Chapter XVI: Edinburgh, York, and Keswick (1)

The Scotch Marriage--The Trio at Edinburgh--'Wha's the Deil?'--Posting
from Edinburgh to York--Dingy Lodgings and Dingy Milliners--Shelley's
run South--Did Harriett accompany him?--The Squire stops the
Supplies--The Earl's Description of Harriett Westbrook--The Squire's
Anger at the _Mésalliance_--The Course Shelley could not take--Eliza
Westbrook in Possession--The Ouse at full Flood--One too many--Designs
on Greystoke Castle--Shelley's Appeal to the Duke of Norfolk--The
Codicil to Sir Bysshe's Will--The Flight to Richmond--Miss Westbrook
strikes her Enemy--The Trio at Keswick--Shelley's affectionate Letters
from Keswick to Hogg at York--John Westbrook's Daughters at Greystoke
Castle--Ducal Benignity and Policy--The Calverts of Greta
Bank--Shelley's Means during his first Marriage--How to live on
Three-Hundred-a-year--How not to live on Four-Hundred-a-year.

During the latest stages of their long journey in the London and Edinburgh mail, Shelley and Harriett had for their travelling companion a young Scotch advocate, who, on being taken into their confidence, told them the right and speediest steps to marriage in accordance with the usage of the land. Hence, on embracing his friend in the handsome front-parlour of a high and roomy house in George Street, and taking his first view of Harriett, 'bright, blooming, radiant with youth, health and beauty,' Hogg was in the presence of husband and wife.

For particulars of the way in which the young people spent the next three weeks in the Scotch capital, readers must go to Hogg's much-abused book. For the purpose of the present chapter, it is enough to indicate how life went there with the trio, who in the dead season of a never too lively city, laughed over trivial matters with youth's light-heartedness, and found in themselves all the society they needed. Hogg's only disappointment was that Harriett's disinclination for exercise denied him opportunities for the long walks he had hoped to take in the surrounding country. Otherwise he was abundantly happy in regarding the happiness of the incomparable Shelley, and in studying the charms, the character, and endowments of the girl his friend had taken for better or worse. Rising for an early breakfast, passing the morning in studious or literary labour (Shelley was busy on his translation of a treatise by Buffon; Harriett on her translation of Madame Cottin's _Claire d'Albe_), and dining in the middle of the day, they spent the afternoon in exploring the high-ways and by-ways, the grand places and the nooks and corners, of the picturesque town. Having taken tea freely and talked philosophy with equal freedom, the young men surrendered themselves to the music of their official reader (Harriett of the clear and mellifluous voice), till the deepening shades of evening reminded them it was time to admire the stars, and gaze at the famous comet that gave our grandfathers the wine, whose flavour lingers on tradition's tongue.

For their higher happiness indebted to the heavens and themselves, these young people were indebted to Scotch sabbatarianism for some of their heartiest peals of laughter. With unintentional profanity the future poet was laughing in his own peculiarly shrill and vehement fashion in Prince's Street, on the day that is still the saddest of the seven in North Britain, when he was admonished for his scandalous levity by the austere wayfarer, who remarked, 'You must not laugh openly in that fashion, young man: if you do, you'll most certainly be convened;'--a warning that may have been fruitful of the curiosity, which determined Shelley on a subsequent Sabbath to go to kirk, for the purpose of hearing the servants and children catechized on matters touching religion.

The drollery of Hogg's account of this visit to the kirk is due to the narrator's lively humour, rather than to any unusual absurdity in the proceedings for instructing an assemblage of servants and children in the rudiments of theology. From dullness and shyness, the pupils were slow in catching their catechist's meaning, and still slower in answering the questions that were shouted to them by a teacher, whose Scotch accent was the more effective on his auditors from the south, because at moments of displeasure, his vocal pitch indicated that he was not devoid of Scotch irritability. In asking his class 'Who is the devil?' this catechist cannot be said to have travelled beyond the lines of ordinary official routine; but his vocal peculiarities and the sharpness of his manner gave the simple question a startling piquancy and grotesqueness, that, sending Shelley into shrieks of laughter, drove him to the open streets where, though inopportune, and highly scandalous, such laughter would be less outrageous than in a place of religious instruction.

Six weeks having slipt away quickly, after the wont of time that passing agreeably passes without exciting incidents, the morning came, on which the trio entered a postchaise and began the return-journey to York. Hogg would have preferred the mail or the slowest stage-coach to the private chaise,--a mode of travelling scarcely appropriate to the financial position of the three travellers; the law-student, who had nothing more than a liberal allowance for a student from his father, and the happy pair, who had married on the 200_l._ a-year, which they had reason to apprehend would be withheld from them by the indignant Squire of Field Place. But Harriett had suffered too much on her northward journey to be desirous of resuming her seat in the mail, whilst as a matron of only sixteen summers she wished to travel in a way more befitting a gentlewoman of quality. So Shelley, who hated restraint of any kind, and Hogg, ever averse to costly ostentation, consented to the young lady's desire for a chaise, in which they could converse freely, and she could read one of Holcroft's novels to them. Whatever the book had been, Hogg would have enjoyed hearing it read by so charming a reader. But the tale was tedious to Shelley, who, after sighing in a significant way, vainly entreated Harriett to skip some of the less entertaining parts of the narrative. The conflict on so trifling a matter may be noticed as an indication that, even thus early in their married life, the poet and his bride had trivial differences, in which she had her own way, and he was constrained to let her have it. Not that Harriett insisted on reading aloud the whole of the time from Edinburgh to York. There were moments when, if not glad to give her throat a rest, she was pleased to enlarge her knowledge of rural matters by listening to the talk of her travelling companions. How much it needed enlargement at this point of her career, appears from the earnestness with which the little Cockney (as Shelley styled her) besought her husband to teach her how to discriminate between turnips and barley.

