altogether as much space as one of the volumes before us. Plutarch's Lives and Catullus's poems have been light enough to float down the stream of time; we doubt whether these somewhat weighty two volumes, and the eight-volume edition containing the collected works, will not sink to the bottom, and carry something that is valuable with them. But, after all, such criticism is somewhat captious; most biographies now occupy, not two, but even three or four thick volumes, and both the controversies and calumnies which have surrounded Shelley's life make a minute investigation almost necessary. We have no doubt, too, that there are many who would complain that Professor Dowden has not given us in parallel columns the two forms of the diaries of Mary Shelley and Jane Clairmont, all the law papers which are in existence to illustrate the Chancery suit, and all the remnants of his accounts. We can even imagine some who would not be content without facsimile reproductions of all these documents. For our own part we thank Professor Dowden for the moderation he has shown, even though in some points he has been a trifle wearisome.

The first question we naturally ask is, Is this biography trustworthy? Professor Dowden has given us many new documents which help to defend Shelley's character. What of those he has not given? We must state at once that the whole work seems to us stamped with the marks of the most scrupulous truthfulness. Professor Dowden has been thoroughly conscientious in not neglecting even those letters and facts which conflict with his conclusions. As far as we are able to judge (and we have read most works bearing on Shelley's character), nothing has been concealed-so much so that in places where we do not agree with the author's conclusion (and there are several) we can generally find everything necessary to refute him in his own work. Professor Dowden has

to a certain extent held a brief for a client, and had the advantage of being able to call witnesses who cannot be examined by the other side; but he does not conceal their evidence when it is unfavourable, and we can accept his facts. without drawing the same deductions from them, or arriving at the same conclusions.

The literary merits of the book it is unnecessary for us to praise; we may state at once that all who are acquainted with the skill of the author will not be disappointed: they will find the criticisms generally good, if the narrative is sometimes heavy, and that the style is not inferior to that of his other works. Having said so much, we may make one or two

criticisms. In the first place, Professor Dowden feels embarrassed by the two different circles of readers he has to address. His book is addressed ad mundum, and he is perfectly aware that the world will not look upon Shelley with quite the same eyes as his admirers, and yet those admirers who think his character divine have to be satisfied as well, and hence there is sometimes a weakness in his apologetic remarks. His whole treatment of what he somewhat euphemistically calls the 'parting with Harriet' seems to us thoroughly unsatisfactory. He treats the Chancery suit with common sense, but feels it necessary to add that that tribunal is 'incapable of dealing with the finer tissues of human life.' Shelley's unfilial actions and language towards his father; his tendency, if not to falsehood, at any rate to misrepresentation, whether conscious or otherwise; his spirit of recklessness and revolt from legitimate authority, are all slurred over, while the beauties of his character are emphasized. There is too much tendency to ignore rather than to meet discordant elements to exaggerate one side rather than to explain all the somewhat complex facts.

And in a similar spirit, though we never find that his bias prevents him from recording a fact or a testimony, it has very considerable influence in the weight which he gives to those facts. He accepts a second-hand statement which is favourable, and rejects a first-hand statement which is unfavourable. With regard to the purity of Shelley's life at Oxford, he believes (and rightly) Hogg's favourable testimony and rejects the unfavourable rumours given by Thornton Hunt. But why does he reject Hogg's evidence about Shelley cursing his father, and believe Thornton Hunt's story that Harriet first left her husband-a story opposed to all evidence? But, after all, in making out his case Professor Dowden has not exceeded the privileges of biographers.

And there is another fault, one which particularly besets modern Boswells, from which he is not altogether free. The refined literary taste of the present day does not approve of the grandiloquent and exaggerated encomiums which delighted our forefathers. It prefers to idealize, to throw a halo of mystery round even ordinary actions, to write in a language of refined exaltation. 'Himself lacking in mechanical ingenuity and feeling slight curiosity about the skill of the various handicrafts, Shelley, if his attention were so directed, could watch with vivid delight the marvels of the plastic hand' (vol. i. p. 85). Would our readers believe that this somewhat grandiloquent phrase expresses the skill of a tailor in mending

a torn coat!

Let us once more

But enough of Professor Dowden. express our gratitude for his honesty and industry, and our pleasure at his literary skill, and ask him to accept our criticisms as those of an admirer. We will now, with his assistance, attempt, first of all, to investigate the most notorious event in Shelley's life, and then to realize what manner of man he was. It may be convenient to remind our readers of the main events of his career.

Shelley was born on August 4, 1792, 'one of the greatest days,' as we are told,' ' in English literature.' He lived as a boy at Field Place, in Sussex. After spending a short time at two preparatory schools, he was sent to Eton in 1804 and left in 1810. He matriculated at University College, Oxford, on April 10 in that year, and came into residence in the following October. On March 25, 1811, he was expelled for being the author of The Necessity of Atheism. The next three years were eventful. Towards the end of this summer (1811) he eloped with Harriet Westbrooke, the daughter of a retired -coffee-house keeper, and a school friend of his sisters. He was married in Edinburgh on August 28, just after he had completed his nineteenth year. He and Harriet lived a wandering life together for more than two years, changing their house almost twenty times. In 1814 he deserted her, and on July 28 of that year he left for the Continent with Mary Godwin, with whom he returned to England in September. Two years afterwards, in November 1816, Harriet committed suicide, and Shelley married Mary. After many vicissitudes, and much poverty and trouble, he finally left England in 1818, and the closing years of his life were spent in a somewhat nomadic fashion in Italy. He was drowned at sea whilst sailing from Leghorn to Spezzia in the summer of 1822.

