notes, made in her own hand-writing, in her private diary, and yet it was proved conclusively that her own written confessions of guilt were romantic and purely imaginative records of incidents that had never really taken place. Some women have a curious aptitude for suspecting men of wishing to seduce them; and it would not be unfair to suggest that the sixteen-years-old school-girl, to whose thoughts Shelley had given an unwholesome direction, was capable of entertaining such a suspicion groundlessly. Moreover, the discovery of such letters should neither occasion surprise, nor dispose the judicial reader to regard them as conclusively evidential of Hogg's guilt; because, if she wrote about the matter at all in her letters, the girl who, from terror or motives of policy, or from imaginative influences, certainly acquiesced in the charge against Hogg, even if she did not deliberately conspire with her sister to trump it up, would naturally write in accordance with the accusation, to which she was a party.

How about Hogg,--the third of the sources of information? He denied the charge. His way of dealing with the Keswick letters was a denial of the charge,--as clear, precise, and strenuous a denial as he could give to the accusation, respecting which he could not, for Shelley's honour's sake, speak precisely to the whole world. He denied the charge again by the way in which he took to himself the dedicatory note to the _Essay on Friendship_. He could not have denied the charge more precisely to the coteries, and every individual cognizant of the vile slander, without exhibiting the poet to the whole world's derision.

What if evidence should even yet be produced that Hogg actually made the attempt? For argument's sake, let us conceive what is in the highest degree improbable, and suppose that letters, written by Hogg himself to Shelley and Harriett, are, even now, put before the world by Field Place, to the conclusive demonstration of the writer's guilt,--letters placing it beyond question that he really made the attempt. What then? The result would comprise the absolute destruction of Shelley's right to be rated with men of honour, or even with men of common decency. Such letters would prove that, within a few days of an attempt on his wife's virtue, and in sure cognizance of the attempt and the maker of it, Shelley wrote in terms of passionate affectionateness to the culprit. They would prove that, knowing Hogg had, only a few weeks since, tried to debauch his bride, Shelley wrote to him, 'You are my bosom friend.' They would prove that in less than fourteen months from the attempt, Shelley survived his faint annoyance at the affair so completely as to be capable of throwing himself into Hogg's arms, saying to him, 'Let us think no more of that unlucky business,' and forthwith inviting him to renew his intimacy with the girl, whom he had tried to seduce. What is the only construction to be put on the conduct of the husband, who brings again into familiar intercourse with his wife the very man whom he knows to have recently tried to seduce her? It cannot be urged that Shelley acted thus on sufficient proof that Hogg was an altered man; for there had been no intercourse between them, by letter or otherwise, since Shelley left Keswick. Yet more,--such evidence of Hogg's guilt would prove that, in introducing him to Mary Godwin, Shelley brought into close intimacy with his second spouse, the man whom he knew to have tried to seduce his first wife within a few weeks of her wedding. Such evidence would, of course, cover Hogg with dark disgrace. But it would, at the same time, cover Shelley with blackest infamy. The Shelleyan enthusiasts would have been less eager to prove Hogg guilty of _the attempt_, had not animosity against Hogg blinded them to what would ensue to Shelley's reputation, should they succeed in proving the charge.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON:

Printed by STRANGEWAYS & SONS, Tower Street, Upper St. Martin's Lane.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This extract from Charles Grove's letter is taken from the printed copy of the epistle in Hogg's second volume; and the reader should give his attention to the words between brackets which are no part of the letter, but one of the explanatory notes, which the biographer indiscreetly put into the body of his transcripts of original documents, instead of printing them as foot-notes. It was his rule to bracket such editorial notes, and insert his initials after the second bracket. But the careless scribe, and still more careless proof-corrector, sometimes forgot to insert his initials, sometimes forgetting also to insert the brackets. Hence the so-called 'interpolations' of original evidences, for which he has been unfairly reproached by his detractors.

[2] The right name of this seat seems to have been Hill Place. In the _Beauties of England and Wales_ (1813), _Sussex_, p. 97, it is written, 'In the same direction on the right of the road, is an old seat called Hill Place, formerly the property of the late Viscountess Irwin, but now belonging to the Duke of Norfolk.' 'Lady Irwen's Hill Place' would be naturally abbreviated after her death into 'Irwen's Hill,' which again would be corrupted into 'Irving's Hill,' the familiar designation of the place in Shelley's boyhood.

[3] Shelley, as we shall see, was in London, and in urgent need of more money, in October, 1811.

[4] Hogg describes Shelley's rooms as 'being in the corner next the hall of the principal quadrangle of the University College.' 'They are,' he continues, 'on the first floor, and on the right of the entrance, but by reason of the turn in the stairs, when you reach them, they will be upon your left hand.'--HOGG'S _Life_, v. 1, p. 67.

[5] The first Reader in Mineralogy of the University of Oxford, with a Grant from the Crown, was William Buckland, B.D., subsequently the famous Dean of Westminster. From the Oxford University Calendar, it appears that a Crown Grant was assigned to this famous Professor for lecturing on Mineralogy in 1813. Probably the same lecturer gave lectures in the same department of science before receiving the grant, and was the gentleman whose 'dullness' was so afflicting to Mr. Bysshe Shelley.

[6] Biographers differ in spelling Harriett in the case of Miss Westbrook, and also in the case of Miss Grove. Hogg says Harriett Westbrook signed herself 'Harriet,' though Shelley instructed Mr. Medwin the elder to give the name a second _t_. Like Mr. Rossetti, I comply with Shelley's wish. Miss Grove's Christian name is spelt with a second _t_ in the Grove genealogy of Burke's _Landed Gentry_, a record corrected by the representative of the family.

[7] There has been uncertainty about this lady's name. Styled 'Emily' in at least one of Shelley's letters, she is usually styled Eliza in Shelleyan biography. But her real Christian name was Elizabeth. In her affidavit of 10th January, 1817, preserved at the Record Office, the name is so spelt. It has already been remarked in this work that, though usage has made the two several and different names, 'Eliza,' 'Elizabeth,' Isabel, and Isabella, are various forms of the same name, Iza.