Hogg's comfortable lodgings in York having been let 'over his head' during his absence in Scotland, the trio had no sooner alighted from the last of their successive post-chaises, than they went forth in the rainy twilight to look for other rooms. Hogg suggested, was indeed urgent, that they should pass the night at an inn, and defer the search for lodgings till the morrow. But Shelley flatly refused to acquiesce in the proposal;--a refusal that may well have perplexed Hogg at the moment, as the cause of the future poet's impatience to get into rooms in a private house did not appear till the following morning. Shelley declaring thus stoutly for an immediate entrance on lodgings--any lodgings rather than rooms in a tavern for a single night,--and Harriett of course concurring with her husband, Hogg was in a minority, and could not decline to join them in the search for a temporary home, which, in the course of the damp and chilly October evening, made them the joint-tenants of certain rooms in 'the dingy dwelling of certain dingy old milliners' (the Misses Dancer of Coney Street), who, in the course of a week or ten days, were as glad to be quit of their lodgers, as the lodgers were glad to be quit of the austere and reasonably suspicious needlewomen.

On the morrow Hogg, who had overrun his leave of absence by a few days, went early to the chambers of the conveyancer with whom he was reading; but he did not return thus early to the scene of legal labour and study, without having heard of Shelley's intention to start for London by the next night-mail. The future poet's announcement of this intention to run southward, whilst leaving his bride at York under his friend's care in the rooms they had occupied for a single night, of course showed Hogg why Harriett's youthful and erratic husband had been so urgent for an immediate choice of lodgings,--so averse to tarrying in a tavern for a few hours. On the journey from Edinburgh to York, Shelley had been secretly nursing his project for running off to London and Sussex,--to see his father's attorney (Mr. Whitton), to take counsel with his Uncle Pilfold, and to come to a financial understanding, either by personal interview or through the attorney's intervention, with the Squire of Field Place. The charges of six weeks' residence at Edinburgh, followed by the charges of the southward journey, had reduced his money in hand to so insignificant a sum, that, on approaching York, he could not think of taking Harriett with him on the meditated trip to Middlesex and Sussex. It was manifest to him that she must remain at York, whilst he went on the expedition for 'raising supplies.' At the same time it was obvious, even to the harum-scarum Shelley, that he could not with propriety leave his girlish bride in a York tavern, where she would not fail to become the one subject of gossip, with the landlady and her chamber-maids, the gentle folk of the coffee-room, the bagmen of the commercial-room, the tipplers and loiterers at the public bar. Left to the accidents of life in a tavern, the lovely school-girl--staying by herself in a provincial hotel, without husband or lady's maid, without any companion of her own sex--would be liable to various kinds of insult and annoyance, from which she would be secure in a quiet lodging-house. Hence Shelley's determination to lose not an hour in settling his bride in lodgings after their arrival at York, as he was set on leaving her for a while, in little more than four-and-twenty hours.

Hogg had several reasons for opposing his friend's resolve to go south so abruptly. Seeing what mischief might be made by gossips at York, and by gossips in London and Sussex, of the young husband's voluntary withdrawal from his childish wife, at a moment when she stood in peculiar need of his presence,--when nothing short of overpowering necessity should make him leave her side for an entire day,--and when the very circumstances of their union required them to be more than ordinarily thoughtful for appearances and the world's opinion, Hogg saw the impropriety and insufficiency of the arrangements for her comfort during Shelley's absence. Whilst he was too much a man of the world to think himself the fittest guardian for the lovely girl, on the point of being thrown so completely and unceremoniously on his hands, or to imagine the ladies of York would think him so, Hogg had grounds for a strong opinion, that his friend would gain nothing more by interviews with Mr. Whitton and Mr. Whitton's client than he could gain from them by letters sent through the post,--that he would, in fact, be wasting on a profitless journey the few guineas still remaining to him of borrowed money,--the last lingering guineas, which in a few weeks he might need for bare necessities. Under these circumstances, it is not strange that the more worldly-wise of the two youngsters advised his comrade to postpone the journey for a few days. Even so short a time would have given Hogg opportunities for introducing the Shelleys to ladies of the northern city; for inducing some of those ladies to take an interest in Harriett who, wedded woman though she was, needed a chaperon as much as any recently emancipated school-girl; and for withdrawing from a domiciliary relation to the young lady that, during Shelley's absence, was likely to give rise to equally egregious and undesirable misconceptions in the northern capital. In pleading for delay, Hogg could not, of course state frankly his reasons for the prayer. The questions at issue were too delicate for candour. All the north-countryman could do was to recommend postponement. Of course, the counsel was in vain.

