The Radicalism of Shelley and Its Sources

to which the institutions of a country cause one sufferi

wretc

into poetr

ffering what the

remarked once that the whole aspect of the world would be different if Cleopatra's nose had been a little shorter. The history of Shelley's life is a series of incidents which tended to make him radical. He never had a chance to be anything else. No sooner would he be brought in contact with conservative influe

an annihilation at the end of life.[8] With regard to the poet's father, it is very difficult to form a just estimate. There is no doubt that Shelley enthusiasts decried the father too much in their efforts to canonize the son. It would indeed be strange to find any father at that time who would be capable of giving our poet that guidance and training which his nature demanded. It was a time when might was right, when the rod held a large pla

d tolerant, but narrow-minded. Very few references to the home of his boyhood are made in his poet

nd of ourselves!... We less habitually distinguished all that we saw and felt from 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

moments suc

ead my soul t

forgotten,

something in

ect in

ndering over magic tomes. The "Great Old Snake" and the "Great Tortoise" were other wondrous creatures of his imagination that lived out of doors. He used to entertain his sis

y I sought for

stening chamber

od, with fearful

talk with the

sts. Once he described minutely a visit which he said he had paid to some neighbo

. It was at this school that Shelley first became acquainted with the romantic novels of Anne Radcliffe and the other novelists of the School of Terror. Here too he became greatly interested in ch

who distinguished themselves for their opposition to the authorities of the school. The title must have fallen into disuse shortly after Shelley's time, as Professor Dowdon failed to find at Eton any trace of this

ase. It was Dr. Lind, according to Hogg, who gave Shelley his first lessons in French philosophism. Jeafferson says that he taught Shel

laim against what he considered to be bigotry and intolerance. In a letter to Hogg, December 20, 1810, he writes: "O! I burn with impatience for the moment of the dissolution of intolerance; it has injured me. I swear on the altar of perjured love to revenge myself, on the hated cause of the effect; which even now I can scarcely help deploring.... Adieu! Down with bigotry! Down with intolerance! In this en

ignored instead of opposed, I have no doubt that he would have seen things in their proper light and would never have been the rabid radical that he became. An Etonian called once on Shelley in Oxford and asked him if he meant to be an atheist there too. "No!" he answered, "certainly not. There is no motive for it; they are very civil to us here; it is not like Eton."[10] It is Medwin's conviction that Shelley never completely overcame his love for Harriet.

e Edinburgh Review, admitted that only extreme incapacity or flagrant idleness would prevent a student from obtaining his degree at the end of his course. Fynes Clinton, in his Autobiography, tells us that Greek studies at Christ Church were very much neglected. During his seven years of residence grammar, syntax, prosody were never mentioned. Students rarely attended lectures. Much of their time was passed in hunting, drinking, and every kind of debauchery. "At boarding schools of every description," writes Mrs. Wollstonecraft, "the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the senior, vice. Besides,

th men of sober intellect, the whole course of his life might have been

ut forward in argument its doctrines. It may seem strange that this cold skeptical philosophy appealed to such an imaginative poet as Shelley; but destruction, as Hogg remarks, so that it be on a grand scale, may sometimes prove hardly less inspiring

n the public and an infringement of at least one writer's copyright. The book was at once withdrawn and suppressed. Some doubt exists as to the name of the person who cooperated with Shelley in producing this book. Shelley enthusias

iments." Shelley's father too was worrying at this time about his son's loss of faith. He may have received the first intimation of his son's speculations from a criticism in The Critical Review of another w

ckoned an outcast, yet I defy them, and laugh at their ineffectual efforts, etc." And in another letter: "My mother imagines me to be on the highroad to Pandemonium; she fancies I want to make a deistical coterie of my little sisters.

hteen months' imprisonment in Lincoln jail. Shelley contributed to a subscription list in aid of Finnerty and also wrote a poem entitled A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things to help on the cause. Leigh and John Hunt, who defended Finnert

y College

h 2,

rmit me also to submit to your consideration, as one of the most fearless enlighteners of the public mind at the present time, a scheme of mutual safety a

ttained the height at which we behold it; nor can any of us bear in mind the very great influence which, some years since, was gained by Illuminism, without considering that a society of equal extent might establish rational liberty on as firm a basis as that which would have supported the visionary schemes of a

obedient

. Sh

Illuminists. The remarkable success of this society in propagating free thought and revolutionary principles evidently inspired Shelley to attempt the formation of

