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PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)
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See also:PERCY BYSSHE See also:SHELLEY (1792-1822)
, See also:English poet, was See also:born on the 4th of See also:August 1792 at See also:
The Worminghurst branch was a family of See also:credit, but not of See also:special distinction, until its fortunes culminated under the above-named Sir Bysshe
.
In the character of Percy Bysshe Shelley three qualities became See also:early See also:manifest, and may be regarded as innate: impressionableness or extreme susceptibility to See also:external and See also:internal impulses of feeling; a lively See also:imagination or erratic See also:fancy, blurring a See also:sound estimate of solid facts; and a resolute repudiation
of See also:outer authority or the despotism of See also:custom
.
These qualities were highly See also:developed in his earliest manhood, were active in his boyhood, and no doubt made some show even on the borderland between childhood and See also:infancy
.
At the See also:age of six he was sent to a See also:day school at Warnham, kept by the Rev
.
Mr See also:Edwards; at ten to See also:Sion See also:House School, See also:Brentford, of which the See also:principal was Dr See also:Greenlaw, while the pupils were mostly sons of See also:local tradesmen; at twelve (or immediately before that age, on the 29th of See also:July 1804) to See also:Eton
.
The headmaster of Eton, up to nearly the See also:close of Shelley's sojourn in the school, was Dr Goodall, a mild disciplinarian; it is therefore a See also:mistake to suppose that Percy (unless during his very brief stay in the See also:lower school) was frequently flagellated by the formidable Dr See also:Keate, who only became headmaster after Goodall
.
Shelley was a shy, sensitive, mopish sort of boy from one point of view—from another a very unruly one, having his own notions of See also:justice, See also:independence and See also:mental freedom; by nature See also:gentle, kindly and retiring—under provocation dangerously violent
.
He resisted the odious See also:fagging See also:system, exerted himself little in the routine of school-learning, and was known both as "Mad Shelley" and as " Shelley the Atheist." Some writers try to show that an Eton boy would be termed atheist without exhibiting any propensity to See also:atheism, but solely on the ground of his being mutinous
.
However, as Shelley was a declared atheist a good while before attaining his See also:majority, a shrewd suspicion arises that, if Etonians dubbed him atheist, they had some relevant See also:reason for doing so
.
Shelley entered University See also:College, See also:Oxford, in See also:April 181o, returned thence to Eton, and finally quitted the school at See also:mid-summer, and commenced See also:residence in Oxford in See also:October
.
Here he met a See also:young See also:Durham man, See also: Hogg was not in the least an enthusiast, rather a cynic, but he also was a steady and well-read classical student . In religious matters both were sceptics, or indeed decided See also:anti-Christians; whether Hogg, as the See also:senior and more informed disputant, pioneered Shelley into strict atheism, or whether Shelley, as the more impassioned and unflinching speculator, outran the easy-going jeering Hogg, is a See also:moot point; we incline to the latter See also:opinion . Certain it is that each egged on the other by perpetual disquisition on abstruse subjects, conducted partly for the See also:sake of truth and partly for that of mental exercitation, without on either See also:side any disposition to See also:bow to authority or stop See also:short of extreme conclusions . The upshot of this See also:habit was that Shelley and Hogg, at the close of some five months of happy and uneventful See also:academic See also:life, got expelled from the university . Shelley—for he alone figures as the writer of the " little See also:syllabus," although there can be no doubt that Hogg was his confidant and coadjutor-throughoutpublished anonymously a pamphlet or flysheet entitled The See also:Necessity of Atheism, which he sent See also:round to bishops and all sorts of See also:people as an invitation or See also:challenge to discussion . It amounted to saying that neither reason nor testimony is adequate to establish the existence of a deity, and that nothing short of a See also:personal individual self-See also:revelation of the deity would be sufficient . The college authorities heard of the pamphlet, identified Shelley as its author, and summoned him before them—" our See also:master, and two or three of the See also:fellows." , The pamphlet was produced, and Shelley was required to say whether he had written it or not . The youth declined to See also:answer the question, and was expelled by a written See also:sentence, ready See also:drawn up . Hogg was next summoned, with a result practically the same . The precise details of this transaction have been much controverted; the best See also:evidence is that which appears on the college records, showing that both Hogg and Shelley (Hogg is there named first) were expelled for " contumaciously refusing to answer questions," and for " repeatedly declining to disavow " the authorship . Thus they were dismissed as being mutineers against academic authority, in a See also:case pregnant with the suspicion—not the proofof atheism; but how the authorities could know beforehand that the two undergraduates would be contumacious and stiff against disavowal, so as to give See also:warrant for written sentences ready drawn up, is nowhere explained . Possibly the sentences were worded without ground assigned, and would only have been produced in terrorem had the young men proved more malleable .