Holding to his purpose, Shelley went for the south, leaving his bride and the incomparable Hogg fellow-lodgers in the same dingy dwelling, and sharers of the same dingy parlour. Surely the circumstances of the case may be held to justify, or at least to excuse, suspicion on the part of the two ancient and austere milliners, careful for their own characters and the reputation of their house in a provincial city, abounding, like all other provincial towns, with people more curious about their neighbours' doings than heedful of their own affairs. Here is the case from a milliner's point of view.--Late one evening, Mr. Hogg (a sprightly young bachelor of the city) enters the house, in the company of Mr. Shelley (a very young gentleman, looking no older than his wife) and Harriett Shelley (looking less than her sixteen summers); the entrance of the trio being covered with assertions that the sprightly Mr. Hogg's juvenile friends are husband and wife. Twenty-four hours later, the young gentleman with the aspect of a schoolboy goes off by the London mail, leaving the sixteen-years-old girl in the house, under the charge of the sprightly Mr. Hogg, whose way of saying strange things makes it doubtful to maiden ladies of mature age and lowly station, whether they should smile or frown. Who is the young lady? Who the young gentleman who has gone off to London? Are they really husband and wife? If so, why has the young gentleman gone off without her? Why has he left her under the care of the sprightly Mr. Hogg, of all people in the world? Can it be that the Scotch marriage, instead of making her the very young gentleman's wife, made her the sprightly Mr. Hogg's wife? The austere and suspicious milliners may well have asked themselves these and half-a-hundred other questions.

Whilst Shelley was away, Harriett spent lonely days at York. The weather was rainy, but there were hours when the sky cleared or its clouds forbore to spend themselves on the roofs and open spaces of the city. It speaks for the girl's uneasiness in a position from which she should have been preserved, and also for her sense of womanly fitness and delicacy, that during her boyish husband's absence she kept herself within the doors of the dingy lodging-house,--forbearing to visit the Minster and other sights of the city, and declining the many invitations Hogg gave her to take exercise in the open air under his escort. In Edinburgh she took daily walks, usually with her husband and Hogg, sometimes with no other companion than her husband's friend; but at York, during her husband's absence, she remained at home. 'When it was fair,' says Hogg of her _triste_ and uneventful days at York, 'she did not go out, having unfortunately transplanted her London notions of propriety to York: she considered it incorrect to walk in the streets of that quiet city by herself.' As Shelley was certainly absent from York on one Sunday (20th October, 1811),--a day on which Mr. Hogg's work at chambers did not preclude him from walking about the town--it may be fairly assumed that Harriett's notions of propriety forbade her to walk in the streets with him no less than by herself. Certainly in her circumspection the sixteen-years-young gentlewoman gave the grim and vigilant milliners no grounds for speaking of her with disapproval, apart from the fact that she continued to share the same parlour with Mr. Hogg. In this matter, how could the poor child do otherwise? How could she help herself?

Having so much of her own company by day, whilst her fellow-lodger was 'at chambers,' Harriett may well have enjoyed Hogg's company in the evening, when they talked together of her husband, and his projects for the regeneration of human kind, her papa and his affairs, her Clapham boarding-school and its discipline, her mamma and sister,--the mamma who looked so ladylike in black satin, and the sister Eliza (in the fulness of her Christian name, Elizabeth) who had so elegant a figure and so noble a crop of black hair. When these and other domestic topics did not hold their attention, Harriett's fellow-lodger used to sit with unqualified contentment for hours together, whilst she read aloud to him Holcroft's _Anna St. Ives_, Dr. Robertson's historical works, and other staid and instructive books. It may be inferred from expressions in Hogg's book that, though she often read aloud to him at Edinburgh, Harriett read aloud to him at York, during Shelley's absence from the city, more copiously than during any other time of their acquaintance. Noteworthy, also, is it, that (by Hogg's admission), Harriett's audible readings became much less frequent and lengthy when Miss Westbrook appeared upon the scene, just four-and-twenty hours before Shelley returned to the city, and that they ceased almost entirely before the Shelleys went away abruptly to Keswick. Possibly, Hogg was wrong in attributing this change of Harriett's conduct altogether to Miss Westbrook's influence. Possibly, also, he was mistaken in attributing the copiousness of Harriett's audible readings, during her husband's absence, altogether to her delight in reading aloud. Harriett read no less clearly than musically. 'Hers,' says Hogg, 'was the most distinct utterance I ever heard.' It is conceivable that, instead of reading thus distinctly either for her own pleasure or for Mr. Hogg's pleasure, Harriett at York read thus audibly for the protection of her own character, and the edification of hearers listening in the passage outside the parlour door.

It cannot be doubted that the poor child, left as she should not have been left, in a position of vexatious and humiliating embarrassment, knew that she, Hogg and her husband were each and all objects of suspicion to the austere and dingy milliners. So placed, she was, of course, painfully jealous for her reputation, and resolute that she would shape her course, so as to be able to extort evidence to her goodness from the very women who suspected her of evil. Never leaving the house, she put it beyond the power of the austere milliners to accuse her of going about the town in pursuit of pleasure. Never receiving any visitor but her fellow-lodger, she confined the milliners' suspicions within narrow limits. Whilst she and her fellow-lodger were together, it was her practice to be incessantly conversing with him or reading to him in a voice, clearly audible outside their room,--so that the milliners should have the evidence of their own ears, that she and her fellow-lodger were no fit objects of suspicion. I have no direct and conclusive evidence that Harriett talked and read aloud for this end. But that she talked and read aloud mainly for this end, is a fair inference from what Hogg says of her talking, reading, and other behaviour during her husband's absence. Reading Hogg's evidence in this way, I have no doubt it was to Harriett's relief, if not at her suggestion, that Miss Westbrook, immediately after her arrival at York, forbade the readings as exercises too exhausting for her sister's nervous system.