ld produce their evidence, if they could prove he wrote it, and not question him because it was neither just nor lawful to interrogate him in such a case and for such a purpose. Shelley refused to answer their questions and was given one day in which to leave the college. His friend Hogg shared the same fate for the same reason. Shelley never received any admonition nor hint that his speculations were improper. Hogg says "there can be no reasonable doubt tha

o his son, commanding him to abstain from all communication with Hogg and place himself "under the care and society of such gentlemen as he should appoint" under pain of b

be wrong to put an end to her miserable life. Another letter from her soon followed, in which she threw herself upon his protection and proposed to fly with him. Shelley hastened to London, and after the delay of a fe

rd that Percy was an atheist; at least so it was given out at Clapham. At first I did not comprehend the meaning of the word; therefore when it was explained I was truly petrified.... I little thought of the rectitude of these principles and when I wrote to him I used to tr

ful plotting.[14] After spending five weeks in Edinburgh, Shelley, Harriet, and Hogg went to York. They were joined there by Elizabeth,

ccount of the affair in a letter to Miss Hitchener savors much of Godwinism. "I desired to know fully the account of this affair. I heard it from him and I believe he was sincere. All I can recollect of that terrible day was that I pardoned him-fully, freely pardoned him; that I would still be a friend

d to allow him ￡2,000 a year if he would consent to entail the property on his eldest son, and in default of issue, on his brother. The proposition was indignantly rejected. He considered that kinship b

ite in me feelings of reverence and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him a luminary too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him. From the earliest peri

de your books of chemistry," said Wordsworth to a student, "and read Godwin on necessity." This philosopher seemed to provide them with a

but he thought that he should first of all strive to dispel bigotry and intolerance-"to awaken a noble nation from the lethargy of despair."[16] What Irishmen needed most of all were knowledge, sobriety, peace, benevolence-in a word, virtue and wisdom. "When you have these things," he said, "you may defy the tyrant." It is not sur

liked were fiends. Their correspondence, which extends over a period of more than a year, gives us a good picture of the workings of Shelley's mind during this time. They all moved to London in November. It was not to be expected that a combination of even such disinterested, enlightened superior mortals as these could last long. Elizabeth's influence over Shelley soon began to wane. His dislike for her was equalled only by his former

me in Wales and Dublin and then retu

dwin says that he commenced this work in the autumn of 1809. "After his expulsion he reverted to his Queen Mab commenced a year and a half before, and converted what was a mere imaginative poem into a systematic at

e young nobility and is represented as spelling pretty well for a lord. In Ireland, the colonies, and even in England itself, oppression was well-nigh intolerable. Byron's Age of Bronze contains a good description of the way in which the landlords treated their tenants. The changes that followed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution caused untold suffering. The spread of machinery destroyed the old domestic industries of spinning and weaving, and many were consequently deprived of their most important source of subsistence. Children took up the places of the master craftsmen; and the amount of misery that this substitution entailed to both children and craftsmen is almost incredible.[18] Politics was rotten to the core. Even the great commoner, William Pitt, has been convicted by Macaulay

e to the ruling party were often fined and imprisoned without due process of law. It is little wonder then that Godwin, Shelley, and others declaimed agains

sed the most suffering to the poor were the indirect taxes on wheat, shoes, salt, etc. In 1815 a law was passed prohibiting the importation of wheat for less than eighty shillings the

to pauperism was made so easy and agreeable that a large portion of the laboring classes drifted along it. This system set a premium on improvidence if not on vice. The inevitable effect was that wages fell as doles increased, that paupers so pensioned were preferred by the farmers to i

m. They were mostly private institutions leased out to ruthless, rapacious keepers who used every menace and extortion to wring money out of the wretched beings committed to their care. Prisons were dark because their managers objected to pay the window tax. Pauper prisoners were nearl

f the time; yet there is reason to believe that Anglican parsons were not very much concerned with the salvation of souls. "The Church had

s when there were fine gentlemen, Mr. Secretary Pitt's under-secretaries did not dare to sit down before him; but Mr. Pitt, in his turn, went down on his gouty knees to George II; and when George III spoke a few kind words to him, Lord Chatham burst into tears of reverential joy and gratit

s the subtitle of the work, and on that account an outline of the work will supplement the review of society already given. "Caleb Williams,"

d character of the Government intrudes itself into every rank of society." "Accordingly," he writes, "it was proposed in the invention of the following work to comprehend,

d solitary. He avoided men and did not seem to have any friends in whom he confided. He scarcely ever smiled, and his manners plainly showed that he was troubled and unhappy. He was considerate to o

