Chapter I: Front Matter

THE REAL SHELLEY.

VOL. I.

THE REAL SHELLEY.

NEW VIEWS OF THE POET'S LIFE.

BY JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON,
AUTHOR OF 'THE REAL LORD BYRON,'
'A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS,'
'A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS,' &c. &c.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1885.
_All Rights reserved._

LONDON:
PRINTED BY STRANGEWAYS AND SONS,
Tower Street, Upper St. Martin's Lane.

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.

THE SHELLEY OF ROMANTIC BIOGRAPHY 1

Creators of The Romantic Shelley--Clint's Fanciful
Composition--The Poet's Personal Appearance--His Little
Turn-up Nose--His Ancestral Quality--Sussexisms of his Speech
and Poetry--His Phenomenal Untruthfulness--His Temperance and
Intemperance--A Victim of Domestic Persecution--Was _The
Necessity of Atheism_ a mere Squib?--Lord Eldon's Decree--The
Slaughter of Reputations--The Poet's Character--His Treatment
of his familiar Friend--Biographic Fictions--Extravagances of
Shelleyan Enthusiasm.

CHAPTER II. THE SHELLEYS OF SUSSEX 13

Medwin's Blunders--Lady Shelley's Statement of the Case--The
Michelgrove Shelleys--Sir William Shelley, Justice of The
Common Pleas--The Castle Goring Shelleys--Their Pedigree at
the Heralds' College--Evidences of the Connexion of the Two
Families--John Shelley, 'Esquire and Lunatic'--Timothy
Shelley, the Yankee Apothecary--Bysshe Shelley's Career--His
Runaway Match with Catherine Michell--His Marriage with the
Heiress of Penshurst--His Great Wealth--The Poet's Alleged
Pride in his Connexion with the Sidneys--His Gentle, but not
Aristocratic, Lineage.

CHAPTER III. SHELLEY'S CHILDHOOD 27

The Poet's Father--Shelley's Birth and Birth-Chamber--Miss
Hellen Shelley's Recollections--The Child-Shelley's Pleasant
Fiction--His Aspect at Tender Age--His Description of his
own Nose--The Indian-Ink Sketch--Miss Curran's 'Daub'--
Williams's Water-Colour Drawing--Clint's Composition--
Engravings of 'The Daub' and 'The Composition'--The Poet's
Likeness in Marble--Shelley and Byron--Peacock and Hogg on
Shelley's Facial Beauty--The Colnaghi Engraving.

CHAPTER IV. THE BRENTFORD SCHOOLBOY 43

Dr. Greenlaw's Character--Quality of his School--Medwin's
Anecdotes to the Doctor's Discredit--Mr. Gellibrand's
Recollections of the Brentford Shelley--The Bullies of the
Brentford Playground--Shelley's Character at the School--His
Disposition to Somnambulism--His Delight in Novels--His
Wretchedness at School--Shelleyan Egotism--Byronic
Egotism--Byron's Influence on Shelley--Enduring Influence of
Novels on Shelley's Mind--Stories of Boating--Easter Holidays
in Wiltshire--'Essay on Friendship'--Its Biographical Value.

CHAPTER V. THE ETON SCHOOLBOY 69

First year at Eton--Creation of the Castle-Goring Baronetcy--
Sir Bysshe Shelley's Last Will--Timothy Shelley's Children--
Miss Hellen Shelley's Recollections--The Etonian at Home--
The Big Tortoise--The Great Snake--Dr. Keate--Mr. Packe at
fault--Walter Halliday--Mr. Hexter--Mr. Bethell--Fagging--Mad
Shelley--'Old Walker'--Enthusiasm for Natural Science--The
Rebel of the School--Lord High Atheist--Dr. Lind's Pernicious
Influence on Shelley--Poetical Fictions about Dr. Lind--
Shelley's Illness at Field Place--His Monstrous Hallucination
touching his Father--John Shelley the Lunatic--_Zastrozzi_--
Premature Withdrawal from Eton.

CHAPTER VI. ZASTROZZI; A ROMANCE. BY P. B. S. 110

Literary Ambition--Biographical Value of _Zastrozzi_--The
Etonian Shelley's Disesteem of Marriage--Review of the
Romance--Julia and Matilda--Conceits of the Romance
reproduced in _Laon and Cythna_--Egotisms of the Prose Tale
and the Poem--The Original of Count Verezzi and Laon.

CHAPTER VII. BETWEEN ETON AND OXFORD 123

Literary Interests and Enterprise--A.M. Oxon. Letter--
Shelley's Hunger for Publisher's Money--Winter 1809-10--
Nightmare--_The Wandering Jew_--Medwin in Lincoln's Inn
Fields--The Fragment of Ahasuerus--Its Influence on Byron and
Shelley--Matriculation at Oxford--Shelley at the Bodleian--
John Ballantyne and Co.--Shelley in Pall Mall--Stockdale's
Scandalous _Budget_--_Victor and Cazire_--Their Original
Poetry--Who was Cazire?--Felicia Dorothea Browne--
Illumination of Young Ladies--Harriett Grove--The Groves and
Shelleys in London--Shelley's Interest in Harriett Grove.

