Z\)c Camelot CI
Edited" by Ernest Rhy
Essays and Letters
BY
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTE,
BY
ERNEST RHYS.
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
1887.
s^
CONTENTS.
MIXED ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS— page
A Defence of Poetry ,...,. i
A Discourse on the Manners of the Ancients, relative to the
subject of Love .....
On the Symposium ; or, Preface to the Banquet of Plato
On Love . .....
The Coliseum .....
On the Punishment of Death . .
On Life . . , . .
On a Future State . . . . .
Essay on Christianity .....
Speculations on Metaphysics . . .
Speculations on Morals ....
The Age of Pericles . . . . .
On the Revival of Literatuire ....
Review of Hogg's Memoirs of Prince Alexy Haimatoff
The Assassins .....
LETTERS
Appendix
41
49
51
54
64
71
76
^Z
"3
122
136
146
149
159
180
379
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
COR CORDIUM.
NATUS IV. AUG. MDCCXCII.
OBIIT VIII. JUL. MDCCCXXII.
*' Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
[Inscription upon Shelley's Grave at Rome.]
SHELLEY'S PROSE WRITINGS.
T is impossible to turn to Shelley's prose with
the untroubled interest and judgment that we
summon in the case of most authors, especially
those who are only, or mainly, prose-writers.
Shelley's mark as a poet, in the narrower sense,
that is, of a writer of verse, is so well-known, that almost every-
one who turns to his prose will bring to it a set opinion, implying
more or less of enthusiasm or uninterest, or even perhaps
antagonism, based upon the already familiar grounds of his
verse and the story of his life. The first interest of the
book will therefore be a relative one, to be referred to pre-
vious ideas of its author's genius and personality ; and know-
ing what warmth of discussion these have constantly called
forth, it will be well for us to approach any new signs of their
quality, such as are offered here, in the urbanest and most
reasonable temper we can bring to bear. Fortunately, judged
for themselves alone, these prose-writings of Shelley are not
hard to judge. Their literary setting is so perfect and
delightful, that, if they had no other interest, they could not
fail to be sought at last simply for artistic quality, and placed
high among masterpieces of style accordingly. But the interest
they bear is higher still, and having regard to it we should be
mistaken in not profiting by the zest already created in us by the
poet's grace for anything further coming from him and helping
to interpret the fine and deep secrets of his nature.
X SHELLEY'S PROSE.
These secrets, as we think them over, easily resolve them-
selves into one, the secret of Shelley's personal fascination for
so many of us, in especial at a certain period of our growth. It
would be useless to try and account very exactly for so subtle
an influence. The ideal atmosphere that fills the poems, that
seems to linger in the very collocation of their syllables, affects
us, we hardly know how or why, and creates the feeling which
is more than any reasoned theory of appreciation. Against this
feeling, once created, with its chivalrous faith and boundless
enthusiasm, scientific analysis, equally with matter-of-fact de-
traction, is powerless. It is a feeling akin to all that is ideal
and heroic in us when the hopes of youth most irradiate the
surroundings and direction of life.
•• The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return.
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn.
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream."
In this music we have its very tone and echo. Vague it
may be, but most magical and strong nevertheless, and of
the ideal enterprise it inspires, Shelley is the spirit incarnate.
He inhabits with a princely if somewhat translunar splendour a
tower of his own on the mount of vision which is peculiarly
dedicated to his century. There we have known how to
picture him, gazing out upon what ideal vistas of the land of
promise, imagined after the half-realised accounts of the Italy he
loved. There, with him in spirit, looking out with his eyes, we
have seen the mystic vision of the future, as in a sunset whose
cloud-veil unclosing a moment has permitted a glimpse of per-
fect radiance within. That glimpse, once caught, leavee for
ever afterwards a restless longing to fully see what was so
nearly revealed; for within, we felt, were it but throughly
penetrated, lay the secret of the great progression through space
and time, in which the stars move so serenely, and men with
such tragic endeavour and disruption. It is the old story
SHELLEY'S PROSE. xl
of the Quest of the Grail, and many another since ; and
its glimpse of the perfect, and its after-longing and spiritual
unrest, are all centred in the feeling which is associated with
the very name of Shelley. So much of this feeling as it is well
for us to keep, perhaps, in a world that is material as well as
ideal, these Essays and Letters will help to embody and make
sure. The proof they give of their author's humanity is a
capital antidote to anything extreme in our worship of him as
an accession to the saints. So, having before endangered his
right fame by hailing him as of the gods, we shall establish him
more surely now, let us hope, by discovering how thoroughly, in
virtue and default, he was a man.
The ideal Shelley has long been known to us, and lately we
have been presented with a so-called "Real Shelley," for
counterblast, as much painted as ever was the first, seeing that it
has only been a matter of painting black what was before a
somewhat too unrelieved white. This method of disillusioning
is highly characteristic of the downright British temper of mind,
which does so like to deal absolute judgments ; but it is
peculiarly inapplicable in the case of a nature like Shelley's.
The same method applied to a series of heroes and poets of
much more definite quality than his could not fail to utterly
destroy all right knowledge and love of them. Conceive the
aspect of, let us suggest, Sir Philip Sidney, or to be bolder. Saint
Francis of Assisi, or others more spiritually eminent still, under
such malevolent treatment. The judgment upon Shelley, in truth,
will always be very much a matter of standpoint. Those to
whom the conventionalities are more than the ideal principles of
which they are the often worn-out clothes, will necessarily fail
in sympathy for such a nature as his, with its insistent relation
of everything to the ideal, in a way, let it be admitted, a little
oblivious apparently, at times, to the warm touch of human
dependency. But the growth of humanity in his nature was as
strong and sure as his literary growth ; there is an intimate
relation between the two in all true natures. It may well be,
therefore, that the Essays and Letters in which this is so clearly
shewn may form an opening to appreciation by those who from
xii SHELLEY'S PROSE.
one cause or another have not been hitherto greatly attracted
by the poet or his writings. Studying the simpler evidence of
prose, they will find that neither angels nor evil spirits claim
him away from the difficult human mean, where he existed with
our everyday susceptibilities, only heightened and modified by
the poet's ten-fold greater liability to the drawings of pleasure
and of pain. The real " Real Shelley," neither selfish dreamer
nor untempted saint, but one like ourselves, with added qualities
of genius which bear their appointed defects, is clearly seen in a
hundred passages of his letters ; and how much more interest-
ing in this reality of broad sunshine than, as often before shown,
under haze of moonshine or eldritch smoke.
Here is scarcely the place and time, however, for lengthy
analysis of Shelley's life and individuality. This has already
been admirably done in memoirs by Mrs. Shelley and Lady
Shelley, by Mr. William M. Rossetti and Mr. J. Addington
Symonds, and in quite a number of shorter essays by other
writers, with one or the other of which we are all well familiar.
It will be best perhaps, then, to touch only upon one or two
points which have special significance in the light of these prose
writings, and having so far rested a claim for Shelley's fund of
everyday humanity, we ought first of all to turn to the broad
basis of his character. One of the first things that occur to us
in reading the Letters, one laid stress upon by several writers, is
their absolute consistency with the poetry formally prepared by
Shelley with an eye to the public during his lifetime. This is
most .important, for it touches upon the question of Shelley's
main sincerity, which, called in question, has formed the turning
point of more than one elaborated attack upon him. But in his
prose we are taken behind the scenes of his poet's theatre
to find, wonderful to tell, that all there really is what it artis-
tically gave itself out to be. The corroboration by the letters of
his deliberate verse utterance is indeed remarkable, and a
sufficient argument in itself for Shelley's utter thoroughness
and honesty of purpose. For, as another poet, whose
dignified loyalty to Shelley through a long life must have been
cause enough in itself for belief to many, has conclusively
SHELLEY'S PROSE. xiii
asked : — " How shall we help believing in him when we find
even his carnal speech to agree faithfully with the tone and
rhythm of his most oracular utterances ? " With this quality is
closely allied another which did more than anything to wreck
the happiness of Shelley's life, his " egregious practical energy,"
as it has been well called by Mr. H. Buxton Forman. We all
know how disastrously it resulted, lacking the higher prudence
which could alone make such a tendency nobly valuable ; but at
the same time it is by no means a common or a base quality, the
unhalting readiness to act out one's theories, and Shelley had
this innocent courage of his opinions with a vengeance. Point
out a great idea or a crying need to him, and as soon as he felt
sure of it, he would rush off at once, with a quite comical
urgency, to apply it. If, however, it proves a certain greenness^ it
is a greenness that sometimes ripens into gold. At any rate it is
quite incompatible with any such inherent deceptiveness as the
writer of " The Real Shelley " has imputed to him. A touch
more of that dissimulative concern for the world's opinion which
often passes for prudence, and gives an aspect of virtue to what
is merely social astuteness, would have saved him from many
false and dishonourable indictments, such as those which wrung
a cry from him in a memorable letter to his wife : — " My
greatest content would be utterly to desert all human society*
I would retire with you and our child to a solitary island in the
sea, would build a boat, and shut upon my retreat the flood-gates
of the world."
Revelations of the motives and interests of Shelley's life
naturally abound in the Letters, and after having read them in
conjunction with the poems, it seems to me impossible that any-
one should turn away with anything but a profound belief in
their writer's inherent nobility and truth of inspiration. But if
this is to be so for the unbeliever, how are they to be envied
who bring to the book their first enthusiasm unaltered. A
more delightful literary experience can scarcely be conceived,
I think, than that of this book, while the music of Shelley's song
is still fresh in the ears, filling one with quick desire to know more
of " the king of beauty and fancy," as Trelawney charmingly
XIV SHELLEY'S PROSE.
called him. Impatiently foregoing the order of the book, and
turning first to the Letters to get the spirit and atmosphere of
Shelley's surroundings at one time and another, we could not
fail to be fascinated by the glimpses afforded of the year of
marvels which saw the birth of the Prometheus Unbound and
other great poems, showing how ideally environed the poet's
days then were. We can choose almost at random from the
letters of that time ; here is a passage from one, written from
Rome towards the end of March, when the Prometheus Unbound
was in process of composition : —
" I walk forth in the purple and golden light of an Italian
evening, and return by star or moonlight, through this scene.
The elms are just budding, and the warm spring winds bring
unknown odours, all sweet from the country. I see the radiant
Orion through the mighty columns ot the temple of Concord,
and the mellow fading light softens down the modern buildings
of the capitol, the only ones that interfere with the sublime
desolation of the scene. On the steps of the capitol itself stand
two colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, each with his horse,
finely executed, though far inferior to those oi Monte Cavallo,
the cast of one of which you know we saw together in London.
This walk is close to our lodging, and this is my evening walk."
While we are at Rome with Shelley in the spirit, one other
passage we must take, describing the burying-place which
received all that remained of him after the death's ordeal of fire
and water some three years later, and which by that time, too,
held the body of Keats. He begins in the same paragraph by
speaking of Rome as " a city, as it were, of the dead, or rather
of those who cannot die, and who survive the puny generations
which inhabit and pass over the spot which they have made
sacred to eternity;" and then, after describing the fields and the,
" grassy lanes and copses winding among the ruins," and the
gardens of the palaces, and the " great green hill, lonely and
bare, which overhangs the Tiber," he writes : —
" The English burying-place is a green slope near the walls,
under the pyramidal tomb of Cestius, and is, I think, the most
beautiful and solemn cemetery I ever beheld. To see the sun
SHELLEY'S PROSE. xv
shining on its bright grass, fresh, when we first visited it, with
the autumnal dews, and hear the whispering of the wind among
the leaves of the trees which have overgrown the tomb of
Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth,
and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and young people
who were buried there, one might, if one were to die, desire the
sleep they seem to sleep."
With this passage may well be placed those two well-known
verses of the Adonais^ describing the same scene : —
•* Go thou to Rome, — at once the paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness ;
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of desolation's nakedness,
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access,
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.
And grey walls moulder round, on which dull time
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ;
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime.
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath
A field is spread, on which a newer band
Have pitched in heaven's smile their camp of death,
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath."
One is tempted to go on endlessly, quoting and discussing
the beauty and fascination of the Letters, embodying so
n^uch as they do of all things true and lovely. Of the
changing interests of travel they are in especial full, and
these in a land whose interests are so irresistible, and
with a little band of travellers whose wayside adventures
and excitements are so touched by the thought of the
noble creations in poetry that they helped to form.
Without troubling ourselves much about possible reproaches
xvi SHELLEY'S PROSE.
of "word-painting," satisfied that the art of writing is
the handmaiden of all the other arts, who while she
retains the naivetd and modesty that are peculiarly her
own cannot get far astray, we shall not fail to follow with
delight those excursions immortally associated now with Venice
and Florence and Rome and Naples, the plains of Lombardy,
the Euganean Hills, and many another region of the " Paradise
of Exiles." In all the list of poets' friends and lovers, there
never was, surely, correspondent so favoured- as Peacock, to
receive as he did, often in the enhancing contrasted dullness of
the Indian House, these letters from Italy. What a glimpse is
this to be received by post in a London office, malodorous with
coal-smoke and foolscap! — Shelley is describing a journey
through the Apennines, towards Salerno, when, after a day of
rain, storm, and tempest, amid the mountains, they catch sight
of the sea, illumined by the sudden burst of sunset between
the orange and lemon groves of a lovely village:— "A burst of
the declining sunlight illumined it," he writes. " The road led
along the brink of the precipice towards Salerno. Nothing
could be more glorious than the scene. The immense
mountains covered with the rare and divine vegetation of this
climate, with many-folding vales, and deep, dark recesses,
which the fancy scarcely could penetrate, descended from their
many summits precipitously to the sea. Before us was Salerno,
built into a declining plain, between the mountains and the sea.
Beyond, the other shore of sky-cleaving mountains, then dim
with the mist of tempest. Underneath, from the base of the
precipice where the road conducted, rocky promontories jutted
into the sea, covered with olive and ilex woods, or with the
ruined battlements of some Norman or Saracen fortress. We
slept at Salerno, and the next morning before daybreak pro-
ceeded to Posidonia. The night had been tempestuous, and
our way lay by the sea-sand. It was utterly dark, except when
the long line of wave burst, with a sound like thunder, beneath
the starless sky, and cast up a kind of mist of cold white
lustre. When morning came, we found ourselves travelling in
a wide desert plain, perpetually interrupted by wild irregular
SHELLEY'S PROSE. xvii
glens, and bounded on all sides by the Apennines and the
sea."
If the sketches of human life and character in the Letters
are, as one might expect, knowing Shelley's comparative
lack of closer sympathy with average human personality,
and the greater abundance in a land like Italy of Nature's
interest, less frequent than his sketches of Nature, they are
nevertheless full of charm. Glimpses of Byron and of the
others who helped to form the Shelley circle at different
times abound; and with such variety of character as Byron,
Leigh Hunt, the Gisbornes, the Williams's, Emilia Viviani,
and others, afford, it would be strange, indeed, if we were not
interested, apart from the vivid reflection of Shelley's irradiat-
ing consciousness. We think of that unusual little society,
stationed on the lonely shores of the Mediterranean and the
Adriatic, where the voices of Nature are apparent at all times,
with curious imagination now of those days of memorable
association, — days often as trivially or greatly troubled, how-
ever, as many others which in memory are only bright. Still
more interesting are the occasional little descriptions of Shelley
himself at his poet's work, so characteristic, many of them,
of the maker of "Prometheus" and the "Witch of Atlas."
Here is one such account, written to Peacock from Livorno : —
" I have a study here in a tower, something like Scythrop's,
where I am just beginning to recover the faculties of reading
and writing. . . . From my tower I see the sea, with its
islands, Gorgona, Capraja, Elba, and Corsica, on one side, and
the Apennines on the other." The letter from which this is
quoted is dated July 6th, 1819, and by turning to the one follow-
ing, we get an exact account of the hours of every day at that
time — a time, be it recalled, when Shelley's genius was on every
side splendidly active, advancing yet again into the social and
political field, as well as daringly further into that of poetry.
And sd throughout we find the Letters a most delightful and
luminous commentary upon the poetry ; we see in them the
poems in the making, lit up by a hundred glimpses of the
* unique life out of which the poems grew, and we turn from them
b
xviii SHELLEY'S PROSE,
with a larger apprehension altogether of their writer. On the
purely literary side, we shall only be able to appraise Shelley
with complete critical appraisal, with a view to his practice in
verse and prose, when his writings of both kinds have been
paralleled and compared, as was suggested by the Rev.
Stopford Brooke, in his eloquent address at the inaugural
meeting of the Shelley Society.
Sooner or later, in reading the Letters, some significant
reference or other to poetic aims is sure to recall the wish to
know more fully what Shelley's theory of poetry really was, and
in this we have the singular good fortune to be in possession of
exact evidence in the essay on "The Defence of Poetry," which
presents us with so imposing a statement of the poetic ideal.
After searching through all Shelley's utterances about life and
thought, and their expression in forms of poetry, on coming
to their epitome in this essay, we soon find that their real basis
is of the simplest, one that it needs no careful knowledge of
metaphysics to comprehend, being indeed nothing more or
less than Love itself. Upon this simple basis, however,
he built a philosophical superstructure, that, as time went
on, promised, had he only lived, to form a very elaborate
and noble temple of thought. Whether it would have ever
reached completion is another matter ; the main scheme
of it was fairly clear to him, but he recognised, if somewhat
tardily, the insufficiency of the materials and the powers at our
command, and his poet's instinct would probably have warned
him in time from binding himself to any final statement of
matters infinite, whose expression must always be a progressive
one. As for poetry, which Shelley regarded as the natural
voice of our deepest insight into the ideas with which philosophy
concerns itself, his treatment in the " Defence " is wonderfully
lucid and perspicuous, especially for one hovering on the dan-
gerous edge of metaphysics as he does. His whole standpoint
is admirably expressed in the following passage from the essay
by Robert Browning, already quoted from, which forms an
incomparable prelude to the Essays and Letters. Taking Shelley
as a type of the subjective poet, the passage dilates : — " He, gifted
SHELLEY'S PROSE. xix
like the objective poet with the fuller perception of nature and
man, is impelled to embody the thing he perceives, not so much
with reference to the many below as to the one above him,
the supreme Intelligence which apprehends all things in their
absolute truth — an ultimate view ever aspired to, if but partially
attained, by the poet's own soul. Not what man sees, but what
God sees — the Ideas of Plato, seeds of creation lying burningly
on the Divine Hand — it is towards these that he struggles.
Not with the combination of humanity in action, but with the
primal elements of humanity, he has to do ; and he digs where
he stands, — preferring to seek them in his own soul as the
nearest reflex of that absolute Mind, according to the in-
tuitions of which he desires to perceive and speak." The
exact terms of this exposition Shelley himself might have
questioned, but it states his position nevertheless very perfectly.
Poetry was to him anything but a plaything, even the divine
plaything that it was to Heine, according to a famous con-
fession of that sublime cynic in the vein of which Byron, the
opposite pole in this to Shelley, is our most famous exponent ;
and it was certainly anything but an indifferent alternative to
other unconventional social exercises, or fashionable or un-
fashionable pastimes. To Shelley it was the voice of a
religion, an instrument which responded to the eternal verities,
making harmony for the dull ear of man out of all apparent
discords. " A poem," he cries, " is the very image of life
expressed in its eternal truth," and his " Defence of Poetry" is
throughout imbued with a spirit of passionate belief in the poet's
transcendent functions. Using the differentiation, enforced by
Ruskin, of the terms cesthetic and theoretic^ Shelley was not at
all content to consider things aesthetically only, and according to
sensuous impress and gratification ; he was determinedly theo-
retic all through. When things of beauty seized his imagination
it was consciously as images of the everlasting principle of
beauty and the perfect harmony which lie behind, though of
course he was too true a poet to vaguely abandon the poet's
safeguards of the concrete. Examples of this theoretic relating
of his subject-matter abound even in his poetry, and this essay
XX SHELLEY'S PROSE.
is completely interpenetrated with its spirit. Nor need it matter
greatly that Shelley never reached any dogmatic position as
to the ultimate of these relations ; it is enough that he ideally
recognised this ultimate, even if he did not do so categorically.
In this profound religious way he keeps returning again and
again to exclaim upon the high origin and destiny of his
subject : — " Poetry is indeed something divine," he insists, " it is
at once the centre and circumference of knowledge ; it is that
which comprehends all science, and that to which all science
must be referred. It is at the same time the root and the
blossom of all other systems of thought ; it is that from which
all spring, and that which adorns all ; and that which, if
blighted, denies the fruit and the seed, and withholds from the
barren world the nourishment and the succession of the scions
of the tree of life. It is the perfect and consummate surface and
bloom of all things ; it is as the odour and the colour of the rose
to the texture of the elements which compose it, as the form and
splendour of unfaded beauty to the secrets of anatomy and
corruption." We have but to continue with citations from
the immediately succeeding paragraphs to for ever convert,
surely, all who disbelieve in the high function of poetry. We
gain from them, too, an incidental account of the mysterious
coming of inspiration, which naturally relates itself to the pro-
cesses of imagination in Shelley's own mind. " We are aware,"
he says, " of evanescent visitations of thought and feeling some-
times associated with place or person, sometimes regarding our
own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen and departing
unbidden, but elevating and delightful beyond all expression ;
so that even in the desire and the regret they leave, there cannot
but be pleasure, participating as it does in the nature of its
object. It is, as it were, the interpenetration of a diviner nature
through our own ; but its footsteps are like those of a wind over
the seas which the coming calm erases, and whose traces
remain only as on the wrinkled sand which paves it." The
first part of this passage suggests what has always seemed to
me one of the most characteristic episodes in Shelley's life, as
related by Mrs. Shelley — his solitary excursion to Monte San
SHELLEY'S PROSE. xxi
Pellegrino in the August of 1820, returning to reproduce the
atmosphere and ideal essence of the days of this pilgrimage in
" The Witch of Atlas," — characteristic outcome 1 exquisite
mouse of fancy brought forth by what mountain of Shelleyan
imagination 1
Proceeding through the rest of the Essays in the light of the
Defence of Poetry^ it is not needed to examine them here in
exact detail ; their connection with the different sides of
Shelley's genius and literary development are readily seen.
The Discourse on Athenian life and manners, in especial relation
to the subject of Love, which unfortunately breaks off at the
point of entering upon the most interesting part of its subject, is
yet very significant in its bearing upon Shelley's Hellenic
sympathies. How much we have lost by his having left it a
fragment we can only guess ruefully when we remember the
impassioned utterance in praise of love by Agathon and his
comrades, with the judicial deliverance by Socrates that follows,
in Y\2Xq}s Symposium^ to which Shelley's Discourse was intended
to form an introduction. Shelley's beautiful translation of the
Symposium it is intended to issue in a volume of Plato in the
present series, and it has therefore been omitted here, albeit
somewhat unwillingly, to make way for more of his original
writings. The immense stimulus that Plato gave to Shelley we
are reminded of again and again in the Essays and Letters, and
it must be kept in mind constantly in estimating either prose or
verse. Shelley's devotion to Plato was unwavering from the
day when he first began to read the Dialogues. Hogg, in
describing the poet's Oxford days, tells some exquisite anecdotes
of his enthusiastic Platonism, notably one, most comic, of an
attempt, when crossing a bridge one day, to elicit from a baby,
lifted from the arms of its startled mother, direct evidence about
a state of pre-existence. To the end Plato continued to
exercise Shelley as greatly, if to less eccentric result.
Corroborated by Berkeley and other idealists, Plato taught him
how to reconcile beauty and goodness, the aesthetic and the
moral sides of life, and so in great part formed the basis for the
Shelleyan religion. This is therefore, in many ways, the most
xxii SHELLEY'S PROSE.
considerable influence in all Shelley's history, accounting for
much that would else be very perplexing.
The remaining essays have each their own significance,
throwing new light in one way and another, which is simply and
clearly indicated as a rule by their titles. In some respects
it is no doubt best to study them in the order of their pro-
duction by Shelley. We come to understand then the evolution
of the more perfected Shelley of the later years, and are able
to trace the steps of his literary advance. Want of space
again has prevented the inclusion of most of the earlier
polemical writings, which, however, are not likely to be his
latest memorial, and enough is included in the Appendix to
enable judgment of their general worth. Some excerpts, of
special interest in this present political crisis, are given from
the Irish Address of 1812, so touched with curious
associations of the excitable boyish liberator who went
over with such charming faith to conquer a nation by love
and its transcendental heroics. The Declaration of Rights^
which shows a remarkable advance upon the two Irish pamphlets,
from the beneficial restraints of the condensation necessary for
such a manifesto, is given in full. The famous Letter to Lord
Ellenborough is also given complete, and in this, which
admirably displays all the qualities and faults of Shelley's
early prose, we first recognise the capable mastery of expression
which its author afterwards attained. The Necessity of Atheism^
The Refutation of Deism^ and the Vegetarian pamphlet, slightly
interesting in themselves, are embodied in the notes to Queen
Mab^ which can be referred to in almost any edition of the
poems, and they are therefore omitted here. The other early
political papers are of too occasional a nature to be of much
general interest. With the early fragment of romance entitled
The Assassins we reach another side of Shelley altogether, and
it is peculiarly interesting, Mr. H. Buxton Forman has told us,
as showing behind its melodramatic crudity in certain portions
a marked advance in human sympathy upon the merely intellec-
tual enthusiasms that underlie the previous juvenilia. In it we
detect, too, the achievement, afterwards confirmed in the Coliseum
SHELLEY'S PROSE. xxiii
fragment, of that imaginative atmosphere without which
romance utterly fails — that atmosphere of which Hawthorne so
knew the secret. And turning at this point to consider the
whole excellence of Shelley's prose style, there is something, it
seems to me, in its impalpable, individual charm, which, with a
hundred differences, is more like Hawthorne than anyone else.
Seeing how in his prose Shelley almost entirely dispensed with
the glittering equipment of metaphor and parti-coloured, teeming
fancy that he wore in his verse exploits, it is wonderful that in his
very plainest prose this exquisite individual flavour is almost as
distinct as in The Sensitive Plant or Prometheus Unbound.
While always touched with this facile, limpid, Shelleyan native
quality, the prose at its best is of true classic excellence,— easily
capable, lucid, reasoned, vigorous, unaffected ; and at its worst
fails chiefly from indefiniteness and consequent diffuseness of
expression ; never, except perhaps here and there in the very
early writings, from graver lack of taste or rightness of utter-
ance. For examples of its varied excellence, in the expression
of quite different subjects, besides many such passages as have
already been given from the Letters and the Defence of Poetry^
the best of the notes upon the Sculpture of the age of Pericles,
and the Essay on Christianity can be turned to. About the two
last-mentioned writings, one might wish to say a further word
with reference to Shelley's ideas upon fine-art and religion, but
in the case of religion enough has perhaps already been said,
and in the other, if it is remembered that Shelley lived at a day
when art-primers and magazines did not abound to supply
everybody with ready-made admirations and ecstasies, it will
be seen that there is nothing very damning in the fact that he
admired the melodrama of Salvator Rosa's, and somewhat
depreciated the noble tragedy of Michael Angelo's art.
The arrangement of the Essays in this volume is in the main
that adopted by Mrs. Shelley in her first edition of the Essays
and Letters from Abroad^ while of course there is much that
has been added since that time, of which the latest is the review
of Hogg's Alexy Haimatoff. This review, which was dis-
covered by Professor Dowden two or three years ago in an
xxiv SHELLEY'S PROSE.
old magazine — The Critical Review — is given here in preference
to Shelley's other better known reviews, as, for instance, those
on Frankenstein and Godwin's Mandeville. There are certain
other omissions which the scope of a volume such as this has
made unavoidable, both in the Essays and the Letters, but, even
as it is, this collection of the prose is by far the completest that
has yet been brought, like the poems, within multitudinous
reach, and there is enough and to spare to give a perfect idea
of this side of Shelley's genius. Taken with the other side, of
his verse, we have the high record of a noble life, noble even in
its imperfections, which ended, let us remember, almost before
it was mature, and which we must believe in, if not on the
internal evidence that this record contains, at any rate on the
testimony of so many and such opposites natures, from Byron
to Henri Beyle, who, having known him, have borne witness to
the beauty and nobility of his character. In this way the best
of these prose-writings may be trusted to continue into time,
not, I imagine, as has been said with authority, outlasting their
author's verse, but, the prose with the verse, continuing as the
incomparable representation of one of those difficultly ideal
natures which, while the years go on, will always draw men
impelled by the same ideal desires and defeated by the same
errors.
ERNEST RHYS.
[Note. — The thanks of the editor of this volume are here
heartily given to all who have helped to make this edition of
Shelley's Prose so far perfect, whether by permission to use
copyright matter, as has been so freely granted by Sir Percy
F. Shelley, Bart., or by literary aid and suggestion, received
in various ways, from, first and foremost, the Shelley Society
generally, and then from many of its members individually,
including Mr. H. Buxton Forman, Dr. Furnivall, Dr. Garnett,
Mr. William Bell Scott, and Mr. Thomas J. Wise. Of these
Mr. Wise must be further specially mentioned for the unselfish
assistance rendered by him in procuring scarce Shelleyana for
the preparation of copy.]
MIXED ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
A DEFENCE OF POETRY.
PART I.
CCORDING to one mode of regarding those two
classes of mental action, which are called reason
and imagination, the former may be considered
as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought
to another, however produced , and the latter, as mind
acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its
own light, and composing from them, as from elements,
other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle
of its own integrity. The one is the to ttolclv, or the
principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms
which are common to universal nature and existence itself;
the other is the to Aoyi^etr, or principle of analysis, and its
action regards the relations of things simply as relations ;
considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the
algebraical representations which conduct to certain general
results. Reason is the enumeration of qualities already
2 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
known ; imagination is the perception of the value of those
quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason
respects the differences, and imagination the similitudes of
things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the
agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the
substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be " the
expression of the imagination : " and poetry is connate with
the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a
series of external and internal impressions are driven, like
the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an ^olian
lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing
melody. But there is a principle within the human being,
and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts other-
wise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but
harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds or
motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them.
It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the
motions of that which strikes them, in a determined propor-
tion of sound ; even as the musician can accommodate his
voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself
will express its delight by its voice and motions ; and every
inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation
to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions
which awakened it ; it will be the reflected image of that
impression ; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the
wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in
its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong
also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the
objects which delight a child, these expressions are, what
poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is
to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions
produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar
A DEFENCE OF POETRY. 3
manner ; and language and gesture, together with plastic or
pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect
of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in
society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next
becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man ;
an additional class of emotions produces an augmented
treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the
imitative arts, become at once the representation and the
medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the
statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies,
or those laws from which, as from its elements, society
results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that
two human beings co-exist ; the future is contained within
the present, a;a the plant within the seed; and equality,
diversity, unity, contrast, mutual dependence, become the
principles alone capable of affording the motives according
to which the will of a social being is determined to action,
inasmuch as he is social ; and constitute pleasure in sensa-
tion, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning,
and love in the intercourse of kind. Hence men, even in
the infancy of society, observe a certain order in their
words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the
impressions represented by them, all expression being sub-
ject to the laws of that from which it proceeds. But let us
dismiss those more general considerations which might
involve an inquiry into the principles of society itself, and
restrict our view to the manner in which the imagination is
expressed upon its forms.
In the youth of the world, men dance and sing and
imitate natural objects, observing in these actions, as in all
others, a certain rhythm or order. And, although all men
observe a similar, they observe not the same order, in the
motions of the dance, in the melody of the song, in the
4 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
combinations of language, in the series of their imitations
of natural objects. For there is a certain order or rhythm
belonging to each of these classes of mimetic representation,
from which the hearer and the spectator receive an intenser
and purer pleasure than from any other : the sense of an
approximation to this order has been called taste by
modern writers. Every man in the infancy of art, observes
an order which approximates more or less closely to that
from which this highest delight results : but the diversity
is not sufficiently marked, as that its gradations should be
sensible, except in those instances where the predominance
of this faculty of approximation to the beautiful (for so we
may be permitted to name the relation between this highest
pleasure and its cause) is very great. Those in whom it
exists in excess are poets, in the most universal sense of
the word ; and the pleasure resulting from the manner in
which they express the influence of society or nature upon
their own minds, communicates itself to others, and gathers
a sort of reduplication from that community. Their
language is vitally metaphorical ; that is, it marks the
before unapprehended relations of things and perpetuates
their apprehension, until the words which represent them,
become, through time, signs for portions or classes of
thoughts instead of pictures of integral thoughts ; and then
if no new poets should arise to create afresh the associa-
tions which have been thus disorganised, language will be
dead to all the nobler purposes of human intercourse.
These similitudes or relations are finely said by Lord
Bacon to be " the same footsteps of nature impressed upon
the various subjects of the world " * — and he considers the
faculty which perceives them as the storehouse of axioms
common to all knowledge. In the infancy of society every
• De Augment. Scient., cap. 1, lib. ill.
A DEFENCE OF POETRY, 5
author is necessarily a poet, because language itself is
poetry ; and to be a poet is to apprehend the true and the
beautiful, in a word, the good which exists in the relation,
subsisting, first between existence and perception, and
secondly between perception and expression. Every
original language near to its source is in itself the chaos
of a cyclic poem : the copiousness of lexicography and the
distinctions of grammar are the works of a later age, and
are merely the catalogue and the form of the creations of
poetry.
But poets, or those who imagine and express this
indestructible order, are not only the authors of language
and of music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary,
and painting : they are the institutors of laws, and the
founders of civil society, and the inventors of the arts of
life, and the teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity
with the beautiful and the true, that partial apprehension
of the agencies of the invisible world which is called
religion. Hence all original religions are allegorical, or
susceptible of allegory, and, like Janus, have a double face
of false and true. Poets, according to the circumstances of
the age and nation in which they appeared, were called, in
the earlier epochs of the world, legislators, or prophets : a
poet essentially comprises and unites both these characters.
For he not only beholds intensely the present as it is, and
discovers those laws according to which present things
ought to be ordered, but he beholds the future in the
present, and his thoughts are the germs of the flower and
the fruit of latest time. Not that I assert poets to be
prophets in the gross sense of the word, or that they can
foretell the form as surely as they foreknow the spirit of
events : such is the pretence of superstition, which would
make poetry an attribute of prophecy, rather than prophecy
6 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
an attribute of poetry. A poet participates in the eternal,
the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to his con-
ceptions, time and place and number are not. Tho
grammatical forms which express the moods of time, and
the difference of persons, and the distinction of place, are
convertible with respect to the highest poetry without
injuring it as poetry ; and the choruses of j3Eschylus, and
the book of Job, and Dante's Paradise, would afford, more
than any other writings, examples of this fact, if the limits
of this essay did not forbid citation. The creations of
sculpture, painting, and music are illustrations still more
decisive.
Language, colour, form, and religious and civil habits of
action, are all the instruments and materials of poetry ;
they may be called poetry by that figure of speech which
considers the effect as a synonyme of the cause. But
poetry in a more restricted sense expresses those arrange-
ments of language, and especially metrical language, which
are created by that imperial faculty, whose throne is cur-
tained within the invisible nature of man. And this
springs from the nature itself of language, which is a more
direct representation of the actions and passions of our
internal being, and is susceptible of more various and deli-
cate combinations, than colour, form, or motion, and is
more plastic and obedient to the control of that faculty of
which it is the creation. For language is arbitrarily pro-
duced by the imagination, and has relation to thoughts
alone ; but all other materials, instruments, and conditions
of art have relations among each other, which limit and
interpose between conception and expression. The former
is as a mirror which reflects, the latter as a cloud which
enfeebles, the light of which both are mediums of communi-
cation. Hence the fame of sculptors, painters, and
A DEFENCE OF POETRY. 7
musicians, although the intrinsic powers of the great
masters of these arts may yield in no degree to that of
those who have employed language as the hieroglyphic of
their thoughts, has never equalled that of poets in the
restricted sense of the term ; as two .performers of equal
skill will produce unequal effects from a guitar and a harp.
The fame of legislators and founders of religions, so long as
their institutions last, alone seems to exceed that of poets
in the restricted sense ; but it can scarcely be a question,
whether, if we deduct the celebrity which their flattery of
the gross opinions of the vulgar usually conciliates, together
with that which belonged to them in their higher character
of poets, any excess will remain.
We have thus circumscribed the word poetry within the
limits of that art which is the most familiar and the most
perfect expression of the faculty itself. It is necessary,
however, to make the circle still narrower, and to deter-
mine the distinction between measured and unmeasured
language ; for the popular division into prose and verse is
inadmissible in accurate philosophy.
Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between
each other and towards that which they represent, and a
perception of the order of those relations has always been
found connected with a perception of the order of the
relations of thoughts. Hence the language of poets has
ever affected a certain uniform and harmonious recurrence
of sound, without which it were not poetry, and which is
scarcely less indispensable to the communication of its
influence, than the words themselves, without reference to
that peculiar order. Hence the vanity of translation; it
were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might
discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as
seek to transfuse from one language into another the
8 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
creations of a poet The plant must spring again from its
seed, or it will bear no jBiower — and this is the burthen of
the curse of Babel.
An observation of the regular mode of the recurrence of
harmony in the language of poetical minds, together with
its relation to music, produced metre, or a certain system
of traditional forms of harmony and language. Yet it is by
no means essential that a poet should accommodate his
language to this traditional form, so that the harmony,
which is its spirit, be observed. The practice is indeed
convenient and popular, and to be preferred, especially in
such composition as includes much action : but every great
poet must inevitably innovate upon the example of his
predecessors in the exact structure of his peculiar versifica-
tion. The distinction between poets and prose writers is a
vulgar error. The distinction between philosophers and
poets has been anticipated. Plato was essentially a poet —
the truth and splendour of his imagery, and the melody of
hia language, are the most intense that it is possible to
conceive. He rejected the measure of the epic, dramatic,
and lyrical forms, because he sought to kindle a harmony
in thoughts divested of shape and action, and he forebore to
invent any regular plan of rhythm which would include,
under determinate forms, the varied pauses of his style.
Cicero sought to imitate the cadence of his periods, but
with little success. Lord Bacon was a poet.* His lan-
guage has a sweet and majestic rhythm, which satisfies the
sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his
philosophy satisfies the intellect ; it is a strain which dis-
tends, and then bursts the circumference of the reader's
mind, and pours itself forth together with it into the
universal element with which it has perpetual sympathy.
* See the Filum Labyrintlii, and the Essay on Death particularly.
A DEFENCE OF POETRY, 9
All the authors of revolutions in opinion are not only
necessarily poets as they are inventors, nor even as their
words unveil the permanent analogy of things by images
which participate in the life of truth ; but as their periods
are harmonious and rhythmical, and contain in themselves
the elements of verse ; being the echo of the eternal music.
Nor are those supreme poets, who have employed traditional
forms of rhythm on account of the form and action of their
subjects, less capable of perceiving and teaching the truth
of things, than those who have omitted that form. Shake-
speare, Dante, and Milton (to confine ourselves to modern
writers) are philosophers of the very loftiest power.
A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal
truth. There is this difference between a story and a poem,
that a story is a catalogue of detached facts, which have no
other connection than time, place, circumstance, cause and
effect ; the other is the creation of actions according to the
unchangeable forms of human nature, as existing in the
mind of the Creator, which is itself the image of all other
minds. The one is partial, and applies only to a definite
period of time, and a certain combination of events which
can never again recur ; the other is universal, and contains
within itself the germ of a relation to whatever motives or
actions have place in the possible varieties of human nature.
Time, which destroys the beauty and the use of the story of
particular facts, stripped of the poetry which should invest
them, augments that of poetry, and for ever develops new
and wonderful applications of the eternal truth which it
contains. Hence epitomes have been called the moths of
just history; they eat out the poetry of it. A story of
particular facts is as a mirror which obscures and distorts
that which should be beautiful : poetry is a mirror which
makes beautiful that which is distorted.
lo ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
The parts of a composition may be poetical, without the
composition as a whole being a poem. A single sentence
may be considered as a whole, though it may be found in
the midst of a series of unassimilated portions ; a single
word even may be a spark of inextinguishable thought.
And thus all the great historians, Herodotus, Plutarch,
Livy, were poets ; and although the plan of these writers,
especially that of Livy, restrained them from developing
this faculty in its highest degree, they made copious and
ample amends for their subjection, by filling all the
interstices of their subjects with living images.
Having determined what is poetry, and who are poets,
let us proceed to estimate its effects upon society.
Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure : all spirits on
which it falls open themselves to receive the wisdom which
is mingled with its delight. In the infancy .of the world,
neither poets themselves nor their auditors are fully aware
of the excellence of poetry : for it acts in a divine and un-
apprehended manner, beyond and above consciousness ; and
it is reserved for future generations to contemplate and
measure the mighty cause and effect in all the strength and
splendour of their union. Even in modern times, no living
poet ever arrived at the fulness of his fame; the jury which
sits in judgment upon a poet, belonging as he does to all
time, must be composed of his peers: it must be impanneled
by Time from the selectest of the wise of many generations.
A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to
cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds ; his auditors are
as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician,
who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not
whence or why. The poems of Homer and his contempo-
raries were the delight of infant Greece; they were the
elements of that social system which is the column upon
A DEFENCE OF POETRY, 11
which all succeeding civilisation has reposed. Homer em-
bodied the ideal perfection of his age in human character ;
nor can we doubt that those who read his verses were
awakened to an ambition of becoming like to Achilles,
Hector, and Ulysses : the truth and beauty of friendship,
patriotism, and persevering devotion to an object, were
unveiled to the depths in these immortal creations : the
sentiments of the auditors must have been refined and
enlarged by a sympathy with such great and lovely imper-
sonations, until from admiring they imitated, and from
imitation they identified themselves with the objects of
their admiration. Nor let it be objected, that these
characters are remote from moral perfection, and that they
can by no means be considered as edifying patterns for
general imitation. Every epoch, under names more or less
specious, has deified its peculiar errors; Revenge is the
naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age ; and
Self-deceit is the veiled image of unknown evil, before
which luxury and satiety lie prostrate. But a poet con-
siders the vices of his contemporaries as the temporary
dress in which his creations must be arrayed, and which
cover without concealing the eternal proportions of their
beauty. An epic or dramatic personage is understood to
wear them around his soul, as he may the ancient armour or
the modern uniform around his body ; whilst it is easy to
conceive a dress more graceful than either. The beauty of
the internal nature cannot be so far concealed by its acci-
dental vesture, but that the spirit of its form shall com-
municate itself to the very disguise, and indicate the shape
it hides from the manner in which it is worn. A majestic
form and graceful motions will express themselves through
the most barbarous and tasteless costume. Few poets of
the highest class have chosen to exhibit the beauty of their
12 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
conceptions in its naked truth and splendour ; and it is
doubtful whether the alloy of costume, habit, etc., be not
necessary to temper this planetary music for mortal ears.
The whole objection, however, of the immorality of
poetry rests upon a misconception of the manner in which
poetry acts to produce the moral improvement of man.
Ethical science arranges the elements which poetry has
created, and propounds schemes and proposes examples of
civil and domestic life : nor is it for want of admirable
doctrines that men hate, and despise, and censure, and
deceive, and subjugate one another. But poetry acts in
another and diviner manner. It awakens and enlarges the
mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand
unapprehended combinations of thought. Poetry lifts the
veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes
familiar objects be as if they were not familiar ; it repro-
duces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed
in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of
those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of
that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over
all thoughts and actions with which it coexists. The great
secret of morals is love ; or a going out of our nature, and
an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which
exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man,
to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and compre-
hensively ; he must put himself in the place of another and
of many others ; the pains and pleasures of his species
must become his own. The great instrument of moral good
is the imagination ; and poetry administers to the effect by
acting upon the cause. Poetry enlarges the circumference
of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever
new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimil-
ating to their own nature all other thoughts, and which form
A DEFENCE OF POETRY. 13
new intervals and interstices whose void for ever craves
fresh food. Poetry strengthens the faculty which is the
organ of the moral nature of man, in the same manner as
exercise strengthens a limb. A poet therefore would do
ill to embody his own conceptions of right and wrong,
which are usually those of his place and time, in his
poetical creations, which participate in neither. By this
assumption of the inferior office of interpreting the effect,
in which perhaps after all he might acquit himself but
imperfectly, he would resign a glory in a participation
in the cause. There was little danger that Homer, or any
of the eternal poets, should have so far misunderstood
themselves as to have abdicated this throne of their widest
dominion. Those in whom the poetical faculty, though
great, is less intense, as Euripides, Lucan, Tasso, Spenser,
have frequently affected a moral aim, and the effect of
their poetry is diminished in exact proportion to the
degree in which they compel us to advert to this
purpose.
Homer and the cyc.ic poets were followed at a certain
interval by the dramatic and lyrical poets of Athens, who
flourished contemporaneously with all that is most perfect
in the kindred expressions of the poetical faculty ; archi-
tecture, painting, music, the dance, sculpture, philosophy,
and we may add, the forms of civil life. For although the
scheme of Athenian society was deformed by many
imperfections which the poetry existing in chivalry and
Christianity has erased from the habits and institutions of
modern Europe ; yet never at any other period has so much
energy, beauty, and virtue been developed ; never was
blind strength and stubborn form so disciplined and
rendered subject to the will of man, or that will less
repugnant to the dictates of the beautiful and the true, as
14 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
during the century which preceded the death of Socrates.
Of no other epoch in the history of our species have we
records and fragments stamped so visibly with the image of
the divinity in man. But it is poetry alone, in form, in
action, or in language, which has rendered this epoch memor-
able above all others, and the storehouse of examples to
everlasting time. For written poetry existed at that
epoch simultaneously with the other arts, and it is an idle
inquiry to demand which gave and which received the
light, which all, as from a common focus, have scattered
over the darkest periods of succeeding time. We know no
more of cause and effect than a constant conjunction of
events : poetry is ever found to co-exist with whatever
other arts contribute to the happiness and perfection of
man. I appeal to what has already been established to
distinguish between the cause and the effect.
It was at the period here adverted to, that the drama
had its birth ; and however a succeeding writer may have
equalled or surpassed those few great specimens of the
Athenian drama which have been preserved to us, it is
indisputable that the art itself never was understood or
practised according to the true philosophy of it, as at
Athens. For the Athenians employed language, action,
music, painting, the dance, and religious institutions, to
produce a common effect in the representation of the highest
idealisms of passion and of power ; each division in the art
was made perfect in its kind by artists of the most con-
summate skill, and was disciplined into a beautiful proportion
and unity one towards the other. On the modern stage a
few only of the elements capable of expressing the image of
the poet's conception are employed at once. We have
tragedy without music and dancing; and music and
dancing without the highest impersonations of which they
A DEFENCE OF POETRY. 15
are the fit accompaniment, and both without religion and
solemnity. Religious institution has indeed been usually-
banished from the stage. Our system of divesting the
actor's face of a mask, on which the many expressions
appropriated to his dramatic character might be moulded
into one permanent and unchanging expression, is favour-
able only to a partial and inharmonious effect ; it is fit for
nothing but a monologue, where all the attention may be
directed to some great master of ideal mimicry. The
modern practice of blending comedy with tragedy, though
liable to great abuse in point of practice, is undoubtedly an
extension of the dramatic circle ; but the comedy should
be as in King Lear, universal, ideal, and sublime. It is
perhaps the intervention of this principle which determines
the balance in favour of King Lear against the CEdipus
Tyrannus or the Agamemnon, or, if you will, the trilogies
with which they are connected ; unless the intense power of
the choral poetry, especially that of the latter, should be
considered as restoring the equilibrium. King Lear, if it
can sustain this comparison, may be judged to be the most
perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world ;
in spite of the narrow conditions to which the poet was
subjected by the ignorance of the philosophy of the drama
which has prevailed in modern Europe. Calderon, in his
religious Autos, has attempted to fulfil some of the high
conditions of dramatic representation neglected by
Shakespeare ; such as the establishing a relation between
the drama and religion, and the accommodating them to
music and dancing; but he omits the observation of
conditions still more important, and more is lost than
gained by the substitution of the rigidly-defined and ever-
repeated idealisms of a distorted superstition for the living
impersonations of the truth of human passion.
i6 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
But I digress. — The connection of scenic exhibitions with
the improvement or corruption of the manners of men, has
been universally recognised ; in other words, the presence
or absence of poetry in its most. perfect and universal form
has been found to be connected with good and evil in
conduct or habit. The corruption which has been imputed
to the drama as an effect, begins, when the poetry employed
in its constitution ends : I appeal to the history of manners
V whether the periods of the growth of the one and the
'^ decline of the other have not corresponded with an
exactness equal to any example of moral cause and
effect.
The drama at Athens, or wheresoever else it may have
approached to its perfection, ever co-existed with the
moral and intellectual greatness of the age. The tragedies
of the Athenian poets are as mirrors in which the spectator
beholds himself, under a thin disguise of circumstance,
stript of all but that ideal perfection and energy which
every one feels to be the internal type of all that he loves,
admires, and would become. The imagination is enlarged
by a sympathy with pains and passions so mighty, that
they distend in their conception the capacity of that
by which they are conceived ; the good affections are
strengthened by pity, indignation, terror and sorrow ; and
an exalted calm is prolonged from the satiety of this
high exercise of them into the tumult of familiar life : even
crime is disarmed of half its horror and all its contagion by
being represented as the fatal consequence of the unfathom-
able agencies of nature ; error is thus divested of its
wilfulness ; men can no longer cherish it as the creation of
their choice. In a drama of the highest order there is
little food for censure or hatred; it teaches rather self-
knowledge and self-respect. Neither the eye nor the mind
A DEFENCE OF POETRY. 17
can see itself, unless reflected upon that which it resembles.
The drama, so long as it continues to express poetry, is
as a prismatic and many-sided mirror, which collects the
brightest rays of human nature and divides and reproduces
them from the simplicity of these elementary forms, and
touches them with majesty and beauty, and multiplies all
that it reflects, and endows it with the power of propagating
its like wherever it may fall.
But in periods of the decay of social life, the drama
sympathises with that decay. Tragedy becomes a cold
imitation of the form of the great masterpieces of antiquity,
divested of all harmonious accompaniment of the kindred
arts ; and often the very form misunderstood, or a weak
attempt to teach certain doctrines, which the writer con-
siders as moral truths ; and which are usually no more than
specious flatteries of some gross vice or weakness, with which
the author, in common with his auditors, are infected.
Hence what has been called the classical and domestic drama.
Addison's " Oato " is a specimen of the one ; and would it
were not superfluous to cite examples of the other 1 To
such purposes poetry cannot be made subservient. Poetry
is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes
the scabbard that would contain it. And thus we observe
that all dramatic writings of this nature are unimaginative
in a singular degree ; they afiect sentiment and passion,
which, divested of imagination, are other names for caprice
and appetite. The period in our own history of the
grossest degradation of the drama is the reign of Charles '
II., when all forms in which poetry had been accustomed
to be expressed became hymns to the triumph of kingly
power over liberty and virtue. Milton stood alone illumin- ^/^^
ating an age unworthy of him. |At such periods the >,./lU
calculating principle pervades all the forms of dramatic
83
IB ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
exhibition, and poetry ceases to be expressed upon them
Comedy loses its ideal universality : wit suceeds to humour ;
•we laugh from self-complacency and triumph, instead of
pleasure; malignity, sarcasm, and contempt succeed to
sympathetic merriment ; we hardly laugh, but we smile.
Obscenity, which is ever blasphemy against the divine
beauty in life, becomes, from the very veil which it assumes,
more active if less disgusting : it is a monster for which the
corruption of society for ever brings forth new food, which
it devours in secret.
The drama being that form under which a greater
number of modes of expression of poetry are susceptible of
being combined than any other, the connexion of poetry
and social good is more observable in the drama than in
whatever other form. And it is indisputable that the
highest perfection of human society has ever corresponded
with the highest dramatic excellence ; and that the corrup-
tion or the extinction of the drama in a j nation where it
has once flourished, is a mark of | a corruption of manners,
and J an extinction of the energies which sustain the soul of
social life. But, as Machiavelli says of political institutions,
that life may be preserved and renewed, if men should arise
capable of bringing back the drama to its principles. And
this is true with respect to poetry in its most extended
sense : all language, institution and form, require not only
to be produced but to be sustained : the office and character
of a poet participates in the divine nature as regards
providence, no less than as regards creation.
Civil war, the spoils of Asia, and the fatal predominance
first of the Macedonian, and then of the Roman arms, were
so many symbols of the extinction or suspension of the
creative faculty in Greece. The bucolic writers, who found
patronage under the lettered tyrants of Sicily and Egypt,
A DEFENCE OF POETRY, 19
were the latest representatives of its most glorious reign.
Their poetry is intensely melodious ; like the odour of the
tuberose, it overcomes and sickens the spirit with excess of
sweetness ; whilst the poetry of the preceding age was as a
meadowrgale of June, which mingles the fragrance of all the
flowers of the field, and adds /a quickening and harmonising
spirit of its own which endows the sense with a power of
sustaining its extreme delight. The bucolic and erotic
delicacy in written poetry is correlative with that softness
in statuary, music/ and the kindred arts, and even in
manners and institutions, which distinguished the epoch to
which I now refer. Nor is it the poetical faculty itself, or
any misapplication of it, to which this want of harmony is
to be imputed. An equal sensibility to the influence of
the senses and the afiections is to be found in the writings
of Homer and Sophocles: the former, especially, has
clothed sensual and pathetic images with irresistible
attractions. Their superiority over these succeeding
writers consists in the presence of those thoughts which
belong to the inner faculties of our nature, not in the
absence of those which are connected with the external :
their incomparable perfection consists in a harmony of the
union of all. It is not what the erotic poets have, but what
they have not, in which their imperfection consists. It is
not inasmuch as they were poets, but inasmuch as they were
not poets, that they can be considered with any plausibility
as connected with the corruption of their age. Had that
corruption availed so as to extinguish in them the sensibility
to pleasure, passion, and natural scenery, which is imputed
to them as an imperfection, the last triumph of evil would
have been achieved. For the end of social corruption is to
destroy all sensibility to pleasure ; and, therefore, it is
corruption. It begins at the imagination and the intellect
20 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
as at the core, and distributes itself thence as a paralysing
venom, through the affections into the very appetites; until
\^. all become a torpid mass in which hardly sense survives.
At the approach of such a period, poetry ever addresses
itself to those faculties which are the last to be destroyed,
and its voice is heard, like the footsteps of Astrsea, depart-
ing from the world. Poetry ever communicates all the
pleasure which men are capable of receiving: it is ever
still the light of life ; the source of whatever of beautiful
or generous or true can have place in an evil time. It will
readily be confessed that those among the luxurious citizens
of Syracuse and Alexandria, who were delighted with the
poems of Theocritus, were less cold, cruel, and sensual than
the remnant of their tribe. But corruption must utterly
Jiavfi destroyed the fabric of human society before poetry
rtJUL 'J I can ever cease. The sacred links of that chain have never
been entirely disjoined, which descending through the
t^ minds of many men is attached to those great minds,
r» JW|5 ) whence as from a magnet the invisible effluence is sent
gjp>_ -^ forth, which at once connects, animates/ and sustains the
life of all.'" It is the faculty which contains within itself
> «^ Ik. » jthe seeds at once of its own and of social renovation. [ And
i^ thoughts. It is foreign to the present purpose to touch
' "" * upon the evil produced by these systems : except that we
/ protest, on the ground of the principles already estab-
i^.A..r,J I lished, that no portion of it can be attributed to the poetry
they contain.
(/(^liXoyH It is probable that the ' poetry of Moses, Job, David,
Solomon, and Isaiah had produced a great effect upon the
mind of Jesus and his disciples. The scattered fragments
preserved to us by the biographers of this extraordinary
person, are all instinct with the most vivid poetry. But
his doctrines seem to have been quickly distorted. At
a certain period after the prevalence of a system of opinions
'7(,jl'«»*j' founded upon those promulgated by him, the three forms
ijrkhd^^ i'\into which Plato had distributed the faculties of mind
^^ *i^*^'7/uiiclerwent a sort of apotheosis, and became the object of
the worship of the civilised world. Here it is to be
confessed that " Light seems to thicken," and
d^^ii^
A DEFENCE OF POETRY. 33
" The crow makes wing to the rooky wood,
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
And night's black agents to their preys do rouse."
But mark how beautiful an order has sprung from the dust
and blood of this fierce chaos ! how the world, as from a
resurrection, balancing itself on the golden wings of know-
ledge and of hope, has reassumed its yet unwearied flight
into the heaven of time. Listen to the music, unheard by
outward ears, which is as a ceaseless and invisible
wind, nourishing its everlasting course with strength and
swiftness.
The poetry in the doctrines of Jesus Christ, and the
mythology and institutions of the Celtic conquerors of the
Roman empire, outlived the darkness and the convulsions
connected with their growth and victory, and blended
themselves in a new fabric of manners and opinion. It is
an error to impute the ignorance of the dark ages to the
Christian doctrines or the predominance of the Celtic
nations. Whatever of evil their agencies may have con-
tained sprang from the extinction of the poetical principle,
connected with the progress of despotism and superstition.
Men, from causes too intricate to be here discussed, had
become insensible and selfish : their own will had become
feeble, and yet they were its slaves, and thence the slaves
of the will of others : lust, fear, avarice, cruelty, and fraud,
characteris.ed a race amongst whom no one was to be found
capable of creating in form, language, or institution. The
moral anomalies of such a state of society are not justly to
be charged upon any class of events immediately connected
with them, and those events are most entitled to our appro-
bation which could dissolve it most expeditiously. It is
unfortunate for those who cannot distinguish words from
24 ESS A VS AND FRAGMENTS.
thoughts, that many of these anomalies have been
incorporated into our popular religion.
It was not until the eleventh century that the effects of
the poetry of the Christian and thivalric systems began to
manifest themselves. The principle of equality had been
discovered and applied by Plato in his Republic, as the
theoretical rule of the mode in which the materials of
pleasure and of power produced by the common skill and
labour of human beings ought to be distributed among
them. The limitations of this rule were asserted by him to
be determined only by the sensibility of each, or the utility
to result to all. Plato, following the doctrines of Timreus
and Pythagoras, taught also a moral and intellectual system
of doctrine, comprehending at once the past, the present,
and the future condition of man. Jesus Christ divulged
the sacred and eternal truths contained in these views to
mankind, and Christianity, in its abstract purity, became
the exoteric expression of the esoteric doctrines of the
poetry and wisdom of antiquity. The incorporation of
the Celtic nations with the exhausted population of the
south, impressed upon it the figure of the poetry existing
in their mythology and institutions. The result was a
sum of the action and reaction of all the causes included
in it ; for it may be assumed as a maxim that no nation
or religion can supersede any other without 'incorporat-[
ing into itself a portion of that which it supersedes*
^ Tuo abolition of personal and domestic slavery, and the
O^ ' emancipation of women from a great part of the degrad-
ing restraints of antiquity, were among the consequences
of these events.
rJ t'j'Ml The abolition of personal slavery is : the basis of the
highest political hope that it can enter into the mind of
man to conceive. The freedom of women produced the
A DEFENCE OF POETRY. 25
poetry of sexual love. Love became a religion, the idols of
whose worship were ever present. It was as if the statues
of Apollo and the Muses had been endowed with life and
motion, and had walked forth among their worshippers \ so
that earth became peopled by the inhabitants of a diviner
world. The familiar appearance and proceedings of life
became wonderful and heavenly,' and a paradise was created
as out of the wrecks of Eden. And as this creation itself
is poetry, so its creators were poets; and language was
the instrument of their art : " Galeotto fu il libro, e chi
lo scrisse." The Provengal Trouveurs, or inventors, pre-
ceded Petrarch, whose verses are as spells, which unseal
the inmost enchanted fountains of the delight which is in
the grief of love. It is impossible to feel them without
becoming a portion of that beauty which we contemplate :
it were superfluous to explain how the gentleness and the
elevation of mind connected with these sacred emotions can
render men more amiable, moi?e generous and wise, and lift
them out of the^duU vapours of the little world of self.
Dante understood the secret things of love even more than
Petrarch. His Yita Nuova is an inexhaustible fountain of
purity of sentiment and language : it is the idealised his-
tory of that period, and those intervals of his life which
were dedicated to love. His apotheosis of Beatrice in
Paradise, and the gradations of his own love and her love-
liness, by /which as by steps he feigns himself to have
ascended to the throne of the Supreme Cause, is the most
glorious imagination of modern poetry. The acutest critics Ct
have justly reversed the judgment of the vulgar, and the
order of the great acts of the " Divine Drama," in the
measure of the admiration which they accord to the Hell,
Purgatory, and Paradise. The latter is a perpetual hymn ^
of everlasting love. Love, which found a worthy poet in C-^-j^
IttClHt
26 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
Plato alone of all the ancients, has been celebrated by a
chorus of the greatest writers of the renovated world ; and
the music has penetrated the caverns of society, and its
♦ < • / echoes still drown the dissonance of arms and superstition
^jx-«/t- -^t successive intervals, Ariosto, Tasso, Shakspeare, Spenser
jy/j^r^ Calderon, Rousseau, and the great writers of our own agC;
have celebrated the dominion of love, planting as it were
trophies in the human mind of that sublimest victory ovei
sensuality and force. The true relation borne to each othei
by the sexes into which human kind is distributed, has
become less misunderstood ; and if the error which con
founded diversity with inequality of the powers of the twc
sexes has been partially recognised in the opinions and
institutions of modern Europe, we owe this great benefit tc
'vfi>At^ hA^** the worship of which chivalry was the law, and poets th(
jlK^7 prophets.
The poetry of Dante may be considered as the bridge
thrown over the stream of time, which unites the moderr
and ancient ifirbrld. The distorted notions of invisible
things which Dante and his rival Milton have idealised, are
merely the mask and the mantle in which these great poets
walk through eternity enveloped and disguised. It is i
difficult question to determine how far they were conscious
of the distinction which must have subsisted in their minds
between their own creeds and that of the people. Dante
at least appears to wish to mark the full extent of it bj
placing Riphseus, whom Virgil calls justissimus unus, ir
Paradise, and observing a most heretical caprice in his dis
tribution of rewards and punishments. And Milton's poerr
contains within itself a philosophical refutation of thai
gystem, of which, by a strange and natural antithesis, i\
has been a chief popular support. Nothing can exceed the
energy and magnificence of the character of Satan aj
.YH^''' '
c4^-
3 ,1 i^
-4 DEFENCE OF POETRY. 27
expressed in "Paradise Lost." It is a mistake to suppose
that he could ever have been intended for the popular per-
sonification of evil. Implacable hate, patient cunning, and
a sleepless refinement of device to inflict the extremest
anguish on an enemy, these things are evil ; and, although
venial in a slave, are not to be forgiven in a tyrant;
although redeemed by much that ennobles his defeat in one
subdued, are marked by all that dishonours his conquest in
the victor. Milton's Devil as a moral being is as far
superior to his God, as one who perseveres in some purpose
which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity
and torture, is to one who in the cold security of undoubted
triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy,
not from any mistaken notion of inducing him to repent of
a perseverance in enmity, but with the alleged design of
exasperating him to deserve new torments. Milton has so
far violated the popular creed (if this shall be judged to be
a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue
to his God over his Devil. And this bold neglect of a
direct moral purpose is the most decisive proof of the
supremacy of Milton's genius. He mingled as it were the
elements of human nature as colours upon a single pallet,
and arranged them in the composition of his great picture
according to the laws of epic truth ; that is, according
to the laws of that principle by which a series of actions
of the external universe and of intelligent and ethical
beings is calculated to excite the sympathy of succeeding
generations of mankind. The Divina Gommedia and
Paradise Lost have conferred upon modern mythology a
systematic form ; and when change and time shall have
added one more superstition to the mass of those which
have arisen and decayed upon the earth, commentators
will be learnedly employed in elucidating the religion of
V)
28 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
ancestral Europe, only not utterly forgotten because it will
have been stamped with the eternity of genius.
Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet :
that is, the second poet, the series of whose creations bore
a defined and intelligible relation to the knowledge and
sentiment and religion of the age in which he lived, and of
the ages which followed it; developing itself in correspond-
ence with their development. For Lucretius had, limed the
wings of his swift spirit in the dregs of the sensible world ;
and Virgil, with a modesty that ill became his genius, had
afiected the fame of an imitator, even whilst he created
anew all that he copied ; and none among the flock of
mock-birds, though their notes were sweet, Apollonius
Rhodius, Quintus Calaber, / Nonnus, Lucan, Statins, or
Claudian, have sought even to fulfil a single condition of
epic truth. Milton was the third epic poet. For if the
title of epic in its highest sense be refused to the ^neid,
still less can it be conceded to the Orlando Furioso, the
Gerusalemme Liberata, the Lusiad, or the Fairy Queen.
/ Dante and Milton were both deeply penetrated with the
antient religion of the civilised world ; and its spirit exists
in their poetry probably in the same proportion as its forms
survived in the unreformed worship of modern Europe.
The one preceded and the other followed the Reformation
at almost equal intervals. Dante was the first religious
reformer, and Luther surpassed him rather in the rudeness
and acrimony, than in the boldness of his censures of papal
usurpation. Dante was the first awakener of entranced
Europe ; he created a language/ in itself music and persua-
sion, out of a chaos of inharmonious barbarisms. He was
theicongregator of those great spirits who presided over the
resurrection of learning ; the Lucifer of that starry flock
which in the thirteenth century shone forth from republican
/^ M DEFENCE OF POETRY. 29 \
Italy, as from a heaven, into the darkness of the benighted
world. His very words are instinct with spirit ; each is as y
a spark, a burning atom of inextinguishable thought ; and ' -^ /
many yet lie covered in the ashes of their birth, and preg-
nant with the lightning which has yet found no conductor.
All high poetry is infinite j it is as the first acorn, which
contained all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may be un- ; >
drawn, and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning never
exposed. A great poem is a fountain for ever overflowing
with the waters of wisdom and delight; and after one '
person and one age has exhausted all its divine effluence
. which their peculiar relations enable them to share, another
and yet another succeeds, and new relations are ever
developed, the source of an unforeseen and an unconceived
delight. )C
The age immediately succeeding to that of Dante,
Petrarch, and Boccaccio, was characterised by a revival
CiH^loi painting, sculpture, ' and architecture. Chaucer caught
-1 / the sacred inspiration, ' and the superstructure of English
literature is based upon the materials of Italian invention.
But let us not be betrayed from a defence into a critical
^J history of poetry and its influence on society. Be it enough
' to have pointed out the efiects of poets, in the large and /'^^
justifies tibe bold and true words of Tass-o — Non merita vi
nome di creator e, se non Iddio ed il Poeta.
A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest
wisdom, pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally
to be the happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most
illustrious of men. As to his glory, let time be challenged
to declare whether the fame of any other institutor of
human life be comparable to that of a poet That he is
the wisest, the happiest, and the best, inasmuch as he is a
poet, is equally incontrovertible : the greatest ^oets have / f^*i>'
been men of the most spotless virtue, of the most consum-
mate prudence, and, if we would look into the interior of
their lives, the most fortunate of men : and the exceptions,
as they regard those who possessed the poetic faculty in a '
high yet inferior degree, will be found on consideration to
confine rather than destroy the rule. Let us for a moment
stoop to the arbitration of popular breath, and usurping
and uniting in our own persons the incompatible characters
of accuser, witness, judge, and executioner, let us decide
without trial, testimony, or form, that certain motives
38
ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS,
Jl
'oU
of those who are " there sitting where we dare not soar,'
are reprehensible. Let us assume that Homer was a
drunkard, that Yirgil was a flatterer, that Horace was a
coward, that Tasso was a madman, that Lord Bacon was a
peculator, that Raphael was a libertine, that Spenser was a
poet laureate. It is inconsistent with this division of our
subject to cite living poets, but cfosterity has done ample
justice to the great names now referred to. Their errors
have been weighed and found to have been dust in the
balance ; if their sins **'were as scarlet, they are*now white
as snow ;"' they have been washed in the blood of the
mediator and redeemer/Time. Observe in what a ludicrous
chaos the imputations of real or fictitious crime have been
confused in the contemporary calumnies against poetry and
poets; consider how little is, as it appears — or appears, as it is;
look to your own motives, and judge not, lest ye be judged.
,j , Poetry, as has been said, differs in this respect from
logic, that it is not subject to the control of the active
powers of the mind, and that its birth and recurrence ha^e
no necessary connection with ihe consciousness or will. It
is presumptuous to determine that these are the necessary
conditions of all mental causation, when mental effects are
experienced unsusceptible of being referred to them. TJie
frequent recurrence of the poetical power, it is obvious to
suppose, may produce in the mind ay habit of order and
/ harmony correlative with its own nature and with its effects
upon other minds. But in the intervals of inspiration, and
they may be frequent without being durable, aipoet becomes
a man, and is abandoned to the sudden reflux of the
influences under which others habitually live. But as he is
more delicately organised than other men, and /sensible to
pain and pleasure, both his own and that of others, in a
degree unknown to them, he will avoid the one and pursue
.;u^v.
7
/<<
7
^ ^4Ui} ^JU^
A DEFENCE OF POETRY. 39 .
the other with an ardour proportioned to this difference.
And he renders himself obnoxious to calumny, when he
neglects to observe the circumstances under which these
objects of universal pursuit and flight have disguised
themselves in one another's garments.
But there is nothing necessarily evil in this error, and
thus cruelty, envy, revenge, avarice, and the passions
purely evil, have never formed any portion of the popular
imputations on the lives of poets. ^ ..
I have thought it most favourable to the cause of truth Cry\tcf^J
to set down these remarks according to the order in which
they were suggested to my mind, by a consideration of the
subject itself, instead of observing - the formality of a
polemical reply ; but if the view which they contain be -
just, they will be found to involve a refutation of the ^^^^f^i'^
arguers against poetry, so far at least as regards the first /
division of the subject. I can readily conjecture what ^^ /"
should have moved the gall of some learned and intelligent^ . f^*^^
writers who quarrel with certain versifiers ; I confess myself,
like them, unwilling to be stunned by the Theseids of the
hoarse Oodri of the day." Bavius and Msevius undoubtedly
are, as they ever were, insufierable persons, But it belongs
to a philosophical critic to distinguish rather than confound.
The first part of these remarks has related to poetry in
its elements and principles ; and it has been shown, as well -O /
as the narrow limits assigned them would permit, that what /
is called poetry, in a restricted sense, has a common source '
with all other forms of order and of beauty, according to
which the materials of human life are susceptible of being
arranged, and which is poetry in an universal sense.
The second part /will have for its object an application of 'i- \Via^
these principles to the present state of the cultivation of Tfc#.v«AAbJ
poetry, and a defence of the attempt to idealise the modern
J
40 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
/^ forms of manners and opinions, and compel them into £
subordination to the imaginative and creative faculty. Foi
the literature of England, an energetic development o:
which has ever preceded or accompanied a great and fre(
development of the national -will, has arisen as it were fron
a new birth. In spite of the low-thoughted envy whicl
would undervalue contemporary merit, our own will b(
a memorable age in intellectual achievements, and we liv(
among such philosophers and poets as surpass beyond com
parison any who have appeared since the last nationa
struggle for civil and religious liberty. The most unfailing
herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of i
great people to work a beneficial change in opinion o]
institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumu
lation of the power of communicating and receiving intens<
and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature
The persons in whom this power resides, may oftei?/ as fai
as regards many portions of their nature, have litth
apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of whicl
they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny am
abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, the,^ower which ii
^b seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible t<
read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of th(
present day without being startled with the electric lif<
which burns within their words. They measure the cir
cumference and sound the depths of human nature with s
comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they ar(
themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at iti
manifestations ; for it is less their spirit than the spirit o
the age. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehendec
inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows whicl
futurity casts upon the present ; the words which expresi
what they understand not; the trumpets which sing t(
ON THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENTS. 41
battle, and feel not what they inspire ; the influence which
is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged
legislators of the world.
A DISCOURSE
ON THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENTS, RELATIVE TO
THE SUBJECT OF LOVE.
A FRAGMENT. ■**■
The period which intervened between the birth of Pericles
and the death of Aristotle, is undoubtedly, whether con-
sidered in itself or with reference to the effects which it has
produced upon the subsequent destinies of civilised man,
the most memorable in the history of the world. What
was the combination of moral and political circumstances
which produced so unparelleled a progress during that
period in literature and the arts; — why that progress, so
rapid and so sustained, so soon received a 'check, and
became retrograde, — are problems left to the wonder and
conjecture of posterity. The wrecks and fragments of
those €ubtle and profound minds, like the ruins of a fine
statue, obscurely suggest to us the grandeur and perfection
of the whole. Their very language — a type of the
understandings of which it was the creation and the
image — in variety, in simplicity, in flexibility, and in
copiousness, excels every other language of the western
world. Their sculptures are such as we, in our presump-
tion, assume to be the models of ideal truth and beauty,
* This Essay was intended to be a commentary on tlie Symposium,
or Banquet of Plato, but it breaks off at the moment when the main
subject is about to be discussed.
42 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
and to which no artist of modern times can produce forms
in any degree comparable. Their paintings, according to
Pliny and Pausanias, were full of delicacy and harmony ;
and some even were powerfully pathetic, so as to awaken,
like tender music or tragic poetry, the most overwhelming
emotions. We are accustomed to conceive the painters of
the sixteenth century, as those who have brought their art
to the highest perfection, probably because none of the
ancient paintings have been preserved. For all the
inventive arts maintain, as it were, a sympathetic con-
nexion between each other, being no more than various
expressions of one internal power, modified by difierent
circumstances, either of an individual, or of society ; and
the paintings of that period would probably bear the same
relation as is confessedly borne by the sculptures to all
succeeding ones. Of their music we know little ; but the
efiects which it is said to have produced, whether they be
attributed to the skill of the composer, or the sensibility of
his audience, are far more powerful than any which we
experience from the music of our own times; and if,
indeed, the melody of their compositions were more tender
and delicate, and inspiring, than the melodies of some
modern European nations, their superiority in this art
must have been something wonderful, and wholly beyond
conception.
Their poetry seems to maintain a very high, though not
so disproportionate a rank, in the comparison. Perhaps
Shakspeare, from the variety and comprehension of his
genius, is to be considered, on the whole, as the greatest
individual mind, of which we have specimens remaining.
Perhaps Dante created imaginations of greater loveliness
and energy than any that are to be found in the ancient
literature of Greece. Perhaps nothing has been discovered
ON THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENTS. 43
in the fragments of the Greek lyric poets equivalent to the
sublime and chivalric sensibility of Petrarch. — But, as a
poet, Homer must be acknowledged to excel Shakspeare
in the truth, the harmony, the sustained grandeur, the
satisfying completeness of his images, their exact fitness to
the illustration, and to that to which they belong. Nor
could Dante, deficient in conduct, plan, nature, variety, and
temperance, have been brought into comparison with these
men, but for those fortunate isles, laden with golden fruit,
which alone could tempt any one to embark in the misty
ocean of his dark and extravagant fiction.
But, omitting the comparison of individual minds, which
can afford no general inference, how superior was the spirit
and system of their poetry to that of any other period. So
that, had any other genius equal in other respects to the
greatest that ever enlightened the world, arisen in that
age, he would have been superior to all, from this circum-
stance alone — that his conceptions would have assumed a
more harmonious and perfect form. For it is worthy of
observation, that whatever the poets of that age produced
is as harmonious and perfect as possible. If a drama, for
instance, were the composition of a person of inferior talent,
it was still homogeneous and free from inequalities ; it was
a whole, consistent with itself. The compositions of great
minds bore throughout the sustained stamp of their great-
ness. In the poetry of succeeding ages the expectations
are often exalted on Icarean wings, and fall, too much dis-
appointed to give a memory and a name to the oblivious
pool in which they fell.