and virtue. At length he returned to England with the intention of spending the rest of his days on his estate. His nearest neighbor, Barnabas Tyrrel, was insupportably arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors and insolent to his equals. On account of his wealth, strength, and copiousness of speech he was regarded with admiration by some, but with

is imprisoned in her room for refusing, and is saved from a diabolical plot to ruin her through the timely assistance of Falkland. While still delirious and suffering from the ill-treatment of her perse

im. At length the crisis came. Tyrrel is driven out of a rural assembly by Falkland. He returned soon afterwards, struck Falkland, felled him to the earth, and kicked him in the presence of all. Falkland was disgraced, and to him disgrace was worse than death. "He was too deeply pervaded with the idle and groundless romances of chivalry ever to forget the situation, humiliating and dishonourable according to his idea, in which he had been placed upon this occasion. To be knocked down, cuffed, kicked, dragged along the floor! Sacred heaven, the memory of such a treatment was not to be endured." Next morning Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been murdered at a short distance from the assembly-house. That day marked the beginning of that melancho

leb that if ever an unguarded word escaped from his lips he would pay for it by his death or worse. This secret was a constant source of torment to Williams. Every trifling incident made Falkland suspicious and consequently increased the misery of his secretary. At length Caleb flees, but is taken back, falsely accused of theft, and cast into prison. In all this Falkland contrives to manage things so as to increase his reputation for benevolence. Williams is made to appear an ungrateful wretch. The impotence of the law to secure justice to the weak is only equalled by the wretchedness of the prisons to which they are condemned. "Thank God,"

illiams does this in a way to carry conviction to his hearers. Falkland finally breaks down, throws himself into Williams' arms, saying, "All my prospects are concluded. All that I most ardently desired is forever frustrated. I have spent a life of the basest cruelty to cover one act of momentary vice, and to protect myself against the prejudice of my species.... And now (turning to the magistrates) do with me as you please. If, however, you wish to punish me, you must be speedy in your justice; for, as reputation was the blood that warmed my heart, so I feel that death and infamy must seize me together." He survived this event but three days. "A nobler spirit than Falkland's," Godwin writes, "lived not among the sons of men. Thy intellectual powers were truly sublime, and thy bosom burned with a godlike ambition. But of what use are talents and senti

true, but they did not influence men to any great extent. Cowper, f

undance

ampered cities

ss and glutt

te, and pleads for a return to religion. In

ntsman and a f

derer from th

p, what wonder

does not attack the institutions of his country with the vehemence characteristic of later write

oem is considered by some to be merely a declamatory pamphlet in verse. Shelley himself described it at one time as "villainous trash." Like a true radical he gathers up all the evils o

earth's pride and meanness and burst "the icy chains of custom." Volney's traveler is likewise disengaged from his body and conveyed to the upper regions by a Genius. Many consolations await him there as a reward for his unselfishness and desires for the happiness of mankind. The earth is plainly visible to both Volney's traveler and Shelley's

t not fin

city stoo

on of the past and says that from it

tha

by his erro

ce from

e Spirit, in Queen Mab, is shown the miserable life that kings live. They have no peace of mind; even their "slumbers are but varie

black loa

adness, treach

final chapters of Les Ruines describe a disputation between the doctors of different religions, which ends in convincing the people that all religions are false. The ministers of the various sects contradict and refute one another, opposing revelations to revelations and miracles to miracles, until they render it evident that they are all deceived or deceivers. Man himself is to blame for having been duped. Religion exists because man is superstitious and tolerate

pt is mocking

ending to the

d unpitied,

is passing b

ne a glare that fa

hines but in th

wered above the

ge-of the world as it will be, when reason will be the sole guide of m

he introduction of barter and sale into society was followed by vice and misery. "Barter and sale being once introduced, the invention of a circulating medium in the

set the mark

f its all-en

ore, and call

being on the face of the earth with a heart more thoroughly purged

elley

th whose poison

virtue dar

ays that

hired brav

hrone-the bull

inks and channe

of societ

t is most

Essay V of Godwin's Enquirer. With regard to

nd hoary-hea

pe, a passio

a life of l

flattery to th

stem whence th

in opinion, cold, formal, the slave of what other men may think of them, rude, dictatoria

suredly does. It awakens the social conscience. The first step for the sinner on the road to conversion is to try to realize the sinful state of his soul. The same is true of a nation in need of reform. Unless its shortcomings are vi