In passing through London, Shelley made attempts to see Miss Westbrook and Mr. Whitton, and, probably, saw both of them. If he did not see the attorney, he communicated with him by letter, saying that he should quickly return from Sussex to London. If he saw Miss Westbrook, one may be sure she told him plainly he had done ill in leaving his bride at York under Hogg's care, at a moment when he was especially bound to be thoughtful for her comfort and character. It cannot be doubted that, on coming to Cuckfield, he found his Uncle Pilfold of Miss Westbrook's opinion on this matter. If the old sailor did not say so in words, we may be sure the expression of his countenance told his nephew, that he should not have come to Sussex without his wife; that in leaving her at York he had given people another reason for talking lightly of her and to his disadvantage; that he would do well to withhold from the Field Place and Horsham people a matter they would not fail to report with unfavourable comments, should it come to their knowledge. Under these circumstances it was natural for the young gentleman to take measures to make the Field Place and Horsham people imagine that Harriett had accompanied him to Sussex. The evidence in his own hand-writing, which has caused some writers to imagine she accompanied him to Sussex, is only evidence of the pains taken by Shelley to conceal the indiscretion of which he had been guilty. Dating from his uncle's house at Cuckfield, on Monday 21st October, 1811, the future poet wrote Mr. Medwin (the Horsham attorney) a letter which has been produced in testimony that, instead of being at York (as Hogg truthfully represented), Harriett was on that day with her scatterbrain husband under Captain Pilfold's roof.

Instructing the lawyer that Mrs. Shelley spelt her Christian name with a second t, Shelley further instructed him to prepare a deed of marriage settlement (assigning 700_l._ a-year for Mrs. Shelley's provision during her life, in case of her husband's death). Further, Mr. Medwin was directed to address to his youthful client 'at Mr. Westbrook's, 23 Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square.' After giving these directions, and announcing his purpose of remarrying Harriett (by English form) in the course of three weeks or a month, before which renewal of his nuptials he intended to execute the settlement, Shelley added: 'We most probably go to London to-morrow. We shall probably see Whitton, when I shall neither forget your good advice, nor cease to be grateful for it.'

The instructions by the nineteen-years-old boy for a deed of settlement on his wife, to be executed by him in a few weeks, are amusing. What induced him to say she spelt her Christian name with two t's, when she spelt it in the ordinary manner with only one, is unknown. The main object of the epistle was the purpose of the two delusive sentences beginning with 'we,'--sentences intended to create an impression, or to confirm Mr. Medwin in the impression, that Harriett had accompanied the writer from York. Even in the absence of evidence to the point, the young gentleman (who ten months earlier 'resorted to deception' in order to escape a trivial annoyance) might be presumed to have written other letters to make the Horsham and Field Place gossips imagine his wife was with him in Sussex and London, when she was at York. Taken by itself the evidence that, instead of leaving her at York, Shelley took Harriett with him to London and Sussex is considerable. Indeed, standing by itself, it would justify the historian in representing that the boyish husband carried her southward in his company. But the counter evidence that he left her in York is so much stronger, that I do not hesitate in adopting Hogg's narrative, and in regarding the contradictory evidence as fallacious testimony, arising from Shelley's wish to conceal, and his measures for concealing, the impropriety of which he had been guilty.

Shelley had better have remained at York in submission to Hogg's counsel, instead of spending the greater part of his few remaining guineas on the costly journey, from which he got nothing but disappointment. Refusing to see him, the Squire of Field Place declined for the present to hold any communication with him except through Mr. Whitton. At the same time the Squire declined to give his unruly son any more money, till he should promise to amend his ways and submit himself to his father's authority with fit expressions of penitence. Acting doubtless at his client's instance, Mr. Whitton begged he might not be troubled with a call from his client's son, who could say all that was needful under the circumstances on a sheet of paper. The attitude of the Squire and the attitude of the attorney are clearly defined in two notes dated by the latter to Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley on the same day (23rd October, 1811); the one note being addressed to the poet at Cuckfield, the other being directed to him at the Turk's Coffee-House, Strand.

The young gentleman, who in August chuckled over anticipations of his father's surprise and fury at his runaway match with an innkeeper's daughter, had not made his account for his father's steady persistence in displeasure. The young gentleman who had just travelled southward by mail from York, to talk matters over and settle them with the 'old boy' (Shelley's expression), found the 'old buck' (also Shelley's expression) in no haste to talk matters over, found him resolute to leave matters as they were till he could rearrange them in his own way. Kept at a distance in this way by 'old Killjoy' (also one of the son's nicknames for his sire), Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley was treated with similar insolence by old 'Killjoy's' attorney, who enjoined him to say what he wished to say in writing. It was Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley's turn to feel surprise and indignation. Baffled and resentful the young gentleman returned to York with a heavy heart and a light purse.

At length there was war to the bitter-end between the long-suffering father who had endured so much, and the son, who had now exhausted his sire's patience. At length he was excluded from Field Place, _not_ for his religious opinions, _but_ for his successive extravagances of deceit, disloyalty, and disobedience to an affectionate father, and for the _escapade_ by which he sought to introduce a tavern-keeper's daughter to his mother's drawing-room as the young lady, who in the course of time would be Lady Shelley of Field Place.