In physical knowledge Aristotle and Theophrastus had
already — no doubt assisted by the labours of those of their
predecessors whom they criticise — made advances worthy
of the maturity of science. The astonishing invention of
44 JSSSA VS AND FRAGMENTS.
geometry, that series of discoveries which have enabled
man to command the elements and foresee future events,
before the subjects of his ignorant wonder, and which have
opened as it were the doors of the mysteries of nature, had
already been brought to great perfection. Metaphysics, the
science of man's intimate nature, and logic, or the grammar
and elementary principles of that science, received from the
latter philosophers of the Periclean age a firm basis. All
our more exact philosophy is built upon the labours of these
great men, and many of the words which we employ in
metaphysical distinctions were invented by them to give
accuracy and system to their reasonings. The science of
morals, or the voluntary conduct of men in relation to
themselves or others, dates from this epoch. How inex-
pressibly bolder and more pure were the doctrines of those
great men, in comparison with the timid maxims which
prevail in the writings of the most esteemed modern
moralists. They were such as Phocion, and Epaminondas,
and Timoleon, who formed themselves on their influence,
were to the wretched heroes of our own age.
Their political and religious institutions are more difficult
to bring into comparison with those of other times. A
summary idea may be formed of the worth of any political
and religious system, by observing the comparative degree
of happiness and of intellect produced under its influence.
And whilst many institutions and opinions, which in
ancient Greece were obstacles to the improvement of the
human race, have been abolished among modern nations,
how many pernicious superstitions and new contrivances of
misrule, and unheard-of complications of public mischief,
have not been invented among them by the ever-watchful
spirit of avarice and tyranny.
The modem nations of the civilised world owe the
ON THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENTS. 45
progress which they have made — as well in those physical
sciences in which they have already excelled their masters,
as in the moral and intellectual inquiries, in which, with
all the advantage of the experience of the latter, it can
scarcely be said that they have yet equalled them, — to
what is called the revival of learning ; that is, the study of
the writers of the age which preceded and immediately
followed the government of Pericles, or of subsequent
writers, who were, so to speak, the rivers flowing from
those immortal fountains. And though there seems to be a
principle in the modern world, which, should circumstances
analogous to those which modelled the intellectual resources
of the age to which we refer, into so harmonious a propor-
tion, again arise, would arrest and perpetuate them, and
consign their results to a more equal, extensive, and lasting
improvement of the condition of man — though justice and
the true meaning of human society are, if not more accu-
rately, more generally understood; though perhaps men
know more, and therefore are more, as a mass, yet this
principle has never been called into action, and requires
indeed a universal and almost appalling change in the
system of existing things. The study of modern history is
the study of kings, financiers, statesmen, and priests. The
history of ancient Greece is the study of legislators, philo-
sophers, and poets ; it is the history of men, compared with
the history of titles. What the Greeks were, was a reality,
not a promise. And what we are and hope to be, is
derived, as it were, from the influence and inspiration of
these glorious generations.
Whatever tends to afford a further illustration of the
manners and opinions of those to whom we owe so much,
and who were, perhaps, on the whole, the most perfect
specimens of humanity of whom we have authentic record.
46 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
were infinitely valuable. Let us see their errors, their
weaknesses, their daily actions, their familiar conversation,
and catch the tone of their society. When we discover
how far the most admirable community ever framed, was
removed from that perfection to which human society is
impelled by some active power within each bosom, to aspire,
how great ought to be our hopes, how resolute our struggles.
For the Greeks of the Periclean age were widely different
from us. It is to be lamented that no modern writer has
hitherto dared to show them precisely as they were.
Barth^lemi cannot be denied the praise of industry and
system; but he never forgets that he is a Christian and a
Frenchman. Wieland, in his delightful novels, makes
indeed a very tolerable Pagan, but cherishes too many
political prejudices, and refrains from diminishing the
interest of his romances by painting sentiments in which
no European of modern times can possibly sympathise.
There is no book which shows the Greeks precisely as they
were ; they seem all written for children, with the caution
that no practice or sentiment, highly inconsistent with our
present manners, should be mentioned, lest those manners
should receive outrage and violation. But there are many
to whom the Greek language is inaccessible, who ought not
to be excluded by this prudery from possessing an exact
and comprehensive conception of the history of man ; for
there is no knowledge concerning what man has been and
may be, from partaking of which a person can depart,
without becoming in some degree more philosophical,
tolerant, and just.
One of the chief distinctions between the manners of
ancient Greece and modern Europe consisted in the regula-
tions and the sentiments respecting sexual intercourse.
Whether this difference arises from some imperfect
ON THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENTS. 47
influence of the doctrines of Jesus Christ, who alleges the
absolute and unconditional equality of all human beings, or
from the institutions of chivalry, or from a certain funda-
mental difference of physical nature existing in the Celts,
or from a combination of all or any of these causes, acting
on each other, is a question worthy of voluminous investiga-
tion. The fact is, that the modern Europeans have in this
circumstance, and in the abolition of slavery, made an
improvement the most decisive in the regulation of human
society ; and all the virtue and the wisdom of the
Periclean age arose under other institutions, in spite of the
diminution which personal slavery and the inferiority of
women, recognised by law and opinion, must have produced
in the delicacy, the strength, the comprehensiveness, and
the accuracy of their conceptions, in moral, political, and
metaphysical science, and perhaps in every other art and
science.
The women, thus degraded, became such as it was
expected they would become. They possessed, except with
extraordinary exceptions, the habits and the qualities of
slaves. They were probably not extremely beautiful ; at
least there was no such disproportion in the attractions of
the external form between the female and male sex among
the Greeks, as exists among the modern Europeans. They
were certainly devoid of that moral and intellectual loveli-
ness with which the acquisition of knowledge and the
cultivation of sentiment animates, as with another life of
overpowering grace, the lineaments and the gestures of
every form which they inhabit. Their eyes could not have
been deep and intricate from the workings of the mind,
and could have entangled no heart in soul-enwoven
labyrinths.
Let it not be imagined that because the Greeks were
48 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
deprived of its legitimate object, they were incapable of
sentimental love, and that this passion is the mere child of
chivalry and the literature of modern times. This object, or
its archetype, forever exists in the mind, which selects among
those who resemble it, that which most resembles it ; and
instinctively fills up the interstices of the imperfect image,
in the same manner as the imagination moulds and
completes the shapes in clouds, or in the fire, into the
resemblances of whatever form, animal, building, etc.,
happens to be present to it. Man is in his wildest state a
social being : a certain degree of civilisation and refine-
ment ever produces the want of sympathies still more
intimate and complete ; and the gratification of the senses
is no longer all that is sought in sexual connection. It
soon becomes a very small part of that profound and
complicated sentiment, which we call love, which is rather
the universal thirst for a communion not merely of the
senses, but of our whole nature, intellectual, imaginative,
and sensitive ; and which, when individualised, becomes an
imperious necessity, only to be satisfied by the complete or
partial, actual or supposed, fulfilment of its claims. This
want grows more powerful in proportion to the develop-
ment which our nature receives from civilisation ; for man
never ceases to be a social being. The sexual impulse,
which is only one, and often a small party of those claims,
serves, from its obvious and external nature, as a kind of
type or expression of the rest, a common basis, an acknow-
ledged and visible link. Still it is a claim which even
derives a strength not its own from the accessory
circumstances which surround it, and one which our nature
thirsts to satisfy. To estimate this, observe the degree of
intensity and durability of the love of the male towards the
female in animals and savages ; and acknowledge all the
ON THE SYMPOSIUM. 49
duration and intensity observable in the love of civilised
beings beyond that of savages to be produced from other
causes. In the susceptibility of the external senses there is
probably no important difference.
Among the ancient Greeks the male sex, one half of the
human race, received the highest cultivation and refine-
ment ; whilst the other, so far as intellect is concerned, were
educated as slaves, and were raised but few degrees in all
that related to moral or intellectual excellence above the
condition of savages. The gradations in the society of man
present us with a slow improvement in this respect. The
Roman women held a higher consideration in society, and
were esteemed almost as the equal partners with their
husbands in the regulation of domestic economy and the
education of their children. The practices and customs of
modern Europe are essentially different from and incom-
parably less pernicious than either, however remote from
what an enlightened mind cannot fail to desire as the future
destiny of human beings.
ON THE SYMPOSIUM,
OR, PREFACE TO THE BANQUET OF PLATO.
A FRAGMENT.
The dialogue entitled " The Banquet," was selected by
the translator as the most beautiful and perfect among all
the works of Plato.* He despairs of having communicated
to the English language any portion of the surpassing graces
* The Republic, though replete with considerable errors of specula-
tion, is, indeed, the greatest repository of important truths of all the
works of Plato. This, perhaps, is because it is the longest. He first,
and perhaps Jast, maintained that a state ought to be governed, not
85
50 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
of the composition, or having done more than present an
imperfect shadow of the language and the sentiment of this
astonishing production.
Plato is eminently the greatest among the Greek philo-
sophers, and from, or, rather, perhaps through him, his
master Socrates, have proceeded those emanations of moral
and metaphysical knowledge, on which a long series and an
incalculable variety of popular superstitions have sheltered
their absurdities from the slow contempt of mankind.
Plato exhibits the rare union of close and subtle logic, with
the Pythian enthusiasm of poetry, melted by the splendour
and harmony of his periods into one irresistible stream of
musical impressions, which hurry the persuasions onward, as
in a breathless career. His language is that of an immortal
spirit, rather than a man. Lord Bacon is, perhaps, the only
writer, who, in these particulars, can be compared with him :
his imitator, Cicero, sinks in the comparison into an ape
mocking the gestures of a man. His views into the nature
of mind and existence are often obscure, only because they
are profound ; and though his theories respecting the
government of the world, and the elementary laws of
moral action, are not always correct, yet there is scarcely
any of his treatises which do not, however stained by
puerile sophisms, contain the most remarkable intuitions
into all that can be the subject of the human mind. His
excellence consists especially in intuition, and it is this
faculty which raises him far above Aristotle, whose genius,
though vivid and various, is obscure in comparison with
that of Plato.
by the wealthiest, or the most ambitious, or the most cunning, but by
the wisest; the method of selecting such rulers, and the laws by which
such a selection is made, must correspond with and arise out of the
moral freedom and refinement of the people.
ON LOVE. 51
The dialogue entitled " The Banquet," is called EpojrcKos,
or a Discussion upon Love, and is supposed to have taten
place at the house of Agathon, at one of a series of
festivals given by that poet, on the occasion of his gaining
the prize of tragedy at the Dionysiaca. The account of the
debate of this occasion is supposed to have been given by
Apollodorus, a pupil of Socrates, many years after it had
taken place, to a companion who was curious to hear it.
This Apollodorus appears, both from the style in which he
is represented in this piece, as well as from a passage in the
Phsedon, to have been a person of an impassioned and
enthusiastic disposition; to borrow an image from the
Italian Painters, he seems to have been the St. John of
the Socratic group. The drama (for so the lively dis-
tinction of character and the various and well-wrought
circumstances of the story almost entitle it to be called)
begins by Socrates persuading Aristodemus to sup at
Agathon's, uninvited. The whole of this introduction
affords the most lively conception of refined Athenian
manners.
[unfinished.]
ON LOVE.
What is love % Ask him who lives, what is life ^ ask him
who adores, what is God %
I know not the internal constitution of other men, nor
even thine, whom I now address. I see that in some
external attributes they resemble me, but when, misled
by that appearance, I have thought to appeal to something
in common, and unburthen my inmost soul to them, I have
Si ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
found my language misunderstood, like one in a distant and
savage land. The more opportunities they have afforded
me for experience, the wider has appeared the interval
between us, and to a greater distance have the points of
sympathy been withdrawn. With a spirit ill fitted to
sustain such proof, trembling and feeble through its
tenderness, I have everywhere sought sympathy, and have
found only repulse and disappointment.
Thou demandest what is love? It is that powerful
attraction towards all that we conceive, or fear, or hope
beyond ourselves, when we find within our own thoughts
the chasm of an insufficient void, and seek to awaken in all
things that are, a community with what we experience
within ourselves. If we reason, we would be understood j
if we imagine, we would that the airy children of our brain
were born anew within another's ; if we feel, we would that
another's nerves should vibrate to our own, that the beams
of their eyes should kindle at once and mix and melt into
our own, that lips of motionless ice should not reply to lips
quivering and burning with the heart's best blood. This
is Love. This is the bond and the sanction which connects
not only man with man, but with everything which exists.
We are born into the world, and there is something within
us which, from the instant that we live, more and more
thirsts after its likeness. It is probably in correspondence
with this law that the infant drains milk from the bosom
of its mother; this propensity develops itself with the
development of our nature. We dimly see within our
intellectual nature a miniature as it were of our entire self,
yet deprived of all that we condemn or despise, the ideal
prototype of everything excellent or lovely that we are
capable of conceiving as belonging to the nature of man.
Not only the portrait of our external being, but an
ON LOVE, S3
assemblage of the minutest particles of which our nature is
composed ; * a mirror whose surface reflects only the forms
of purity and brightness; a soul within our soul that
describes a circle around its proper paradise, which pain,
and sorrow, and evil dare not overleap. To this we eagerly
refer all sensations, thirsting that they should resemble or
correspond with it. The discovery of its antitype ; the
meeting with an understanding capable of clearly estimat-
ing our own ; an imagination which should enter into and
seize upon the subtle and delicate peculiarities which we
have delighted to cherish and unfold in secret ; with a frame
whose nerves, like the chords of two exquisite lyres, strung
to the accompaniment of one delightful voice, vibrate
with the vibrations of our own ; and of a combination of all
these in such proportion as the type within demands ; this
is the invisible and unattainable point to which Love tends :
and to attain which, it urges forth the powers of man to
arrest the faintest shadow of that, without the possession of
which there is no rest nor respite to the heart over which it
rules. Hence in solitude, or in that deserted state when
we are surrounded by human beings, and yet they
sympathise not with us, we love the flowers, the grass, and
the waters, and the sTsy. In the motion of the very leaves
of spring, in the blue air, there is then found a secret
correspondence with our heart. There is eloquence in the
tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the
rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceiv-
able relation to something within the soul, awaken the
spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of
mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of
patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you
* These words are ineffectual and metaphorical. Most words are
BO— No help !
54 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
alone. Sterne says that, if he were in a desert, he would
love some cypress. So soon as this want or power is dead,
man becomes the living sepulchre of himself, and what yet
survives is the mere husk of what once he was.
THE COLISEUM.
A FRAGMENT.
At the hour of noon, on the feast of the Passover, an old
man, accompanied by a girl, apparently his daughter,
entered the Coliseum at Rome. They immediately passed
through the Arena, and seeking a solitary chasm among the
arches of the southern part of the ruin, selected a fallen
column for their seat, and clasping each other's hands, sate
as in silent contemplation of the scene. But the eyes of
the girl were fixed upon her father's lips, and his counten-
ance, sublime and sweet, but motionless as some Praxitelean
image of the greatest of poets, filled the silent air with
smiles, not reflected from external forms.
It was the great feast of the Resurrection, and the whole
native population of Rome, together with all the foreigners
who flock from all parts of the earth to contemplate its
celebration, were assembled round the Vatican. The most
awful religion of the world went forth surrounded by
emblazonry of mortal greatness, and mankind had assembled
to wonder at and worship the creations of their own power.
No straggler was to be met with in the streets and grassy
lanes which led to the Coliseum. The father and daughter
had sought this spot immediately on their arrival.
A figure, only visible at Rome in night or solitude, and
then only to be seen amid the desolated temples of the
THE COLISEUM. 55
Forum, or gliding among the weed-grown galleries of the
Coliseum, crossed their path. His form, which, though
emaciated, displayed the elementary outlines of exquisite
grace, was enveloped in an ancient chlamys, which half
concealed his face ; his snow-white feet were fitted with
ivory sandals, delicately sculptured in the likeness of two
female figures, whose wings met upon the heel, and whose
eager and half-divided lips seemed quivering to meet. It
was a face, once seen, never to be forgotten. The mouth
and the moulding of the chin resembled the eager and
impassioned tenderness of the statues of Antinous; but
instead of the efieminate sullenness of the eye, and the
narrow smoothness of the forehead, shone an expression of
profound and piercing thought; the brow was clear and
open, and his eyes deep, like two wells of crystalline
water which reflect the all-beholding heavens. Over
all was spread a timid expression of womanish tender-
ness and hesitation, which contrasted, yet intermingled
strangely, with the abstracted and fearless character that
predominated in his form and gestures.
He avoided, in an extraordinary degree, all communica-
tion with the Italians, whose language he seemed scarcely
to understand, but was occasionally seen to converse with
some accomplished foreigner, whose gestures and appearance
might attract him amid his solemn haunts. He spoke Latin,
and especially Greek, with fluency, and with a peculiar but
sweet accent ; he had apparently acquired a knowledge of
the northern languages of Europe. There was - no circum-
stance connected with him that gave the least intimation of
his country, his origin, or his occupation. His dress was
strange, but splendid and solemn. He was forever alone.
The literati of Rome thought him a curiosity, but there was
something in his manner unintelligible but impressive.
56 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS,
which awed their obtrusions into distance and silence. The
countrymen, whose path he rarely crossed, returning by
starlight from their market at Campo Vaccine, called him,
with that strange mixture of religious and historical ideas
so common in Italy, 11 Diavolo di Bruto.
Such was the figure which interrupted the contemplations,
if they were so engaged, of the strangers, by addressing
them in the clear, and exact, but unidiomatic phrases of
their native language : — " Strangers, you are two ; behold
the third in this great city, to whom alone the spectacle of
these mighty ruins is more delightful than the mockeries of
a superstition which destroyed them."
" I see nothing," said the old man.
« What do you here, then f'
' I listen to the sweet singing of the birds, and the sound
of my daughter's breathing composes me like the soft
murmur of water — and I feel the sun warm wind — and this
is pleasant to me."
"Wretched old man, know you not that these are the
ruins of the Coliseum ? "
" Alas 1 stranger," said the girl, in a voice like mournful
music, " speak not so — he is blind."
The stranger's eyes were suddenly filled with tears, and
the lines of his countenance became relaxed. " Blind % " he
exclaimed, in a tone of suffering, which was more than an
apology ; and seated himself apart on a flight of shattered
and mossy stairs which wound up among the labyrinths of
the ruin.
" My sweet Helen," said the old man, " you did not tell
me that this was the Coliseum ? "
"How should I tell you, dearest father, what I knew
not? I was on the point of inquiring the way to that
building, when we entered th|s circle of ruins^ and, until
THE COLISEUM. 57
the stranger accosted us, I remained silent, subdued by the
greatness of what I see."
" It is your custom, sweetest child, to describe to me the
objects that give you delight. You array them in the soft
radiance of your words, and whilst you speak I only feel
the infirmity which holds me in such dear dependence, as
a blessing. Why have you been silent now I"
"I know not — first the wonder and pleasure of the
sight, then the words of the stranger, and then thinking on
what he had said, and how he had looked — and now,
beloved father, your own words."
" Well, tell me now, what do you see ? "
"I see a great circle of arches built upon arches, and
shattered stones lie around, that once made a part of the
solid wall. In the crevices, and on the vaulted roofs, grow
a multitude of shrubs, the wild olive and the myrtle — and
intricate brambles, and entangled weeds and plants I never
saw before. The stones are immensely massive, and they
jut out one from the other. There are terrible rifts in the
wall, and broad windows through which you see the blue
heaven. There seems to be more than a thousand arches,
some ruined, some entire, and they are all immensely high
and wide. Some are shattered, and stand forth in great
heaps, and the underwood is tufted on their crumbling
summits. Around us lie enormous columns, shattered and
shapeless — and fragments of capitals and cornice, fretted
with delicate sculptures."
" It is open to the blue sky % " said the old man.
" Yes. We see the liquid death of heaven above through
the rifts and the windows ; and the flowers, and the weeds,
and the grass and creeping moss are nourished by its
unforbidden rain. The blue sky is above — the wide,
]3right, blue sky — it flows through the great rents on high,
58 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
and through the bare boughs of the marble-rooted fig-tree,
and through the leaves and flowers of the weeds, even to
the dark arcades beneath. I see — I feel its clear and
piercing beams fill the universe, and impregnate the joy-
inspiring wind with life and light, and casting the veil of
its splendour over all things — even me. Yes, and through
the highest rift the noonday waning moon is hanging, as it
were, out of the solid sky, and this shows that the
atmosphere has all the clearness which it rejoices me that
you feel."
" What else see you 1 "
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
" Only the bright-green mossy ground, speckled by tufts
of dewy clover-grass that run into the interstices of the
shattered arches, and round the isolated pinnacles of the
ruin."
"Like the lawny dells of soft short grass which wind
among the pine forests and precipices in the Alps of
Savoy?"
" Indeed, father, your eye has a vision more serene than
mine."
"And the great wrecked arches, the shattered masses of
precipitous ruin, overgrown with the younglings of the
forest, and more like chasms rent by an earthquake among
the mountains, than like the vestige of what was human
workmanship — what are they ? "
" Things awe-inspiring and wonderful."
"Are they not caverns such as the untamed elephant
might choose, amid the Indian wilderness, wherein to hide
her cubs ? such as, were the sea to overflow the earth, the
mightiest monsters of the deep would change into their
spacious chambers ? "
THE COLISEUM. 59
"Father, your words image forth what I would have
expressed, but alas ! could not."
"I hear the rustling of leaves, and the sound of waters, —
but it does not rain, — like the fast drops of a fountain
among woods."
"It falls from among the heaps of ruin over our heads —
it is, I suppose, the water collected in the rifts by the
showers."
" A nursling of man's art, abandoned by his care, and
transformed by the enchantment of Nature into a likeness
of her own creations, and destined to partake their immor-
tality ! Changed into a mountain cloven with woody dells,
which overhang its labyrinthine glades, and shattered into
toppling precipices. Even the clouds, intercepted by its
craggy summit, feed its eternal fountains with their rain.
By the column on which I sit, I should judge that it had
once been crowned by a temple or a theatre, and that on
sacred days the multitude wound up its craggy path to
spectacle or the sacrifice It was such itself ! * Helen,
what sound of wings is that % "
" It is the wild pigeons returning to their young. Do you
not hear the murmur of those that are brooding in their nests."
" Ay, it is the language of their happiness. They are as
* Nor does a recollection of the use to which it may have been
destined interfere with these emotions. Time has thrown its purple
shadow athwart this scene, and no more is visible than the broad and
everlasting character of human strength and genius, that pledge of all
that is to be admirable and lovely in ages yet to come. Solemn temples,
where the senate of the world assembled, palaces, triumphal arches,
and cloud-surrounded columns, loaded with the sculptured annals of
conquest and domination — what actions and deliberations have they
been destined to enclose and commemorate ? Superstitious rites, which
in their mildest form, outrage reason, and obscure the moral sense
of mankind; schemes for wide-extonded murder, and devastation,
6o ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
happy as we are, child, but in a different manner. They
know not the sensations which this ruin excites within us.
Yet it is pleasure to them to inhabit it ; and the succession
of its forms as they pass, is connected with associations in
their minds, sacred to them, as these to us. The internal
nature of each being is surrounded by a circle, not to be
surmounted by his fellows ; and it is this repulsion which
constitutes the misfortune of the condition of life. But
there is a circle which comprehends, as well as one which
mutually excludes, all things which feel. And, with respect
to man, his public and his private happiness consists
in diminishing the circumference which includes those
resembling himself, until they become one with him, and he
with them. It is because we enter into the meditations,
designs, and destinies of something beyond ourselves, that
the contemplation of the ruins of human power excites an
elevating sense of awfulness and beauty. It is therefore
that the ocean, the glacier, the cataract, the tempest, the
volcano, have each a spirit which animates the extremities
of our frame with tingling joy. It is therefore that the
singing of birds, and the motion of leaves, the sensation
of the odorous earth beneath, and the freshness of the
living wind around, is sweet. And this is Love. This is
the religion of eternity, whose votaries have been exiled
and misrule, and servitude ; and, lastly, these schemes brought to
their tremendous consummations, and a human being returning in
the midst of festival and solemn joy, with thousands and thousands of
his enslaved and desolated species chained behind his chariot, exhibit-
ing, as titles to renown, the labour of ages, and the admired creations
of genius, overthrown by the brutal force, which was placed as a
sword within his hand, and, — contemplation fearful and abhorred 1 —
he himself, a being capable of the gentlest and best emotions, inspired
with the persuasion that he has done a virtuous deed I We do not
forget these things. . . .
THE COLISEUM. 6i
from among the multitude of mankind. O Power ! " cried
the old man, lifting his sightless eyes towards the undazzling
sun, " thou which interpenetratest all things ; and without
which this glorious world were a blind and formless chaos,
Love, Author of Good, God, King, Father ! Friend of these
thy worshippers ! Two solitary hearts invoke thee, may
they be divided never ! If the contentions of mankind
have been their misery ; if to give and seek that happiness
which thou art, has been their choice and destiny ; if in the
contemplation of these majestic records of the power of
their kind, they see the shadow and the prophecy of that
which thou mayst have decreed that he should become ; if
the justice, the liberty, the loveliness, the truth, which are
thy footsteps, have been sought by them, divide them not !
It is thine to unite, to eternise ; to make outlive the limits
of the grave those who have left among the living,
memorials of thee. When this frame shall be senseless
dust, may the hopes, and the desires, and the delights
which animate it now, never be extinguished in my child ;
even as, if she were borne into the tomb, my memory
would be the written monument of all her nameless
excellencies ! "
The old man's countenance and gestures, radiant with
the inspiration of his words, sunk, as he ceased, into more
than its accustomed calmness, for he heard his daughter's
sobs, and remembered that he had spoken of death. — " My
father, how can I outlive you?" said Helen,
"Do not let us talk of death," said the old man, suddenly
changing his tone. " Heraclitus, indeed, died at my age,
and if I had so sour a disposition, there might be some
danger. But Democritus reached a hundred-and-twenty,
by the mere dint of a joyous and unconquerable mind. He
only died at last, because he had no gentle and beloved
62 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
ministering spirit, like my Helen, for whom it would have
been his delight to live. You remember his gay old sister
requested him to put off starving himself to death until she
had returned from the festival of Ceres; alleging, that it
would spoil her holiday if he refused to comply, as it was
not permitted to appear in the procession immediately after
the death of a relation ; and how good-temperedly the sage
acceded to her request."
The old man could not see his daughter's grateful smile,
but he felt the pressure of her hand by which it was
expressed. — "In truth," he continued, "that mystery,
death, is a change which neither for ourselves nor for
others is the just object of hope or fear. We know not if
it be good or evil, we only know, it is. The old, the young,
may alike die ; no time, no place, no age, no foresight,
exempts us from death, and the chance of death. We have
no knowledge, if death be a state of sensation, of any
precaution that can make those sensations fortunate, if the
existing series of events shall not produce that effect.
Think not of death, or think of it as something common to
us all. It has happened," said he, with a deep and
suffering voice, " that men have buried their children."
" Alas ! then, dearest father, how I pity you. Let us
speak no more."
They arose to depart from the Coliseum, but the figure
which had first accosted them interposed itself : — " Lady,"
he said, " if grief be an expiation of error, I have grieved
deeply for the words which I spoke to your companion.
The men who anciently inhabited this spot, and those from
whom they learned their wisdom, respected infirmity and
age. If I have rashly violated that venerable form, at once
majestic and defenceless, may I be forgiven ? "
" It gives me pain to sco how much your mistake afflicts
THE COLISEUM, 63
you," she said; "if you can forget, doubt not that we
forgive."
" You thought me one of those who are blind in spirit,"
said the old man, " and who deserve, if any human being
can deserve, contempt and blame. Assuredly, contem-
plating this monument as I do, though in the mirror of my
daughter's mind, I am filled with astonishment and delight;
the spirit of departed generations seems to animate my
limbs, and circulate through all the fibres of my frame.
Stranger, if I have expressed what you have ever felt, let
us know ieach other more."
"The sound of your voice, and the harmony of your
thoughts, are delightful to me," said the youth, " and it is
a pleasure to see any form which expresses so much beauty
and goodness as your daughter's ; if you reward me for my
rudeness, by allowing me to know you, my error is already
expiated, and you remember my ill words no more. I live
a solitary life, and it is rare that I encounter any stranger
with whom it is pleasant to talk ; besides, their meditations,
even though they be learned, do not always agree with
mine; and, though I can pardon this difference, they
cannot. Nor have I ever explained the cause of the dress
I wear, and the difference which I perceive between my
language and manners, and those with whom I have inter-
course. Not but that it is painful to me to live without
communion with intelligent and affectionate beings. You
are such, I feel."
^
64 ESS A VS AND FRAGMENTS,
ON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.
A FIIAGMENT.
The first law which it becomes a Reformer to propose
and support, at the approach of a period of great political
change, is the abolition of the punishment of death.
It is sufficiently clear that revenge, retaliation, atone-
ment, expiation, are rules and motives, so far from
deserving a place in any enlightened system of political
life, that they are the chief sources of a prodigious class of
miseries in the domestic circles of society. It is clear that
however the spirit of legislation may appear to frame
institutions upon more philosophical maxims, it has
hitherto, in those cases which are termed criminal, done
little more than palliate the spirit, by gratifying a portion
of it; and afforded a compromise between that which is
^ best ; — the inficting of no evil upon a sensitive being,
mk without a decisively beneficial result in which he should at
least participate : and that which is worst ; that he should
be put to torture for the amusement of those whom he may
have injured, or may seem to have injured.
Omitting these remoter considerations, let us inquire
what Death is; that punishment which is applied as a
measure of transgressions of indefinite shades of distinction,
so soon as they shall have passed that degree and colour of
enormity, with which it is supposed no inferior infliction is
commensurate.
And first, whether death is good or evil, a punishment or
a reward, or whether it be wholly indifferent, no man can
take upon himself to assert. That that within us which
thinks and feels, continues to think and feel after the
ON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 65
dissolution of the body, has been the almost universal
opinion of mankind, and the accurate philosophy of what
I may be permitted to term the modern Academy, by
showing the prodigious depth and extent of our ignorance
respecting the causes and nature of sensation, renders
probable the affirmative of a proposition, the negative of
which it is so difficult to conceive, and the popular argu-
ments against which, derived from what is called the atomic
system, are proved to be applicable only to the relation
which one object bears to another, as apprehended by the
mind, and not to existence itself, or the nature of that
essence which is the medium and receptacle of objects
The popular system of religion suggests the idea that the
mind, after death, will be painfully or pleasurably affected
according to its determinations during life. However ridicu-
lous and pernicious we must admit the vulgar accessories of
this creed to be, there is a certain analogy, not wholly absurd*
between the consequences resulting to an individual during
life from the virtuous or vicious, prudent or imprudent,
conduct of his external actions, to those consequences
which are conjectured to ensue from the discipline and
order of his internal thoughts, as affecting his condition in
a future state. They omit, indeed, to calculate upon the
accidents of disease, and temperament, and organisation, and
circumstance, together with the multitude of independent
agencies which affect the opinions, the conduct, and the
happiness of individuals, and produce determinations of the
will, and modify the judgment, so as to produce effects the
most opposite in natures considerably similar. These are
those operations in the order of the whole of nature,
tending, we are prone to believe, to some definite mighty end,
to which the agencies of our peculiar nature are subordinate ;
nor is there any reason to suppose, that in a future state they
86
66 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
should become suddenly exempt from that subordination.
The philosopher is unable to determine whether our exist-
ence in a previous state has affected our present condition,
and abstains from deciding whether our present condition
will affect us in that which may be future. That, if we
continue to exist, the manner of our existence will be such
as no inference nor conjectures, afforded by a considera-
tion of our earthly experience, can elucidate, is sufficiently
obvious. The opinion that the vital principle within us, in
whatever mode it may continue to exist, must lose that
consciousness of definite and individual being which now
characterises it, and become a unit in the vast sum of
action and of thought which disposes and animates the
universe, and is called God, seems to belong to that class of
opinion which has been designated as indifferent.
To compel a person to know all that can be known by
the dead, concerning that which the living fear, hope, or
forget; to plunge him into the pleasure or pain which
™ there awaits him ; to punish or reward him in a manner
and in a degree incalculable and incomprehensible by us ;
to disrobe him at once from all that intertexture of good
and evil with which Nature seems to have clothed every
form of individual existence, is to inflict on him the doom
of death.
A certain degree of pain and terror usually accompany
the infliction of death. This degree is infinitely varied by
the infinite variety in the temperament and opinions of the
sufferers. As a measure of punishment, strictly so con-
sidered, and as an exhibition, which, by its known effects
on the sensibility of the sufferer, is intended to intimidate
the spectators from incurring a similar liability, it is
singularly inadequate.
Firstly, — Persons of energetic character, in whom, as in
€
,^ ON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 67
■*'*lnen who suffer for political crimes, there is a large mixture
of enterprise, and fortitude, and disinterestedness, and the
elements, though misguided and disarranged, by which the
strength and happiness of a nation might have been
cemented, die in such a manner, as to make death appear
not evil, but good. The death of what is called a traitor,
that is, a person who, from whatever motive, would abolish
the government of the day, is as often a triumphant exhibi-
tion of suffering virtue, as the warning of a culprit. The
multitude, instead of departing with a panic-stricken
approbation of the laws which exhibited such a spectacle,
are inspired with pity, admiration and sympathy ; and the
most generous among them feel an emulation to be the
authors of such flattering emotions, as they experience
stirring in their bosoms. Impressed by what they see and
feel, they make no distinction between the motives which
incited the criminals to the actions for which they suffer,
or the heroic courage with which they turned into good
that which their judges awarded to them as evil, or the
purpose itself of those actions, though that purpose may
happen to be eminently pernicious. The laws in this case
lose that sympathy, which it ought to be their chief object
to secure, and in a participation of which consists their
chief strength in maintaining those sanctions by which the
parts of the social union are bound together, so as to
product, as nearly as possible, the ends for which it is
instituted.
Secondly, — Persons of energetic character, in communi-
ties not modelled with philosophical skill to turn all the
energies which they contain to the purposes of common
good, are prone also to fall into the temptation of under-
taking, and are peculiarly fitted for despising the perils
attendant upon consummating, the most enormous crimes.
68 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
Murder, rapes, extensive schemes of plunder, are the actions
of persons belonging to this class ; and death is the penalty
of conviction. But the coarseness of organisation, peculiar
to men capable of committing acts wholly selfish, is usually
found to be associated with a proportionate insensibility to
fear or pain. Their sufferings communicate to those of the
spectators, who may be liable to the commission of similar
crimes, a sense of the lightness of that event, when closely
examined, which, at a distance, as uneducated persons are
accustomed to do, probably they regarded with horror.
But a great majority of the spectators are so bound up in
the interests and the habits of social union that no tempta-
tion would be sufficiently strong to induce them to a
commission of the enormities to which this penalty is
assigned. The more powerful, and the richer among
them — and a numerous class of little tradesmen are richer
and more powerful than those who are employed by them,
and the employer, in general, bears this relation to the
employed — regard their own wrongs as, in some degree,
avenged, and their own rights secured by this punishment,
inflicted as the penalty of whatever crime. In cases of
murder or mutilation, this feeling is almost universal. In
those, therefore, whom this exhibition does not awaken to
the sympathy which extenuates crime and discredits the
law which restrains it, it produces feelings more directly at
war with the genuine purposes of political society. It
excites those emotions which it is the chief object of civilis-
ation to extinguish for ever, and in the extinction of which
alone there can be any hope of better institutions than
those under which men now misgovern one another. Men
feel that their revenge is gratified, and that their security
is established by the extinction and the sufferings of beings,
in most respects resembling themselves ; and their daily
ON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 69
occupations constraining them to a precise form in all their
thoughts, they come to connect inseparably the idea of their
own advantage with that of the death and torture of others.
It is manifest that the object of sane polity is directly the
reverse ; and that laws founded upon reason should
accustom the gross vulgar to associate their ideas of security
and of interest with the reformation, and the strict restraint,
for that purpose alone, of those who might invade it.
The passion of revenge is originally nothing more than an
habitual perception of the ideas of the sufferings of the
person who inflicts an injury, as connected, as they are in
a savage state, or in such portions of society as are yet
undisciplined to civilisation, with security that that injury
will not be repeated in future. This feeling, engrafted
upon superstition and confirmed by habit, at last loses
sight of the only object for which it may be supposed to
have been implanted, and becomes a passion and a duty to
be pursued and fulfilled, even to the destruction of those
ends to which it originally tended. The other passions,
both good and evil. Avarice, E-emorse, Love, Patriotism,
present a similar appearance ; and to this principle of the
mind over-shooting the mark at which it aims, we owe all
that is eminently base or excellent in human nature ; in
providing for the nutriment or the extinction of which,
consists the true art of the legislator.*
Nothing is more clear than that the infliction of punish
ment in general, in a degree which the reformation and the
* The savage and the illiterate are but faintly aware of the distinc-
tion between the future and the past ; they make actions belonging to
periods so distinct, the subjects of similar feelings ; they live only in
the present, or in the past, as it is present. It is in this that the
philosopher excels one of the many ; it is this which distinguishes the
doctrine of philosophic necessity from fatalism ; and that determina-
tion of the will, bv which it is the active source of future events, from
70 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
restraint of those who transgress the laws does not render
indispensable, and none more than death, confirms all the
inhuman and unsocial impulses of men. It is almost a
proverbial remark, that those nations in which the penal
code has been particularly mild, have been distinguished
from all others by the rarity of crime. But the example is
to be admitted to be equivocal. A more decisive argument
is afibrded by a consideration of the universal connection of
ferocity of manners, and a contempt of social ties, with the
contempt of human life. Governments which derive their
institutions from the existence of circumstances of barbarism
and violence, with some rare exceptions, perhaps, are bloody
in proportion as they are despotic, and form the manners
of their subjects to a sympathy with their own spirit.
The spectators who feel no abhorrence at a public
execution, but rather a self -applauding superiority, and a
sense of gratified indignation, are surely excited to the
most inauspicious emotions. The first reflection of such a
one is the sense of his own internal and actual worth, as
preferable to that of the victim, whom circumstances have
led to destruction. The meanest wretch is impressed with
a sense of his own comparative merit. He is one of those
on whom the tower of Siloam fell not — he is such a one as
Jesus Christ found not in all Samaria, who, in his own soul,
throws the first stone at the woman taken in adultery. The
that liberty or indifference, to which the abstract liability of irre-
mediable actions is attached, according to the notions of the vulgar.
This is the source of the erroneous excesses of Remorse and Revenge j
the one extending itself over the future, and the other over the past ;
provinces in which their suggestions can only be the sources of evil.
The purpose of a resolution to act more wisely and virtuously in
future, and the sense of a necessity of caution in repressing an enemy,
are the sources from which the enormous superstitions implied in the
words cited have arisen.
ON LIFE. 71
popular religion of the country takes its designation from
that illustrious person whose beautiful sentiment I have
quoted. Any one who has stript from the doctrines of this
person the veil of familiarity, will perceive how adverse
their spirit is to feelings of this nature.
ON LIFE.
Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are
and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity
obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck
with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but
it is itself the great miracle. What are changes of empires,
the wreck of dynasties, with the opinions which supported
them ; what is the birth and the extinction of religious and
of political systems to life ? What are the revolutions of
the globe which we inhabit, and the operations of the
elements of which it is composed, compared with life?
What is the universe of stars, and suns, of which this
inhabited earth is one, and their motions, and their destiny,
compared with life % Life, the great miracle, we admire
not, because it is so miraculous. It is well that we are
thus shielded by the familiarity of what is at once so cer-
tain and so unfathomable, from an astonishment which
would otherwise absorb and overawe the functions of that
which is its object.
If any artist, I do not say had executed, but had merely
conceived in his mind the system of the sun, and the stars,
and planets, they not existing, and had painted to us in
words, or upon canvas, the spectacle now afibrded by the
nightly cope of heaven, and illustrated it by the wisdom of
72 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
astronomy, great would be our admiration. Or had he
imagined the scenery of this earth, the mountains, the seas,
and the rivers ; the grass, and the flowers, and the variety
of the forms and masses of the leaves of the woods, and the
colours which attend the setting and the rising sun, and the
hues of the atmosphere, turbid or serene, these things not
before existing, truly we should have been astonished, and
it would not have been a vain boast to have said of such a
man, "Non merita nome di creatore, se non Iddio ed il
Poeta." But now these things are looked on with little
wonder, and to be conscious of them with intense delight
is esteemed to be the distinguishing mark of a refined
and extraordinary person. The multitude of men care not
for them. It is thus with Life — that which includes all.
What is life? Thoughts and feelings arise, with or
without our will, and we employ words to express them.
We are born, and our birth is unremembered, and our
infancy remembered but in fragments ; we live on, and in
living we lose the apprehension of life. How vain is it to
think that words can penetrate the mystery of our being !
Rightly used they may make evident our ignorance to our-
selves, and this is much. For what are we 1 Whence do
we come ? and whither do we go ? Is birth the commence-
ment, is death the conclusion of our being 1 What is birth
and death?
The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view
of life, which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in
fact, that which the habitual sense of its repeated combina-
tions has extinguished in us. It strips, as it were, the
painted curtain from this scene of things. I confess that i
am one of those who am unable to refuse my assent to the
conclusions of those philosophers who assert that nothing
exists but as it is perceive^.
ON LIFE, 73
"It is a decision against which all our persuasions struggle,
and we must be long convicted before we can be convinced
that the solid universe of external things is "such stuff as
dreams are made of." The shocking absurdities of the
popular philosophy of mind and matter, its fatal conse-
quences in morals, and their violent dogmatism concerning
the source of all things, had early conducted me to materi-
alism. This materialism is a seducing system to young
and superficial minds. It allows its disciples to talk, and
dispenses them from thinking. But I was discontented with
such a view of things as it afforded; man is a being of
high aspirations, "looking both before and after," whose
"thoughts wander through eternity," disclaiming alliance
with transience and decay ; incapable of imagining to him-
self annihilation ; existing but in the future and the past ;
being, not what he is, but what he has been and shall be.
Whatever may be his true and final destination, there is a
spirit within him at enmity with nothingness and dissolu-
tion. This is the character of all life and being. Each is
at once the centre and the circumference ; the point to
which all things are referred, and the line in which all
things are contained. Such contemplations as these,
materialism and the popular philosophy of mind and
matter alike forbid ; they are only consistent with the
intellectual system.
It is absurd to enter into a long recapitulation of
arguments sufficiently familiar to those inquiring minds,
whom alone a writer on abstruse subjects can be conceived
to address. Perhaps the most clear and vigorous statement
of the intellectual system is to be found in Sir William
Drummond's Academical Questions. After such an
exposition, it would be idle to translate into other words
what could only lose its energy and fitness by the change.
74 JSSSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
Examined point by point, and word by word, the most
discriminating intellects have been able to discern no train
of thoughts in the process of reasoning, which does not
conduct inevitably to the conclusion which has been stated.
What follows from the admission 1 It establishes no
new truth, it gives us no additional insight into our hidden
nature, neither its action nor itself. Philosophy, impatient
as it may be to build, has much work yet remaining, as
pioneer for the overgrowth of ages. It makes one step
towards this object; it destroys error, and the roots of
error. It leaves, what it is too often the duty of the
reformer in political and ethical questions to leave, a vacancy.
It reduces the mind to that freedom in which it would have
acted, but for the misuse of words and signs, the instru-
ments of its own creation. By signs, I would be under-
stood in a wide sense, including what is properly meant by
that term, and what I peculiarly mean. In this latter
sense, almost all familiar objects are signs, standing, not for
themselves, but for others in their capacity of suggest-
ing one thought which shall lead to a train of thoughts.
Our whole life is thus an education of error.
Let us recollect our sensations as children. What a
distinct and intense apprehension had we of the world and
of ourselves ! Many of the circumstances of social life
were then important to us which are now no longer so.
But that is not the point of comparison on which I mean
to insist. We less habitually distinguished all that we
saw and felt, from our ourselves. They seemed as it were
to constitute one mass. There are some persons who, in
this respect, are always children. Those who are subject
to the state called reverie, feel as if their nature were
dissolved into the surrounding universe, or as if the
surrounding universe were absorbed into their being.
ON LIFE. 75
They are conscious of no distinction. And these are states
which precede, or accompany, or follow an unusually
intense and vivid apprehension of life. As men grow up
this power commonly decays, and they become mechanical
and habitual agents. Thus feelings and then reasonings are
the combined result of a multitude of entangled thoughts,
and of a series of what are called impressions, planted by
reiteration.
The view of life presented by the most refined deductions
of the intellectual philosophy, is that of unity. Nothing
exists but as it is perceived. The difference is merely
nominal between those two classes of thought, which are
vulgarly distinguished by the names of ideas and of
external objects. Pursuing the same thread of reasoning,
the existence of distinct individual minds, similar to that
which is employed in now questioning its own nature, is
likewise found to be a delusion. The words /, you^ they,
are not signs of any actual difference subsisting between
the assemblage of thoughts thus indicated, but are merely
marks employed to denote the different modifications of the
one mind.
Let it not be supposed that this doctrine conducts to the
monstrous presumption that I, the person who now write
and think, am that one mind. I am but a portion of it.
The words /, and youy and they are grammatical devices
invented simply for arrangement, and totally devoid of the
intense and exclusive sense usually attached to them. It
is difficult to find terms adequate to express so subtle
a conception as that to which the Intellectual Philosophy
has conducted us. We are on that verge where words
abandon us, and what wonder if we grow dizzy to look
down the dark abyss of how little we know.
The relations of things remciin unchanged, by whatever
76 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
system. By the word things is to be understood any
object of thought, that is any thought upon -which any
other thought is employed, with an apprehension of
distinction. The relations of these remain unchanged ;
and such is the material of our knowledge.
What is the cause of life ? that is, how was it produced,
or what agencies distinct from life have acted or act upon
life ? All recorded generations of mankind have wearily
busied themselves in inventing answers to this question ;
and the result has been, — Religion. Yet, that the basis of
all things cannot be, as the popular philosophy alleges,
mind, is sufficiently evident. Mind, as far as we have any
experience of its properties, and beyond that experience
how vain is argument ! cannot create, it can only perceive.
It is said also to be the cause. But cause is only a word
expressing a certain state of the human mind with regard
to the manner in which two thoughts are apprehended to
be related to each other. If any one desires to
know how unsatisfactorily the popular philosophy employs
itself upon this great question, they need only impartially
reflect upon the manner in which thoughts develop them-
selves in their minds. It is infinitely improbable that the
cause of mind, that is, of existence, is similar to mind.
ON A FUTURE STATE.
It has been the persuasion of an immense majority of
human beings in all ages and nations that we continue to
live after death, — that apparent termination of all the
functions of sensitive and intellectual existence. Nor has
mankind been contented with supposing that species oi
ON A FUTURE STATE. 77
existence which some philosophers have asserted ; namely,
the resolution of the component parts of the mechanism of
a living being into its elements, and the impossibility of the
minutest particle of these sustaining the smallest diminution.
They have clung to the idea that sensibility and thought,
which they have distinguished from the objects of it, under
the several names of spirit and matter, is, in its own nature,
less susceptible of division and decay, and that, when the
body is resolved into its elements, the principle which
animated it will remain perpetual and unchanged. Some
philosophers — and those to whom we are indebted for the
most stupendous discoveries in physical science, suppose, on
the other hand, that intelligence is the mere result of
certain combinations among the particles of its objects;
and those among them who believe that we live after death,
recur to the interposition of a supernatural power, which
shall overcome the tendency inherent in all material
combinations to dissipate and be absorbed into other
forms.
Let us trace the reasonings which in one and the other
have conducted to these two opinions, and endeavour to
discover what we ought to think on a question of such
momentous interest. Let us analyse the ideas and feelings
which constitute the contending beliefs, and watchfully
establish a discrimination between words and thoughts.
Let us bring the question to the test of experience and
fact j and ask ourselves, considering our nature in its entire
extent, what light we derive from a sustained and com-
prehensive view of its component parts, which may enable
us to assert, with certainty, that we do or do not live after
death.
The examination of this subject requires that it should be
stript of all those accessory topics which adhere to it in the
78 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
common opinion of men. The existence of a God, and a
future state of rewards and punishments, are totally foreign
to the subject. If it be proved that the world is ruled by a
Divine Power, no inference necessarily can be drawn from
that circumstance in favour of a future state. It has been
asserted, indeed, that as goodness and justice are to be
numbered among the attributes of the Deity, he will
undoubtedly compensate the virtuous who suffer during life,
and that he will make every sensitive being, who does not
deserve punishment, happy for ever. But this view of the
subject, which it would be tedious as well as superfluous to
develop and expose, satisfies no person, and cuts the knot
which we now seek to untie. Moreover, should it be proved,
on the other hand, that the mysterious principle which
regulates the proceedings of the universe, is neither
intelligent nor sensitive, yet it is not an inconsistency to
suppose at the same time, that the animating power
survives the body which it has animated, oy laws as
independent of any supernatural agent as those through
which it first became united with it. ' Nor, if a future state
be clearly proved, does it follow that it will be a state of
punishment or reward.
By the word death, we express that condition in which
natures resembling ourselves apparently cease to be that
which they were. We no longer hear them speak, nor see
them move. If they have sensations and apprehensions, we
no longer participate in them. We know no more than
that those external organs, and all that fine texture of mate-
rial frame, without which we have no experience that life
or thought can subsist, are dissolved and scattered abroad.
The body is placed under the earth, and after a certain
period there remains no vestige even of its form. This is
that contemplation of inexhaustible melancholy, whose
I
ON A FUTURE STATE. 79
shadow eclipses the brightness of the world. The common
observer is struck with dejection at the spectacle. He
contends in vain against the persuasion of the grave, that
the dead indeed cease to be. The corpse at his feet is
prophetic of his own destiny. Those who have preceded
him, and whose voice was delightful to his ear ; whose
touch met his like sweet and subtle fire; whose aspect
spread a visionary light upon his path — these he cannot
meet again. The organs of sense are destroyed, and the
intellectual operations dependent on them have perished
with their sources. How can a corpse see or feci ? its eyes
are eaten out, and its heart is black and without motion.
What intercourse can two heaps of putrid clay and crumb-
ling bones hold together % When you can discover where
the fresh colours of the faded flower abide, or the music of
the broken lyre, seek life among the dead. Such are the
anxious and fearful contemplations of the common observer,
though the popular religion often prevents him from
confessing them even to himself.
The natural philosopher, in addition to the sensations
common to all men inspired by the event of death, believes
that hesees with more certainty that it is attended with
the annihilation of sentiment and thought. He observes
the mental powers increase and fade with those of the body,
and even accommodate themselves to the most transitory
changes of our physical nature. Sleep suspends many of
the faculties of the vital and intellectual principle ; drunken-
ness and disease will either temporarily or permanently
derange them. Madness or idiotcy may utterly extinguish
the most excellent and delicate of those powers. In old age
the mind gradually withers ; and as it grew and was
strengthened with the body, so does it together with the
body sink into decrepitude. Assuredly these are convincing
So ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
evidences that so soon as the organs of the body are sub-
jected to the laws of inanimate matter, sensation, and
perception, and apprehension, are at an end. It is probable
that what we call thought is not an actual being, but no
more than the relation between certain parts of that
infinitely varied mass, of which the rest of the universe is
composed, and which ceases to exist as soon as those parts
change their position with regard to each other. Thus
colour, and sound, and taste, and odour exist only rela-
tively. But let thought be considered as some peculiar sub-
stance, which permeates, and is the cause of, the animation
of living beings. Why should that substance be assumed
to be something essentially distinct from all others, and
exempt from subjection to those laws from which no other
substance is exempt ? It differs, indeed, from all other sub-
stances, as electricity, and light, and magnetism, and the
constituent parts of air and earth, severally differ from all
others. Each of these is subject to change and to decay
and to conversion into other forms. Yet the difference
between light and earth is scarcely greater than that which
exists between life, or thought, and fire. The difference
between the two former was never alleged as an argument
for the eternal permanence of either, in that form under
which they first might offer themselves to our notice. "Why
should the difference between the two latter substances be
an argument for the prolongation of the existence of one and
not the other, when the existence of both has arrived at
their apparent termination % To say that fire exists with-
out manifesting any of the properties of fire, such as light,
heat, etc., or that the principle of life exists without
consciousness, or memory, or desire, or motive, is to resign,
by an awkward distortion of language, the affirmative of
the dispute. To say that the principle of life way exist in
ON A FUTURE STATE. 8l
distribution among various forms, is to assert what cannot
be proved to be either true or false, but which, wero it true,
annihilates all hope of existence after death, in any sense
in which that event can belong to the hopes and fears of
men. Suppose, however, that the intellectual and vital
principle differs in the most marked and essential manner
from all other known substances ; that they have all some
resemblance between themselves which it in no degree
participates. . In what manner can this concession be made
an argument for its imperishability ? All that we see or
know perishes and is changed. Life and thought differ
indeed from anything else. But that it survives that
period, beyond which we have no experience of its
existence, such distinction and dissimilarity affords no
shadow of proof, and nothing but our own desires could
have led us to conjecture or imagine.
Have we existed before birth ? It is difficult to conceive
the possibility of this. There is, in the generative principle
of each animal and plant, a power which converts the
substances by which it is surrounded into a substance
homogeneous with itself. That is, the relations between
certain elementary particles of matter undergo a change,
and submit to new combinations. For when we use the
words principle^ power, cause, etc., we mean to express no
real being, but only to class under those terms a certain
series of co-existing phenomena; but let it be supposed that
this principle is a certain substance which escapes the
observation of the chemist and anatomist. It certainly
may he ; though it is sufficiently unphilosophical to allege
the possibility of an opinion as a proof of its truth. Does
it see, hear, feel, before its combination with those organs
on which sensation depends? Does it reason, imagine,
apprehend, without those ideas which sensation alone can
87
82 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS,
communicate? If we have not existed before birth ; if, at
the period when the parts of our nature on which thought
and life depend, seem to be woven together, they are woven
together ; if there are no reasons to suppose that we have
existed before that period at which our existence apparently
commences, then there are no grounds for supposition
that we shall continue to exist after our existence has appa-
rently ceased. So far as thought and life is concerned,
the same will take place with regard to us, individually
considered, after death, as had place befo re our birth.
It is said that it is possible that we should continue to
exist in some mode totally inconceivable to us at present.
This is a most unreasonable presumption. It casts on the
adherents of annihilation the burthen of proving the
negative of a question, the affirmative of which is not
supported by a single argument, and which, by its very
nature, lies beyond the experience of the human under-
standing. It is sufficiently easy, indeed, to form any
proposition, concerning which we are ignorant, just not
so absurd as not to be contradictory in itself, and defy
refutation. The possibility of whatever enters into the
wildest imagination to conceive is thus triumphantly
vindicated. But it is enough that such assertions should
be either contradictory to the known laws of nature, or
exceed the limits of our experience, that their fallacy or
irrelevancy to our consideration should be demonstrated.
They persuade, indeed, only those who desire to be
persuaded.
This desire to be for ever as we are ; the reluctance to a
violent and unexperienced change, which is common to all
the animated and inanimate combinations of the universe,
is, indeed, the secret persuasion which has given birth to
the opinions of a future state.
FSSA Y ON CHRISTIANITY. 83
ESSAY ON CHRISTIANITY.
The Being who has influenced in the most memorable
manner the opinions and the fortunes of the human species,
is Jesus Christ. At this day, his name is connected with
the devotional feelings of two hundred millions of the
race of man. The institutions of the most civilized portion
of the globe derive their authority from the sanction of
his doctrines ; he is the hero, the God, of our popular
religion. His extraordinary genius, the wide and rapid
effect of his unexampled doctrines, his invincible gentleness
and benignity, the devoted love borne to him by
his adherents, suggested a persuasion to them that he
was something divine. The supernatural events which the
historians of this wonderful man subsequently asserted to
have been connected with every gradation of his career,
established the opinion.
His death is said to have been accompanied by an
accumulation of tremendous prodigies. Utter darkness fell
upon the earth, blotting the noonday sun ; dead bodies,
arising from their graves, walked through the public streets,
and an earthquake shook the astonished city, rending the
rocks of the surrounding mountains. The philosopher
may attribute the application of these events to the death
of a reformer, or the events themselves to a visitation of
that universal Pan who
The thoughts which the word " God " suggests to the
human mind are susceptible of as many variations as human
minds themselves. The Stoic, the Platonist, and the
Epicurean, the Polytheist, the Dualist, and the Trinitarian,
differ infinitely in their conceptions of its meaning. They
84 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
agree only in considering it the most awful and most
venerable of names, as a common term devised to express
all of mystery, or majesty, or power, which the invisible
world contains. And not only has every sect distinct
conceptions of the application of this name, but scarcely two
individuals of the same sect, who exercise in any degree
the freedom of their judgment, or yield themselves with
any candour of feeling to the influences of the visible
world, find perfect coincidence of opinion to exist between
them. It is [interesting] to inquire in what acceptation
Jesus Christ employed this term.
We may conceive his mind to have been predisposed on
this subject to adopt the opinions of his countrymen. Every
human being is indebted for a multitude of his sentiments
to the religion of his early years. Jesus Christ probably
[studied] the historians of his country with the ardour of a
spirit seeking after truth. They were undoubtedly the
companions of his childish years, the food and nutriment
and materials of his youthful meditations. The sublime
dramatic poem entitled Job had familiarized his imagination
with the boldest imagery afforded by the human mind and
the material world. Ecclesiastes had diffused a serious-
ness and solemnity over the frame of his spirit, glowing
with youthful hope, and [had] made audible to his listening
heart
" The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh or grating, but of ample power
To chasten and subdue."
He had contemplated this name as having been profanely
perverted to the sanctioning of the most enormous and
abominable crimes. We can distinctly trace, in the tissue
of his doctrines, the persuasion that God is some universal
Being, differing from man and the mind of man. According
ESS A V ON CHRISTIANITY. 85
to Jesus Christ, God is neither the Jupiter, who sends
rain upon the earth ; nor the Venus, through whom all
living things are produced ; nor the Vulcan, who presides
over the terrestrial element of fire ; nor the Vesta, that
preserves the light which is enshrined in the sun and moon
and stars. He is neither the Proteus nor the Pan of the
material world. But the word God, according to the
acceptation of Jesus Christ, unites all the attributes which
these denominations contain, and is the [interpoint] and
overruling Spirit of all the energy and wisdom included
within the circle of existing things. It is important to
observe that the author of the Christian system had a
conception widely differing from the gross imaginations of
the vulgar relatively to the ruling Power of the universe.
He everywhere represents this Power as something
mysteriously and inimitably pervading the frame of
things. Nor do his doctrines practically assume any
proposition which they theoretically deny. They do not
represent God as a limitless and inconceivable mystery ;
affirming, at the same time, his existence as a Being subject
to passion and capable
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Blessed are those who have preserved internal sanctity of
soul ; who are conscious of no secret deceit ; who are the
same in act as they are in desire ; who conceal no thought,
no tendencies of thought, from their own conscience ; who
are faithful and sincere witnesses, before the tribunal
of their own judgments, of all that passes within their
mind. Such as these shall see God. What 1 after death,
shall their awakened eyes behold the King of Heaven?
Shall they stand in awe before the golden throne on which
He sits, and gaze upon the venerable countenance of the
86 ESSA VS AND FRAGMENTS.
paternal Monarch ? Is this the reward of the virtuous and
the pure ? These are the idle dreams of the visionary, or
the pernicious representations of impostors, who have
fabricated from the very materials of ^Yisdom a cloak
for their own dwarfish or imbecile conceptions.
Jesus Christ has said no more than the most excellent
philosophers have felt and expressed — that virtue is its
own reward. It is true that such an expression as he has
used was prompted by the energy of genius, and was
the overflowing enthusiasm of a poet ; but it is not
the less literally true [because] clearly repugnant to the
mistaken conceptions of the multitude. God, it has been
asserted, was contemplated by Jesus Christ as every poet
and every philosopher must have contemplated that
mysterious principle. He considered that venerable word
to express the overruling Spirit of the collective energy of
the moral and material world. He affirms, therefore, no
more than that a simple, sincere mind is the indispensable
requisite of true science and true happiness. He affirms
that a being of pure and gentle habits will not fail, in
every thought, in every object of every thought, to be
aware of benignant visitings from the invisible energies by
which he is surrounded.
Whosoever is free from the contamination of luxury and
licence, may go forth to the fields and to the woods,
inhaling joyous renovation from the breath of Spring, or
catching from the odours and sounds of Autumn some
diviner mood of sweetest sadness, which improves the
softened heart. Whosoever is no deceiver or destroyer of
his fellow-men — no liar, no flatterer, no murderer — may
walk among his species, deriving, from the communion
with all which they contain of beautiful or of majestic,
some intercourse with the Universal God. Whosoever has
ESSAY ON CHRISTIANITY, 87
^S maintained with his own heart the strictest correspondence
of confidence, who dares to examine and to estimate every
imagination which suggests itself to his mind — whosoever
is that which he designs to become, and only aspires to that
which the divinity of his own nature shall consider and
approve — he has already seen God.
We live and move and think; but we are not the
creators of our own origin and existence. We are not the
arbiters of every motion of our own complicated nature ;
we are not the masters of our own imaginations and moods
of mental being. There is a Power by which we are
surrounded, like the atmosphere in which some motionless
lyre is suspended, which visits with its breath our silent
chords at will.
Our most imperial and stupendous qualities — those on
which the majesty and the power of humanity is erected —
are, relatively to the inferior portion of its mechanism,
active and imperial; but they are the passive slaves of
some higher and more omnipotent Power. This Power is
God ; and those who have seen God have, in the period of
their purer and more perfect nature, been harmonized by
their own will to so exquisite [a] consentaneity of power as
to give forth divinest melody, when the breath of universal
being sweeps over their frame. That those who are pure
in heart shall see God, and that virtue is its own reward,
may be considered as equivalent assertions. The former
of these propositions is a metaphorical repetition of the
latter. The advocates of literal interpretation have been
the most efficacious enemies of those doctrines whose
nature they profess to venerate. Thucydides, in particular,
affords a number of instances calculated
Tacitus says, that the Jews held God to be something
88 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS,
eternal and supreme, neither subject to change nor to
decay; therefore, they permit no statues in their cities
or their temples. The universal Being can only be
described or defined by negatives which deny his subjection
to the laws of all inferior existences. Where indefiniteness
ends idolatry and anthropomorphism begin. God is, as
Lucan has expressed,
" Quocunque vides, quodcunque moveris,
Et coelum et virtus."
The doctrine of what some fanatics have termed "a
peculiar Providence " — that is, of some power beyond and
superior to that which ordinarily guides the operations of
the Universe, interfering to punish the vicious and reward
the virtuous — is explicitly denied by Jesus Christ. The
absurd and execrable doctrine of vengeance, in all its
shapes^ seems to have been contemplated by this great
moralist with the profoundest disapprobation ; nor would
he permit the most venerable of names to be perverted into
a sanction for the meanest and most contemptible propen-
sities incident to the nature of man. " Love your enemies'
bless those who curse you, that ye may be the sons of your
Heavenly Father, who makes the sun to shine on the good
and on the evil, and the rain to fall on the just and unjust."
How monstrous a calumny have not impostors dared to
advance against the mild and gentle author of this just
sentiment, and against the whole tenor of his doctrines and
his life, overflowing with benevolence and forbearance and
compassion 1 They have represented him asserting that
the Omnipotent God — that merciful and benignant Power
who scatters equally upon the beautiful earth all the
elements of security and happiness— whose influences are
distributed to all whose natures admit of a participation in
ESSA Y ON CHRISTIANITY, 89
them — who sends to the weak and vicious creatures of his
will all the benefits which they are capable of sharing — that
this God has devised a scheme whereby the body shall live
after its apparent dissolution, and be rendered capable of
indefinite torture. He is said to have compared the agonies
which the vicious shall then endure to the excruciations of
a living body bound among the flames, and being consumed
sinew by sinew, and bone by bone.
And this is to be done, not because it is supposed (and
the supposition would be sufficiently detestable) that the
moral nature of the sufferer would be improved by his
tortures — it is done because it is just to be done. My
neighbour, or my servant, or my child, has done me an
injury, and it is just that he should suffer an injury in
return. Such is the doctrine which Jesus Christ summoned
his whole resources of persuasions to oppose. " Love your
enemy, bless those who curse you : " such, he says, is the
practice of God, and such must ye imitate if ye would be
the children of God.
Jesus Christ would hardly have cited, as an example of
all that is gentle and beneficent and compassionate, a
Being who shall deliberately scheme to inflict on a large
portion of the human race tortures indescribably intense
and indefinitely protracted: who shall inflict them,
too, without any mistake as to the true nature of pain
— without any view to future good — merely because it
is just.
This, and no other, is justice : — to consider, under all
the circumstances and consequences of a particular case,
how the greatest quantity and purest quality of happiness
will ensue from any action ; [this] is to be just, and there
is no other justice. The distinction between justice and
mercy was first imagined in the courts of tyranny. Man-
90 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
kind receive every relaxation of their tyranny as a
circumstance of grace or favour.
Such was the clemency of Julius Csesar, who, having
achieved by a series of treachery and bloodshed the ruin of
the liberties of his country, receives the fame of mercy
because, possessing the power to slay the noblest men of
Rome, he restrained his sanguinary soul, arrogating to
himself as a merit an abstinence from actions which if he
had committed, he would only have added one other
atrocity to his deeds. His assassins understood justice
better. They saw the most virtuous and civilised com-
munity of mankind under the most insolent dominion
of one wicked man; and they murdered him. They
destroyed the usurper of the liberties of their countrymen,
not because they hated him, not because they would
revenge the wrongs which they had sustained (Brutus, it is
said, was his most familiar friend ; most of the conspirators
were habituated to domestic intercourse with the man whom
they destroyed) : it was in affection, inextinguishable love
for all that is venerable and dear to the human heart, in the
names of Country, Liberty, and Virtue ; it was in a serious
and solemn and reluctant mood, that these holy patriots
murdered their father and their friend. They would have
spared his violent death, if he could have deposited the
rights which he had assumed. His own selfish and narrow
nature necessitated the sacrifices they made. They
required that he should change all those habits which
debauchery and bloodshed had twined around the fibres of
his inmost frame of thought; that he should participate
with them and with his country those privileges which,
having corrupted by assuming to himself, he would no
longer value. They would have sacrificed their lives if
they could have made him worthy of the sacrifice. Such
ESS A Y ON CHRIS TIANITY. g i
are the feelings which Jesus Christ asserts to belong to the
ruling Power of the world. He desireth not the death of a
sinner : he makes the sun to shine upon the just and unjust.
The nature of a narrow and malevolent spirit is so
essentially incompatible with happiness as to render it
inaccessible to the influences of the benignant God. All
that his own perverse propensities will permit him to
receive, that God abundantly pours forth upon him. If
there is the slightest overbalance of happiness, which can
be allotted to the most atrocious offender, consistently with
the nature of things, that is rigidly made his portion by the
ever-watchful Power of God. In every case, the human
mind enjoys the utmost pleasure which it is capable of
enjoying. God is represented by Jesus Christ as the
Power from which, and through which, the streams of all
that is excellent and delightful flow ; the Power which
models, as they pass, all the elements of this mixed
universe to the purest and most perfect shape which it
belongs to their nature to assume. Jesus Christ attributes
to this Power the faculty of Will. How far such a
doctrine, in its ordinary sense, may be philosophically
true, or how far Jesus Christ intentionally availed himself
of a metaphor easily understood, is foreign to the subject
to consider. This much is certain, that Jesus Christ
represents God as the fountain of all goodness, the eternal
enemy of pain and evil, the uniform and unchanging
motive of the salutary operations of the material world.
The supposition that this cause is excited to action by
some principle analogous to the human will, adds weight to
the persuasion that it is foreign to its beneficent nature to
inflict the slightest pain. According to Jesus Christ, and
according to the indisputable facts of the case, some evil
spirit has dominion in this imperfect world. But there
92 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS,
will come a time when the human mind shall be visited
exclusively by the influences of the benignant Power. Men
shall die, and their bodies shall rot under the ground;
all the organs through which their knowledge and their
feelings have flowed, or in which they have originated,
shall assume other forms, and become ministrant to pur-
poses the most foreign from their former tendencies.
There is a time when we shall neither be heard or be seen
by the multitude of beings like ourselves by whom we
have been so long surrounded. They shall go to graves ;
where then ?
It appears that we moulder to a heap of senseless dust ;
to a few worms, that arise and perish, like ourselves.
Jesus Christ asserts that these appearances are fallacious,
and that a gloomy and cold imagination alone suggests the
conception that thought can cease to be. Another and a
more extensive state of being, rather than the complete
extinction of being, will follow from that mysterious change
which we call Death. There shall be no misery, no pain,
no fear. The empire of evil spirits extends not beyond the
boundaries of the grave. The unobscured irradiations
from the fountain-fire of all goodness shall reveal all that
is mysterious and unintelligible, until the mutual communi-
cations of knowledge and of happiness throughout all
thinking natures constitute a harmony of good that ever
varies and never ends.
This is Heaven, when pain and evil cease, and when the
Benignant Principle, untrammelled and uncontrolled, visits
in the fulness of its power the universal frame of things.
Human life, with all its unreal ills and transitory hopes, is
as a dream, which departs before the dawn, leaving no
trace of its evanescent hues. All that it contains of pure
or of divine visits the passive mind in some serenest mood.
ESS A V ON CHRISTIANITY. 93
Most holy are the feelings through which our fellow-beings
are rendered dear and [venerable] to the heart. The
remembrance of their sweetness, and the completion of the
hopes which they [excite], constitute, when we awaken
from the sleep of life, the fulfilment of the prophecies of its
most majestic and beautiful visions.
We die, says Jesus Christ ; and, when we awaken from
the languor of disease, the glories and the happiness of
Paradise are around us. All evil and pain have ceased for
ever. Our happiness also corresponds with, and is adapted
to, the nature of what is most excellent in our being. We
see God, and we see that he is good. How delightful a
picture, even if it be not true ! How magnificent is the
conception which this bold theory suggests to the con-
templation, even if it be no more than the imagination of
some sublimest and most holy poet, who, impressed with
the loveliness and majesty of his own nature, is impatient
and discontented with the narrow limits which this im-
perfect life and the dark grave have assigned for ever as
his melancholy portion. It is not to be believed that Hell,
or punishment, was the conception of this daring mind. It
is not to be believed that the most prominent group of this
picture, which is framed so heart-moving and lovely — the
accomplishment of all human hope, the extinction of all
morbid fear and anguish — would consist of millions of
sensitive beings enduring, in every variety of torture which
Omniscient vengeance could invent, immortal agony.
Jesus Christ opposed with earnest eloquence the panic
fears and hateful superstitions which have enslaved man-
kind for ages. Nations had risen against nations, employ-
ing the subtlest devices of mechanism and mind to
waste, and excruciate, and overthrow. The great community
of mankind had been subdivided into ten thousand
94 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
each organized for the ruin of the other. Wheel
within wheel, the vast machine was instinct with the
restless spirit of desolation. Pain had been inflicted ;
therefore, pain should be inflicted in return. Retaliation
of injuries is the only remedy which can be applied to
violence, because it teaches the injurer the true nature of
his own conduct, and operates as a warning against its
repetition. Nor must the same measure of calamity be
returned as was received. If a man borrows a certain sum
from me, he is bound to repay that sum. Shall no more be
required of the enemy who destroys my reputation, or
ravages my fields ? It is just that he should suffer ten
times the loss which he has inflicted, that the legitimate
consequences of his deed may never be obliterated from his
remembrance, and that others may clearly discern and feel
the danger of invading the peace of human society. Such
reasonings, and the impetuous feelings arising from them,
have armed nation against nation, family against family,
man against man.
An Athenian soldier, in the Ionian army which had
assembled for the purpose of vindicating the liberty of the
Asiatic Greeks, accidentally set fire to Sardis. The city,
being composed of combustible materials, was burned to
the ground. The Persians believed that this circumstance
of aggression made it their duty to retaliate on Athens.
They assembled successive expeditions on the most exten-
sive scale. Every nation of the East was united to ruin
the Grecian States. Athens was burned to the ground, the
whole territory laid waste, and every living thing which
it contained [destroyed]. After suffering and inflicting
incalculable mischiefs, they desisted from their purpose only
when they became impotent to effect it. The desire of
revenge for the aggression of Persia outlived, among the
ESSA V ON CHRISTIANITY. 95
Greeks, that love of liberty which had been their most
glorious distinction among the nations of mankind ; and
Alexander became the instrument of its completion. The
mischiefs attendant on this consummation of fruitless ruin
are too manifold and too tremendous to be related. If all
the thought which had been expended on the construction
of engines of agony and death — the modes of aggression
and defence, the raising of armies, and the acquirement of
those arts of tyranny and falsehood without which mixed
multitudes could neither be led nor governed — had been
employed to promote the true welfare and extend the real
empire of man, how different would have been the present
situation of human society I how different the state of
knowledge in physical and moral science, upon which the
power and happiness of mankind essentially depend !
What nation has the example of the desolation of Attica
by Mardonius and Xerxes, or the extinction of the Persian
empire by Alexander of Macedon, restrained from outrage?
Was not the pretext of this latter system of spoliation
derived immediately from the former? Had revenge in
this instance any other effect than to increase, instead of
diminishing, the mass of malice and evil already existing
in the world ?
The emptiness and folly of retaliation are apparent from
every example which can be brought forward. Not only
Jesus Christ, but the most eminent professors of every sect
of philosophy, have reasoned against this futile superstition.
Legislation is, in one point of view, to be considered as an
attempt to provide against the excesses of this deplorable
mistake. It professes to assign the penalty of all private
injuries, and denies to individuals the right of vindicating
their proper cause. This end is certainly not attained
without some accommodation to the propensities which it
96 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
desires to destroy. Still, it recognises no principle but the
production of the greatest eventual good with the least
immediate injury ; and regards the torture, or the death, of
any human being as unjust, of whatever mischief he may
have been the author, so that the result shall not more than
compensate for the immediate pain.
Mankind, transmitting from generation to generation
the legacy of accumulated vengeances, and pursuing with
the feelings of duty the misery of their fellow-beings, have
not failed to attribute to the Universal Cause a character
analogous with their own. The image of this invisible,
mysterious Being is more or less excellent and perfect —
resembles more or less its original — in proportion to the
perfection of the mind on which it is impressed. Thus,
that nation which has arrived at the highest step in the
scale of moral progression will believe most purely in that
God, the knowledge of whose real attributes is considered
as the firmest basis of the true religion. The reason of the
belief of each individual, also, will be so far regulated by
his conceptions of what is good. Thus, the conceptions
which any nation or individual entertains of the God of its
popular worship may be inferred from their own actions
and opinions, which are the subjects of their approbation
among their fellow-men. Jesus Ohrist instructed his dis-
ciples to be perfect, as their Father in Heaven is perfect,
declaring at the same time his belief that human perfection
requires the refraining from revenge and retribution in any
of its various shapes.
The perfection of the human and the divine character is
thus asserted to be the same. Man, by resembling God,
fulfils most accurately the tendencies of his nature : and
God comprehends within himself all that constitutes human
perfection. Thus, God is a model through which the
ESS A y ON CHRISTIANITY. 97
excellence of man is to be estimated, whilst the abstract
perfection of the human character is the type of the actual
perfection of the divine. It is not to be believed that a
person of such comprehensive views as Jesus Christ could
have fallen into so manifest a contradiction as to assert that
men would be tortured after death by that Being whose
character is held up as a model to human kind, because he
is incapable of malevolence and revenge. All the argu-
ments which have been brought forward to justify
retribution fail, when retribution is destined neither to
operate as an example to other agents, nor to the offender
himself. How feeble such reasoning is to be considered,
has been already shown ; but it is the character of an evil
Daemon to consign the beings whom he has endowed with
sensation to unprofitable anguish. The peculiar circum-
stances attendant on the conception of God casting sinners
to burn in Hell for ever, combine to render that conception
the most perfect specimen of the greatest imaginable crime.