The date of this incident was the 25th of See also: Shelley, it should be understood, had by this time openly broken, not only with the dogmas and conventions of See also:Christian See also:religion, but with many of the institutions of Christian polity, and in especial with such as enforce and regulate See also:marriage; he held—with William See also:Godwin and some other theorists—that marriage ought to be simply a voluntary relation between a man and a woman, to be assumed at See also:joint See also:option and terminated at the after-option of either party . If, therefore, be had acted upon his personal conviction of the right, he would never have wedded Harriet, whether by, Scotch, English or any other See also:law; but he waived his own theory in favour of the See also:consideration that in such an experiment the woman's stake, and the disadvantages accruing to her, are out of all comparison with the man's . His conduct, therefore, was so far entirely See also:honourable; and, if it derogated from a principle of his own (a principle which, however contrary to the morality of other people, was and always remained See also:matter of genuine conviction on his individual See also:part), this was only in deference to a higher and more imperious See also:standard of right . Harriet Shelley was not only beautiful; she was amiable, accommodating, adequately well educated and well bred . She liked See also:reading, and her reading was not strictly frivolous . But she could not (as Shelley said at a later date) "feel poetry and understand philosophy." Her attractions were all on the See also:surface; there was (to use a common phrase) " nothing particular in her." }or nearly three years Shelley and she led a shifting sort of life upon an income of £400 a See also:year, one-See also:half of which was allowed (after his first severe indignation at the mesalliance was past) by Mr Timothy Shelley, and the other half by Mr Westbrook . The couple left Edinburgh for York and the society of Hogg; broke with him upon a See also:charge made by Harriet, and evidently fully believed by Shelley at the time, that, during a temporary See also:absence of his upon business in Sussex, Hogg had tried to seduce her (this See also:quarrel was entirely made up at the end of about a year) ; moved off to See also:Keswick in See also:Cumberland, where they received See also:kind attentions from See also:Southey, and some hospitality from the See also:duke of See also:Norfolk, who, as See also:chief See also:magnate in the Shoreham region of Sussex, was at pains to reconcile the father and his too unfilial heir; sailed thence to See also:Dublin, where Shelley was eager, and in some degree prominent, in the good cause of See also:Catholic emancipation, conjoined with See also:repeal of the See also:union; crossed to Wales, and lived at Nant-Gwillt, near See also:Rhayader, then at Lynmouth in See also:Devonshire, then at Tanyrallt in See also:Carnarvonshire . All this was between See also:September 1811 and See also:February 18r3 . At Lynmouth an Irish servant of Shelley's was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for distributing and posting up printed papers, bearing no printer's name, of an inflammatory or seditious tendency—being a See also:Declaration of Rights composed by the youthful reformer, and some verses of his named The See also:Devil's Walk . At Tanyrallt Shelley was (according to his own and Harriet's See also:account, confirmed by the evidence of Miss Westbrook, the See also:elder sister, who continued an inmate in most of their homes) attacked on the See also:night of 26th February by an See also:assassin who fired three See also:pistol-shots . It was either a human assassin or (as Shelley once said) " the devil." The See also:motive of the attack was undefined; the fact of its occurrence was generally disbelieved, both at the time and by subsequent inquirers . Shelley was full of See also:wild unpractical notions; he dosed himself occasionally with See also:laudanum as a palliative to spasmodic pains; he was given to See also:strange assertions and romancing narratives (several of which might properly be specified here but for want of space), and was not incapable of conscious fibbing . His mind no doubt oscillated at times along the See also:line which divides sanity from insane delusion . It is now, however, at last proved that he did not invent such a monstrous See also:story to serve a purpose . The See also:Century See also:Magazine for October 1905 contained an See also:article entitled " A Strange See also:Adventure of Shelley's," by See also:Margaret L . See also:Croft, which shows that a shepherd close to Tanyrallt, named See also:Robin Pant Evan, being irritated by some well-meant acts of Shelley in terminating the lives of dying or diseased See also:sheep, did really combine with two other shepherds to scare the poet, and Evan was the See also:person who played the part of " assassin." He himself avowed as much to members of a family, See also:Greaves, who were living at Tanyrallt between 1847 and 1865 . This was the break-up of the residence of the Shelleys at Tanyrallt; they revisited See also:Ireland, and then settled for a while in London . Here, in See also:June 1813, Harriet gave See also:birth to her daughter Ianthe Eliza (she married a Mr Esdaile, and died in 1876) . Here also Shelley brought out his first poem of any importance, See also:Queen Mab; it was privately printed, as its exceedingly aggressive See also:tone in matters of religion and morals would not allow of publication . In July the Shelleys took a house at Bracknell near See also:Windsor See also:Forest, where they had congenial neighbours, Mrs Boinville and her family . The speculative See also:sage whom Shelley especially reverenced was William Godwin, the author of Political Justice and of the See also:romance