We have now the somewhat dreary duty to perform of discussing the most questionable act of his life, his desertion of his first wife, Harriet; and before doing so we must attempt to get some idea of what Shelley was like at this period. And first let us remember he was very young. He was but a boy; but he was a boy full of energy, and enthusiasm, and wild impetuosity, attempting to play the part of a man. There is something perhaps very ludicrous, but there is something very pathetic, in his wild mission to Ireland in the spring of 1812. Can any one help being touched at the account of the visionary boy, very ignorant of the world, going over to Ireland and expecting to quiet the contending factions by

an appeal to principles of pure love and tolerance, or when addressing a Roman Catholic audience in favour of Emancipation, appealing to principles of religious equality, and expatiating on the duties of Catholics to Protestants? His manner of distributing pamphlets reads like an account of a schoolboy's prank. 'I should almost have shouted with laughter,' wrote Harriet, 'when he popped a pamphlet into a lady's poke.' But however much Harriet might laugh, her husband was very serious. He had the aims of a man and the execution of a schoolboy. Another instance of this occurred in Devonshire. He has developed a scheme which will reform the world. But how can this be spread abroad? A new idea seizes him. The pamphlets are inclosed in small bottles and securely sealed up. Then the fleet of bottles is launched forth on its voyage which is to be so full of benefits for mankind, and sonnets are written in its honour by the enthusiastic poet. Can any one help feeling the absurdity of a Government spy being employed to watch this schoolboy regenerator of mankind? And is not one's heart moved towards one whose whole soul was for the time absorbed in these strange schemes?

But Shelley's wild ideas and unrestrained actions were to have far graver results. Marriage was one of those customs which he included among the causes of evil; he was enabled by carrying out his theory to demonstrate the immense harm which might arise from its adoption. The simple fact that he deserted his first wife and united himself to Mary Godwin we well know; the details always have been involved in considerable obscurity. All the evidence on the subject Professor Dowden has collected together ably and honestly, he has thrown some light on the subject by new material he has employed. So far he has done his work well; but we must express our surprise at his treatment of the evidence he has collected. We have read and re-read the chapter, and can only wonder that he has been able to write what he has written. So many strange opinions have prevailed that we feel bound, however reluctantly, to enter into some detail on the subject.

He had married Harriet Westbrooke in the summer of 1811. He had not been in love with her, we are told, but had been prompted by feelings of generosity and sympathy. She had appeared to him to be the victim of oppression, for she had imbibed some of his opinions, and the expression of them had not pleased those in authority over her. When she threw herself on his protection he married her, though she did not

demand it, and his opinions made it unnecessary to him. We are asked, therefore, to admire his generosity. Now we feel compelled to make one remark on this. If a man marries a woman whom he does not love, for her sake, intending to be her faithful husband through life, he makes a great mistake, but he is acting honourably and perhaps nobly. But if he does so believing the marriage tie to be only a form which he may ignore when it suits him, and never making any sacrifice to give his wife the first place in his affections, surely then there is little generosity in his conduct. Shelley's future conduct deprives his action towards Harriet of any merit it might have had, and the excuses given for him put it in a darker light.

For two years their married life appears to have been happy. Harriet was a faithful wife. She had much to bear. She was not recognized by his relations. She had to endure the discomforts of poverty and a roving life. She had a man of genius for a husband, to the ludicrousness of whose conduct her eyes were gradually opened. More than that, she never occupied more than the second place in his affections. For a time he addresses a certain Miss Hitchener as the 'sister of his soul;' Hogg, too, is 'the brother of his soul,' and when this brother of his soul made improper advances to his wife, he forgave him with surprising alacrity, and never seems to have imagined she might object to his presence. On the other side there was one real grievance-her sister Eliza, a woman of a commonplace and disagreeable character, who exercised over Harriet the tyranny of an elder sister and a mother-in-law. Shelley's sensitive nature must have been peculiarly exasperated by her only half-concealed vulgarity. She was not in any way blamable; she seems to have been very like an inferior lady's-maid-in fact, just what one would expect a coffee-tavern keeper's daughter to be. Shelley also complained that Harriet neglected the duties of a mother, and had had a trained nurse for her child. But so far as any reasonable complaints could be made, the balance was certainly in favour of the wife.

At the beginning of 1814 Miss Hitchener had been discovered to be a brown demon, and Eliza a black demon, and Shelley had found a new circle of friends in a society of halfFrench half-English ladies, who were full of sentiment and philosophy, and were surrounded by a circle of insipid and unrefined doctrinaires.

'At Bracknell,' says Peacock (we prefer his more refined satire to the coarse descriptions of Hogg), Shelley was surrounded by a