Jesus Christ represented God as the principle of all good,
the source of all happiness, the wise and benevolent Creator
and Preserver of all living things. But the interpreters of his
doctrines have confounded the good and the evil principle.
They observe the emanations of their universal natures to
be inextricably entangled in the world, and, trembling
before the power of the cause of all things, addressed to it
such flattery as is acceptable to the ministers of human
tyranny, attributing love and wisdom to those energies
which they felt to be exerted indifferently for the purposes
of benefit and calamity.
Jesus Christ expressly asserts that distinction between
the good and evil principle which it has been the practice
of all theologians to confound. How far his doctrines, or
their interpretation, may be true, it would scarcely have
98 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
been worth while to inquire, if the one did not afford an
example and an incentive to the attainment of true virtue,
whilst the other holds out a sanction and apology for every
species of mean and cruel vice.
It cannot be precisely ascertained in what degree Jesus
Christ accommodated his doctrines to the opinions of his
auditors; or in what degree he really said all that he is
related to have said. He has left no written record of
himself, and we are compelled to judge from the imperfect
and obscure information which his biographers (persona
certainly of very undisciplined and undiscriminating minds)
have transmitted to posterity. These writers (our only
guides) impute sentiments to Jesus Christ which flatly
contradict each other. They represent him as narrow,
superstitious, and exquisitely vindictive and malicious.
They insert, in the midst of a strain of impassioned
eloquence or sagest exhortations, a sentiment only remark-
able for its naked and drivelling folly. But it is not
difficult to distinguish the inventions by which these
historians have filled up the interstices of tradition, or
corrupted the simplicity of truth, from the real character of
their rude amazement. They have left sufficiently clear
indications of the genuine character of Jesus Christ to
rescue it for ever from the imputations cast upon it by
their ignorance and fanaticism. We discover that he is
the enemy of oppression and of falsehood ; that he is the
advocate of equal justice ; that he is neither disposed to
sanction bloodshed nor deceit ; under whatsoever pretences
their practice may be vindicated. We discover that he
was a man of weak and majestic demeanour, calm in
danger ; of natural and simple thought and habits ; beloved
to adoration by his adherents ; unmoved, solemn, and
ESSA V ON CtiRiSTlANlTV. 99
It is utterly incredible that this man said, that if you
hate your enemy, you would find it to your account to
return him good for evil, since, by such a temporary
oblivion of vengeance, you would heap coals of fire on his
head. Where such contradictions occur, a favourable con-
struction is warranted by the general innocence of manners
and comprehensiveness of views which he is represented
to possess. The rule of criticism to be adopted in judging
of the life, actions, and words of a man who has acted any
conspicuous part in the revolutions of the world, should not
be narrow. We ought to form a general image of his
character and of his doctrines, and refer to this whole the
distinct portions of actions and speech by which they are
diversified. It is not here asserted that no contradictions
are to be admitted to have taken place in the system
of Jesus Christ, between doctrines promulgated in different
states of feeling or information, or even such as are implied
in the enunciation of a scheme of thought, various and
obscure through its immensity and depth. It is not
asserted that no degree of human indignation ever hurried
him, beyond the limits which his calmer mood had placed,
to disapprobation against vice and folly Those deviations
from the history of his life are alone to be vindicated,
which represent his own essential character in contradiction
with itself.
Every human mind has what Bacon calls its " idola
speeds " — peculiar images which reside in the inner cave of
thought. These constitute the essential and distinctive
character of every human being ; to which every action and
every word have intimate relation ; and by which, in
depicting a character, the genuineness and meaning of
these words and actions are to be determined. Every
fanatic or enemy of virtue is not at liberty to misrepresent
loo ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
the greatest geniuses and most heroic defenders of all that
is valuable in this mortal world. History, to gain any
credit, must contain some truth, and that truth shall thus
be made a sufficient indication of prejudice and deceit.
"With respect to the miracles which these biographers
have related, I have already declined to enter into any
discussion on their nature or their existence. The sup
position of their falsehood or their truth would modify in
no degree the hues of the picture which is attempted to be
delineated. To judge truly of the moral and philosophical
character of Socrates, it is not necessary to determine the
question of the familiar Spirit which [it] is supposed that
he believed to attend on him. The power of the human
mind, relatively to intercourse with or dominion over the
invisible world, is doubtless an interesting theme of dis-
cussion ; but the connection of the instance of Jesus Christ
with the established religion of the country in which I
write, renders it dangerous to subject oneself to the imputa-
tion of introducing new Gods or abolishing old ones ; nor
is the duty of mutual forbearance sufficiently understood to
render it certain that the metaphysician and the moralist,
even though he carefully sacrifice a cock to Esculapius,
may not receive something analogous to the bowl of hem-
lock for the reward of his labours. Much, however, of
what his [Christ's] biographers have asserted is not to be
rejected merely because inferences inconsistent with the
general spirit of his system are to be adduced from its
admission. Jesus Christ did what every other reformer
who has produced any considerable effect upon the world has
done. He accommodated his doctrines to the preposses-
sions of those whom he addressed. He used a language
for this view sufficiently familiar to our comprehensions.
He said — However new or strange my doctrines may
ESSA V ON CHRISTIANITY. loi
appear to you, they are in fact only the restoration and
re-establishment of those original institutions and ancient
customs of your own law and religion. The constitutions
of your faith and policy, although perfect in their origin,
have become corrupt and altered, and have fallen into
decay. I profess to restore them to their pristine authority
and splendour. " Think not that I am come to destroy the
Law and the Prophets. I am come not to destroy, but to
fulfil. Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or
one tittle shall in nowise pass away from the Law, till
all be fulfilled." Thus, like a skilful orator (see Cicero,
De Orator e)^ he secures the prejudices of his auditors, and
induces them, by his professions of sympathy with their
feelings, to enter with a willing mind into the exposition of
his own. The art of persuasion differs from that of reason-
ing ; and it is of no small moment, to the success even of a
true cause, that the judges who are to determine on its
merits should be free from those national and religious
predilections which render the multitude both deaf and
blind.
Let not this practice oe considered as an unworthy
artifice. It were best for the cause of reason that mankind
should acknowledge no authority but its own ; but it is
useful, to a certain extent, that they should not consider
those institutions which they have been habituated to
reverence as opposing an obstacle to its admission. All
reformers have been compelled to practice this mis-
representation of their own true feelings and opinions. It
is deeply to be lamented that a word should ever issue from
human lips which contains the minutest alloy of dissimula-
tion, or simulation, or hyprocrisy, or exaggeration, or
anything but the precise and rigid image which is present
to the mind, and which ought to dictate the expression.
I02 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS,
But the practice of utter sincerity towards other men
would avail to no good end, if they were incapable of
practising it towards their own minds. In fact, truth
cannot be communicated until it is perceived. The interests,
therefore, of truth require that an orator should, as far as
possible, produce in his hearers that state of mind on which
alone his exhortations could fairly be contemplated and
examined.
Having produced this favourable disposition of mind,
Jesus Christ proceeds to qualify, and finally to abrogate,
the system of the Jewish law. He descants upon its
insufficiency as a code of moral conduct, which it professed
to be, and absolutely selects the law of retaliation as an
instance of the absurdity and immorality of its institutions.
The conclusion of the speech is in a strain of the most
daring and most impassionate speculation. He seems
emboldened by the success of his exculpation to the
multitude, to declare in public the utmost singularity of his
faith. He tramples upon all received opinions, on all the
cherished luxuries and superstitions of mankind. He bids
them cast aside the claims of custom and blind faith by
which they have been encompassed from the very cradle of
their being, and receive the imitator and minister of the
Universal God.
Equality op Mankind.
" The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
chosen me to preach the gospel to the poor : He hath sent
me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at
liberty them that are bruised." (Luke, ch. iv., ver. 18.)
This is an enunciation of all that Plato and Diogenes have
speculated upon the equality of mankind. They saw that
ESS A V ON CHRISTIANITY. 103
the great majority of the human species were reduced to
the situation of squalid ignorance and moral imbecility, for
the purpose of purveying for the luxury of a few, and
contributing to the satisfaction of their thirst for power.
Too mean-spirited and too feeble in resolve to attempt the
conquest of their own evil passions and of the difficulties of
the material world, men sought dominion over their fellow-
men, as an easy method to gain that apparent majesty and
power which the instinct of their nature requires. Plato
wrote the scheme of a republic, in which law should watch
over the equal distribution of the external instruments of
unequal power — honours, property etc. Diogenes devised
a nobler and a more worthier system of opposition to the
system of the slave and tyrant. He said : " It is in the
power of each individual to level the inequality which is
the topic of the complaint of mankind. Let him be aware
of his own worth, and the station which he occupies in the
scale of moral beings. Diamonds and gold, palaces and
sceptres, derive their value from the opinion of mankind.
The only sumptuary law which can be imposed on the use
and fabrication of these instruments of mischief and deceit,
these symbols of successful injustice, is the law of opinion.
Every man possesses the power, in this respect, to legislate
for himself. Let him be well aware of his own worth and
moral dignity. Let him yield in meek reverence to any
wiser or worthier than he, so long as he accords no
veneration to the splendour of his apparel, the luxury of his
food, the multitude of his flatterers and slaves. It is
because, mankind, ye value and seek the empty pageantry
of wealth and social power, that ye are enslaved to its
possessions. Decrease your physical wants ; learn to live,
so far as nourishment and shelter are concerned, like the
beast of the forest and the birds of the air ; ye will need
I04 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
not to complain, that other individuals of your species are
surrounded by the diseases of luxury and the vices of
subserviency and oppression." With all those who are
truly wise, there will be an entire community, not only of
thoughts and feelings, but also of external possessions.
Insomuch, therefore, as ye live [wisely], ye may enjoy the
community of whatsoever benefits arise from the inventions
of civilized life. They are of value only for purposes of
mental power ; they are of value only as they are capable
of being shared and applied to the common advantage of
philosophy 3 and if there be no love among men, whatever
institutions they may frame must be subservient to the
same purpose — ^to the continuance of inequality. If there
be no love among men, it is best that he who sees through
the hollowness of their professions should fly from their
society, and suffice to his own soul. In wisdom, he will
thus lose nothing ; in power, he will gain everything. In
proportion to the love existing among men, so will be the
community of property and power. Among true and real
friends, all is common ; and, were ignorance and envy and
superstition banished from the world, all mankind would be
friends. The only perfect and genuine republic is that
which comprehends every living being. Those distinctions
which have been artificially set up, of nations, societies,
families, and religions, are only general names, expressing
the abhorrence and contempt with which men blindly
consider their fellow-men. I love my country ; I love the
city in which I was born, my parents, my wife, and the
children of my care ; and to this city, this woman, and this
nation it is incumbent on me to do all the benefit in my
power. To what do these distinctions point, but to an
evident denial of the duty which humanity imposes on
you, of doing every possible good to every individual, under
ESSAY ON CHRISTIANITY, 105
whatever denomination he may be comprehended, to whom
you have the power of doing it ? You ought to love all
mankind ; nay, every individual of mankind. You ought
not to love the individuals of your domestic circle less, but
to love those who exist beyond it more. Once make the
feelings of confidence and of affection universal, and the
distinctions of property and power will vanish ; nor are
they to be abolished without substituting something
equivalent in mischief to them, until all mankind shall
acknowledge an entire community of rights.
But, as the shades of night are dispelled by the faintest
glimmerings of dawn, so shall the minutest progress of the
benevolent feelings disperse, in some degree, the gloom
of tyranny, and [curb the] ministers of mutual suspicion
and abhorrence. Your physical wants are few, whilst
those of your mind and heart cannot be numbered or
described, from their multitude and complication. To
secure the gratification of the former, you have made
yourselves the bond-slaves of each other.
They have cultivated these meaner wants to so great an
excess as to judge nothing so valuable or desirable [as]
what relates to their gratification. Hence has arisen a
system of passions which loses sight of the end they were
originally awakened to attain. Fame, power, and gold, are
loved for their own sakes — are worshipped with a blind,
habitual idolatry. The pageantry of empire, and the fame
of irresistible might, are contemplated by the possessor
with unmeaning complacency, without a retrospect to the
properties which first made him consider them of value. It
is from the cultivation of the most contemptible properties
of human nature that discord and torpor and indifference,
by which the moral universe is disordered, essentially
depend. So long as these are the ties by which human
io6 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
society is connected, let it not be admitted that they are
fragile.
Before man can be free, and equal, and truly wise, he
must cast aside the chains of habit and superstition; he
must strip sensuality of its pomp, and selfishness of its
excuses, and contemplate actions and objects as they
really are. He will discover the wisdom of universal
love; he will feel the meanness and the injustice of
sacrificing the reason and the liberty of his fellow-men
to the indulgence of his physical appetites, and becom-
ing a party to their degradation by the consummation of
his own.
Such, with those differences only incidental to the age
and state of society in which they were promulgated, appear
to have been the doctrines of Jesus Christ. It is not too
much to assert that they have been the doctrines of every
just and compassionate mind that ever speculated on the
social nature of man. The dogma of the equality of man-
kind has been advocated, with various success, in different
ages of the world. It was imperfectly understood, but a
kind of instinct in its favour influenced considerably the
practice of ancient Greece and Home. Attempts to
establish usages founded on this dogma have been made in
modern Europe, in several instances, since the revival of
literature and the arts. Rousseau has vindicated this
opinion with all the eloquence of sincere and earnest faith ;
and is, perhaps, the philosopher among the moderns who, in
the structure of his feelings and understanding, resembles
most nearly the mysterious sage of Judea. It is impossible
to read those passionate words in which Jesus Christ
upbraids the pusillanimity and sensuality of mankind,
without being strongly reminded of the more connected
and systematic enthusiasm of Rousseau. " No man,"
ESS A V ON CHRISTIANITY. 107
Bays Jesus Christ, " can serve two masters. Take, there-
fore, no thought for to-morrow, for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil "^thereof." If we would profit by the
wisdom of a sublime and poetical mind, we must beware of
the vulgar error of interpreting literally every expression it
employs. Nothing can well be more remote from truth
than the literal and strict construction of such expressions
as Jesus Christ delivers, or than [to imagine that] it were
best for man that he should abandon all his acquirements
in physical and intellectual science, and depend on the
spontaneous productions of nature for his subsistence.
Nothing is more obviously false than that the remedy for
the inequality among men consists in their return to the
condition of savages and beasts. Philosophy will never be
understood if we approach the study of its mysteries with
BO narrow and illiberal conceptions of its universality.
Rousseau certainly did not mean to persuade the immense
population of his country to abandon all the arts of life,
destroy their habitations and their temples, and become the
inhabitants of the woods. He addressed the most
enlightened of his compatriots, and endeavoured to
persuade them to set the example of a pure and simple life,
by placing in the strongest point of view his conceptions of
the calamitous and diseased aspect which, overgrown as it
is with the vices of sensuality and selfishness, is exhibited
by civilized society. Nor can it be believed that Jesus
Christ endeavoured to prevail on the inhabitants of
Jerusalem neither to till their fields, nor to frame a shelter
against the sky, nor to provide food for the morrow. He
simply exposes, with the passionate rhetoric of enthusiastic
love towards all human beings, the miseries and mischiefs
of that system which makes all things subservient to the
lo8 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
subsistence of the material frame of man. He warns them
that no man can serve two masters — God and Mammon ;
that it is impossible at once to be high-minded and just and
wise, and to comply with the accustomed forms of human
society, seek power, wealth, or empire, either from the
idolatry of habit, or as the direct instruments of sensual
gratification. He instructs them that clothing and food
and shelter are not, as they suppose, the true end of human
life, but only certain means, to be valued in proportion to
their subserviency to that end. These means it is right of
every human being to possess, and that in the same degree.
In this respect, the fowls of the air and the lilies of
the field are examples for the imitation of mankind. They
are clothed and fed by the Universal God. Permit, there-
fore, the Spirit of this benignant Principle to visit your
intellectual frame, or, in other words, become just and pure.
When you understand the degree of attention which the
requisitions of your physical nature demand, you will
perceive how little labour suffices for their satisfaction.
Your heavenly Father knoweth you have need of these
things. The universal Harmony, or Reason, which makes
your passive frame of thought its dwelling, in proportion to
the purity and majesty of its nature will instruct you, if ye
are willing to attain that exalted condition, in what
manner to possess all the objects necessary for
your material subsistence. All men are [impelled] to
become thus pure and happy. All men are called to
participate in the community of Nature's gifts. The man
who has fewest bodily wants approaches nearest to the
Divine Nature. Satisfy these wants at the cheapest rate,
and expend the remaining energies of your nature in the
attainment of virtue and knowledge. The mighty frame
pf the wonderful and lovely world 19 the food of your
ESS A Y ON CHRISTIANITY, 109
contemplation, and living beings who resemble your
own nature, and are bound to you by similarity of sensa-
tions, are destined to be the nutriment of your affection ;
united, they are the consummation of the widest hopes your
mind can contain. Ye can expend thus no labour on
mechanism consecrated to luxury and pride. How abun-
dant will not be your progress in all that truly ennobles
and extends human nature ! By rendering yourselves thus
worthy, ye will be as free in your imaginations as the swift
and many-coloured fowls of the air, and as beautiful in pur*
simplicity as the lilies of the field. In proportion as man-
kind becomes wise — yes, in exact proportion to that
wisdom — should be the extinction of the unequal system
under which they now subsist. Government is, in fact,
the mere badge of their depravity. They are so little aware
of the inestimable benefits of mutual love as to indulge,
without thought, and almost without motive, in the worst
excesses of selfishness and malice. Hence, without gradu-
ating human society into a scale of empire and subjection,
its very existence has become impossible. It is necessary
that universal .benevolence should supersede the regula-
tions of precedent and prescription, before these regulations
can safely be abolished. Meanwhile, their very subsistence
depends on the system of injustice and violence which they
have been devised to palliate. They suppose men endowed
with the power of deliberating and determining for their
equals ; whilst these men, as frail and as ignorant as the
multitude whom they rule, possess, as a practical conse-
quence of this power, the right which they of necessity
exercise to prevent (together with their own) the physical
and moral and intellectual nature of all mankind.
It is the object of wisdom to equalize the distinctions on
which this power depends, by exhibiting in their proper
no ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
worthlessness the objects, a contention concerning wKich
renders its existence a necessary evil. The evil, in fact,
is virtually abolished wherever justice is practised ; and it
is abolished in precise proportion to the prevalence of true
virtue.
The whole frame of human things is infected by an
insidious poison. Hence it is that man is blind in his
understanding, corrupt in his moral sense, and diseased in
his physical functions. The wisest and most sublime of
the ancient poets saw this truth, and embodied their con-
ception of its value in retrospect to the earliest ages of
mankind. They represented equality as the reign of Saturn,
and taught that mankind had gradually degenerated from
the virtue which enabled them to enjoy or maintain this
happy state. Their doctrine was philosophically false.
Later and more correct observations have instructed us
that uncivilized man is the most pernicious and miserable
of beings, and that the violence and injustice, which are the
genuine indications of real inequality, obtain in the society
of these beings without palliation. Their imaginations of a
happier state of human society were referred, in truth, to
the Saturnian period ; they ministered, indeed, to thoughts
of despondency and sorrow. But they were the children
of airy hope — the prophets and parents of man's futurity.
Man was once as a wild beast ; he has become a moralist, a
metaphysician, a poet, and an astronomer. Lucretius or
Yirgil might have referred the comparison to themselves j
and, as a proof of the progress of the nature of man,
challenged a comparison with the cannibals of Scythia.*
The experience of the ages which have intervened between
the present period and that in which Jesus Christ taught,
tends to prove his doctrine, and to illustrate theirs. There
* Jesus Christ foresaw what the poets retrospectively imagined.
ESS A Y ON CHRIS TIANITY. 1 1 1
is more equality because there is more justice, and there is
more justice because there is more universal knowledge.
To the accomplishment of such mighty hopes were the
views of Jesus Christ extended ; such did he believe to be
the tendency of his doctrines — the abolition of artificial
distinctions among mankind, so far as the love which it
becomes all human beings to bear towards each other, and
the knowledge of truth from which that love will never fail
to be produced, avail to their destruction. A young man
came to Jesus Christ, struck by the miraculous dignity and
simplicity of his character, and attracted by the words
of power which he uttered. He demanded to be considered
as one of the followers of his creed. " Sell all that thou
hast," replied the philosopher; "give it to the poor, and
follow me." But the young man had large possessions, and
he went away sorrowing.
The system of equality was attempted, after Jesus
Christ's death, to be carried into efiect by his followers.
" They that believed had all things in common ; they sold
their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as
every man had need ; and they continued daily with one
accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to
house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of
heart." (Acts, ch. ii.)
The practical application of the doctrines of strict justice
to a state of society established in its contempt, was such
as might have been expected. After the transitory glow of
enthusiasm had faded from the minds of men, precedent and
habit resumed their empire ; they broke like a universal
deluge on one shrinking and solitary island. Men to
whom birth had allotted ample possession, looked with
complacency on sumptuous apartments and luxurious food,
and those ceremonials of delusive majesty which surround
112 ESSA VS AND FRAGMENTS.
the throne of power and the court of wealth. Men from
whom these things were withheld by their condition, began
again to gaze with stupid envy on pernicious splendour ;
and, by desiring the false greatness of another's state, to
sacrifice the intrinsic dignity of their own. The dema-
gogues of the infant republic of the Christian sect, attaining,
through eloquence or artifice, to influence amongst its
members, first violated (under the pretence of watching
over their integrity) the institutions established for the
common and equal benefit of all. These demagogues
artfully silenced the voice of the moral sense among
them by engaging them to attend, not so much to the
cultivation of a virtuous and happy life in this mortal
scene, as to the attainment of a fortunate condition after
death ; not so much to the consideration of those means
by which the state of man is adorned and improved, as an
inquiry into the secrets of the connexion between God and
the world — things which, they well knew, were not to be
explained, or even to be conceived. The system of equality
which they established necessarily fell to the ground,
because it is a system that must result from, rather than
precede, the moral improvement of human kind. It was a
circumstance of no moment that the first adherents of the
system of Jesus Christ cast their property into a common
stock. The same degree of real community of property
could have subsisted without this formality, which served
only to extend a temptation of dishonesty to the treasurers
of so considerable a patrimony. Every man, in proportion
to his virtue, considers himself, with respect to the great
community of mankind, as the steward and guardian of
their interests in the property which he chances to possess.
Every man. in proportion to his wisdom, sees the manner
in which it is his duty to employ the resources which the
SPECULA TIONS ON METAPHYSICS. \ t3
consent of mankind has intrusted to his discretion. Such
is the [annihilation] of the unjust inequality of powers and
conditions existing in the world; and so gradually and
inevitably is the progress of equality accommodated to the
progress of wisdom and of virtue among mankind.
Meanwhile, some benefit has not failed to flow from the
imperfect attempts which have been made to erect a system
of equal rights to property and power upon the basis of
arbitrary institutions. They have undoubtedly, in every
case, from the instability of their formation, failed. Still,
they constitute a record of those epochs at which a true
sense of justice suggested itself to the understandings of
men, so that they consented to forego all the cherished
delights of luxury, all the habitual gratifications arising out
of the possession or the expectation of power, all the
superstitions with which the accumulated authority of ages
had made them dear and venerable. They are so many
trophies erected in the enemy's land, to mark the limits of
the victorious progress of truth and justice.
[the rest is wanting.]
SPECULATIONS ON METAPHYSICS.
I. THE MIND.
I. It is an axiom in mental philosophy, that we can think
of nothing which we have not perceived. When I say that
we can think of nothing, I mean, we can imagine nothing,
we can reason of nothing. The most astonishing combina-
tions of poetry, the subtlest deductions of logic and mathe-
^Kmatics, are no other than combinations which the intellect
m
1 14 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
makes of sensations according to its own laws. A catalogue
of all the thoughts of the mind, and of all their possible
modifications, is a cyclopedic history of the universe.
But, it will be objected, the inhabitants of the various
planets of this and other solar systems ; and the existence
of a Power bearing the same relation to all that we perceive
and are, as what we call a cause does to what we call effect,
were never subjects of sensation, and yet the laws of mind
almost universally suggest, according to the various dis-
position of each, a conjecture, a persuasion, or a conviction
of their existence. The reply is simple ; these thoughts are
also to be included in the catalogue of existence ; they are
modes in which thoughts are combined ; the objection only
adds force to the conclusion, that beyond the limits of
perception and thought nothing can exist.
Thoughts, or ideas, or notions, call them what you will,
differ from each other, not in kind, but in force. It has
commonly been supposed that those distinct thoughts which
affect a number of persons, at regular intervals, during the
passage of a multitude of other thoughts, which are called
real, or external objects, are totally different in kind from
those which affect only a few persons, and which recur at
irregular intervals, and are usually more obscure and
indistinct, such as hallucinations, dreams, and the ideas of
madness. No essential distinction between any one of these
ideas, or any class of them, is founded on a correct observa-
tion of the nature of things, but merely on a consideration
of what thoughts are most invariably subservient to the
security and happiness of life ; and if nothing more were
expressed by the distinction, the philosopher might safely
accommodate his language to that of the vulgar. But they
pretend to assert an essential difference, which has no
foundation in truth, and which suggests a narrow and false
SPECULA TIONS ON METAPHYSICS. 1 1 5
conception of universal nature, the parent of the most fatal
errors in speculation. A specific difierence between every
thought of the mind, is, indeed, a necessary consequence of
that law by which it perceives diversity and number ; but a
generic and essential difference is wholly arbitrary. The
principle of the agreement and similarity of all thoughts, is,
that they are all thoughts ; the principle of their disagree-
ment consists in the variety and irregularity of the occasions
on which they arise in the mind. That in which they agree,
to that in which they differ, is as everything to nothing.
Important distinctions, of various degrees of force, indeed,
are to be established between them, if they were, as they
may be, subjects of ethical and oeconomical discussion ; but
that is a question altogether distinct.
By considering all knowledge as bounded by perception,
whose operations may be indefinitely combined, we arrive at
a conception of Nature inexpressibly more magnificent,
simple and true, than accords with the ordinary systems of
complicated and partial consideration. Nor does a con-
templation of the universe, in this comprehensive and
synthetical view, exclude the subtlest analysis of its
modifications and parts.
1
A scale might be formed, graduated according to the
degrees of a combined ratio of intensity, duration, con-
nection, periods of recurrence, and utility, which would be
the standard, according to which all ideas might be measured,
and an uninterrupted chain of nicely shadowed distinctions
would be observed, from the faintest impression on the
senses, to the most distinct combination of those impressions ;
from the simplest of those combinations, to that mass of
knowledge which, including our own nature, constitutes
what we call the universe.
Ii6 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
We are intuitively conscious of our own existence, and of
that connection in the train of our successive ideas, which
we term our identity. We are conscious also of the exist-
ence of other minds; but not intuitively. Our evidence,
with respect to the existence of other minds, is founded upon
a very complicated relation of ideas, which it is foreign to
the purpose of this treatise to anatomise. The basis of this
relation is, undoubtedly, a periodical recurrence of masses of
ideas, which our voluntary determinations have, in one
peculiar direction, no power to circumscribe or to arrest, and
against the recurrence of which they can only imperfectly
provide. The irresistible laws of thought constrain us to
believe that the precise limits of our actual ideas are not the
actual limits of possible ideas ; the law, according to which
these deductions are drawn, is called analogy ; and this is
the foundation of all our inferences, from one idea to another,
inasmuch as they resemble each other.
We see trees, houses, fields, living beings in our own
shape, and in shapes more or less analogous to our own.
These are perpetually changing the mode of their existence
relatively to us. To express the varieties of these modes,
we say, we move, they move ; and as this motion is continual,
though not uniform, we express our conception of the
diversities of its course by — it has been, it is, it shall be.
These diversities are events or objects, and are essential,
considered relatively to human identity, for the existence of
the human mind. For if the inequalities, produced by
what has been termed the operations of the external universe,
were levelled by the perception of our being, uniting,
and filling up their interstices, motion and mensuration.
SPECULATIONS ON METAPHYSICS. 117
and time, and space ; the elements of the human mind
being thus abstracted, sensation and imagination cease.
Mind cannot be considered pure.
II. — WHAT METAPHYSICS ARE. ERRORS IN THE USUAL
METHODS OF CONSIDERING THEM.
We do not attend sufficiently to what passes within
ourselves. We combine words, combined a thousand times
before. In our minds we assume entire opinions ; and in
the expression of those opinions, entire phrases, when we
would philosophise. Our whole style of expression and
sentiment is infected with the tritest plagiarisms. Our
words are dead, our thoughts are cold and borrowed.
Let us contemplate facts; let us, in the great study of
ourselves, resolutely compel the mind to a rigid consideration
of itself. We are not content with conjecture, and
inductions, and syllogisms, in sciences regarding external
objects. As in these, let us also, in considering the
phenomena of mind, severely collect those facts which cannot
be disputed. Metaphysics will thus possess this conspicuous
advantage over every other science, that each student, by
attentively referring to his own mind, may ascertain the
authorities upon which any assertions regarding it are
supported. There can thus be no deception, we ourselves
being the depositories of the evidence of the subject which
we consider.
Metaphysics may be defined as an inquiry concerning
those things belonging to, or connected with, the internal
nature of man.
It is said that mind produces motion ; and it might as
well have been said, that motion produces mind.
1 1 8 ESS A VS AND FRA GMENTS,
III. — DIFFICULTY OF ANALYZING THE HUMAN MIND.
If it were possible that a person should give a faithful
history of his being, from the earliest epochs of his
recollection, a picture would be presented such as the world
has never contemplated before. A mirror would be held up
to all men in which they might behold their own recollections,
and, in dim perspective, their shadowy hopes and fears, —
all that they dare not, or that daring and desiring, they
could not expose to the open eyes of day. But thought can
with difficulty visit the intricate and winding chambers
which it inhabits. It is like a river whose rapid and
perpetual stream flows outward ; — like one in dread who
speeds through the recesses of some haunted pile,
and dares not look behind. The caverns of the mind are
obscure, and shadowy ; or pervaded with a lustre,
beautifully bright indeed, but shining not beyond their
portals. If it were possible to be where we have been,
vitally and indeed — if, at the moment of our presence there,
we could define the results of our experience — if the passage
from sensation to reflection — from a state of passive per-
ception to voluntary contemplation, were not so dizzying and
so tumultuous, this attempt would be less difficult.
IV. — HOW THE ANALYSIS SHOULD BE CARRIED ON.
Most of the errors of philosophers have arisen from con-
sidering the human being in a point of view too detailed
and circumscribed. He is not a moral and an intellectual,
— but also, and pre-eminently, an imaginative being. His
own mind is his law ; his own mind is all things to him.
If we would arrive at any knowledge which should be
serviceable from the practical conclusions to which it leads,
we ought to consider the mind of man and the universe as
SPECULA TIONS ON ME TAPHYSICS, 1 19
the great whole on which to exercise our speculations.
Here, above all, verbal disputes ought to be laid aside,
though this has long been their chosen field of battle. It
imports little to inquire whether thought be distinct from
the objects of thought. The use of the words external and
internal^ as applied to the establishment of this distinction,
has been the symbol and the source of much dispute. This
is merely an affair of words, and as the dispute deserves, to
say, that when speaking of the objects of thought, we
indeed only describe one of the forms of thought — or
that, speaking of thought, we only apprehend one of the
operations of the universal system of beings.
V. — CATALOGUE OF THE PHENOMENA OF DREAMS, AS
CONNECTING SLEEPING AND WAKING.
1. Let us reflect on our infancy, and give as faithfully as
possible a relation of the events of sleep.
And first I am bound to present a faithful picture of my
own peculiar nature relatively to sleep. I do not doubt
that were every individual to imitate me, it would be found
that among many circumstances peculiar to their individual
nature, a sufficiently general resemblance would be found to
prove the connection existing between those peculiarities
and the most universal phenomena. I shall employ caution,
indeed, as to the facts which I state, that they contain
nothing false or exaggerated. But they contain no more
than certain elucidations of my own nature ; concerning the
degree in which it resembles, or differs from, that of others,
I am by no means accurately aware. It is sufficient,
however, to caution the reader against drawing general
inferences from particular* instances.
I20 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
I omit the general instances of delusion in fever or
delirium, as well as mere dreams considered in themselves.
A delineation of this subject, however inexhaustible and
interesting, is to be passed over.
What is the connection of sleeping and of waking ?
2. I distinctly remember dreaming three several times,
between intervals of two or more years, the same precise
dream. It was not so much what is ordinarily called a
dream ; the single image, unconnected with all other images,
of a youth who was educated at the same school with
myself, presented itself in sleep. Even now, after the
lapse of many years, I can never hear the name of this
youth, without the three places where I dreamed of him
presenting themselves distinctly to my mind.
3. In dreams, images acquire associations peculiar to
dreaming ; so that the idea of a particular house, when it
recurs a second time in dreams, will have relation with the
idea of the same house, in the first time, of a nature
entirely different from that which the house excites, when
seen or thought of in relation to waking ideas.
4. I have beheld scenes, with the intimate and unaccount-
able connection of which with the obscure parts of my own
nature, I have been irresistibly impressed. I have beheld
a scene which has produced no unusual effect on my
thoughts. After the lapse of many years I have dreamed
of this scene. It has hung on my memory, it has haunted
my thoughts, at intervals, with the pertinacity of an object
connected with human affections. I have visited this
scene again. Neither the dream could be dissociated from
the landscape, nor the landscape from the dream, nor
SPECULATIONS ON METAPHYSICS. 121
feelings, such as neither singly could have awakened, from
both. But the most remarkable event of this nature, which
ever occurred to me, happened five years ago at Oxford.
I was walking with a friend, in the neighbourhood of that
city, engaged in earnest and interesting conversation. "We
suddenly turned the corner of a lane, and the view, which
its high banks and hedges had concealed, presented itself.
The view consisted of a windmill, standing in one among
many plashy meadows, enclosed with stone walls; the
irregular and broken ground, between the wall and the
road on which we stood ; a long low hill behind the wind-
mill, and a grey covering of uniform cloud spread over the
evening sky. It was that season when the last leaf had
just fallen from the scant and stunted ash. The scene
surely was a common scene ; the season and the hour little
calculated to kindle lawless thought ; it was a tame unin-
teresting assemblage of objects, such as would drive the
imagination for refuge in serious and sober talk, to the
evening fireside, and the dessert of winter fruits and wine.
The efiect which it produced on me was not such as could
have been expected. I suddenly remembered to have seen
that exact scene in some dream of long *
* H&re 1 was obliged to leave off, overcome hy thrilling horror. This
remark closes this fragment, which was written in 1815. I remember
well his coming to me from writing it, pale and agitated, to seek
refuge in conversation from the fearful emotions it excited. No man,
as these fragments prove, had such keen sensations as Shelley. His
nervous temperament was wound up by the delicacy of his health to
an intense degree of sensibility, and while his active mind pondered
for ever upon, and drew conclusions from his sensations, his reveries
increased their vivacity, till they mingled with, and made one with
thought, and both became absorbing and tumultuous, even to physical
pain. — M, S.
122 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS.
I.— PLAN OF A TREATISE ON MORALS.
That great science which regards nature and the
operations of the human mind, is popularly divided into
morals and metaphysics. The latter relates to a just
classification, and the assignment of distinct names to its
ideas ; the former regards simply the determination of that
arrangement of them which produces the greatest and most
solid happiness. It is admitted that a virtuous or moral
action, is that action which, when considered in all its acces-
sories and consequences, is fitted to produce the highest
pleasure to the greatest number of sensitive beings. The
laws according to which all pleasure, since it cannot be
equally felt by all sensitive beings, ought to be distributed
by a voluntary agent, are reserved for a separate chapter.
The design of this little treatise is restricted to the
development of the elementary principles of morals. As far
as regards that purpose, metaphysical science will be
treated merely so far as a source of negative truth ; whilst
morality will be considered as a science, respecting which
we can arrive at positive conclusions.
The misguided imaginations of men have rendered the
ascertaining of what is not true^ the principal direct service
which metaphysical science can bestow upon moral science.
Moral science itself is the doctrine of the voluntary actions
of man, as a sentient and social being. These actions
depend on the thoughts in his mind. But there is a mass
of popular opinion, from which the most enlightened persons
are seldom wholly free, into the truth or falsehood of which
it is incumbent on us to inquire, before we can arrive at
any firm conclusions as to the conduct which we ought to
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS. 123
pursue in the regulation of our own minds, or towards our
fellow-beings; or before we can ascertain the elementary
laws, according to which these thoughts, from which these
actions flow, are originally combined.
The object of the forms according to which human society
is administered, is the happiness of the individuals com-
posing the communities which they regard, and these forms
are perfect or imperfect in proportion to the degree in
which they promote this end.
This object is not merely the quantity of happiness
enjoyed by individuals as sensitive beings, but the mode in
which it should be distributed among them as social beings.
It is not enough, if such a coincidence can be conceived as
possible, that one person or class of persons should enjoy the
highest happiness, whilst another is sufiering a dispropor-
tionate degree of misery. It is necessary that the happi-
ness produced by the common efforts, and preserved by the
common care, should be distributed according to the just
claims of each individual ; if not, although the quantity
produced should be the same, the end of society would
remain unfulfilled. The object is in a compound proportion
to the quantity of happiness produced, and the corres-
pondence of the mode in which it is distributed, to the
elementary feelings of man as a social being.
The disposition in an individual to promote this object is
called virtue ; and the two constituent parts of virtue,
benevolence and justice, are correlative with these two
great portions of the only true object of all voluntary
actions of a human being. Benevolence is the desire to be
the author of good, and justice the apprehension of the
manner in which good ought to be done.
Justice and benevolence result from the elementary laws
of the human mind.
124 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS,
CHAPTER I.
ON THE NATURE OP VIRTUE.
Sect. 1. General View of the Nature and Objects of Virtue.— 2. The
Origin and Basis of Virtue, as founded on the Elementary
Principles of Mind. — 3. The Laws which flow from the nature of
Mind regulating the application of those principles to human
actions. — 4, Virtue, a possible attribute of man.
We exist in the midst of a multitude of beings like our-
selves, upon whose happiness most of our actions exert some
obvious and decisive influence.
The regulation of this influence is the object of moral
science.
We know that we are susceptible of receiving painful or
pleasurable impressions of greater or less intensity and
duration. That is called good which produces pleasure -^
that is called evil which produces pain. These are general
names applicable to every class of causes, from which an
overbalance of pain or pleasure may result. But when a
human being is the active instrument of generating or
diff'using happiness, the principle through which it is
most effectually instrumental to that purpose, is called
virtua And benevolence, or the desire to be the author of
good, united with justice, or an apprehension of the manner
in which that good is to be done, constitutes virtue.
But, wherefore should a man be benevolent and just?
The immediate emotions of his nature, especially in its
most inartificial state, prompt him to inflict pain, and to
arrogate dominion. He desires to heap superfluities to his
own store, although others perish with famine. He is pro-
pelled to guard against the smallest invasion of his own
liberty, though he reduces others to a condition of the most
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS. 125
pitiless servitude. He is revengeful, proud and selfish.
Wherefore should he curb these propensities %
It is inquired, for what reason a human being should
engage in procuring the happiness, or refrain from pro-
ducing the pain of another ^ When a reason is required to
prove the necessity of adopting any system of conduct,
what is it that the objector demands % He requires proof of
that system of conduct being such as will most effectually
promote the happiness of mankind. To demonstrate
this, is to render a moral reason. Such is the object of
Virtue.
A common sophism, which, like many others, depends on
the abuse of a metaphorical expression to a literal purpose,
has produced much of the confusion which has involved the
theory of morals. It is said that no person is bound to be
just or kind, if, on his neglect, he should fail to incur some
penalty. Duty is obligation. There can be no obligation
without an obliger. Virtue is a law, to which it is the will
of the lawgiver that we should conform ; which will we
should in no manner be bound to obey, unless some dread-
ful punishment were attached to disobedience. This is the
philosophy of slavery and superstition.
In fact, no person can be hound or obliged^ without some
power preceding to bind and oblige. If I observe a man
bound hand and foot, I know that some one bound him.
But if I observe him returning self-satisfied from the
performance of some action, by which he has been the
willing author of extensive benefit, I do not infer that the
anticipation of hellish agonies, or the hope of heavenly
reward, has constrained him to such an act.*
* A leaf of manuscript is wanting here, manifestly treating of self-
love and disinterestedness. — M. S.
126 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
It remains to be stated in what manner the sensations
which constitute the basis of virtue originate in the human
mind ; what are the laws which it receives there ; how far
the principles of mind allow it to be an attribute of a
human being; and, lastly, what is the probability of
persuading mankind to adopt it as a universal and
systematic motive of conduct.
BENEVOLENCE.
Theke is a class of emotions which we instinctively
avoid. A human being, such as is man considered in his
origin, a child a month old, has a very imperfect conscious-
ness of the existence of other natures resembling itself.
All the energies of its being are directed to the extinction
of the pains with which it is perpetually assailed. At
length it discovers that it is surrounded by natures
susceptible of sensations similar to its own. It is very late
before children attain to this knowledge. If a child
observes, without emotion, its nurse or its mother suffering
acute pain, it is attributable rather to ignorance than
insensibility. So soon as the accents and gestures,
significant of pain, are referred to the feelings which they
express, they awaken in the mind of the beholder a desire
that they should cease. Pain is thus apprehended to be
evil for its own sake, without any other necessary reference
to the mind by which its existence is perceived, than such
as is indispensable to its perception. The tendencies of our
original sensations, indeed, all have for their object the
preservation of our individual being. But these are
passive and unconscious. In proportion as the mind
acquires an active power, the empire of these tendencies
becomes limited. Thus an infant, a savage, and a solitary
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS. 127
beast, is selfish, because its mind is incapable of receiving
an accurate intimation of the nature of pain as existing in
beings resembling itself. The inhabitant of a highly-
civilised community will more acutely sympathise with the
sufierings and enjoyments of others, than the inhabitant of
a society of a less degree of civilisation. He who shall
have cultivated his intellectual powers by familiarity with
the highest specimens of poetry and philosophy, will usually
sympathise more than one engaged in the less refined
functions of manual labour. Every one has experience of
the fact, that to sympathise with the sufferings of another,
is to enjoy a transitory oblivion of his own.
The mind thus acquires, by exercise, a habit, as it were,
of perceiving and abhorring evil, however remote from the
immediate sphere of sensations with which that individual
mind is conversant. Imagination or mind employed in
prophetically imaging forth its objects, is that faculty of
human nature on which every gradation of its progress,
nay, every, the minutest, change, depends. Pain or
pleasure, if subtly analysed, will be found to consist
entirely in prospect. The only distinction between the
selfish man and the virtuous man is, that the imagination of
the former is confined within a narrow limit, whilst that of
the latter embraces a comprehensive circumstance. In this
sense, wisdom and virtue may be said to be inseparable,
and criteria of each other. Selfishness is the offspring of
ignorance and mistake ; it is the portion of unreflecting
infancy, and savage solitude, or of those whom toil or evil
occupations have blunted or rendered torpid ; disinterested
benevolence is the product of a cultivated imagination,
and has an intimate connexion with all the arts which add
ornament, or dignity, or power, or stability to the social
state of man. Virtue is thus entirely a refinement of
128 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
civilised life : a creation of the human mind ; or, rather, a
combination which it has made, according to elementary
rules contained within itself, of the feelings suggested by
the relations established between man and man.
All the theories which have refined and exalted
humanity, or those which have been devised as alleviations
of its mistakes and evils, have been based upon the
elementary emotions of disinterestedness, which we feel to
constitute the majesty of our nature. Patriotism, as it
existed in the ancient republics, was never, as has been
supposed, a calculation of personal advantages. When
Mutius Scsevola thrust his hand into the burning coals, and
Regulus returned to Carthage, and Epicharis sustained the
rack silently, in the torments of which she knew that she
would speedily perish, rather than betray the conspirators
to the tyrant ;* these illustrious persons certainly made a
small estimate of their private interest. If it be said that
they sought posthumous fame ; instances are not wanting
in history which prove that men have even defied infamy
for the sake of good. But there is a great error in
the world with respect to the selfishness of fame. It is
certainly possible that a person should seek distinction as a
medium of personal gratification. But the love of fame is
frequently no more than a desire that the feelings of others
should confirm, illustrate, and sympathise with, our own.
In this respect it is allied with all that draws us out
of ourselves. It is the "last infirmity of noble minds."
Chivalry was likewise founded on the theory of self-
sacrifice. Love possesses so extraordinary a power over the
human heart, only because disinterestedness is united with
the natural propensities. These propensities themselves
are comparatively impotent in cases where the imagination
* Tacitus.
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS. 129
of pleasure to be given, as well as to be received, does not
enter into the account. Let it not be objected that
patriotism, and chivalry, and sentimental love, have been
the fountains of enormous mischief. They are cited only
to establish the proposition that, according to the
elementary principles of mind, man is capable of desiring
and pursuing good for its own sake.
JUSTICE.
The benevolent propensities are thus inherent in the
human mind. "We are impelled to seek the happiness of
others. We experience a satisfaction in being the authors
of that happiness. Everything that lives is open to
impressions of pleasure and pain. We are led by our
benevolent propensities to regard every human being indif-
ferently with whom we come in contact. They have
preference only with respect to those who offer themselves
most obviously to our notice. Human beings are indis-
criminating and blind ; they will avoid inflicting pain,
though that pain should be attended with eventual benefit ;
they will seek to confer pleasure without calculating the
mischief that may result. They benefit one at the expense
of many.
There is a sentiment in the human mind that regulates
benevolence in its application as a principle of action. This
is the sense of justice. Justice, as well as benevolence, is
an elementary law of human nature. It is through this
principle that men are impelled to distribute any means of
pleasure which benevolence may suggest the communication
of to others, in equal portions among an equal number of
applicants. If ten men are shipwrecked on a desert island,
they distribute whatever subsistence may remain to them,
90
I30 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS,
into equal portions among themselves. If six of them
conspire to deprive the remaining four of their share, their
conduct is termed unjust.
The existence of pain has been shown to be a circum-
stance which the human mind regards with dissatisfaction,
and of which it desires the cessation. It is equally accord-
ing to its nature to desire that the advantages to be enjoyed
by a limited number of persons should be enjoyed equally
by all. This proposition is supported by the evidence of
indisputable facts. Tell some ungarbled tale of a number
of persons being made the victims of the enjoyments of
one, and he who would appeal in favour of any system
which might produce such an evil to the primary emotions
of our nature, would have nothing to reply. Let two
persons, equally strangers, make application for some
benefit in the possession of a third to bestow, and to which
he feels that they have an equal claim. They are both
sensitive beings ; pleasure and pain affect them alike.
CHAPTER II.
It is foreign to the general scope of this little Treatise to
encumber a simple argument by controverting any of the
trite objections of habit or fanaticism. But there are two ;
the first, the basis of all political mistake, and the second,
the prolific cause and eflfect of religious error, which it
seems useful to refute.
First, it is inquired, "Wherefore should a man be
benevolent and just?" The answer has been given in the
preceding chapter.
If a man persists to inquire why he ought to promote the
happiness of mankind, he demands a mathematical or
metaphysical reason for a moral action. The absurdity of
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS, 131
this scepticism is more apparent, but not less real than
the exacting a moral reason for a mathematical or meta-
physical fact. If any person should refuse to admit that
all the radii of a circle are of equal length, or that human
actions are necessarily determined by motives, until it
could be proved that these radii and these actions uniformly
tended to the production of the greatest general good,
who would not wonder at the unreasonable and capricious
association of his ideas ?
The writer of a philosophical treatise may, I imagine, at
this advanced era of human intellect, be held excused from
entering into a controversy with those reasoners, if such
there are, who would claim an exemption from its decrees
in favour of anyone among those diversified systems of
obscure opinion respecting morals, which, under the name
of religions, have in various ages and countries prevailed
among mankind. Besides that if, as these reasoners have
pretended, eternal torture or happiness will ensue as the
consequence of certain actions, we should be no nearer the
possession of a standard to determine what actions were
right and wrong, even if this pretended revelation, which is
by no means the case, had furnished us with a complete
catalogue of them. The character of actions as virtuous or
vicious would by no means be determined alone by the
personal advantage or disadvantage of each moral agent
individually considered. Indeed, an action is often
virtuous in proportion to the greatness of the personal
calamity which the author willingly draws upon himself by
daring to perform it. It is because an action produces an
overbalance of pleasure or pain to the greatest number of
sentient beings, and not merely because its consequences are
beneficial or injurious to the author of that action, that it
is good or evil. Nay, this latter consideration has a
132 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
tendency to pollute the purity of virtue, inasmuch as it
consists in the motive rather than in the consequences of
an action. A person who should labour for the happiness
of mankind lest he should be tormented eternally in Hell,
would, with reference to that motive, possess as little claim
to the epithet of virtuous, as he who should torture, im-
prison, and burn them alive, a more usual and natural
consequence of such principles, for the sake of the
enjoyments of Heaven.
My neighbour, presuming on his strength, may direct me
to perform or to refrain from a particular action ; indicat-
ing a certain arbitrary penalty in the event of disobedience
within his power to inflict. My action, if modified by his
menaces, can in no degree participate in virtue. He has
afforded me no criterion as to what is right or wrong. A
king, or an assembly of men, may publish a proclamation
affixing any penalty to any particular action, but that
is not immoral because such penalty is affixed. Nothing
is more evident than that the epithet of virtue is inap-
plicable to the refraining from that action on account of
the evil arbitrarily attached to it. If the action is in itself
beneficial, virtue would rather consist in not refraining
from it, but in firmly defying the personal consequences
attached to its performance.
Some usurper of supernatural energy might subdue the
whole globe to his power ; he might possess new and
unheard-of resources for enduing his punishments with the
most terrible attributes of pain. The torments of his
victims might be intense in their degree, and protracted to
an infinite duration. Still the "will of the lawgiver" would
afford no surer criterion as to what actions were right or
wrong. It would only increase the possible virtue of those
who refuse to become the instruments of his tyranny,
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS. 133
II.— MORAL SCIENCE CONSISTS IN CONSIDERING THE DIFFER-
ENCE, NOT THE RESEMBLANCE, OP PERSONS.
The internal influence, derived from the constitution of
the mind from which they flow, produces that peculiar
modification of actions, which makes them intrinsically
good or evil.
To attain an apprehension of the importance of this dis-
tinction, let us visit, in imagination, the proceedings of some
metropolis. Consider the multitude of human beings who
inhabit it, and survey, in thought, the actions of the several
classes into which they are divided. Their obvious actions
are apparently uniform: the stability of human society
seems to be maintained sufficiently by the uniformity of the
conduct of its members, both with regard to themselves,
and with regard to others. The labourer arises at a certain
hour, and applies himself to the task enjoined him. The
functionaries of government and law are regularly employed
in their offices and courts. The trader holds a train of
conduct from which he never deviates. The ministers of
religion employ an accustomed language, and maintain a
decent and equable regard. The army is drawn forth, the
motions of every soldier are such as they were expected to
be ; the general commands, and his words are echoed from
troop to troop. The domestic actions of men are, for the
most part, undistinguishable one from the other, at a
superficial glance. The actions which are classed under the
general appellation of marriage, education, friendship, etc.,
are perpetually going on, and to a superficial glance, are
similar one to the other.
But, if we would see the truth of things, they must be
stripped of this fallacious appearance of uniformity. In
truth, no one action has, when considered in its whole
134 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
extent, any essential resemblance with any other. Each
individual, who composes the vast multitude which we
have been contemplating, has a peculiar frame of mind,
which, whilst the features of the great mass of his actions
remain uniform, impresses the minuter lineaments with its
peculiar hues. Thus, whilst his life, as a whole, is like the
lives of other men, in detail, it is most unlike ; and the
more subdivided the actions become ; that is, the more
they enter into that class which have a vital influence on
the happiness of others and his own, so much the more are
they distinct from those of other men.
"Those little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love, "
as well as those deadly outrages which are inflicted by a
look, a word — or less — the very refraining from some faint
and most evanescent expression of countenance ; these flow
from a profounder source than the series of our habitual
conduct, which, it has been already said, derives its origin
from without. These are the actions, and such as these,
which make human life what it is, and are the fountains of
all the good and evil with which its entire surface is so
widely and impartially overspread ; and though they are
called minute, they are called so in compliance with the
blindness of those who cannot estimate their importance.
It is in the due appreciating the general effects of their
peculiarities, and in cultivating the habit of acquiring
decisive knowledge respecting the tendencies arising out of
them in particular cases, that the most important part of
moral science consists. The deepest abyss of these vast and
multitudinous caverns, it is necessary that we should visit.
This is the difference between social and individual man.
Not that this distinction is to be considered definite, or
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS. 135
characteristic of one human being as compared with another,
it denotes rather two classes of agency, common in a degree
to every human being. None is exempt, indeed, from that
species of influence which affects, as it were, the surface of
his being, and gives the specific outline to his conduct.
Almost all that is ostensible submits to that legislature
created by the general representation of the past feelings of
mankind — imperfect as it is from a variety of causes, as it
exists in the government, the religion, and domestic habits.
Those who do not nominally, yet actually, submit to the
same power. The external features of their conduct, indeed,
can no more escape it, than the clouds can escape from the
stream of the wind ; and his opinion, which he often hopes
he has dispassionately secured from all contagion of pre-
judice and vulgarity, would be found, on examination, to be
the inevitable excrescence of the very usages from which
he vehemently dissents. Internally all is conducted other-
wise; the efficiency, the essence, the vitality of actions,
derives its colour from what is no ways contributed to from
any external source. Like the plant, which while it derives
the accident of its size and shape from the soil in which it
springs, and is cankered, or distorted, or inflated, yet
retains those qualities which essentially divide it from all
others ; so that hemlock continues to be poison, and the
violet does not cease to emit its odour in whatever soil it
may grow.
We consider our own nature too superficially. We look
on all that in ourselves with which we can discover a resem-
blance in others; and consider those resemblances as the
materials of moral knowledge. It is in the differences that
it actually consists.
136 ESS A ys AND FRAGMENTS.
THE AGE OF PERICLES:
WITH CRITICAL NOTICES OP THE SCULPTURE IN THE
FLORENCE GALLERY.
The period which intervened between the birth of Pericles
and the death of Aristotle, is undoubtedly, whether con-
sidered in itself, or with reference to the effects which it
produced upon the subsequent destinies of civilized man,
the most memorable in the history of the world. What
was the combination of moral and political circumstances
which produced so unparalleled a progress during that
period in literature and the arts ; — why that progress, so
rapid and so sustained, so soon received a check, and
became retrograde, — are problems left to the wonder and
conjecture of posterity. The wrecks and fragments of
those subtle and profound minds, like the ruins of a fine
statue, obscurely suggest to us the grandeur and perfection
of the whole. Their very language, — a type of the under-
standing, of which it was the creation and the image, — in
variety, in simplicity, in flexibility, and in copiousness,
excels every other language of the western world. Their
sculptures are such as, in our perception, assume to be the
models of ideal truth and beauty, and to which, no artist of
modern times can produce forms in any degree comparable.
Their paintings, according to Pausanias, were full of
delicacy and harmony ; and some were powerfully pathetic,
so as to awaken, like tender music or tragic poetry, the
most overwhelming emotions. We are accustomed to con-
sider the painters of the sixteenth century as those who
have brought this art to the highest perfection, probably
because none of the ancient pictures have been preserved.
THE AGE OF PERICLES. 137
All the inventive arts maintain, as it were, a sympathetic
connexion between each other, being no more than various
expressions of one internal power, modified by different
circumstances, either of an individual, or of society.
The paintings of that period would probably bear the
same relation as is confessedly borne by the sculptures to
all successive ones. Of their music we know little ; but
the effects which it is said to have produced, whether they
be attributed to the skill of the composer, or the sensibility
of his audience, were far more powerful than any which we
experience from the music of our times ; and if, indeed, the
melody of their compositions were more tender, and delicate,
and inspiring, than the melodies of some modern European
nations, their progress in this art must have been some-
thing wonderful, and wholly beyond conception. Their
poetry seems to maintain a high, though not so dispropor-
tionate a rank, in comparison. Perhaps Shakespeare, from
the variety and comprehension of his genius, is to be con-
sidered as the greatest individual mind, of which we have
specimens remaining ; — perhaps Dante created imaginations
of greater loveliness and beauty than any that are to be
found in the ancient literature of Greece ; — perhaps nothing
has been discovered in the fragments of the Greek lyric
poets equivalent to the sublime and chivalrous sensibility of
Petrarch: — but, as a poet, Homer must be acknowledged
to excel Shakespeare in the truth and harmony, the
sustained grandeur, and satisfying completeness of his
images, their exact fitness to the illustration, and to that
which they belong. Nor could Dante, deficient in conduct,
plan, nature, variety, and temperance, have been brought
into comparison, but for the fortunate isles, laden with
golden fruit, which alone could tempt any one to embark in
the misty ocean of his dark and extravagant fiction.
tsS MSSA YS AND FRAGMENTS,
ON THE NIOBB.
Op all the remains to us of Greek antiquity, this figure is
perhaps the most consummate personification of loveliness,
with regard to its countenance, as that of the Yenus of the
Tribune is with regard to its entire form of woman. It is
colossal ; the size adds to its value ; because it allows to the
spectator the choice of a greater number of points of view,
and afibrds him a more analytical one, in which to catch a
greater number of the infinite modes of expression, of which
any form approaching ideal beauty is necessarily composed.
It is the figure of a mother in the act of sheltering, from
some divine and inevitable peril, the last, we may imagine,
of her surviving children.
The little creature, terrified, as we may conceive, at the
strange destruction of all its kindred, has fled to its mother,
and is hiding its head in the folds of her robe, and casting
back one arm, as in a passionate appeal for defence, where
it never before could have been sought in vain. She is
clothed in a thin tunic of delicate woof ; and her hair is
fastened on her head into a knot, probably by that mother
whose care will never fasten it again. Niobe is enveloped
in profuse drapery, a portion of which the left hand has
gathered up, and is in the act of extending it over the child
in the instinct of shielding her from what reason knows to
be inevitable. The right (as the restorer has properly
imagined,) is drawing up her daughter to her : and with
that instinctive gesture, and by its gentle pressure, is
encouraging the child to believe that it can give security.
The countenance of Niobe is the consummation of feminine
majesty and loveliness, beyond which the imagination
scarcely doubts that it can conceive anything.
That masterpiece of the poetic harmony of marble
THE AGE OF PERICLES. t39
expresses other feelings. There is embodied a sense of
the inevitable and rapid destiny which is consummating
around her, as if it were already over. It seems as if
despair and beauty had combined, and produced nothing
but the sublimity of grief. As the motions of the form
expressed the instinctive sense of the possibility of protect-
ing the child, and the accustomed and affectionate assurance
that she would find an asylum within her arms, so reason
and imagination speak in the countenance the certainty
that no mortal defence is of avail. There is no terror in
the countenance, only grief — deep, remediless grief. There
is no anger : — of what avail is indignation against what is
known to be omnipotent? There is no selfish shrinking
from personal pain — there is no panic at supernatural
agency — there is no adverting to herself as herself : the
calamity is mightier than to leave scope for such emotions.
Everything is swallowed up in sorrow : she is all tears :
her countenance, in assured expectation of the arrow
piercing its last victim in her embrace, is fixed on her
omnipotent enemy. The pathetic beauty of the expression
of her tender, and inexhaustible, and unquenchable despair,
is beyond the effect of sculpture. As soon as the arrow
shall pierce her last tie upon earth, the fable that she was
turned into stone, or dissolved into a fountain of tears, will
be but a feeble emblem of the sadness of hopelessness, in
which the few and evil years of her remaining life, we feel,
must flow away.
It is difficult to speak of the beauty of the countenance,
or to make intelligible in words, from what such astonishing
loveliness results.
The head, resting somewhat backward upon the full and
flowing contour of the neck, is as in the act of watching an
event momently to arrive, The hair is delicately divided
I40 ESS A VS AND FRAGMENTS.
on the forehead, and a gentle beauty gleams from the
broad and clear forehead, over which its strings are drawn.
The face is of an oval fulness, and the features conceived
with the daring of a sense of power. In this respect it
resembles the careless majesty which Nature stamps upon
the rare masterpieces of her creation, harmonizing them as
it were from the harmony of the spirit within. Yet all this
not only consists with, but is the cause of the subtlest deli-
cacy of clear and tender beauty — the expression at once of
innocence and sublimity of soul — of purity and strength —
of all that which touches the most removed and divine of
the chords that make music in our thoughts — of that which
shakes with astonishment even the most superficial.
THE MINERVA.
The head is of the highest beauty. It has a close helmet,
from which the hair, delicately parted on the forehead, half
escapes. The attitude gives entire effect to the perfect
form of the neck, and to that full and beautiful moulding
of the lower part of the face and mouth, which is in living
beings the seat of the expression of a simplicity and integ-
rity of nature. Her face, upraised to heaven, is animated
with a profound, sweet, and impassioned melancholy, with
an earnest, and fervid, and disinterested pleading against
some vast and inevitable wrong. It is the joy and poetry
of sorrow making grief beautiful, and giving it that name-
less feeling which, from the imperfection of language, we
call pain, but which is not all pain, though a feeling which
makes not only its possessor, but the spectator of it, prefer
it to what is called pleasure, in which all is not pleasure.
It is difficult to think that this head, though of the highest
ideal beauty, is the head of Minerva, although the attributes
and attitude of the lower part of the statue certainly suggest
THE AGE OF PERICLES. 141
that idea. The Greeks rarely, in their representations of
the characters of their gods, — unless we call the poetic
enthusiasm of Apollo a mortal passion, — expressed the
disturbance of human feeling; and here is deep and im-
passioned grief animating a divine countenance. It is,
indeed, divine. Wisdom (which Minerva may be supposed
to emblem,) is pleading earnestly with Power, — and
invested with the expression of that grief, because it must
ever plead so vainly. The drapery of the statue, the gentle
beauty of the feet, and the grace of the attitude, are what
may be seen in many other statues belonging to that
astonishing era which produced it : such a countenance is
seen in few.
This statue happens to be placed on a pedestal, the
subject of whose reliefs is in a spirit wholly the reverse.
It was probably an altar to Bacchus — possibly a funeral
urn. Under the festoons of fruits and flowers that grace
the pedestal, the corners of which are ornamented with the
skulls of goats, are sculptured some figures of Maenads
under the inspiration of the god. Nothing can be con-
ceived more wild and terrible than their gestures, touching,
as they do, the verge of distortion, into which their fine
limbs and lovely forms are thrown. There is nothing, how-
ever, that exceeds the possibility of nature, though it
borders on its utmost line.
The tremendous spirit of superstition, aided by drunken-
ness, producing something beyond insanity, seems to have
caught them in its whirlwinds, and to bear them over the
earth, as the rapid volutions of a tempest have the ever-
changing trunk of a waterspout, or as the torrent of a
mountain river whirls the autumnal leaves resistlessly
along in its full eddies. The hair, loose and floating, seems
caught in the tempest of their own tumultuous motion;
142 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
their heads are thrown back, leaning with a strange
delirium upon their necks, and looking up to heaven,
whilst they totter and stumble even in the energy of their
tempestuous dance.
One represents Agave with the head of Pentheus in one
Land, and in the other a great knife ; a second has a spear
with its pine cone, which was the Thyrsus; and another
dances with mad voluptuousness; the fourth is beating a
kind of tambourine.
This was indeed a monstrous superstition, even in
Greece, where it was alone capable of combining ideal
beauty and poetical and abstract enthusiasm with the wild
errors from which it sprung. In Rome it had a more
familiar, wicked, and dry appearance ; it was not suited to
the severe and exact apprehensions of the Romans, and
their strict morals were violated by it, and sustained a
deep injury, little analogous to its effects upon the Greeks,
who turned all things — superstition, prejudice, murder,
madness — to beauty.
ON THE VENUS CALLED ANADYOMINE.
She has just issued from the bath, and yet is animated
with the enjoyment of it.
She seems all soft and mild enjoyment, and the curved
lines of her fine limbs flow into each other with a never-
ending sinuosity of sweetness. Her face expresses a
breathless, yet passive and innocent voluptuousness, free
from affectation. Her lips, without the sublimity of lofty
and impetuous passion, the grandeur of enthusiastic imagina-
tion of the Apollo of the Capitol, or the union of both,
like the Apollo Belvidere, have the tenderness of arch, yet
pure and affectionate desire, and the mode in which the
THE AGE OF PERICLES. 143
ends of the mouth are drawn in, yet lifted or half-opened,
with the smile that for ever circles round them, and the
tremulous curve into which they are wrought by inex-
tinguishable desire, and the tongue lying against the lower
lip, as in the listlessness of passive joy, express love,
still love.
Her eyes seem heavy and swimming with pleasure, and
her small forehead fades on both sides into that sweet
swelling and thin declension of the bone over the eye, in
the mode which expresses simple and tender feelings.
The neck is full, and panting as with the aspiration
of delight, and flows with gentle curves into her perfect
form.
Her form is indeed perfect. She is half-sitting and half-
rising from a shell, and the fulness of her limbs, and their
complete roundness and perfection, do not diminish the
vital energy with which they seem to be animated. The
position of the arms, which are lovely beyond imagination,
is natural, unaffected, and easy. This, perhaps, is the finest
personification of Venus, the deity of superficial desire, in
all antique statuary. Her pointed and pear-like person,
ever virgin, and her attitude modesty itself.
A BAS-RELIEF.
Probably the sides of a Sarcophagus.
The lady is lying on a couch, supported by a young woman,
and looking extremely exhausted ; her dishevelled hair is
floating about her shoulder, and she is half- covered with
drapery that falls on the couch.
Her tunic is exactly like a chemise, only the sleeves are
longer, coming half way down the upper part of the arm.
An old wrinkled woman, with a cloak over her head, and
144 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
an enormously sagacious look, has a most professional
appearance, and is taking hold of her arm gently with one
hand, and with the other is supporting it. I think she is
feeling her pulse. At the side of the couch sits a woman
as in grief, holding her head in her hands. At the bottom
of the bed is another matron tearing her hair, and in the
act of screaming out most violently, which she seems, how-
ever, by the rest of her gestures, to do with the utmost
deliberation, as having come to the resolution, that it was a
correct thing to do so. Behind her is a gossip of the most
ludicrous ugliness, crying, I suppose, or praying, for her
arms are crossed upon her neck. There is also a fifth
setting up a wail. To the left of the couch a nurse is
sitting on the ground dandling the child in her arms, and
wholly occupied in so doing. The infant is swaddled.
Behind her is a female who appears to be in the act
of rushing in with dishevelled hair and violent gesture, and
in one hand brandishing a whip or a thunder-bolt. This is
probably some emblematic person, the messenger of death,
or a fury, whose personification would be a key to the
whole. What they are all wailing at, I know not ; whether
the lady is dying, or the father has directed the child to be
exposed : but if the mother be not dead, such a tumult
would kill a woman in the straw in these days.
The other compartment, in the second scene of the drama,
tells the story of the presentation of the child to its father.
An old man has it in his arms, and with professional and
mysterious officiousness is holding it out to the father. The
father, a middle-aged and very respectable-looking man,
perhaps not long married, is looking with the admiration
of a bachelor on his first child, and perhaps thinking, that
he was once such a strange little creature himself. His
hands are clasped, and he is gathering up between his arms
THE AGE OF PERICLES. 145
the folds of his cloak, an emblem of his gathering up all his
faculties to understand the tale the gossip is bringing.
An old man is standing beside him, probably his father,
with some curiosity, and much tenderness in his looks.
Around are collected a host of his relations, of whom the
youngest, a handsome girl, seems the least concerned. It is
altogether an admirable piece, quite in the spirit of the
comedies of Terence.*
MICHAEL ANGELO'S BACCHUS.
The countenance of this figure is a most revolting mistake
of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. It looks drunken,
brutal, narrow-minded, and has an expression of
dissoluteness the most revolting. The lower part of the
figure is stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are
united to the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly
inharmonious. It is altogether without unity, as was the
idea of the deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic.
On the other hand, considered only as a piece of
workmanship, it has many merits. The arms are executed
in a style of the most perfect and manly beauty. The body
is conceived with great energy, and the manner in which
the lines mingle into each other, of the highest boldness and
truth. It wants unity as a work of art — as a representation
of Bacchus it wants everything.
A JUNO.
A STATUE of great merit. The countenance expresses a
stern and unquestioned severity of dominion, with a certain
sadness. The lips are beautiful — susceptible of expressing
scorn — but not without sweetness. With fine lips a person
* This bas-relief is not antique. It is of the Cinquecento.
9^
146 ESS A VS AND FRAGMENTS.
is never wholly bad, and they never belong to the expression
of emotions wholly selfish — lips being the seat of imagina-
tion. The drapery is finely conceived, and the manner in
which the act of throwing back one leg is expressed, in the
diverging folds of the drapery of the left breast fading in
bold yet graduated lines into a skirt, as it descends from
the left shoulder, is admirably imagined.
AN APOLLO,
with serpents twining round a wreath of laurel on which
the quiver is suspended. It probably was, when complete,
magnificently beautiful. The restorer of the head and
arms, following the indication of the muscles of the right
side, has lifted the arm, as in triumph, at the success of an
arrow, imagining to imitate the Lycian Apollo in that, so
finely described by Apollonius Rhodius, when the dazzling
radiance of his beautiful limbs shone over the dark Euxine.
The action, energy, and godlike animation of these limbs
speak a spirit which seems as if it could not be consumed.
ON THE REVIVAL OF LITERATURE.
In the fifteenth century of the Christian era, a new and
extraordinary event roused Europe from her lethargic
state, and paved the way to her present greatness. The
writings of Dante in the thirteenth, and of Petrarch in the
fourteenth, were the bright luminaries which had afibrded
glimmerings of literary knowledge to the almost benighted
traveller toiling up the hill of Fame. But on the taking of
Constantinople, a new and sudden light appeared : the
dark clouds of ignorance rolled into distance, and Europe
ON THE REVIVAL OF LITERATURE. 147
was inundated by learned monks, and still more by the
quantity of learned manuscripts which they brought with
them from the scene of devastation. The Turks settled
themselves in Constantinople, where they adopted nothing
but the vicious habits of the Greeks : they neglected even
the small remains of its ancient learning, which, filtered
and degenerated as it was by the absurd mixture of Pagan
and Christian philosophy, proved, on its retirement to
Europe, the spark which spread gradually and successfully
the light of knowledge over the world.
Italy, France, and England — for Germany still remained
many centuries less civilised than the surrounding countries
— swarmed with monks and cloisters. Superstition, of
whatever kind, whether earthly or divine, has hitherto been
the weight which clogged man to earth, and prevented his
genius from soaring aloft amid its native skies. The enter-
prises, and the eflfects of the human mind, are something
more than stupendous : the works of nature are material
and tangible : we have a half insight into their kind, and
in many instances we predict their effects with certainty.
But mind seems to govern the world without visible or
substantial means. Its birth is unknown ; its action and
influence unperceived ; and its being seems eternal. To
the mind both humane and philosophical, there cannot exist
a greater subject of grief than the reflection of how much
superstition has retarded the progress of intellect, and
consequently the happiness of man.
The monks in their cloisters were engaged in trifling and
ridiculous disputes : they contented themselves with
teaching the dogmas of their religion, and rushed impa-
tiently forth to the colleges and halls, where they disputed
with an acrimony and meanness little befitting the
resemblance of their pretended holiness. But the situation
148 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
of a monk is a situation the most unnatural that bigotry,
proud in the invention of cruelty, could conceive ; and
their vices may be pardoned as resulting from the wills and
devices of a few proud and selfish bishops, who enslaved the
world that they might live at ease.
The disputes of the schools were mostly scholastical ; it
was the discussion of words, and had no relation to
morality. Morality, — the great means and end of man, —
was contained, as they affirmed, in the extent of a few
hundred pages of a certain book, which others have since
contended were but scraps of martyrs' last dying words,
collected together and imposed on the world. In the
refinements of the scholastic philosophy, the world seemed
in danger of losing the little real wisdom that still remained
as her portion ; and the only valuable part of their disputes
was such as tended to develop the system of the Peripatetic
Philosophers. Plato, the wisest, the profoundest, and
Epicurus, the most humane and gentle among the ancients,
were entirely neglected by them. Plato interfered with
their peculiar mode of thinking concerning heavenly matters ;
and Epicurus, maintaining the rights of man to pleasure
and happiness, would have afibrded a seducing contrast to
their dark and miserable code of morals. It has been
asserted, that these holy men solaced their lighter moments
in a contraband worship of Epicurus and profaned the
philosophy which maintained the rights of all by a selfish
indulgence of the rights of a few. Thus it is : the laws of
nature are invariable, and man sets them aside that he may
have the pleasure of travelling through a labyrinth in
search of them again.
Pleasure, in an open and innocent garb, by some strange
process of reasoning, is called vice ; yet man (so closely is
he linked to the chains of necessity — so irresistibly is he
MEMOIRS OF PRINCE ALEXY HAIMATOFF. 149
impelled to fulfil the end of his being,) must seek her
at whatever price : he becomes a hypocrite, and braves
damnation with all its pains.
Grecian literature, — the finest the world has ever pro-
duced, — was at length restored : its form and mode we
obtained from the manuscripts which the ravages of time,
of the Goths, and of the still more savage Turks, had
spared. The burning of the library at Alexandria was an
evil of importance. This library is said to have contained
volumes of the choicest Greek authors.
REVIEW OF HOGG'S MEMOIRS OF
PRINCE ALEXY HAIMATOFF,
[Memoirs of Prince Alexy Haimatoff. Translated from the original
Latin MSS. under the immediate inspection of the Prince. By
John Beown, Esq. Pp. 236. 12mo. Hookham, 1814,]
Is the sufiirage of mankind the legitimate criterion of
intellectual energy 1 Are complaints of the aspirants to
literary fame to be considered as the honourable disappoint-
ment of neglected genius, or the sickly impatience of a
dreamer miserably self deceived 1 the most illustrious
ornaments of the annals of the human race, have been
stigmatised by the contempt and abhorrence of entire com-
munities of man; but this injustice arose out of some
temporary superstition, some partial interest, some national
doctrine : a glorious redemption awaited their remembrance.
There is indeed, nothing sO remarkable in the contempt of
the ignorant for the enlightened : the vulgar pride of folly,
delights to triumph upon mind. This is an intelligible
ISO ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
process : the infancy [infamy 1] or ingloriousness that can be
thus explained, detracts nothing from the beauty of virtue
or the sublimity of genius. But what does utter obscurity
express 1 if the public do not advert even in censure to a
performance, has that performance already received its
condemnation %
The result of this controversy is important to the
ingenuous critic. His labours are indeed, miserably worth-
less, if their objects may invariably be attained before their
application. He should know the limits of his prerogative.
He should not be ignorant, whether it is his duty to
promulgate the decisions of others, or to cultivate his taste
and judgment that he may be enabled to render a reason
for his own.
Circumstances the least connected with intellectual
nature have contributed, for a certain period, to retain in
obscurity, the most memorable specimens of human genius.