See also:Caleb See also:Williams; in 1796 he had married Mary Wollstonecraft, authoress of The Rights of Woman, who died shortly after giving birth, on the 3oth of August 1797, to a daughter Mary . With Godwin Shelley had opened a volunteered See also:correspondence See also:late in 1811, and he had known him personally since the See also:winter which closed 1812 . Godwin was then a bookseller, living with his second wife, who had been a Mrs Clairmont; there were four other inmates of the See also:household, two of whom See also:call for some mention here—Fanny Wollstonecraft, the daughter of the authoress and Mr Imlay, and Claire (See also:Clara Mary Jane), the daughter of Mrs Clairmont . Fanny committed See also:suicide in October 1816, being, according to some accounts which remain unverified, hopelessly in love with Shelley; Claire was closely associated with all his subsequent career . It was towards May 1814 that Shelley first saw Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin as a grown-up girl (she was well on towards seventeen) ; he instantly fell in love with her, and she with him . Just before this, on the 24th of March, Shelley had remarried Harriet in London, apparently with a view to strengthening his position in his relations with his father as to the family See also:property; but, on becoming enamoured of Mary, he seems to have rapidly made up his mind that Harriet should not stand in the way . She was at See also:Bath while he was in London . They had, however, met again in London and come to some sort of understanding before the final crisis arrived—Harriet remonstrating and indignant, but incapable of effective resistance—Shelley sick of her companionship, and See also:bent upon gratifying his own wishes, which as we have already seen were not at odds with his avowed principles of conduct . For some months past there had been bickerings and misunderstandings between him and Harriet, aggravated by the now detested presence of Miss Westbrook in the house; more than this cannot be said, and it seems dubious whether more will be hereafter known . Shelley, and not he alone, alleged See also:grave misdoing on Harriet's part—perhaps mistakenly . The upshot came on the 28th of July, when Shelley aided Mary to elope from her father's house, Claire Clairmont deciding to accompany them . They crossed to See also:Calais, and proceeded across See also:France into See also:Switzerland . Godwin and his wife were greatly incensed . Though he and Mary Wollstonecraft had entertained and avowed bold opinions regarding the marriage-See also:bond, similar to Shelley's own, and had in their time acted upon these opinions, it is not clearly made out that Mary Godwin had ever been encouraged by paternal. See also:influence to think or do the like . Shelley and she See also:chose to See also:act upon their own likings and responsibility—he disregarding any claim which Harriet had upon him, and Mary setting at nought her father's authority . Both were prepared to ignore the law of the See also:land and the rules of society . The three young people returned to London in September . In the following See also:January 1815 Sir Bysshe Shelley died, and Percy, who had, lately been in See also:great money-straits, became the immediate heir to the entailed property inherited by his father Sir Timothy . This entailed property seems to have been See also:worth £6000 per annum, or little less . There was another very much larger property which Percy might shortly before have secured to himself, contingently upon his father's See also:death, if he would have consented to put it upon the same footing of See also:entail; but this he resolutely refused to do, on the professed ground of his being opposed upon principle to the system of entail; there-fore, on his grandfather's death the larger property passed wholly away from any See also:interest which Percy might have had in it, in use or in expectancy . He now came to an understanding with his father as to the remaining entailed property; and, giving up certain future advantages, he received henceforth a See also:regular income of £r000 a year . Out of this he assigned £200 a year to Harriet, who had given birth in See also:November to a son, Charles Bysshe (he died in 1826) . Shelley, and Mary as well, were on moderately good terms with Harriet, seeing her from time to time . His See also:peculiar views as to the relations of the sexes appear markedly again in his having (so it is alleged) invited Harriet to return to his and Mary's house as a See also:domicile; a curious arrangement which of course did not take effect . He had, undoubtedly, while previously abroad with Mary, invited Harriet to stay in their immediate neighbourhood . Shelley and Mary (who was naturally always called Mrs Shelley) now settled at Bishopgate, near Windsor Forest; here he produced his first excellent poem, 4lastor, or the Spirit of Solitude, which was published soon after-wards with a few others . Thomas Love See also:Peacock was one of his principal associates at Bishopgate . In May 1816 the pair left England for Switzerland, together with Miss Clairmont, and their own See also:infant son William . They went straight to Secheron, near See also:Geneva; See also:Byron, whose separation from his wife had just then taken place, arrived there immediately afterwards . A great See also:deal of controversy has arisen as to the motives and incidents of this See also:foreign sojourn . The clear fact is that Miss Clairmont, who had a See also:fine See also:voice and some inclination for the See also:stage, had seen Byron, as connected with the management of See also:Drury See also:Lane See also:theatre, early in the year, and an amorous intrigue had begun between them in London . Prima facie it seems quite reasonable to suppose that she had explained the facts to Shelley or to