Successive writers have insisted that the poet would never have been drawn into this disastrous marriage had it not been for the excessive chivalry of his nature, that placed him at the mercy of the designing, artful, unscrupulous Eliza Westbrook. A chivalrous boy usually has some care for the feelings and dignity of the women of his own blood and hearth. If Shelley really surpassed other boys in chivalry, even as he surpassed them (according to Lady Shelley) in truthfulness and candour, he would surely have been more thoughtful for his mother's feelings and his sister's dignity, than for Miss Westbrook's wishes. It does not appear to have occurred even for a single moment to this chivalrous youth that, in choosing a wife, he should not be absolutely without concern for his mother's sensibility, his sister's honour and social interest. From first to last he seems to have assumed that his own feelings were the only sensibilities for which he was required to think. By those who (with the present writer) think Shelley ran away with Harriett Westbrook because he was thoroughly in love with her, it may, of course, be urged in his excuse that love is proverbially selfish, and that in choosing their wives young men are always more bent on pleasing themselves than on pleasing their mothers and sisters. But such considerations cannot be urged in the youngster's behalf by those, who maintain (with Mr. Garnett) that, instead of marrying the young lady, because he desired her passionately, Shelley fell with passionless weakness into the _mésalliance_ through Miss Eliza Westbrook's artful treatment of his sense of chivalry. Moreover, even by those who believe him to have been honestly in love, it must be conceded that he was less thoughtful for his mother and sisters, than a generous and chivalric young man must necessarily be when he is choosing a wife.

Had he thought for a moment how the _mésalliance_ would affect his mother, he must have seen it would occasion her sorrow and acute mortification. Had he given a thought for the interests of his sisters, he must have seen the match would be greatly injurious to them. Had he taken thought for the honour of the family, which his father and grandfather had raised to the dignity of a territorial house, he must have seen that the gentlewomen of many of the neighbouring families would be slow to recognize and visit John Westbrook's daughter. If he thought with indifference of these sure consequences of the _mésalliance_, the chivalrous Shelley was strangely wanting in chivalric care for the women of his nearest kindred. If he did not think of them at all, his selfishness exceeded the selfishness permitted to lovers.

When 'society' is invited to consider and pass judgment on a new _mésalliance_, it is in the nature of things for the unpleasant and reprehensible features of the affair to be magnified and multiplied by social sentiment. On hearing that young Shelley of Field Place had surpassed all his previous offences by running off to Scotland with an innkeeper's daughter, to his father's unutterable wrath and his mother's grief and dismay, the Sussex families imagined something far more shocking than the actual incident. Knowing nothing of Harriett's beauty and refinement, of her father's respectability, and the care expended on her education, the people of the county houses thought of what was least agreeable in inns and innkeepers, and of all that was most disagreeable in the smart girls usually employed in the inns along the posting roads of the country; and having thus surrounded themselves with more or less repulsive recollections of simpering damsels, the Sussex families leapt to the conclusion that the boy, who was expelled from Oxford last spring, had thrown himself into the arms of some pert barmaid or saucy chamber-woman. In the correspondence (preserved at the Record Office) touching the box of Shelley's pamphlets, that was opened by the Surveyor of Customs at Holyhead in March, 1812, a letter is preserved, which affords curious evidence respecting the view taken of Shelley and his marriage by the great families of the poet's county. Dating from Stanmer, near Brighton, on 8th April, 1812 (just seven months after the elopement) the Earl of Chichester--the chief of Sussex Pelhams and Postmaster-General (in conjunction with ... )--wrote to Mr. Francis Freeling, Secretary of the Post Office:--

'DEAR FREELING,--I return the pamphlet and declaration. The writer of
the first is son of Mr. Shelley, Member for the Rape of Bramber, and
is by all accounts a most extraordinary man. I hear that he has
married a servant, or some person of very low birth.'

It was thus that the chief of a great Sussex family wrote, and the Sussex quality spoke, of the lovely girl, whose marriage had raised her to the honour of being so quaintly and disdainfully misdescribed. For a few weeks known by report to the county families as an innkeeper's daughter, she was vaguely remembered by them a few months later as 'a servant, or some person of very low birth.' A year later the Castle Goring Shelleys were known in county houses, lying outside the immediate neighbourhood of Horsham, as people who made low marriages. Such was the kind of discredit that came to Shelley's kindred from the alliance he had formed in absolute carelessness for their feelings and interests.

A man of the world (albeit an eccentric one), the Squire of Field Place was aware of the disrepute that would come to him and his house from his son's latest escapade. He was also precisely the man to feel acutely the disrepute, which he had reason to fear would be hurtful to his girls. The son of the man who had founded a new family, the heir of the old man who had gathered together enough wealth for the sufficient endowment of half-a-dozen baronets, the _protégé_ of the Duke of Norfolk, who had for several years regarded him with growing complaisance, and a Member of Parliament, who had contrived to persuade himself he was no ordinary Borough-Member, the honest, kindly, hearty Squire of Field Place, had hoped that his boy would, under his Grace's favour, pass directly from his nonage to public life; that his girls (the eldest of them already a beauty, the three younger ones bearing on their childish faces the promise of uncommon womanly loveliness,) would marry into the best families of the county, with whose history his name had been so long associated, though none of his father's lineal ancestors had ever held place amongst its aristocracy. Doubtless, the simple, sport-loving, and mildly ambitious Englishman had cherished the hope that his son, or one of his son's sons, would wear a coronet. And now all these pleasant and not inordinate hopes were dissipated by his perverse boy's marriage with the girl, with whom the county families would decline to associate,--the girl who would be called the Field Place 'barmaid,'--the girl who, so soon after her discreditable marriage, lived in the minds of the Sussex grandees as a servant or other low person.