The author re[f]rains perhaps from introducing his pro-
duction to the world with all the pomp of empirical
bibliopolism. A sudden tide in the affairs of men may
make the neglect or contradiction of some insignificant
doctrine, a badge of obscurity and discredit : those even
who are exempt from the action of these absurd predilec-
tions, are necessarily in an indirect manner affected by
their influence. It is perhaps the product of an imagination
daring and undisciplined : the majority of readers ignorant
and disdaining toleration refuse to pardon a neglect of
common rules; their canons of criticism are carelessly
infringed, it is less religious than a charity sermon, less
methodical and cold than a French tragedy, where all the
unities are preserved : no excellencies, where prudish cant
and dull regularity are absent, can preserve it from the
contempt and abhorrence of the multitude. It is evidently
MEMOIRS OF PRINCE ALEXY HAIMATOFF. 151
not difl&cult to imagine an instance in which the most
elevated genius shall be recompensed with neglect.
Mediocrity alone seems unvaryingly to escape rebuke and
obloquy, it accom[m]odates its attempts to the spirit of
the age, which has produced it, and adopts with mimic
eflfrontery the cant of the day and hour for which alone it
lives.
We think that " the Memoirs of Prince Alexy Haima-
toff" deserves to be regarded as an example of the fact, by
the frequency of which criticism is vindicated from the
imputation of futility and impertinence. We do not
hesitate to consider this fiction, as the product of a bold
and original mind. We hardly remember even [ever ?] to
have seen surpassed the subtle delicacy of imagination, by
which the manifest distinctions of character, and form are
seized and pictured in colours, that almost make nature
more beautiful than herself. The vulgar observe no resem-
blances or discrepancies, but such as are gross and glaring.
The science of mind to which history, poetry, biography
serve as the materials, consists in the discernment of shades
and distinctions where the unenlightened discover nothing
but a shapeless and unmeaning mass. The faculty for this
discernment distinguishes genius from dulness. There are
passages in the production before us, which afford instances
of just and rapid intuition belonging only to intelligences
that possess this faculty in no ordinary degree. As a com-
position the book is far from faultless. Its abruptness and
angularities do not appear to have received the slightest
polish or correction. The author has written with fervour
but has disdained to revise at leisure. These errors are the
errors of youth and genius and the fervid impatience of
sensibilities impetuously disburthening their fulness. The
author is proudly negligent of connecting the incidents of
152 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
his tale. It appears more like the recorded day dream of a
poet, not unvisited by the sublimest and most lovely visions,
than the tissue of a romance skilfully interwoven for the
purpose of maintaining the interest of the reader, and con-
ducting his sympathies by dramatic gradations to the denoue-
ment. It is, what it professes to be, a memoir, not a novel.
Yet its claims to the former appellation are established,
only by the impatience and inexperience of the author,
who, possessing in an eminent degree, the higher qualifica-
tions of a novelist, we had almost said a poet, has neglected
the number by which that success would probably have
been secured, which, in this instance, merit[s] of a far
nobler stamp, have unfortunately failed to acquire. Prince
Alexy is by no means an unnatural, although no common
character. We think we can discern his counterpart in
Alfieri's* delineation of himself. The same propensities, the
same ardent devotion to his purposes, the same chivalric
and unproductive attachment to unbounded liberty, charac-
terizes both. We are inclined to doubt whether the author
has not attributed to his hero, the doctrines of universal
philanthropy in a spirit of profound and almost unsearch-
able irony : at least he appears biassed by no peculiar
principles, and it were perhaps an insoluble inquiry whether
any, and if any, what moral truth he designed to illustrate
by his tale. Bruhle, the tutor of Alexy, is a character
delineated with consummate skill ; the power of intelli-
gence and virtue over external deficiencies is forcibly
exemplified. The calmness, patience and magnanimity of
this singular man, are truly rare and admirable : his dis-
interestedness, his equanimity, his irresistible gentleness
form a finished and delightful portrait. But we cannot
regard hia commendation to his pupil to indulge iu
* 4lfi^n'a in the original.
MEMOIRS OF PRINCE A LEX YH AIM A TOFF. 153
promiscuous concubinage without horror and detestation.
The author appears to deem the loveless intercourse of brutal
appetite, a venial offence against delicacy and virtue ! he
asserts that a transient connection with a cultivated female
may contribute to form the heart without essentially
vitiating the sensibilities. It is our duty to protest
against so pernicious and disgusting an opinion. No man
can rise pure from the poisonous embraces of a prostitute,
or sinless from the desolated hopes of a confiding heart.
Whatever may be the claims of chastity, whatever the
advantages of simple and pure affections, these ties, these
benefits are of equal obligation to either sex.* Domestic
relations depend for their integrity upon a complete reci-
procity of duties. But the author himself has in the
adventure of the sultana, Debesh-Sheptuti afforded a most
impressive and tremendous allegory of the cold blooded and
malignant selfishness of sensuality.
We are incapacitated by the unconnected and vague
narrative from forming an analysis of the incidents, they
would consist indeed, simply of a catalogue of events, and
which, divested of the aerial tinge of genius might appear
trivial and common. We shall content ourselves, there-
fore with selecting some passages calculated to exemplify
the peculiar powers of the author. The following descrip-
tion of the simple and interesting Rosalie is in the highest
style of delineation : " Her hair was unusually black, she
truly had raven locks, the same glossiness, the same varying
shade, the same mixture of purple and sable for which the
plumage of the raven is remarkable, were found in the long
elastic tresses depending from her head and covering her
shoulders. Her complexion was dark and clear; the
colours which composed the brown that dyed her smooth
* Six In the original.
154 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
skin, were so well mixed, that not one blot, not one varied
tinge injured its brightness, and when the blush of anima-
tion or of modesty flushed her cheek, the tint was so rare,
that could a painter have dipped his pencil in it, that
single shade would have rendered him immortal. The
bone above her eye was sharp, and beautifully curved ;
much as I have admired the wonderful properties of curves,
I am convinced that their most stupendous properties
collected, would fall far short of that magic line. The eye
brow was pencilled with extreme nicety ; in the centre it
consisted of the deepest shade of black, at the edges it was
hardly perceptible, and no man could have been hardy
enough to have attempted to define the precise spot at
which it ceased : in short the velvet drapery of the eye-
brow was only to be rivalled by the purple of the long
black eyelashes that terminated the ample curtain.
Rosalie's eyes were large and full; they appeared at a
distance uniformly dark, but upon close inspection the
innumerable strokes of various hues of infinite fineness and
endless variety drawn in concentric circles behind the
pellucid chrystal, filled the mind with wonder and admira-
tion, and could only be the work of infinite power directed
by infinite wisdom."
Alexy's union with Aiir-Ahebeh the Circassian slave is
marked by circumstances of deep pathos, and the sweetest
tenderness of sentiment. The description of his misery
and madness at her death, deserves to be remarked as
affording evidence of an imagination vast, profound and
full of energy.
" Alexy, who gained the friendship, perhaps the love of the native
Rosalie : the handsome HaimatoflF, the philosophic HaimatoflF, the
haughty Haimatoflf, HaimatoflF the gay, the witty, the accomplished,
the bold hunter, the friend of liberty, the chivalric lover of all that is
i
MEMOIRS OF PRINCE ALEXY HAIMATOFF. 155
feminine, the hero, the enthusiast ; see him now, that is he, mark
him 1 he appears in the shades of evening, he stalk[s] as a spectre, he
has just risen from the damps of the charnel house ; see, the dews
still hang on his forehead. He will vanish at cock-crowing, he never
heard the song of the lark, nor the husy hum of men ; the sun's rays
never warmed him, the pale moonheam alone shews his unearthly
figure, which is fanned by the wing of the owl, which scarce obstructs
the slow flight of the droning beetle,* or of the drowsy bat Mark
him ! he stops, his lean arms are crossed on his bosom ; he is bowed
to the earth, his sunken eye gazes from its deep cavity on vacuity, as
the toad skulking in the corner of a sepulchre, peeps with malignity
through the circum[am]bient gloom. His cheek is hollow ; the
glowing tints of his complexion, which once resembled the autumnal
sunbeam on the autumnal beech, are gone, the cadaverous yellow, the
livid hue have usurped their place, the sable honours of his head have
perished, they once waved in the wind like the jetty pinions of the
raven, the skull is only covered by the shrivelled skin, which the rook
views wistfully, and calls to her young ones. His gaunt bones start
from his wrinkled garments, his voice is deep, hollow, sepulchral[;] it
is the voice which wakes the dead, he has long held converse with the
departed. He attempts to walk he knows not whither, his legs totter
under him, he falls, the boys hoot him, the dogs bark at him, he
hears them not, he sees them not. — Rest there, Alexy, it beseemeth
thee, thy bed is the grave, thy bride is the worm, yet once thou
stoodest erect, thy cheek was flashed with joyful ardour, thy eye
blazing told what thy head conceived, what thy heart felt, thy limbs
were vigour and activity, thy bosom expanded with pride, ambition,
and desire, every nerve thrilled to feel, every muscle swelled to
execute.
' • Haimatoff, the blight has tainted thee, thou ample roomy web of
life, whereon were traced the gaudy characters, the gay embroidery of
pleasure, how has the moth battened on thee ; Haimatoff, how has the
devouring flame scorched the plains, once yellow with the harvest ! the
simoon, the parching breath of the desert, has swept over the laughing
plains, the carpet of verdure rolled away at its approach, and has bared
amid desolation. Thou stricken deer, thy leather coat, thy dappled
hide hangs loose upon thee, it was a deadly arrow, how has it wasted
thee, thou scathed oak, how has the red lightning drank thy sap :
* btatle in the original.
156 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
Haimatoff, Haimatoff, eat thy soul with vexation. Let the
immeasureable ocean roll between thee and pride : yon must not dwell
together." P. 129.
The episode of Viola is affecting, natural, and beautiful
We do not ever remember to have seen the unforgiving
fastidiousness of family honor more awfully illustrated.
After the death of her lover, Viola still expects that he will
esteem, still cherishes the delusion that he is not lost to her
for ever.
*' She used frequently to go to the window to look for him, or walk
in the Park to meet him, but without the least impatience, at his
delay. She learnt a new tune, or a new song to amuse him, she stood
behind the door to startle him as he entered, or disguised herself to
surprise him."
The character of Mary, deserves, we think, to be considered
as the only complete failure in the book. Every other
female whom the author has attempted to describe is
designated by an individuality peculiarly marked and true.
They constitute finished portraits of whatever is eminently
simple, graceful, gentle, or disgustingly atrocious and vile.
Mary alone is the miserable parasite of fashion, the tame
slave of drivelling and drunken folly, the cold hearted
coquette, the lying and meretricious prude. The means
employed to gain this worthless prize corresponds exactly
with its worthlessness. Sir Fulke* Hildebrand is a
strenuous tory, Alexy, on his arrival in England professes
himself inclined to the principles of the whig party, finding
that the Baronet had sworn that his daughter should never
marry a whig, he sacrifices his principles and with
inconceiveable effrontry thus palliates his apostacy and
falsehood.
* Euike in the original.
MEMOIRS OF PRINCE ALEXY HAIMATOFR IS7
" The prejudices of the Baronet, were strong in proportion as they
were irrational. I resolved rather to humour than to thwart them.
I contrived to be invited to dine in company with him ; I always
proposed the health of the minister, I introduced politics and defended
the tory party in long speeches, I attended clubs and public dinners of
that interest. I do not know whether this conduct was justifiable ; it
may certainly be excused when the circumstances of my case are duly
considered. I would tear myself in pieces, if I suspected that I could
be guilty of the slightest falsehood or prevarication ; (see Lord
Chesterfield's letters for the courtier-like distinction between simulation
and dissimulation,) but there was nothing of that sort here. I was of
no party, consequently, I could not be accused of deserting anyone.
I did not defend the injustice of any body of men, I did not detract
from the merits of any virtuous character. I praised what was
laudable in the tory party, and blamed what was reprehensible in the
whigs : I was silent with regard to whatever was culpable in the
former or praiseworthy in the latter. The stratagem was innocent,
which injured no one, and which promoted the happiness of two
individuals, especially of the most amiable woman the world ever
knew."
An instance of more deplorable perversity of the human
understanding we do not recollect ever to have witnessed.
It almost persuades us to believe that scepticism or indiffer-
ence concerning certain sacred truths may occasionally pro-
duce a subtlety of sophism, by which the conscience of the
criminal may be bribed to overlook his crime.
Towards the conclusion of this strange and powerful
performance it must be confessed that aliquando bonus
dormitat Homerus. The adventure of the Eleutheri,
although the sketch of a profounder project, is introduced
and concluded with unintelligible abruptness. Bruhle dies,
purposely as it should seem that his pupil may renounce the
romantic sublimity of his nature, and that his inauspicious
union and prostituted character, might be exempt from the
censure of violated friendship. Numerous indications of
profound and vigorous thought are scattered over even the
158 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
most negligently compacted portions of the narrative. It
is an unweeded garden where nightshade is interwoven with
sweet jessamine, and the most delicate spices of the east,
peep over struggling stalks of rank aiid poisonous hemlock.
In the delineation of the more evanescent feelings and
uncommon instances of strong and delicate passion we
conceive the author to have exhibited new and unparalleled
powers. He has noticed some peculiarities of female
character, with a delicacy and truth singularly exquisite.
"We think that the interesting subject of sexual relations
requires for its successful development the application of a
mind thus organised and endowed. Yet even here how
great the deficiencies ; this mind must be pure from the
fashionable superstitions of gallantry, must be exempt from
the sordid feelings which with blind idolatry worship * the
image and blaspheme the deity, reverence the type, and
degrade the realty of which it is an emblem.
"We do not hesitate to assert that the author of this
volume is a man of ability. His great though indisciplin-
able energies and fervid rapidity of conception embody f
scenes and situations, and | passions afibrding inexhaustible
food for wonder and delight. The interest is deep and
irresistible. A moral enchanter seems to have conjured up
the shapes of all that is beautiful and strange to suspend
the faculties in fascination and astonishment*
* Worships in the original,
t Embodies in the original.
X "And q/^ passions" in the original.
THE ASSASSINS, 159
THE ASSASSINS.
A FRAGMENT OF A ROMANCE.
CHAPTER I.
Jerusalem, goaded on to resistance by the incessant
usurpations and insolence of Rome, leagued together its
discordant factions to rebel against the common enemy and
tyrant. Inferior to their foe in all but the unconquerable
hope of liberty, they surrounded their city with fortifica-
tions of uncommon strength, and placed in array before
the temple a band rendered desperate by patriotism and
religion. Even the women preferred to die, rather than
survive the ruin of their country. When the Roman army
approached the walls of the sacred city, its preparations, its
discipline, and its numbers, evinced the conviction of its
leader, that he had no common barbarians to subdue. At
the approach of the Roman army, the strangers withdrew
from the city.
Among the multitudes which from every nation of the
East had assembled at Jerusalem, was a little congregation
of Christians. They were remarkable neither for their
numbers nor their importance. They contained among
them neither philosophers nor poets. Acknowledging no
laws but those of God, they modelled their conduct towards
their fellow-men by the conclusions of their individual
judgment on the practical application of these laws. And
it was apparent from the simplicity and severity of their
manners, that this contempt for human institutions had
i6o ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
produced among them a character superior in singleness
and sincere self-apprehension to the slavery of pagan
customs and the gross delusions of antiquated superstition.
Many of their opinions considerably resembled those of the
sect afterwards known by the name of Gnostics. They
esteemed the human understanding to be the paramount
rule of human conduct ; they maintained that the obscurest
religious truth required for its complete elucidation no
more than the strenuous application of the energies of
mind. It appeared impossible to them that any doctrine
could be subversive of social happiness which is not capable
of being confuted by arguments derived from the nature of
existing things. "With the devoutest submission to the law
of Christ, they united an intrepid spirit of inquiry as to the
correctest mode of acting in particular instances of conduct
that occur among men. Assuming the doctrines of the
Messiah concerning benevolence and justice for the regula-
tion of their actions, they could not be persuaded to
acknowledge that there was apparent in the divine code
any prescribed rule whereby, for its own sake, one action
rather than another, as fulfilling the will of their great
Master, should be preferred.
The contempt with which the magistracy and priesthood
regarded this obscure community of speculators, had
hitherto protected them from persecution. But they had
arrived at that precise degree of eminence and prosperity
which is peculiarly obnoxious to the hostility of the rich
and powerful. The moment of their departure from
Jerusalem was the crisis of their future destiny. Had they
continued to seek a precarious refuge in a city of the
Roman empire, this persecution would not have delayed to
impress a new character on their opinions and their
conduct ; narrow views, and the illiberality of sectarian
THE ASSASSINS. i6i
patriotism, would not have failed speedily to obliterate
the magnificence and beauty of their wild and wonderful
condition.
Attached from principle to peace, despising and hating
the pleasures and the customs of the degenerate mass of
mankind, this unostentatious community of good and happy
men fled to the solitudes of Lebanon. To Arabians and
enthusiasts the solemnity and grandeur of these desolate
recesses possessed peculiar attractions. It well accorded
with the justice of their conceptions on the relative duties
of man towards his fellow in society, that they should
labour in unconstrained equality to dispossess the wolf and
the tiger of their empire, and establish on its ruins the
dominion of intelligence and virtue. No longer would the
worshippers of the God of Nature be indebted to a hundred
hands for the accommodation of their simple wants. No
longer would the poison of a diseased civilisation embrue
their very nutriment with pestilence. They would no
longer owe their very existence to the vices, the fears, and
the follies of mankind. Love, friendship, and philanthropy,
would now be the characteristic disposers of their industry.
It is for his mistress or his friend that the labourer
consecrates his toil ; others are mindful, but he is forgetful,
of himself. " God feeds the hungry ravens, and clothes the
lilies of the fields, and yet Solomon in all his glory is not
like to one of these."
Rome was now the shadow of her former self. The light
of her grandeur and loveliness had passed away. The latest
and the noblest of her poets and historians had foretold in
agony her approaching slavery and degradation. The ruins
of the human mind, more awful and portentous than the
desolation of the most solemn temples, threw a shade of
gloom upon her golden palaces which the brutal vulgar
92
1 62 ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
could not see, but which the mighty felt with inward
trepidation and despair. The ruins of Jerusalem lay
defenceless and uninhabited upon the burning sands ; none
visited, but in the depth of solemn awe, this accursed and
solitary spot. Tradition says that there was seen to linger
among the scorched and shattered fragments of the temple,
one being, whom he that saw dared not to call man, with
clasped hands, immoveable eyes, and a visage horribly
serene. Not on the will of the capricious multitude, nor
the constant fluctuations of the many and the weak,
depends the change of empires and religions. These are
the mere insensible elements from which a subtler intelli-
gence moulds its enduring statuary. They that direct the
changes of this mortal scene breathe the decrees of their
dominion from a throne of darkness and of tempest. The
power of man is great.
After many days of wandering, the Assassins pitched
their tents in the vallay of Bethzatanai. For ages had this
fertile valley lain concealed from the adventurous search of
man, among mountains of everlasting snow. The men of
elder days had inhabited this spot. Piles of monumental
marble and fragments of columns that in their integrity
almost seemed the work of some intelligence more sportive
and fantastic than the gross conceptions of mortality, lay
in heaps beside the lake, and were visible beneath its
transparent waves. The flowering orange-tree, the balsam,
and innumerable odoriferous shrubs, grew wild in the
desolated portals. The fountain tanks had overflowed ;
and, amid the luxuriant vegetation of their margin, the
yellow snake held its unmolested dwelling. Hither came
the tiger and the bear to contend for those once domestic
animals who had forgotten the secure servitude of their
ancestors. No sound, when the famished beast of prey
THE ASSASSINS. 163
had retreated in despair from the awful desolation of this
place, at whose completion he had assisted, but the shrill
cry of the stork, and the flapping of his heavy wings from
the capital of the solitary column, and the scream of the
hungry vulture baffled of its only victim. The lore of
ancient wisdom was sculptured in mystic characters on the
rocks. The human spirit and the human hand had been
busy here to accomplish its profoundest miracles. It was a
temple dedicated to the God of knowledge and of truth.
The palaces of the Caliphs and the Caesars might easily
surpass these ruins in magnitude and sumptuousness : but
they were the design of tyrants and the work of slaves.
Piercing genius^and consummate prudence had planned and
executed Bethzatanai. There was deep and important
meaning in every lineament of its fantastic sculpture.
The unintelligible legend, once so beautiful and perfect, so
full of poetry and history, spoke, even in destruction,
volumes of mysterious import, and obscure significance.
But in the season of its utmost prosperity and magni-
ficence, art might not aspire to vie with nature in the
valley of Bethzatanai. All that was wonderful and lovely
was collected in this deep seclusion. The fluctuating ele-
ments seemed to have been rendered everlastingly per-
manent in forms of wonder and delight. The mountains of
Lebanon had been divided to their base to form this happy
valley ; on every side their icy summits darted their white
pinnacles into the clear blue sky, imaging, in their grotesque
outline, minarets, and ruined domes, and columns worn
with time. Far below, the silver clouds rolled their bright
I volumes in many beautiful shapes, and fed the eternal
springs that, spanning the dark chasms like a thousand
radiant rainbows, leaped into the quiet vale, then lingering
:—
i64 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS,
palm, lost themselves in the lake. The immensity of these
precipitous mountains, with their starry pyramids of snow,
excluded the sun, which overtopped not, even in its
meridian, their overhanging rocks. But a more heavenly
and serener light was reflected from their icy mirrors,
which, piercing through the many-tinted clouds, produced
lights and colours of inexhaustible variety. The herbage
was perpetually verdant, and clothed the darkest recesses
of the caverns and the woods.
Nature, undisturbed, had become an enchantress in these
solitudes : she had collected here all that was wonderful and
divine from the armoury of her omnipotence. The very
winds breathed health and renovation, and the joyousness
of youthful courage. Fountains of crystalline water played
perpetually among the aromatic flowers, and mingled a
freshness with their odour. The pine boughs became
instruments of exquisite contrivance, among which every
varying breeze waked music of new and more delightful
melody. Meteoric shapes, more effulgent than the moonlight,
hung on the wandering clouds, and mixed in discordant
dance around the spiral fountains. Blue vapours assumed
strange lineaments under the rocks and among the ruins,
lingering like ghosts with slow and solemn step. Through
a dark chasm to the east, in the long perspective of a portal
glittering with the unnumbered riches of the subterranean
world, shone the broad moon, pouring in one yellow and
unbroken stream her horizontal beams. Nearer the icy
region, autumn and spring held an alternate reign. The
sere leaves fell and choked the sluggish brooks ; the chilling
fogs hung diamonds on every spray ; and in the dark cold
evening the howling winds made melancholy music in the
trees. Far above, shone the bright throne of winter, clear,
cold, and dazzling. Sometimes there was seen the
THE ASSASSINS, 165
snow-flakes to fall before the sinking orb of the beamless
sun, like a shower of fiery sulphur. The cataracts, arrested
in their course, seemed, with their transparent columns, to
support the dark-browed rocks. Sometimes the icy
whirlwind scooped the powdery snow aloft, to mingle with
the hissing meteors, and scatter spangles through the rare
and rayless atmosphere.
Such strange scenes of chaotic confusion and harrowing
sublimity, surrounding and shutting in the vale, added to
the delights of its secure and voluptuous tranquillity. No
spectator could have refused to believe that some spirit of
great intelligence and power had hallowed these wild and
beautiful solitudes to a deep and solemn mystery.
The immediate effect of such a scene, suddenly presented
to the contemplation of mortal eyes, is seldom the subject
of authentic record. The coldest slave of custom cannot
fail to recollect some few moments in which the breath of
spring or the crowding clouds of sunset, with the pale moon
shining through their fleecy skirts, or the song of some
lonely bird perched on the only tree of an unfrequented
heath, has awakened the touch of nature. And they were
Arabians who entered the valley of Bethzatanai ; men who
idolized nature and the God of nature ; to whom love and
lofty thoughts, and the apprehensions of an uncorrupted
spirit, were sustenance and life. Thus securely excluded
from an abhorred world, all thought of its judgment was
cancelled by the rapidity of their fervid imaginations.
They ceased to acknowledge, or deigned not to advert to,
the distinctions with which the majority of base and vulgar
minds control the longings and struggles of the soul towards
its place of rest. A new and sacred fire was kindled
in their hearts and sparkled in their eyes. Every ges-
ture, every feature, the minutest action, was modelled to
i66 ESSA VS AND FRAGMENTS.
beneficence and beauty by the holy inspiration that had
descended on their searching spirits. The epidemic trans-
port communicated itself through every heart with the
rapidity of a blast from heaven. They were already dis-
embodied spirits ; they were already the inhabitants of
paradise. To live, to breathe, to move, was itself a
sensation of immeasurable transport. Every new contem-
plation of the condition of his nature brought to the happj
enthusiast an added measure of delight, and impelled to
every organ, where mind is united with external things, a
keener and more exquisite perception of all that they con-
tain of lovely and divine. To love, to be beloved, suddenly
became an insatiable famine of his nature, which the wide
circle of the universe, comprehending beings of such inex-
haustible variety and stupendous magnitude of excellence,
appeared too narrow and confined to satiate.
Alas, that these visitings of the spirit of life should
fluctuate and pass away I That the moments when the
human mind is commensurate with all that it can conceive
of excellent and powerful, should not endure with its exist-
ence and survive its most momentous change 1 But the
beauty of a vernal sunset, with its overhanging curtains of
empurpled cloud, is rapidly dissolved, to return at some
unexpected period, and spread an alleviating melancholy
over the dark vigils of despair.
It is true the enthusiasm of overwhelming transport
which had inspired every breast among the Assassins is no
more. The necessity of daily occupation and the ordinari-
ness of that human life, the burthen of which it is the
destiny of every human being to bear, had smothered, not
extinguished, that divine and eternal fire. Not the less
indelible and permanent were the impressions communi-
cated to all; not the more unalterably were the features
THE ASSASSINS. 167
of their social character modelled and determined by its
influence.
CHAPTER IL
Rome had fallen. Her senate-house had become a polluted
den of thieves and liars ; her solemn temples, the arena of
theological disputants, who made fire and sword the mis-
sionaries of their inconceivable beliefs. The city of the
monster Constantine, symbolizing, in the consequences of
its foundation, the wickedness and weakness of his succes-
sors, feebly imaged with declining power the substantial
eminence of the Roman name. Pilgrims of a new and
mightier faith crowded to visit the lonely ruins of
Jerusalem, and weep and pray before the sepulchre of the
Eternal God. The earth was filled with discord, tumult,
and ruin. The spirit of disinterested virtue had armed
one-half of the civilised world against the other. Mon-
strous and detestable creeds poisoned and blighted the
domestic charities. There was no appeal to natural love,
or ancient faith, from pride, superstition, and revenge.
Pour centuries had passed thus, terribly characterised by
the most calamitous revolutions. The Assassins, mean-
while, undisturbed by the surrounding tumult, possessed
and cultivated their fertile valley. The gradual operation
of their peculiar condition had matured and perfected the
singularity and excellence of their character. That cause,
which had ceased to act as an immediate and overpowering
excitement, became the unperceived law of their lives, and
sustenance of their natures. Their religious tenets had also
undergone a change, corresponding with the exalted condi-
tion of their moral being. The gratitude which they owed
to the benignant Spirit by which their limited intelligences
I
168 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS.
had not only been created but redeemed, was less fre-
quently adverted to, became less the topic of comment
or contemplation ; not, therefore, did it cease to be their
presiding guardian, the guide of their inmost thoughts, the
tribunal of appeal for the minutest particulars of their con-
duct. They learned to identify this mysterious benefactor
with the delight that is bred among the solitary rocks, and
has its dwelling alike in the changing colours of the clouds
and the inmost recesses of the caverns. Their future also
no longer existed, but in the blissful tranquillity of the
present. Time was measured and created by the vices and
the miseries of men, between whom and the happy nation
of the Assassins, there was no analogy nor comparison.
Already had their eternal peace commenced. The darkness
had passed away from the open gates of death.
The practical results produced by their faith and condition
upon their external conduct were singular and memorable.
Excluded from the great and various community of mankind,
these solitudes became to them a sacred hermitage, in which
all formed, as it were, one being, divided against itself by
no contending will or factious passions. Every impulse
conspired to one end, and tended to a single object. Each
devoted his powers to the happiness of the other. Their
republic was the scene of the perpetual contentions of
benevolence; not the heartless and assumed kindness of
commercial man, but the genuine virtue that has a legible
superscription in every feature of the countenance, and
every motion of the frame. The perverseness and calamities
of those who dwelt beyond the mountains that encircled
their undisturbed possessions, were unknown and
unimagined. Little embarrassed by the complexities of
civilised society, they knew not to conceive any happiness
that can be satiated without participation, or that thirsts
THE ASSASSINS. 169
not to reproduce and perpetually generate itself. The path
of virtue and felicity was plain and unimpeded. They
clearly acknowledged, in every case, that conduct to be
entitled to preference which would obviously produce the
greatest pleasure. They could not conceive an instance in
which it would be their duty to hesitate, in causing, at
whatever expense, the greatest and most unmixed delight.
Hence arose a peculiarity which only failed to germinate
in uncommon and momentous consequences, because the
Assassins had retired from the intercourse of mankind, over
whom other motives and principles of conduct than justice
and benevolence prevail. It would be a difficult matter for
men of such a sincere and simple faith, to estimate the final
results of their intentions, among the corrupt and slavish
multitude. They would be perplexed also in their choice of
the means, whereby their intentions might be fulfilled. To
produce immediate pain or disorder for the sake of future
benefit, is consonant, indeed, with the purest religion and
philosophy, but never fails to excite invincible repugnance
in the feelings of the many. Against their predilections and
distastes an Assassin, accidentally the inhabitant of a civil-
ised community, would wage unremitting hostility from
principle. He would find himself compelled to adopt
means which they would abhor, for the sake of an object
which they could not conceive that he should propose to
himself. Secure and self-enshrined in the magnificence and
pre-eminence of his conceptions, spotless as the light of
heaven, he would be the victim among men of calumny and
persecution. Incapable of distinguishing his motives, they
would rank him among the vilest and most atrocious
criminals. Great, beyond all comparison with them, they
would despise him in the presumption of their ignorance.
Because his spirit burned with an unquenchable passion for
I
ijro ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS.
their welfare, they would lead him, like his illustrious
master, amidst scoflPs, and mockery, and insult, to the
remuneration of an ignominious death.
Who hesitates to destroy a venomous serpent that has
crept near his sleeping friend, except the man who selfishly
dreads lest the malignant reptile should turn his fury on
himself? And if the poisoner has assumed a human shape,
if the bane be distinguished only from the viper's venom by
the excess and extent of its devastation, will the saviour
and avenger here retract and pause entrenched behind the
superstition of the indefeasible divinity of man? Is the
human form, then, the mere badge of a prerogative for
unlicensed wickedness and mischief? Can the power
derived from the weakness of the oppressed, or the
ignorance of the deceived, confer the right in security to
tyrannise and defraud ?
The subject of regular governments, and the disciple of
established superstition, dares not to ask this question. For
the sake of the eventual benefit, he endures what he esteems
a transitory evil, and the moral degradation of man disquiets
not his patience. But the religion of an Assassin imposes
other virtues than endurance, when his fellow-men groan
under tyranny, or have become so bestial and abject that
they cannot feel their chains. An Assassin believes that
man is eminently man, and only then enjoys the preroga-
tives of his privileged condition, when his afiections and
his judgment pay tribute to the God of Nature. The
perverse, and vile, and vicious — what were they ? Shapes
of some unholy vision, moulded by the spirit of Evil,
which the sword of the merciful destroyer should sweep
from this beautiful world. Dreamy nothings ; phantasms
of misery and mischief, that hold their death-like state on
glittering thrones, and in the loathsome dens of poverty.
THE ASSASSINS. I7i
No Assassin would submissively temporise with vice, and
in cold charity become a pander to falsehood and desolation.
His path through the wilderness of civilised society would
be marked with the blood of the oppressor and the miner.
The wretch, whom nations tremblingly adore, would expiate
in his throttling grasp a thousand licensed and venerable
crimes.
How many holy liars and parasites, in solemn guise,
would his saviour arm drag from their luxurious couches,
and plunge in the cold charnel, that the green and many-
legged monsters of the slimy grave might eat oflf at their
leisure the lineaments of rooted malignity and detested
cunning. The respectable man — the smooth, smiling,
polished villain, whom all the city honours ; whose very
trade is lies and murder ; who buys his daily bread with
the blood and tears of men, would feed the ravens with his
limbs. The Assassin would cater nobly for the eyeless
worms of earth, and the carrion fowls of heaven.
Yet here, religion and human love had imbued the
manners of those solitary people with inexpressible gentle-
ness and benignity. Courage and active virtue, and the
indignation against vice, which becomes a hurrying and
irresistible passion, slept like the imprisoned earthquake, or
the lightning shafts that hang in the golden clouds of even-
ing. They were innocent, but they were capable of more
than innocence ; for the great principles of their faith were
perpetually acknowledged and adverted to ; nor had they
forgotten, in this uninterrupted quiet, the author of their
felicity.
Four centuries had thus worn away without producing
an event. Men had died, and natural tears had been shed
upon their graves, in sorrow that improves the heart.
Those who had been united by love had gone to death
I
172 £SSA VS AND FRAGMENTS.
together, leaving to their friends the bequest of a most
sacred grief, and of a sadness that is allied to pleasure.
Babes that hung upon their mothers' breasts had become
men ; men had died ; and many a wild luxuriant weed
that overtopped the habitations of the vale, had twined its
roots around their disregarded bones. Their tranquil state
was like a summer sea, whose gentle undulations disturb
not the reflected stars, and break not the long still line of
the rainbow hues of sunrise.
CHAPTER III.
Where all is thus calm, the slightest circumstance is
recorded and remembered. Before the sixth century had
expired one incident occurred, remarkable and strange. A
young man, named Albedir, wandering in the woods, was
startled by the screaming of a bird of prey, and, looking up,
saw blood fall, drop by drop, from among the intertwined
boughs of a cedar. Having climbed thetree, he beheld a
terrible and dismaying spectacle. A naked human body
was impaled on the broken branch. It was maimed and
mangled horribly ; every limb bent and bruised into fright-
ful distortion, and exhibiting a breathing image of the
most sickening mockery of life. A monstrous snake had
scented its prey from among the mountains — and above
hovered a hungry vulture. From amidst this mass of deso-
lated humanity, two eyes, black and inexpressibly brilliant,
shone with an unearthly lustre. Beneath the blood-stained
eyebrows their steady rays manifested the serenity of an
immortal power, the collected energy of a deathless mind,
spell -secured from dissolution. A bitter smile of mingled
abhorrence and scorn distorted his wounded lip — he appeared
THE ASSASSINS. 173
calmly to observe and measure all around — self-possession
had not deserted the shattered mass of life.
The youth approached the bough on which the breathing
corpse was hung. As he approached, the serpent reluctantly
unwreathed his glittering coils, and crept towards his dark
and loathsome cave. The vulture, impatient of his meal,
fled to the mountain, that re-echoed with his hoarse
screams. The cedar branches creaked with their agitating
weight, faintly, as the dismal wind arose. All else was
deadly silent.
At length a voice issued from the mangled man. It
rattled in hoarse murmurs from his throat and lungs — his
words were the conclusion of some strange mysterious
soliloquy. They were broken, and without apparent
connection, completing wide intervals of inexpressible
conceptions.
" The great tyrant is baffled, even in success. Joy ! joy !
to his tortured foe ! Triumph to the worm whom he tramples
under his feet ! Ha ! His suicidal hand might dare as
well abolish the mighty frame of things ! Delight and
exultation sit before the closed gates of death ! — I fear not
to dwell beneath their black and ghastly shadow. Here
thy power may not avail ! Thou createst — 'tis mine to
ruin and destroy. — I was thy slave — I am thy equal, and
thy foe. — Thousands tremble before thy throne, who, at my
voice, shall dare to pluck the golden crown from thine
unholy head ! " He ceased. The silence of noon swallowed
up his words. Albedir clung tighter to the tree — he dared
not for dismay remove his eyes. He remained mute in the
perturbation of deep and creeping horror.
" Albedir ! " said the same voice, " Albedir ! in the
name of God, approach. He that suffered me to fall,
watches thee; — the gentle and merciful spirits of sweet
174 ^^-S*^ VS AND FRAGMENTS.
human love, delight not in agony and horror. For pity's
sake approach, in the name of thy good God, approach,
Albedir 1 " The tones were mild and clear as the responses of
jS]olian music. They floated to Albedir's ear like the warm
breath of June that lingers in the lawny groves, subduing
all to softness. Tears of tender affection started into his
eyes. It was as the voice of a beloved friend. The partner
of his childhood, the brother of his soul, seemed to call for
aid, and pathetically to remonstrate with delay. He
resisted not the magic impulse, but advanced towards the
spot, and tenderly attempted to remove the wounded man.
He cautiously descended the tree with his wretched burthen,
and deposited it on the ground.
A period of strange silence intervened. Awe and cold
horror were slowly succeeding to the softer sensations of
tumultuous pity, when again he heard the silver modula-
tions of the same enchanting voice. " Weep not for me,
Albedir ! What wretch so utterly lost, but might inhale
peace and renovation from this paradise ! I am wounded,
and in pain ; but having found a refuge in this seclusion,
and a friend in you, I am worthier of envy than compassion.
Bear me to your cottage secretly : I would not disturb your
gentle partner by my appearance. She must love me more
dearly than a brother. I must be the playmate of your
children ; already I regard them with a father's love. My
arrival must not be regarded as a thing of mystery and
wonder. What, indeed, but that men are prone to error
and exaggeration, is less inexplicable, than that a stranger,
wandering on Lebanon, fell from the rocks into the vale ?
Albedir," he continued, and his deepening voice assumed
awful solemnity, " in return for the affection with which I
cherish thee and thine, thou owest this submission."
Albedir implicity submitted; not even a thought had
THE ASSASSINS. 175
power to refuse its deference. He reassumed his burthen,
and proceeded towards the cottage. He watched until
Khaled should be absent, and conveyed the stranger into an
apartment appropriated for the reception of those who
occasionally visited their habitation. He desired that the
door should be securely fastened, and that he might not be
visited until the morning of the following day.
Albedir waited with impatience for the return of Khaled.
The unaccustomed weight of even so transitory a secret,
hung on his ingenuous and unpractised nature, like a blight-
ing, clinging curse. The stranger's accents had lulled him to
a trance of wild and delightful imagination. Hopes, so
visionary and aerial, that they had assumed no denomina-
tion, had spread themselves over his intellectual frame,
and, phantoms as they were, had modelled his being to their
shape. Still his mind was not exempt from the visitings of
disquietude and perturbation. It was a troubled stream of
thought, over whose fluctuating waves unsearchable fate
seemed to preside, guiding its unforeseen alterations with an
inexorable hand. Albedir paced earnestly the garden of his
cottage, revolving every circumstance attendant on the
incident of the day. He re-imaged with intense thought
the minutest recollections of the scene. In vain — he was
the slave of suggestions not to be controlled. Astonish-
ment, horror, and awe — tumultuous sympathy, and a
mysterious elevation of soul, hurried away all activity of
judgment, and overwhelmed, with stunning force, every
attempt at deliberation or inquiry.
His reveries were interrupted at length by the return of
Khaled. She entered the cottage, that scene of undisturbed
repose, in the confidence that change might as soon over-
whelm the eternal world, as disturb this inviolable sanctuary.
She started to behold Albedir. Without preface or remark,
176 ESS A YS AND FRAGMENTS,
he recounted with eager haste the occurrences of the day.
Khaled's tranquil spirit could hardly keep pace with the
breathless rapidity of his narration. She was bewildered
with staggering wonder even to hear his confused tones,
and behold his agitated countenance.
CHAPTER IV.
On the following morning Albedir arose at sunrise, and
visited the stranger. He found him already risen, and
employed in adorning the lattice of his chamber with flowers
from the garden. There was something in his attitude and
occupation singularly expressive of his entire familiarity
with the scene. Albedir's habitation seemed to have been
his accustomed home. He addressed his host in a tone
of gay and affectionate welcome, such as never fails to
communicate by sympathy the feelings from which it flows.
" My friend," said he, " the balm of the dew of our vale
is sweet ; or is this garden the favoured spot where the
winds conspire to scatter the best odours they can find?
Come, lend me your arm awhile, I feel very weak." He
motioned to walk forth, but, as if unable to proceed, rested
on the seat beside the door. For a few moments they were
silent, if the interchange of cheerful and happy looks is to
be called silence. At last he observed a spade that rested
against the wall. "You have only one spade, brother,"
said he ; " you have only one, I suppose, of any of the
instruments of tillage. Your garden ground, too, occupies
a certain space which it will be necessary to enlarge. This
must be quickly remedied. I cannot earn my supper of
to-night, nor of to-morrow ; but henceforward, I do not mean
to eat the bread of idleness. I know that you would
THE ASSASSINS. 177
willingly perform the additional labour which my nourish-
ment would require ; I know, also, that you would feel a
degree of pleasure in the fatigue arising from this employ-
ment, but I shall contest with you such pleasures as these,
and such pleasures as these alone." His eyes were somewhat
wan, and the tone of his voice languid as he spoke.
As they were thus engaged, Khaled came towards them.
The stranger beckoned to her to sit beside him, and taking
her hands within his own, looked attentively on her mild
countenance. Khaled inquired if he had been refreshed
by sleep. He replied by a laugh of careless and
inoffensive glee ; and placing one of her hands within
Albedir's, said, "If this be sleep, here in this odorous
vale, where these sweet smiles encompass us, and the
voices of those who love are heard — if these be the visions
of sleep, sister, those who lie down in misery shall arise
lighter than the butterflies. I came from amid the tumult
of a world, how different from this ! I am unexpectedly
among you, in the midst of a scene such as my imagina-
tion never dared to promise. I must remain here — I
must not depart." Khaled, recovering from the admiration
and astonishment caused by the stranger's words and
manner, assured him of the happiness which she should
feel in such an addition to her society. Albedir, too, who
had been more deeply impressed than Khaled by the event
of his arrival, earnestly re-as5ured him of the ardour of the
affection with which he had inspired them. The stranger
smiled gently to hear the unaccustomed fervour of
sincerity which animated their address, and was rising
to retire, when Khaled said, " You have not yet seen our
children, Maimuna and Abdallah. They are by the water-
side, playing with their favourite snake. We have only to
cross yonder little wood, and wind down a path cut in the
k 93
178 ESSA YS AND FRAGMENTS.
rock that overhangs the lake, and we shall find them beside
a recess which the shore makes there, and which a chasm,
as it were, among the rocks and woods, encloses. Do you
think you could walk there*?" — "To see your children,
Khaled ? I think I could, with the assistance of Albedir's
arm, and yours." — So they went through the wood of
ancient cypress, intermingled with the brightness of many-
tinted blooms, which gleamed like stars through its
romantic glens. They crossed the green meadow, and
entered among the broken chasms, beautiful as they were
in their investiture of odoriferous shrubs. They came at
last, after pursuing a path which wound through the
intricacies of a little wilderness, to the borders of the lake.
They stood on the rock which overhung it, from which
there was a prospect of all the miracles of nature and of
art which encircled and adorned its shores. The stranger
gazed upon it with a countenance unchanged by any
emotion, but, as it were, thoughtfully and contemplatingly.
As he gazed, Khaled ardently pressed his hand, and said,
in a low yet eager voice, " Look, look, lo there I " He
turned towards her, but her eyes were not on him. She
looked below — her lips were parted by the feelings which
possessed her soul — her breath came and went regularly
but inaudibly. She leaned over the precipice, and her dark
hair hanging beside her face, gave relief to its fine
lineaments, animated by such love as exceeds utterance.
The stranger followed her eyes, and saw that her children
were in the glen below ; then raising his eyes, exchanged
with her afiectionate looks of congratulation and delight.
The boy was apparently eight years, the girl about two years
younger. The beauty of their form and countenance was
something so divine and strange, as overwhelmed the senses
of the beholder like a delightful dream, with insupportable
THE ASSASSINS. 179
ravishment. They were arrayed in a loose robe of
linen, through which the exquisite proportions of their form
appeared. Unconscious that they were observed, they did
not relinquish the occupation in which they were engaged.
They had constructed a little boat of the bark of trees, and
had given it sails of interwoven feathers, and launched it
on the water. They sate beside a white flat stone, on
which a small snake lay coiled, and when their work was
finished, they arose and called to the snake in melodious
tones, so that it understood their language. For it un-
wreathed its shining circles and crept to the boat, into
which no sooner had it entered, than the girl loosened the
band which held it to the shore, and it sailed away. Then
they ran round and round the little creek, clapping their
hands, and melodiously pouring out wild sounds, which the
snake seemed to answer by the restless glancing of his
neck. At last a breath of wind came from the shore, and
the boat changed its course, and was about to leave the
creek, which the snake perceived and leaped into the water,
and came to the little children's feet. The girl sang to it,
and it leaped into her bosom, and she crossed her fair hands
over it, as if to cherish it there. Then the boy answered
with a song, and it glided from beneath her hands and
crept towards him. While they were thus employed,
Maimuna looked up, and seeing her parents on the cliff",
ran to meet them up the steep path that wound around it ;
and Abdallah, leaving his snake, followed joyfully.
T
LETTERS.
I.— To Thomas Hookham, Old Bond Street.
Ly mouthy Barnstaple^ Aug. \Zth^ 1812.
Dear Sir,
Your parcel arrived last night, for which I am
much obliged. Before I advert to any other topic, I will
explain the contents of mine in which this is enclosed. In the
first place, I send you fifty copies of the Letter [to Lord
EUenborough]. I send you a copy of a work which I have
procured from America, and which I am exceedingly anxious
should be published. It developes, as you will perceive by the
most superficial reading, the. actual state of republicanized
Ireland, and appears to me, above all things, calculated to
remove the prejudices which have too long been cherished of
that oppressed country. I enclose also two pamphlets which I
printed and distributed whilst in Ireland some months ago (no
bookseller daring to publish them). They were on that account
attended with only partial success, and I request your opinion
as to the probable result of publishing them with the annexed
suggestions in one pamphlet, with an explanatory preface, in
London. They would find their way to Dublin.
You confer on me an obligation, and involve a high compli-
ment, by your advice. I shall, if possible, prepare a volume of
essays, moral and religious^ by November ; but, all my MSS.
now being in Dublin, and from peculiar circumstances not
LETTERS. i8i
immediately obtainable, I do not know whether I can. I
enclose also, by way of specimen, all that I have written of a
little poem begun since my arrival in England. I conceive I
have matter enough for six more cantos. You will perceive that
I have not attempted to temper my constitutional enthusiasm in
that poem. Indeed, a poem is safe : the iron-souled Attorney-
General would scarcely dare to attack [it]. The Past, the
Present, and the Future, are the grand and comprehensive
topics of this poem. I have not yet half exhausted the second
of them.*
I shall take the liberty of retaining the two poems which you
have sent me (Mr. Peacock's), and only regret that my powers
are so circumscribed as to prevent me from becoming exten-
sively useful to your friend. The poems abound with a genius,
an information, the power and extent of which I admire, in
proportion as I lament the object of their application. Mr.
Peacock conceives that commerce is prosperity ; that the glory
of the British flag is the happiness of the British people ; that
George III,, so far from having been a warrior and a tyrant,
has been a patriot. To me it appears otherwise ; and I have
rigidly accustomed myself not to be seduced by the loveliest
eloquence or the sweetest strains to regard with intellectual
toleration that which ought not to be tolerated by those who
love liberty, truth, and virtue. I mean not to say that Mr.
Peacock does not love them ; but I mean to say that he regards
those means [as] instrumental to their progress, which I regard
[as] instrumental to their destruction. (See Genius of the
Thames^ pp. 24, 26, 28, 76, 98.) At the same time, I am free to
say that the poem appears to be far beyond mediocrity in genius
and versification, and the conclusion of Palmyra the finest piece
of poetry I ever read. I have not had time to read the
Philosophy of Melancholy^ and of course am only half acquainted
with that genius and those powers whose application I should
consider myself rash and impertinent in criticising, did I not
conceive that frankness and justice demand it.
I should esteem it as a favour if you would present the
enclosed letter to the Chevalier Lawrence. I have read his
Empire of the Nairsj nay, have it. Perfectly and decidedly do
I subscribe to the truth of the principles which it is designed to
establish.
I hope you will excuse, nay, and doubt not but you will, the
frankness I have used. Characters of our liberality are so
* The poem here alluded to is Queen Mab. — L. S.
i82 LETTERS,
wondrous rare, that the sooner they know each other, and the
fbller and more complete that knowledge is, the better.
Dear Sir, permit me to remain.
Yours, very truly,
Percy B. Shelley.
I am about translating an old French work, professedly by
M. Mirabaud — not the famous one — La Systhme de la Nature.
Do yon know anything of it %
II.— To Thomas Hookham.
Tanyralt, Dec. 17M, 181 2.
My Dear Sir,
You will receive the Biblical Extracts * in a day
or two by the twopenny post. I confide them to the care of a
person going to London. Would not Daniel J. Eaton publish
them ? Could the question be asked him in any manner ?
I am also preparing a volume of minor poems, respecting
whose publication I shall request your judgment, both as
publisher and friend. A very obvious question would be —
Will they sell or not ? Subjoined is a list of books which
I wish you to send me very soon. I am determined to apply
myself to a study that is hateful and disgusting to my very
soul, but which is, above all studies, necessary for him who
would be listened to as a mender of antiquated abuses. I
mean that record of crimes and miseries, History. You see
that the metaphysical works to which my heart hankers are not
numerous in this list. One thing will you take care of for me ?
that those standard and respectable works on history, etc,
be of the cheapest possible editions. With respect to
metaphysical works, I am less scrupulous.
Spinoza you may or may not be able to obtain. Kant is
translated into Latin by some Englishman. I would prefer
that the Greek classics should have Latin or English versions
printed opposite. If not to be obtained thus, they must be
sent otherwise.
Mrs. Shelley is attacking Latin with considerable resolution,
and can already read many odes in Horace. She unites with
her sister and myself in best wishes to yourself and brother.
Your very sincere friend,
P. B. Shelley.
• This work has never been published.— L. S.
^^M
LETTERS. 183
III.— To Thomas Hookham.
February^ 18 13.
I am boiling with indignation at the horrible
injustice and tyranny of the sentence pronounced on Hunt
and his brother ; and it is on this subject that I write to you.
Surely the seal of abjectness and slavery is indelibly stamped
upon the character of England.
Although I do not retract in the slightest degree my wish for
a subscription for the widows and children of those poor men
hung at York, yet this ;^ 1,000 which the Hunts are sentenced to
pay is an affair of more consequence. Hunt is a brave, a
good, and an enlightened man. Surely the public, for whom
Hunt has done so much, will repay in part the great debt
of obligation which they owe the champion of their liberties
and virtues ; or are they dead, cold, stone-hearted, and
insensible — brutalized by centuries of unremitting bondage?
However that may be, they surely may be excited into some
slight acknowledgment of his merits. Whilst hundreds of
thousands are sent to the tyrants of Russia, he pines in
a dungeon, far from all that can make life desired.
Well, I am rather poor at present ; but I have £^o which
is not immediately wanted. Pray, begin a subscription for
the Hunts ; put down my name for that sum, and, when I
hear that you have complied with my request, I will send it
you.* Now, if there are any difficulties in the way of this scheme
of ours, for the love of liberty and virtue, overcome them. Oh !
that I might wallow for one night in the Bank of England !
Queen Mab is finished and transcribed. I am now preparing
the notes, which shall be long and philosophical. You will
receive it with the other poems. I think that the whole should
form one volume ; but of that we can speak hereafter.
As to the French EncyciopMie^ it is a book which I am
desirous — very desirous — of possessing ; and, if you could get
me a few months' credit (being at present rather low in cash), I
should very much desire to have it.
My dear sir, excuse the earnestness of the first part of my
letter. I feel warmly on this subject, and I flatter myself that,
* The Hunts, however, refused to accept any subscription, public
or private, and paid the fine entirely out of their own pockets. — L. S.
I
1 84 LETTERS,
so long as your own independence and - liberty remain
uncompromised, you are inclined to second my desires.
Your very sincere friend,
P. B. Shelley.
P.S. — If no other way can be devised for this subscription,
will you take the trouble on yourself of writing an appropriate
advertisement for the papers, inserting, by way of stimulant,
my subscription ?
On second thoughts, I enclose the £20.
IV.— To Thomas Jefferson Hogg.
Bishopgate^ September^ 18 15.
My Dear Friend,
Your letter has lain by me for the last week,
reproaching me every day. I found it on my return from a
water excursion on the Thames, the particulars of which will
have been recounted in another letter. The exercise and dissi-
pation of mind attached to such an expedition have produced so
favourable an effect on my health, that my habitual dejection
and irritability have almost deserted me, and I can devote six
hours in the day to study without difficulty. I have been
engaged lately in the commencement of several literary
plans, which, if my present temper of mind endures, I shall
probably complete in the winter. I have consequently deserted
Cicero, or proceed but slowly with his philosophic dialogues. I
have read the Oration for the poet Archias, and am only dis-
appointed with its brevity.
I have been induced by one of the subjects which I am now
pursuing to consult Bayle. I think he betrays great obliquity of
understanding and coarseness of feeling. I have also read the
four finest books of Lucan's Pharsalia — a poem, as it appears to
me, of wonderful genius and transcending Virgil. Mary has
finished the fifth book of the jtEneid^ and her progress in Latin
is such as to satisfy my best expectations.
The east wind— the wind of autumn — is abroad, and even
now the leaves of the forest are shattered at every gust. When
may we expect you ? September is almost passed, and October,
the month of your promised return, is at hand, when we shall
be happy to welcome you again to our fireside.
No events, as you know, disturb our tranquillity. Adieu.
Ever affectionately yours,
Percy B. Shelley.
LETTERS. 185
V. — To Thomas Love Peacock.
Hotel de Seeker on^ Geneva^ May 15, 18 16.
After a journey of ten days, we arrived at Geneva.
The journey, like that of life, was variegated with intermingled
rain and sunshine, though these many showers were to me, as
you know, April showers, quickly passing away, and foretelling
the calm brightness of summer.
The journey was in some respects exceedingly delightful, but
the prudential considerations arising out of the necessity of
preventing delay, and the continual attention to pecuniary
disbursements, detract terribly from the pleasure of all travelling
schemes.
You live by the shores of a tranquil stream, among low and
woody hills. You live in a free country, where you may act
without restraint, and possess that which you possess in
security ; and so long as the name of country and the selfish
conceptions it includes shall subsist, England, I am persuaded, is
the most free and the most refined.
Perhaps you have chosen wisely, but if I return and follow
your example, it will be no subject of regret to me that I have
seen other things. Surely there is much of bad and much of
good, there is much to disgust and much to elevate, which he
cannot have felt or known who has never passed the limits of his
native land.
So long as man is such as he now is, the experience of which
I speak will never teach him to despise the country of his
birth — far otherwise, like Wordsworth, he will never know what
love subsists between that and him until absence shall have
made its beauty more heartfelt j our poets and philosophers, our
mountains and our lakes, the rural lanes and fields which are so
especially our own, are ties which, until I become utterly
senseless, can never be broken asunder.
These, and the memory of them, if I never should return, these
and the affections of the mind, with which, having been once
united, [they] are inseparable, will make the name of England
dear to me for ever, even if I should permanently return to it
no more.
But I suppose you did not pay the postage of this, expecting
nothing but sentimental gossip, and I fear it will be long before
i86 LETTERS.
I play the tourist properly, I will, however, tell you that to
come to Geneva we crossed the Jura branch of the Alps.
The mere difficulties of horses, high bills, postilions, and
cheating, lying aubergistes, you can easily conceive ; fill up that
part of the picture according to your own experience, and it
cannot fail to resemble.
The mountains of Jura exhibit scenery of wonderful sublimity.
Pine forests of impenetrable thickness, and untrodden, nay,
inaccessible expanse, spreading on every side. Sometimes
descending, they follow the route into the valleys, clothing the
precipitous rocks, and struggling with knotted roots between
the most barren clefts. Sometimes the road winds high into
the regions of frost, and there these forests become scattered,
and loaded with snow.
The trees in these regions are incredibly large, and stand in
scattered clumps over the white wilderness. Never was scene
more utterly desolate than that which we passed on the evening
of our last day's journey.
The natural silence of that uninhabited desert contrasted
strangely with the voices of the people who conducted us, for it
was necessary in this part of the mountain to take a number of
persons, who should assist the horses to force the chaise through
the snow, and prevent it from falling down the precipice.
We are now at Geneva, where, or in the neighbourhood, we
shall remain probably until the autumn. I may return in a
fortnight or three weeks, to attend to the last exertions which
L is to make for the settlement of my affairs ; of course I
shall then see you ; in the meantime it will interest me to hear
all that you have to tell of yourself.
P. B. Shelley.
VI.— To T. L. Peacock.
MEILLERIE, CLARENS, CHILLON, VEVAI, LAUSANNE.
Montalegrey near Coligni, Geneva^ July i2thy [1816.]
It is nearly a fortnight since I have returned from Vevai.
This journey has been on every account delightful, but most
especially, because then I first knew the divine beauty of
Rousseau's imagination, as it exhibits itself in Julie. It is
inconceivable what an enchantment the scene itself lends to
LETTERS. 187
those delineations, from which its own most touching charm
arises. But I will give you an abstract of our voyage, which
lasted eight days, and if you have a map of Switzerland, you
can follow me.
We left Montalegre at half-past two on the 23rd of June.
The lake was calm, and after three hours of rowing we arrived at
Hermance, a beautiful little village, containing a ruined tower,
built, the villagers say, by Julius Caesar. There were three
other towers similar to it, which the Genevese destroyed for
their own fortifications in 1560. We got into the tower by a
kind of window. The walls are immensely solid, and the
stone of which it is built so hard, that it yet retained the mark
of chisels. The boatman said, that this tower was once three
times higher than it is now. There are two staircases in the
thickness of the walls, one of which is entirely demolished, and
the other half ruined, and only accessible by a ladder. The
town itself, now an inconsiderable village inhabited by a few
fishermen, was built by a queen of Burgundy, and reduced to its
present state by the inhabitants of Berne, who burnt and
ravaged everything they could find.
Leaving Hermance, we arrived at sunset at the village of
Herni. After looking at our lodgings, which were gloomy and
dirty, we walked out by the side of the lake. It was beautiful
to see the vast expanse of these purple and misty waters broken
by the craggy islets near to its slant and " beached margin."
There were many fish sporting in the lake, and multitudes were
collected close to the rocks to catch the flies which inhabited
them.
On returning to the village, we sat on a wall beside the lake,
looking at some children who were playing at a game like nine-
pins. The children here appeared in an extraordinary way
deformed and diseased. Most of them were crooked, and with
enlarged throats ; but one little boy had such exquisite grace in
his mien and motions, as I never before saw equalled in a child.
His countenance was beautiful for the expression with which it
overflowed. There was a mixture of pride and gentleness in
his eyes and lips, the indications of sensibility, which his educa-
tion will probably pervert to misery or seduce to crime ; but
there was more of gentleness than of pride, and it seemed that
the pride was tamed from its original wildness by the habitual
exercise of milder feelings. My companion gave him a piece of
money, which he took without speaking, with a sweet smile
of easy thankfulness, and then with an embarrassed air turned
to his play. All this might scarcely be ; but the imagination
188 LETTERS,
surely could not forbear to breathe into the most inanimate
forms, some likeness of its own visions, on such a serene and
glowing evening, in this remote and romantic village, beside
the calm lake that bore us hither.
On returning to our inn, we found that the servant had
arranged our rooms, and deprived them of the greater portion
of their former disconsolate appearance. They reminded my
companion of Greece : it was five years, he said, since he had
slept in such beds. The influence of the recollections excited
by this circumstance on our conversation gradually faded, and I
retired to rest with no unpleasant sensations, thinking of our
journey to-morrow, and of the pleasure of recounting the little
adventures of it when we return.
The next morning we pa§sed Yvoire, a scattered village with
an ancient castle, whose houses are interspersed with trees, and
which stands at a little distance from Nerni, on the promontory
which bounds a deep bay, some miles in extent. So soon as
we arrived at this promontory, the lake began to assume
an aspect of wilder magnificence. The mountains of Savoy,
whose summits were bright with snow, descended in broken
slopes to the lake : on high, the rocks were dark with pine
forests, which become deeper and more immense, until the ice
and snow mingle with the points of naked rock that pierce the
blue air ; but below, groves of walnut, chestnut, and oak, with
openings of lawny fields, attested the milder climate.
As soon as we had passed the opposite promontory, we saw
the river Drance, which descends from between a chasm in the
mountains, and makes a plain near the lake, intersected by its
divided streams. Thousands of besolets, beautiful water-birds,
like sea-gulls, but smaller, with purple on their backs, take their
station on the shallows where its waters mingle with the lake.
As we approached Evian, the mountains descended more pre-
cipitously to the lake, and masses of intermingled wood and
rock overhung its shining spire.
We arrived at this town about seven o'clock, after a day
which involved more rapid changes of atmosphere than I ever
recollect to have observed before. The morning was cold and
wet ; then an easterly wind, and the clouds hard and high ;
then thunder showers, and wind shifting to every quarter ; then
a warm blast from the south, and summer clouds hanging over
the peaks, with bright blue sky between. About half an hour
after we had arrived at Evian, a few flashes of lightning came
from a dark cloud, directly over head, and continued after the
cloud had dispersed. "Diespiter per pura tonantes egit
LETTERS. 189
equos : " a phenomenon which certainly had no influence on
me, corresponding with that which it produced on Horace.
The appearance of the inhabitants of Evian is more wretched,
diseased, and poor, than I ever recollect to have seen. The
contrast indeed between the subjects of the King of Sardinia
and the citizens of the independent republics of Switzerland,
afifords a powerful illustration of the blighting mischiefs of
despotism, within the space of a few miles. They have mineral
waters here, eaux savonneuses, they call them. In the evening
we had some difficulty about our passports, but so soon as the
syndic heard my companion's rank and name, he apologised for
the circumstance. The inn was good. During our voyage, on
the distant height of a" hill, covered with pine-forests, we saw a
ruined castle, which reminded me of those on the Rhine.
We left Evian on the following morning, with a wind of such
violence as to permit but one sail to be carried. The waves
also were exceedingly high, and our boat so heavily laden, that
there appeared to be some danger. We arrived, however, safe
at Meillerie, after passing with great speed mighty forests
which overhung the lake, and lawns of exquisite verdure, and
mountains with bare and icy points, which rose immediately
from the summit of the rocks, whose bases were echoing to the
waves.
We here heard that the Empress Maria Louisa had slept at
Meillerie — before the present inn was built, and when the
accommodations were those of the most wi etched village — in
remembrance of St. Preux. How beautiful it is to find that the
common sentiments of human nature can attach themselves to
those who are the most removed from its duties and its enjoy-
ments, when Genius pleads for their admission at the gate of
Power. To own them was becoming in the Empress, and
confirms the affectionate praise contained in the reg^ret of a
great and enlightened nation. A Bourbon dared not even to
have remembered Rousseau. She owed this power to that
democracy which her husband's dynasty outraged, and of which
it was, however, in some sort, the representative among the
nations of the earth. This little incident shows at once how
unfit and how impossible it is for the ancient system of opinions,
or for any power built upon a conspiracy to revive them,
permanently to subsist among mankind. We dined there, and
had some honey, the best I have ever tasted, the very essence
of the mountain flowers, and as fragrant. Probably the village
derives its name from this production. Meillerie is the well-
known scene of St. Preux's visionary exile ; but Meillerie is
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I90 LETTERS.
indeed enchanted ground, were Rousseau no magician. Groves
of pine, chestnut, and walnut overshadow it ; magnificent and
unbounded forests to which England affords no parallel. In
the midst of these woods are dells of lawny expanse, incon-
ceivably verdant, adorned with a thousand of the rarest flowers,
and odorous with thyme.
The lake appeared somewhat calmer as we left Meillerie,
sailing close to the banks, whose magnificence augmented with
the turn of every promontory. But we congratulated ourselves
too soon : the wind gradually increased in violence, until it blew
tremendously ; and, as it came from the remotest extremity of
the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and covered the
whole surface with a chaos of foam. One of our boatmen, who
was a dreadfully stupid fellow, persisted in holding the sail at
a time when the boat was on the point of being driven under
water by the hurricane. On discovering his error, he let it
entirely go, and the boat for a moment refused to obey the
helm ; in addition, the rudder was so broken as to render the
management of .it very difficult ; one wave fell in, and then
another. My companion, an excellent swimmer, took off his
coat, I did the same, and we sat with our arms crossed, every
instant expecting to be swamped. The sail was, however, again
held, the boat obeyed the helm, and still in imminent peril from
the immensity of the waves, we arrived in a few minutes at a
sheltered port, in the village of St. Gingoux.
I felt in this near prospect of death a mixture of sensations,
among which terror entered, though but subordinately. My
feelings would have been less painful had I been alone ; but I
knew that my companion would have attempted to save me, and
I was overcome with humiliation, when I thought that his life
might have been risked to preserve mine. When we arrived at
St. Gingoux, the inhabitants, who stood on the shore, unaccus-
tomed to see a vessel as frail as ours, and fearing to venture at
all on such a sea, exchanged looks of wonder and congratulation
with our boatmen, who, as well as ourselves, were well pleased
to set foot on shore.
St. Gingoux is even more beautiful than Meillerie ; the
mountains are higher, and their loftiest points of elevation
descend more abruptly to the lake. On high, the aerial summits
still cherish great depths of snow in their ravines, and in the
paths of their unseen torrents. One of the highest of these
IS called Roche de St. Julien, beneath whose pinnacles the
forests become deeper and more extensive ; the chestnut gives a
peculiarity to the scene, which is most beautiful, and will make
LETTERS, 191
a picture in my memory, distinct from all other mountain scenes
which I have ever before visited.
As we arrived here early, we took a voiture to visit the mouth
of the Rhone. We went between the mountains and the lake,
under groves of mighty chestnut trees, beside perpetual streams,
which are nourished by the snows above, and form stalactites
on the rocks, over which they fall We saw an immense chest-
nut tree, which had been overthrown by the hurricane of the
morning. The place where the Rhone joins the lake was
marked by a line of tremendous breakers ; the river is as rapid
as when it leaves the lake, but is muddy and dark. We went
about a league farther on the road to La Valais, and stopped at
a castle called La Tour de Bouverie, which seems to be the
frontier of Switzerland and Savoy, as we were asked for our
passports, on the supposition of our proceeding to Italy.
On one side of the road was the immense Roche de St. Julien,
which overhung it ; through the gateway of the castle we saw
the snowy mountains of La Valais, clothed in clouds, and, on
the other side, was the willowy plain of the Rhone, in a character
of striking contrast with the rest of the scene, bounded by the
dark mountains that overhang Clarens, Vevai, and the lake that
rolls between. In the midst of the plain rises a little isolated
hill, on which the white spire of a church peeps from among the
tufted chestnut woods. We returned to St. Gingoux before
sunset, and I passed the evening in rtadmg /uUe.
As my companion rises late, I had time before breakfast, on
the ensuing morning, to hunt the waterfalls of the river that fall
into the lake of St. Gingoux. The stream is, indeed, from the
declivity over which it falls, only a succession of waterfalls,
which roar over the rocks with a perpetual sound, and suspend
their unceasing spray on the leaves and flowers that overhang
and adorn its savage banks. The path that conducted along
this river sometimes avoided the precipices of its shores, by
leading through meadows ; sometimes threaded the base of the
perpendicular and caverned rocks. I gathered in these meadows
a nosegay of such flowers as I never saw in England, and which
I thought more beautiful for that rarity.
On my return, after breakfast, we sailed for Clarens, deter-
mining first to see the three mouths of the Rhone, and then the
Castle of Chillon ; the day was fine, and the water calm. We
passed from the blue waters of the lake over the stream of the
Rhone, which is rapid even at a great distance from its con-
fluence with the lake ; the turbid waters mixed with those of the
lake, but mixed with them unwillingly. {See Nouvelle HUoise^
193 LETTERS.
Lettre 1 7, Part. 4). I read Julie all day ; an overflowing, as it
now seems, surrounded by the scenes which it has so wonder-
fully peopled, of sublimest genius, and more than human
sensibility. Meillerie, the Castle of Chillon, Clarens, the
mountains of La Valais and Savoy, present themselves to the
imagination as monuments of things that were once familiar,
and of beings that were once dear to it. They were created
indeed by one mind, but a mind so powerfully bright as to cast
a shade of falsehood on the records that are called reality.
We passed on to the castle of Chillon, and visited its dungeons
and towers. These prisons are excavated below the lake ; the
principal dungeon is supported by seven columns, whose
iDranching capitals support the roof. Close to the very walls,
the lake is eight hundred feet deep ; iron rings are fastened
to these columns, and on them were engraven a multitude of
names, partly those of visitors, and partly doubtless of the
prisoners, of whom now no memory remains, and who thus
beguiled a solitude which they have long ceased to feel. One
date was as ancient as 1670. At the commencement of the
Reformation, and indeed long after that period, this dungeon
was the receptacle of those who shook, or who denied the system
of idolatry, from the effects of which mankind is even now
slowly emerging.
Close to this long and lofty dungeon was a narrow cell, and
beyond it one larger and far more lofty and dark, supported
upon two unornamented arches. Across one of these arches
was a beam, now black and rotten, on which prisoners were
hung in secret. I never saw a monument more terrible of that
cold and inhuman tyranny, which it had been the delight of
man to exercise over man. It was indeed one of those many
tremendous fulfilments which render the " pernicies humani
generis" of the great Tacitus so solemn and irrefragable a
prophecy. The gendarme, who conducted us over this castle,
told us that there was an opening to the lake, by means of a
secret spring, connected with which the whole dungeon
might be filled with water before the prisoners could possibly
escape 1
We proceeded with a contrary wind to Clarens against a
heavy swell. I never felt more strongly than on landing at
Clarens, that the spirit of old times had deserted its once
cherished habitation. A thousand times, thought I, have Julia
and St. Preux walked on this terraced road, looking towards
these mountains which I now behold ; nay, treading on the
ground where I now tread. From the window of our lodging
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LETTERS. 193
our landlady pointed out " le bosquet de Julie." At least the
inhabitants of this village are impressed with an idea, that the
persons of that romance had actual existence. In the evening
we walked thither. It is, indeed, Julia's wood. The hay was
making under the trees ; the trees themselves were aged, but
vigorous, and interspersed with younger ones, which are destined
to be their successors, and in future years, when we are dead, to
afford a shade to future worshippers of nature, who love the
memory of that tenderness and peace of which this was the
imaginary abode. We walked forward among the vineyards,
whose narrow terraces overlook this affecting scene. Why did
the cold maxims of the world compel me at this moment to
repress the tears of melancholy transport which it would have
been so sweet to indulge, immeasurably, even until the
darkness of night had swallowed up the objects which excited
them.
I forgot to remark, what indeed my companion remarked to
me, that our danger from the storm took place precisely in the
spot where Julie and her lover were nearly overset, and where
St. Preux was tempted to plunge with her into the lake.
On the following day we went to see the castle of Clarens, a
square strong house, with very few windows, surrounded by a
double terrace that overlooks the valley, or rather the plain of
Clarens. The road which conducted to it wound up the steep
ascent through woods of walnut and chestnut. We gathered
roses on the terrace, in the feeling that they might be the
posterity of some planted by Julie's hand. We sent their dead
and withered leaves to the absent.
We went again to " the bosquet de Julie," and found that the
precise spot was now utterly obliterated, and a heap of stones
marked the place where the little chapel had once stood.
Whilst we were execrating the author of this brutal folly, our
guide informed us that the land belonged to the convent of St.
Bernard, and that this outrage had been committed by their
orders. I knew before, that if avarice could harden the hearts
of men, a system of prescriptive religion has an influence far
more inimical to natural sensibility. I know that an isolated
man is sometimes restrained by shame from outraging the
venerable feelings arising out of the memory of genius, which
once made nature even lovelier than itself ; but associated man
holds it as the very sacrament of his union to forswear all
delicacy, all benevolence, all remorse ; all that is true, or
tender, or sublime.
We sailed from Clarens to Vevai. Vevai is a town more
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194 LETTERS.
beautiful in its simplicity than any I have ever seen. Its
market-place, a spacious square interspersed with trees, looks
directly upon the mountains of Savoy and La Valais, the lake,
and the valley of the Rhone. It was at Vevai that Rousseau
conceived the design oi Julie.
From Vevai we came to Ouchy, a village near Lausanne.
The coasts of the Pays de Vaud, though full of villages and
vineyards, present an aspect of tranquillity and peculiar beauty
which well compensates for the solitude which I am accustomed
to admire. The hills are very high and rocky, crowned and
interspersed with woods. Waterfalls echo from the cliffs, and
shine afar. In one place we saw the traces of two rocks of
immense size, which had fallen from the mountain behind.
One of these lodged in a room where a young woman was
sleeping, without injuring her. The vineyards were utterly
destroyed in its path, and the earth torn up.
The rain detained us two days at Ouchy. We, however,
visited Lausanne, and saw Gibbon's house. We were shown
the decayed summer-house where he finished his History, and
the old acacias on the terrace, from which he saw Mont Blanc,
after having written the last sentence. There is something
grand and even touching in the regret which he expresses at
the completion of his task. It was conceived amid the ruins of
the Capitol. The sudden departure of his cherished and accus-
tomed toil must have left him, like the death of a dear friend,
sad and solitary.
My companion gathered some acacia leaves to preserve in
remembrance of him. I refrained from doing so, fearing to
outrage the greater and more sacred name of Rousseau ; the
contemplation of whose imperishable creations had left no
vacancy in my heart for mortal things. Gibbon had a cold and
unimpassioned spirit. I never felt more inclination to rail at
the prejudices which cling to such a thing, than now that /u/t'e
and Clarens, Lausanne and the Roman Empire^ compelled me
to a contrast between Rousseau and Gibbon.
When we returned, in the only interval of sunshine during
the day, I walked on the pier which the lake was lashing with
its waves. A rainbow spanned the lake, or rather rested one
extremity of its arch upon the water, and the other at the foot
of the mountains of Savoy. Some white houses, I know not
if they were those of Meillerie, shone through the yellow fire.
On Saturday, the 30th of June, we quitted Ouchy, and after
two days of pleasant sailing arrived on Sunday evening at
Montalegre.
LETTERS. 195
VII.— To T. L. Peacock.
Geneva^ July 17M, 1816.
My opinion of turning to one spot of earth and calling it our
home, and of the excellencies and usefulness of the sentiments
arising out of this attachment, has at length produced in me the
resolution of acquiring this possession.
You are the only man who has sufficient regard for me to
take an interest in the fulfilment of this design, and whose tastes
conform sufficiently to mine to engage me to confide the
execution of it to your discretion.
I do not trouble you with apologies for giving you this com-
mission. I require only rural exertion, walks, and circuitous
wanderings, some slight negotiations about the letting of a
house — the superintendence of a disorderly garden, some palings
to be mended, some books to be removed and set up.
I wish you would get all my books and all my furniture from
Bishopgate, and all other effects appertaining to me. I have
written to ... to secure all that belongs to me there to you.
I have written also to L to give up possession of the house
on the 3rd of August.
When you have possessed yourself of all my affairs, I wish
you to look out for a home for me and Mary and William, and
the kitten, who is now en pension. I wish you to get an unfur-
nished house, with as good a garden as may be, near Windsor
Forest, and take a lease of it for fourteen or twenty-one years.