Mary, or to both, and had induced them to See also:convoy her to the society of Byron abroad; were this finally established as the fact, it would show no inconsistency of conduct, or See also:breach of his own See also:code of sexual morals, on Shelley's part . On the other hand, documentary evidence exists showing that Mary was totally ignorant of the amour shortly before they went abroad . Whether or not they knew of it while they and Claire were in daily intercourse with Byron, and housed close by him on the See also:shore of the See also:Lake of Geneva, may be left unargued . The three returned to London in September, 1816, Byron remaining abroad; and in January 1817 Miss Clairmont gave birth to his daughter named Allegra . The return of the Shelleys was closely followed by two suicides —first that of Fanny Wollstonecraft (already referred to), and second that of Harriet Shelley, who on the 9th of November drowned herself in the See also:Serpentine . The See also:body was not found until the loth of See also:December . The latest stages of the lovely and See also:ill-starred Harriet's career have never been very explicitly recorded . It seems that she formed a connexion with some' See also:gentleman from whom circumstances or See also:desertion separated her, that her habits became intemperate, and that she was treated with contumelious harshness by her sister during an illness of their father . She had always had a propensity (often laughed at in earlier and happier days) to the See also:idea of suicide, and she now carried it out in act—possibly without anything which could be regarded as an extremely cogent predisposing motive, although the See also:total See also:weight of her distresses, accumulating within the past two years and a half, was beyond question heavy to See also:bear . Shelley, then at Bath, hurried up to London when he heard of Harriet's death, giving manifest signs of the See also:shock which so terrible a See also:catastrophe had produced on him . Some self-reproach must no doubt have mingled with his affliction and dismay; yet he does not appear to have considerei4 himself gravely in the wrong at any stage in the transaction, and it is established that in the See also:train of quite See also:recent events which immediately led up to Harriet's suicide he had See also:borne no part . This was the time when Shelley began to see a great deal of See also:Leigh See also:Hunt, the poet and essayist, editor of the Examiner; they were close See also:friends, and Hunt did something to uphold the reputation of Shelley as a poet—which, we may here say once for all, scarcely obtained any public See also:acceptance or solidity during his brief lifetime . The death of Harriet having removed the only obstacle to a marriage with Mary Godwin, the See also:wedding ensued on the 3oth of December 1816, and the married couple settled down at Great See also:Marlow in See also:Buckinghamshire . Their tranquillity was shortly disturbed by a See also:Chancery suit set in See also:motion by Mr Westbrook, who asked for the custody of his two See also:grand-See also:children, on the ground that Shelley had deserted his wife and intended to bring up his offspring in his own atheistic and anti-social opinions . See also:Lord See also:Chancellor See also:Eldon delivered See also:judgment on the 27th of March 1817 . He held that Shelley, having avowed condemnable principles of conduct, and having fashioned his. own conduct to correspond, and being likely to inculcate the same principles upon his children, was unfit to have the charge of them . He appointed as their See also:curator Dr See also:Hume, an orthodox See also:army-physician, who was Shelley's own nominee . The poet had to pay for the See also:maintenance of the children a sum which stood eventually at £120 per annum; if it was at first (as generally stated) £200, that was no more than what he had previously allowed to Harriet . This is the last incident of marked importance in the perturbed career of Shelley; the See also:rest relates to the See also:history of his mind, the poems which he produced and published, and his changes of locality in travelling . The first ensuing poem was The Revolt of See also:Islam, referred to near the close of this article . In March 1818, after an illness which he regarded (rightly or wrongly) as a dangerous pulmonary attack, Shelley, with hiswife, their two infants William and Clara, and Miss Clairmont and her baby Allegra, went off to See also:Italy, where the short See also:remainder of his life was passed .
Allegra was soon sent on to See also:Venice, to her father, who, ever since parting from Miss Clairmont in Switzer-land, showed a callous and unfeeling determination to see and know no more about her
.
In 1818 the Shelleys—always nearly with Miss Clairmont in their See also:company—were in See also:Milan, See also:Leghorn, the Bagni di See also:Lucca, Venice and its neighbourhood, See also:Rome, and See also:Naples; in 1819 in Rome, the vicinity of Leghorn, and See also:Florence (both their infants were now dead, but a third was born late in 1819, Percy Florence Shelly, who in 1844 inherited the baronetcy); in 182o in See also:Pisa the Bagni di Pisa (or di See also:San Giuliano), and Leghorn; in 1821 in Pisa and with Byron in See also:Ravenna; in 1822 in Pisa and on the See also:Bay of See also:Spezia, between See also:Lerici and San Terenzio
.
The incidents of this See also:period are but few, and of no great importance apart from their bearing upon the poet's writings
.
In Leghorn he knew Mr and Mrs See also:Gisborne, the latter a once intimate friend of Godwin; she taught Shelley See also:Spanish, and he was eager to promote a project for a steamer to be built by her son by a former marriage, the engineer Henry Reveley; it would have been the first steamer to navigate the Gulf of See also:Lyons
.