CHAPTER VIII. ST. IRVYNE; OR, THE ROSICRUCIAN: A ROMANCE. BY A
GENTLEMAN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 153

Venal Villains--'Jock' instructed to 'Pouch' them--At Work on
another Novel--The Dog of a Publisher--Devil of a Price--_St.
Irvyne_--Irving's Hill--Review of _St. Irvyne_--Wolfstein the
Magnanimous--Megalena de Metastasio--Olympia della Anzasca--
Eloise St. Irvyne--The Virtuous Fitzeustace--Ginotti's Doom--
The Oxonian Shelley's Repugnance to Marriage--His
Commendation of Free Love--Parallel Passages of _Zastrozzi_
and _St. Irvyne_--The Verses of _St. Irvyne_.

CHAPTER IX. MR. DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY _v._ THOMAS JEFFERSON
HOGG 168

Shelley's Matriculation at Oxford--Hogg's Matriculation at
Oxford--Hogg's First Arrival at Oxford--Lord Grenville's
Election--Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy's Blunders--Hogg's
'New Monthly' Papers on Shelley at Oxford--Mrs. Shelley's
Reason for not Writing her Husband's 'Life'--Peacock's Reason
for not Writing it--Leigh Hunt's Reason for not Writing
it--Hogg undertakes the Task--Hogg's Two Volumes--Their
Merits and Faults--Hogg dismissed by Field Place--His
Mistakes and Misrepresentations--Some of his
Misrepresentations adopted by Field Place.

CHAPTER X. AT OXFORD: MICHAELMAS TERM, 1810 179

Hogg's Toryism--Shelley's Liberalism--In Hogg's Rooms--
Shelley's Looks and Voice--Patron and Idolater--The Ways of
Passing Time--Hogg's Reminiscences--Nocturnal Readings and
Conversations--Country about Oxford--Pistol Practice--Playing
with Paper Boats--Windmill and Plashy Meadow--The Horror of
it--Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson--University
Tattle and Laughter--Eccentric Inseparables--Pond under
Shotover Hill--Pacing 'The High'--Dons' Civility to Shelley--
His Incivility to Dons--Uninteresting Stones and Dull
People--'Partly True and Partly False'--The Fiery Hun!--'My
Dear Boy'--Shelley offers his Sister to Hogg in
Marriage--Hogg entertains the Proposal--End of Term.

CHAPTER XI. THE CHRISTMAS VACATION OF 1810-11 210

Presentation copies of _St. Irvyne_--Shelley resorts to
Deception--Shelley in Disgrace at Field Place--Harriett
Grove's Dismissal of her Suitor--The Squire's Anger--Mrs.
Shelley's Alarm for her Girls--Shelley's Troubles--His Rage
against Intolerance--His Wild Letters to Hogg--'Married to a
Clod'--Stockdale's Design--His Intercourse with Shelley's
Father--More Negotiations with the Pall-Mall Publisher--
Shelley a Deist--Controversial Correspondence--Shelley's
Attempt to enlighten his Father--His Passage from Deism to
Atheism--The Squire relents to his Son--Hogg invited to Field
Place--Stockdale's Disappointment--Stockdale's Character--His
Scandalous _Budget_.

CHAPTER XII. MR. MACCARTHY'S DISCOVERIES TOUCHING THE OXONIAN
SHELLEY 234

_A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things_--Evidence
that the Poem was Published--Reasons for Thinking it may
never have been Published--Reasons for Thinking that, if the
Poem was Published, it was promptly Suppressed--Did Shelley
contribute Prose and Poetry to the _Oxford Herald_?--Spurious
Letter to the Editor of the _Statesman_--Shelley's First
Letter to Leigh Hunt--His way of Introducing himself to
Strangers--Did he at the Same Moment Think Well and Ill of
his Father?--Miss Janetta Phillips's Poems--E. & W. Phillips,
the Worthing Printers.

CHAPTER XIII. SHELLEY'S SECOND RESIDENCE-TERM AT OXFORD 251

Harriett Westbrook--Her Character and Beauty--How Shelley
came to care for her--Her Subscription for Janetta Phillips's
Poems--Shelley's first Visit to Harriett's Home--His
Intention to compete for 'the Newdigate'--Thornton Hunt's
scandalous Suggestion--Obligations of the Oxford
Undergraduate--Mary Wollstonecraft on the Guinea Forfeit--
Shelley's False Declaration--His numerous Untruths--_The
Necessity of Atheism_--Was it a Squib?--Lady Shelley's
Inaccuracies--Mr. Garnett's Misdescription of the Tract--His
Misrepresentation of Hogg--The _Little Syllabus_ printed at
Worthing--More Untruths by Shelley--The Tract offered for
Sale in Oxford--Shelley called before 'the Dons'--His
Expulsion from University College--Hogg's Impudence and
Craft--His Misrepresentations--Shelley and Hogg leave Oxford.