The house must not be too small. I wish the situation to
resemble as nearly as possible that of Bishopgate, and should
think that Sunning Hill, or Winkfield Plain, or the neighbour-
hood of Virginia Water would afford some possibilities.
Houses are now exceedingly cheap and plentiful ; but I
entrust the whole of this affair entirely to your own discretion.
My present intention is to return to England, and to make
that most excellent of nations my perpetual resting place. I
think it is extremely probable that we shall return next spring —
perhaps before, perhaps after, but certainly we shall return.
On the motives and on the consequences of this journey, I
reserve much explanation for some future winter walk or sum-
mer expedition. This much alone is certain, that before we
return we shall have seen, and felt, and heard, a multiplicity of
things which will haunt our talk and make us a little better
worth knowing than we were before our departure.
196 LETTERS,
If possible we think of descending the Danube in a boat, of
visiting Constantinople and Athens, then Rome and the Tuscan
cities, and returning by the south of France, always following
great rivers. The Danube, the Po, the Rhone, and the Garonne ;
rivers are not like roads, the work of the hands of man ; they
imitate mind, which wanders at will over pathless deserts, and
flows through nature's loveliest recesses, which are inaccessible
to anything besides. They have the viler advantage also of
affording a cheaper mode of conveyance.
This eastern scheme is one which has just seized on our
imaginations. I fear that the detail of execution will destroy it,
as all other wild and beautiful visions ; but at all events you
will hear from us wherever we are, and to whatever adventures
destiny enforces us.
Tell me in return all English news. What has become of my
poem ?* I hope it has already sheltered itself in the bosom of
its mother. Oblivion, from whose embraces no one could have
been so barbarous as to tear it except me.
Tell me of the political state of England — its literature, of
which when I speak Coleridge is in my thoughts ; — yourself,
lastly your own employments, your historical labours.
I had written thus far when your letter to Mary dated the 8th
arrived. What you say of Bishopgate of course modifies that
part of this letter which relates to it. I confess I did not learn
the destined ruin without some pain, but it is well for me per-
haps that a situation requiring so large an expense should be
placed beyond our hopes.
You must shelter my roofless Penates, dedicate some new
temple to them, and perform the functions of a priest in my
absence. They are innocent deities, and their worship neither
sanguinary nor absurd.
Leave Mammon and Jehovah to those who delight in wicked-
ness and slavery — their altars are stained with blood or polluted
with gold, the price of blood. But the shrines of the Penates
are good wood fires, or window frames intertwined with creep-
ing plants ; their hymns are the purring of kittens, the hissing
of kettles ; the long talks over the past and dead, the laugh of
children, the warm wind of summer filling the quiet house, and
the pelting storm of winter struggling in vain for entrance. Jn
talkmg of the Penates, will you not liken me to Julius Caesar
dedicating a temple to Liberty .? As I have said in the former
part of my letter, I trust entirely to your discretion on the
♦ Presumably Alasior.—K. B. F.
LETTERS, 197
subject of a house. Certainly the Forest engages my prefer-
ence, because of the sylvan nature of the place, and the beasts
with which it is filled. But I am not insensible to the beauties
of the Thames, and any extraordinary eligibility of situation
you mention in your letter would overwhelm our habitual
affection for the neighbourhood of Bishopgate.
Its proximity to the spot you have chosen is an argument
with us in favour of the Thames. Recollect, however, we are
now choosing a fixed, settled, eternal home, and as such its
internal qualities will affect us more constantly than those which
consist in the surrounding scenery, which whatever it may be at
first, will shortly be no more than the colours with which our
own habits shall invest it.
I am glad that circumstances do not permit the choice to be
my own. I shall abide by yours as others abide by the necessity
of their birth.
• • • • • •
P^B. S.
VIII.— To T. L. Peacock.
ST. MARTIN— SERVOZ— CHAMOUNI — MONTANVERT—
MONT BLANC.
HSiel de Londres, Chamouni, July 22nd ^ 1816.
Whilst you, my friend, are engaged in securing a home for
us, we are wandering in search of recollections to embellish it.
I do not err in conceiving that you are interested in details of all
that is majestic or beautiful in nature ; but how shall I describe
to you the scenes by which I am now surrounded ? To exhaust
the epithets which express the astonishment and the admiration —
the very excess of satisfied astonishment, where expectation
scarcely acknowledged any boundary, is this to impress upon
your mind the images which fill mine now, even till it overflow ?
I too have read the raptures of travellers ; I will be warned by
their example ; I will simply detail to you all that I can relate,
or all that, if related, would enable you to conceive, what we
have done or seen since the morning of the 20th, when we left
Geneva.
We commenced our intended journey to Chamouni at half-past
eight in the morning. We passed through the champain
198 LETTERS.
country, which extends from Mont Sal^ve to the base of the
higher Alps. The country is sufficiently fertile, covered with
corn-fields and orchards, and intersected by sudden acclivities
with flat summits. The day was cloudless and excessively hot,
the Alps were perpetually in sight, and as we advanced, the
mountains, which form their outskirts, closed in around us. We
passed a bridge over a stream, which discharges itself into the
Arve. The Arve itself, much swollen by the rains, flows
constantly to the right of the road.
As we approached Bonneville through an avenue composed
of a beautiful species of drooping poplar, we observed that the
corn-fields on each side were covered with inundation.
Bonneville is a neat little town, with no conspicuous peculiarity,
except the white towers of the prison, an extensive building
overlooking the town. At Bonneville the Alps commence, one
of which, clothed by forests, rises almost immediately from the
opposite bank of the Arve.
From Bonneville to Cluses the road conducts through a
spacious and fertile plain, surrounded on all sides by mountains,
covered like those of Meillerie with forests of intermingled pine
and chestnut. At Cluses the road turns suddenly to the right,
following the Arve along the chasm, which it seems to have
hollowed for itself among the perpendicular mountains. The
scene assumes here a more savage and colossal character : the
valley becomes narrow, affording no more space than is sufficient
for the river and the road. The pines descend to the banks,
imitating, with their irregular spires, the pyramidal crags, which
lift themselves far above the regions of forest into the deep azure
of the sky, and among the white dazzling clouds. The scene,
at the distance of half a mile from Cluses, differs from that of
Matlock in little else than in the immensity of its proportions,
and in its untameable inaccessible solitude, inhabited only by
the goats which >ve saw browsing on the rocks.
Near Maglans, within a league of each other, we saw two
waterfalls. They were no more than mountain rivulets, but the
height from which they fell, at least of twelve hundred feet,
made them assume a character inconsistent with the smallness
of their stream. The first fell from the overhanging brow of a
black precipice on an enormous rock, precisely resembling
some colossal Egyptian statue of a female deity. It struck the
head of the visionary image, and gracefully dividing there, fell
from it in folds of foam more like to cloud than water, imitating
a veil of the most exquisite woof It then united, concealing
the lower part of the statue, and hiding itself in a winding of its
LETTERS. 199
channel, burst into a deeper fall, and crossed our route in its
path towards the Arve.
The other waterfall was more continuous and larger. The
violence with which it fell made it look more like some shape
which an exhalation had assumed, than like water, for it
streamed beyond the mountain, which appeared dark behind it,
as it might have appeared behind an evanescent cloud.
The character of the scenery continued the same until we
arrived at St. Martin (called in the maps Sallanches), the
mountains perpetually becoming more elevated, exhibiting at
every turn of the road more craggy summits, loftier and wider
extent of forests, darker and more deep recesses.
The following morning we proceeded from St. Martin, on
mules, to Chamouni, accompanied by two guides. We pro-
ceeded, as we had done the preceding day, along the valley of
the Arve, a valley surrounded on all sides by immense moun-
tains, whose rugged precipices are intermixed on high with
dazzling snow. Their bases were still covered with the eternal
forests, which perpetually grew darker and more profound as
we approached the inner regions of the mountains.
On arriving at a small village at the distance of a league
from St. Martin, we dismounted from our mules, and were con-
ducted by our guides to view a cascade. We beheld an
immense body of water fall two hundred and fifty feet, dashing
from rock to rock, and casting a spray which formed a mist
around it, in the midst of which hung a multitude of sunbows,
which faded or became unspeakably vivid, as the inconstant
sun shone through the clouds. When we approached near to
it, the rain of the spray reached us, and our clothes were wetted
by the quick-falling but minute particles of water. The cataract
fell from above into a deep craggy chasm at our feet, where,
changing its character to that of a mountain stream, it pursued
its course towards the Arve, roaring over the rocks that impeded
its progress.
As we proceeded, our route still lay through the valley, or
rather, as it had now become, the vast ravine, which is at once
the couch and the creation of the terrible Arve. We ascended,
winding between mountains, whose immensity staggers the
imagination. We crossed the path of a torrent, which three
days since had descended from the thawing snow, and torn the
road away.
We dined at Servoz, a little village, where there are lead and
copper mines, and where we saw a cabinet of natural curiosities,
like those of Keswick and Bethgelert. We saw in this cabinet
200 LETTERS.
some chamois' horns, and the horns of an exceedingly rare
animal called the bouquetin, which inhabits the deserts of snow
to the south of Mont Blanc : it is an animal of the stag kind ;
its horns weigh, at least, twenty-seven English pounds. It is
inconceivable how so small an animal could support so
inordinate a weight. The horns are of a very peculiar con-
formation, being broad, massy, and pointed at the ends, and
surrounded with a number of rings, which are supposed to
afford an indication of its age : there were seventeen rings on
the largest of these horns.
From Servoz three leagues remain to Chamouni. — Mont
Blanc was before us — the Alps, with their innumerable glaciers
on high all around, closing in the complicated windings of the
single vale — forests inexpressibly beautiful, but majestic in their
beauty — intermingled beech and pine, and oak, overshadowed
our road, or receded, whilst lawns of such verdure as I have
never seen before, occupied these openings, and gradually
became darker in their recesses. Mont Blanc was before us,
but it was covered with cloud ; its base, furrowed with dreadful
gaps, was seen above. Pinnacles of snow intolerably bright,
part of the chain connected with Mont Blanc, shone through
the clouds at intervals on high. I never knew — I never
imagined — what mountains were before. The immensity of
these aerial summits excited, when they suddenly burst upon
the sight, a sentiment of ecstatic wonder, not unallied to mad-
ness. And remember this was all one scene, it all pressed
home to our regard and our imagination. Though it embraced
a vast extent of space, the snowy pyramids which shot into the
bright blue sky seemed to overhang our path ; the ravine,
clothed with gigantic pines, and black with its depth below, so
deep that the very roaring of the untameable Arve, which rolled
through it, could not be heard above — all was as much our own,
as if we had been the creators of such impressions in the minds
of others as now occupied our own. Nature was the poet,
whose harmony held our spirits more breathless than that of
the divinest.
As we entered the valley of Chamouni, (which in fact, may be
considered as a continuation of those which we have followed
from Bonneville and Cluses,) clouds hung upon the mountains
at the distance perhaps of 6000 feet from the earth, but so as
effectually to conceal, not only Mont Blanc, but the other
aiguilles, as they call them here, attached and subordinate to it.
We were travelling along the valley, when suddenly we heard a
sound as of the burst of smothered thunder rolling above ; yet
LETTERS. 20I
there was something in the sound, that told us it could not be
thunder. Our guide hastily pointed out to us a part of the
mountain opposite, from whence the sound came. It was an
avalanche. We saw the smoke of its path among the rocks, and
continued to hear at intervals the bursting of its fall. It fell on
the bed of a torrent, which it displaced, and presently we saw
its tawny-coloured waters also spread themselves over the ravine,
which was their couch.
We did not, as we intended, visit the Glacier des Bossons
to-day, although it descends within a few minutes' walk of the
road, wishing to survey it at least when unfatigued. We saw
this glacier, which comes close to the fertile plain, as we passed.
Its surface was broken into a thousand unaccountable figures ;
conical and pyramidical crystallizations, more than fifty feet in
height, rise from its surface, and precipices of ice, of dazzling
splendour, overhang the woods and meadows of the vale. This
glacier winds upwards from the valley, until it joins the masses
of frost from which it was produced above, winding through its
own ravine like a bright belt flung over the black region of pines.
There is more in all these scenes than mere magnitude of
proportion : there is a majesty of outline ; there is an awful
grace in the very colours which invest these wonderful shapes —
a charm which is peculiar to them, quite distinct even from the
reality of their unutterable greatness.
July 24.
Yesterday morning we went to the source of the Arveiron.
It is about a league from this village ; the river rolls forth
impetuously from an arch of ice, and spreads itself in many
streams over a vast space of the valley, ravaged and laid
bare by its inundations. The glacier by which its waters are
nourished, overhangs this cavern and the plain, and the forests
of pine which surround it, with terrible precipices of solid ice.
On the other side rises the immense glacier of Montanvert,
fifty miles in extent, occupying a chasm among mountains of
inconceivable height, and of forms so pointed and abrupt, that
they seem to pierce the sky. From this glacier we saw, as we
sat on a rock, close to one of the streams of the Arveiron,
masses of ice detach themselves from on high, and rush with a
loud dull noise into the vale. The violence of their fall turned
them into powder, which flowed over the rocks in imitation of
water-falls, whose ravines they usurped and filled.
In the evening, I went with Ducrde, my guide, the only
202 LETTERS.
tolerable person I have seen in this country, to visit the glacier
of Bossons. This glacier, like that of Montanvert, comes close
to the vale, overhanging the green meadows and the dark woods
with the dazzling whiteness of its precipices and pinnacles,
which are like spires of radiant crystal, covered with a net-work
of frosted silver. These glaciers flow perpetually into the valley,
ravaging in their slow but irresistible progress the pastures and
the forests which surround them, performing a work of desola-
tion in ages, which a river of lava might accomplish in an hour,
but far more irretrievably ; for where the ice has once descended,
the hardiest plant refuses to grow ; if even, as in some extra-
ordinary instances, it should recede after its progress has once
commenced. The glaciers perpetually move onward, at the
rate of a foot each day, with a motion that commences at the
spot where, on the boundaries of perpetual congelation, they are
produced by the freezing of the waters which arise from the
partial melting of the eternal snows. They drag with them,
from the regions whence they derive their origin, all the ruins of
the mountain, enormous rocks, and immense accumulations of
sand and stones. These are driven onwards by the irresistible
stream of solid ice ; and when they arrive at a declivity of the
mountain, sufficiently rapid, roll down, scattering ruin. I saw
one of these rocks which had descended in the spring, (winter
here is the season of silence and safety,) which measured forty
feet in every direction.
The verge of a glacier, like that of Bossons, presents the most
vivid image of desolation that it is possible to conceive. No
one dares to approach it ; for- the enormous pinnacles of ice
which perpetually fall, are perpetually reproduced. The pines
of the forest, which bound it at one extremity, are overthrown and
shattered, to a wide extent, at its base. There is something
inexpressibly dreadful in the aspect of the few branchless
trunks, which, nearest to the ice rifts, still stand in the uprooted
soil. The meadows perish, overwhelmed with sand and stones.
Within this last year, these glaciers have advanced three
hundred feet into the valley. Saussure, the naturalist, says,
that they have their periods of increase and decay : the people
of the country hold an opinion entirely different; but as I judge,
more probable. It is agreed by all, that the snow on the
summit of Mont Blanc and the neighbouring mountains per-
petually augments, and that ice, in the form of glaciers, subsists
without melting in the valley of Chamouni during its transient
and variable summer. If the snow which produces this glacier
must augment, and the heat of the valley is no obstacle to the
LETTERS, 203
perpetual existence of such masses of ice as have already
descended into it, the consequence is obvious ; the glaciers
must augment and will subsist, at least until they have overflowed
this vale.
I will not pursue Buffon's sublime but gloomy theory — that
this globe which we inhabit will, at some future period, be
changed into a mass of frost by the encroachments of the polar
ice, and of that produced on the most elevated points of the
earth. Do you, who assert the supremacy of Ahriman, imagine
him throned among these desolating snows, among these
palaces of death and frost, so sculptured in this their terrible
magnificence by the adamantine hand of necessity, and that he
casts around him, as the first essays of his final usurpation,
avalanches, torrents, rocks, and thunders, and above all these
deadly glaciers, at once the proof and symbols of his reign ; —
add to this, the degradation of the human species — who, in
these regions, are half deformed or idiotic, and most of whom
are deprived of anything that can excite interest or admiration.
This is part of the subject more mournful and less sublime ;
but such as neither the poet nor the philosopher should disdain
to regard.
This morning we departed, on the promise of a fine day, to
visit the glacier of Montanvert. In that part where it fills a
slanting valley, it is called the Sea of Ice. This valley is 950
toises, or 7600 feet, above the level of the sea. We had not
proceeded far before the rain began to fall, but we persisted
until we had accomplished more than half of our journey, when
we returned, wet through.
Chamouni, July 2 5 th.
We have returned from visiting the glacier of Montanvert, or
as it is called the Sea of Ice, a scene in truth of dizzying
wonder. The path that winds to it along the side of a
mountain, now clothed with pines, now intersected with snowy
hollows, is wide and steep. The cabin of Montanvert is three
leagues from Chamouni, half of which distance is performed on
mules, not so sure-footed but that On the first day the one which
I rode fell in what the guides call a mauvais pas^ so that I
narrowly escaped being precipitated down the mountain. We
passed over a hollow covered with snow, down which vast
stones are accustomed to roll. One had fallen the preceding
day, a little time after we had returned : our guides desired us
to pass quickly, for it is said that sometimes the least sound
204 LETTERS.
will accelerate their descent. We arrived at Montanvert,
however, safe.
On all sides precipitous mountains, the abodes of unrelenting
frost, surround this vale : their sides are banked up with ice
and snow, broken, heaped high, and exhibiting terrific chasms.
The summits are sharp and naked pinnacles, whose over-
hanging steepness will not even permit snow to rest upon them.
Lines of dazzling ice occupy here and there their perpendicular
rifts, and shine through the driving vapours with inexpressible
brilliance : they pierce the clouds like things not belonging to
this earth. The vale itself is filled with a mass of undulating
ice, and has an ascent sufficiently gradual even to the remotest
abysses of these horrible deserts. It is only half a league
(about two miles) in breadth, and seems much less. It exhibits
an appearance as if frost had suddenly bound up the waves and
whirlpools of a mighty torrent. We walked some distance upon
its surface. The waves are elevated about twelve or fifteen
feet from the surface of the mass, which is intersected by long
gaps of unfathomable depth, the ice of whose sides is more
beautifully azure than the sky. In these regions everything
changes, and is in motion. This vast mass of ice has one
general progress, which ceases neither day nor night ; it breaks
and bursts for ever : some undulations sink while others rise ;
it is never the same. The echo of rocks, or of the ice and snow
which fall from their overhanging precipices, or roll from their
aerial summits, scarcely ceases for one moment. One would
think that Mont Blanc, like the god of the Stoics, was a vast
animal, and that the frozen blood for ever circulated through his
stony veins.
We dined (M , C , and I) on the grass, in the open
air, surrounded by this scene. The air is piercing and clear.
We returned down the mountain sometimes encompassed by
the driving vapours, sometimes cheered by the sunbeams, and
arrived at our inn by seven o'clock.
Montalegre, July 28///.
The next morning we returned through the rain to St. Martin.
The scenery had lost something of its immensity, thick clouds
hanging over the highest mountains ; but visitings of sunlight
intervened between the showers, and the blue sky shone between
the accumulated clouds of snowy whiteness which brought them ;
the dazzling mountains sometimes glittered through a chasm of
the clouds above our heads, and all the charm of its grandeur
LETTERS. 205
remained. We repassed Pont PelUsier^ a wooden bridge over
the Arve, and the ravine of the Arve. We repassed the pine
forests which overhang the defile, the chateau of St. Michael ;
a haunted ruin, built on the edge of a precipice, and shadowed
over by the eternal forest. We repassed the vale of Servoz, a
vale more beautiful, because more luxuriant, than that of
Chamouni. Mont Blanc forms one of the sides of this vale also,
and the other is inclosed by an irregular amphitheatre of enor-
mous mountains, one of which is in ruins, and fell fifty years ago
into the higher part of the valley ; the smoke of its fall was seen
in Piedmont, and people went from Turin to investigate whether
a volcano had not burst forth among the Alps. It continued
falling many days, spreading, with the shock and thunder of its
ruin, consternation into the neighbouring vales. In the evening
we arrived at St. Martin. The next day we wound through the
valley, which I have described before, and arrived in the evening
at our home.
We have bought some specimens of minerals and plants, and
two or three crystal seals, at Mont Blanc, to preserve the
remembrance of having approached it. There is a cabinet ol
histoire naturelle at Chamouni, just as at Keswick, Matlock,
and Clifton ; the proprietor of which is the very vilest specimen
of that vile species of quack, that, together with the whole army
of aubergistes and guides, and indeed the entire mass of the
population, subsist on the weakness and credulity of travellers
as leeches subsist on the sick. The most interesting of my
purchases is a large collection of all the seeds of rare alpine
plants, with their names written upon the outside of the papers
that contain them. These I mean to colonise in my garden in
England, and to permit you to make what choice you please
from them. They are companions which the Celandine — the
classic Celandine — need not despise ; they are as wild and more
daring than he, and will tell him tales of things even as touching
and sublime as the gaze of a vernal poet.
Did I tell you that there are troops of wolves among these
mountains ? In the winter they descend into the valleys, which
the snow occupies six months of the year, and devour every-
thing that they can find out of doors. A wolf is more powerful
than the fiercest and strongest dog. There are no bears in
these regions. We heard, when we were in Lucerne, that they
were occasionally found in the forests which surround that lake.
Adieu, S.
2o6 LETTERS.
IX.— Journal.
Geneva^ Sunday ^ iZth August, 1816.
See Apollo's Sexton,* who tells us many mysteries of bis
trade. We talk of Ghosts. Neither Lord Byron nor M. G. L.
seem to believe in them ; and they both agree, in the very face
of reason, that none could believe in ghosts without believing in
God. I do not think that all the persons who profess to dis-
credit these visitations, really discredit them ; or, if they do in
the daylight, are not admonished, by the approach of loneli-
ness and midnight, to think more respectfully of the world of
shadows.
Lewis recited a poem, which he had composed at the
request of the Princess of Wales. The Princess of Wales, he
premised, was not only a believer in ghosts, but in magic and
witchcraft, and asserted, that prophecies made in her youth had
been accomplished since. The tale was of a lady in Germany.
This lady, Minna, had been exceedingly attached to her
husband, and they had made a vow that the one who died first
should return after death to visit the other as a ghost. She
was sitting one day alone in her chamber, when she heard an
unusual sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door opened,
and her husband's spectre, gashed with a deep wound across
the forehead, and in military habiliments, entered. She
appeared startled at the apparition ; and the ghost told her,
that when he should visit her in future, she would hear a passing
bell toll, and these words distinctly uttered close to her ear,
" Minna, I am here." On inquiry, it was found that her husband
had fallen in battle on the very day she was visited by the
vision. The intercourse between the ghost and the woman
continued for some time, until the latter laid aside all terror,
and indulged herself in the affection which she had felt for him
while living. One evening she went to a ball, and permitted
her thoughts to be alienated by the attentions of a Florentine
gentleman, more witty, more graceful, and more gentle, as it
appeared to her, than any person she had ever seen. As he was
conducting her through the dance, a death-bell tolled. Minna,
lost in the fascination of the Florentine's attentions, disregarded,
or did not hear the sound. A second peal, louder and more
deep, startled the whole company, when Minna heard the
ghost's accustomed whisper, and raising her eyes, saw in an
* Mr. G. Lewis, so named in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. —
AI.S,
LETTERS. 207
opposite mirror the reflection of the ghost, standing over her.
She is said to have died of terror.
Lewis told four other stories — all grim.
Thursday, 29th August. — We depart from Geneva, at nine in
the morning. The Swiss are very slow drivers ; besides which
we have Jura to mount ; we, therefore, go a very few posts
to-day. The scenery is very beautiful, and we see many magnifi-
cent views. We pass Les Rousses, which, when we crossed in
the spring, was deep in snow. We sleep at Morrez.
Friday, 30th. — We leave Morrez, and arrive in the evening at
Dole, after a various day.
Saturday, 31st. — From Dole we go to Rouvray, where we
sleep. We pass through Dijon ; and, after Dijon, take a
different route than that which we followed on the two other
occasions. The scenery has some beauty and singularity in the
line of the mountains which surround the Val de Suzon. Low,
yet precipitous hills, covered with vines or woods, and with
streams, meadows, and poplars, at the bottom.
Sunday, September ist. — Leave Rouvray, pass Auxerre, where
we dine ; a pretty town, and arrive, at two o'clock, at Villeneuve
le Guiard.
Monday, 2nd. — From Villeneuve le Guiard, we arrive at Fon-
tainebleau. The scenery around this palace is wild and even
savage. The soil is full of rocks, apparently granite, which on
every side break through the ground. The hills are low, but
precipitous and rough. The valleys, equally wild, are shaded
by forests. In the midst of this wilderness stands the palace.
Some of the apartments equal in magnificence anything that I
could conceive. The roofs are fretted with gold, and the
canopies of velvet. From Fontainebleau we proceed to Ver-
sailles, in the route towards Rouen. We arrive at Versailles at nine.
Tuesday, 3rd. — We saw the palace and gardens of Versailles
and le Grand et Petit Trianon. They surpass Fontainebleau.
The gardens are full of statues, vases, fountains, and colonnades.
In all that essentially belongs to a garden they are extraor-
dinarily deficient. The orangery is a stupid piece of expense.
There was one orange-tree, not apparently so old, sown in 1442.
We saw only the gardens and the theatre at the Petit Trianon.
The gardens are in the English taste, and extremely pretty.
The Grand Trianon was open. It is a summer palace, light,
yet magnificent. We were unable to devote the time it deserved
to the gallery of paintings here. There was a portrait of
Madame de la Valli^re, the repentant mistress of Louis XIV.
2o8 LETTERS.
She was melancholy, but exceedingly beautiful, and was repre
sented as holding a skull, and sitting before a crucifix, pale, and
with downcast eyes.
We then went to the great palace. The apartments are
unfurnished ; but even with this disadvantage, are more magni-
ficent than those of Fontainebleau. They are lined with
marble of various colours, whose pedestals and capitals are gilt,
and the ceiling is richly gilt with compartments of painting.
The arrangement of these materials has in them, it is true,
something effeminate and royal. Could a Grecian architect
have commanded all the labour and money which was expended
on Versailles, he would have produced a fabric which the whole
world has never equalled. We saw the Hall of Hercules, the
balcony where the King and the Queen exhibited themselves to
the Parisian mob. The people who showed us through the
palace, obstinately refused to say anything about the Revolu
tion. We could not even find out in which chamber the rioters
of the loth August found the king. We saw the Salle d'Opdra,
where are now preserved the portraits of the kings. There wa?
the race of the house of Orleans, with the exception of Egalite,
all extremely handsome. There was Madame de Maintenon,
and beside her a beautiful little girl, the daughter of La Valli^re.
The pictures had been hidden during the Revolution. We saw
the library of Louis XVL The librarian had held some place
in the ancient court near Marie-Antoinette. He returned with
the Bourbons, and was waiting for some better situation. He
showed us a book which he had preserved during the Revolu-
tion. It was a book of paintings, representing a tournament at
the Court of Louis XIV. ; and it seen^ed that the present deso-
lation of France, the fury of the injured people, and all the
horrors to which they abandoned themselves, stung by their
long sufferings, flowed naturally enough from expenditures so
immense, as must have been demanded by the magnificence of
this tournament. The vacant rooms of this palace imaged well
the hollow show of monarchy. After seeing these things we
departed towards Havre, and slept at Auxerre.
Wednesday, 4th. — We passed through Rouen, and saw the
cathedral, an immense specimen of the most costly and magnifi-
cent gothic. The interior of the church disappoints. We saw
the burial-place of Richard Coeur de Lion and his brother.
The altar of the church is a fine piece of marble. Sleep at
Yvetot.
Thursday, 5th.— We arrive at Havre, and wait for the packet
— wind contrary. S.
LETTERS. 209
X.— To Mr, and Mrs. Leigh Hunt.
Great Marlow, lOfthJune 18 17.
My Dear Friends,
I performed my promise, and arrived here the
night after I set off. Everybody up to this minute has been and
continues well. I ought to have written yesterday, for to-day, I
know not how, I have so constant a pain in my side, and such a
depression of strength and spirits, as to make my holding the
pen whilst I write to you an almost intolerable exertion. This,
you know, with me is transitory. Do not mention that I am
unwell to your nephew ; for the advocate of a new system of
diet is held bound to be invulnerable by disease, in the same
manner as the sectaries of a new system of religion are held to
be more moral than other people, or as a reformed parliament
must at least be assumed as the remedy of all political evils.
No one will change the diet, adopt the religion, or reform the
parliament else.
Well, I am very anxious to hear how you get on, and I intreat
Marianne to excite Hunt not to delay a minute in writing the
necessary letters, and in informing me of the result. Kings are
only to be approached through their ministers ; who indeed, as
Marianne shall know to her cost, if she don't take care, are
responsible not only for all their commissions, but, a more
dreadful responsibility, for all their omissions. And I know not
who has a right to the title of king, if not according to the
Stoics, he to whom the King of kings had delegated the
prerogative of lord of the creation.
Let me know how Henry gets on, and make my best respects
to your brother and Mrs. Hunt. Adieu.
Always most affectionately yours,
P. B. S.
XL— To William Godwin.
Marlow^ December 7th, 18 17.
My Dear Godwin,— To begin with the subject of most
immediate interest : close with Richardson ; and when I say
this, what relief should I not feel from a thousand distressing
emotions, if I could believe that he was in earnest in his offer !
I have not heard from Longdill, though I wish earnestly for
information.
95
2IO LETTERS.
My health has been materially worse. My feelings at intervals
are of a deadly and torpid kind, or awakened to a state of such
unnatural and keen excitement, that, only to instance the organ
of sight, I find the very blades of grass and the boughs of distant
trees present themselves to me with microscopical distinctness.
Towards evening, I sink into a state of lethargy and inanima-
tion, and often remain for hours on the sofa, between sleep and
waking, a prey to the most painful irritability of thought. Such,
with little intermission, is my condition. The hours devoted to
study are selected with vigilant caution from among these
periods of endurance. It is not for this that I think of travelling
to Italy, even if I knew that Italy would relieve me. But I
have experienced a decisive pulmonary attack ; and, although at
present it has passed away without any very considerable
vestige of its existence, yet this symptom sufficiently shows the
true nature of my disease to be consumption. It is to my
advantage that this malady is in its nature slow, and, if one is
sufficiently alive to its advances, is susceptible of cure from a
warm climate. In the event of its assuming any decided shape,
it would be my duty to go to Italy without delay ; and it is only
when that measure becomes an indispensable duty that, contrary
to both Mary's feelings and to mine, as they regard you, I shall
go to Italy. I need not remind you (besides the mere pain
endured by the survivors) of the train of evil consequences
which my death would cause to ensue. I am thus circum-
stantial and explicit, because you seem to have misunderstood
me. It is not health, but life, that I should seek in Italy ; and
that, not for my own sake — I feel that I am capable of trampling
on all such weakness — but for the sake of those to whom
my life may be a source of happiness, utility, security, and
honour, and to some of whom my death might be all that is the
reverse.
I ought to say I cannot persevere in the meat diet. What
you say of Malthus fills me, as far as my intellect is concerned,
with life and strength. I believe that I have a most anxious
desire that the time should quickly come that, even so far as
you are personally concerned, you should be tranquil and
independent. But when I consider the intellectual lustre with
which you clothe this world, and how much the last generation
of mankind may be benefited by that light flowing forth without
the intervention of one shadow, I am elevated above all thoughts
which tend to you or myself as an individual, and become, by
sympathy, part of those distant and innumerable minds to
whom your writings must be present.
LETTERS. 211
I meant to have written to you about Mandeville * solely ;
but I was so irritable and weak that I could not write, although
I thought I had much to say. I have read Mandeville^ but I
must read it again soon, for the interest is of that irresistible and
overwhelming kind, that the mind in its influence is like a cloud
borne on by an impetuous wind — like one breathlessly carried
forward, who has no time to pause or observe the causes of his
career. I think the power of Mandeville is inferior to nothing
you have done ; and, were it not for the character of Falkland, f
no instance in which you have exerted that power of creation
which you possess beyond all contemporary writers, might
compare with it. Falkland is sti)i alone ; power is, in Falkland,
not, as in Mandeville^^ tumult hurried onward by the tempest,
but tranquillity standing unshaken amid its fiercest rage. But
Caleb Williams never shakes the deepest soul like Mandeville.
It must be said of the latter, you rule with a rod of iron. The
picture is never bright ; and we wonder whence you drew the
darkness with which its shades are deepened, until the epithet
of tenfold might almost cease to be a metaphor. The noun
smorfia touches" some cord within us with such a cold and
jarring power, that I started, and for some time could scarce
believe but that I was Mandeville, and that this hideous grin
was stamped upon my own face. In style and strength of
expression, Mandeville is wonderfully great, and the energy and
the sweetness of the sentiments scarcely to be equalled.
Clifford's character, as mere beauty, is a divine and soothing
contrast ; and I do not think — if, perhaps, I except (and I
know not if I ought to do so) the speech of Agathon in the
Symposium of Plato — that there ever was produced a moral
discourse more characteristic of all that is admirable and
lovely in human nature — more lovely and admirable in itself—
than that of Henrietta to Mandeville, as he is recovering from
madness. Shall I say that, when I discovered that she was
pleading all this time sweetly for her lover, and when at last she
weakly abandoned poor Mandeville, I felt an involuntary
and, perhaps, an unreasonable pang ? Adieu !
Always most affectionately yours,
P. S.
* Godwin's novel so called, — L. S.
t In the novel of Caleb Williams.— Ij. S.
212 LETTERS,
XII.— To William Godwin.
Marlow^ December nth, 1817.
I have read and considered all that you ^ay about my general
powers, and the particular instance of the poem in which I have
attempted to develop them. Nothing can be more satisfactory
to me than the interest which your admonitions express. But I
think you are mistaken in some points with regard to the
peculiar nature of my powers, whatever be their amount, I
listened with deference and self-suspicion to your censures of
Laon and Cythna; but the productions of mine which you
commend hold a very low place in my own esteem, and this
reassured me, in some degree at least. The poem was pro-
duced by a series of thoughts which filled my mind with
unbounded and sustained enthusiasm. I felt the precariousness
of my life, and I resolved in this book to leave some records of
myself. Much of what the volume contains was written with
the same feeling, as real, though not so prophetic, as the com-
munications of a dying man. I never presumed, indeed, to
consider it anything approaching to faultless ; but, when I
considered contemporary productions of the same apparent
pretensions, I will own that I was filled with confidence. I felt
that it was in many respects a genuine picture of my own mind.
I felt that the sentiments were true, not assumed : and in this
have I long believed — that my power consists in sympathy, and
that part of imagination which relates to sentiment and con-
templation. I am formed, if for anything not in common with
the herd of mankind, to apprehend minute and remote dis-
tinctions of feeling, whether relative to external nature or the
living beings which surround us, and to communicate the con-
ceptions which result from considering either the moral or the
material universe as a whole. . . . Yet, after all, I cannot but
be conscious, in much of what I write, of an absence of that
tranquillity which is the attribute and accompaniment of power.
This feeling alone would make your most kind and wise
admonitions, on the subject of the economy of intellectual force,
valuable to me. And, if I live, or if I see any trust in coming
years, doubt not but that I shall do something, whatever it
might be, which a serious and earnest estimate of my powers
will suggest to me, and which will be in every respect
accommodated to their utmost limits.
LETTERS. 213
XIII.— To Charles Ollier.
Marlow^ December wth^ 18 17.
Dear Sir,
It is to be regretted that you did not consult your
own safety and advantage (if you consider it connected witli the
non-publication of my book) before your declining the publica-
tion, after having accepted it, would have operated to so
extensive and serious an injury to my views as now. The
instances of abuse and menace which you cite were such as you
expected, and were, as I conceived, prepared for. If not, it
would have been just to me to have given them their due weight
and consideration before. You foresaw, you foreknew, all that
these people would say. You do your best to condemn my book
before it is given forth, because you publish it, and then with-
draw ; so that no other bookseller will publish it, because one
has already rejected it. You must be aware of the great injury
which you prepare for me. If I had never consulted your
advantage, my book would have had a fair hearing. But now it
is first published, and then the publisher, as if the author had
deceived him as to the contents of the work — and as if the
inevitable consequence of its publication would be ignominy and
punishment — and as if none should dare to touch it or look at it
— retracts, at a period when nothing but the most extraordinary
and unforeseen circumstances can justify his retraction.
I beseech you to reconsider the matter, for your sake no less
than for my own. Assume the high and secure ground of
courage. The people who visit your shop, and the wretched
bigot who gave his worthless custom to some other bookseller,
are not the public. The public respect talent ; and a large
portion of them are already undeceived with regard to the
prejudices which my book attacks. You would lose some
customers, but you would gain others. Your trade would be
diverted into a channel more consistent with your own
principles. Not to say that a publisher is in no wise pledged to
all the opinions of his publications, or to any ; and that he may
enter his protest with each copy sold, either against the truth or
the discretion of the principles of the books he sells. But there
is a much more important consideration in the case. You are,
and have been to a certain extent, the publisher. I don't
believe that, if the book was quietly and regularly published,
the Government would touch anything of a character so refined,
and so remote from the conceptions of the vulgar. They would
hesitate before they invaded a member of the higher circles of
214 LETTERS.
the republic of letters. But, if they see us tremble, they will
make no distinctions ; they will feel their strength. You might
bring the arm of the law down upon us by flinching now.
Directly these scoundrels see that people are afraid of them,
they seize upon them and hold them up to mankind as criminals
already convicted by their own fears. You lay yourself
prostrate, and they trample on you. How glad they would be
to seize on any connection of Hunt's by this most powerful
of all their arms — the terrors and self-condemnation of their
victim. Read all the ex officio cases, and see what reward
booksellers and printers have received for their submission.
If, contrary to common sense and justice, you resolve to give
me up, you shall receive no detriment from a connection with
me in small matters, though you determine to inflict so serious a
one on me in great. You shall not be at a farthing's expense.
I shall still, so far as my powers extend, do my best to promote
your interest. On the contrary supposition, even admitting you
derive no benefit from the book itself— and it should be my care
that you shall do so — I hold myself ready to make ample
indemnity for any loss you may sustain.
There is one compromise you might make, though that would
be still injurious to me. Sherwood and Neely wished to be the
principal publishers. Call on them, and say that it was through
a mistake that you undertook the principal direction of the
book, as it was my wish that it should be theirs, and that I have
written to you to that effect. This, if it would be advantageous
to you, would be detrimental to, but not utterly destructive of,
my views. To withdraw your name entirely, would be to inflict
on me a bitter and undeserved injury.
Let me hear from you by return of post. I hope that you will
be influenced to fulfil your engagement with me, and proceed
with the publication, as justice to me, and, indeed, a well-under-
stood estimate of your own interest and character, demand. I
do hope that you will have too much regard to the well-chosen
motto of your seal * to permit the murmurs of a few bigots to
outweigh the serious and permanent considerations presented
in this letter. To their remonstrances you have only to reply,
" I did not write the book ; I am not responsible ; here is the
author's address — state your objections to him. I do no more
than sell it to those who inquire for it ; and, if they are not
pleased with their bargain, the author empowers me to receive
the book and to return the money." As to the interference of
* " In omnibus liber tas."
LETTERS. 215
Government, nothing is more improbable [than] that in any
case it would be attempted ; but, if it should, it would be owing
entirely to your perseverance in the groundless apprehensions
which dictated your communication received this day, and
conscious terror would be perverted into an argument of guilt.
I have just received a most kind and encouraging letter from
Mr. Moore on the subject of my poem. I have the fairest
chance of the public approaching my work with unbiassed and
unperverted feeling : the fruit of reputation (and you know for
what purposes I value it) is within my reach. It is for you,
now you have been once named as publisher, and have me in
your power, to blast all this, and to hold up my literary
character in the eye of mankind as that of a proscribed and
rejected outcast. And for no evil that I have ever done you,
but in return for a preference which, although you falsely now
esteem injurious to you, was solicited by Hunt, and conferred
by me, as a source and a proof of nothing but kind intentions.
Dear Sir,
I remain your sincere well-wisher,
Percy B. Shelley.
XIV.— To Leigh Hunt.
Lyons, March 22, 181 8.
My Dear Friend, — Why did you not wake me that night
before we left England, you and Marianne .f* I take this as
rather an unkind piece of kindness in you ; but which, in
consideration of the six hundred miles between us, I forgive.
We have journeyed towards the spring, that has been hasten-
ing to meet us from the south ; and though our weather was at
first abominable, we have now warm sunny days, and soft winds,
and a sky of deep azure, the most serene I ever saw. The heat
in this city to-day, is like that of London in the midst of summer.
My spirits and health sympathize in the change. Indeed, before
I left London, my spirits were as feeble as my health, and I had
demands on them which I found it difficult to supply. I have
read " Foliage : " with most of the poems I am already familiar.
What a delightful poem the " Nymphs" is 1 It is trn\y poetical,
in the intense and emphatic sense of the word. If six hundred
miles were not between us, I should say what pity that glib was
not omitted, and that the poem is not as faultless as it is beauti-
ful. But, for fear I should spoil your next poem, I will not let
slip a word upon the subject.
2i6 LETTERS.
Give my love to Marianne and her sister, and tell Marianne
she defrauded me of a kiss by not waking me when she went
away, and that, as I have no better mode of conveying it, I
must take the best, and ask you to pay the debt. When shall I
see you again ? Oh, that it might be in Italy ! I confess thai
the thought of how long we may be divided makes me very
melancholy. Adieu, my dear friends. Write soon.
Ever most affectionately yours,
P. B. S.
XV.— Journal.
March 26, Thursday.
We travel towards the mountains, and begin to enter the
valleys of the Alps. The country becomes covered again with
verdure and cultivation, and white chateaux and scattered cot-
tages among woods of old oak and walnut trees. The vines are
here peculiarly picturesque ; they are trellissed upon immense
stakes, and the trunks of them are moss-covered and hoary with
age. Unlike the French vines, which creep lowly on the
ground, they form rows of interlaced bowers, which, when the
leaves are green and the red grapes are hanging among those
hoary branches, will afford a delightful shadow to those who sit
upon the moss underneath. The vines are sometimes planted
in the open fields, and sometimes among lofty orchards of apple
and pear trees, the twigs of which were just becoming purple
with the bursting blossoms.
We dined at Les Echelles, a village at the foot of the moun-
tain of the same name, the boundaries of France and Savoy.
Before this we had been stopped at Pont Bonvoisin, where the
legal limits of the French and Sardinian territories are placed.
We here heard that a Milanese had been sent back all the way
to Lyons, because his passport was unauthorised by the Sar-
dinian Consul, a few days before, and that we should be
subjected to the same treatment. We, in respect to the
character of our nation I suppose, were suffered to pass. Our
books, however, were, after a long discussion, sent to Chambery,
to be submitted to the censor ; a priest, who admits nothing of
Rousseau, Voltaire, etc., into the dominions of the King of
Sardinia. All such books are burned.
After dinner we ascended Les Echelles, winding along a road
cut through perpendicular rocks, of immense elevation, by
LETTERS, 217
Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy, in 1582. The rocks, which
cannot be less than a thousand feet in perpendicular height,
sometimes overhang the road on each side, and almost shut out
the sky. The scene is like that described in the Prometheus of
iEschylus. Vast rifts and caverns in the granite precipices,
wintry mountains with ice and snow above ; the loud sounds of
unseen waters within the caverns, and walls of toppling rocks,
only to be scaled as he describes, by the winged chariot of the
ocean nymphs.
Under the dominion of this tyranny, the inhabitants of the
fertile valleys, bounded by these mountains, are in a state of
most frightful poverty and disease. At the foot of this ascent,
were cut into the rocks in several places, stories of the misery
of the inhabitants, to move the compassion of the traveller.
One old man, lame and blind, crawled out of a hole in the rock,
wet with the perpetual melting of the snows of above, and
dripping like a shower-bath.
The country, as we descended to Chambery, continued as
beautiful ; though marked with somewhat of a softer character
than before : we arrived a little after night-fall.
XVI.— To T, L. Peacock.
Milan^ April 1818.
My Dear P.,
Behold us arrived at the end of our journey — that
is, within a few miles of it — because we design to spend the
summer on the shore of the lake of Como. Our journey was
somewhat painful from the cold — and in no other manner
interesting until we passed the Alps : of course I except the
Alps themselves ; but no sooner had we arrived at Italy, than
the loveliness of the earth and the serenity of the sky made the
greatest difference in my sensations. I depend on these things
for life ; for in the smoke of cities, and the tumult of human
kind, and the chilling fogs and rain of our own country, I can
hardly be said to live. With what delight did I hear the
woman, who conducted us to see the triumphal arch of
Augustus at Susa, speak the clear and complete language of
Italy, though half unintelligible to me, after that nasal and
abbreviated cacophony of the French ! A ruined arch of
magnificent proportions in the Greek taste, standing in a kind
of road of green lawn, overgrown with violets and primroses,
and in the midst of stupendous mountains, and a blonde woman,
2i8 LETTERS.
of light and graceful manners, something in the style of Fuseli's
Eve, were the first things we met in Italy.
This city is very agreeable. We went to the opera last night
— which is a most splendid exhibition. The opera itself was
not a favourite, and the singers very inferior to our own. But
the ballet, or rather a kind of melodrame or pantomimic drama,
was the most splendid spectacle I ever saw. We have no Miss
Melanie here — in every other respect, Milan is unquestionably
superior. The manner in which language is translated into
gesture, the complete and full effect of the whole as illustrating
the history in question, the unaffected self-possession of each
of the actors, even to the children, made this choral drama
more impressive than I could have conceived possible. The
story is Othello^ and strange to say, it left no disagreeable
impression.
I write, but I am not in the humour to write, and you must
expect longer, if not more entertaining, letters soon — that is, in
a week or so — when I am a little recovered from my journey.
Pray tell us all the news with regard to our own offspring, whom
we left at nurse in England ; as well as those of our friends.
Mention Cobbett and politics too — and Hunt— to whom Mary
is now writing — and particularly your own plans and yourself.
You shall hear more of me and my plans soon. My health is
improved already — and my spirits something — ^and I have many
literary schemes, and one in particular — which I thirst to be
settled that I may begin. I have ordered Oilier to send you
some sheets, etc., for revision.
Adieu.— Always faithfully yours,
P. B. S.
XVIL— To T. L. Peacock.
Milan^ April 10^ 1818.
My Dear P. — I had no conception that the distance between
us, measured by time in respect of letters, was so great. I have
but just received yours dated the 2nd — and when you will
receive mine written from this city somewhat later, than the
same date, I cannot know. I am sorry to hear that you have
been obliged to remain at Marlow ; a certain degree of society
being almost a necessity of life, particularly as we are not to see
you this summer in Italy. But this, I suppose, must be as it is.
I often revisit Marlow in thought. The curse of this life is, that
whatever is once known, can never be unknown. You inhabit
LETTERS. 219
a spot, which before you inhabit it, is as indifferent to you as
any other spot upon earth, and when, persuaded by some
necessity, you think to leave it, you leave it not ; it clings to
you — and with memories of things, which, in your experience of
them, gave no such promise, revenges your desertion. Time
flows on, places are changed ; friends who were with us, are no
longer with us ; yet what has been seems yet to be, but barren
and stripped of life. See, I have sent you a study for Nightmare
Abbey.
Since I last wrote to you we have been to Como, looking for
a house. This lake exceeds any thing I ever beheld in beauty,
with the exception of the arbutus islands of Killamey. It is
long and narrow, and has the appearance of a mighty river
winding among the mountains and the forests. We sailed from
the town of Como to a tract of country called the Tremezina,
and saw the various aspects presented by that part of the lake.
The mountams between Como and that village, or rather cluster
of villages, are covered on high with chestnut forests (the eating
chestnuts, on which the inhabitants of the country subsist in
time of scarcity), which sometimes descend to the very verge of
the lake, overhanging it with their hoary branches. But usually
the immediate border of this shore is composed of laurel-trees,
and bay, and myrtle, and wild fig-trees, and olives which grow
in the crevices of the rocks, and overhang the caverns, and
shadow the deep glens, which are filled with the flashing light
of the waterfalls. Other flowering shrubs, which I cannot
name, grow there also. On high, the towers of village churches
are seen white among the dark forests. Beyond, on the
opposite shore, which faces the south, the mountains descend
less precipitously to the lake, and although they are much
higher, and some covered with perpetual snow, there intervenes
between them and the lake a range of lower hills, which have
glens and rifts opening to the other, such as I should fancy the
abysses of Ida or Parnassus. Here are plantations of olive, and
orange, and lemon trees, which are now so loaded with fruit,
that there is more fruit than leaves — and vineyards. This
shore of the lake is one continued village, and the Milanese
nobility have their villas here. The union of culture and the
untameable profusion and loveliness of nature is here so close,
that the line where they are divided can hardly be discovered.
But the finest scenery is that of the Villa Pliniana ; so called
from a fountain which ebbs and flows every three hours,
described by the younger Pliny, which is in the court-yard.
This house, which was once a magnificent palace, and is now
220 LETTERS.
half in ruins, we are endeavouring to procure. It is built upon
terraces raised from the bottom of the lake, together with its
garden, at the foot of a semicircular precipice, overshadowed by
profound forests of chestnut. The scene from the colonnade is
the most extraordinary, at once, and the most lovely that eye
ever beheld. On one side is the mountain, and immediately
over you are clusters of cypress-trees of an astonishing height,
which seem to pierce the sky. Above you, from among the
clouds, as it were, descends a waterfall of immense size, broken
by the woody rocks into a thousand channels to the lake. On
the other side is seen the blue extent of the lake and the
mountains, speckled with sails and spires. The apartments ot
the Pliniana are immensely large, but ill furnished and antique.
The terraces, which overlook the lake, and conduct under the
shade of such immense laurel-trees as deserve the epithet of
Pythian, are most delightful. We staid at Como two days, and
have now returned to Milan, waiting the issue of our negotiation
about a house. Como is only six leagues from Milan, and its
mountains are seen from the cathedral.
This cathedral is a most astonishing work of art. It is built
of white marble, and cut into pinnacles of immense height, and
the utmost delicacy of workmanship, and loaded with sculpture.
The efifect of it, piercing the solid blue with those groups of
dazzling spires, relieved by the serene depth of this Italian
heaven, or by moonlight when the stars seem gathered among
those clustered shapes, is beyond any thing I had imagined
architecture capable of producing. The interior, though very
sublime, is of a more earthly character, and with its stained
glass and massy granite columns overloaded with antique
figures, and the silver lamps, that burn for ever under the
canopy of black cloth beside the brazen altar and the marble
fretwork of the dome, give it the aspect of some gorgeous
sepulchre. There is one solitary spot among those aisles,
behind the altar, where the light of day is dim and yellow under
the storied window, which I have chosen to visit, and read
Dante there.
I have devoted this summer, and indeed the next year, to the
composition of a tragedy on the subject of Tasso's madness,
which I find upon inspection is, if properly treated, admirably
dramatic and poetical. But, you will say, I have no dramatic
talent ; very true, in a certain sense ; but I have taken the
resolution to see what kind of a tragedy a person without
dramatic talent could write. It shall be better morality than
Fazio, and better poetry than Bertram, at least. You tell me
LETTERS. 221
nothing of Rhododaphne, a book from which, I confess, I
expected extraordinary success.
Who lives in my house at Marlow now, or what is to be done
with it? I am seriously persuaded that the situation was
injurious to my health, or I should be tempted to feel a very
absurd interest in who is to be its next possessor. The expense
of our iourney here has been very considerable — but we are now
living at the hotel here, in a kind of Pension, which is very
reasonable in respect of price, and when we get into a menage
of our own, we have every reason to expect that we shall experi-
ence something of the boasted cheapness of Italy. The finest
bread, made of a sifted flour, the whitest and the best I ever
tasted, is only one English penny a pound. All the necessaries
of life bear a proportional relation to this. But then the
luxuries, tea, etc., are very dear, — and the English, as usual, are
cheated in a way that is quite ridiculous, if they have not their
wits about them. We do not know a single human being, and
the opera, until last night, has been always the same. Lord
Byron, we hear, has taken a house for three years, at Venice ;
whether we shall see him or not, I do not know. The number
of English who pass through this town is very great. They
ought to be in their own country in the present crisis. Their
conduct is wholly inexcusable. The people here, though inoffen-
sive enough, seem both in body and soul a miserable race. The
men are hardly men ; they look like a tribe of stupid and
shrivelled slaves, and I do not think that I have seen a gleam
of intelligence in the countenance of man since I passed the
Alps. The women in enslaved countries are always better than
the men ; but they have tight-laced figures, and figures and
mien which express (O how unlike the French !) a mixture of
the coquette and prude, which reminds me of the worst
characteristics of the English.* Everything but humanity is in
much greater perfection here than in France. The cleanliness
and comfort of the inns is something quite English. The
country is beautifully cultivated ; and altogether, if you can, as
one ought always to do, find your happiness in yourself, it is a
most delightful and commodious place to live in.
Adieu. — Your affectionate friend,
P. B. S.
* These impressions of Shelley, with regard to the Italians, formed
in ignorance, and with precipitation, became altogether altered after a
longer stay in Italy. He quickly discovered the extraordinary intel-
ligence and genius of this wonderful people, amidst the ignorance in
222 LETTERS.
XVIII.— To T. L. Peacock.
Milauy April y)thy 1818.
My Dear P., — I write, simply to tell you, to direct your next
letters, Poste Restante, Pisa. We have engaged a vetturino for
that city, and leave Milan to-morrow morning. Our journey
will occupy six or seven days.
Pisa is not six miles from the Mediterranean, with which it
communicates by the river Arno. We shall pass by Piacenza,
Parma, Bologna, the Apennines, and Florence, and I will
endeavour to tell you something of these celebrated places in
my next letter ; but I cannot promise much, for, though my
health is much improved, my spirits are unequal, and seem to
desert me when I attempt to write.
Pisa, they say, is uninhabitable in the midst of summer — we
shall do, therefore, what other people do, retire to Florence, or
to the mountains. But I will write to you our plans from Pisa,
when I shall understand them better myself.
You may easily conjecture the motives which led us to forego
the divine solitude of Como. To me, whose chief pleasure in
life is the contemplation of nature, you may imagine how great
is this loss.
Let us hear from you once a fortnight. Do not forget those
who do not forget you.
Adieu. — Ever most sincerely yours,
P. B. Shelley.
XIX.— To T. L. Peacock.
LivornOy June 5, 1818.
My Dear P., — We have not heard from you since the middle
of April — that is, we have received only one letter from you
since our departure from England. It necessarily follows that
some accident has intercepted them. Address, in future, to
the care of Mr. Gisborne, Livomo — and I shall receive them,
though sometimes somewhat circuitously, yet always securely.
We left Milan on the ist of May, and travelled across the
Apennines to Pisa. This part of the Apennine is far less beauti-
which they are carefully kept by their rulers, and the vices, fostered by
a religious system, which these same rulers have used as their most
successful engine. — M. S.
LETTERS. 223
ful than the Alps ; the mountains are wide and wild, and the
whole scenery broad and undetermined — the imagination
cannot find a home in it. The Plain of the Milanese, and that
of Parma, is exquisitely beautiful — it is like one garden, or
rather cultivated wilderness ; because the corn and the meadow-
grass grow under high and thick trees, festooned to one another
by regular festoons of vines. On the seventh day we arrived at
Pisa, where we remained three or four days. A large disagree-
able city, almost without inhabitants. We then proceeded to
this great trading town, where we have remained a month, and
which, in a few days, we leave for the Bagni di Lucca, a kind of
watering-place situated in the depth of the Apennines ; the
scenery surrounding this village is very fine.
We have made some acquaintance with a very amiable and
accomplished lady, Mrs. Gisborne, who is the sole attraction in
this most unattractive of cities. We had no idea of spending a
month here, but she has made it even agreeable. We shall see
something of Italian society at the Bagni di Lucca, where the
most fashionable people resort.
When you send my parcel — which, by-the-by, I should
request you to direct to Mr. Gisborne — I wish you could
contrive to enclose the two last parts of Clarke's Travels,
relating to Greece, and belonging to Hookham. You know I
subscribe there still — and I have determined to take the
Examiner here. You would, therefore, oblige me, by sending it
weekly, after having read it yourself, to the same direction, and
so clipped, as to make as little weight as possible.
I write as if writing where perhaps my letter may never
arrive.
With every good wish from all of us.
Believe me most sincerely yours,
P. B. S.
XX.— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne,
(leghorn).
You cannot know, as some friends in England do, to whom
my silence is still more inexcusable, that this silence is no proof
of forgetfulness or neglect.
I have, in truth, nothing to say, but that I shall be happy to
see you again, and renew our delightful walks, until the desire
or the duty of seeing new things hurries us away. We have spent
224 LETTERS.
a month here in our accustomed solitude, with the exception of
one night at the Casino ; and the choice society of all ages,
which I took care to pack up in a large trunk before we left
England, have revisited us here. I am employed just now,
having little better to do, in translating into my faint and
inefficient periods, the divine eloquence of Plato's Symposium ;
only as an exercise, or, perhaps, to give Mary some idea of the
manners and feelings of the Athenians — so different on many
subjects from that of any other community that ever existed.
We have almost finished Ariosto — who is entertaining and
graceful, and sometimes a poet. Forgive me, worshippers of a
more equal and tolerant divinity in poetry, if Ariosto pleases me
less than you. Where is the gentle seriousness, the delicate
sensibility, the calm and sustained energy, without which true
greatness cannot be ? He is so cruel, too, in his descriptions ;
his most prized virtues are vices almost without disguise. He
constantly vindicates and embellishes revenge in its grossest
form ; the most deadly superstition that ever infested the world.
How different from the tender and solemn enthusiasm of
Petrarch— or even the delicate moral sensibility of Tasso,
though somewhat obscured by an assumed and artificial
style.
We read a good deal here — and we read little in Livorno.
We have ridden, Mary and I, once only, to a place called Prato
Fiorito, on the top of the mountains : the road, winding through
forests, and over torrents, and on the verge of green ravines,
affords scenery magnificently fine. I cannot describe it to you,
but bid you, though vainly, come and see. I take great delight
in watching the changes of the atmosphere here, and the growth
of the thunder showers with which the noon is often over-
shadowed, and which break and fade away towards evening
into flocks of delicate clouds. Our fire-flies are fading away
fast ; but there is the planet Jupiter, who rises majestically over
the rift in the forest-covered mountains to the south, and the
pale summer lightning which is spread out every night, at
intervals, over the sky. No doubt Providence has contrived
these things, that, when the fire-flies go out, the low-flying owl
may see her way home.
Remember me kindly to the Machinista.
With the sentiment of impatience until we see you again in
the autumn,
I am, yours most sincerely,
P. B. Shelley.
Bagni di Lucca^July loth^iZiZ,
LETTERS. Its
XXI.— To William Godwin.
Bagni di Lticca, July 2 5 M, 181 8.
My Dear Godwin, — We have, as yet, seen nothing of Italy
which marks it to us as the habitation of departed greatness.
The serene sky, the magnificent scenery, the delightful pro-
ductions of the climate, are known to us, indeed, as the same
with those which the andents enjoyed. But Rome and Naples
— even Florence, are yet to see ; and if we were to write you at
present a history of our impressions, it would give you no idea
that we lived in Italy.
I am exceedingly delighted with the plan you propose of a
book, illustrating the character of our calumniated republicans.
It is precisely the subject for Mary ; and I imagine that, but for
the fear of being excited to refer to books not within her reach,
she would attempt to begin it here, and order the works you
notice. I am unfortunately little skilled in English history, and
the interest which it excites in me is so feeble, that I find it a
duty to attain merely to that general knowledge of it which is
indispensable.
Mary has just finished Ariosto with me, and, indeed, has
attained a very competent knowledge of Italian. She is now
reading Livy. I have been constantly occupied in literature,
but have written little — except some translations from Plato, in
which I exercised myself, in the despair of producing anything
original. The Symposium of Plato seems to me one of the
most valuable pieces of all antiquity ; whether we consider the
intrinsic merit of the composition, or the light which it throws
on the inmost state of manners and opinions among the ancient
Greeks. I have occupied myself in translating this, and it has
excited me to attempt an Essay upon the cause of some
differences in sentiment between the Ancients and Moderns,
with respect to the subject of the dialogue.
Two things give us pleasure in your last letters. The
resumption of \_your answer to] Malthus, and the favourable
turn of the general election. If Ministers do not find some
means, totally inconceivable to me, of plunging the nation in
war, do you imagine that they can subsist? Peace is all that a
country, in the present state of England, seems to require, to
afford it tranquillity and leisure for attempting some remedy ;
not to the universal evils of all constituted society, but to the
peculiar system of misrule under which those evils have been
exasperated now. I wish that I had health or spirits that
96
i26 Letters.
would enable me to enter into public affairs, or that I could
find words to express all that I feel and know.
The modern Italians seem a miserable people, without
sensibility, or imagination, or understanding. Their outside is
polished, and an intercourse with them seems to proceed with
much facility, though it ends in nothing, and produces nothing.
The women are particularly empty, and though possessed of the
same kind of superficial grace, are devoid of every cultivation
and refinement. They have a ball at the Casino here every
Sunday, which we attend — but neither Mary nor C dance.
I do not know whether they refrain from philosophy or
protestantism.
I hear that poor Mary's book is attacked most violently in the
Quarterly Review. We have heard some praise of it, and
among others, an article of Walter Scott's in Blackwood's
Magazine.
If you should have anything to send us— and, I assure you,
anything relating to England is interesting to us — commit it to
the care of Oilier the bookseller, or P ; they send me a
parcel every quarter.
My health is, I think, better, and, I imagine, continues to
improve, but I still have busy thoughts and dispiriting cares,
which I would shake oflT— and it is now summer. A thousand
good wishes to yourself and your undertakings.
Ever most affectionately yours,
P. B. S.
XXII.— To T. L. Peacock.
Bagni di Lucca^ July i^th^ i8iS.
My Dear Peacock, — I received on the same day your letters
marked 5 and 6, the one directed to Pisa and the other to Livorno,
and I can assure you that they are most welcome visitors.
Our life here is as unvaried by any external events as if we
were at Marlow, where a sail up the river or a journey to London
makes an epoch. Since I last wrote to you, I have ridden over
to Lucca, once with C, and once alone ; and we have been over
to the Casino, where I cannot say there is anything remarkable,
the women being far removed from anything which the most
liberal annotator would interpret into beauty or grace, and
LETTERS. 227
apparently possessing no intellectual excellences to compensate
the deficiency. I assure you it is well that it is so, for the
dances, especially the waltz, are so exquisitely beautiful that it
would be a little dangerous to the newly unfrozen senses and
imaginations of us migrators from the neighbourhood of the
pole. As it is — except in the dark — there can be no peril. The
atmosphere here, unlike that of the rest of Italy, is diversified
with clouds, which grow in the middle of the day, and some-
times bring thunder and lightning, and hail about the size of a
pigeon's egg, and decrease towards the evening, leaving only
those finely woven webs of vapour which we see in English
skies, and flocks of fleecy and slowly moving clouds, which all
vanish before sunset ; and the nights are for ever serene, and
we see a star in the east at sunset — I think it is Jupiter — almost
as fine as Venus was last summer ; but it wants a certain silver
and aerial radiance, and soft yet piercing splendour, which
belongs, I suppose, to the latter planet by virtue of its at once
divine and female nature. I have forgotten to ask the ladies if
Jupiter produces on them the same effect. I take great delight
in watching the changes of the atmosphere. In the evening,
Mary and I often take a ride, for horses are cheap in
this country. In the middle of the day, I bathe in a pool or
fountain, formed in the middle of the forests by a torrent. It is
surrounded on all sides by precipitous rocks, and the waterfall
of the stream which forms it falls into it on one side with
perpetual dashing. Close to it, on the top of the rocks, are
alders, and above the great chestnut trees, whose long and
pointed leaves pierce the deep blue sky in strong relief. The
water of this pool, which, to venture an unrythmical paraphrase,
is " sixteen feet long and ten feet wide," is as transparent as the
air, so that the stones and sand at the bottom seem, as it were,
trembling in the light of noonday. It is exceedingly cold
also. My custom is to undress, and sit on the rocks, reading
Herodotus, until the perspiration has subsided, and then to leap
from the edge of the rock into this fountain — a practice in the
hot weather excessively refreshing. This torrent is composed,
as it were, of a succession of pools and waterfalls, up which
I sometimes amuse myself by climbing when I bathe, and
receiving the spray over all my body, whilst I clamber up the
moist crags with difficulty.
I have lately found myself totally incapable of original com-
position. I employed my mornings, therefore, in translating
the Symposium^ which I accomplished in ten days. Mary
is now transcribing it, and I am writing a prefatory essay. I
228 LETTERS,
have been reading scarcely anything but Greek, and a little
Italian poetry with Mary. We have finished Ariosto together
— a thing I could not have done again alone.
Fra7ikenstein seems to have been well received ; for although
the unfriendly criticism of the Quarterly is an evil for it, yet it
proves that it is read in some considerable degree, and it would
be difficult for them with any appearance of fairness, to deny it
merit altogether. Their notice of me, and their exposure of
their true motives for not noticing my book, shows how
well understood an hostility must subsist between me and
them.
The news of the result of the elections, especially that of the
metropolis, is highly inspiriting. I received a letter, of two day's
later date, with yours, which announced the unfortunate termina-
tion of that of Westmoreland. I wish you had sent me some
of the overflowing villainy of those apostates. What a pitiful
wretch that Wordsworth 1 That such a man should be such a
poet I I can compare him with no one but Simonides, that
flatterer of the Sicilian tyrants, and at the same time the
most natural and tender of lyric poets.
What pleasure would it have given me if the wings of imagina-
tion could have divided the space which divides us, and I could
have been of your party. I have seen nothing so beautiful as
Virginia Water in its kind. And my thoughts for ever cling to
Windsor Forest, and the copses of Marlow, like the clouds
which hang upon the woods of the mountains, low trailing,
and though they pass away, leave their best dew when they
themselves have faded. You tell me that you have finished
Nightmare Abbey. I hope that you have given the enemy no
quarter. Remember, it is a sacred war. We have found an
excellent quotation in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his
Humour. I will transcribe it, as I do not think you have these
plays at Marlow.
" Matthew. O, it's only your fine humour, sir. Your true
melancholy breeds your fine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself
divers times, sir ; and then do I no more but take pen and
paper presently, and overflow you half a score or a dozen of
sonnets at a sitting.
" Ed. Knowell. Sure, he utters them by the gross.
" Stephen. Truly, sir ; and I love such things out of
measure.
"Ed. Knowell. T faith, better than in measure, I'll
undertake.
LETTERS, 229
" Matthew. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my study ;
it's at your service.
"Stephen. I thank you, sir; I shall be bold, I warrant
you. Have you a stool there to be melancholy upofi ? " — Every
Alan in his Humour, Act 3, scene i.
The last expression would not make a bad motto.*
XXIII.— To T. L. Peacock.
Bagni de Lticca, Aug. i6th, t8i8.
My Dear Peacock,
No new event has been added to my life since I
wrote last : at least none which might not have taken place as
well on the banks of the Thames as on those of the Serchio. I
project soon a short excursion, of a week or so, to some of the
neighbouring cities ; and on the tenth of September we leave
this place for Florence, when I shall at least be able to tell you
of some things which you cannot see from your windows.
I have finished, by taking advantage of a few days of
inspiration — which the Cameonce have been lately very backward
in conceding — the little poem I began sending to the press in
London. Oilier will send you the proofs. Its structure is slight
and airy ; its subject ideal. The metre corresponds with the
spirit of the poem, and varies with the flow of the feeling. I
have translated, and Mary has transcribed the Symposium, as
well as my poem ; and I am proceeding to employ myself on a
discourse, upon the subject of which the Symposium treats,
considering the subject with reference to the difference of
sentiments respecting it, existing between the Greeks and
modern nations ; a subject to be handled with that delicate
caution which either I cannot or I will not practise in other
matters, but which here I acknowledge to be necessary. Not
that I have any serious thought of publishing either this
discourse or the Symposium, at least till I return to England,
when we may discuss the propriety of it.
Nightmare Abbey finished. Well, what is in it ? What is it ?
You are as secret as if the priest of Ceres had dictated its sacred
* I adopted this passage as a second motto, omitting E. Knowell's
interlocutions. — T. L. P.
230 LETTERS,
pages. However, I suppose I shall see in time, when my second
parcel arrives. My first is yet absent. By what conveyance
did you send it ?
Pray, are you yet cured of your Nympholepsy ? 'Tis a sweet
disease : but one as obstinate and dangerous as any — even when
the Nymph is a Poliad. Whether such be the case or not, I
hope your nympholeptic tale is not abandoned. The subject, if
treated with a due spice of Bacchic fury, and interwoven with
the manners and feelings of those divine people, who, in their
very errors, are the mirrors, as it were, in which all that is
delicate and graceful contemplates itself, is perhaps equal to any.
What a wonderful passage there is in Phcedrus — the beginning,
I think, of one of the speeches of Socrates * — in praise of poetic
madness, and in definition of what poetry is, and how a man
becomes a poet. Every man who lives in this age and desires
to write poetry, ought, as a preservative against the false and
narrow systems of criticism which every poetical empiric vents,
to impress himself with this sentence, if he would be numbered
among those to whom may apply this proud, though sublime,
expression of Tasso ; " Non dh in mondo chi merita noine di
creatore^ che Dio ed il Poeta.^^
The weather has been brilliantly fine ; and now, among these
mountains, the autumnal air is becoming less hot, especially in
the mornings and evenings. The chestnut woods are now
inexpressibly beautiful, for the chestnuts have become large, and
add a new richness to the full foliage. We see here Jupiter in
the east ; and Venus, I believe, as the evening star, directly after
sunset.
More and better in my next. M. and C. desire their kind
remembrances. — Most faithfully your friend,
P. B. Shelley.
*The passage alluded to is this: — "There are several kinds," says
Socrates, "of divine madness. That which proceeds from the Muses
taking possession of a tender and unoccupied soul, awakening, and
bacchically inspiring it towards songs and other poetry, adorning myriads
of ancient deeds, instructs succeeding generations, but he who, without
this madness from the Muses, approaches the poetical gates, having
persuaded himself that by art alone he may become sufficiently a poet,
will find in the end his own imperfection, and see the poetry of his cold
prudence vanish into nothingness before the light pf that which has
sprung from divine insanity." — Platonis PhadruSy p. 245 a, — T. L. P.
LETTERS, 231
XXIV.— To Mrs. Shelley,
(bagni di lucca).
Florence^ Thursday^ 11 o'clock,
20th August, 1 81 8.
Dearest Mary,
We have been delayed in this city four hours, for
the Austrian minister's passport, but are now on the point of
setting out with a vetturino, who engages to take us on the
third day to Padua ; that is, we shall only sleep three nights on
the road. Yesterday's journey, performed in a one-horse cab-
riolet, almost without springs, over a rough road, was excessively
fatiguing. suffered most from it ; for, as to myself, there
are occasions in which fatigue seems a useful medicine, as I
have felt no pam in my side — a most delightful respite — since I
left you. The country was various and exceedingly beautiful.
Sometimes there were those low cultivated lands, with their
vine festoons, and large bunches of grapes just becoming purple
— at others we passed between high mountains, crowned with
some of the most majestic Gothic ruins I ever saw, which
frowned from the bare precipices, or were half seen among the
olive-copses. As we approached Florence, the country became
cultivated to a very high degree, the plain was filled with the
most beautiful villas, and, as far as the eye could reach, the
mountains were covered with them ; for the plains are bounded
on all sides by blue and misty mountains. The vines are here
trailed on low trellisses of reeds interwoven into crosses to sup-
port them, and the grapes, now almost ripe, are exceedingly
abundant. You everywhere meet those teams of beautiful white
oxen, which are now labouring the little vine-divided fields with
their Virgilian ploughs and carts. Florence itself, that is the
Lung' Arno (for I have seen no more), I think is the most
beautiful city I have yet seen. It is surrounded with cultivated
hills, and from the bridge which crosses the broad channel of
the Arno, the view is the most animated and elegant I ever
saw. You see three or four bridges, one apparently supported
by Corinthian pillars, and the white sails of the boats, relieved
by the deep green of the forest, which comes to the water's
edge, and the sloping hills covered with bright villas on every
side. Domes and steeples rise on all sides, and the cleanliness
is remarkably great. On the other side there are the foldings
of the Vale of Arno above ; first the hills of olive and vine, then
232 LETTERS.
the chestnut woods, and then the blue and misly pine forests,
which invest the aerial Apennines, that fade in the distance.
I have seldom seen a city so lovely at first sight as Florence.
We shall travel hence within a few hours, with the speed of
the post, since the distance is 190 miles, and we are to do it in
three days, besides the half day, which is somewhat more than
sixty miles a-day. We have now got a comfortable carriage
and two mules, and, thanks to Paolo, have made a very decent
bargain, comprising everything, to Padua. I should say we had
delightful fruit for breakfast — figs, very fine — and peaches,
unfortunately gathered before they were ripe, whose smell was
like what one fancies of the wakening of Paradise flowers.
Well, my dearest Mary, are you very lonely ? Tell me truth,
my sweetest, do you ever cry ? I shall hear from you once at
Venice, and once on my return here. If you love me you will
keep up your spirits— and, at all events, tell me truth about it ;
for, I assure you, I am not of a disposition to be flattered by
your sorrow, though I should be by your cheerfulness ; and,
above all, by seeing such fruits of my absence as were produced
when we were at Geneva. What acquaintances have you
made ? I might have travelled to Padua with a German, who
had just come from Rome, and had scarce recovered from a
malaria fever, caught in the Pontine Marshes, a week or two
since ; and I conceded to 's entreaties — and to your absent
suggestions, and omitted the opportunity, although I have no
great faith in such species of contagion. It is not very hot —
not at all too much so for my sensations ; and the only thing
that incommodes me are the gnats at night, who roar like so
many humming-tops in one's ear — and I do not always find
zanzariere. How is Willmouse and little Clara ? They must
be kissed for me — and you must particularly remember to speak
my name to William, and see that he does not quite forget me
before I return. Adieu— my dearest girl, I think that we shall
soon meet. I shall write again from Venice. Adieu, dear
Mary !
I have been reading the Noble Kinsmen^ in which, with the
exception of that lovely scene, to which you added so much
grace in reading to me, I have been disappointed. The Jailor's
Daughter is a poor imitation, and deformed. The whole story
wants moral discrimination and modesty. I do not believe that
Shakspeare wrote a word of it.
LETTERS, 233
XXV.— To Mrs. Shelley,
(bagni di lucca).
Venice^ Sunday Mornine^.
My Dearest Mary,
We arrived here last night at twelve o'clock, and
it is now before breakfast the next morning. I can, of course,
tell you nothing of the future ; and though I shall not close this
letter till post time, yet I do not know exactly when that is.
Yet, if you are very impatient, look along the letter and you
will see another date, when I may have something to relate.
I came from Padua hither in a gondola, and the gondoliere,
among other things, without any hint on my part, began talking
of Lord Byron. He said he was a giovmotto Inglese, with a
nome stravagante^ who lived very luxuriously, and spent great
sums of money. This man, it seems, was one of Lord B.'s gon-
dolieri. No sooner had we arrived at the inn, than the waiter
began talking about him — said, that he frequented Mrs. H.'s
conversazioni very much.