In Pisa he formed a sentimental intimacy with the Contessina See also:Emilia Viviani, a girl who was pining in a See also:convent pending her father's choice of a See also:husband for her; this impassioned but vague and.fanciful See also:attachment—which soon came to an end, as Emilia's character developed less favourably in the eyes of her Platonic adorer—produced the transcendental love-poem of Epipsychidion in 1821
.
In Ravenna the See also:scheme of the quarterly magazine the Liberal was concerted by Byron and Shelley, the latter being principally interested in it with a view to benefiting Leigh Hunt- by such an association with Byron
.
In Pisa Byron and Shelley were very constantly together, having in their company at one time or another Shelley's cousin and schoolfellow See also:Captain Thomas Medwin (1788–1869), See also:Lieutenant Edward Elliker Williams (1793–1822) and his wife, to both of whom the poet was very warmly attached, and Captain Edward See also: They received her on the 12th of May, found her rapid and alert, and on the 1st of July started in her to Leghorn, to meet Leigh Hunt, whose arrival in Italy had just been notified . After doing his best to set things going comfortably between Byron and Hunt, Shelley returned on See also:board with Williams on the 8th of July . It was a day of dark, louring, stifling See also:heat . Trelawny took leave of his two friends, and about half-past six in the evening found himself startled from a doze by a frightful turmoil of See also:storm . The " Don Juan " had by this time made Via Reggio; she was not to be seen, though other vessels which had sailed about the same time were still discernible . Shelley, Williams, and their only See also:companion, a sailor-boy, perished in the See also:squall . The exact nature of the catastrophe was from the first regarded as somewhat disputable . The See also:condition of the " Don Juan " when recovered did not favour any See also:assumption that she had capsized in a heavy See also:sea—rather that she had been run down by some other See also:vessel, a See also:felucca or fishing-See also:smack . In the absence of any See also:counter-evidence this would be supposed to have occurred by See also:accident; but a rumour, not strictly verified and certainly not refuted, exists that an aged See also:Italian seaman on his deathbed confessed that he had been one of the See also:crew of the fatal felucca, and that the collision was intentional, as the men had plotted to steal a sum of money supposed to be on the " Don Juan," in charge of Lord Byron . In fact there was a moderate sum there, but Byron had neither embarked nor intended to embark . This may perhaps be the true account of the tragedy; at any See also:rate Trelawny, the best possible authority on the subject, accepted it as true . He it was who laboriously tracked out the shore-washed corpses of Williams and Shelley, and who undertook the burning of them, after the See also:ancient See also:Greek See also:fashion, on the shore near Via Reggio, on the 15th and 16th of August . 
The great poet's ashes were then collected, and buried in the new See also:Protestant See also:cemetery in Rome . He was, at the date of his untimely death, within a See also:month of completing the thirtieth year of his age—a surprising example of rich poetic achievement for so young a man . The character of Shelley can be considered according to two different See also:standards of estimation . We can estimate the See also:original motive forces in his character; or we can See also:form an opinion of his actions, and thence put a certain construction upon his personal qualities . We will first try the latter method . It cannot be denied by his admirers and eulogists, and is abundantly clear to his censors, that his actions were in some considerable degree abnormal, dangerous to the settled basis of society, and marked by headstrong and undutiful presumption . But it is remarkable that, even among the censors of his conduct, many persons are none the less impressed by the beauty of his character; and this leads us back to our first point—the original motive forces in that . Here we find See also:enthusiasm, fervour, courage (moral and See also:physical), an unbounded readiness to act upon what he considered right principle, however inconvenient or disastrous the consequences to himself, sweetness and See also:indulgence towards others, extreme generosity (he appears to have given Godwin, though sometimes bitterly opposed to him, between 4000 and 5000), and the principle of love for humankind in abundance and superabundance . He respected the truth, such as he conceived it to be, in spiritual or speculative matters, and respected no construction of the truth which came to him recommended by human authority . No man had more hatred or contempt of custom and See also:prescription; no one had a more See also:authentic or vivid sense of universal charity . The same radiant enthusiasm which appeared in his poetry as See also:idealism stamped his See also:speculation with the conception of perfectibility and his character with loving emotion . In person Shelley was attractive, winning and almost beautiful, but not to be called handsome .
His height was nearly 5 ft
.