The Squire's mortification might be deemed his fitting punishment, had he in pride of purse borne himself insolently to former friends; had he, on rising to friendship with 'the great,' fawned and cringed to their grandeur; had he, in his desire for the elevation of his offspring and the aggrandisement of Castle Goring, attempted to force his son into a distasteful union, requiring him to marry for more money or higher rank. But the honest gentleman had committed none of these faults. Addressing the great without sycophancy, he lived in good-fellowship with all men. Instead of trying to force his son's affections, he would have been content to see him marry Harriett Grove,--a girl of no fortune, and of a family something nearer doubtless, but only something nearer, the aristocracy than the small squireens and gentle yeomanry from whom he was himself descended. All he had asked of the boy, who with good conduct would succeed to a noble fortune, was to marry a gentlewoman, fit to be his mother's daughter and the sister of his sisters. And what had the boy done? He had run off with a barmaid!--for, of course, to the Squire, in his fury, John Westbrook's lovely child was nothing better than a barmaid.

In the autumn of 1811 the Squire of Field Place could not comfort himself with reflecting that, if he was a much worried father, he was worried by a marvellously clever boy whom it was an honour to have begotten; for at that time Shelley had done nothing to indicate he would win a place amongst men of genius, or even figure amongst men of considerable parts. His Eton career had been worse than disappointing; his Oxford career had been eminently disgraceful; his novels were ludicrous performances; _The Necessity of Atheism_ was not an achievement on which his father could be expected to think with complaisance. At the worst he had, from his fifteenth year, been a bad boy; at the best he was a mere scatterbrain. Having pardoned the boy repeatedly for serious misdemeanours; having again and again relented towards him and, saying 'let bygones be bygones,' given him a fresh start, is it wonderful that Mr. Timothy Shelley determined to make no more bootless concessions, to accept no more imperfect recognitions of his authority, to have done with half-measures, and to insist on his son's unqualified submission as the prelude to a renewal of their intercourse? The father has been charged with enormous severity to his son, because he required him to behave like other sons, and held steadily to his determination to keep his son at a distance, until the youngster had promised to show ordinary consideration for the feelings of his parents. When Percy said, 'Out of regard to my feelings give me a good allowance, and let me bring my wife to Field Place,' what was there so monstrous in the Squire's answer, 'Out of regard to my feelings, your mother's feelings, your sisters' welfare, forbear from giving expression to sentiments that offend me, shock her, and bring social disrepute to your family?' What should the father have done? Hogg was of opinion that the Squire should have given his son a handsome allowance, and left him at liberty to say and do what he liked. Bearing in mind that Shelley was still only nineteen years of age, most readers of this page,--certainly most fathers with unruly sons still in their nonage,--will see reasons for differing from Mr. Hogg on this matter.

If Miss Eliza Westbrook was desirous of a good pretext for hastening to York and taking the young couple under her protection and government, she found her desire in the singular circumstances under which her sister (a mere child) had been left at York. Packing her trunks, Miss Westbrook took the road along which her sister had travelled seven or eight weeks earlier. She was in possession of her darling, and at war with Hogg in the dingy lodging-house, whilst Shelley was still on his way back to the northern city, with a light purse and a heavy heart. On returning to the dingy house, the boyish husband found both sisters in the dingy parlour.

Having been told by Harriett that her sister was 'beautiful, exquisitely beautiful,' with an elegant figure, dark bright eyes, and a profusion of black hair, Hogg was surprised by the indications of age in her countenance which, instead of being lovely, was chiefly remarkable for marks of small-pox, and the not translucent pallor common in faces disfigured by that malady. To Hogg (a prejudiced and strongly biased witness against the woman he loathed) it appeared that, though dark, Eliza Westbrook's eyes were dull and meaningless; that, though black and glossy, her hair was coarse; that her figure was meagre, prim, and graceless; that her personal charms existed only in her younger sister's imagination.

History has still to discover the year of Miss Westbrook's birth; but it may be safely assumed she was not so old as Mr. Hogg imagined,--that she was over five-and-twenty, and under thirty years of age. It may also be assumed that her appearance was less repulsive to other people than to Mr. Hogg. If Harriett's fancy erred in one direction, Mr. Hogg's animosity erred in another. If Harriett's partiality caused her to think too well of her sister's appearance, Hogg's resentment inspired him to speak too unfavourably of Miss Westbrook's looks.

Miss Westbrook and Hogg were enemies even before they set eyes on one another. The lady had travelled to York to encounter the enemy of her sister's reputation. On hearing she would soon appear in the dingy lodging-house, Hogg knew that on her arrival he would be face to face with a foe. At the moment of their first meeting, Shelley's incomparable friend and Shelley's sister-in-law exchanged glances of aversion. When he bowed before her, at their introduction to one another in the dingy parlour, the 'barmaid by origin' (to use Hogg's words) scarcely deigned to notice him.

'I thought Bysshe was to have brought you with him,' observed Hogg to the lady, who, in her haste to shelter her darling, had not waited to travel with her brother-in-law.

'Oh dear, no!' Miss Westbrook replied, with cold and disdainful significance.