Our journey from Florence to Padua contained nothing which
may not be related another time. At Padua, as I said, we took
a gondola — and left it at three o'clock. These gondolas are the
most beautiful and convenient boats in the world. They are
finely carpeted and furnished with black, and painted black. The
couches on which you lean are extraordinarily soft, and are so
disposed as to be the most comfortable to those who lean or
sit. The windows have at will either Venetian plate-glass
flowered, or Venetian blinds, or blinds of black cloth to shut out
the light. The weather here is extremely cold — indeed, some-
times very painfully so, and yesterday it began to rain. We
passed the laguna in the middle of the night in a most violent
storm of wind, rain, and lightning. It was very curious to
observe the elements above in a state of such tremendous con-
vulsion, and the surface of the water almost calm ; for these
lagunas, though five miles broad, a space enough in a storm to
sink a gondola, are so shallow that the boatmen drive the boat
along with a pole. The sea-water, furiously agitated by the
wind, shone with sparkles like stars. Venice, now hidden and
now disclosed by the driving rain, shone dimly with its lights.
We were all this while safe and comfortable. Well, adieu,
dearest : I shall, as Miss Byron says, resume the pen in the
evening.
234 LETTERS.
Sunday Nighty 5 0^ clock in the Morning.
Well, I will try to relate everything in its order.
At three o'clock I called on Lord Byron : he was delighted to
see me.
He took me in his gondola across the laguna to a long
sandy island, which defends Venice from the Adriatic. When
we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, and we
rode along the sands of the sea, talking. Our conversation
consisted in histories of his wounded feelings, and questions as
to my affairs, and great professions of friendship and regard for
me. He said, that if he had been in England at the time of
the Chancery affair, he would have moved heaven and earth to
have prevented such a decision. We talked of literary matters,
his Fourth Canto, which, he says, is very good, and indeed
repeated some stanzas of great energy to me. When we
returned to his palace — which
. . . ( The letter is here torn).
The Hoppners are the most amiable people I ever knew.
They are much attached to each other, and have a nice little
boy, seven months old. Mr. H. paints beautifully, and this
excursion, which he has just put off, was an expedition to the
Julian Alps, in this neighbourhood — for the sake of sketching,
to procure winter employment. He has only a fortnight's
leisure, and he has sacrificed two days of it to strangers whom
he never saw before. Mrs. H. has hazel eyes and sweet looks.
{Paper torn.)
Well, but the time presses ; I am now going to the banker's
to send you money for the journey, which I shall address to
you at Florence, Post-office. Pray come instantly to Este,
where I shall be waiting in the utmost anxiety for your arrival.
You can pack up directly you get this letter, and employ the
next day on that. The day after, get up at four o'clock, and go
post to Lucca, where you will arrive at six. Then take a
vetturino for Florence to arrive the same evening. From
Florence to Este is three days' vetturino journey — and ycu
could not, I think, do it quicker by the post. Make Paolo take
you to good inns, as we found very bad ones ; and pray avoid
the Tre Mori at Bologna, perche vi sono cose inespressibili nei
letti. I do not think you can, but try to get from Florence to
Bologna in one day. Do not take the post, for it is not much
LETTERS. 235
faster and very expensive. I have been obliged to decide on
all these things without you : I have done for the best — and,
my own beloved Mary, you must soon come and scold me if I
have done wrong, and kiss me if I have done right — for, I am
sure, I do not know which — and it is only the event that can
show. We shall at least be saved the trouble of introduction,
and have formed acquaintance with a lady who is so good, so
beautiful, so angelically mild, that were she as wise too, she
would be quite a . Her eyes are like a reflection of yours.
Her manners are like yours when you know and like a person.
Do you know, dearest, how this letter was written ? By
scraps and patches, and interrupted every minute. The
gondola is now come to take me to the banker's. Este is
a little place, and the house found without difficulty. I shall
count four days for this letter : one day for packing, four for
coming here — and on the ninth or tenth day we shall meet.
I am too late for the post — but I send an express to overtake
it. Enclosed is an order for fifty pounds. If you knew all that
I had to do ! —
Dearest love, be well, be happy, come to me — confide in your
own constant and affectionate P. B. S.
Kiss the blue-eyed darlings for me, and do not let William
forget me. Clara cannot recollect me.
XXVI.— To Mrs. Shelley,
(l CAPPUCCINI— este).
Padua^ mezzogio7"no.
My Best Mary,— I found at Mount Selice a favourable
opportunity for going to Venice, where I shall try to make
some arrangement for you and little Ca. to come for some days,
and shall meet you, if I do not write anything in the mean-
time, at Padua, on Thursday morning. C. says she is obliged
to come to see the Medico, whom we missed this morning, and
who has appointed as the only hour at which he can be at
leisure — half-past eight in the morning. You must, therefore,
arrange matters so that you should come to the Stella d'Oro a
little before that hour— a thing to be accomplished only by
setting out at half-past three in the morning. You will by this
means arrive at Venice very early in the day, and avoid the
heat, which might be bad for the babe, and take the time, when
she would at least sleep great part of the time. C. will return
236 LETTERS.
with the return carriage, and I shall meet you, or send to you
at Padua.
Meanwhile remember Charles the First — and do you be pre-
pared to bring at least some of Myrra translated ; bring the
book also with you, and the sheets of " Prometheus Unbound,"
which you will find numbered from one to twenty-six on the
table of the pavilion. My poor little Clara, how is she to-day ?
Indeed I am somewhat uneasy about her, and though I feel
secure that there is no danger, it would be very comfortable to
have some reasonable person's opinion about her. The Medico
at Padua is certainly a man in great practice, but I confess he
does not satisfy me.
Am I not like a wild swan to be gone so suddenly ? But, in
fact, to set off alone to Venice required an exertion. I felt
myself capable of making it, and I knew that you desired it.
What will not be — if so it is destined — the lonely journey
through that wide, cold France ? But we shall see.
Adieu, my dearest love — remember Charles I. and Myrra. I
have been already imagining how you will conduct some scenes.
The second volume of St. Leon begins with this proud and true
sentiment — " There is nothing which the human mind can
conceive, which it may not execute." Shakspeare was only a
human being.
Adieu till Thursday. — Your ever affectionate
P. B. S.
XXVII.— To T. L. Peacock.
Este, October 8, 1818.
My Dear P. — I have not written to you, I think, for six
weeks. But I have been on the point of writing many times,
and have often felt that I had many things to say. But I have
not been without events to disturb and distract me, amongst
which is the death of my little girl.. She died of a disorder pecu-
liar to the climate. We have all had bad spirits enough, and I,
in addition, bad health. I intend to be better soon : there is no
malady, bodily or mental, which does not either kill or is killed.
We left the Baths of Lucca, I think, the day after I wrote to
you — on a visit to Venice — partly for the sake of seeing the
city. We made a very delightful acquaintance there with a
Mr. and Mrs. Hoppner, the gentleman an Englishman, and the
lady a Swissesse, mild and beautiful, and unprejudiced, in the
best sense of the word. The kind attentions of these people
LETTERS, 137
made our short stay at Venice very pleasant. I saw Lord
Byron, and really hardly knew him again ; he is changed into
the liveliest and happiest-looking man I ever met. He read me
the first canto of his " Don Juan " — a thing in the style of
Beppo, but infinitely better, and dedicated to Southey, in ten or
a dozen stanzas, more like a mixture of wormwood and verdi-
grease than satire. Venice is a wonderfully fine city. The
approach to it over the laguna, with its domes and turrets
glittering in a long line over the blue waves, is one of the finest
architectural delusions in the world. It seems to have— and
literally it has — its foundations in the sea. The silent streets
are paved with water, and you hear nothing but the dashing of
the oars, and the occasional cries of the gondolieri. I heard
nothing of Tasso. The gondolas themselves are things of a
most romantic and picturesque appearance ; I can only compare
them to moths of which a coffin might have been the chrysalis.
They are hung with black, and painted black, and carpeted
with grey ; they curl at the prow and stern, and at the former
there is a nondescript beak of shining steel, which glitters at the
end of its long black mass.
The Doge's palace, with its library, is a fine monument of
aristocratic power. I saw the dungeons, where these scoundrels
used to torment their victims. They are of three kinds — one
adjoining the place of trial, where the prisoners destined to
immediate execution were kept. I could not descend into them,
because the day on which I visited it was festa. Another under
the leads of the palace, where the sufferers were roasted to
death or madness by the ardours of an Italian sun : and others
called the Pozzi — or wells, deep underneath, and communicating
with those on the roof by secret passages — where the prisoners
were confined sometimes half up to their middles in stinking
water. When the French came here, they found only one old
man in the dungeons, and he could not speak. But Venice,
which was once a tyrant, is now the next worst thing, a slave ;
for in fact it ceased to be free or worth our regret as a nation,
from the moment that the oligarchy usurped the rights of the
people. Yet, I do not imagine that it was ever so degradec^ as
it has been since the French, and especially the Austrian yoke.
The Austrians take sixty per cent, in taxes, and impose free
quarters on the inhabitants. A horde of German soldiers, as
vicious and more disgusting than the Venetians themselves,
insult these miserable people. I had no conception of the
excess to which avarice, cowardice, superstition, ignorance,
passionless lust, and all the inexpressible brutalities which
238 LETTERS.
degrade human nature, could be carried, until I had passed a
few days at Venice.
We have been living this last month near the little town from
which I date this letter, in a very pleasant villa which has been
lent to us, and we are now on the point of proceeding to
Florence, Rome, and Naples — at which last city we shall spend
the winter, and return northwards in the spring. Behind us
here are the Euganean hills, not so beautiful as those of the
Bagni di Lucca, with Arqu^, where Petrarch's house and tomb
are religiously preserved and visited. At the end of our
garden is an extensive Gothic castle, now the habitation of owls
and bats, where the Medici family resided before they came to
Florence. We see before us the wide flat plains of Lombardy,
in which we see the sun and moon rise and set, and the evening
star, and all the golden magnificence of autumnal clouds. But I
reserve wonder for Naples.
I have been writing — and indeed have just finished the first
act of a lyric and classical drama, to be called " Prometheus
Unbound." Will you tell me what there is in Cicero about
a drama supposed to have been written by yEschylus under
this title.
I ought to say that I have just read Malthus in a French
translation. Malthus is a very clever man, and the world would
be a great gainer if it would seriously take his lessons into con-
sideration, if it were capable of attending seriously to anything
but mischief— but what on earth does he mean by some of his
inferences ? Yours ever faithfully, P. B. S.
I will write again from Rome and Florence — in better spirits,
and to more agreeable purpose, I hope. You saw those beauti-
ful stanzas in the fourth canto about the Nymph Egeria. Well,
I did not whisper a word about nympholepsy : I hope you
acquit me — and I hope you will not carry delicacy so far as to
let this suppress anything nympholeptic
XXVIII.— To T. L. Peacock.
Ferrar'a, Nov. 8///, 1818.
My Dear P. — We left Este yesterday on our journey towards
Naples. The roads were particularly bad ; we have, therefore,
accomplished only two days' journey, of eighteen and twenty- four
miles each, and you may imagine that our horses must be
tolerably good ones, to drag our carriage, with five people and
LETTERS. 239
heavy luggage, through deep and clayey roads. The roads are,
however, good during the rest of the way.
The country is flat, but intersected by lines of wood, trellised
with vines, whose broad leaves are now stamped with the redness
of their decay. Every here and there one sees people employed
in agricultural labours, and the plough, the harrow, or the
cart, drawn by long teams of milk-white or dove-coloured
oxen of immense size and exquisite beauty. This, indeed,
might be the country of Pasiphaes. In one farm-yard I
was shown sixty-three of these lovely oxen, tied to their stalls, in
excellent condition. A farm-yard in this part of Italy is some-
what different from one in England. First, the house, which is
large and high, with strange-looking unpainted window-shutters,
generally closed, and dreary beyond conception. The farm-
yard and out-buildings, however, are usually in the neatest
order. The threshing-floor is not under cover, but like that
described in the Georgics, usually flattened by a broken column,
and neither the mole, nor the toad, nor the ant, can find on its
area a crevice for their dwelling. Around it, at this season, are
piled the stacks of the leaves and stalks of Indian corn, which
has lately been threshed and dried upon its surface. At a little
distance are vast heaps of many-coloured zucche or pumpkins,
some of enormous size, piled as winter food for the hogs. There
are turkeys, too, and fowls wandering about, and two or three
dogs, who bark with a sharp hylactism. The people who are
occupied with the care of these things seem neither ill-clothed
nor ill-fed, and the blunt incivility of their manners has an
English air with it, very discouraging to those who are
accustomed to the impudent and polished lying of the inhabit-
ants of the cities. I should judge the agricultural resources of
this country to be immense, since it can wear so flourishing an
appearance, in spite of the enormous discouragements which the
various tyranny of the governments inflicts on it. I ought to say
that one of the farms belongs to a Jew banker at Venice,
another Shylock. — We arrived late at the inn where I now
write ; it was once the palace of a Venetian nobleman, and is
now an excellent inn. To-morrow we are going to see the
sights of Ferrara.
Nov. 9.
We have had heavy rain and thunder all night ; and the
former still continuing, we went in the carriage about the town.
We went first to look at the cathedral, but the beggars very soon
made us sound a retreat ; so, whether, as it is said, there is
240 LETTERS.
a copy of a picture of Michael Angelo there or no, I cannot tell.
At the public library we were more successful. This is,
indeed, a magnificent establishment, containing, as they say,
160,000 volumes. We saw some illuminated manuscripts
of church music, with verses of the psalms interlined between
the square notes, each of which consisted of the most delicate
tracery, in colours inconceivably vivid. They belonged to
the neighbouring convent of Certosa, and are three or four
hundred years old ; but their hues are as fresh as if they had
been executed yesterday. The tomb of Ariosto occupies one
end of the largest saloon of which the library is composed ; it
is formed of various marbles, surmounted by an expressive
bust of the poet, and subscribed with a few Latin verses, in
a less miserable taste than those usually employed for similar
purposes. But the most interesting exhibitions here, are the
writings, etc., of Ariosto and Tasso, which are preserved, and
were concealed from the undistinguishing depredations of the
French with pious care. There is the arm-chair of Ariosto,
an old plain wooden piece of furniture, the hard seat of which
was once occupied by, but has now survived its cushion, as
it has its master. I could fancy Ariosto sitting in it ; and the
satires in his own handwriting which they unfold beside it,
and the old bronze inkstand, loaded with figures, which
belonged also to him, assists the willing delusion. This
inkstand has an antique, rather than an ancient appearance.
Three nymphs lean forth from the circumference, and on the
top of the lid stands a cupid, winged and looking up, with
a torch in one hand, his bow in the other, and his quiver beside
him. A medal was bound round the skeleton of Ariosto,
with his likeness impressed upon it. I cannot say I think
it had much native expression ; but, perhaps, the artist was
in fault. On the reverse is a hand, cutting with a pair of
scissors the tongue from a serpent, upraised from the grass,
with this legend — Pro bono malum. What this reverse of
the boasted Christian maxim means, or how it applies to
Ariosto, either as a satirist or a serious writer, I cannot exactly
tell. The cicerone attempted to explain, and it is to his
commentary that my bewildering is probably due — if, indeed,
the meaning be very plain, as is possibly the case.
There is here a manuscript of the entire Gerusalemme
Liberata, written by Tasso's own hand ; a manuscript of some
poems, written in prison, to the Duke Alfonso ; and the satires
of Ariosto, written also by his own hand ; and the Pastor Fido
of Guarini. The Gerusalemme, though it had evidently been
LETTERS, 241
copied and recopied, is interlined, particularly towards the end,
with numerous corrections. The hand-writing of Ariosto is a
small, firm, and pointed character, expressing, as I should say, a
strong and keen, but circumscribed energy of mind ; that of
Tasso is large, free, and flowing, except that there is a checked
expression in the midst of its flow, which brings the letters into
a smaller compass than one expected from the beginning of the
word. It is the symbol of an intense and earnest mind,
exceeding at times its own depth, and admonished to return by
the chillness of the waters of oblivion striking upon its
adventurous feet. You know I always seek in what I see the
manifestation of something beyond the present and tangible
object ; and as we do not agree in physiognomy, so we may not
agree now. But my business is to relate my own sensations, and
not to attempt to inspire others with them. Some of the MSS.
of Tasso were sonnets to his persecutor, which contain a great
deal of what is called flattery. If Alfonso's ghost were asked
how he felt those praises now, I wonder what he would say.
But to me there is much more to pity than to condemn in these
entreaties and praises of Tasso. It is as a bigot prays to and
praises his god, whom he knows to be the most remorseless,
capricious, and mflexible of tyrants, but whom he knows also to
be omnipotent. Tasso's situation was widely different from that
of any persecuted being of the present day j for, from the depth
of dungeons, public opinion might now at length be awakened
to an echo that would startle the oppressor. But then there was
no hope. There is something irresistibly pathetic to me in the
sight of Tasso's own hand-writing, moulding expressions of
adulation and entreaty to a deaf and stupid tyrant, in an age
when the most heroic virtue would have exposed its possessor to
hopeless persecution, and — such is the alliance between virtue
and genius — which unoffending genius could not escape.
We went afterwards to see his prison in the hospital of Sant'
Anna, and I enclose you a piece of the wood of the very door,
which for seven years and three months divided this glorious
being from the air and the light which had nourished in
him those influences which he has communicated, through his
poetry, to thousands. The dungeon is low and dark, and
when I say that it is really a very decent dungeon, I speak as
one who has seen the prisons in the doges' palace of Venice.
But it is a horrible abode for the coarsest and meanest thing
that ever wore the shape of man, much more for one of delicate
susceptibilities and elevated fancies. It is low, and has a grated
window, and being sunk some feet below the level of the earth,
97
242 LETTERS.
is full of unwholesome damps. In the darkest corner is a mark
in the wall where the chains were rivetted, which bound him
hand and foot. After some time, at the instance of some
Cardinal, his friend, the Duke allowed his victim a fire-place ;
the mark where it was walled up yet remains.
At the entrance of the Liceo, where the library is, we were
met by a penitent ; his form was completely enveloped in a
ghost-like drapery of white flannel ; his bare feet were sandalled ;
and there was a kind of net-work visor drawn over his eyes, so
as entirely to conceal his face. I imagine that this man had
been adjudged to suffer this penance for some crime known
only to himself and his confessor, and this kind of exhibition is
a striking instance of the power of the Catholic superstition
over the human mind. He passed, rattling his wooden box for
charity.*
Adieu. — You will hear from me again before I arrive at
Naples.
Yours, ever sincerely,
P. B. S.
XXIX.— To T. L. Peacock.
Bologna^ Monday^ Nov. ()ih, 1818.
My Dear P. — I have seen a quantity of things here — churches,
palaces, statues, fountains, and pictures ; and my brain is at
this moment like a portfolio of an architect, or a print-shop, or
a commonplace-book. I will try to recollect something of
what I have seen ; for, indeed, it requires, if it will obey, an act
of volition. First, we went to the cathedral, which contains
nothing remarkable, except a kind of shrine, or rather a marble
canopy, loaded with sculptures, and supported on four marble
columns. We went then to a palace — I am sure I forget the
name of it — where we saw a large gallery of pictures. Of
course, in a picture gallery you see three hundred pictures you
forget, for one you remember. I remember, however, an
interesting picture by Guido, of the Rape of Proserpine, in
which Proserpine casts back her languid and half-unwilling
eyes, as it were, to the flowers she had left ungathered in the
fields of Enna. There was an exquisitely executed piece of
* These penitents ask alms, to be spent in masses for the souls in
purgatory. — M. S,
LETTERS, 243
Correggio, about four saints, one of whom seemed to have a pet
dragon in a leash. I was told that it was the devil who was
bound in that style— but who can make anything of four saints ?
For what can they be supposed to be about ? There was one
painting, indeed, by this master, Christ beautified, inexpressibly
fine. It is a half figure, seated on a mass of clouds, tinged with
an ethereal, rose-like lustre ; the arms are expanded ; the whole
frame seems dilated with expression ; the countenance is heavy,
as it were, with the weight of the rapture of the spirit ; the lips
parted, but scarcely parted, with the breath of intense but
regulated passion ; the eyes are calm and benignant ; the whole
features harmonised in majesty and sweetness. The hair is
parted on the forehead, and falls in heavy locks on each side.
It is motionless, but seems as if the faintest breath would move
it. The colouring, I suppose, must be very good, if I could
remark and understand it. The sky is of a pale aerial orange,
like the tints of latest sunset ; it does not seem painted around
and beyond the figure, but everything seems to have absorbed,
and to have been penetrated by its hues. I do not think we
saw any other of Correggio, but this specimen gives me a very
exalted idea of his powers.
We went to see heaven knows how many more palaces —
Ranuzzi, Marriscalchi, Aldobrandi. If you want Italian names
for any purpose, here they are ; I should be glad of them if I
was writing a novel. I saw many more of Guido. One, a
Samson drinking water out of an ass's jaw-bone, in the midst of
the slaughtered Philistines. Why he is supposed to do this,
God, who gave him this jaw-bone, alone knows — but certain it
is, that the painting is a very fine one. The figure of Samson
stands in strong relief in the foreground, coloured, as it were,
in the hues of human life, and full of strength and elegance.
Round him lie the Philistines in all the attitudes of death. One
prone, with the slight convulsion of pain just passing from his
forehead, whilst on his lips and chin death lies as heavy as
sleep. Another leaning on his arm, with his hand, white and
motionless, hanging out beyond. In the distance, more dead
bodies ; and, still further beyond, the blue sea and the blue
mountains, and one white and tranquil sail.
There is a Murder of the Innocents, also, by Guido, finely
coloured, with much fine expression — but the subject is very
horrible, and it seemed deficient in strength — at least, you
require the highest ideal energy, the most poetical and exalted
conception of the subject, to reconcile you to such a contempla-
tion. There was a Jesus Christ crucified, by the same, very
244 LETTERS.
fine. One gets tired, indeed, whatever may be the conception
and execution of it, of seeing that monotonous and agonised
form for ever exhibited in one prescriptive attitude of torture.
But the Magdalen, clinging to the cross with the look of passive
and gentle despair beaming from beneath her bright flaxen hair,
and the figure of St. John, with his looks uplifted in passionate
compassion ; his hands clasped, and his fingers twisting them-
selves together, as it were, with involuntary anguish ; his feet
almost writhing up from the ground with the same sympathy ;
and the whole of this arrayed in colours of a diviner nature, yet
most like nature's self. Of the contemplation of this one would
never weary.
There was a "Fortune," too, of Guido ; a piece of mere beauty.
There was the figure of Fortune on a globe, eagerly proceeding
onwards, and Love was trying to catch her back by the hair,
and her face was half turned towards him ; her long chestnut
hair was floating in the stream of the wind, and threw its
shadow over her fair forehead. Her hazel eyes were fixed on
her pursuer, with a meaning look of playfulness, and a light
smile was hovering on her lips. The colours which arrayed
her delicate limbs were ethereal and warm.
But, perhaps, the most interesting of all the pictures of
Guido which I saw was a Madonna Lattante. She is leaning
over her child, and the maternal feelings with which she is
pervaded are shadowed forth on her soft and gentle
countenance, and in her simple and affectionate gestures — there
is what an unfeeling observer would call a dulness in the
expression of her face ; her eyes are almost closed ; her lip
depressed ; there is a serious, and even a heavy relaxation,
as it were, of all the muscles which are called into action by
ordinary emotions : but it is only as if the spirit of love, almost
insupportable from its intensity, were brooding over and
weighing down the soul, or whatever it is, without which the
material frame is inanimate and inexpressive.
There is another painter here, called Franceschini, a
Bolognese, who, though certainly very inferior to Guido, is
yet a person of excellent powers. One entire church, that
of Santa Catarina, is covered by his works. I do not know
whether any of his pictures have ever been seen in England.
His colouring is less warm than that of Guido, but nothing
can be more clear and delicate ; it is as if he could have dipped
his pencil in the hues of some serenest and star-shining
twilight. His forms have the same delicacy and aerial
loveliness ; their eyes are all bright with innocence and love ;
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their lips scarce divided by some gentle and sweet emotion.
His winged children are the loveliest ideal beings ever created
by the human mind. These are generally, whether in the
capacity of Cherubim or Cupid, accessories to the rest of the
picture ; and the underplot of their lovely and infantine play
is something almost pathetic, from the excess of its unpretend-
ing beauty. One of the best of his pieces is an Annunciation
of the Virgin : — the Angel is beaming in beauty ; the Virgin,
soft, retiring, and simple.
We saw, besides, one picture of Raphael — St. Cecilia : this
is ip another and higher style ; you forget that it is a picture
as you look at it ; and yet it is most unlike any of those things
which we call reality. It is of the inspired and ideal kind,
and seems to have been conceived and executed in a similar
state of feeling to that which produced among the ancients those
perfect specimens of poetry and sculpture which are the baffling
models of succeeding generations. There is a unity and a
perfection in it of an incommunicable kind. The central figure,
St. Cecilia, seems rapt in such inspiration as produced her
image in the painter's mind ; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes
lifted up ; her chesnut hair flung back from her forehead — she
holds an organ in her hands — her countenance, as it were,
calmed by the depth of its passion and rapture, and penetrated
throughout with the warm and radiant light of life. She
is listening to the music of heaven, and, as I imagine, has just
ceased to sing, for the four figures that surround her evidently
point, by their attitudes, towards her ; particularly St. John,
who, with a tender yet impassioned gesture, bends his
countenance towards her, languid with the depth of his
emotion. At her feet lie various instruments of music, broken
and unstrung. Of the colouring I do not speak ; it eclipses
nature, yet it has all her truth and softness.
We saw some pictures of Domenichino, Caracci, Albano,
Guercino, Elizabetta Sirani. The two former — remember, I do
not pretend to taste — I cannot admire. Of the latter there
are some beautiful Madonnas. There are several of Guercino,
which they said were very fine. I dare say they were, for the
strength and complication of his figures made my head turn
round. One, indeed, was certainly powerful. It was the
representation of the founder of the Carthusians exercising
his austerities in the desert, with a youth as his attendant,
kneeling beside him at an altar ; on another altar stood
a skull and a crucifix ; and around were the rocks and the trees
of the wilderness. I never saw such a figure as this fellow.
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His face was wrinkled like a dried snake's skin, and drawn
in long hard lines : his very hands were wrinkled. He looked
like an animated mummy. He was clothed in a loose dress
of death-coloured flannel, such as you might fancy a shroud
might be, after it had wrapt a corpse a month or two. It had
a yellow, putrified, ghastly hue, which it cast on all the objects
around, so that the hands and face of the Carthusian and
his companion were jaundiced by this sepulchral glimmer.
Why write books against religion, when we may hang up
such pictures ? But the world either will not or cannot see.
The gloomy effect of this was softened, and, at the same time,
its sublimity diminished, by the figure of the Virgin and
Child in the sky, looking down with admiration on the monk,
and a beautiful flying figure of an angel.
Enough of pictures. I saw the place where Guido and his
mistress, Elizabetta Sirani, were buried. This lady was
poisoned at the age of twenty-six, by another lover, a rejected
one of course. Our guide said she was very ugly, and that we
might see her portrait to-morrow.
Well, good-night, for the present. " To-morrow to fresh
fields and pastures new."
November i6.
To-day we first went to see those divine pictures of Raffael
and Guido again, and then rode up the mountains, behind this
city, to visit a chapel dedicated to the Madonna. It made me
melancholy to see that they had been varnishing and restoring
some of these pictures, and that even some had been pierced
by the French bayonets. These are symptoms of the mortality
of man, and perhaps, few of his works are more evanescent than
paintings. Sculpture retains its freshness for twenty centuries
— the Apollo and the Venus are as they were. But books are
perhaps the only productions of man coeval with the human
race. Sophocles and Shakspeare can be produced and repro-
duced for ever. But how evanescent are paintings ! and must
necessarily be. Those of Zeuxis ana Apelles are no more ; and
perhaps they bore the same relation to Homer and iEschylus,
that those of Guido and Raffael bear to Dante and Petrarch.
There is one refuge from the despondency of this contemplation.
The material part, indeed, of their works must perish, but they
survive in the mind of man, and the remembrances connected
with them are transmitted from generation to generation.
The poet embodies them in his creations ; the systems of
philosophers are modelled to gentleness by their contemplation ;
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opinion, that legislator, is infected with their influence ; men
become better and wiser ; and the unseen seeds are perhaps
thus sown, which shall produce a plant more excellent even
than that from which they fell. But all this might as well be
said or thought at Marlow as Bologna.
The chapel of the Madonna is a very pretty Corinthian
building — very beautiful indeed. It commands a fine view of
these fertile plains, the many-folded Apennines, and the city. I
have just returned from a moonlight walk through Bologna. It
is a city of colonnades, and the effect of moonlight is strikingly
picturesque. There are two towers here — one 400 feet high —
ugly things, built of brick, which lean both different ways ; and
with the delusion of moonlight shadows, you might almost fancy
that the city is rocked by an earthquake. They say they were
built so on purpose ; but I observe in all the plain of Lombardy
the church towers lean.
Adieu. — God grant you patience to read this long letter, and
courage to support the expectation of the next. Pray part them
from the Cobbetis on your breakfast table — they may fight it out
in your mind.
Yours ever most sincerely,
P. B. S.
XXX.— To T. L. Peacock.
Rome, November 20th, 18 18.
My Dear P.— Benold me m the capital of the vanished
world ! But I have seen nothing except St. Peter's and the
Vatican, overlooking the city in the mist of distance, and the
Dogana, where they took us to have our luggage examined,
which is built between the ruins of a temple to Antoninus Pius.
The Corinthian columns rise over the dwindled palaces of the
modern town, and the wrought cornice is changed on one side,
as it were, to masses of wave-worn precipices, which overhang
you, far, far on high.
I take advantage of this rainy evenmg, and before Rome has
effaced all other recollections, to endeavour to recall the vanished
scenes through which we have passed. We left Bologna, I
forget on what day, and passing by Rimini, Fano, and Foligno,
along the Via Flaminia and Terni, have arrived at Rome after
ten days' somewhat tedious, but most interesting journey. The
most remarkable things we saw were the Roman excavations in
the rock, and the great waterfall of Terni. Of course you have
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heard that there are a Roman bridge and a triumphal arch at
Rimini, and in what excellent taste they are built. The bridge
is not unlike the Strand bridge, but more bold in proportion,
and of course infinitely smaller. From Fano we left the coast
of the Adriatic, and entered the Apennmes, toiiowing the course
of the Metaurus, the banks of which were the scene of the
defeat of Asdrubal : and it is said (you can refer to the book)
that Livy has given a very exact and animated description of it.
I forget all about it, but shall look as soon as our boxes are
opened. Following the river, the vale contracts, the banks of
the river become steep and rocky, the forests of oak and ilex
which overhang its emerald-coloured stream, cling to their abrupt
precipices. About four miles from Fossombrone, the river forces
for itself a passage between the walls and toppling precipices of
the loftiest Apennines, which are here rifted to their base, and
undermined by the narrow and tumultuous torrent. It was a
cloudy morning, and we had no conception of the scene that
awaited us. Suddenly the low clouds were struck by the clear
north wind, and like curtains of the finest gauze, removed one by
one, were drawn from before the mountain, whose heaven-
cleaving pinnacles and black crags overhanging one another,
stood at length defined in the light of day. The road runs
parallel to the river, at a considerable height, and is carried
through the mountain by a vaulted cavern. The marks of the
chisel of the legionaries of the Roman Consul are yet evident.
We passed on day after day, until we came to Spoleto, I
think the most romantic city I ever saw. There is here an
aqueduct of astonishing elevation, which unites two rocky
mountains — there is the path of a torrent below, whitening the
green dell with its broad and barren track of stones, and above
there is a castle, apparently of great strength and of tremendous
magnitude, which overhangs the city, and whose marble bastions
are perpendicular with the precipice. I never saw a more
impressive picture ; in which the shapes of nature are of the
grandest order, but over which the creations of man, sublime
from their antiquity and greatness, seem to predominate. The
castle was built by Belisarius or Narses, I forget which, but was
of that epoch.
From Spoleto we went to Temi, and saw the cataract of the
Velino. The glaciers of Montanvert and the source of the
Arveiron is the grandest spectacle I ever saw. This is the
second. Imagine a river sixty feet in breath, with a vast volume
of waters, the outlet of a great lake among the higher moun-
tains, falling 300 feet into a sightless gulf of snow-white vapour,
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which bursts up for ever and for ever, from a circle of black
crags, and thence leaping downwards, made five or six other
cataracts, each fifty or a hundred feet high, which exhibit, on a
smaller scale, and with beautiful and sublime variety, the same
appearances. But words (and far less could painting) will not
express it. Stand upon the brink of the platform of cliff, which
is directly opposite. You see the ever-moving water stream
down. It comes in thick and tawny folds, flaking off like solid
snow gliding down a mountain. It does not seem hollow
within, but without it is unequal, like the folding of linen thrown
carelessly down ; your eye follows it, and it is lost below ; not
in the black rocks which gird it around, but in its own foam
and spray, in the cloud-like vapours boiling up from below,
which is not like rain, nor mist, nor spray, nor foam, but water,
in a shape wholly unlike anything I ever saw before. It is as
white as snow, but thick and impenetrable to the eye. The
very imagination is bewildered in it. A thunder comes up from
the abyss wonderful to hear ; for, though it ever sounds, it is
never the same, but, modulated by the changing motion, rises
and falls intermittingly ; we passed half an hour in one spot
looking at it, and thought but a few minutes had gone by. The
surrounding scenery is, in its kind, the loveliest and most
sublime that can be conceived. In our first walk we passed
through some olive groves, of large and ancient trees, whose
hoary and twisted trunks leaned in all directions. We then
crossed a path of orange trees by the river side, laden with
their golden fruit, and came to a forest of ilex of a large size,
whose evergreen and acorn-bearing boughs were intertwined
over our winding path. Around, hemming in the narrow vale,
were pinnacles of lofty mountains of pyramidical rock clothed
with all evergreen plants and trees ; the vast pine, whose
feathery foliage trembled in the blue air, the ilex, that ancestral
inhabitant of these mountains, the arbutus with its crimson-
coloured fruit and glittering leaves. After an hour's walk, we
came beneath the cataract of Temi, within the distance of half
a mile ; nearer you cannot approach, for the Nar, which has
here its confluence with the Velino, bars the passage. We then
crossed the river formed by this confluence, over a narrow
natural bridge of rock, and saw the cataract from the platform
I first mentioned. We think of spending some time next year
near this waterfall. The inn is very bad, or we should have
stayed there longer.
We came from Terni last night to a place called Nepi, and
today arrived at Rome across the much-belied Campagna di
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Roma, a place I confess infinitely to my taste. It is a flattering
picture of Bagshot Heath. But then there are the Apennines
on one side, and Rome and St. Peter's on the other, and it is
intersected by perpetual dells clothed with arbutus and ilex.
Adieu — very faithfully yours, P. B. S.
XXXI.— To T. L. Peacock.
Naples, December 22^ 1818.
My Dear P. — I have received a letter from you here, dated
November ist; you see the reciprocation of letters from the
term of our travels is more slow. I entirely agree with what
you say about Childe Harold. The spirit in which it is written
is, if insane, the most wicked and mischievous insanity that ever
was given forth. It is a kind of obstinate and self-willed folly,
in which he hardens himself. I remonstrated with him in vain
on the tone of mind from which such a view of things alone
arises. For its real root is very different from its apparent one.
Nothing can be less sublime than the true source of these
expressions of contempt and desperation. The fact is, that first,
the Italian women with whom he associates, are perhaps the
most contemptible of all who exist under the moon — the most
ignorant, the most disgusting, the most bigoted ; countesses
(who) smell so strongly of garlic that an ordinary Englishman
cannot approach them. Well, L. B. is familiar with the lowest
sort of these women, the people his gondolier! pick up in the
streets. He associates with wretches who seem almost to have
lost the gait and physiognomy of man, and who do not scruple
to avow practices which are not only not named, but I believe
seldom even conceived in England. He says he disapproves,
but he endures. He is heartily and deeply discontented with
himself ; and contemplating in the distorted mirror of his own
thoughts the nature and the destiny of man, what can he behold
but objects of contempt and despair? But that he is a great
poet, I think the address to Ocean proves. And he has a certain
degree of candour while you talk to him, but unfortunately it
does not outlast your departure. No, I do not doubt, and, for
his sake, I ought to hope, that his present career must end soon
in some violent circumstance.
Since I last wrote to you, I have seen the ruins of Rome, the
Vatican, St. Peter's, and all the miracles of ancient and modern
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art contained in that majestic city. The impression of it exceeds
anything I have ever experienced in my travels. We stayed
there only a week, intending to return at the end of February,
and devote two or three months to its rtiines of inexhaustible
contemplation, to which period I refer you for a minute account
of it. We visited the Forum and the ruins of the Coliseum
every day. The Coliseum is unlike any work of human hands
I ever saw before. It is of enormous height and circuit, and
the arches built of massy stones are piled on one another, and
jut into the blue air, shattered into the forms of overhanging
rocks. It has been changed by time into the image of an
amphitheatre of rocky hills overgrown by the wild olive, the
myrtle, and the fig-tree, and threaded by little paths, which
wind among its ruined stairs and immeasurable galleries : the
copse wood overshadows you as you wander through its
labyrinths, and the wild weeds of this climate of flowers bloom
under your feet. The arena is covered with grass, and pierces,
like the skirts of a natural plain, the chasms of the broken arches
around. But a small part of the exterior circumference
remains — it is exquisitely light and beautiful ; and the effect of
the perfection of its architecture, adorned with ranges of
Corinthian pilasters, supporting a bold cornice, is such as to
diminish the effect of its greatness. The interior is all ruin. I
can scarcely believe that when encrusted with Dorian marble
and ornamented by columns of Egyptian granite, its effect could
have been so sublime and so impressive as in its present state.
It is open to the sky, and it was the clear and sunny weather of
the end of November in this climate when we visited it, day
after day.
Near it is the arch of Constantino, or rather the arch of
Trajan ; for the servile and avaricious senate of degraded
Rome ordered, that the monument of his predecessor should be
demolished in order to dedicate one to the Christian reptile,
who had crept among the blood of his murdered family to the
supreme power. It is exquisitely beautiful and perfect. The
Forum is a plain in the midst of Rome, a kind of desert full of
heaps of stones and pits ; and though so near the habitations of
men, is the most desolate place you can conceive. The ruins
of temples stand in and around it, shattered columns and ranges
of others complete, supporting cornices of exquisite workman-
ship, and vast vaults of shattered domes distinct with regular
compartments, once filled with sculptures of ivory or brass.
The temples of Jupiter, and Concord, and Peace, and the Sun,
and the Moon, and Vesta, are all within a short distance of this
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spot. Behold the wrecks of what a great nation once dedicated
to the abstractions of the mind ! Rome is a city, as it were, of
the dead, or rather of those who cannot die, and who survive
the puny generations which inhabit and pass over the spot
which they have made sacred to eternity. In Rome, at least in
the first enthusiasm of your recognition of ancient time, you see
nothing of the Italians. The nature of the city assists the
delusion, for its vast and antique walls describe a circumference
of sixteen miles, and thus the population is thinly scattered over
this space, nearly as great as London. Wide wild fields are
enclosed within it, and there are grassy lanes and copses wind-
ing among the ruins, and a great green hill, lonely and bare,
which overhangs the Tiber. The gardens of the modern
palaces are like wild woods of cedar, and cypress, and pine,
and the neglected walks are overgrown with weeds. The
English burying-place is a green slope near the walls, under
the pyramidal tomb of Cestius, and is, I think, the most
beautiful and solemn cemetery I ever beheld. To see the sun
shining on its bright grass, fresh, when we first visited it, with
the autumnal dews, and hear the whispering of the wind among
the leaves of the trees which have overgrown the tomb of
Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth,
and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and young people
who were buried there, one might, if one were to die, desire the
sleep they seem to sleep. Such is the human mind, and so it
peoples with its wishes vacancy and oblivion.
I have told you little about Rome ; but I reserve the Pan-
theon, and St. Peter's, and the Vatican, and Raffael, for my
return. About a fortnight ago I left Rome, and Mary and
C followed in three days, for it was necessary to procure
lodgings here without alighting at an inn. From my peculiar
mode of travelling I saw little of the country, but could just
observe that the wild beauty of the scenery and the barbarous
ferocity of the inhabitants progressively increased. On entering
Naples, the first circumstance that engaged my attention was
an assassination. A youth ran out of a shop, pursued by a
woman with a bludgeon, and a man armed with a knife. The
man overtook him, and with one blow in the neck laid him dead
in the road. On my expressing the emotions of horror and
indignation which I felt, a Calabrian priest, who travelled with
me, laughed heartily, and attempted to quiz me, as what the
English call a flat. I never felt such an inclination to beat any
one. Heaven knows I have little power, but he saw that I
looked extremely displeased, and was silent. This same man, a
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fellow of gigantic strength and stature, had expressed the most
frantic terror of robbers on the road ; he cried at the sight of
my pistol, and it had been with great difficulty that the joint
exertions of myself and the vetturino had quieted his hysterics.
But external nature in these delightful regions contrasts with
and compensates for the deformity and degradation of humanity.
We have a lodging divided from the sea by the royal gardens,
and from our windows we see perpetually the blue waters of the
bay, forever changing, yet forever the same, and encompassed
by the mountainous island of Capreae, the lofty peaks which
overhang Salerno, and the woody hill of Posilipo, whose pro-
montories hide from us Misenum and the lofty isle Inarime,*
which, with its divided summit, forms the opposite horn of the
bay. From the pleasant walks of the garden we see Vesuvius ;
a smoke by day and a fire by night is seen upon its summit,
and the glassy sea often reflects its light or shadow. The
climate is delicious. We sit without a fire, with the windows
open, and have almost all the productions of an English sum-
mer. The weather is usually like what Wordsworth calls " the
first fine day of March ; " sometimes very much warmer,
though perhaps it wants that "each minute sweeter than
before," which gives an intoxicating sweetness to the awakening
of the earth from its winter's sleep in England. We have made
two excursions, one to Baias and one to Vesuvius, and we pro-
pose to visit, successively, the islands, Psestum, Pompeii, and
Beneventum.
We set off an hour after sunrise one radiant morning in a
little boat ; there was not a cloud in the sky, nor a wave upon
the sea, which was so translucent that you could see the hollow
caverns clothed with the glaucous sea-moss, and the leaves and
branches of those delicate weeds that pave the unequal bottom
of the water. As noon approached, the heat, and especially the
light, became intense. We passed Posilipo, and came first to
the eastern point of the bay of Puzzoli, which is within the great
bay of Naples, and which again incloses that of Baia2. Here
are lofty rocks and craggy islets, with arches and portals of
precipice standing in the sea, and enormous caverns, which
echoed faintly with the murmur of the languid tide. This is
called La Scuola di Virgilio. We then went directly across to
the promontory of Misenum, leaving the precipitous island of
Nesida on the right. Here we were conducted to see the Mare
Morto, and the Elysian fields ; the spot on which Virgil places
* The ancient name of Ischia.— ^]/. S.
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the scenery of the Sixth ^neid. Though extremely beautiful,
as a lake, and woody hills, and this divine sky must make it, I
confess my disappointment. The guide showed us an antique
cemetery, where the niches used for placing the cinerary urns of
the dead yet remain. We then coasted the bay of Baise to the
left, in which we saw many picturesque and interesting ruins ;
but I have to remark that we never disembarked but we were
disappointed — while from the boat the effect of the scenery was
inexpressibly delightful. The colours of the water and the air
breathe over all things here the radiance of their own beauty.
After passing the bay of Baiae, and observing the ruins of its
antique grandeur standing like rocks in the transparent sea
under our boat, we landed to visit lake Avernus. We passed
through the cavern of the Sibyl (not Virgil's Sybil) which pierces
one of the hills which circumscribe the lake, and came to a
calm and lovely basin of water, surrounded by dark woody
hills, and profoundly solitary. Some vast ruins of the temple of
Pluto stand on a lawny hill on one side of it, and are reflected
in its windless mirror. It is far more beautiful than the Elysian
fields — but there are all the materials for beauty in the latter,
and the Avernus was once a chasm of deadly and pestilential
vapours. About half a mile from Avernus, a high hill, called
Monte Novo, was thrown up by volcanic fire.
Passing onward we came to Pozzoli, the ancient Dicaearchea,
where there are the columns remaining of a temple to Serapis,
and the wreck of an enormous amphitheatre, changed, like the
Coliseum, into a natural hill of the overteeming vegetation.
Here also is the Solfatara, of which there is a poetical descrip-
tion in the Civil War of Petronius, beginning — " Est locus,"
and in which the verses of the poet are infinitely finer than what
he describes, for it is not a very curious place. After seeing
these things we returned by moonlight to Naples in our boat.
What colours there were in the sky, what radiance in the evening
star, and how the moon was encompassed by a light unknown
to our regions !
Our next excursion was to Vesuvius. We went to Resina in
a carriage, where Mary and I mounted mules, and C was
carried in a chair on the shoulders of four men, much like a
member of parliament after he has gained his election, and
looking, with less reason, quite as frightened. So we arrived at
the hermitage of San Salvador, where an old hermit, belted with
rope, set forth the plates for our refreshment.
Vesuvius is, after the Glaciers, the most impressive exhibition
of the energies of nature I ever saw. It has not the immeasur-
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able greatness, the overpowering magnificence, nor, above all,
the radiant beauty of the glaciers ; but it has all their character
of tremendous and irresistible strength. From Resina to the
hermitage you wind up the mountain, and cross a vast stream
of hardened lava, which is an actual image of the waves of the
sea, changed into hard black stone by enchantment. The lines
of the boiling flood seem to hang in the air, and it is difficult to
believe that the billows which seem hurrying down upon you
are not actually in motion. This plain was once a sea of liquid
fire. From the hermitage we crossed another wast stream of
lava, and then went on foot up the cone — this is the only part
of the ascent in which there is any difficulty, and that difficulty
has been much exaggerated. It is composed of rocks of lava,
and declivities of ashes ; by ascending the former and descend-
ing the latter, there is very little fatigue. On the summit is a
kind of irregular plain, the most horrible chaos that can be
imagined ; riven into ghastly chasms, and heaped up with
tumuli of great stones and cinders, and enormous rocks
blackened and calcined, which had been thrown from the
volcano upon one another in terrible confusion. In the midst
stands the conical hill from which volumes of smoke, and the
fountains of liquid fire, are rolled forth forever. The mountain
is at present in a slight state of eruption ; and a thick heavy
white smoke is perpetually rolled out, interrupted by enormous
columns of an impenetrable black bituminous vapour, which is
hurled up, fold after fold, into the sky with a deep hollow sound,
and fiery stones are rained down from its darkness, and a black
shower of ashes fell even where we sat. The lava, like the
glacier, creeps on perpetually, with a crackling sound as of
suppressed fire. There are several springs of lava ; and in one
place it rushes precipitously over a high crag, rolling down the
half-molten rocks and its own overhanging waves ; a cataract of
quivering fire. We approached the extremity of one of the
rivers of lava ; it is about twenty feet in breadth and ten in
height ; and as the inclined plane was not rapid, its motion was
very slow. We saw the masses of its dark exterior surface de-
tach themselves as it moved, and betray the depth of the liquid
flame. In the day the fire is but slightly seen ; you only
observe a tremulous motion in the air, and streams and fountains
of white sulphurous smoke.
At length we saw the sun sink between Capreas and Inarime,
and, as the darkness increased, the effect of the fire became
more beautiful. We were, as it were, surrounded by streams
and cataracts of the red and radiant fire ; and in the midst.
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from the column of bituminous smoke shot up into the air, fell
'the vast masses of rock, white with the light of their intense
heat, leaving behind them through the dark vapour trains of
splendour. We descended by torch-light, and I should have
enjoyed the scenery on my return, but they conducted me, I
know not how, to the hermitage in a state of intense bodily
suffering, the worst effect of which was spoiling the pleasure of
Mary and C . Our guides on the occasion were complete
savages. You have no idea of the horrible cries which they
suddenly utter, no one knows why ; the clamour, the vocifera-
tion, the tumult. C in her palanquin suffered most from
it ; and when I had gone on before, they threatened to leave
her in the middle of the road, which they would have done had
not my Italian servant promised them a beating, after which
they became quiet. Nothing, however, can be more picturesque
than the gestures and the physiognomies of these savage people.
And when, in the darkness of night, they unexpectedly begin to
sing in chorus some fragments of their wild but sweet national
music, the effect is exceedingly fine.
Since I wrote this, I have seen the museum of this city.
Such statues 1 There is a Venus ; an ideal shape of the most
winning loveliness. A Bacchus, more sublime than any living
being. A Satyr, making love to a youth : in which the
expressed life of the sculpture, and the inconceivable beauty of
the form of the youth, overcome one's repugnance to the
subject. There are multitudes of wonderfully fine statues found
in Herculaneum and Pompeii. We are going to see Pompeii
the first day that the sea is waveless. Herculaneum is almost
filled up ; no more excavations are made ; the king bought the
ground and built a palace upon it.
You don't see much of Hunt. I wish you could contrive to see
him when you go to town, and ask him what he means to answer
to Lord Byron's invitation. He has now an opportunity, if he
likes, of seeing Italy. What do you think of joining his party,
and paying us a visit next year ; I mean as soon as the reign of
winter is dissolved ? Write to me your thoughts upon this. I
cannot express to you the pleasure it would give me to welcome
such a party.
I have depression enough of spirits and not good health,
though I believe the warm air of Naples does me good. We
see absolutely no one here.
Adieu, my dear P .
Affectionately your friend,
P. B. S.
LETTERS. 257
XXXI I.— To T. L. Peacock.
Naples^ Jan. 26th, 1819.
My Dear P. — Your two letters arrived within a few days of
each other, one being directed to Naples, and the other to
Livorno. They are more welcome visitors to me than mine can
be to you. I writing as from sepulchres, you from the habita-
tions of men yet unburied ; though the sexton, Castlereagh,
after having dug their grave, stands with his spade in his hand,
evidently doubting whether he will not be forced to occupy it
himself. Your news about the bank-note trials is excellent
good. Do I not recognise in it the influence of Cobbett ? You
don't tell me what occupies Parliament. I know you will laugh
at my demand, and assure me that it is indifferent. Your
pamphlet I want exceedingly to see. Your calculations in the
letter are clear, but require much oral explanation. You know
I am an infernal arithmetician. If none but me had contem-
plated " lucentemque globum lunae, Titaniaque astra," the
world would yet have doubted whether they were many
hundred feet higher than the mountain tops.
In my accounts of pictures and things, I am more pleased to
interest you than the many ; and this is fortunate, because, in
the first place, I have no idea of attempting the latter, and if I
did attempt it, I should assuredly fail. A perception of the
beautiful characterises those who differ from ordinary men, and
those who can perceive it would not buy enough to pay the
printer. Besides, I keep no journal, and the only records of my
voyage will be the letters I send you. The bodily fatigue of
standing for hours in galleries exhausts me ; I believe that I
don't see half that I ought, on that account. And then we know
nobody ; and the common Itahans are so sullen and stupid, it's
impossible to get information from them. At Rome, where the
people seem superior to any in Italy, I cannot fail to stumble on
something more. O, if I had health, and strength, and equal
spirits, what boundless intellectual improvement might I not
gather in this wonderful country ! At present I write little else
but poetry, and little of that. My first act of Prometheus is
complete, and I think you would like it. I consider poetry
very subordinate to moral and political science, and if I were
well, certainly I would aspire to the latter ; for I can conceive a
great work, embodying the discoveries of all ages, and harmon-
ising the contending creeds by which mankind have been ruled.
Far from me is such an attempt, and I shall be content, by
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exercising my fancy, to amuse myself, and perhaps some others,
and cast what weight I can into the scale of that balance, which
the Giant of Arthegall holds.
Since you last heard from me, we have been to see Pompeii,
and are waiting now for the return of spring weather, to visit,
first, Paestum, and then the islands ; after which we shall return
to Rome. I was astonished at the remains of this city ; I had
no conception of anything so perfect yet remaining. My idea of
the mode of its destruction was this : — First, an earthquake
shattered it, and unroofed almost all its temples, and split its
columns ; then a rain of light small pumice-stones fell ; then
torrents of boiling water, mixed with ashes, filled up all its
crevices. A wide, flat hill, from which the city was excavated,
is now covered by thick woods, and you see the tombs and the
theatres, the temples and the houses, surrounded by the unin-
habited wilderness. We entered the town from the side towards
the sea, and first saw two theatres ; one more magnificent than
the other, strewn with the ruins of the white marble which
formed their seats and cornices, wrought with deep, bold
sculpture. In the front, between the stage and the seats, is the
circular space, occasionally occupied by the chorus. The stage
is very narrow, but long, and divided from this space by a
narrow enclosure parallel to it, I suppose for the orchestra. On
each side are the consuls' boxes, and below, in the theatre at
Herculaneum, were found two equestrian statues of admirable
workmanship, occupying the same place as the great bronze
lamps did at Drury Lane. The smallest of the theatres is said
to have been comic, though I should doubt. From both you
see, as you sit on the seats, a prospect of the most wonderful
beauty.
You then pass through the ancient streets ; they are very
narrow, and the houses rather small, but all constructed on an
admirable plan, especially for this climate. The rooms are
built round a court, or sometimes two, according to the extent
of the house. In the midst is a fountain, sometimes surrounded
with a portico, supported on fluted columns of white stucco; the
floor is paved with mosaic, sometimes wrought in imitation of
vine leaves, sometimes in quaint figures, and more or less
beautiful, according to the rank of the inhabitant. There were
paintings on all, but most of them have been removed to
decorate the royal museums. Little winged figures, and small
ornaments of exquisite elegance, yet remain. There is an ideal
life in the forms of these paintings of an incomparable loveliness,
though most are evidently the work of very inferior artists. It
LETTERS. 259
seems as if, from the atmosphere of mental beauty which sur-
rounded them, every human being caught a splendour not his
own. In one house you see how the bed-rooms were managed :
— a small sofa was built up, where the cushions were placed ;
two pictures, one representing Diana and Endymion, the other
Venus and Mars, decorate the chamber ; and a little niche,
which contains the statue of a domestic god. The floor is com-
posed of a rich mosaic of the rarest marbles, agate, jasper, and
porphyry ; it looks to the marble fountain and the snow-white
columns, whose entablatures strew the floor of the portico they
supported. The houses have only one storey, and the apart-
ments, though not large, are very lofty. A great advantage
results from this, wholly unknown in our cities. The public
buildings, whose ruins are now forests, as it were, of white fluted
columns, and which then supported entablatures, loaded with
sculptures, were seen on all sides over the roofs of the houses.
This was the excellence of the ancients. Their private expenses
were comparatively moderate ; the dwelling of one of the chief
senators of Pompeii is elegant indeed, and adorned with most
beautiful specimens of art, but small. But their public buildings
are everywhere marked by the bold and grand designs of an
unsparing magnificence. In the little town of Pompeii, (it con-
tained about twenty thousand inhabitants,) it is wonderful to see
the number and the grandeur of their public buildings. Another
advantage, too, is that, in the present case, the glorious scenery
around is not shut out, and that, unlike the inhabitants of the
Cimmerian ravines of modern cities, the ancient Pompeians
could contemplate the clouds and the lamps of heaven ; could
see the moon rise high behind Vesuvius, and the sun set in the
sea, tremulous with an atmosphere of golden vapour, between
Inarime and Misenum.
We next saw the temples. Of the temple of ^sculapius
little remains but an altar of black stone, adorned with a cornice
imitating the scales of a serpent. His statue, in terra-cotta,
was found in the cell. The temple of I sis is more perfect. It
is surrounded by a portico of fluted columns, and in the area
around it are two altars, and many ceppi for statues ; and a
little chapel of white stucco, as hard as stone, of the most
exquisite proportion ; its panels are adorned with figures in
bas-relief, slightly indicated, but of a workmanship the most
delicate and perfect that can be conceived. They are Egyptian
subjects, executed by a Greek artist, who has harmonised all the
unnatural extravagances of the original conception into the
supernatural loveliness of his country's genius. They scarcely
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touch the ground with their feet, and their wind-uplifted robes
seem in the place of wings. The temple in the midst raised on
a high platform, and approached by steps, was decorated with
exquisite paintings, some of which we saw in the museum at
Portici. It is small, of the same materials as the chapel, with a
pavement of mosaic, and fluted Ionic columns of white stucco,
so white that it dazzles you to look at it.
Thence through other porticos and labyrinths of walls and
columns (for I cannot hope to detail everything to you), we
came to the Forum. This is a large square, surrounded by
lofty porticos of fluted columns, some broken, some entire,
their entablatures strewed under them. The temple of Jupiter,
of Venus, and another temple, the Tribunal, and the Hall of
Public Justice, with their forests of lofty columns, surround the
Forum. Two pedestals or altars of an enormous size (for,
whether they supported equestrian statues, or were the altars of
the temple of Venus, before which they stand, the guide could
not tell), occupy the lower end of the Forum. At the upper
end, supported on an elevated platform, stands the temple of
Jupiter. Under the colonnade of its portico we sate, and
pulled out our oranges, and figs, and bread, and medlars (sorry
fare, you will say), and rested to eat. Here was a magnificent
spectacle. Above and between the multitudinous shafts of the
sun-shining columns was seen the sea, reflecting the purple
heaven of noon above it, and supporting, as it were, on its line
the dark lofty mountains of Sorrento, of a blue inexpressibly
deep, and tinged towards their summits with streaks of new-
fallen snow. Between was one small green island. To the
right was Capreas, Inarime, Prochyta, and Misenum. Behind
was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling forth volumes of
thick white smoke, whose foam-like column was sometimes
darted into the clear dark sky, and fell in little streaks along the
wind. Between Vesuvius and the nearer mountains, as through
a chasm, was seen the main line of the loftiest Apennines, to the
east. The day was radiant and warm. Every now and then
we heard the subterranean thunder of Vesuvius ; its distant
deep peals seemed to shake the very air and light of day, which
interpenetrated our frames, with the sullen and tremendous
sound. This sound was what the Greeks beheld (Pompeii, you
know, was a Greek city). They lived in harmony with nature ;
and the interstices of their incomparable columns were portals,
as it were, to admit the spirit of beauty which animates this
glorious universe to visit those whom it inspired. If such is
Pompeii, what was Athens ? What scene was exhibited from
LETTERS. 261
the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and the temples of Hercules, and
Theseus, and the Winds ? The islands and the ^Egean sea, the
mountains of Argolis, and the peaks of Pindus and Olympus,
and the darkness of the Boeotian forests interspersed ?
From the Forum we went to another public place ; a
triangular portico, half enclosing the ruins of an enormous temple.
It is built on the edge of the hill overlooking the sea. That
black point is the temple. In the apex of the triangle stands an
altar and a fountain, and before the altar once stood the statue
of the builder of the portico. Returning hence, and following
the consular road, we came to the eastern gate of the city. The
walls are of enormous strength, and inclose a space of three
miles. On each side of the road beyond the gate are built the
tombs. How unlike ours ! They seem not so much hiding-
places for that which must decay, as voluptuous chambers for
immortal spirits. They are of marble, radiantly white ; and
two, especially beautiful, are loaded with exquisite bas-reliefs.
On the stucco-wall that incloses them are little emblematic
figures, of a relief exceedingly low, of dead and dying animals,
and little winged genii, and female forms bending in groups in
some funereal office. The higher reliefs represent, one a
nautical subject, and the other a Bacchanalian one. Within the
cell stand the cinerary urns, sometimes one, sometimes more.
It is said that paintings were found within ; which are now, as
has been everything moveable in Pompeii, removed, and
scattered about in royal museums. These tombs were the
most impressive things of all. The wild woods surround them
on either side ; and along the broad stones of the paved road
which divides them, you hear the late leaves of autumn shiver
and rustle in the stream of the inconstant wind, as it were, like
the step of ghosts. The radiance and magnificence of these
dwellings of the dead, the white freshness of the scarcely finished
marble, the impassioned or imaginative life of the figures which
adorn them, contrast strangely with the simplicity of the houses
of those who were living when Vesuvius overwhelmed them.
I have forgotten the amphitheatre, which is of great magni-
tude, though much inferior to the Coliseum. I now understand
why the Greeks were such great poets ; and, above all, I can
account, it seems to me, for the harmony, the unity, the per-
fection, the uniform excellence, of all their works of art. They
lived in a perpetual commerce with external nature, and
nourished themselves upon the spirit of its forms. Their
theatres were all open to the mountains and the sky. Their
columns, the ideal types of a sacred forest, with its roof of
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interwoven tracery, admitted the light and wind ; the odour and
the freshness of the country penetrated the cities. Their
temples were mostly upaithric ; and the flying clouds, the stars,
or the deep sky, were seen above. O, but for that series of
wretched wars which terminated in the Roman conquest of the
world ; but for the Christian religion, which put the finishing
stroke on the ancient system ; but for those changes that
conducted Athens to its ruin — to what an eminence might not
humanity have arrived !
In a short time I hope to tell you something of the museum of
this city.
You see how ill I follow the maxim of Horace, at least in its
literal sense : " nil admirari " — which I should say, " properes
est una " — to prevent there ever being anything admirable in
the world. Fortunately Plato is of my opinion ; and I had
rather err with Plato than be right with Horace.
At this moment I received your letter, indicating that you are
removing to London. I am very much interested in the subject
of this change, and beg you would write me all the particulars
of it. You will be able now to give me perhaps a closer insight
into the politics of the times than was permitted you at Marlow.
Of H I have a very slight opinion. There are rumours here
of a revolution in Spain. A ship came in twelve days from
Catalonia, and brought a report that the king was massacred ;
that eighteen thousand insurgents surrounded Madrid ; but that
before the popular party gained head enough, seven thousand
were murdered by the Inquisition. Perhaps you know all by
this time. The old king of Spain is dead here. Cobbett is a
fine v/ievoTTOLos — does his influence increase or diminish ? What
a pity that so powerful a genius should be combined with the
most odious moral qualities.
We have reports here of a change in the English ministry — to
what does it amount ? for, besides my national interest in it, I
am on the watch to vindicate my most sacred rights, invaded by
the chancery court.
I suppose now we shall not see you in Italy this spring,
whether Hunt comes or not. It's probable I shall hear nothing
from him for some months, particularly if he does not come.
Give me ses nouvelles.
I am under an English surgeon here, who says I have a
disease of the liver, which he will cure. We keep horses, as
this kind of exercise is absolutely essential to my health. Elise*
* A Swiss girl whom we had engaged as nursery-maid two years
before, at Geneva.— if. aS'.
LETTERS. , 263
has just married our Italian servant, and has quitted us ; the
man was a great rascal, and cheated enormously : this event was
very much against our advice.
I have scarcely been out since I wrote last.
Adieu 1 — Yours most faithfully,
P. B. S.
XXXIII.— To T. L. Peacock.
Naples^ February 25M, 18 19.
My Dear Peacock — I am much interested to hear your
progress in the object of your removal to London. There is no
person in the world who would more sincerely rejoice in any
good that might befall you than I should.
We are on the point of quitting Naples for Rome. The
scenery which surrounds this city is more delightful than any
within the immediate reach of civilized man. I do not think I
have mentioned to you the Lago d'Agnano and the Caccia
d'Ischieri, and I have since seen what obscures those lovely
forms in my memory. They are both the craters of extin-
guished volcanos, and Nature has thrown forth forests of oak
and ilex, and spread mossy lawns and clear lakes over the dead
or sleeping fire. The first is a scene of a wider and milder
character, with soft sloping, wooded hills, and grassy declivities
declining to the lake, and cultivated plains of vines woven upon
poplar trees, bounded by the theatre of hills. Innumerable wild
water-birds, quite tame, inhabit this place. The other is a royal
chace, is surrounded by steep and lofty hills, and only accessible
through a wide gate of massy oak, from the vestibule of which
the spectacle of precipitous hills, hemming in a narrow and
circular vale, is suddenly disclosed. The hills are covered with
thick woods of ilex, myrtle, and laurustinus ; the polished
leaves of the ilex, as they wave in their multitudes under the
partial blasts which rush through the chasms of the vale, glitter
above the dark masses of foliage below, like the white foam of
waves upon a deep blue sea. The plain so surrounded is at
most three miles in circumference. It is occupied partly by a
lake, with bold shores wooded by evergreens, and interrupted
by a sylvan promonotry of the wild forest, whose mossy boughs
overhang its expanse, of a silent and purple darkness, like an
Italian midnight ; and partly by the forest itself, of all gigantic
trees, but the oak especially, whose jagged boughs, now leafless,
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are hoary with thick lichens, and loaded with the massy and
deep foliage of the ivy. The effect of the dark eminences that
surround this plain, seen through the boughs, is of an enchant-
ing solemnity. (There we saw in one instance wild boars and
a deer, and in another — a spectacle little suited to the antique
and Latonian nature of the place — King Ferdinand in a winter
enclosure, watching to shoot wild boars.) The underwood was
principally evergreen, all lovely kinds of fern and furze ; the
cytisus, a delicate kind of furze with a pretty yellow blossom,
the myrtle, and the myrica. The willow trees had just begun to
put forth their green and golden buds, and gleamed like points
of lambent fire among the wintry forest. The Grotta del Cane,
too, we saw, because other people see it ; but would not allow
the dogs to be exhibited in torture for our curiosity. The poor
little animals stood moving their tails in a slow and dismal
manner, as if perfectly resigned to their condition — a cur-like
emblem of voluntary servitude. The effect of the vapour, which
extinguishes a torch, is to cause suffocation at last, through a
process which makes the lungs feel as if they were torn by
sharp points within. So a surgeon told us, who tried the
experiment on himself.
There was a Greek city, sixty miles to the south of Naples^
called Posidonia, now Pesto, where there still subsist three
temples of Etruscan * architecture, one almost perfect. From
this city we have just returned. The weather was most
unfavourable for our expedition. After two months of cloudless
serenity, it began raining cats and dogs. The first night we
slept at Salerno, a large city situate in the recess of a deep bay ;
surrounded with stupendous mountains of the same name. A
few miles from Torre del Greco we entered on the pass of the
mountains, which is a line dividing the isthmus of those
enormous piles of rock which compose the southern boundary
of the bay of Naples, and the northern one of that of Salerno.
On one side is a lofty conical hill, crowned with the turrets of a
ruined castle, and cut into platforms for cultivation ; at least
every ravine and glen, whose precipitous sides admitted of
other vegetation but that of the rock-rooted ilex : on the other,
the aethereal snowy crags of an immense mountain, whose
terrible lineaments were at intervals concealed or disclosed by
volumes of dense clouds, rolling under the tempest. Half a
mile from this spot, between orange and lemon groves of
a lovely village, suspended as it were on an amphitheatral
* The architecture is Doric— r. Z. P.
LETTERS. 265
precipice, whose golden globes contrasted with the white walls
and dark green leaves which they almost outnumbered, shone the
sea. A burst of the declining sunlight illumined it. The road
led along the brink of the precipice towards Salerno. Nothing
could be more glorious than the scene. The immense mountains
covered with the rare and divine vegetation of this climate, with
many-folding vales, and deep dark recesses, which the fancy
scarcely could penetrate, descended from their snowy summits
precipitously to the sea. Before us was Salerno, built into a
declining plain, between the mountains and the sea. Beyond,
the other shore of sky-cleaving mountains, then dim with the
mist of tempest. Underneath, from the base of the precipice
where the road conducted, rocky promontories jutted into the
sea, covered with olive and ilex woods, or with the ruined battle-
ments of some Norman or Saracen fortress. We slept at
Salerno, and the next morning before daybreak proceeded to
Posidonia. The night had been tempestuous, and our way lay
by the sea sand. It was utterly dark, except when the long
line of wave burst, with a sound like thunder, beneath the
starless sky, and cast up a kind of mist of cold white lustre.
When morning came, we found ourselves travelling in a wide
desert plain, perpetually interrupted by wild irregular glens, and
bounded on all sides by the Apennines and the sea. Sometimes
it was covered with forest, sometimes dotted with underwood,
or mere tufts of fern and furze, and the wintry dry tendrils
of creeping plants. I have never, but in the Alps, seen an
amphitheatre of mountains so magnificent. After travelling
fifteen miles we came to a river, the bridge of which had been
broken, and which was so swollen that the ferry would not take
the carriage across. We had, therefore, to walk seven miles of
a muddy road, which led to the ancient city across the desolate
Maremma. The air was scented with the sweet smell of violets
of an extraordinary size and beauty. At length we saw the
sublime and massy colonnades, skirting the horizon of the
wilderness. We entered by the ancient gate, which is now no
more than a chasm in the rock-like wall. Deeply sunk in the
ground beside it, were the ruins of a sepulchre, which the
ancients were in the custom of building beside the public way.
The first temple, which is the smallest, consists of an outer
range of columns, quite perfect, and supporting a perfect
architrave and two shattered frontispieces.* The proportions
* The three temples are amphiprostyle ; that is, they have two
prospects or fronts, each of six columns in the two first, and of nine in
the Basilica. See Major's Ruins of Paestum. 1768. — 7". Z. P.
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are extremely massy, and the architecture entirely unornamented
and simple. These columns do not seem more than forty feet
high,* but the perfect proportions diminish the apprehension
of their magnitude ; it seems as if inequality and irregularity of
form were requisite to force on us the relative idea of greatness.
The scene from between the columns of the temple, consists on
one side of the sea, to which the gentle hill on which it is built
slopes, and on the other, of the grand amphitheatre of the
loftiest Apennines, dark purple mountains, crowned with snow
and intercepted there by long bars of hard and leaden-coloured
cloud. The effect of the jagged outline of mountains, through
groups of enormous columns on one side, and on the other the
level horizon of the sea, is inexpressibly grand. The second
temple is much larger, and also more perfect. Beside the
outer range of columns, it contains an interior range of column
above column, and the ruins of a wall, which was the screen of
the penetralia. With little diversity of ornament, the order of
architecture is similar to that of the first temple. The columns
in all are fluted, and built of a porous volcanic stone, which
time has dyed with a rich and yellow colour. The columns are
one-third larger, and like that of the first, diminish from the
base to the capital, so that, but for the chastening effect of their
admirable proportions, their magnitude would, from the delusion
of perspective, seem greater, not less, than it is ; though
perhaps we ought to say, not that this symmetry diminishes
your apprehension of their magnitude, but that it overpowers
the idea of relative greatness, by establishing within itself a
system of relations, destructive of your idea of its relation with
other objects, on which our ideas of size depend. The third
temple is what they call a Basilica ; three columns alone remain
of the interior range ; the exterior is perfect, but that the
cornice and frieze in many places have fallen. This temple
covers more ground than either of the others, but its columns
are of an intermediate magnitude between those of the second
and the first.
We only contemplated these sublime monuments for two
hours, and of course could only bring away so imperfect a
conception of them, as is the shadowof some half-remembered
dream.
* The height of the columns is respectively i8 feet 6 inches, and 28
feet 5 inches and 6i lines, in the two first temples ; and 21 feet 6 inches
in the Basilica. This shows the justice of the remarks on the difference
of real and apparent magnitude. — T. L. F,
LETTERS. . 267
The royal collection of paintings in this city is sufficiently
miserable. Perhaps the most remarkable is the original studio
by Michael Angelo of the " Day of Judgment," which is painted
\n fresco on the Sixtine chapel of the Vatican. It is there so
defaced as to be wholly indistinguishable. I cannot but think
the genius of this artist highly overrated. He has not only no
temperance, no modesty, no feeling for the just boundaries of
art (and in these respects an admirable genius may err), but he
has no sense of beauty, and to want this is to want the sense of
the creative power of mind. What is terror without a contrast
with, and a connexion with, loveliness. How well Dante under-
stood this secret — Dante, with whom this artist has been so
presumptuously compared ! What a thing his " Moses " is ;
how distorted from all that is natural and majestic. ... In the
picture to which I allude, God is leaning out of heaven. The
Holy Ghost, in the shape of a dove, is under him. Under the
Holy Ghost stands Jesus Christ, in an attitude of haranguing
the assembly. This figure, which his subject, or rather the
view which it became him to take of it, ought to have modelled
of a calm, severe, awe-inspiring majesty, is in the attitude of
commonplace resentment. On one side of this figure are the
elect ; on the other, the host of heaven ; they ought to have
been what the Christians call glorified bodies^ floating onward,
and radiant with that everlasting light (I speak in the spirit of
their faith), which had consumed their mortal veil. They are in
fact very ordinary people. Below is the ideal purgatory, I
imagine, in mid air, in the shapes of spirits, some of whom
demons are dragging down, others falling as it were by their
own weight, others half-suspended in that Mahomet-coffin-kind
of attitude which most moderate Christians, I believe, expect to
assume. Every step towards hell approximates to the region of
the artist's exclusive power. There is great imagination in
many of the situations of these unfortunate spirits. But hell
and death are his real sphere. The bottom of the picture is
divided by a lofty rock, in which there is a cavern whose
entrance is thronged by devils, some coming in with spirits,
some going out for prey. The blood-red light of the fiery
abyss glows through their dark forms. On one side, are the
devils in all hideous forms, struggling with the damned, who
have received their sentence, and are chained in all forms of
agony by knotted serpents, and writhing on the crags in every
variety of torture. On the other, are the dead, coming out of
their graves — horrible forms. Such is the famous " Day of
Judgment " of Michael Angelo ; a kind of Titus Andronicus
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in painting, but the author surely no Shakspeare. The other
paintings are one or two of Raphael or his pupils, very sweet
and lovely. A " Danae " of Titian, a picture, the softest and
most voluptuous form, with languid and uplifted eyes, and
warm yet passive limbs. A " Maddelena," by Guido, with
dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes, and an earnest, soft,
melancholy look. And some excellent pictures, in point of
execution, by Annibal Caracci. None others worth a second
look. Of the gallery of statues I cannot speak. They require
a volume, not a letter. Still less what can I do at Rome ?
I have just seen the Quarterly for September, not from my
own box. I suppose there is no chance now of the
organization of a review ! This is a great pity. The Quarterly
is undoubtedly conducted with talent, great talent, and affords
a dreadful preponderance against the cause of improvement.
If a band of staunch reformers, resolute and skilful, were united
in so close and constant a league as that in which interest and
fanaticism have bound the members of that literary coalition !
Adieu. Address your next letter to Rome, whence you shall
hear from me soon again. M. and C. unite with me in the very
kindest remembrances. — Most faithfully yours,
P. B. S.
A doctor here has been messing me, and I believe has done
me an important benefit. One of his pretty schemes has been
putting caustic on my side. You may guess how much quiet
:I have had since it was laid on.
XXXIV.— To T. L. P.
Rome^ March lyd^ 1819.
My Dear P. — I wrote to you the day before our departure
from Naples. We came by slow journeys, with our own horses,
to Rome, resting one day at Mola di Gaeta, at the inn called
Villa di Cicerone, from being built on the ruins of his Villa,
whose immense substructions overhang the sea, and are
scattered among the orange-groves. Nothing can be lovelier
than the scene from the terraces of the . inn. On one side
precipitous mountains, whose bases slope into an inclined plane
of olive and orange copses — the latter forming, as it were, an
emerald sky of leaves, starred with innumerable globes of their
ripening fruit, whose rich splendour contrasted with the deep
LETTERS. 269
green foliage ; on the other the sea — bounded on one side by
the antique town of Gaeta, and the other by what appears to be
an island, the promontory of Circe. From Gaeta to Terracina
the whole scenery is of the most sublime character. At
Terracina, precipitous conical crags of immense height shoot
into the sky and overhang the sea. At Albano, we arrived again
in sight of Rome. Arches after arches in unending lines stretch-
ing across the uninhabited wilderness, the blue defined line of
the mountains seen between them ; masses of nameless ruin
standing like rocks out of the plain ; and the plain itself, with
its billowy and unequal surface, announced the neighbourhood
of Rome. And what shall I say to you of Rome ? If I speak
of the inanimate ruins, the rude stones piled upon stones, which
are the sepulchres of the fame of those who once arrayed them
with the beauty which has faded, will you believe me insensible
to the vital, the almost breathing creations of genius yet sub-
sisting in their perfection ? What has become, you will ask, of
the Appollo, the Gladiator, the Venus of the Capitol ? What
of the Apollo di Belvedere, the Laocoon .? What of Rafifael and
Guido 1 These things are best spoken of when the mind has
drunk in the spirit of their forms ; and little indeed can I, who
must devote no more than a few months to the contemplation of
them, hope to know or feel of their profound beauty.