11; he was slim, agile, and strong, with something of a stoop; his complexion brilliant, his See also:hair abundant and wavy, dark See also: Shelley is emphatically the poet of the future . In his own day an See also:alien in the See also:world of mind and invention, and in our day but partially a See also:denizen of it, he appears destined to become, in the long vista of years, an informing presence in the innermost See also:shrine of human thought . Shelley appeared at the time when the See also:sublime frenzies of the French revolutionary See also:movement had exhausted the See also:elasticity of men's thought—at least in England—and had left them flaccid and stolid; but that movement prepared another in which revolution was to assume the milder See also:guise of reform, conquering and to conquer . Shelley was its See also:prophet . As an iconoclast and an idealist he took the only position in which a poet could advantageously work as a reformer . To See also:outrage his contemporaries was the condition of leading his successors to See also:triumph and of personally triumphing in their victories . Shelley had the See also:temper of an innovator and a See also:martyr; and in an See also:intellect wondrously poetical he See also:united speculative keenness and humanitarian zeal in a degree for which we might vainly seek his pre-See also:cursor . We have already named ideality as one of his leading excellences . This Shelleian quality combines, as its constituents, sublimity, beauty and the abstract passion for good . It should be acknowledged that, while this great quality forms the chief and most admirable See also:factor in Shelley's poetry, the defects which go along with it See also:mar his work too often—producing at times vagueness, unreality and a pomp of glittering indistinctness, in which excess of sentiment welters amid excess of words . This blemish affects the long poems much more than the pure lyrics ; in the latter the rapture, the music and the emotion are in exquisite See also:balance, and the work has often as much of delicate simplicity as of fragile and See also:flower-like perfection . Some of Shelley's principal writings have already been mentioned above; we must now give a brief account of others . Of his early work See also:prior to Queen Mab—such romances as Zastrozzi and St Irvyne, such See also:verse as the Poems by Victor and Cazire, and the Fragments of Margaret See also:Nicholson—we can only here say that they are intrinsically worthless . See also:Alastor was succeeded (1817) by The Revolt of Islam, a poem of no common length in the Spenserian See also:stanza, See also:preaching bloodless revolution; it was written in a sort of friendly competition with See also:Keats (who produced See also:Endymion) and is amazingly fine in parts, but as a whole somewhat long -drawn and exhausting . This transcendental epic (for such it may be termed) was at first named See also:Laon and Cythna, or the Revolution of the See also:Golden See also:City, and the lovers of the story were then See also:brother and sister as well as lovers—, an experiment upon See also:British endurance which the publishers would not connive at . The year 1818 produced Rosalind and See also:Helen, a comparatively weak poem, begun in England and finished in Italy, and See also:Julian and Maddalo, a very strong one, written in the neighbourhood of Venice—demonstrating in Shelley a singular power of seeing ordinary things with directness, and at once figuring them as reality and transfiguring. them into poetry . In each of these two poems Shelley gives a quasi-See also:portraiture of himself . The next year, 1819, was his culminaticn, producing as it did the grand tragedy of The See also:Cenci and the sublime ideal drama See also:Prometheus Unbound, composed partly on the ruins of the See also:Baths of See also:Caracalla in Rome . This last we have no hesitation in calling his masterpiece . It embodies, in forms of surpassing imagination and beauty, Shelley's deepest and most daring conceptions . Prometheus, the human mind and will, has invested with the See also:powers proper to himself See also:Jupiter, the See also:god of See also:heaven, who thereupon chains and torments Prometheus and oppresses mankind; in other words, the anthropomorphic god of religion is a creation of the human mind, and both the mind of man and man himself are enslaved as long as this god exercises his delegated but now See also:absolute power . Prometheus, who is from of old wedded to See also:Asia, or Nature, protests against and anathematizes the usurper enthroned by himself . At last the See also:anathema (although Prometheus has revoked it by an act of self-conquest) takes effect: Eternity, Demogorgon, dismisses Jupiter to unending nothingness . Prometheus is at once unbound, the human mind is See also:free; he is reunited to his See also:spouse Nature, and the world of man passes from thraldom and its degradation into limitless progression, or (as the phrase goes) perfectibility, moral and material . This we regard as in brief the See also:argument of Prometheus Unbound . It is closely analogous to the argument of the juvenile poem Queen Mab, but so raised in form and creative See also:touch that, whereas to write Queen Mab was only to be an ambitious and ebullient tiro, to invent Prometheus Unbound was to be the poet of the future . The See also:Witch of See also:Atlas (182e) is the most perfect work among all Shelley's longer poems, though it is neither the deepest nor the most interesting . It may be rated as a pure exercise of roving imagination—guided, however, by an intense sense of beauty, and by its author's exceeding fineness of nature . The poem has often been decried as practically unmeaning; we do not subscribe to this