'Shall I make tea?' Hogg inquired, glancing at the tea-things on the table; and as he was not forbidden to do so, he brewed the tea, and brought Miss Westbrook a cup of the beverage, which she regarded contemptuously when it was placed before her. This was embarrassing to the gentleman who was joint-tenant of the dingy parlour.

If it was not farce, what followed this meeting of the enemies was very broad comedy. Miss Westbrook, thinking Hogg in the way, was of opinion he ought to get out of the way as quickly as possible. Thinking Miss Westbrook had come where she was not wanted, Hogg was of opinion she ought to be ordered back to London. On reappearing in the dingy lodging-house just twenty-four hours after Miss Westbrook's arrival, Shelley found himself between an incomparable friend who said, 'You must get rid of Miss Westbrook,' and an incomparable sister-in-law who said, 'You must get quit of Mr. Hogg.' As Harriett was on her sister's side, the future poet could not act on Hogg's advice. There was another reason why the youthful husband could not deal thus summarily with his sister-in-law.

Thinking that Miss Westbrook should be sent back immediately to London, and seeing that Shelley was scarcely the person to tell her and constrain her to go home, Hogg was of opinion that his friend ought to put strong pressure on his bride, to tell her sister she must retire from the scene where she was unwelcome,--that he should say firmly to Harriett, 'Choose between me and your sister: I leave York if she doesn't. If you wish me to remain by your side, you must tell your sister to go and leave us alone.' Five-and-forty years later, when he reviewed this critical passage of the poet's career, and all the miserable consequences of Miss Westbrook's transient power of him, Hogg felt as firmly as ever that Harriett's husband might have preserved his conjugal contentment for a much longer period, by saying stoutly to her 'either Eliza goes or I go,' and showing he would forthwith act on the menace, if the intruder did not at once retire. The happiness, coming to him from his marriage, might not have been great and enduring under any circumstances; but by shaking Eliza from him at York, he would have rid himself of the creature, whose scheming spirit and false tongue made it so miserably brief and insufficient. This was Hogg's one-sided and possibly erroneous view of the case. Holding it honestly, he may well have deplored the weakness that incapacitated 'the divine Shelley' for casting from him so promptly the influence which extinguished for ever his confidence and delight in his young wife, after having placed him for a while at war with the friend, who induced him to make the lovely child his wife, when he was thinking of making her his mere mistress.

Thinking Eliza should be dismissed in this fashion, Hogg doubtless told Shelley so. As Shelley, whilst differing from Byron in being able to keep a secret, resembled him also in a habit of blabbing to others what he should have kept to himself, it may be assumed that, if he did not impart it directly to Miss Westbrook, he communicated Hogg's counsel to his wife, without requiring her to act upon it. Further, as Harriett's confidence in her sister was perfect at this point of their curious story, it cannot be questioned, that whatever Shelley told his wife of Hogg's view of the position, was speedily communicated by her to Miss Westbrook.

It is not probable that under any circumstances Shelley would just then have concurred in Hogg's opinion, and decided to act upon it. But even if he approved the advice on general grounds, circumstances forbade him to adopt it. Returning to York with an almost empty purse, and no hope that it would be speedily replenished by his father, Shelley could not afford to quarrel with his sister-in-law, who had a little money in her pocket, and was influential with her father, to whom he was already looking for pecuniary relief. Though he could lend Shelley 10_l._ from time to time, Hogg (as he tells us) was unable to provide him with enough money for his own and his wife's maintenance. At that moment, the law-student's store of money in hand had been reduced to a trifle by the charges of his recent trip to Scotland. Captain Pilford had already done his utmost for his nephew's pecuniary relief. Having incurred the Squire's vehement displeasure by lending Shelley the 25_l._, which enabled him to fly with Harriett to Edinburgh, Mr. Medwin (the Horsham attorney) was in no mood to incense his powerful neighbour and relative to fiercer wrath, and to provoke further censure from the Squire's patron, the Duke of Norfolk, by lending the young gentleman any more money. Under these circumstances, Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley could not afford to quarrel with Miss Westbrook, the only person to whom he could just then look for the relief of his immediate necessities,--'the influence' through which he was hoping to get a regular allowance from his father-in-law.

Seeing that Shelley would not put the needful pressure on his wife, the brilliant thought occurred to Hogg that, doing what his friend dared not do, he would indicate the 'necessary course' to Harriett, and urge her with equal delicacy and firmness to take it. Miss Westbrook spent much time in brushing the black hair, which Harriett regarded admiringly, and Mr. Hogg spoke and wrote about with profane flippancy. One day, whilst the elder sister was brushing her hair, Hogg persuaded Mrs. Shelley to walk with him to the old Roman bridge, and have a look at the Ouse, which had just then overflowed its banks, and was in divers ways behaving with picturesque and sensational extravagance.

'Is it not an interesting, a surprising sight?' remarked Harriett, whilst viewing 'the floods' from the middle of the bridge.

'Yes,' returned Hogg, 'it is very wonderful. But, dear Harriett, how nicely that dearest Eliza would spin down the river! How sweetly she would turn round and round, like that log of wood! And, gracious heaven, what would Miss Warne say?'--Miss Warne being a maiden lady (daughter of a London taverner) who held so high a place in Miss Westbrook's affection and esteem, that the latter, in her ordinary talk on things in general, was in the habit of referring admiringly to the lady's discretion and faultless taste.