I think I told you of the Coliseum, and its impressions on me
on my first visit to this city. The next most considerable relic
of antiquity, considered as a ruin, is the Thermae of Caracalla.
These consist of six enormous chambers, above 200 feet in
height, and each enclosing a vast space like that of a field.
There are, in addition, a number of towers and labyrinthine
recesses, hidden and woven over by the wild growth of weeds
and ivy. Never was any desolation more sublime and lovely.
The perpendicular wall of ruin is cloven into steep ravines
filled up with flowering shrubs, whose thick twisted roots
are knotted in the rifts of the stones. At every step the aerial
pinnacles of shattered stone group into new combinations of
effect, and tower above the lofty yet level walls, as the distant
mountains change their aspect to one travelling rapidly along
the plain. The perpendicular walls resemble nothing more
than that cliff of Bisham wood, that is overgrown with wood,
and yet is stony and precipitous — you know the one I mean ;
not the chalk-pit, but the spot that has the pretty copse of
fir-trees and privet-bushes at its base, and where H and I
scrambled up, and you, to my infinite discontent, would go
home. These walls surround green and level spaces of lawn,
270 LETTERS,
on which some elms have grown, and which are interspersed
towards their skirts by masses of the fallen ruin, overtwined with
the broad leaves of the creeping weeds. The blue sky canopies
it, and is as the everlasting roof of these enormous halls.
But the most interesting effect remains. In one of the
buttresses, that supports an immense and lofty arch, " which
bridges the very winds of heaven," are the crumbling remains of
an antique winding staircase, whose sides are open in many
places to the precipice. This you ascend, and arrive on the
summit of these piles. There grow on every side thick
entangled wildernesses of myrtle, and the myrletus, and bay,
and the flowering laurestinus, whose white blossoms are just
developed, the white fig, and a thousand nameless plants sown
by the wandering winds. These woods are intersected on
every side by paths, like sheep-tracks through the copse-wood
of steep mountains, which wind to every part of the immense
labyrinth. From the midst rise those pinnacles and masses,
themselves like mountains, which have been seen from below.
In one place you wind along a narrow strip of weed-grown
ruin : on one side is the immensity of earth and sky, on the
other a narrow chasm, which is bounded by an arch of
enormous size, fringed by the many-coloured foliage and
blossoms, and supporting a lofty and irregular pyramid, over-
grown like itself with the all-prevailing vegetation. Around
rise other crags and other peaks, all arrayed, and the
deformity of their vast desolation softened down, by the
undecaying investiture of nature. Come to Rome. It is a
scene by which expression is overpowered ; which words
cannot convey. Still further, winding up one half of the
shattered pyramids, by the path through the blooming copse-
wood, you come to a little mossy lawn, surrounded by the wild
shrubs ; it is overgrown with anemonies, wall-flowers, and
violets, whose stalks pierce the starry moss, and with radiant
blue flowers, whose names I know not, and which scatter
through the air the divinest odour, which, as you recline under
the shade of the ruin, produces sensations of voluptuous faint-
ness, like the combinations of sweet music. The paths still
wind on, threading the perplexed windings, other labyrinths,
other lawns, and deep dells of wood, and lofty rocks, and
terrific chasms. When I tell you that these ruins cover several
acres, and that the paths above penetrate at least half their
extent, your imagination will fill up all that I am unable to
express of this astonishing scene.
I speak of these things not in the order in which I visited
LETTERS. 271
them, but in that of the impression which they made on me, or
perhaps chance directs. The ruins of the ancient Forum are so
far fortunate that they have not been walled up in the modern
city. They stand in an open, lonesome place, bounded on one
side by the modern city, and the other by the Palatine Mount,
covered with shapeless masses of ruin. The tourists tell you all
about these things, and I am afraid of stumbling on their
language when I enumerate what is so well known. There
remain eight granite columns of the Ionic order, with their
entablature, of the temple of Concord, founded by Camillus.
I fear that the immense expanse demanded by these columns
forbids us to hope that they are the remains of any edifice
dedicated by that most perfect and virtuous of men. It is
supposed to have been repaired under the Eastern Emperors ;
alas, what a contrast of recollections ! Near them stand those
Corinthian fluted columns, which supported the angle of a
temple ; the architrave and entablature are worked with
delicate sculpture. Beyond, to the south, is another solitary
column ; and still more distant, three more, supporting the
wreck of an entablature. Descending from the Capitol to the
Forum, is the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, less perfect
than that of Constantine, though from its proportions and
magnitude a most impressive monument. That of Constantine,
or rather of Titus (for the relief and sculpture, and even the
colossal images of Dacian captives, were torn by a decree of the
senate from an arch dedicated to the latter, to adorn that of this
stupid and wicked monster, Constantine, one of whose chief
merits consists in establishing a religion, the destroyer of
those arts which would have rendered so base a spoliation
unnecessary), is the most perfect. It is an admirable work of
art. It is built of the finest marble, and the outline of the
reliefs is in many parts as perfect as if just finished. Four
Corinthian fluted columns support, on each side, a bold entabla-
ture, whose bases are loaded with reliefs of captives in every
attitude of humiliation and slavery. The compartments above
express, in bolder relief, the enjoyment of success ; the
conqueror on his throne, or in his chariot, or nodding
over the crushed multitudes, who writhe under his horses' hoofs,
as those below express the torture and abjectness of defeat.
There are three arches, whose roofs are panneled with fretwork,
and their sides adorned with similar reliefs. The keystone of
these arches is supported each by two winged figures of Victory,
whose hair floats on the wind of their own speed, and whose
arms are outstretched, bearing trophies, as if impatient to meet.
272 LETTERS,
They look, as it were, borne from the subject extremities of the
earth, on the breath which is the exhalation of that battle and
desolation, which it is their mission to commemorate. Never
were monuments so completely fitted to the purpose for which
they were designed, of expressing that mixture of energy and
error which is called a triumph.
I walk forth in the purple and golden light of an Italian
evening, and return by star or moonlight, through this scene.
The elms are just budding, and the warm spring winds bring
unknown odours, all sweet from the country. I see the radiant
Orion through the mighty columns of the temple of Concord,
and the mellow fading light softens down the modern buildings
of the capitol, the only ones that interfere with the sublime
desolation of the scene. On the steps of the capitol itself, stand
two colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, each with his horse,
iinely executed, though far inferior to those of Monte Cavallo,
the cast of one of which you know we saw together in London.
This walk is close to our lodging, and this is my evening walk.
What shall I say of the modern city ? Rome is yet the capital
of the world. It is a city of palaces and temples, more glorious
than those which any other city contains, and of ruins more
glorious than they. Seen from any of the eminences that
surround it, it exhibits domes beyond domes, and palaces, and
colonnades interminably, even to the horizon ; interspersed with
patches of desert, and mighty ruins which stand girt by their
own desolation, in the midst of the fanes of living religions and
the habitations of living men, in sublime loneliness. St. Peter's
is, as you have heard, the loftiest building in Europe. Externally
it is inferior in architectural beauty to St Paul's, though not
wholly devoid of it ; internally it exhibits littleness on a large
scale, and is in every respect opposed to antique taste. You
know my propensity to admire ; and I tried to persuade myself
out of this opinion — in vain ; the more I see of the interior of
St. Peter's, the less impression as a whole does it produce on me.
I cannot even think it lofty, though its dome is considerably
higher than any hill within fifty miles of London ; and when
one reflects, it is an astonishing monument of the daring energy
of man. Its colonnade is wonderfully fine, and there are two
fountains, which rise in spire-like columns of water to an
immense height in the sky, and falling on the porphyry vases
from which they spring, fill the whole air with a radiant mist,
which at noon is thronged with innumerable rainbows. In the
midst stands an obelisk. In front is the palace-like facade of
St. Peter's, certainly magnificent ; and there is produced, on the
LETTERS, 273
whole, an architectural combination unequalled in the world.
But the dome of the temple is concealed, except at a very great
distance, by the fagade and the inferior part of the building, and
that diabolical contrivance they call an attic.
The effect of the Pantheon is totally the reverse of that of St.
Peter's. Though not a fourth part of the size, it is, as it were,
the visible image of the universe ; in the perfection of its pro-
portions, as when you regard the unmeasured dome of heaven,
the idea of magnitude is swallowed up and lost. It is open to
the sky, and its wide dome is lighted by the ever-changing
illumination of the air. The clouds of noon fly over it, and at
night the keen stars are seen through the azure darkness,
hanging immoveably, or driving after the driving moon among
the clouds. We visited it by moonlight ; it is supported by
sixteen columns, fluted and Corinthian, of a certain rare and
beautiful yellow marble, exquisitely polished, called here giallo
antico. Above these are the niches for the statues of the twelve
gods. This is the only defect of this sublime temple ; there
ought to have been no interval between the commencement of
the dome and the cornice, supported by the columns. Thus
there would have been no diversion from the magnificent
simplicity of its form. This improvement is alone wanting to
have completed the unity of the idea.
The fountains of Rome are, in themselves, magnificent
combinations of art, such as alone it were worth coming to see.
That in the Piazza Navona, a large square, is composed of
enormous fragments of rock, liled on each other, and penetrated
as by caverns. This mass supports an Egyptian obelisk of
immense height. On the four corners of the rock recline, in
different attitudes, colossal figures representing the four divi-
sions of the globe. The water bursts from the crevices beneath
them. They are sculptured with great spirit ; one impatiently
tearing a veil from his eyes ; another with his hands stretched
upwards. The Fontana di Trevi is the most celebrated, and is
rather a waterfall than a fountain ; gushing out from masses of
rock, with a gigantic figure of Neptune ; and below are two
river gods, checking two winged horses, struggling up from
among the rocks and waters. The whole is not ill conceived
nor executed ; but you know not how delicate the imagination
becomes by dieting with antiquity day after day ! The only
things that sustain the comparison are RafFael, Guido, and
Salvator Rosa.
The fountain on the Quirinal, or rather the group formed by
the statues, obelisk, and the fountain, is, however, the most
99
274 LETTERS.
admirable of all. From the Piazza Quirinale, or rather Monte
Cavallo, you see the boundless ocean of domes, spires, and
columns, which is the City, Rome. On a pedestal of white
marble rises an obelisk of red granite, piercing the blue sky.
Before it is a vast basin of porphyry, in the midst of which rises
a column of the purest water, which collects into itself all the
overhanging colours of the sky, and breaks them into a thousand
prismatic hues and graduated shadows — they fall together with
its dashing water-drops into the outer basin. The elevated situa-
tion of this fountain produces, I imagine, this effect of colour.
On each side, on an elevated pedestal, stand the statues of
Castor and Pollux, each in the act of taming his horse ; which
are said, but I believe wholly without authority, to be the work
of Phidias and Praxiteles. These figures combine the irresist-
ible energy with the sublime and perfect loveliness supposed to
have belonged to their divine nature. The reins no longer
exist, but the position of their hands and the sustained and
calm command of their regard, seem to require no mechanical
aid to enforce obedience. The countenances at so great a
height are scarcely visible, and I have a better idea of that of
•which we saw a cast together in London, than of the other.
But the sublime and living majesty of their limbs and mien, the
nervous and fiery animation of the horses they restrain, seen in
the blue sky of Italy, and overlooking the city of Rome,
surrounded by the light and the music of that crystalline
fountain, no cast can communicate.
These figures were found at the Baths of Constantine ; but,
of course, are of remote antiquity. I do not acquiesce however
in the practice of attributing to Phidias, or Praxiteles, or
Scopas, or some great master, any admirable work that may be
found. We find little of what remained, and perhaps the works
of these were such as greatly surpassed all that we conceive of
most perfect and admirable in what little has escaped the
deluge. If I am too jealous of the honour of the Greeks, our
masters and creators, the gods whom we should worship, —
pardon me.
I have said what I feel without entering into any critical dis-
cussions of the ruins of Rome, and the mere outside of this
inexhaustible mine of thought and feeling. Hobhouse, Eustace,
and Forsyth, will tell all the shew-knowledge about it, — " the
common stuff of the earth." By-the-bye, Forsyth is worth
reading, as I judge from a chapter or two I have seen. I
cannot get the book here.
I ought to have observed that the central arch of the
LETTERS. 275
triumphal Arch of Titus yet subsists, more perfect in its pro-
portions, they say, than any of a later date. This I did not
remark. The figures of Victory, with unfolded wings, and each
spurning back a globe with outstretched feet, are, perhaps, more
beautiful than those on either of the others. Their lips are
parted : a delicate mode of indicating the fervour of their desire
to arrive at the destined resting-place, and to express the eager
respiration of their speed. Indeed, so essential to beauty were
the forms expressive of the exercise of the imagination and the
affections considered by Greek artists, that no ideal figure of
antiquity, not destined to some representation directly exclusive
of such a character, is to be found with closed lips. Within
this arch are two panneled alto relievos, one representing a
train of people bearing in procession the instruments of Jewish
worship, among which is the holy candlestick with seven
branches ; on the other, Titus standing on a quadriga, with a
winged Victory. The grouping of the horses, and the beauty,
correctness, and energy of their delineation, is remarkable,
though they are much destroyed.
XXXV.— To T. L. P.
Rome^ April 6t hi 1819.
My Dear P.— I sent you yesterday a long letter, all about
antique Rome, which you had better keep for some leisure day.
I received yours, and one of Hunt's, yesterday. — So, you know
the B s ? I could not help considering Mrs. B., when I
knew her, as the most admirable specimen of a human being I
had ever seen. Nothing earthly ever appeared to be more per-
fect than her character and manners. It is improbable that I
shall ever meet again the person whom I so much esteemed,
and still admire. I wish, however, that when you see her, you
would tell her that I have not forgotten her, nor any of the
amiable circle once assembled round her; and that I desire
such remembrances to her as an exile and a Pariah may be per-
mitted to address to an acknowledged member of the community
of mankind. I hear they dined at your lodgings. But no men
tion of A and his wife — where were they? C , though
so young when I saw her, gave indications of her mother's
excellences ; and, certainly less fascinating is, I doubt not,
equally amiable, and more sincere. It was hardly possible
for a person of the extreme subtlety and delicacy of Mrs. B 's
understanding and affections, to be quite sincere and constant.
276 LETTERS,
I am all anxiety about your I. H. affair. There are few who
will feel more hearty satisfaction at your success, in this or any
other enterprise, than I shall. Pray let me have the earliest
intelligence.
When shall I return to England? The Pythia has ascended
the tripod, but she replies not. Our present plans---and I know
not what can induce us to alter them — lead us back to Naples
in a month or six weeks, where it is almost decided that we
should remain until the commencement of 1820. You may
imagine, when we receive such letters as yours and Hunt's, what
this resolution costs us — but these are not our only communi-
cations from England. My health is materially better. My
spirits, not the most brilliant in the world ; but that we attribute
to our solitary situation, and, though happy, how should I be
lively .? We see something of Italian society indeed. The
Romans please me much, especially the women, who, though
totally devoid of every kind of information, or culture of the
imagination, or affections, or understanding — and, in this re-
spect, a kind of gentle savages — yet contrive to be interesting.
Their extreme innocence and naivete, the freedom and gentle-
ness of their manners ; the total absence of affectation, makes an
intercourse with them very like an intercourse with uncorrupted
children, whom they resemble in loveliness as well as simplicity.
I have seen two women in society here of the highest beauty ;
their brows and lips, and the moulding of the face modelled
with sculptural exactness, and the dark luxuriance of their hair
floating over their fine complexions ; and the lips— you must
hear the commonplaces which escape from them, before they
cease to be dangerous. The only inferior part are the eyes,
which, though good and gentle, want the mazy depth of
colour behind colour, with which the intellectual women of
England and Germafty entangle the heart in soul-inwoven
labyrinths.
This is holy-week, and Rome is quite full. The Emperor of
Austria is here, and Maria Louisa is coming. On their journey
through the other cities of Italy, she was greeted with loud
acclamations, and vivas of Napoleon. Idiots and slaves ! Like
the frogs in the fable, because they are discontented with the
log, they call upon the stork, who devours them. Great festas,
and magnificent funzioni here — we cannot get tickets to all.
There are five thousand strangers in Rome, and only room for
five hundred, at the celebration of the famous Miserere, in the
Sixtine chapel, the only thing I regret we shall not be present
at. After all, Rome is eternal ; and were all that is extinguished,
LETTERS. 177
that which has been, the ruins and the sculptures, would remain,
and Raffael and Guido be alone regretted.
In the Square of St. Peter's there are about three hundred
fettered criminals at work, hoeing out the weeds that grow
between the stones of the pavement. Their legs are heavily
ironed, and some are chained two by two. They sit in long
rows, hoeing out the weeds, dressed in parti-coloured clothes.
Near them sit or saunter groups of soldiers, armed with loaded
muskets. The iron discord of those innumerable chains clanks
up into the sonorous air, and produces, contrasted with the
musical dashing of the fountains, and the deep azure beauty of
the sky, and the magnificence of the architecture around, a
conflict of sensations allied to madness. It is the emblem of
Italy — moral degradation contrasted with the glory of nature
and the arts.
We see no English society here ; it is not probable that we
would if we desired it, and I am certain that we should find
It unsupportable. The manners of the rich English are wholly
unsupportable, and they assume pretensions which they would
not venture upon in their own country. I am yet ignorant
of the event of Hobhouse's election. I saw the last numbers
were — Lamb, 4200 ; and Hobhouse, 3900 — 14th day. There is
little hope. That mischievous Cobbett has divided and weak-
ened the interests of the popular party, so that the factions that
prey upon our country have been able to coalesce to its
exclusion. The N s you have not seen. I am curious to
know what kind of a girl Octavia becomes ; she promised well.
Tell H his Melpomene is in the Vatican, and that her
attitude and drapery surpass, if possible, the graces of her
countenance.
My " Prometheus Unbound " is just finished, and in a month
or two I shall send it. It is a drama, with characters and
mechanism of a kind yet unattempted ; and I think the execu-
tion is better than any of my former attempts. By-the-bye,
have you seen Oilier ? I never hear from him, and am ignorant
whether some verses I sent him from Naples, entitled, I think,
" Lines on the Euganean hills," have reached him in safety or
not. As to the Reviews, I suppose there is nothing but abuse ;
and this is not hearty or sincere enough to amuse me. As to
the poem now printing,* I lay no stress on it one way or the
other. The concluding lines are natural.
I believe, my dear P., that you wish us to come back to
* Rosalind and Helen.
278 LETTERS.
England. How is it possible ? Health, competence, tranquillity
—all these Italy permits, and England takes away. I am
regarded by all who know or hear of me, except^ I think, on the
whole, five individuals, as a rare prodigy of crime and pollution,
whose look even might infect. This is a large computation,
and I don't think I could mention more than three. Such is
the spirit of the English abroad as well as at home.
Few compensate, indeed, for all the rest, and if I were alone
I should laugh ; or if I were rich enough to do all things, which
I shall never be. Pity me for my absence from those social
enjoyments which England might afford me, and which I know
so well how to appreciate. Still I shall return some fine
morning, out of pure weakness of heart.
My dear P., most faithfully yours,
P. B. Shelley.
XXXVI.— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne.
(leghorn.)
Rome^ April 6thy 1819.
My Dear Friends — A combination of circumstances, which
Mary will explain to you, leads us back to Naples in June, or
rather the end of May, where we shall remain until the ensuing
winter. We shall take a house at Portici or Castel a Mare,
until late in the autumn.
The object of this letter is to ask you to spend this period
with us. There is no society which we have regretted or
desired so much as yours, and in our solitude the benefit of
your concession would be greater than I can express. What is
a sail to Naples ? It is the season of tranquil weather and
prosperous winds. If I knew the magic that lay in any given
form of words, I would employ them to persuade ; but I fear
that all I can say is, as you know with truth, we desire that you
would come— we wish to see you. You came to see Mary at
Lucca, directly I had departed to Venice. It is not our custom,
when we can help it, any more than it is yours, to divide our
pleasures.
What shall I say to entice you ? We shall have a piano, and
some books, and — little else, besides ourselves. But what will
be most inviting to you, you will give much, though you may
receive but little, pleasure.
LETTERS. 279
But whilst I write this with more desire than hope, yet some
of that, perhaps the project may fall into your designs. It
is intolerable to think of your being buried at Livorno. The
success assured by Mr. Reveley's talents requires another scene.
You may have decided to take this summer to consider — and
why not with us at Naples, rather than at Livorno ?
I could address with respect to Naples, the words of
Polypheme in Theocritus, to all the friends I wish to see, and
you especially :
'E^^j'^ots, FaXdreta, koX i^evOoiaa \d6oio,
"ficTTrep e->u; vvv (^de KadT^fxefos, of/caS' 6.7rev6eiP. *
Most sincerely yours,
P. B. Shelley.
XXXVII.— To T. L. P.
Rome^ Ju7ie Zih^ 18 19.
My Dear Friend — Yesterday, after an illness of only a
few days, my little William died. There was no hope from
the moment of the attack. You will be kind enough to tell all
my friends, so that I need not write to them. It is a great
exertion to me to write this, and it seems to me as if, hunted by
calamity as I have been, that I should never recover any
cheerfulness again.
If the things Mary desired to be sent to Naples have not
been shipped, send them to Livorno.
We leave this city for Livorno to-morrow morning, where
we have written to take lodgings for a month. I will then
write again. Yours ever affectionately,
P. B. Shelley.
XXXVIII.— To T. L. P.
Livorno^ June 20M, 1 8 1 9.
My Dear Peacock — Our melancholy journey finishes
at this town, but we retrace our steps to Florence, where,
as I imagine, we shall remain some months. O that I could
* Come, O Galatea ; and having come, forget, as do I, now sitting
here, to return home. — M. S.
2go LETTEkS.
return to England ! How heavy a weight when misfortune
is added to exile, and solitude, as if the measure were not full,
heaped high on both. O that I could return to England ;
I hear you say, "Desire never fails to generate capacity." Ahl
but that ever-present Malthus, Necessity, has convinced Desire
that even though it generated capacity, its offspring must
starve. Enough of melancholy ! Nightmare Abbey^ though
no cure, is a palliative. I have just received the parcel which
contained it, and at the same time the Examiners^ by the
way of Malta. I am delighted with Nightmare Abbey. I
think Scythrop a character admirably conceived and executed ;
and I know not how to praise sufficiently the lightness,
chastity, and strength of the language of the whole. It
perhaps exceeds all your works in this. The catastrophe is
excellent. I suppose the moral is contained in what Falstaff
says — " For God's sake, talk like a man of this world ; " and
yet, looking deeper into it, is not the misdirected enthusiasm
of Scythrop what J. C. calls the " salt of the earth ? " My
friends the Gisbornes here admire and delight in it exceedingly.
I think I told you that they (especially the lady) are
people of high cultivation. She is a woman of profound
accomplishments and the most refined taste.
Cobbett still more and more delights me, with all my horror
of the sanguinary commonplaces of his creed. His design
to overthrow bank notes by forgery is very comic. One of the
volumes of Birbeck interested me exceedingly. The letters I
think stupid, but suppose that they are useful.
I do not, as usual, give you an account of my journey,
for I had neither the health nor the spirit to take notes.
My health was greatly improving, when watching and anxiety
cast me into a relapse. The doctors (I put little faith in the
best) tell me I must spend the winter in Africa or Spain. I
shall of course prefer the latter, if I choose either.
Are you married, or why do I not hear from you ? That
were a good reason.
M. and C. unite with me in kindest remembrances to
you, and in congratulations, if she exist, to the new married
lady.
When shall I see you again ? — Ever yours, most faithfully,
P. B. S.
Pray do not forget Mary's things.
I have not heard from you since the middle of April.
LETTERS, 281
XXXIX.— To T. L. Peacock.
Ltvorno, Jttly 6, 18 19.
My Dear Peacock — I have lost some letters, and, in all
probability, at least one from you, as I can account in no other
manner for not having heard from you since March 26th. We
have changed our design of going to Florence immediately, and
are now established for three months in a little country house
in a pretty verdant scene near Livorno.
I have a study here in a tower, sonnething like Scythrop's,
where I am just beginning to recover the faculties of reading
and writing. My health, whenever no Libecchio blows, im-
proves. From my tower I see the sea, with its islands, Gorgona,
Capraja, Elba, and Corsica, on one side, and the Apennines on
the other. Milly surprised us the other day by first discovering
a comet, on which we have been speculating. She may "make
a stir, like a great astronomer."*
The direct purpose of this letter, however, is to ask you about
the box which I requested you to send to me to Naples. If it
has been sent, let me entreat you (for really it is of the most
serious consequence to us) to write to me by return of post,
stating the name of the ship, the bill of lading, etc., so that I
may get it without difficulty. If it has not been sent, do me the
favour to send it instantly, direct to Livorno. If you have not
the time, you can ask Hogg. If you cannot get the things
from Mrs. Hunt (a possible case), send those you were to buy,
and the things from Furnival,t alone. You can add what books
you think fit. The last parcel I have received from you is that
of last September.
All good wishes, and many hopes that you have already that
* Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star :
Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that make a mighty rout :
I'm as great as they, I trow,
Since the day I found thee out,
Little flower ! I'D make a stir,
Like a great astronomer.
— Wordsworth. — To the Little Celandine.
t A surgeon at Egham, in whom Shelley had great confidence.^
T. L. P.
^82 LETTERS.
success on which there will be no congratulations more cordial
than those you will receive from me.
Ever most sincerely yours,
P. B. Shelley.
I shall receive your letter, if written by return of post, in
thirty days ; a distance less formidable than Rome or Naples.
XL.— To T. L. Peacock.
Livorno, July^ 1819.
My Dear P. — We still remain, and shall remain nearly two
months longer at Livorno. Our house is a melancholy one,*
and only cheered by letters from England. I got your note, in
which you speak of three letters having been sent to Naples,
which I have written for. I have heard also from H ^ who
confirms the news of your success, an intelligence most grateful
to me.
The object of the present letter is to ask a favour of you. I
have written a tragedy, on the subject of a story well known in
Italy, and, in my conception, eminently dramatic. I have taken
some pains to make my play fit for representation, and those
who have already seen it judge favourably. It is written with-
out any of the peculiar feelings and opinions which characterise
my other compositions ; I having attended simply to the
impartial development of such characters, as it is probable the
persons represented really were, together with the greatest
degree of popular effect to be produced by such a development.
I send you a translation of the Italian manuscript on which my
play is founded, the chief subject of which I have touched very
delicately ; for my principal doubt, as to whether it would
succeed as an acting play, hangs entirely on the question, as to
whether such a thing as incest in this shape, however treated,
would be admitted on the stage. I think, however, it will form
no objection : considering, first, that the facts are matter of
history ; and, secondly, the peculiar delicacy with which I have
treated it.
I am exceedingly interested in the question of whether this
attempt of mine will succeed or no. I am strongly inclined
to the affirmative at present, founding my hopes on this,
that, as a composition, it is certainly not inferior to any
* We had lost our eldest, and at that time, only child, the preceding
month at Rome. — M. S.
LETTERS. 283
of the modern plays that have been acted, with the exception
of " Remorse ; " that the interests of its plot is incredibly
greater and more real ; and that there is nothing beyond what
the multitude are contented to believe that they can under-
stand, either in imagery, opinion, or sentiment. I wish to
preserve a complete incognito, and can trust to you, that
whatever else you do, you will at least favour me on this point.
Indeed this is essential, deeply essential to its success. After
it had been acted, and successfully (could I hope such a
thing), I would own it if I pleased, and use the celebrity it
might acquire to my own purposes.
What I want you to do is, to procure for me its presentation
at Covent Garden. The principal character, Beatrice, is
precisely fitted for Miss O'Neil, and it might even seem written
for her, (God forbid that I should ever see her play it — it
would tear my nerves to pieces,) and, in all respects, it is
fitted only for Covent Garden. The chief male character,
I confess, I should be very unwilling that any one but Kean
should play — that is impossible, and I must be contented
with an inferior actor. I think you know some of the people
of that theatre, or, at least, some one who knows them ;
and when you have read the play, you may say enough, perhaps,
to induce them not to reject it without consideration —
but of this, perhaps, I may judge from the tragedies which
they have accepted, there is no danger at any rate.
Write to me as soon as you can on this subject, because it is
necessary that I should present it, or, if rejected by the theatre,
print it this coming season ; lest somebody else should get hold
of it, as the story, which now only exists in manuscript,
begins to be generally known among the English. The trans-
lation which I send you is to be prefixed to the play, together
with a print of Beatrice. I have a copy of her picture by Guido,
now in the Colonna palace at Rome — the most beautiful creature
you can conceive.
Of course, you will not show the manuscript to any one — and
write to me by return of post, at which time the play will be
ready to be sent.
I expect soon to write again, and it shall be a less selfish
letter. As to Oilier, I don't know what has been published, or
what has arrived at his hands. — My "Prometheus," though
ready, I do not send till I know more.
Ever yours, most faithfully,
P. B. S.
284 LETTERS.
XLL— To Leigh Hunt.
Lzvorno, August 15M, 18 19.
My Dear Friend — How good of you to write to us so
often, and such kind letters 1 But it is like lending to a beggar.
What can I offer in return ?
Though surrounded by suffering and disquietude, and,
latterly, almost overcome by our strange misfortune,* I have
not been idle. My " Prometheus " is finished, and I am also
on the eve of completing another work,t totally different from
anything you might consider that I should write ; of a more
popular kind ; and, if anything of mine could deserve atten-
tion, of higher claims. " Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest
chuck, till thou approve the performance.''
I send you a little poemf to give to Oilier for publication,
but without 7ny 7iame. P. will correct the proofs. I wrote it
with the idea of offering it to the " Examiner," but I find it is too
long. It was composed last year at Este ; two of the characters
you will recognise ; and the third is also in some degree a
painting from nature, but, with respect to time and place, ideal.
You will find the little piece, I think, in some degree consistent
with your own ideas of the manner in which poetry ought to be
written. I have employed a certain familiar style of language
to express the actual way in which people talk with each
other, whom education and a certain refinement of sentiment
have placed above the use of vulgar idioms. I use the word
vulgar in its most extensive sense. The vulgarity of rank and
fashion is as gross in its way as that of poverty, and its cant
terms equally expressive of bare conceptions, and therefore
equally unfit for poetry. Not that the familiar style is to be
admitted in the treatment of a subject wholly ideal, or in that
part of any subject which relates to common life, where the
passion, exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundaries of
that which is ideal. Strong passion expresses itself in meta-
phor, borrowed from objects alike remote or near, and casts
over all the shadow of its own greatness. But what am I about ?
If my grandmother sucks eggs, was it I who taught her ?
\iyou would really correct the proof, I need not trouble P.,
who, I suppose, has enough. Can you take it as a compliment
that I prefer to trouble you ?
* The sudden death of William Shelley, then our only child, which
happened in Rome, 6th June, 18 19. — M. S.
T The Cenci. % Julian and Maddalo.
LETTERS. 285
I do not particularly wish this poem to be known as mine ;
but, at all events, I would not put my name to it. I leave you
to judge whether it is best to throw it into the fire, or to publish
it. So much for self — self, that burr that will stick to one. Your
kind expressions about my Eclogue gave me great pleasure ;
indeed, my great stimulus in writing, is to have the approbation
of those who feel kindly towards me. The rest is mere duty.
I am also delighted to hear that you think of us and form
ianciea about us. We cannot yet come home.
Most affectionately yours,
P. B. Shelley.
XLIL— To T. L. Peacock.
Livorno, August {probably 22nd), 18 19.
My Dear Peacock— I ought first to say, that I have not
yet received one of your letters from Naples ; but your present
letter tells me all that I could desire to hear.
My employments are these : I awaken usually at seven ; read
half-an-hour ; then get up ; breakfast ; after breakfast ascend
my tower, and read or write until two. Then we dine. After
dinner I read Dante with Mary, gossip a little, eat grapes and
figs, sometimes walk, though seldom, and at half-past five pay a
visit to Mrs. Gisborne, who reads Spanish with me until near
seven. We then come for Mary, and stroll about till supper
time. Mrs. Gisborne is a sufficiently amiable and very
accomplished woman ; she is drjfxoKpaTiKrj and aOer] — how far she
may be (pCkavdpwTn) I don't know, for she is the antipodes of
enthusiasm. Her husband, a man with little thin lips, reced-
ing forehead, and a prodigious nose, is an [ ] bore. His
nose is something quite Slawkenbergian — it weighs on the
imagination to look at it. It is that sort of nose which trans-
forms all the g's its wearer utters into k's. It is a nose once
seen never to be forgotten, and which requires the utmost
stretch of Christian charity to forgive. I, you know, have a
little turn-up nose ; Hogg has a large hook one ; but add them
both together, square them, cube them, you will have but a faint
idea of the nose to which I refer.
I most devoutly wish I were living near London. I do not
think I shall settle so far off as Richmond ; and to inhabit any
intermediate spot on the Thames would be to expose myself to
the river damps ; not to mention that it is not much to my taste.
My inclinations point to H'lmpstead ; but I do nnt know
286 LETTERS.
whether I should not make up my mind to something more
completely suburban. What are mountains, trees, heaths, or
even the glorious and ever-beautiful sky, with such sunsets as I
have seen at Hampstead, to friends ? Social enjoyment, in
some form or other, is the alpha and the omega of existence.
All that I see in Italy — and from my tower window I now see
the magnificent peaks of the Apennine half enclosing the plain
— is nothing ; it dwindles into smoke in the mind, when I think
of some familiar forms of scenery, little perhaps in themselves,
over which old remembrances have thrown a delightful colour.
How we prize what we despised when present 1 The ghosts of
our dead associations rise and haunt us, in revenge for our
having let them starve, and abandoned them to perish.
You don't tell me if you see the B 's ; nor are they
included in the list of the conviti at the monthly symposium. I
will attend it in imagination.
One thing, I own, I am curious about ; and in the chance of
the letters not coming from Naples, pray tell me. What is it
you do at the India House ? Hunt writes, and says you have
got a situation in the India House : Hogg that you have an
Jionoiirable employment : Godwin writes to Mary that you have
got so much or so much : but nothing of what you do. The
devil take these general terms. Not content with having driven
all poetry out of the world, at length they make war on their
own allies ; nay, on their very parents, dry facts. If it had not
been the age of generalities, any one of these people would have
told me what you did.
I have been much better these last three weeks. My work
on the Cenci, which was done in two months, was a fine anti-
dote to nervous medicines, and kept up, I think, the pain in my
side, as sticks do a fire. Since then, I have materially im-
proved. I do not walk enough. C, who is sometimes my
companion, does not dress in exactly the right time. I have no
stimulus to walk. Now, I go sometimes to Livorno on business;
and that does me good.
England seems to be in a very disturbed state, if we may
judge from some Paris papers, I suspect it is rather exag-
gerated. But the change should commence among the higher
orders, or anarchy will only be the last flash before despotism.
I have been reading Calderon in Spanish. A kind of Shak-
speare is this Calderon ; and I have some thoughts, if I find
that I cannot do anything better, of translating some of his
plays.
The Examiners I receive. Hunt, as a political writer,
LETTERS. 287
pleases me more and more. Adieu. M. and C. send their
best remembrances.
Your most faithful friend, P. B. Shelley.
Pray send me some books, and Clare would take it as a great
favour if you would send her music books.
XLIIL— To Leigh Hunt.
Livor7io, Sept. 3, 1819.
My Dear Friend — At length has arrived Ollier's parcel,
and with it the portrait. What a delightful present I It is
almost yourself, and we sat talking with it, and of it, all the
evening. It is a great pleasure to us to possess it, a pleasure in
time of need, coming to us when there are few others. How we
wish it were you, and not your picture ! How I wish we were
with you !
This parcel, you know, and all its letters, are now a year old
— some older. There are all kinds of dates, from March to
August, and " your date," to use Shakspeare's expression, " is
better in a pie or a pudding, than in your letter." — " Virginity,"
Parolles says, but letters are the same thing in another shape.
With it came, loo. Lamb's works. I have looked at none of
the other books yet. What a lovely thing is his " Rosamund
Gray ! " How much knowledge of the sweetest and deepest
parts of our nature in it5! When I think of such a mind as
Lamb's — when I see how unnoticed remain things of such
exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for
myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame }
I have seen too little of Italy, and of pictures. Perhaps P.
has shown you some of my letters to him. But at Rome I was
very ill, seldom able to go out without a carriage : and though I
kept horses for two months there, yet there is so much to see !
Perhaps I attended more to sculpture than painting, its forms
being more easily intelligible than that of the latter. Yet, I saw
the famous works of Raffaele, whom I agree with the whole
world in thinking the finest painter. Why, I can tell you
another time. With respect to Michael Angelo I dissent,
and think with astonishment and indignation of the common
notion that he equals, and in some respects, exceeds Raffaele.
He seems to me to have no sense of moral dignity and love-
liness ; and the energy for which he has been so much praised,
appears to me to be a certain rude, external, mechanical
quality, in comparison with anything possessed by Raffaele,
288 LETTERS.
or even much inferior artists. His famous painting in the
Sixtine Chapel seems to me deficient in beauty and majesty,
both in the conception and the execution. He has been called
the Dante of painting ; but if we find some of the gross and
strong outlines which are employed in the most distasteful
passages of the " Inferno," where shall we find j/^^^r Francesca
— where the spirit coming over the sea in a boat, like Mars
rising from the vapours of the horizon — where Matilda gathering
flowers, and all the exquisite tenderness, and sensibility,
and ideal beauty, in which Dante excelled all poets except
Shakspeare .''
As to Michael Angelo's Moses — but you have a cast of that in
England. I write these things, heaven knows why !
I have written something and finished it, different from any-
thing else, and a new attempt for me ; and I mean to dedicate
it to you. I should not have done so without your approbation,
but I asked your picture last night, and it smiled assent. If I
did not think it in some degree worthy of you, I would not
make you a public offering of it. I expect to have to write to
you soon about it. If OlHer is not turned Jew, Christian, or
become infected with the Murrain^ he will publish it. Don't
let him be frightened, for it is nothing which, by any courtesy of
language, can be termed either moral or immoral.
Mary has written to Marianne for a parcel, in which I beg
you will make Oilier enclose what you know would most interest
me — your " Calendar," (a sweet extract from which I saw in the
Examiner,) and the other poems belonging to you ; and, for
some friends of mine, my Eclogue. This parcel, which must be
sent instantly, will reach me by October, but don't trust letters
to it, except just a line or so. When you write, write by the post.
Ever your affectionate, P. B. S.
My love to Marianne and Bessy, and Thornton too, and
Percy, etc., and if you could imagine any way in which I could
be useful to them here, tell me. I will enquire about the Italian
chalk. You have no idea of the pleasure this portrait gives us.
XL I v.— To C. Ollier.
Leghorn, September dth, 1819.
Dear Sir — I received your packet with Hunt's picture about
a fortnight ago ; and your letter with Nos. i, 2, and 3 yesterday,
but not No, 4, which is probably lost or mislaid, through the
extreme irregularity of the Italian post.
LETTERS, 289
The ill account you give of the success of my poetical
attempts, sufficiently accounts for your silence ; but I believe
that the truth is, I write less for the public than for myself.
Considering that perhaps the parcel will be another year on
its voyage, I rather wish, if this letter arrives in time, that
you would send the Quarterly's article by the post, and the rest
of the Review in the parcel. Of course, it gives me a certain
degree of pleasure to know that any one likes my writings ; but
it is objection and enmity alone that rouses my curiosity. My
Prometheus^ which has been long finished, is now being tran-
scribed, and will soon be forwarded to you for publication. It is,
in my judgment, of a higher character than anything I have
yet attempted, and is perhaps less an imitation of anything that
has gone before it. I shall also send you another work, calcu-
lated to produce a very popular effect, and totally in a different
style from anything I have yet composed. This will be sent
already printed. The Prometheus you will be so good as to
print as usual. . . .
In the Rosalind and Helen, I see there are some few errors,
which are so much the worse because they are errors in the
sense. If there should be any danger of a second edition, I
will correct them.
I have read your Altham, and Keats's poem, and Lamb's
works. For the second in this list, much praise is due to me
for having read it, the author's intention appearing to be that
no person should possibly get to the end of it. Yet it is full of
some of the highest and the finest gleams of poetry ; indeed,
everything seems to be viewed by the mind of a poet which is
described in it. I think, if he had printed about fifty pages of
fragments from it, I should have been led to admire Keats as a
poet more than I ought, of which there is now no danger. In
Altham you have surprised and delighted me. It is a natural
story, most unaffectedly told ; and, what is more, told in a
strain of very pure and powerful English, which is a very rare
merit. You seem to have studied our language to some
purpose ; but I suppose I ought to have waited for Inesilla.
The same day that your letter came, came the news of the
Manchester work, and the torrent of my indignation has not yet
done boiling in my veins. I wait anxiously to hear how the
country will express its sense of this bloody, murderous oppres-
sion of its destroyers. " Something must be done. What, yet I
know not."
In your parcel (which I pray you to send in some safe
manner, forwarding to me the bill of lading, etc., in a regular
loo
290 LETTERS.
mercantile way, so that my parcel may come in six weeks, not
twelve months) send me Jones's Greek Grammar and some
sealing-wax.
Whenever I publish, send copies of my books to the following
people from me : —
Mr. Hunt, Mr. Godwin, Mr. Hogg,
Mr. Peacock, Mr. Keats, Mr. Thomas Moore,
Mr. Horace Smith, Lord Byron (at Murray's).
Yours, obliged and faithful,
Percy B. Shelley.
XLV.— To T. L. Peacock.
Livorno^ September (^th^ 1816.
My Dear Peacock— I send you the tragedy.* You will
see that the subject has not been treated as you suggested, and
why it was not susceptible of such treatment. In fact, it was
then already printing when I received your letter, and it has
been treated in such a manner that I do not see how the subject
forms an objection. You know CEdipus is performed on the
fastidious French stage, a play much more broad than this. I
confess I have some hopes, and some friends here persuade me
that they are not unfounded.
Many thanks for your attention in sending the papers which
contain the terrible and important news of Manchester. These
are, as it were, the distant thunders of the terrible storm which
is approaching. The tyrants here, as in the French Revolution,
have first shed blood. May their execrable lessons not be
learnt with equal facility ! Pray let me have the earliest
political news which you consider of importance at this crisis.
Yours ever most faithfully, P. B. S.
XLVI.— To T. L. Peacock.
Leghorn, September 2isfy \^i().
My Dear Peacock — You will have received a short letter
sent with the tragedy, and the tragedy itself by this time. I am,
you may believe, anxious to hear what you think of it, and how
the manager talks about it. I have printed in Italy 250 copies,
* The Cenci.
LETTERS. 291
because it costs, with all duties and freightage, about half what
it would cost in London, and these copies will be sent by sea.
My other reason was a belief that the seeing it in print would
enable the people at the theatre to judge more easily. Since I
last wrote to you Mr. Gisborne is gone to England for the
purpose of obtaining a situation for Henry Reveley. I have
given him a letter to you, and you would oblige me by showing
what civilities you can, and by forwarding his views, either
by advice or recommendation, as you may find opportunity.
Henry is a most amiable person, and has great talents as a
mechanic and engineer. Mr. Gisborne is a man who knows I
cannot tell how many languages, and has read almost all the
books you can think of j but all that they contain seems to be to
his mind what water is to a sieve. His liberal opinions are all
the reflections of Mrs. G.'s, a very amiable, accomplished, and
completely unprejudiced woman.
Charles Clairmont is now with us on his way to Vienna. He
has spent a year or more in Spain, where he has learnt Spanish,
and I make him read Spanish all day long. It is a most
powerful and expressive language, and I have already learnt
sufficient to read with great ease their poet Calderon. I have
read about twelve of his plays. Some of them certainly deserve
to be ranked among the grandest and most perfect productions
of the human mind. He exceeds all modern dramatists, with
the exception of Shakspeare, whom he resembles, however, in
the depth of thought and subtlety of imagination of his writings,
and in the rare power of interweaving delicate and powerful
comic traits with the most tragical situations, without diminishing
their interest. I rate him far above Beaumont and Fletcher.
I have received all the papers you sent me, and the Examiners
regularly, perfumed with muriatic acid. What an infernal
business this of Manchester ! What is to be done ? Something
assuredly. H. Hunt has behaved, I think, with great spirit and
coolness in the whole affair.
I have sent you my Prometheus^ which I do not wish to be
sent to Oilier for publication until I write to that effect. Mr.
Gisborne will bring it, as also some volumes of Spenser, and
the two last of Herodotus and Paradise Lost, which may be put
up with the others.
If my play should be accepted, don't you think it would excite
some interest, and take off the unexpected horror of the story,
by showing that the events are real, if it could be made to
appear in some paper in some form 1
You will hear from me again shortly, as I send you by
tgi LETTERS.
sea the Cencis printed, which you will be good enough to
keep. Adieu.
Yours most faithfully,
P. B. Shelley.
XLVIL— To Leigh Hunt.
Livorno^ Sept. iTth^ 1819.
My Dear Friend — We are now on the point of leaving
this place for Florence, where we have taken pleasant apart-
ments for six months, which brings us to the ist of April, the
season at which new flowers and new thoughts spring forth upon
the earth and in the mind. What is then our destination is yet
undecided. I have not seen Florence, except as one sees the
outside of the streets ; but its physiognomy indicates it to be a
city which, though the ghost of a republic, yet possesses most
amiable qualities. I wish you could meet us there in the spring,
and we would try to muster up a " li^ta brigata," which, leaving
behind them the pestilence of remembered misfortunes, might
act over again the pleasures of the Interlocutors in Boccaccio.
I have been lately reading this most divine writer. He is,
in a high sense of the word, a poet, and his language has
the rhythm and harmony of verse. I think him not equal
certainly to Dante or Petrarch, but far superior to Tasso
and Ariosto, the children of a later and of a colder day. I
consider the three first as the productions of the vigour of
the infancy of a new nation — as rivulets from the same spring
as that which fed the greatness of the republics of Florence
and Pisa, and which checked the influence of the German
emperors ; and from which, through obscurer channels, Raffaele
and Michael Angelo drew the light and the harmony of their
inspiration. When the second-rate poets of Italy wrote,
the corrupting blight of tyranny was already hanging on
every bud of genius. Energy, and simplicity, and unity of
of idea, were no more. In vain do we seek in the finest
passages of Ariosto and Tasso, any expression which at all
approaches in this respect to those of Dante and Petrarch.
How much do I admire Boccaccio 1 What descriptions of
nature are those in his little introductions to every new day !
It is the morning of life stripped of that mist of familiarity
which makes it obscure to us. Boccaccio seems to me to
have possessed a deep sense of the fair ideal of human life,
LETTERS. 293
considered in its social relations. His more serious theories
of love agree especially with mine. He often expresses things
lightly too, which have serious meanings of a very beautiful
kind. He is a moral casuist, the opposite of the Christian,
stoical, ready-made, and worldly system of morals. Do you
remember one little remark, or rather maxim of his, which
might do some good to the common narrow-minded concep-
tions of love, — " Bocca bacciata non perde ventura ; anzi
rinnuova, come fa la luna } "
We expect Mary to be confined towards the end of October.
The birth of a child will probably retrieve her from some part
of her present melancholy depression.
It would give me much pleasure to know. Mr. Lloyd. Do
you know, when I was in Cumberland, I got Southey to borrow
a copy of Berkeley from him, and I remember observing
some pencil notes in it, probably written by Lloyd, which
I thought particularly acute. One, especially, struck me as
being the assertion of a doctrine, of which even then I had
long been persuaded, and on which I had founded much of
my persuasions, as regarded the imagined cause of the
universe — " Mind cannot create, it can only perceive." Ask
him if he remembers having written it. Of Lamb you know
my opinion, and you can bear witness to the regret which I
felt, when I learned that the calumny of an enemy had deprived
me of his society whilst in England. — Oilier told me that the
Quarterly are going to review me. I suppose it will be a
pretty , and as I am acquiring a taste for humour and
drollery, I confess I am curious to see it. I have sent my
" Prometheus Unbound " to P. ; if you ask him for it he will
show it you. I think it will please you.
Whilst I went to Florence, Mary wrote, but I did not see
her letter. — Well, good b'ye. Next Monday I shall write to
you from Florence. Love to all.
Most affectionately your friend,
P. B. S.
XLVIIL— To Mrs. Gisborne.
Florence^ October i^fh or I4f/i, 1819.
My Dear Friend — The regret we feel at our absence from
you persuades me that it is a state which cannot last, and
which, so long as it must last, will be interrupted by some
294 LETTERS.
intervals, one of which is destined to be, your all coming to visit
us here. Poor Oscar ! I feel a kind of remorse to think of the
unequal love with which two animated beings regard each other,
when I experience no such sensations for him, as those which
he manifested for us. His importunate regret is, however, a
type of ours, as regards you. Our memory — if you will accept
so humble a metaphor — is for ever scratching at the door of
your absence.
About Henry and the steam-engine.* I am in torture until
this money comes from London, though I am sure that it will and
must come ; unless, indeed, my banker has broke, and then it
will be my loss, not Henry's — a little delay will mend the
matter. I would then write instantly to London an effectual
letter, and by return of post all would be set right — it would
then be a thing easily set straight — but if it were not, you know
me too well not to know that there is no personal suffering, or
degradation, or toil, or anything that can be named, with which
I do not feel myself bound to support this enterprise of Henry.
But all this rhodomontade only shows how correct Mr. Bielby's
advice was, about the discipHne necessary for my imagination.
No doubt that all will go on with mercantile and commonplace
exactness, and that you will be spared the suffering, and I the
virtue, incident to some untoward event.
I am anxious to hear of Mr. Gisborne's return, and I
anticipate the surprise and pleasure with which he will learn that
a resolution has been taken which leaves you nothing to regret
in that event. It is with unspeakable satisfaction that I reflect
that my entreaties and persuasions overcame your scruples on
this point, and that whatever advantage shall accrue from it
will belong to you, whilst any reproach due to the imprudence of
such an enterprise must rest on me. I shall thus share the
pleasure of success, and bear the blame and loss, (if such a
thing were possible,) of a reverse ; and what more can a man,
who is a friend to another, desire for himself? Let us believe
in a kind of optimism, in which we are our own gods. It is
best that Mr. Gisborne should have returned ; it is best
that I should have over-persuaded you and Henry ; it is best
that you should all live together, without any more solitary
* Shelley set on foot the building of a steam-boat, to ;ply between
Marseilles, Genoa, and Leghorn. Such an enterprise promised fortune
to his friend who undertook to build it, and the anticipation filled hitn
with delight. Unfortunately, an unforeseen complication of circum-
stances caused the design to be abandoned, when already far advanced
towards completion. — M. S.
LETTERS, 29$
attempts; it is best that this one attempt should have been
made, otherwise, perhaps, one thing which is best might not
have occurred ; and it is best that we should think all this for
the best, even though it is not ; because Hope, as Coleridge
says, is a solemn duty, which we owe alike to ourselves and to
the world — a worship to the spirit of good within, which
requires, before it sends that inspiration forth, which impresses
its likeness upon all that it creates, devoted and disinterested
homage.
A different scene is this from that in which you made the
chief character of our changing drama. We see no one, as
usual. Madame M is quiet, and we only meet her now and
then, by chance. Her daughter, not so fair, but I fear as cold,
as the snowy Florimel in Spenser, is in and out of love with
C as the winds happen to blow ; and C , who, at the
moment I happen to write, is in a high state of transitory
contentment, is setting off to Vienna in a day or two.
My >^ioo, from what mistake remains to be explained, has
not yet arrived, and the banker here is going to advance me
;^5o, on my bill at three months — all additional facilitation,
should any such be needed, for the steam-boat. I have yet seen
little of Florence. The gallery I have a design of studying
piece-meal ; one of my chief objects in Italy being the observing
in statuary and painting the degree in which, and the rules
according to which, that ideal beauty, of which we have so
intense yet so obscure an apprehension, is realised in external
forms.
Adieu. — I am anxious for Henry's first letter. Give to him
and take to yourself those sentiments, whatever they may be,
with which you know that I cannot cease to regard you.
Most faithfully and affectionately yours,
P. B. S.
I had forgotten to say that I should be very much obliged to
you, if you would contrive to send The Cenci, which are at the
printer's, to England, by the next ship. I forgot it in the hurry
of departure. — I have just heard from P., saying, that he don't
think that my tragedy will do, and that he don't much like it.
But I ought to say, to blunt the edge of his criticism, that he is
a nursling of the exact and superficial school in poetry.
If Mr. G. is returned, send the " Prometheus" with them.
296 LETTERS,
XLIX.— To C. Ollier.
Florence, Oct. 15, 18 19.
Dear Sir,
The droll remarks of the Quarterly ^ and Hunt s
kind defence, arrived as safe as such poison, and safer than such
an antidote, usually do.
I am on the point of sending to you 250 copies of a work
which I have printed in Italy ; which you will have to pay four
or five pounds duty upon, on my account. Hunt will tell you
the kind of thing it is, and in the course of the winter I shall
send directions for its publication, until the arrival of which
directions, I request that you would have the kindness not to
open the box, or, if by necessity it is opened, to abstain fro7n
observing yourself, or permitting others to observe, what it con-
tains."^ I trust this confidently to you, it being of consequence.
Meanwhile, assure yourself that this work has no reference,
direct or indirect, to politics, or religion, or personal satire, and
that this precaution is merely literary.
The Prometheus, a poem in my best style, whatever that may
amount to, will arrive with it, but in MS., which you can print
and publish in the season. It is the most perfect of my
productions.
Southey wrote the article in question, I am well aware.
Observe the impudence of the man in speaking of himself. The
only remark worth notice in this piece is the assertion that I
imitate Wordsworth. It may as well be said that Lord Byron
imitates Wordsworth, or that Wordsworth imitates Lord Byron,
both being great poets, and deriving from the new springs of
thought and feeling, which the great events of our age have
exposed to view, a similar tone of sentiment, imagery, and
expression. A certain similarity all the best writers of any
particular age inevitably are marked with, from the spirit of
that age acting on all. This I had explained in my Preface,
which the writer was too disingenuous to advert to. As to the
other trash, and particularly that lame attack on my personal
character, which was meant so ill, and which I am not the man
to feel, 'tis all nothing. I am glad, with respect to that part of
it which alludes to Hunt, that it should so have happened that I
dedicate, as you will see, a work which has all the capacities for
being popular to that excellent person. I was amused, too,
with the finale ; it is like the end of the first act of an opera,
• The italics are Shelley's own, — Z. 4".
LETTERS, 297
when that tremendous concordant discord sets up from the
orchestra, and everybody talks and sings at once. It describes
the result of my battle with their Omnipotent God ; his pulling
me under the sea by the hair of my head, like Pharaoh ; my
calling out like the devil who was ^ame to the last; swearing
and cursing in all comic and horrid oaths, like a French postillion
on Mount Cenis ; entreating everybody to drown themselves ;
pretending not to be drowned myself when I am drowned ; and,
lastly, being drowned.*
You would do me a particular kindness if you would call on
Hunt, and ask him when my parcel went, the name of the ship,
and the name of the captain, and whether he has any bill of
lading, which, if he has, you would oblige me by sending,
together with the rest of the information, by return of post,
addressed to the Post Office, Florence.
Yours very sincerely,
P. B. Shelley.
L.— To Henry Reveley.
Florence^ Oct. 28, 1819.
My Dear Henry — So it seems / am to begin the cor-
respondence, though I have more to ask than to tell.
You know our bargain ; you are to write me uncollected
letters, just as the words come, so let me have them — I like coin
from the mint — though it may be a little rough at the edges ; —
clipping is penal according to our statute.
In the first place, listen to a reproach ; you ought to have
sent me an acknowledgment of my last billet. I am very
happy to hear from Mr. Gisborne, and he knows well enough
how to interest me himself, not to need to rob me of an occasion
of hearing from you. Let you and I try if we cannot be as
punctual and business-like as the best of them. But no clipping
and coining, if you please.
Now take this that I say in a light just so serious as not to
give you pain. In fact, my dear fellow, my motive for soliciting
your correspondence, and that flowing from your own mind, and
clothed in your own words, is, that you may begin to accustom
to discipline yourself in the only practice of life in which you
appear deficient. You know that you are writing to a person
persuaded of all the confidence and respect due to your powers
* Shelley's frequent allusions to his being drowned are very
singular. — L. S.
298 LETTERS.
in those branches of science to which you have addicted yourself ;
and you will not permit a false shame with regard to the mere
mechanical arrangement of words to overbalance the advantage
arising from the free communication of ideas. Thus you will
become day by day more skilful in the management of that
instrument of their communication, on which the attainment of
a person's just rank in society depends. Do not think me
arrogant. There are subjects of the highest importance in which
you are far better qualified to instruct me, than I am qualified to
instruct you on this subject.
Well, how goes on all .? The boilers, the keel of the boat, and
the cylinder, and all the other elements of that soul which is to
guide our " monstruo de fuego y agua " over the sea ? Let ine
hear news of their birth, and how they thrive after they are born.
And is the money arrived at Mr. Webb's 1 Send me an account
of the number of crowns you realise ; as I think we had better,
since it is a transaction in this country, keep our accounts in
money of this country.
We have rains enough to set the mills going, which are
essential to your great iron bar. I suppose it is at present either
made or making.
My health is better so long as the scirocco blows, and, but for
my daily expectation of Mary's confinement, I should have been
half tempted to have come to see you. As it is, I shall wait till
the boat is finished. On the subject of your actual and your
expected progress, you will certainly allow me to hear from you.
Give my kindest regards to your mother and Mr. Gisborne — tell
the latter, whose billet I have neglected to answer, that I did so,
under the idea of addressing him in a post or two on a subject
which gives me considerable anxiety about you all. I mean the
continuance of your property in the British funds at this crisis
of approaching revolution. It is the business of a friend to say
what he thinks without fear of giving offence ; and, if I were
not a friend, argument is worth its market-price anywhere.
Believe me, my dear Henry,
Your very faithful friend,
P. B. S.
LI. — To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne.
Florence^ Oct. 28, 18 19.
My Dear Friends — I receive this morning the strange and
unexpected news, that my bill of ;^20o has been returned to Mr.
LETTERS. 299
Webb protested. Ultimately this can be nothing but delay, as
I have only drawn from my banker's hands so much as to leave
them still in possession of ;^8o, and this I positively know, and
can prove by documents. By return of post, for I have not only
written to my banker, but to private friends, no doubt Henry
will be enabled to proceed. Let him meanwhile do all that can
be done.
Meanwhile, to save time, could not money be obtained
temporarily, at Livorno, from Mr. W , or Mr. G , or any
of your acquaintance, on my bills at three or six months, indorsed
by Mr. Gisborne and Henry, so that he may go on with his
work ? If a month is of consequence, think of this.
Be of good cheer, Madonna mia, all will go well. The
inclosed is for Henry, and was written before this news, as he
will see ; but it does not, strange as it is, abate one atom of my
cheer.
Accept, dear Mr. G., my best regards.
Yours faithfully,
P. B. S.
LH.— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne.
Floreftce, Nov. 6, 18 19.
My Dear Friends — I have just finished a letter of five
sheets on Carlile's affair, and am in hourly expectation of Mary's
confinement : you will imagine an excuse for my silence.
I forbear to address you, as I had designed, on the subject of
your income as a public creditor of the English government, as
it seems you have not the exclusive management of your funds ;
and the peculiar circumstances of the delusion are such that none
but a very few persons will ever be brought to see its instability
but by the experience of loss. If I were to convince you, Henry
would probably be unable to convince his uncle. In vindication,
however, of what I have already said, allow me to turn your
attention to England at this hour.
In order to meet the national expenses, or rather that some
approach towards meeting them might seem to be made, a tax
of ;,^3,ooo,ooo was imposed. The first consequence of this has
been a defalcation in the revenue at the rate of ;^3,6oo,ooo
a-year. Were the country in the most tranquil and prosperous
state, the minister, in such a condition of affairs, must reduce
the interest of the national debt, or add to it ; a process which
would only insure the greater ultimate reduction of the interest.
300 LETTERS.
But the people are nearly in a state of insurrection, and the least
unpopular noblemen perceive the necessity of conducting a
spirit, which it is no longer possible to oppose. For submitting
to this necessity — which, be assured, the haughty aristocrats
unv^illingly did — Lord Fitzwilliam has been degraded from his
situation of Lord-Lieutenant. An additional army of 1 1,500 men
has received orders to be organised. Everything is preparing
for a bloody struggle, in which, if the ministers succeed, they
will assuredly diminish the interest of the national debt, for no
combination of the heaviest tyranny can raise the taxes for its
payment. If the people conquer, the public creditor will equally
suffer ; for it is monstrous to imagine that they will submit to
the perpetual inheritance of a double aristocracy. They will
perhaps find some crown and church lands, and appropriate the
tithes to make a kind of compensation to the public creditor.
They will confiscate the estates of their political enemies. But
all this will not pay a tenth part of their debt. The existing
government, atrocious as it is, is the surest party to which a
public creditor may attach himself. He may reason that it may
last my titne^ though in the event the ruin is more complete than
in the case of a popular revolution. I know you too well to
believe you capable of arguing in this manner ; I only reason on
how things stand.
Your income may be reduced from ;^2io to ^150, and then
;^ioo, and then, by the issue of immense quantities of paper to
save the immediate cause of one of the conflicting parties, to any
value however small ; or the source of it may be cut off at once.
The ministers had, I doubt not, long since determined to
establish an arbitrary government ; and if they had not
determined so, they have now entangled themselves in that
consequence of their instinct as rulers, and if they recede they
must perish. They are, however, not receding, and we are on
the eve of great actions.
. Kindest regards to Henry. I hope he is not stopped for want
of money, as I shall assuredly send him what he wants in a
month from the date of my last letter. I received his letter from
Pistoia, and have no other criticism to make on it, except the
severest — that it is too short. How goes on Portuguese — and
Theocritus ? I have deserted the odorous gardens of literature,
to journey across the great sandy desert of politics ; not, as you
may imagine, without the hope of finding some enchanted
paradise. In all probability, I shall be overwhelmed by one of
the tempestuous columns which are forever traversing, with the
speed of a storm, and the confusion of a chaos, that pathless.
LETTERS. 301
wilderness. You meanwhile will be lamenting in some happy
oasis that I do not return. This is out-Calderonizing Muley.
We have had lightning and rain here in plenty. I like the
Cascini very much, where I often walk alone, watching the leaves,
and the rising and falling of the Arno. I am full of all kinds of
literary plans.
Meanwhile, all yours most faithfully,
P. B. S.
LIII.— To Leigh Hunt.
Firenze, Nov. 13, 18 19.
My Dear Friend — Yesterday morning Mary brought me
a little boy. She suffered but two hours' pain, and is now so
well that it seems a wonder that she stays in bed. The babe is
also quite well, and has begun to suck. You may imagine that
this is a great relief and a great comfort to me amongst all my
misfortunes, past, present, and to come.
Since I last wrote to you, some circumstances have occurred
not necessary to explain by letter, which makes my pecuniary
condition a very painful one. The physicians absolutely forbid
my travelling to England in the winter, but I shall probably pay
you a visit in the spring. With what pleasure, among all the other
sources of regret and discomfort with which England abounds
for me, do I think of looking on the original of that kind and
earnest face, which is now opposite Mary's bed. It will be the
only thing which Mary will envy me, or will need to envy me, in
that journey, for I shall come alone. Shaking hands with you is
worth all the trouble ; the rest is clear loss.
I will tell you more about myself and my pursuits in my next
letter.
Kind love to Marianne, Bessy, and all the children. Poor
Mary begins (for the first time) to look a little consoled ; for we
have spent, as you may imagine, a miserable five months.
Good-bye, my dear Hunt.
Your affectionate friend,
P. B. S.
I have had no letter from yon fur a month.
302 LETTERS.
LIV.— To Mrs. Gisborne,
Florence^ Nov. i6, 1819.
Madonna — I have been lately voyaging in a sea without my
pilot, and although my sail has often been torn, my boat become
leaky, and the log lost, I have yet sailed in a kind of way from
island to island ; some of craggy and mountainous magnifi-
cence, some clothed with moss and flowers, and radiant with
. fountains, some barren deserts. / have been reading Calderon
without you. I have read the " Cisma de Ingalaterra," the
" Cabellos de Absolom," and three or four others. These pieces,
inferior to those we read, at least to the " Principe Constante,"
in the splendour of particular passages, are perhaps superior in
their satisfying completeness. The Cabellos de Absolom is full
of the deepest and tenderest touches of nature. Nothing can
be more pathetically conceived than the character of old David,
and the tender and impartial love, overcoming all insults and all
crimes, with which he regards his conflicting and disobedient
sons. The incest scene of Amnon and Tamar is perfectly
tremendous. Well may Calderon say in the person of the
former : —
Si sangre sin fuego hiere,
que fara sangre con fuego ?
Incest is, like many other incorrect things, a very poetical circum-
stance. It may be the excess of love or hate. It may be the defi-
ance of everything for the sake of another, which clothes itself in
the glory of the highest heroism ; or it may be that cynical rage
which, confounding the good and the bad in existing opinions,
breaks through them for the purpose of rioting in selfishness and
antipathy. Calderon, following the Jewish historians, has
represented Amnon's action in the basest point of view — he is a
prejudiced savage, acting what he abhors, and abhorring that
which is the unwilling party to his crime.
Adieu. Madonna, yours truly, P. B. S.
I transcribe you a passage from the Cisma de Ingalaterra —
spoken by " Carlos, Embaxador de Francia, enamorado de Ana
Bolena." Is there anything in Petrarch finer than the second
stanza ?*
* Porque apenas el Sol se coronaba
de nueva luz en la estacion primeva,
quando yo en sus umbrales adoraba
segundo Sol en abreviada esfera ;
LETTERS. 303
LV. — To John Gisborne.
My Dear Sir, — I envy you the first reading of Theocritus.
Were not the Greeks a glorious people ? What is there, as Job
says of the Leviathan, like unto them ? If the army of Nicias
had not been defeated under the walls of Syracuse ; if the
Athenians had, acquiring Sicily, held the balance between
Rome and Carthage, sent garrisons to the Greek colonies in the
south of Italy,- Rome might have been all that its intellectual
condition entitled it to be, a tributary, not the conqueror of
Greece ; the Macedonian power would never have attained to
the dictatorship of the civilised states of the world. Who
knows whether, under the steady progress which philosophy
and social institutions would have made, (for, in the age to
which I refer, their progress was both rapid and secure) among
la noche apenas tremula baxaba,
k solos mis deseos lisonjera,
quando un jardin, republica de flores,
era tercero fiel de mis amores.
Alli, el silencio de la noche fria,
el jazmin, que en las redes se enlazava,
el cristal de la fuente que corria,
el arroyo que d solas murmurava,
El viento que en las hojas se movia,
el Aura que en las flores respirava ;
todo era amor' ; qu^ mucho, si en tal cahna,
aves, fuentes, y flores tienen alma !
No has visto providente y officiosa,
mover el ayre iluminada aveja,
que hasta beber la purpura a la rosa
ya se acerca cobarde, y ya se alexa ?
No has visto enamorada mariposa,
dar cercos d la luz, hasta que dexa,
en monumento facil abrasadas
las alas de color tornasoladas ?
Assi mi amor, cobarde muchos dias,
tornos hizo d la rosa y a la llama ;
temor che ha sido entre cenizas frias,
tantas vezes llorado de quien ama ;
pero el amor, que vence con porfias,
y la ocasion, que con disculpas llama,
me animaron, y aveja y mariposa
queme las alas, y llegue d la rosa.
304 LETTERS.
a people of the most perfect physical organization, whether the
Christian religion would have arisen, or the barbarians have
overwhelmed the wrecks of civilisation which had survived the
conquest and tyranny of the Romans? What then should. we
have been ? As it is, all of us who are worth anything, spend
our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes,
of our youth. We are stuffed full of prejudices ; and our
natural passions are so managed, that if we restrain them we
grow intolerant and precise, because we restrain them not
according to reason, but according to error ; and if we do not
restrain them, we do all sorts of mischief to ourselves and
others. Our imagination and understanding are alike subjected
to rules the most absurd ;— so much for Theocritus and the
Greeks.
In spite of all your arguments, I wish your money were out of
the funds. This middle course which you speak of, and which
may probably have place, will amount to your losing not all
your income, nor retaining all, but have the half taken away.
I feel intimately persuaded, whatever political forms may have
place in England, that no party can continue many years,
perhaps not many months, in the administration, without
diminishing the interest of the national debt. — And once having
commenced — and having done so safely — where will it end ?
Give Henry my kindest thanks for his most interesting letter,
and bid him expect one from me by the next post.
Mary and the babe continue well. — Last night we had a
magnificent thunder storm, with claps that shook the house like
an earthquake. Both Mary and C unite with me in kindest
remembrances to all.
Most faithfully yours obliged,
P. B. S.
Florence ^ Nov. \6(h^ 1819.
LVI.— To A Lady.
[Exact date imknown.'\
" It is probable that you will be earnest to employ the sacred
talisman of language. To acquire these you are now necessitated
to sacrifice many hours of the time, when, instead of being
conversant with particles and verbs, your nature incites you to
contemplation and inquiry concerning the objects which they
LETTERS. 30s
conceal. You desire to enjoy the beauties of eloquence and
poetry — to sympathise in the original language with the insti-
tutors and martyrs of ancient freedom. The generous and
inspiriting examples of philosophy and virtue, you desire
intimately to know and feel ; not as mere facts detailing names,
and dates, and motions of the human body, but clothed in the
very language of the actors, — that language dictated by and
expressive of the passions and principles that governed their
conduct. Facts are not what we want to know in poetry, in
history, in the lives of individual men, in satire, or panegyric.
They are the mere divisions, the arbitrary points on which we
hang, and to which we refer those delicate and evanescent hues
of mind, which language delights and instructs us in precise
proportion as it expresses. What is a translation of Homer
into English ? A person who is ignorant of Greek, need only
look at Paradise Lost, or the tragedy of Lear translated into
French, to obtain an analogical conception of its worthless and
miserable inadequacy. Tacitus, or Livius, or Herodotus, are
equally undelightful and uninstructive in translation. You
require to know and to be intimate with those persons who
have acted a distinguished part to benefit, to enlighten, or even
to pervert and injure humankind. Before you can do this, four
years are yet to be consumed in the discipline of the ancient
languages, and those of modern Europe, which you only imper-
fectly know, and which conceal from your intimacy such names
as Ariosto, Tasso, Petrarch, and Macchiavelli ; or Goethe,
Schiller, Wieland, etc. The French language you, like every
other respectable woman, already know ; and if the great name
of Rousseau did not redeem it, it would have been perhaps as
well that you had remained entirely ignorant of it."
LVIL— To Henry Reveley.
Florence, Nov. lyth, 1819.
My Dear Henry — I was exceedingly interested by your
letter, and I cannot but thank you for overcoming the inaptitude
of a long disuse at my request, for my pleasure. It is a great
thing done, the successful casting of the cylinder — may it be a
happy auspice for what is to follow 1 I hope, in a few posts, to
remit the necessary money for the completion. Meanwhile, are
not those portions of the work which can be done without
101
3o6 LETTERS.
expense, saving time in their progress ? Do you think you lose
much money or time by this delay ?
All that you say of the alteration in the form of the boat
strikes me, though one of the multitude in this respect, as
improvement. I long to get aboard her, and be an unworthy
partaker in the glory of the astonishment of the Livornese, when
she returns from her cruise round Melloria. When do you
think she will be fit for sea ?
Your volcanic description of the birth of the cylinder is very
characteristic of you, and of it* One might imagine God, when
he made the earth, and saw the granite mountains and flinty
promontories flow into their craggy forms, and the splendour of
their fusion filling millions of miles of the void space, like the
tail of a comet, so looking, so delighting in his work. God
sees his machine spinning round the sun, and delights in its
success, and has taken out patents to supply all the suns in
space with the same manufacture. Your boat will be to the
ocean of water, what this earth is to the ocean of ether — a
prosperous and swift voyager.
When shall we see you all ? You not, I suppose, till your
boat is ready to sail — and then, if not before, I must, of course,
come to Livorno. Our plans for the winter are yet scarcely
defined ; they tend towards our spending February and March
at Pisa, where our communications will not be so distant, nor
so epistolary. C left us a week ago, not without many
lamentations, as all true lovers pay on such occasions. He is
to write me an account of the Trieste steam-boat, which I will
transmit to you.
Mrs. Shelley and Miss C return you their kindest
salutations, with interest.
Most affectionately yours,
P. B. S.
* I insert the extract alluded to from Mr. Reveley's letter : —
'■'■ Friday ^ I2lh Nov.
" The event is now past — both the steam cylinder and air-pump were
cast at three o'clock this afternoon. At two o'clock this morning I
repaired to the mill to see that the preliminary operations, upon which
the ultimate success of a fount greatly depends, were conducted with
proper attention. The moulds are buried in a pit, made close, before
the mouth of the furnace, so that the melted melal, when the plug is
driven in, may run easily into them, and fill up the vacant space left
between the core and the shell, in order to form the desired cylinders.
The fire was lighted in the furnace at nine, and in three hours
the metal was fused. At three o'clock it was ready to cast, the fusion
LETTERS, 307
LVIIL— To Leigh Hunt.
Florence^ Nov. 23, 181 9.
My Dear Hunt — Why don't you write to us ? I was pre-
paring to send you something for your " Indicator," but I have
been a drone instead of a bee in this business, thinking that per-
haps, as you did not acknowledge any of my late enclosures, it
would not be welcome to you, whatever I might send.
What a state England is in ! But you will never write
politics. I don't wonder j but I wish, then, that you would
wri . paper in the " Examiner " on the actual state of the
country, and what, under all circumstances of the conflicting
passions and interests of men, we aie to expect. Not what we
ought to expect, nor what, if so and so were to happen, we
might expect ; — but what, as things are, there is reason to
believe will come ; — and send it me for my information. Every
word a man has to say is valuable to the public now ; and thus
you will at once gratify your friend, nay, instruct, and either
exhilarate him, or force him to be resigned, and awaken the
minds of the people.
I have no spirits to write what I do not know whether you
will care much about ; I know well that if I were in great
misery, poverty, etc., you would think of nothing else but how
to amuse and relieve me. You omit me if I am prosperous.
I could laugh, if I found a joke, in order to put you in good-
being remarkably rapid, owing to the perfection of the furnace. The
metal was also heated to an extreme degree, boiling with fury, and
seeming to dance with the pleasure of running into its proper form:
The plug was struck, and a massy stream of a bluish dazzling whiteness
filled the moulds in the twinkling of a shooting star. The castings will
not be cool enough to be drawn up till to-morrow afternoon ; but, to
judge from all appearances, I expect them to be perfect."
*' Saturday^ I'^th Nov.
"They have been excavated and drawn up. I have examined them
and found them really perfect ; they are massive and strong to bear any
usage and sea-water, in scecula sceculorum. I am now going on gently
with the brass-work, which does not require any immediate expenses,
and which I attend to entirely myself. I have no workmen about me
at present.