opinion . The " witch " of this subtle and magical invention seems to represent that See also:faculty which we See also:term " the fancy "; using this assumption as a See also:clue, we find plenty of meaning in the poem, but necessarily it is fanciful or volatile meaning . The See also:elegy on Keats, Adonais, followed in 1821; the Triumph of Life, a mystical and most impressive See also:allegory, constructed upon lines marked out by See also:Dante and by See also:Petrarch, was occupying the poet up to the time of his death . The stately fragment which remains is probably a See also:minor portion of the projected whole . The See also:translations—chiefly from See also:Homer, See also:Euripides, See also:Calderon and Goethe—date from 1819 to 1822, and testify to the poetic endowment of Shelley not less absolutely than his own original compositions; there are also See also:prose translations from See also:Plato . Shelley, it will be seen, was not only a prolific but also a versatile poet . Works so various in faculty and in form as The Revolt of Islam, Julian and Maddalo, The Cenci, Prometheus Unbound, Epipysychidion, and the See also:grotesque effusions of which See also:Peter See also:Bell the Third is the See also:prime example, added to the consummate See also:array of lyrics, have seldom to be credited to a single writer—one, moreover, who died before he was See also:thirty years of age . In prose Shelley could be as admirable as in poetry . His letters to Thomas Love Peacock and others, and his uncompleted See also:Defence of Poetry, are the chief monuments of his mastery in prose; and certainly no more beautiful prose—having much of the spirit and the aroma of poetry, yet without being distorted out of its proper essence—is to be found in the English See also:language . The chief original authorities for the life of Shelley (apart from his own writings, which contain a good deal of autobiography, if heed-fully sifted and collated) are—(1) the notices by Mrs Shelley interspersed in her edition of the Poems; (2) Hogg's amusing, discerning and authentic, although in some respects exaggerated, See also:book; (3 Trelawny's Records; (4) the Life by Medwin; and (5) the articles written by Peacock . Some other writers, especially Leigh Hunt, might be mentioned, but they come less close to the facts . Among See also:biographical books produced since Shellev's death, by authors who did not know him personally, the leading work is the Life by See also:Professor See also:Dowden (2 vols., 1886), which embodies important materials imparted by the Shelley family . The Real Shelley, by J . C . Jeaffreson (1885), is controversial in method and decidedly hostile in tendency, and tries a man of See also:genius by tests far from well adapted (in our opinion) to bring out a right result; it contains, however, an ample See also:share of solid See also:information and See also:sharp disquisition . The memoir by W . M . See also:Rossetti, prefixed to an edition of Shelley's Poems in two forms of publication (187o and 1878), was an endeavour to formulate in brief space, out of the then confused and conflicting records, an accurate account of Shelley—admiring, but not uncandidly one-sided . There is valuable material in See also:Lady Shelley's Shelley Memorials, and in Dr See also:Garnett's See also:Relics of Shelley; and the memoir by J . Addington See also:Symonds, in the English Men of Letters See also:series, is characteristic of the writer . The most See also:complete edition of Shelley's poems is now the Oxford edition, edited by Thomas See also:Hutchinson (See also:Clarendon See also:Press, r905), which includes several pieces not in any other edition, and uses the emendations, &c., published by Mr C.D . Locock (19o3) from examination of the See also:MSS. in the Bodleian Library . Mr See also:Buxton See also:Forman's earlier and excellent edition includes the writings in prose.. as well as in verse . (W . M . R.) SHELLEY'S CASE, See also:RULE IN, an important decision in the law of real property . The litigation was brought about by the See also:settlement made by Sir William Shelley (c . 1480-1549), a judge of the common pleas, of an See also:estate which he had See also:purchased on the See also:dissolution of Sion Monastery . After prolonged argument the celebrated rule was laid down by Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas See also:Bromley, who presided over an See also:assembly of all the See also:judges to hear the case in See also:Easter term 1580-1581 . The rule may be stated as follows: when an ancestor by any See also:gift or See also:conveyance takes an estate of See also:freehold and in the same gift or conveyance an estate is limited, either mediately or immediately, to his heirs or the heirs of his body, in such a case the word " heirs " is a word of See also:limitation and not of See also:purchase; that is to say, the estate of the ancestor is not a life or other freehold estate with remainder to the heirs or heirs of the body, but an estate in See also:fee or an estate tail according to circumstances . The rule is a highly technical one, and has led to much litigation and in many cases without a doubt to the defeat of a testator's intentions . It is said to have had its origin in the wish of the law to preserve to the lords their right of wardship, which would have been ousted by the heir taking as purchaser and not as successor .
The rule is reported by Lord See also:Coke in 1 Reports 93 b
.
(see also See also:Van Grutten v
.
Foxwell, 1897, A.C
.
658)
.
In the United States the rule in Shelley's case was at one time in operation as a part of the common law, but it has been repealed by See also:statute in most states
.
See also:SHELL-HEAPS, or See also:KITCHEN-MIDDEN (See also:Dan
.