At this piquant suggestion, that it would be well to pitch Eliza into the river, and give Miss Warne a fine opportunity for saying something remarkable, Harriett (says Hogg) 'turned her pretty face away, and laughed--as a slave laughs, who is beginning to grow weary of an intolerable yoke.' It speaks much for Hogg's rashness, that he ventured to speak in this fashion of Miss Westbrook to her younger and admiring sister;--for his self-sufficiency, that he imagined a few words from him would put the girl in revolt against her only sister;-for the excessive familiarity of his bearing to her, that he addressed her as 'dear Harriett,' as he spoke thus lightly of the 'dearest Eliza,' and her super-excellent Miss Warne;--for his vanity and ignorance of human nature, that he imagined Harriett would respect his confidence so far as to keep his saucy words from her sister. Of course the sixteen-years-old girl did not deem herself under an obligation of honour to withhold from her only sister the flippant utterances of so recent an acquaintance. Honour and loyalty required her to tell Eliza that Hogg wished to separate them,--was set on compassing their estrangement. On learning that Hogg meant Shelley and Harriett to discard her, Miss Westbrook resolved that they should discard him. Whatever may be thought of the means she used for the achievement of her end, it cannot be denied, that she could plead extreme provocation in excuse of what was reprehensible in her extreme measures;--and that it was natural for her to determine her sister and brother-in-law should banish the man who wanted them to dismiss her. It was a fight between an angry and unscrupulous young woman and an overbearing young man. The fight was sharp and short: for the moment, the victory was with the woman.

In fighting Mr. Hogg,--in taking for his humiliation and discomfiture a course, which she probably never thought of taking till he struck her, and possibly would never have thought of taking, had he treated her in a courteous and conciliatory manner,--it is conceivable that Miss Westbrook persuaded herself she was actuated by pure concern for her sister's happiness, and righteous disapproval of masculine wickedness, and in no degree whatever by personal spite and resentment. The lady was in just the position to imagine she did altogether for her sister's good what she did chiefly for the gratification of her own vindictiveness. Travelling northward to guard her darling from Hogg's indiscretion, she made the journey in a mood to suspect him of something worse than indiscretion. By no means wanting in self-esteem, or disposed to underrate her charms, the lady naturally inferred from Hogg's desire to extrude so fascinating a person as herself from so small a circle, that her presence was distasteful to him, because it promised to defeat his insidious designs on Harriett's honour and happiness. The young man, who would deprive Harriett of her sister's society and protection, desired to get the dear child into his power,--to have her at his mercy. For what end did he desire to have the dear child in his power, at his mercy? The answer to this question determined Miss Westbrook to preserve the dear child from a villain.

Tractable and docile in the hands of the elder sister, whom she admired and loved enthusiastically, the dear child in perfect simplicity and purity of thought provided Miss Westbrook with evidence that Shelley's incomparable friend was a young man of incomparable wickedness. Here are the damnatory admissions and confessions of the younger sister. Mr. Hogg had been extremely attentive to her in Edinburgh, and also (during her husband's absence) at York. At Edinburgh he had taken her for walks, unattended by Shelley. He certainly admired her beauty, for he had said so outright on several occasions. He had paid her extravagant compliments,--indeed compliments so extravagant, that they caused her embarrassment. He was very kind and attentive to her; but she had often wished he would not commend her so immoderately to her face. She had refused to take walks with him in York during Shelley's absence, but it cost her no little effort to hold to her decision on this point, so urgent was he in begging her to walk abroad. When he was not at Chambers, or on the way to and fro between them and the dingy lodging-house, Hogg had spent all his time at the house. Taking tea with her every evening, he had passed the whole of each evening in the dingy parlour with her, till she retired to rest for the night. It had been very awkward for her, to live in the same house and share the same parlour with him, during her husband's absence:-all the more awkward, because he persisted in paying her such extravagant compliments. The milliners had been disobliging and suspicious in their bearing to her. Possibly they would have been less so, had Hogg left her under their protection altogether, or been less attentive to her in her husband's absence. Such were Harriett's admissions and confessions to her sister,--admissions and confessions made afterwards to her husband. Miss Westbrook knew how to manipulate and dress up these simple admissions into evidence to Shelley, that his friend's gallantry to Harriett had been excessive, that his admiration of her was embarrassing to Harriett, that he might have been more thoughtful for the delicate sensibilities of the simple and innocent child, that they had been too much together for her contentment and reputation, that the dear child had been worried and harassed by her admirer, that her husband should put a distance between them. Care for the dear child's nerves and feelings required that she should be removed from York as soon as possible.

Committing herself to no statement of fact, in which her sister would not concur, Miss Westbrook was careful to say nothing that would make Shelley suspicious of his wife's goodness, or render him wrathful with Hogg. It was enough for the present to suggest that Harriett's mere beauty had inspired Hogg with a sentiment of strong admiration, trembling on the verge of passion;--that, without doing or saying aught to justify Shelley in quarreling with him outright, Hogg had permitted Harriett to see the state of feeling which he should have been most careful to conceal from her; that Harriett was secretly troubled by her sense of Hogg's regard for her;--a regard for which of course she was in no degree to be blamed, and he was to be pitied rather than condemned. Of course Miss Westbrook (a clever woman) knew how the seeds of distrust and jealousy would grow in the breast to which she was committing them; knew that by charging Hogg at first with nothing worse than weakness, she would be able to persuade Harriett's boyish and fanciful husband a few weeks or months later, that his incomparable friend was a false friend.