'* With kindest salutations to Mrs. Shelley and Miss C,
" I remain, most truly,
" Your obliged friend and devoted servant,
"Henry W. Reveley."
—M. S,
3o8 LETTERS.
humour with me after my scolding ; in good-humour enough to
write to us. . . . Affectionate love to and from all. This ought
not only to be the Vale of a letter, but a superscription over the
gate of life.
Your sincere friend,
P. B. Shelley.
I send you a sonnet. I don't expect you to publish it, but you
may show it to whom you please.
LIX.— To Leigh Hunt.
Florence, November, 1819.
My Dear Friend— Two letters, both bearing date Oct. 20,
arrive on the same day ; one is always glad of twins.
We hear of a box arrived at Genoa with books and clothes ;
it must be yours. Meanwhile the babe is wrapt in flannel petti-
coats, and we get on with him as we can. He is small, healthy,
and pretty. Mary is recovering rapidly. Marianne, I hope, is
quite well.
You do not tell me whether you have received my lines on
the Manchester affair. They are of the exoteric species, and
are meant, not for the " Indicator," but the " Examiner." I
would send for the former, if you like, some letters on such sub-
jects of art as suggest themselves in Italy. Perhaps I will, at a
venture, send you a specimen of what I mean next post. I
enclose you in this a piece for the " Examiner," or let it share
the fate, whatever that fate may be, of the " Masque of
Anarchy."*
I am sorry to hear that you have employed yourself in trans-
lating the " Aminta," though I doubt not it will be a just and
beautiful translation. You ought to write Amintas. You ought
to exercise your fancy in the perpetual creation of new forms of
gentleness and beauty.
With respect to translation, even / will not be seduced by it ;
although the Greek plays, and some of the ideal dramas of
Calderon, (with which I have lately, and with inexpressible
wonder and delight, become acquainted) are perpetually tempt-
ing me to throw over their perfect and glowing forms the grey
veil of my own words. And you know me too well to suspect
• Peter Bell the Third.— if. -S'.
LETTERS. 309
that I refrain from a belief that what I could substitute for them
would deserve the regret which yours would, if suppressed. I
have confidence in my moral sense alone ; but that is a kind of
originality. I have only translated the Cyclops of Euripides,
when I could absolutely do nothing else ; and the Symposium
of Plato, which is the delight and astonishment of all who read
it ; I mean the original, or so much of the original as is seen in
my translation, not the translation itself.
I think I have had an accession of strength since my residence
in Italy, though the disease itself in the side, whatever it may
be, is not subdued. Some day we shall all return from Italy.
I fear that in England things will be carried violently by the
rulers, and they will not have learned to yield in time to the
spirit of the age. The great thing to do is to hold the balance
between popular impatience and tyrannical obstinacy ; to incul-
cate with fervour both the right of resistance and the duty of
forbearance. You know my principles incite me to take all the
good I can get in politics, for ever aspiring to something more.
I am one of* those whom nothing will fully satisfy, but who are
ready to be partially satisfied in all that is practicable. We
shall see.
Give Bessy a thousand thanks from me for writing out in that
pretty neat hand your kind and powerful defence. Ask what
she would like best from Italian land. We mean to bring you
all something ; and Mary and I have been wondering what it
shall be. Do you, each of you, choose.
Adieu, my dear friend,
Yours affectionately ever,
P. B. S.
LX.— From Shelley to Mr. Ollier.
Florence J December i$tkj 18 19.
Dear Sir — Pray, give Mr. Procter my best thanks for his
polite attention. I read the article you enclosed with the
pleasure which every one feels, of course, when they are praised
or defended ; though the praise would have given me more
pleasure if it had been less excessive. I am glad, however, to
see the Quarterly cut up, and that by one of their own people.
Poor Southey has enough to endure. Do you know, I think
the article in Blackwood could not have been written by a
favourer of Government and a religionist. I don't believe any
3IO LETTERS,
such one could sincerely like my writings. After all, is it not
some friend in disguise, and don't you know who wrote it ?
There is one very droll thing in the Quarterly. They say
that " my chariot-wheels are broken." Heaven forbid 1 My
chariot, you may tell them, was built by one of the best makers
in Bond Street, and it has gone several thousand miles in
perfect security. What a comical thing it would be to make
the following advertisement : — " A report having prevailed, in
consequence of some insinuations in the Quarterly Review^ that
Mr. Shelley's chariot wheels are broken, Mr. Charters, of Bond
Street, begs to assure the public that they, after having carried
him through Italy, France, and Switzerland, still continue in
excellent repair."
When the box comes, you may write a note to Mr. Peacock ;
or it would be better to call on him, and ask if my tragedy is
accepted? If not, publish what you find in the box. I think it
will succeed as a publication. Let Prometheus be printed
without delay. You will receive the additions, which Mrs. S.
is now transcribing, in a few days. It has already been read to
many persons. My Prometheus is the best thing I ever wrote.
Pray, what have you done with Peter Bell f Ask Mr. Hunt
for it, and for some other poems of a similar character I sent
him to give you to publish. I think Peter not bad in his way ;
but perhaps no one will believe in anything in the shape of a
joke from me.
Of course with my next box you will send me the Dramatic
Sketches* I have only seen the extracts in the Examiner.
They have some passages painfully beautiful When I consider
the vivid energy to which the minds of men are awakened in
this age of ours, ought I not to congratulate myself that I am a
contemporary with names which are great, or will be great, or
ought to be great ?
Have you seen my poem, Julian and Maddalo f Suppose
you print that in the manner of Hunt's Hero and Leander; for
I mean to write three other poems, the scenes of which will be
laid at Rome, Florence, and Naples, but the subjects of which
will be all drawn from dreadful or beautiful realities, as that of
this was.
If I have health — but I will neither boast nor promise. I am
preparing an octavo on reform — a commonplace kind of book —
which, now that I see the passion of party will postpone the
great struggle till another year, I shall not trouble myself to
* By B. W. Procter— (Barry Cornwall).
LETTERS. 311
finish for this season. I intend it to be an instructive and
readable book, appealing from the passions to the reason of
men.
Yours very sincerely,
P. B. S.
LXL— To Henry Reveley.
Florence^ iZth Dec.^ 1819.
My Dear Henry — You see, as I said, it only amounts to
delay, all this abominable entanglement. I send you 484
dollars, or ordinary francesconi, I suppose, but you will tell me
what you receive in Tuscan money, if they are not — the produce
of ;^ioo. So my heart is a little lightened, which, I assure you,
was heavy enough until this moment, on your account. I write
to Messrs. Ward to pay you.
I have received no satisfactory letter from my bankers, but I
must expect it every week — or, at least, in a month from this
date, when I will not fail to transmit you the remainder of what
may be necessary.
Everybody here is talking of a steam-ship which is building
at Leghorn ; one person said, as if he knew the whole affair,
that he was waiting in Tuscany to take his departure to Naples
in it. Your name has not, to my knowledge, been mentioned.
I think you would do well to encourage this publicity.
I have better health than I have known for a long time-
ready for any stormy cruise. When will the ship be ready to
sail ? We have been feeding ourselves with the hope that Mr.
Gisborne and your mother would have paid us their promised
visit. I did not even hope, perhaps not even wish, that you
should, until the engine is finished. My regret at this failure
has several times impelled me to go to Leghorn — but I have
always resisted the temptation. Ask them, entreat them, from
me, to appoint some early day. We have a bed and room, and
everything prepared.
I write in great haste, as you may see. Ever believe me, my
dear Henry, your attached friend,
P. B. S.
3ia LETTERS.
LXII.— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne.
Florence^ Dec. lyd^ 1819.
My Dear Friends— I suffered more pain than it would be
manly to confess, or than you can easily conceive, from that
wretched uncertainty about the money. At last, however, it is
certain that you will encounter no further check in the receiving
supplies, and a weight is taken from my spirits, which, in spite
of many other causes of discomfort, makes itself known to have
been a heavy load, by the lightness which I now feel in writing
to you.
So the steam-boat will take three months to finish? The
vernal equinox will be over by that time, and the early wakening
of the year have paved the Mediterranean with calm. Among
other circumstances to regret in this delay, it is so far well that
our first cruise will be made in serene weather.
I send you enclosed a mandate for 396 francesconi, which is
what M. Torlonia incorrectly designates a hundred pounds —
but as we count in the money of the country, that need make no
difference to us.
I have just finished an additional act to " Prometheus," which
Mary is now transcribing, and which will be enclosed for your
inspection before it is transmitted to the bookseller. I am
engaged in a political work — I am busy enough, and if the
faculties of my mind were not imprisoned within a mind, whose
bars are daily cares and vulgar difficulties, I might yet do
something — but as it is
Mary is well — but for this affair in London I think her spirits
would be good. What shall I— what can I — what ought I to
do ? You cannot picture to yourself my perplexity.
Adieu, my dear friends.
Ever yours, faithfully attached,
P. B. S.
LXII I.— To C. Ollier.
Pisa, Jan. 20th, 1820.
Dear Sir— I send you the Witch 0/ Atlas, a fanciful poem,
which, if its merit be measured by the labour which it cost,
is worth nothing ; and the errata of Prometheus, which I ought
^o h^ve sent long since — a formidable list, as you will see.
LETTERS. 313
I have lately, and but lately, received Mr. Gisbome's parcel,
with reviews, etc. I request you to convey to Mr. Procter my
thanks for the present of his works, as well as for the pleasure
which I received from the perusal, especially of the Dramatic
Sketches.
The reviews of my Cenci (though some of them, and
especially that marked "John Scott," are written with great
malignity) on the whole give me as much encouragement
as a person of my habits of thinking is capable of receiving
from such a source, which is, inasmuch as they coincide with,
and confirm, my own decisions. My next attempt (if I should
write more) will be a drama, in the composition of which I
shall attend to the advice of my critics, to a certain degree.
But I doubt whether I shall write more. I could be content
either with the Hell or the Paradise of poetry \ but the
torments of its purgatory vex me, without exciting my powers
sufficiently to put an end to the vexation.
I have also to thank you for the present of one or two
of your publications. I am enchanted with your Literary
Miscellany^ although the last article it contains has excited
my polemical faculties so violently, that the moment I get rid
of my ophthalmia, I mean to set about an answer to it, which
I will send to you, if you please. It is very clever, but, I think,
very false.* Who is your commentator on the German
Drama ? He is a powerful thinker, though I differ from him
toto ccelo about the Devils of Dante and Milton. If you know
him personally, pray ask him from me what he means by
receiving the spirit into mej\ and (if really it is any good)
how one is to get at it. I was immeasurably amused by the
quotation from Schlegel about the way in which the popular
faith is destroyed — first the Devil, then the Holy Ghost, then
God the Father. I had written a Lucianic essay to prove the
same thing. There are two beautiful stories, too, in this
Miscellany. It pleased me altogether infinitely. I was also
much pleased with the Retrospective Review — that is, with all
the quotations from old books in it ; but it is very ill executed.
* The article (which was written by Mr. Peacock) was an Essay on
Poetry, which the writer regarded as a worn-out delusion of barbarous
times. — Z. S.
t The writer was the late Archdeacon Hare, who, despite his
orthodoxy, was a great admirer of Shelley's genius. He contended
that Milton erred in making the Devil a majestical being, and hoped
that Shelley would in time humble his soul, and " receive the spirit
into him." — L, S.
314 LETTERS.
When the spirit moves you, write and give me an account of
the ill success of my verses.
Who wrote the review in your publication of my Cencif It
was written in a friendly spirit, and, if you know the author, I
wish you would tell him from me how much obliged I am to him
for this spirit, more gratifying to me than any literary laud.
Dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
P. B. S.
LXIV.— To John Gisborne.
My Dear Sir — We have suddenly taken the determination
to avail ourselves of this lovely weather to approach you as far
as Pisa. I need not assure you — unless my malady should
violently return — you will see me at Leghorn.
We embark j' arid I promise myself the delight of the sky,
the water, and the mountains. I must suffer at any rate, but
I expect to suffer less in a boat than in a carriage. I have
many things to say, which let me reserve till we meet.
I sympathise in all your good news, as I have done in your
ill. Let Henry take care of himself, and not, desiring to
combine too many advantages, check the progress of his
recovery, the greatest of all.
Remember me affectionately to him and to Mrs. Gisborne,
and accept for yourself my unalterable sentiments of regard.
Meanwhile, consider well your pians^ which I only half
understand.
Ever most faithfully yours,
P. B. Shelley.
Florence^ 2lth Jan.^ 1820.
LXV.— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne.
Pisa, ()th Feb., 1820.
Pray let us see you soon, or our threat may cost both us and
you something — a visit to Livorno. The stage direction on the
present occasion is, (exit Moonshine) and enter Wall ; or rather
four walls, who surround and take prisoners the Galan and
Dama.
LETTERS. 315
Seriously, pray do not disappoint us. We shall watch the
sky, and the death of the scirocco must be the "birth of your
arrival.
Mary and I are going to study mathematics. We design to
take the most compendious, yet certain methods of arriving at
the great results. We believe that your right-angled Triangle
will contain the solution of the problem of how to proceed.
Do not write, but come. Mary is too idle to write, but all
that she has to say is corne. She joins with me in condemning
the moonlight plan. Indeed we ought not to be so selfish as to
allow you to come at all, if it is to cost you all the fatigue and
annoyance of returning the same night. But it will not be— so
adieu.
LXVL— To C. Ollier.
Pisa, March 6th, 1820.
Dear Sir — I do not hear that you have received Prometheus
and the Cenci ; I therefore think it safest to tell you how and
when to get them if you have not yet done so.
Give the bill of lading Mr. Gisborne sent you to a broker in
the City, whom you employ to get the package, and to pay the
duty on the unbound books. The ship sailed in the middle of
December, and will assuredly have arrived long before now.
Prometheus Unbound, I must tell you, is my favourite poem ;
I charge you, therefore, specially to pet him and feed him with
fine ink and good paper. Cenci is written for the multitude, and
ought to sell well. I think, if I may judge by its merits, the
Prometheus cannot sell beyond twenty copies. I hear nothing
either from Hunt, or you, or any one. If you condescend to
write to me, mention something about Keats.
Allow me particularly to request you to send copies of whatever
I publish to Horace Smith.
Maybe you will see me in the summer ; but in that case I
shall certainly return to this "Paradise of Exiles" by the ensuing
winter.
If any of the Reviews abuse me, cut them out and send them.
If they praise, you need not trouble yourself. I feel ashamed if
I could believe that I should deserve the latter ; the former, I
flatter myself, is no more than a just tribute. If Hunt praises
me, send it, because that is of another character of thing.
Dear Sir, yours very truly,
Percy B. Shelley.
3l6 LETTERS.
■ LXVII.— To C. Ollier.
Pisa^ March i^th^ 1820.
Dear Sir,
I am anxious to hear that you have received the
parcel from Leghorn, and to learn what you are doing with the
Proinethetis. If it can be done without great difficulty, I should
be very glad that the revised sheets might be sent by the post
to me at Leghorn. It might be divided into four partitions,
sending me four or five sheets at once.
My friends here have great hopes that the Cenci will succeed
as a publication. It was refused at Drury Lane,* although
expressly written for theatrical exhibition, on a plea of the story
being too horrible. I believe it singularly fitted for the stage.
Let me request you to give me frequent notice of my literary
interests also.
I am, dear Sir,
Your very obliged servant,
Percy B. Shelley.
I hope you are not implicated in the late plot.f Not having
heard from Hunt, I am afraid that he, at least, has something
to do with it. It is well known, since the time of Jaffier, that a
conspirator has no time to think about his friends.
LXVII I.— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne.
Pisa^ April 22,^ 1820.
My Dear Friends — We are much pained to hear of the
illness you all seem to have been suffering, and still more at the
apparent dejection of your last letter. We are in daily expecta-
tion this lovely weather of seeing you, and I think the change of
air and scene might be good for your health and spirits, even if
lue cannot enliven you. I shall have some business at Livorno
soon ; and I thought of coming to fetch you, but I have changed
my plan, and mean to return with you, that I may save myself
two journeys.
I have been thinking, and talking, and reading Agriculture
* This is apparently a slip of the pen for Covent Garden, — L, S.
t The Cato Street Conspiracy.— Z. S.
LETTERS. 317
this last week. But I am very anxious to see you, especially
now as instead of six hours, you give us thirty-six, or perhaps
more. I shall hear of the steam-engine, and you will hear of
our plans when we meet, which will be in so short a time, thai
I neither inquire nor communiate.
Ever affectionately yours,
P. B. Shelley.
LXIX.— To C. Ollier.
Pisa^ May i/\ih, 1820.
Dear Sir,
I reply to your letter by return of post, to confirm
what I said in a former letter respecting a new edition of the
Cenci^ which ought by all means to be instantly urged forward.
I see by your account that I have been greatly mistaken in
my calculations of the profit of my writings. As to the trifle
due to me, it may as well remain in your hands.
As to the printing of the Prometheus^ be it as you will. But,
in this case, I shall repose or trust in your care respecting the
correction of the press ; especially in the lyrical parts, where a
minute error would be of much consequence. Mr. Gisbome
will revise it ; he heard it recited, and will therefore more
readily seize any error.
If I had even intended to publish y«//<«;^ and Maddalo with
my name, yet I would not print it with Prometheus. It would
not harmonize. It is an attempt in a different style, in which I
am not yet sure of myself — a sermo pedestris way of treating
human nature, quite opposed to the idealisms of that drama.
If you print Julian and Maddalo, I wish it to be printed in
some unostentatious form, accompanied with the fragment of
Athanase, and exactly in the manner in which I sent it ; and I
particularly desire that my name be not annexed to the first
edition of it, in any case.
li Peter Bell be printed (you can best judge if it will sell or
no, and there would be no other reason for printing such a
trifle), attend, I pray you, particularly to completely concealing
the author ; and for Emma read Betty, as the name of Peter's
sister. Emma, I recollect, is the real name of the sister of a
great poet who might be mistaken for Peter. I ought to say
that I send you poems in a few posts, to print at the end of
Prometheus^ better fitted for that purpose than any in your
possession.
3i8 LETTERS.
Keats, I hope, is going to show himself a great poet ; like
the sun, to burst through the clouds, which, though dyed in the
finest colours of the air, obscured his rising. The Gisbornes
will bring me from you copies of whatever may be published
when they leave England.
Dear Sir,
Yours faithfully,
P. B. Shelley.
LXX.— To T. L. Peacock.
Pisa^ May, 1820.
My Dear Peacock— I congratulate you most sincerely on
your choice and on your marriage. ... I was very much
amused by your laconic account of the affair. It is altogether
extremely like the denouement of one of your own novels, and as
such serves to a theory I once imagined, that in everything
any man ever wrote, spoke, acted, or imagined, is contained, as
it were, on allegorical idea of his own future life, as the acorn
contains the oak.
But not to ascend in my balloon. I have written to ask him
to pay me a visit, and though I had no hope of success, I com-
missioned him to endeavour to bring you. This becomes still
more improbable from your news ; but I need not say that your
amiable mountaineer would make you still more welcome. My
friends, the Gisbornes, are now really on their way to London,
where they propose to stay only six weeks. I think you will
like Mrs. Gisborne. Henry is an excellent fellow, but not very
communicative. If you find anything in the shape of dulness or
otherwise to endure in Mr. Gisborne, endure it for the lady's
sake and mine ; but for Heaven's sake 1 do not let him know
that I think him stupid. Indeed, perhaps I do him an injustice.*
Hogg will find it very agreeable (if he postpones his visit so
long, or if he visits me at all) to join them on their return. I
wish you, and Hogg, and Hunt, and — I know not who besides —
would come and spend some months with me together in this
wonderful land.
* I think he did. I found Mr. Gisborne an agreeable and well-
informed man. He and his amiable and accomplished wife have long
been dead. I should not have printed what Shelley says of him if any
person were living whom the remembrance could annoy. — T L. P,
LETTERS. 319
We know little of England here. I take in Galignani's paper,
which is filled with extracts from the Courier^ and from those
accounts it appears probable that there is but little unanirrxity
in the mass of the people ; with on the one side the success of
ministers, and on the other the exasperation of the poor.
I see my tragedy has been republished in Paris ; if that is
the case, it ought to sell in London ; but I hear nothing from
Oilier.
I have suffered extremely this winter ; but I feel myself most
materially better at the return of spring. I am on the whole
greatly benefited by my residence in Italy, and but for certain
moral causes should probably have been enabled to re-establish
my system completely. Believe me, my dear Peacock, yours
very sincerely,
P. B. S.
Pray make my best regards acceptable to your new
companion.
LXXI.— To John Gisborne,
(LONDON.)
Pisa, May 26th, 1820.
My Dear Friends — I write to you thus early, because I
have determined to accept of your kind offer about the cor-
rection of " Prometheus." The bookseller makes difficulties
about sending the proofs to me, and to whom else can I so well
entrust what I am so much interested in having done well ; and
to whom would I prefer to owe the recollection of an additional
kindness done to me ? I enclose you two little papers of
corrections and additions ; — I do not think you will find any
difficulty in interpolating them into their proper places.
Well, how do you like London, and your journey ; the Alps
in their beauty and their eternity -, Paris in its slight and
transitory colours ; and the wearisome plains of France — and
the moral people with whom you drank tea last night? Above
all, how are you ? And of the last question, believe me, we are
anxiously waiting for a reply — until which I will say nothing,
nor ask anything. I rely on the journal with as much security
as if it were already written.
I am just returned from a visit to Leghorn, Casciano, and
our old fortress at Sant' Elmo. I bought the vases you saw
320 LETTERS.
for about twenty sequins less than Micale asked, and had them
packed up, and, by the polite assistance of your friend, Mr.
Guebhard, sent them on board. I found your Giuseppe very
useful in all this business. He got me tea and breakfast, and I
slept in your house, and departed early the next morning for
Casciano. Everything seems in excellent order at Casa Ricci
— garden, pigeons, tables, chairs, and beds. As I did not find
my bed sealed up, I left it as I found it. What a glorious
prospect you had from the windows of Sant' Elmo 1 The
enormous chain of the Apennines, with its many-folded
ridges, islanded in the misty distance of the air ; the sea, so
immensely distant, appearing as at your feet ; and the pro-
digious expanse of the plain of Pisa, and the dark green
marshes lessened almost to a strip by the height of the blue
mountains overhanging them. Then the wild and unreclaimed
fertility of the foreground, and the chestnut trees, whose vivid
foliage made a sort of resting-place to the sense before it darted
itself to. the jagged horizon of this prospect. I was altogether
delighted. I had a respite from my nervous symptoms, which
was compensated to me by a violent cold in the head. There
was a tradition about you at Sant' Elmo — An English family
that had lived here in the time of the French. The doctor, too,
at the Bagni, knew you. The house is in a most dilapidated
condition, but I suppose all that is curable.
We go to the Bagni* next month— but still direct to Pisa as
safest. I shall write to you the ultimates of my commission in
my next letter. I am undergoing a course of the Pisan baths,
on which I lay no singular stress — but they soothe. I ought to
have peace of mind, leisure, tranquillity ; this I expect soon.
Our anxiety about Godwin is very great, and any information
that you could give a day or two earlier than he might,
respecting any decisive event in his law-suit, would be a great
relief. Your impressions about Godwin, (I speak especially to
Madonna mia, who had known him before), will especially
interest me. You know that added years only add to my
admiration of his intellectual powers, and even the moral
resources of his character. Of my other friends I say nothing.
To see Hunt is to like him ; and there is one other recommenda-
tion which he has to you, he is my friend. To know H -, if
any one can know him, is to know something very unlike,
and inexpressibly superior, to the great mass of men.
Will Henry write me an adamantine letter, flowing not like
* Baths of natural warm spring, distant four miles from Pisa, and
called indifferently Bagni di Pisa, and Bagni di San GiuHanc— il/. S,
LETTERS. 321
the words of Sophocles, with honey, but molten brass and iron,
and bristling with wheels and teeth ? I saw his steam-boat
asleep under the walls. I was afraid to waken it, and ask it
whether it was dreaming of him, for the same reason that I
would have refrained from awakening Ariadne, after Theseus
had left her — unless I had been Bacchus.
Affectionately and anxiously yours,.
P. B. S.
LXXII.— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne,
(LONDON.)
My Dear Friends — I am to a certain degree indifferent as
to the reply to our last proposal, and, therefore, will not allude
to it. Permit me only on subjects of this nature to express one
sentiment, which you would have given me credit for, even if
not expressed. Let no considerations of my interest, or any
retrospect to the source from which the funds were supplied,
modify your decision as to returning and pursuing or abandon-
ing the adventure of the steam-engine. My object was solely
your true advantage, and it is when I am baffled of this, by any
attention to a mere form, that I shall be ill-requited. Nay,
more, I think it for your interest, should you obtain almost
whatever situation for Henry, to accept dementi's proposal,
and remain in England ; — not without accepting it, for it does
no more than balance the difference of expense between Italy
and London ; and if you have any trust in the justice of my
moral sense, and believe that in what concerns true honour and
virtuous conduct in life, I am an experienced counsellor, you
will not hesitate — these things being equal — to accept this
proposal. The opposition I made, while you were in Italy, to
the abandonment of the steam-boat project, was founded, you
well know, on the motives which have influenced everything
that ever has guided, or ever will guide anything that I can do
or say respecting you. I thought it against Henry's interest.
I think it now against his interest that he and you should
abandon your prospects in England. As to us — we are un-
certain people, who are chased by the spirits of our destiny
from purpose to purpose, like clouds by the wind.
There is one thing more to be said. If you decide to remain
in England, assuredly it would be foolish to return. Your
journey would cost you between ;^ioo and ^200, a sum far
102
322 . LETTERS.
greater than you could expect to save by the increased price by
which you would sell your things. Remit the matter to me, and
I will cast off my habitual character, and attend to the minutest
points. With Mr. G 's, devil take his name, I can't write it,
— you know who's, assistance, all this might be accomplished in
such a manner as to save a very considerable sum. Though I
shall suffer from your decision in the proportion as your society
is delightful to me, I cannot forbear expressing my persuasion,
that the time, the expense, and the trouble of returning to Italy,
if your ultimate decision be to settle in London, ought all to be
spared. A year, a month, a week, at Henry's age, and with his
purposes, ought not to be unemployed. It was the depth with
which I felt this truth, which impelled me to incite him to this
adventure of the steam-boat.
LXXIIL— To T. L. Peacock.
Leghorn^ July 12M, 1820.
My Dear Peacock — I remember you said that when
married you were afraid you would see or hear but little of him.
" There are two voices," says Wordsworth, " one of the moun-
tains and one of the sea, each a mighty voice." So you have
two wives — one of the mountains, all of whose claims I perfectly
admit, whose displeasure I deprecate, and from whom I feel
assured that I have nothing to fear : the other of the sea,
perhaps, makes you write so much, that you have not a scrawl
to spare. I make bold to write to you on the news that you are
correcting my Prometheus^ for which I return thanks. I hear of
you from Mr. Gisborne, but from you I do not hear.
Nothing, I think, shows the generous gullibility of the English
nation more than their having adopted her Sacred Majesty ar
the heroine of the day, in spite of all their prejudices and
bigotry. . I, for my part, of course wish no harm to happen to
her, even if she has, as I firmly believe, amused herself in a
manner rather indecorous with any courier or baron. But I
cannot help adverting to it as one of the absurdities of royalty,
that a vulgar woman, with all those low tastes which prejudice
considers as vices, and a person whose habits and manners
every one would shun in private life, without any redeeming
virtues, should be turned into a heroine because she is a queen,
or, as a collateral reason, because her husband is a king ; and
LETTERS. 323
he, no less than his ministers, are so odious that everything,
however disgusting, which is opposed to them, is admirable.
The Paris paper, which I take in, copied some excellent remarks
from the Examiner about it.
We are just now occupying the Gisbornes' house at Leghorn,
and I have turned Mr. Reveley's workshop into my study. The
Libecchio here howls like a chorus of fiends all day, and the
weather is just pleasant, — not at all hot, the days being very
misty, and the nights divinely serene. I have been reading
with much pleasure the Greek romances. The best of them is
the pastoral of Longus : but they are all very entertaining, and
would be delightful if they were less rhetorical and ornate. I
am translating in ottava rima the Hymn to Mercury of Homer.
Of course my stanza precludes a literal translation. My next
effort will be, that it should be legible — a quality much to be
desired in translations.
I am told that the magazines, etc., blaspheme me at a great
rate. I wonder why I write verses, for nobody reads them. It
is a kind of disorder, for which the regular practitioners
prescribe what is called a torrent of abuse ; but I fear that can
hardly be considered as a specific.
I enclose two additional poems, to be added to those printed
at the end of Prometheus : and I send them to you, for fear
Oilier might not know what to do in case he objected to some
expressions in the fifteenth and sixteenth stanzas ;* and that you
would do me the favour to insert an asterisk or asterisks, with
as little expense to the sense as may be. The other poem I
send to you, not to make two letters. I want Jones's Greek
Grammar very much for Mary, who is deep in Greek. I
thought of sending for it in sheets by the post ; but as I find it
would cost as much as a parcel, I would rather have a parcel,
including it and some other books, which you would do me a
great favour by sending by the first ship. Never send us more
reviews than two back on any of Lord Byron's works, as we
get them here. — Believe me, my dear Peacock,
Sincerely and affectionately yours,
P. B. S.
Jones's Greek Grammar; Schrevelii Lexicon; The Greek
Exercises; Melincourt^ and Headlong Hall; papers, Indi-
cators^ and whatever else you may think interesting. Godwin'*
Answer to Malthus^ if out.
* These were the 15th and i6th stanzas of the Ode to Liberty. — T. L. P,
324 LETTERS.
LXXIV.— To Mrs. Shelley,
(LEGHORN.)
My Dear Love — I believe I shall have taken a very pleasant
and spacious apartment at the Bagni for three months. It is as
all the others are — dear. I shall give forty or forty-five sequins
for the three months, but as yet I do not know which. I could
get others something cheaper, and a great deal worse ; but if
we would write, it is requisite to have space.
To-morrow evening, or the following morning, you will
probably see me. T is planning a journey to England to
secure his property in the event of a revolution, which, he is
persuaded, is on the eve of exploding. I neither believe that,
nor do I fear that the consequences will be so immediately
destructive to the existing forms of social order. Money will be
delayed, and the exchange reduced very low, and my annuity
and Mrs. M.'s, on account of these being money ^ will be in some
danger ; but land is quite safe. Besides, it will not be so rapid.
Let us hope we shall have a reform. T will be lulled into
security, while the slow progress of things is still flowing on,
after this affair of the Queen may appear to be blown over.
There are bad news from Palermo : the soldiers resisted the
people, and a terrible slaughter, amounting, it is said, to four
thousand men, ensued. The event, however, was as it should
be. Sicily, like Naples, is free. By the brief and partial
accounts of the Florence paper, it appears that the enthusiasm
of the people was prodigious, and that the women fought from
the houses, raining down boiling oil on the assailants.
I am promised a bill on Vienna on the 5th, the day on which
my note will be paid, and the day on which I purpose to leave
Leghorn. Mrs. M. is very unhappy at the idea of T.'s going to
England, though she seems to feel the necessity of it. Some
time or other he must go to settle his affairs, and they seem to
agree that this is the best opportunity. / have no thought
of leaving Italy. The best thing we can do is to save money,
and, if things take a decided turn, (which I am convinced they
will at last, but not perhaps for two or three years,) it will be
time for me to assert my rights, and preserve my annuity.
Meanwhile, another event may decide us. Kiss sweet babe,
and kiss yourself for me — I love you affectionately.
P. B. S.
Casa Silva^
Sunday morning^ lyrdjuly^ 1820.
LETTERS. 325
I have taken the house for forty sequins for three months — a
good bargain, and a very good house as things go — this is
about thirteen sequins a-month. To-morrow I go to look over
the inventory ; expect me therefore on Tuesday morning.
Sunday evening.
LXXV.— To Mrs. Shelley,
(BAGNI DI SAN GIULIANO.)
I AM afraid, my dearest, that I shall not be able to be with
you so soon as to-morrow evening, though I shall use every
exertion. Del Rosso I have not seen, nor shall until this even-
ing. Jackson I have, and he is to drink tea with us this
evening, and bring the Constitutionnel.
You will have seen the papers, but I doubt that they will not
contain the latest and most important news. It is certain, by
private letters from merchants, that a serious insurrection has
broken out at Paris, and the reports last night are, that an
attack made by the populace on the Tuileries still continued
when the last accounts came away. At Naples the consti-
tutional party have declared to the Austrian minister, that if
the Emperor should make war on them, their first action would
be to put to death all the members of the royal family — a
necessary and most just measure, when the forces of the com-
batants, as well as the merits of their respective causes, are so
unequal. That kings should be everywhere the hostages for
liberty were admirable.
What will become of the Gisbornes, or of the English at
Paris ? How soon will England itself, and perhaps Italy, be
caught by the sacred fire t And what, to come from the solar
system to a grain of sand, shall we do f
Kiss babe for me, and your own self. I am somewhat better,
but my side still vexes me — a little.
Your affectionate S.
[Leghorn'], Casa Ricci, Sept. ist, 1820.
LXXVL— To James Ollier.
Fi'say November loth, 1820.
Dear Sir — Mr. Gisborne has sent me a copy of the Pro-
metheus^ which is certainly most beautifully printed. It is to be
326 LETTERS.
regretted that the errors of the press are so numerous, and in
many respects so destructive of the sense of a species of poetry
which, I fear, even without this disadvantage, very few will
understand or like. I shall send you the list of errata in a day
or two.
I send some poems to be added to the pamphlet of Julian
and Maddalo. I think you have some other smaller poems
belonging to that collection, and I believe you know that I do
not wish my name to be printed on the title-page, though I
have no objection to my being known as the author.
I enclose also another poem, which I do not wish to be
printed with Julian and Maddalo^ but at the end of the second
edition of the Cenci^ or of any other of my writings to which my
name is affixed, if any other should at present have arrived ata
second edition, which I do not expect. I have a purpose in
this arrangement, and have marked the poem I mean by a
cross.
I can sympathise too feelingly in your brother's misfortune.*
It has been my hard fate also to watch the gradual death of a
beloved child, and to survive him. Present my respects to your
brother.
My friend Captain Medwin is with me, and has shown me a
poem on Indian hunting, which he has sent you to publish. It
is certainly a very elegant and classical composition, and, even
if it does not belong to the highest style of poetry, I should be
surprised if it did not succeed. May I challenge your kindness
to do what you can for it ?
You will hear from me again in a post or two. The Julian
and Maddalo, and the accompanying poems, are all my saddest
verses raked up into one heap. I mean to mingle more smiles
with my tears in future.
Your obedient servant,
P. B. Shelley.
LXXVII.— ToT. L. P.
Pisa, November {probably 15M), 1820.
My Dear Peacock— I delayed to answer your last letter,
because I was waiting for something to say : at least something
that should be likely to be interesting to you. The box
* Chas. Oilier had just lost a daughter.— Z. S.
LETTERS. 327
containing my books, and consequently your Essay against the
cultivation of poetry, has not arrived ; my wonder, meanwhile,
in what manner you support such a heresy in this matter-of-
fact and money-loving age, holds me in suspense. Thank you
for your kindness in correcting Prometheus^ which I am afraid
gave you a great deal of trouble. Among the modern things
which have reached me is a volume of poems by Keats : in
other respects insignificant enough, but containing the fragment
of a poem called Hyperion. I dare say you have not time
to read it ; but it is certainly an astonishing piece of writing,
and gives me a conception of Keats which I confess I had not
before.
I hear from Mr. Gisborne that you are surrounded with
papers — a chaos of which you are the god ; a sepulchre which
encloses in a dormant state the chrysalis of the Pavonian
Psyche. May you start into life some day, and give us another
Melincourt. Your Melincourt is exceedingly admired, and
I think much more so than any of your other writings. In this
respect the world judges rightly. There is more of the true
spirit, and an object less indefinite, than in either Headlong
Hall or Scythrop.
I am, speaking literarily, infirm of purpose. I have great
designs, and feeble hopes of accomplishing them. I read
books, and, though I am ignorant enough, they seem to teach
me nothing. To be sure, the reception the public have given
me might go far enough to damp any man's enthusiasm. They
teach you, it may be said, only what is true. Very true, I doubt
not, and the more true the less agreeable. I can compare
my experience in this respect to nothing but a series of wet
blankets. I have been reading nothing but Greek and Spanish.
Plato and Calderon have been my gods. A schoolfellow of
mine from India is staying with me, and we are beginning
Arabic together. Mary is writing a novel, illustrative of the
manners of the Middle Ages in Italy, which she has raked out
of fifty old books. I promise myself success from it ; and
certainly, if what is wholly original will succeed, I shall not be
disappointed.
Adieu. In publica commoda peccem^ si longo sermone.
Ever faithfully yours,
P. B, Shelley
328 LETTERS,
LXXVIII.— To THE Editor of the " Quarterly Review."
Sir — Should you cast your eye on the signature of this letter
before your read the contents, you might imagine that they
related to a slanderous paper which appeared in your Review
some time since. I never notice annonymous attacks. The
wretch who wrote it has doubtless the additional reward of a
consciousness of his motives, besides the thirty guineas a sheet,
or whatever it is that you pay him. Of course you cannot be
answerable for all the writings which you edit, and / certainly
bear you no ill-will for having edited the abuse to which I
allude — indeed, I was too much amused by being compared to
Pharaoh, not readily to forgive editor, printer, publisher, stitcher,
or any one, except the despicable writer, connected with some-
thing so exquisitely entertaining. Seriously speaking, I am not
in the habit of permitting myself to be disturbed by what is said
or written of me, though, I dare say, I may be condemned
sometimes justly enough. But I feel, in respect to the writer in
question, that " I am there sitting, where he durst not soar."
The case is different with the unfortunate subject of this
letter, the author of Endymion, to whose feelings and situation
I entreat you to allow me to call your attention. I write con-
siderably in the dark ; but if it is Mr. Gifford that I am
addressing, I am persuaded that in an appeal to his humanity
and justice, he will acknowledge the fas ab hoste doceri, I am
aware that the first duty of a Reviewer is towards the public,
and I am willing to confess that the Endymion is a poem
considerably defective, and that, perhaps, it deserved as much
censure as the pages of your Review record against it ; but, not
to mention that there is certain contemptuousness of phraseology
from which it is difficult for a critic to abstain, in the review of
Endymion, I do not think that the writer has given it its due
praise. Surely the poem, with all its faults, is a very remark-
able production for a man of Keats's age, and the promise of
ultimate excellence is such as has rarely been afforded even by
such as has afterwards attained high literary eminence. Look
at book ii., line 833, etc., and book iii., line 113 to 120 — read
down that page, and then again from line 193. I could cite
many other passages, to convince you that it deserved milder
usage. Why it should have been reviewed at all, excepting for
the purpose of bringing its excellences into notice, I cannot
conceive, for it was very little read, and there was no danger
LETTERS. 329
that it should become a model to the age of that false taste, with
which I confess that it is replenished.
Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state of mind by
this review, which, I am persuaded, was not written with any
intention of producing the effect, to which it has, at least,
greatly contributed, of embittering his existence, and inducing a
disease from which there are now but faint hopes of his recovery.
The first effects are described to me to have resembled insanity,
and it was by assiduous watching that he was restrained from
effecting purposes of suicide. The agony of his sufferings at
length produced the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs, and
the usual process of consumption appears to have begun. He
is coming to pay me a visit in Italy ; but I fear that unless his
mind can be kept tranquil, little is to be hoped from the mere
influence of climate.
But let me not extort anything from your pity. I have just
seen a second volume, published by him evidently in careless
despair. I have desired my bookseller to send you a copy, and
allow me to solicit your special attention to the fragment of a
poem entitled " Hyperion," the composition of which was
checked by the Review in question. The great proportion of
this piece is surely in the very highest style of poetry. I speak
impartially, for the canons of taste to which Keats has con-
formed in his other compositions are the very reverse of my
own. I leave you to judge for yourself : it would be an insult
to you to suppose that from motives, however honourable, you
would lend yourself to a deception of the public.
{This letter was nei/er sent.)
LXXIX. — To John Gisborne,
(at leghorn.)
Pisa, oggi, {November,' 1^20.)
My Dear Sir~I send you the Phsedon and Tacitus. I
congratulate you on your conquest of the Iliad. You must
have been astonished at the perpetually increasing magnificence
of the last seven books. Homer there truly begins to be him-
self. The battle of the Scamander, the funeral of Patroclus, and
the high and solemn close of the whole bloody tale in tenderness
330 LETTERS.
and inexpiable sorrow, are wrought in a manner incomparable
with anything of the same kind. The Odyssey is sweet, but
there is nothing like this.
/ am bathing myself in the light and odour of the flowery and
starry Autos. I have read them all more than once. Henry
will tell you how much I am in love with Pacchiani. I suffer
from my disease considerably. Henry will also tell you how
much, and how whimsically, he alarmed me last night.
My kindest remembrances to Mrs. Gisborne, and best wishes
for your health and happiness.
Faithfully yours,
P, B. S.
I have a new Calderon coming from Paris.
LXXX.— To T. L. P.
Pisa^ February i^^k, 1821.
My Dear Peacock — The last letter I received from you,
nearly four months from the date thereof, reached me by the
boxes which the Gisbornes sent by sea. I am happy to learn
that you continue in good external and internal preservation.
I received at the same time your printed denunciations against
general, and your written ones against particular poetry ; and
I agree with you as decidedly in the latter as I differ in the
former. The man whose critical gall is not stirred up by
such rhymes as 's, may safely be conjectured to possess no
gall at all. The world is pale with the sickness of such stuff.
At the same time, your anathemas against poetry itself excited
me to a sacred rage, or caco'ethes scribendi of vindicating the
insulted Muses. I had the greatest possible desire to break
a lance with you, within the lists of a magazine, in honour of
my mistress Urania ; but God willed that I should be too lazy,
and wrested the victory from your hope : since first having
unhorsed poetry, and the universal sense of the wisest in all
ages, an easy conquest would have remained to you in me,
the knight of the shield of shadow and the lance of gossamere.
Besides, I was at that moment reading Plato's lon^ which I
recommend you to reconsider. Perhaps in the comparison of
Platonic and Malthusian doctrines, the mavis errare of Cicero
is a justifiable argument ; but I have a whole quiver of
arguments on such a subject.
LETTERS. 331
Have you seen Godwin's answer to the apostle of the rich ?
And what do you think of it ? It has not yet reached me, nor
has your box, of which I am in daily expectation.
We are now in the crisis and point of expectation in Italy.
The Neapolitan and Austrian armies are rapidly approaching
each other, and every day the news of a battle may be
expected. The former have advanced into the Ecclesiastical
States, and taken hostages from Rome, to assure themselves
of the neutrality of that power, and appear determined to try
their strength in open battle. I need not tell you how little
chance there is that the new and undisciplined levies of Naples
should stand against a superior force of veteran troops. But
the birth of liberty in nations abounds in reversals of the
ordinary laws of calculation : the defeat of the Austrians
would be the signal of insurrection throughout all Italy.
I am devising literary plans of some magnitude. But
nothing is more difficult and unwelcome than to write without a
confidence of finding readers ; and if my plan of the Cenci
found none or few, I despair of ever producing anything that
shall merit them.
Among your anathemas of the modern attempts in poetry, do
you include Keats's Hyperion f I think it very fine. His
other poems are worth little ; but if the Hyperion be not grand
poetry, none has been produced by our contemporaries.
I suppose you are writing nothing but Indian laws, etc. I
have but a faint idea of your occupation ; but I suppose it has
something to do with pen and ink.
Mary desires to be kindly remembered to you ; and I
remain, my dear Peacock, yours very faithfully,
P. B. Shelley.
LXXXI.— To C. Ollier.
PisUyFeb. i6thy 1821.
Dear Sir,
I send you three poems — Ode to Naples ^ a sonnet,
and a longer piece, entitled Epipsychidion. The two former
are my own ; and you will be so obliging as to take the first
opportunity of publishing according to your own discretion.
The longer poem, I desire, should not be considered as my
own ; indeed, in a certain sense, it is a production of a portion
of me already dead ; and in this sense the advertisement is no
332 LETTERS.
fiction* It is to be published simply for the esoteric few ;
and I make its author a secret, to avoid the malignity of those
who turn sweet food into poison ; transforming all they touch
into the corruption of their own natures. My wish with respect
to it is, that it should be printed immediately in the simplest
form, and merely one hundred copies : those who are capable
of judging and feeling rightly with respect to a composition of
so abstruse a nature, certainly do not arrive at that number —
among those, at least, who would ever be excited to read an
obscure and anonymous production ; and it would give me no
pleasure that the vulgar should read it. If you have any book-
selling reason against publishing so small a number as a
hundred, merely, distribute copies among those to whom you
think the poetry would afford any pleasure, and send me, as
soon as you can, a copy by the post. I have written it so as to
give very little trouble, I hope, to the printer, or to the person
who revises. I would be much obliged to you if you would
take this office on yourself.
Is there any expectation of a second edition of the Revolt of
Islam f I have many corrections to make in it, and one part will
be wholly remodelled. I am employed in high and new designs
in verse ; but they are the labours of years, perhaps.
We expect here every day the news of a battle between the
armies of Austria and Naples. The latter have advanced upon
Rome ; and the first affair will probably take place in the
Ecclesiastical States. You may imagine the expectation of all
here.
Pray send me news of my intellectual children. For Protne-
theus^ I expect and desire no great sale. The Cenci ought to
have been popular.
I remain, dear Sir,
Your very obedient servant,
Percy B. Shelley.
* In his preface he speaks of the poem as having been written by a
person who " died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to
one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where
it was his hope to have realized a scheme of life suited, perhaps, to
that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but
hardly practicable in this." The preface is signed " S." — L. S.
LETTERS. 333
LXXXII.— To C. Ollier.
Pisa^ Feb. 22nd, 1821.
Dear Sir — Peacock's essay is at Florence at present. I have
sent for it, and will transmit to you my paper [on Poetry] as soon
as it is written, which will be in a very few days. Nevertheless,
I should be sorry that you delayed your magazine through any
dependence on me. I will not accept anything for this paper,
as I had determined to write it, and promised it you, before I
heard of your liberal arrangements ; but perhaps in future, if I
think I have any thoughts worth publishing, I shall be glad to
contribute to your magazine on those terms. Meanwhile, you
are perfectly at liberty to publish the Ode to Naples^ the sonnet,
or any short piece you may have of mine.
I suppose Julian and Maddalo is published. If not, do not
add the Witch of Atlas to that peculiar piece of writing ; you
may put my name to the Witch of Atlas, as usual. The piece
I last sent you, I wish, as I think I told you, to be printed im-
mediately, and that anonymously. I should be very glad to
receive a few copies of it by the box, but I am unwilling that it
should be any longer delayed.
I doubt about Charles the First ; but, if I do write it, it
shall be the birth of severe and high feelings. You are very
welcome to it, on the terms you mention, and, when once I see
and feel that I can write it, it is already written.* My thoughts
aspire to a production of a far higher character ; but the execu-
tion of it will require some years. I write what I write chiefly
to inquire, by the reception which my writings meet with, how
far I am fit for so great a task, or not. And I am afraid that
your account will not present me with a very flattering result in
this particular.
You may expect to hear from me within a week, with the
answer to Peacock. I shall endeavour to treat the subject in its
elements, and unveil the inmost idol of the error.
If any Review of note abuses me excessively, or the contrary,
be so kind as to send it me by post.
If not too late, pray send me by the box the following
books : — The most copious and correct history of the discoveries
of Geology. If one publication does not appear to contain what
I require, send me two or three. A history of the late war in
Spain ; I think one has been written by Southey. Major Some-
body's account of the siege of Zaragosa ; it is a little pamphlet
* The play was never finished. — Ed.
334 LETTERS.
B-irnet's History of his Own Times; and the Old English
Dratna^ 3 vols.
Excuse my horrible pens, ink, and paper. I can get no pen
that will mark ; or, if you will not excuse them, send me out
some English ones.
I am delighted to hear of Procter's success, and hope that he
will proceed gathering laurels. Pray tell me how the Prometheus
Unbound was received.
Dear Sir,
Your very obliged servant,
Percy B. Shelley.
LXXXIIL— To C Ollier.
Pisa^ March 20th, 1821.
Dear Sir,
I send you the Defence of Poetry^ Part I. It is
transcribed, I hope, legibly.
1 have written nothing which I do not think necessary to the
subject. Of course, if any expressions should strike you as too
unpopular, I give you the power of omitting them ; but I trust
you will, if possible, refrain from exercising it. In fact, I hope
that I have treated the question with that temper and spirit as
to silence cavil. I propose to add two other parts in two
succeeding Miscellanies. It is to be understood that, although
you may omit, you do not alter or add.
Pray let me hear from you soon.
Dear Sir,
Yours very sincerely,
P. B. S.
LXXXIV.— To T. L. P.
Pisa^ March 21st, 1821.
My Dear Peacock— I dispatch by this post the first part
of an essay, intended to consist of three parts, which I design
for an antidote to your Four Ages of Poetry!'' You will see
that I have taken a more general view of what is poetry than
* The "Four Ages of Poetry" here alluded to was published
in Ollier's Literary Miscellany. Shelley wrote the "Defence of
Poetry " as an answer to it j and as he wrote it, it contained many
LETTERS. 335
you have, and will perhaps agree with several of my positions,
without considering your own touched. But read and judge ;
and do not let us imitate the great founders of the picturesque,
Price and Payne Knight, who, like two ill-trained beagles,
began snarling at each other when they could not catch the
hare.
I hear the welcome news of a box from England announced
by Mr. Gisborne. How much new poetry does it contain?
The Bavii and Masvii of the day are fertile ; and I wish those
who honour me with boxes would read and inwardly digest
your Four Ages of Poetry ; for I had much rather, for my
own private reading, receive political, geological, and moral
treatises, than this stuff in terza^ ottava, and tremillesima rima^
whose earthly baseness has attracted the lightning of your
undiscriminating censure upon the temple of immortal song.
These verses enrage me far more than those of Codrus did
Juvenal, and with better reason. Juvenal need not have been
stunned, unless he had liked it ; but my boxes are packed with
this trash, to the exclusion of better matter. But your box will
make amends.
We are surrounded here in Pisa by revolutionary volcanos,
which as yet give more light than heat : the lava has not yet
reached Tuscany. But the news in the papers will tell you
far more than it is prudent for me to say ; and for this once I
will observe your rule of political silence. The Austrians wish
that the Neapolitans and Piedmontese would do the same.
We have seen a few more people than usual this winter,
and have made a very interesting acquaintance with a Greek
Prince, perfectly acquainted with ancient literature, and full of
enthusiasm for the liberties and improvement of his country.
Mary has been a Greek student several months, and is reading
Antigone with our turbaned friend, who in return is taught
English. C. has passed the carnival at Florence, and has
allusions to the article and its author, such as *' If I know the knight
by the device of his shield, I have only to inscribe Cassandra,
Antigone, or Alcestis on mine to blunt the point of his spear ; " taking
one instance of a favourite character from each of the three great Greek
tragedians. All these allusions were struck out by Mr. John Hunt
when he prepared the paper for publication in the Liberal. The
demise of that periodical prevented the publication, and Mrs. Shelley
subsequently printed it from Mr. Hunt's rifacciamento, as she received
it. The paper as it now stands is a defence without an attack.
Shelley intended this paper to be in three parts, but the other two
were not written. — T. L. P.
336 LETTERS,
been praeternaturally gay. I have had a severe ophthalmia,
and have read or written little this winter ; and have made
acquaintance in an obscure convent with the only Italian
for whom I ever felt any interest.*
I want you to do something for me : that is, to get me two
pounds' worth of Tassi's gems, in Leicester Square, the
prettiest according to your taste ; among them, the head of
Alexander ; and to get me two seals engraved and set, one
smaller, and the other handsomer : the device a dove with
outspread wings, and this motto round it :
yi6MTi% dix iady&v dydjvcav.
LXXXV.— To Henry Reveley.
My Dear Henry— Our ducking last night has added fire,
instead of quenching the nautical ardour which produced it ;
and I consider it a good omen in any enterprise, that it begins
in evil ; as being more probable that it will end in good. I
hope you have not suffered from it. I am rather feverish, but
very well as to the side, whence I expected the worst con-
sequences. I send you directions for the complete equipment
of our boat, since you have so kindly promised to undertake it.
In putting into execution, a little more or less expense in so
trifling an affair is to be disregarded. I need not say that the
approaching season invites expedition. You can put her in
hand immediately, and write the day on which we may come
for her.
We expect with impatience the arrival of our false friends,
who have so long cheated us with delay ; and Mary unites with
me in desiring, that, as you participated equally in the crime,
you should not be omitted in the expiation.
All good be with you. — Adieu. Yours faithfully, S.
Williams desires to be kindly remembered to you, and begs
to present his compliments to Mr. and Mrs. G , and — heaven
knows what.
Fisa, Tuesday, i d clock, 17 th April, 1821.
• Lady Emilia Viviani, the subject of his Epipsychidioiu
LETTERS. 337
LXXXVL— To Henry Reveley.
Pisa^ April lOjth.
My Dear Henry— The rullock, or place for the oar, ought
not to be placed where the oar-pins are now, but ought to be
nearer to the mast ; as near as possible, indeed, so that the
rower has room to sit. In addition let a false keel be made in
this shape, so as to be four inches deep at the stern, and to
decrease towards the prow. It may be as thin as you please.
Tell Mr. and Mrs. G that I have read the Numancia, and
after wading through the singular stupidity of the first act, began
to be greatly delighted, and, at length, interested in a very high
degree, by the power of the writer in awakening pity and
admiration, in which I hardly know by whom he is excelled.
There is little, I allow, in a strict sense, to be called poetry in
this play ; but the command of language, and the harmony of
versification, is so great as to deceive one into an idea that it is
poetry.
Adieu. — We shall see you soon.
Yours ever truly, S.
LXXXVII.— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne.
Bagni^ Tuesday Evening
{June sth, 1821).
My Dear Friends — We anxiously expect your arrival at
the Baths ; but as I am persuaded that you will spend as much
time with us as you can save from your necessary occupations
before your departure, I will forbear to vex you with impor-
tunity. My health does not permit me to spend many hours
from home. I have been engaged these last days in composing
a poem on the death of Keats, which will shortly be finished ;
and I anticipate the pleasure of reading it to you, as some of the
very few persons who will be interested in it and understand it.
It is a highly- wrought piece of art, and perhaps better, in point
of composition, than anything I have written.
I have obtained a purchaser for some of the articles of your
three lists, a catalogue of which I subjoin. I shall do my
utmost to get more ; could you not send me a complete list of
your furniture^ as I have had inquiries made about chests of
drawers, etc.
103
338 LETTERS,
My unfortunate box ! it contained a chaos of the elements of
" Charles I." If the idea of the creator had been packed up
with them, it would have shared the same fate ; and that, I am
afraid, has undergone another sort of shipwreck.
Very faithfully and affectionately yours, S.
LXXXVIII.— To C. Ollier.
Pisa,, June Zthy 182 1.
Dear Sir,
You may announce for publication a poem entitled
Adonais. It is a lament on the death of poor Keats, with some
interposed stabs on the assassins of his peace and of his fame ;
and will be preceded by a criticism on Hyperion,, asserting the
due claims which that fragment gives him to the rank which I
have assigned him. My poem is finished, and consists of about
forty Spenser stanzas. I shall send it you, either printed at
Pisa, or transcribed in such a manner as it shall be difficult for
the reviser to leave such errors as assist the obscurity of the
Prometheus. But, in case I send it printed, it will be merely
that mistakes may be avoided ; [so] that I shall only have a few
copies struck off in the cheapest manner.
If you have interest enough in the subject, I could wish that
you inquired of some of the friends and relations of Keats
respecting the circumstances of his death, and could transmit
me any information you may be able to collect, and especially
as to the degree in which, as I am assured, the brutal attack in
the Quarterly Review excited the disease by which he perished.
I have received no answer to my last letter to you. Have
you received my contribution to your magazine ?
Dear Sir,
Yours very sincerely,
P. B. Shelley.
LXXXIX.— To John Gisborne.
My Dear Friend — I have received the heart-rending
account of the closing scene of the great genius whom envy and
ingratitude scourged out of the world. I do not think that if I
had seen it before, I could have composed my poem. The
LETTERS. 339
enthusiasm of the imagination would have overpowered the
sentiment.
As it is, I have finished my Elegy ; and this day I send it to
the press at Pisa. You shall have a copy the moment it is
completed. I think it will please you. I have dipped my pen
in consuming fire for his destroyers ; otherwise the style is calm
and solemn.
Pray, when shall we see you ? Or are the streams of Helicon
less salutary than sea-bathing for the nerves? Give us as much
as you can before you go to England, and rather divide the
term than not come soon.
Mrs. wishes that none of the books, desk, etc., should be
packed up with the piano; but that they should be sent, one by
one, by Pepi: Address them to me at her house. She desired
me to have them addressed to ?ne, why I know not.
A droll circumstance has occurred. Queen Mab, a poem
written by me when very young, in the most furious style, with
long notes against Jesus Christ, and God the Father, and the
king, and bishops, and marriage, and the devil knows what, is
just published by one of the low booksellers in the Strand,
against my wish and consent, and all the people are at logger-
heads about it. H. S. gives me this account. You may
imagine how much I am amused. For the sake of a dignified
appearance, however, and really because I wish to protest
against all the bad poetry in it, I have given orders to say that
it is all done against my desire, and have directed my attorney
to apply to Chancery for an injunction, which he will not get.
I am pretty ill, I thank you, just now ; but I hope you are
better.
Most affectionately yours, P. B. S.
Pisa. Saturday, June i6M, 1821.)
■ XC— To The "Examiner."
June 22nd, 1 82 1.
" A POEM, entitled Queen Mab, was written by me at the age
of eighteen — I dare say, in a sufficiently intemperate spirit. I
have not seen this production for several years : I doubt not but
that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition ; and
that, in all that concerns moral and political speculation, as well
as in the subtler discriminations of metaphysical and religious
doctrine, it is still more crude and immature. I am a devoted
340 LETTERS.
enemy to religious, political, and domestic oppression ; and I
regret this publication, not so much from literary vanity, as
because I fear it is better fitted to injure than to serve the sacred
cause of freedom." . . .
XCL— To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne.
Bagni, Friday Night
{July i^th, 1 821).
My Dear Friends — I have been expecting every day a writ
to attend at your court at Guebhard's, whence you know it is
settled that I should conduct you hither to spend your last days
in Italy. A thousand thanks for your maps ; in return for which
I send you the only copy of " Adonais " the printer has yet
delivered. I wish I could say, as Glaucus could, in the exchange
for the arms of Diomed, — eKaTdfx^ioi iwea^oiuv.
I will only remind you of " Faust ; " my desire for the con-
clusion of which is only exceeded by my desire to welcome you.
Do you observe any traces of him in the poem I send you.?
Poets — the best of them, are a very cameleonic race ; they take
the colour not only of what they feed on, but of the very leaves
under which they pass.
Mary is just on the verge of finishing her novel j but it cannot
be in time for you to take to England. — Farewell.
Most faithfully yours,
P. B. S.
XCII.— To Mrs. and Mrs Gisborne.
My Dearest Friends— I am fully repaid for the painful
emotions from which some verses of my poem sprang, by your
sympathy and approbation — which is all the reward I expect —
and as much as I desire. It is not for me to judge whether, in
the high praise your feelings assign me, you are right or wrong.
The poet and the man are two different natures ; though they
exist together, they may be unconscious of each other, and
incapable of deciding on each other's powers and efforts by any
reflex act. The decision of the cause, whether or no / am a
poet, is removed from the present time to the hour when our
posterity shall assemble ; but the court is a very severe one, and
I fear that the verdict will be, " Guilty— death 1 "
LETTERS, 341
I shall be with you on the first summons. I hope that the
time you have reserved for us, 'Hhis bank and shoal of time," is
not so short as you once talked of.
In haste, most affectionately yours,
P. B. S.
Bagniyjuly i()th.
XCIII.— To Mrs Shelley,
(bagni di pisa).
Tuesday, Lione Bianco, Florence
{August \st, 1 821).
My Dearest Love — I shall not return this evening ; nor,
unless I have better success, to-morrow. I have seen many
houses, but very few within the compass of our powers ; and,
even in those which seem to suit, nothing is more difficult than
to bring the proprietors to terms. I congratulate myself on
having taken the season in time, as there is great expectation of
Florence being full next winter. I shall do my utmost to return
to-morrow evening. You may expect me about ten or eleven
o'clock, as I shall purposely be late, to spare myself the excessive
heat.
The Gisbomes (four o'clock, Tuesday,) are just set out in a
diligence-and-four, for Bologna. They have promised to write
from Paris. I spent three hours this morning principally in the
contemplation of the Niobe, and of a favourite Apollo ; all
worldly thoughts and cares seem to vanish from before the
sublime emotions such spectacles create; and I am deeply
impressed with the great difference of happiness enjoyed by
those who live at a distance from these incarnations of all that
the finest minds have conceived of beauty, and those who can
resort to their company at pleasure. What should we think if
we were forbidden to read the great writers who have left us
their works ? And yet to be forbidden to live at Florence or
Rome, is an evil of the same kind, of scarcely less magnitude.
I am delighted to hear that the W.'s are with you. I am
convinced that Williams must persevere in the use of the doccia.
Give my most affectionate remembrances to them. I shall know
all the houses in Florence, and can give W. a good account of
them all. You have not sent my passport, and I must get home
as I can. I suppose you did not receive my note.
.342 LETTERS,
I grudge my sequins for a carriage ; but I have suffered from
the sun and the fatigue, and dare not expose myself to that
which is necessary for house-hunting.
Kiss little babe, and how is he ? but I hope to see him fast
asleep to-morrow night. And pray, dearest Mary, have some of
your novel prepared for my return.
Your ever affectionate S.
XCIV.— To Mrs. Shelley,
(BAGNI DI PISA.)
Bologna^ Agosto 6.
Dearest Mine— I am at Bologna, and the caravella is
ordered for Ravenna. I have been detained, by having made
an embarrassing and inexplicable arrangement, more than
twelve hours ; or I should have arrived at Bologna last night
instead of this morning.
Though I have travelled all night at the rate of two miles
an'd a-half an hour, in a little open calesso, I am perfectly well
in health. One would think that I were the spaniel of Destiny,
for the more she knocks about me, the more I fawn on her. I
had an overturn about day-break ; the old horse stumbled, and
threw me and the fat vetturino into a slope of meadow, over the
hedge. My angular figure stuck where it was pitched ; but my
vetturino's spherical form rolled fairly to the bottom of the hill,
and that with so few symptoms of reluctance in the life that
animated it, that my ridicule (for it was the drollest sight in the
world) was suppressed by my fear that the poor devil had been
hurt. But he was very well, and we continued our journey with
great success.
My love to the Williams's. Kiss my pretty ones, and accept
an affectionate one for yourself from me. The chaise waits. I
will write the first night from Ravenna at length.
Yours ever, S.
XCV.— To Mrs. Shelley.
Ravenna, August y^ 1821.
My Dearest Mary— -I arrived last night at ten o'clock, and
sate up talking with Lord Byron until five this morning. I then
LETTERS. 343
went to sleep, and now awake at eleven, and having despatched
my breakfast as quick as possible, mean to devote the interval
until twelve, when the post departs, to you.
Lord Byron is very well, and was delighted to see me. He has
in fact completely recovered his health, and lives a life totally the
reverse of that which he led at Venice. He has a permanent
sort of liaison with Contessa Guiccioli, who is now at Florence,
and seems from her letters to be a very amiable woman. She
is waiting there until something shall be decided as to their
emigration to Switzerland or stay in Italy ; which is yet unde-
termined on either side. She was compelled to escape from
the Papal territory in great haste, as measures had already
been taken to place her in a convent, where she would have
been unrelentingly confined for life. The oppression of the
marriage contract, as existing in the laws and opinions of Italy,
though less frequently exercised, is far severer than that of
England. I tremble to think of what poor Emilia is destined to.
Lord Byron had almost destroyed himself in Venice : his
state of debility was such that he was unable to digest any food,
he was consumed by hectic fever, and would speedily have
perished, but for this attachment, which has reclaimed him from
the excesses into which he threw himself from carelessness and
pride, rather than taste. Poor fellow ! he is now quite well,
and immersed in politics and literature. He has given me a
number of the most interesting details on the former subject,
but we will not speak of them in a letter. Fletcher is here, and
as if like a shadow, he waxed and waned with the substance of
his master : Fletcher also has recovered his good looks, and
from amidst the unseasonable grey hairs, a fresh harvest of
flaxen locks put forth.
We talked a great deal of poetry, and such matters last
night ; and as usual differed, and I think more than ever. He
affects to patronise a system of criticism fit for the production
of mediocrity, and although all his fine poems and passages
have been produced in defiance of this system, yet I recognise
the pernicious effects of it in the Doge of Venice ; and it will
cramp and limit his future efforts however great they may be,
unless he gets rid of it. I have read only parts of it, or rather
he himself read them to me, and gave me the plan of the whole.
Lord Byron has also told me of a circumstance that shocks
me exceedingly ; because it exhibits a degree of desperate and
wicked malice for which I am at a loss to account. When I
hear such things my patience and my philosophy are put to a
severe proof, whilst I refrain from seeking out some obscure
344 LETTERS.
hiding-place, where the countenance of man may never meet
me more
.... Imagine my despair of good, imagine how it is
possible that one of so weak and sensitive a nature as mine can
run further the gauntlet through this hellish society of men.
You should write to the Hoppners a letter refuting the charge,
in case you believe, and know, and can prove that it is false ;
stating the grounds and proofs of your belief. I need not
dictate what you should say ; nor, I hope, inspire you with
warmth to rebut a charge, which you only can effectually rebut.
If you will send the letter to me here, I will forward it to the
Hoppners. Lord Byron is not up, I do not know the Hoppners'
address, and I am anxious not to lose a post.
XCVI.— To Mrs. Shelley.
Thursday ^ Zth August.
My Dearest Mary — I wrote to you yesterday, and I begin
another letter to-day, without knowing exactly when I can send
it, as I am told the post only goes once a-week. I dare say the
subject of the latter half of my letter gave you pain, but it was
necessary to look the affair in the face, and the only satisfactory
answer to the calumny must be given by you, and could be
given by you alone. This is evidently the source of the violent
denunciations of the Literary Gazette, in themselves contemptible
enough, and only to be regarded as effects, which show us their
cause, which, until we put off our mortal nature, we never
despise — that is, the belief of persons who have known and seen
you, that you are guilty of crimes.
After having sent my letter to the post yesterday, I went to
see some of the antiquities of this place ; which appear to be
remarkable. This city was once of vast extent, and the traces
of its remains are to be found more than four miles from the
gate of the modern town. The sea, which once came close to
it, has now retired to the distance of four miles, leaving a melan-
choly extent of marshes, interspersed with patches of cultivation,
and towards the seashore with pine forests, which have followed
the retrocession of the Adriatic, and the roots of which are
actually washed by its waves. The level of the sea and of this
tract of country correspond so nearly, that a ditch dug to a few
LETTERS. 345
feet in depth, is immediately filled up with sea water. All the
ancient buildings have been choked up to the height of from
five to twenty feet by the deposit of the sea, and of the inunda-
tions, which are frequent in the winter. I went in L. B.'s
carriage, first to the Chiesa San Vitale, which is certainly one
of the most ancient churches in Italy. It is a rotunda, sup-
ported upon buttresses and pilasters of white marble ; the ill
effect of which is somewhat relieved by an interior row of
columns. The dome is very high and narrow. The whole
church, in spite of the elevation of the soil, is very high for its
breadth, and is of a very peculiar and striking construction. In
the section of one of the large tables of marble with which the
church is lined, they showed me the perfect figure^ as perfect as
if it had been painted, of a Capuchin friar, which resulted merely
from the shadings and the position of the stains in the marble.
This is what may be called a pure anticipated cognition of a
Capuchin.
I then went to the tomb of Theodosius, which has now been
dedicated to the Virgin, without, however, any change in its
original appearance. It is about a mile from the present city.
This building is more than half overwhelmed by the elevated
soil, although a portion of the lower storey has been excavated,
and is filled with brackish and stinking waters, and a sort of
vaporous darkness, and troops of prodigious frogs. It is a
remarkable piece of architecture, and without belonging to a
period when the ancient taste yet survived, bears, nevertheless,
a certain impression of that taste. It consists of two stories ;
the lower supported on Doric arches and pilasters, and a simple
entablature. The other circular within, and polygonal outside,
and roofed with one single mass of ponderous stone, for it is
evidently one, and Heaven alone knows how they contrived to
lift it to that height. It is a sort of flattish dome, rough-wrought
within by the chisel, from which the Northern conquerors tore
the plates of silver that adorned it, and polished without, with
things like handles appended to it, which were also wrought out
of the solid stone, and to which I suppose the ropes were
applied to draw it up. You ascend externally into the second
storey by a flight of stone steps, which are modern.
The next place I went to, was a church called la chiesa di
Sanf Appollinare^ which is a Basilica, and built by one, I forget
whom, of the Christian Emperors ; it is a long church, with
a roof like a barn, and supported by twenty-four columns of
the finest marble, with an altar of jasper, and four columns of
jasper, and giallo antico, supporting the roof of the tabernacle,
346 LETTERS.
which are said to be of immense value. It is something like
that church (I forget the name of it) we saw at Rome, fuore
delle mura.* I suppose the Emperor stole these columns, which
seem not at all to belong to the place they occupy. Within the
city, near the church of San Vitale, there is to be seen the tomb
of the Empress Galla Placidia, daughter of Theodosius the
Great, together with those of her husband Constantius, her
brother Honorius, and her son Valentinian — all Emperors. The
tombs are massy cases of marble, adorned with rude and taste-
less sculpture of lambs, and other Christian emblems, with
scarcely a trace of the antique. It seems to have been one of
the first effects of the Christian religion to destroy the power of
producing beauty in art. These tombs are placed in a sort of
vaulted chamber, wrought over with rude mosaic, which is said
to have been built in 1300. I have yet seen no more of
Ravenna.
Friday.
We ride out in the evening, through the pine forests which
divide this city from the sea. Our way of life is this, and I have
accommodated myself to it without much difficulty : — L. B.
gets up at two, breakfasts ; we talk, read, etc., until six ; then we
ride, and dine at eight ; and after dinner sit talking till four or
five in the morning. I get up at twelve, and am now devoting
in the interval between my rising and his, to you.
L. B. is greatly improved in every respect. In genius, in
temper, in moral views, in health, in happiness. The connexion
with la Guiccioli has been an inestimable benefit to him. He
lives in considerable splendour, but within his income, which is
now about ;^4ooo a-year; ;^ioo of which he devotes to purposes
of charity. He has had mischievous passions, but these he
seems to have subdued, and he is becoming what he should be,
a virtuous man. The interest which he took in the politics of
Italy, and the actions he performed in consequence of it, are
subjects not fit to be written^ but are such as will delight and
surprise you. He is not yet decided to go to Switzerland — a
place, indeed, little fitted for him : the gossip and the cabals of
those anglicised coteries would torment him, as they did before,
and might exasperate him into a relapse of libertinism, which
he says he plunged into not from taste, but despair. La Guic-
cioli and her brother (who is L. B.'s friend and confidant, and
acquiesces perfectly in her connexion with him,) wish to go to
* San Paolo fuore delle mura— burnt down, and its beautiful columns
calcined by the fire, in 1823 — now rebuilt. — M. S.
LETTERS, 347
Switzerland ; as L. B. says, merely from the novelty of the
pleasure of travelling. L. B. prefers Tuscany or Lucca, and is
trying to persuade them to adopt his views. He has made me
write a long letter to her to engage her to remain — an odd thing
enough for an utter stranger to write on subjects of the utmost
delicacy to his friend's mistress. But it seems destined that I
am always to have some active part in every body's affairs
whom I approach. I have set down, in lame Italian, the
strongest reasons I can think of against the Swiss emigration —
to tell you truth, I should be very glad to accept, as my fee, his
establishment in Tuscany. Ravenna is a miserable place ; the
people are barbarous and wild, and their language the most
infernal patois that you can imagine. He would be, in every
respect, better among the Tuscans. I am afraid he would not
like Florence, on account of the English there. There is Lucca,
Florence, Pisa, Siena, and I think nothing more. What think
you of Prato, or Pistoia, for him.'' — no Englishman approaches
those towns ; but I am afraid no house could be found good
enough for him in that region.
He has read to me one of the unpublished cantos of Don
Juan, which is astonishingly fine. It sets him not only above,
but far above, all the poets of the day — every word is stamped
with immortality. I despair of rivalling Lord Byron, as well I
may, and there is no other with whom it is worth contending.
This canto is in the style, but totally, and sustained with
incredible ease and power, like the end of the second canto.
There is not a word which the most rigid asserter of the dignity
of human nature would desire to be cancelled. It fulfils, in a
certain degree, what I have long preached of producing — some-
thing wholly new and relative to the age, and yet surpassingly
beautiful. It may be vanity, but I think I see the trace of my
earnest exhortations to him to create something wholly new.
He has finished his life up to the present time, and given it to
Moore, with liberty for Moore to sell it for the best price he can
get, with condition that the bookseller should publish it after
his death. Moore has sold it to Murray for two thousatid
pounds. I have spoken to him of Hunt, but not with a direct
view of demanding a contribution ; and, though I am sure that
if asked it would not be refused — yet there is something in me
that makes it impossible. Lord Byron and I are excellent
friends, and were I reduced to poverty, or were I a writer who
had no claims to a higher station than I possess — or did I pos-
sess, a higher than I deserve, we should appear in all things as
such, and I would freely ask him any favour. Such is not the
348 LETTERS.
case. The demon of mistrust and pride lurks between two
persons in our situation, poisoning the freedom of our inter-
course. This is a tax, and a heavy one, which we must pay for
being human. I think the fault is not on my side, nor is it
likely, I being the weaker. I hope that in the next world these
things will be better managed. What is passing in the heart of
another, rarely escapes the observation of one who is a strict
anatomist of his own.
Write to me at Florence, where I shall remain a day at least,
and send me letters, or news of letters. How is my little dar-
ling ? And how are you, and how do you get on with your
book ? Be severe in your corrections, and expect severity from
me, your sincere admirer. I flatter myself you have composed
something unequalled in its kind, and that, not content with the
honours of your birth and your hereditary aristocracy, you will
add still higher renown to your name. Expect me at the end
of my appointed time. I do not think I shall be detained. Is
C. with you, or is she coming ? Have you heard anything of
my poor Emilia, from whom I got a letter the day of my de-
parture, saying, that her marriage was deferred for a very
short time, on account of the illness of her sposo? How are
the Williams's, and Williams especially? Give my very kindest
love to them.
Lord B. has here splendid apartments in the house of his
mistress's husband, who is one of the richest men in Italy. She
is divorced, with an allowance of 1200 crowns a-year, a miser-
able pittance from a man who has I20,cx)0 a-year. — Here are
two monkeys, five cats, eight dogs, and ten horses, all of whom,
(except the horses), walk about the house like the masters of it.
Tita the Venetian is here, and operates as my valet ; a fine
fellow, with a prodigious black beard, and who has stabbed two
or three people, and is one of the most good-natured looking
fellows I ever saw.
We have good rumours of the Greeks here, and a Russian
war. I hardly wish the Russians to take any part in it. My
maxim is with ^Eschylus :— t6 Svaae^^s—fierb, fxkv irKdova tIktci,
c