Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/44

 Harriet was now in full force, vigour, and effect; roseate as ever, at times perhaps rather too rosy. She had entirely relinquished her favourite practice of reading aloud … neither did she read much to herself; her studies, which had been so constant and exemplary, had dwindled away, and Bysshe had ceased to express any interest in them, and to urge her, as of old, to devote herself to the cultivation of her mind. When I called upon her, she proposed a walk … the walk commonly conducted us to some fashionable bonnet-shop.’ These ominous details are followed by a pathetic letter from Shelley, dated 16 March, deploring the ruin of his domestic happiness and the desolation of his home, from which he has been absent for a month. In these circumstances it is preposterous to attribute the estrangement to Shelley's passion for Mary Godwin, whom, except perhaps casually as a girl, he had not even seen. Nor is there any reason to impugn Harriet's conjugal fidelity; her attachment had involuntarily decayed, and her tastes and habits had rendered Shelley's society uncongenial to her. None would affirm that the youth of twenty either exercised the patience or made the efforts which he ought to have done, yet he was far from acting with the precipitancy commonly attributed to him. He seems to have foreseen that a separation might ensue; for on 23 March Harriet, hitherto only united to him by a Scots ceremony, was remarried with the rites of the church of England, thus securing her legal status in any event. But so late as May, some time after his meeting with Mary Godwin, he is found pleading in pathetic verse for the restoration of Harriet's affections; and his lines to Mary a month later, though betraying great agitation of mind, are not those of one who is or wishes to be an accepted lover. But matters were evidently tending this way, and the crisis was precipitated by Harriet's ill-judged step of leaving her home and retiring with her child to her father's house at Bath towards the end of June. She speedily saw her error, but it was too late. Shelley seems to have summoned her to town about 14 July, and after several interviews between them, partly relating no doubt to the ‘deeds and settlements’ mentioned in subsequent correspondence, he quitted England with Mary Godwin on 28 July. They took with them Jane Clairmont [q. v.], a daughter by her first marriage of Mary Godwin's stepmother, a most imprudent step and the source of many calumnies.

The fugitives crossed the Channel in an open boat, hastened to Paris, and made their way through the eastern provinces of France, still black with the devastation of war, to Switzerland, where they hoped to find a permanent abode. On the way Shelley wrote to Harriet, proposing that she should join them, a project sufficiently repellent, but indicating that Shelley had parted with his wife on terms that, in his eyes at any rate, rendered friendly relations possible. Residence in Switzerland, however, soon proved impracticable for himself and Mary; expected remittances failed to arrive, and they were only enabled to effect their return home by the cheapness of the Rhine water-carriage. Their adventures were recorded in a little narrative (‘The History of a Six Weeks' Tour,’ written and published in 1817) which was reissued, with a charming commentary, by Charles Isaac Elton (London, 1894, 8vo). The remainder of the year, during which Harriet gave birth to Charles Bysshe, a son by Shelley, was very trying. Shelleys, Godwins, and Westbrooks were all inimical, and every source of pecuniary supply was cut off but the post-obit. At the beginning of 1815 Shelley's affairs took a favourable turn owing to the death of his grandfather. The new baronet, Sir Timothy, finding that his son could now encumber the estate, thought it best to come to terms with him. No real reconciliation was effected, but Shelley received 1,000l. a year, 200l. out of which he settled on Harriet. After a tour in the south of England, he took a house at Bishopgate, close by Windsor Forest. Consumption seemed to threaten for a time but passed away. The feeling thus engendered combined with the solemnity of the forest scenery to inspire ‘Alastor,’ the first poem in which he is truly himself, where the presentiment of impending dissolution and ‘the desire of the moth for the star’ are shadowed forth in an obscure but majestic allegory. It was published in 1816 (‘Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude,’ London, 8vo), with some minor poems, also in a purely Shelleyan key. During the winter Shelley pursued the study of Greek literature in conjunction with his friends Hogg and Thomas Love Peacock [q. v.], who had been introduced to him by their common publisher Hookham. Both were excellent classical scholars, but Shelley alone of the three could assimilate the inner spirit of Greece, and these studies were most favourable to his development. At this time dawns the tranquillity of soul which, though sorely tried by storms from within and without, beamed more and more throughout the remainder of his life. Henceforth he no longer aspired to enter personally into political agitation, and was content to work upon the world by his writings. About this time,