Kj okken-mudding),, prehistoric refuse heaps or mounds found in all quarters of the. globe, which consist chiefly of the shells of edible molluscs mixed with fragments of See also:animal bones, and implements of See also: They contained the remains of quadrupeds, birds and See also:fish, which served as the See also:food of the prehistoric inhabitants . Among the . bones were those of the wild See also:bull or See also:aurochs, See also:beaver, See also:seal and great See also:auk, all now See also:extinct or rare in this region . Moreover, a striking See also:proof of the antiquity of these shell-heaps is that they contain full-sized shells of the common See also:oyster, which cannot live at present in the brackish See also:waters of the Baltic except near its entrance, the inference being that the shores where the oyster at that time flourished were open to the See also:salt sea . Thus also the eatable See also:cockle, See also:mussel and periwinkle abounding in the kitchen-middens are of full ocean See also:size, whereas those now living in the adjoining waters are dwarfed to a third of their natural size by the want of saltness . It thus appears that the connexion between the ocean and the Baltic has notably changed since the days of these See also:rude stone-age peoples . The masses of debris were . in some places ten to twenty feet thick and stretched a thousand feet . It does not appear that the men of the kitchen-middens had any knowledge of See also:agriculture, no traces of See also:grain of any sort being found . The only See also:vegetable remains were burnt pieces of See also:wood and some charred substance, possibly a sea-plant used in the See also:production of salt . See also:Flat stones blackened with fire, forming hearths, were also found . That periods of scarcity must have been frequent in the absence of cereals is indicated by the, See also:discovery of bones of the See also:fox, See also:wolf and other See also:carnivora, which would hardly have been eaten from. choice . The kitchen-middens of Denmark were not mere summer-quarters: the ancient fishermen appear to have stayed in the neighbourhood for two-thirds, if not the whole, of the year . This is suggested by an examination of the bones of the wild animals, from which it is often possible to tell the time of year when they were killed . Thus the remains of the wild See also:swan (See also:Cygnus musicus), . a winter visitor, leaving the Danish coast in March and returning in November, are found in abundance . Additional proof is afforded among the mammalian remains by two periodical phenomena, the shedding of the stag's antlers and the birth and growth of the young . The flint implements found include flakes, axes, awls, See also:sling-stones or See also:net-weights, and rude See also:lance-heads . A fragment of one polished See also:axe was found at Havelse which had been worked up into a scraper Small pieces of coarse pottery are also met with . The Danish kitchen-midden men were not cannibals . In physique they seem to have I resembled the Lapps, a See also:race of small men with heavy over-See also:hanging brows and round heads . The excavation of the Danish shell-heaps was followed by the investigation of others in other countries . At Omori (See also:Japan), in the Aleutian Islands, in British See also:Columbia, See also:Oregon and See also:California shell-mounds were explored, always with the result of proving that the present populations had been preceded by ruder tribes of great antiquity . On the See also:Atlantic coast of See also:Brazil shell-heaps, which must have taken thousands of years to accumulate, are now overgrown with dense forests . SHELL-MONEY, a See also:medium of See also:exchange common to many See also:primitive races, consisting of sea shells or pieces of them worked into beads or artificially shaped . Shell-money has not been restricted to one See also:quarter of the globe, but in some form or other appears to have been almost universal .
It has been found in America, Asia, See also:Africa and See also:Australia
.
The shell used by the See also:Indians of See also:Alaska and California was the Dentalium pretiosum, a See also:species of tusk-shell found along the See also:north-west coast
.
It received its name from its tusk-like See also:appearance, and was valued by length and not by the number of shells
.
The usual method of measuring was by the See also:finger-See also:joints, and the ligua, the highest See also:denomination of their coinage, consisted of twenty-five shells strung together, which from end to end made a total measurement of a See also:fathom (6 ft.) or thereabouts, equalling in English coinage about £5o
.
Farther See also:south on the shore of California the Indians used the Saxidomus gracilis or Tapia gracilis, while in the islands close to the littoral the Litornia obesa was in commonest use
.
But the shell most used by primitive peoples has always been the Cypraea moneta, or money-See also:cowry (see CowRv)
.
It is most abundant in the See also:Indian Ocean, and is collected more particularly in the Maldive Islands, in See also:Ceylon, along the See also:Malabar coast, in See also:Borneo and other See also:East Indian islands, and in,various parts of the See also:African coast from See also:Ras Hafun. to See also:Mozambique
.
It was formerly in See also:familiar use in See also:Bengal, where, though it required 3840 to make a See also:rupee, the See also:annual importation was valued at about £30,000
.
In western Africa it was, until past the See also:middle of the Igth century, the usual See also:tender, and before the abolition of the slave See also:trade there were large shipments of cowry shells to some of the English ports for reshipment to the slave coast
.
As the value of the cowry was very much greater in West Africa than in the regions from which the See also:supply was obtained, the trade was extremely lucrative, and in some cases the gains are said to have been 50o%
.
The use of the cowry currency gradually spread inland in Africa, and about 185o Heinrich See also:Barth found it fairly recognized in See also:Kano, See also:Kuka, See also:Gando, and even See also:Timbuktu
.
Barth relates that in Muniyoma, one of the ancient divisions of See also:Bornu, the See also:
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