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CHAPTER IX.

FANNY'S DEATH-THE SHELLEYS. 1812-1819.

AFTER the subscription which had been made for the payment of his debts, which left him a considerable sum in hand, Godwin's circumstances were fairly comfortable for some years. They were not indeed wholly so, since having begun business without capital, the heavy payments required by that business at times, which did not always correspond with his receipts, necessitated frequent raising of money on bills, and some consequent anxiety. Yet, on the whole, there was no serious difficulty, and the daily life

at Skinner Street was undisturbed. Godwin's reading be-f

came more and more devoted to past literature, the diaries from 1812 onwards make almost exclusive mention of old

writers Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, &c. His mornings were given to study, his afternoons to writing, his evenings to society or the theatre; the old names occur, which have appeared in the Diaries for years—Mackintosh, Basil Montagu, the Lambs, but few new names—in fact old age was creeping on Godwin, though his powers of mind were quite undimmed. Charles Clairmont had found occupation for himself, but still lived mainly with the Godwins; Jane was with the Shelleys abroad, or afterwards at Binfield; Fanny had more and more taken her place as a daughter at home, and, as she wrote to M Shelley, "got on very well with Mamma, whose merits could see, though she could not really like her."

Two only, among the domestic letters of these years, possess any interest.

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William Godwin to Mrs Godwin.

"SKINNER ST., July 10, 1815.

I had a disagreeable dinner yesterday at Alexander's with a parcel of miserables, who seemed, so far as I could collect, to know nothing of the stranger who sat down with them, and to have no desire to hear anything from him: but I had a very pleasant walk home across the fields, to White's Conduit House.

"How happy should I be, if I could persuade you to look at human life through different optics! There are persons, perhaps, so constituted that they must see all creation in sables: there is, too, a sort of refinement in regarding all the world with loathing and aversion, in which a sickly temper is too apt to indulge. But, separately from these two causes, almost all the lives of individuals are made up of a dark and a bright side; and yours is not, in itself considered, the worst. We ought all to consider that we have but one life to make the best or the worst of, as imagination shall prompt us. But all prudence and all wisdom bids us make the best of it. You are surrounded with many comforts, you have a boy that you love, you have not the worst of husbands; our principal embarrassments are on the point of being cleared off, and we must then be very unlucky if we are not able to continue to supply our wants

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Tell Fanny I am very well, and have found no want as yet of her kind cares. Charles has taken the cook's account, and performed the offices of an able housekeeper and superintendent."

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Miss Lamb has just called in to ask me to sup with them on Saturday evening at Mr Alsager's in the Borough, a clever man, she says, a bachelor, a whist player, and a new acquaintance

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of theirs. She says they were within an ace of embarking in the "Friendship" on Saturday last for Southend, agreeably to your invitation.

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'Adieu ! Oh, be well, be cheerful! Banish depressing recollections. Look on me and Lovewell, the two great pillars of the establishment in Skinner Street, with approving and hopeful sensations. Take care of fatigue, take care of the cold. Feel some love, some lingering of the heart for the corner house with the Æsop over the door.-Ever, with unalterable affection, yours, "WILLIAM GODWIN."

It was characteristic of Godwin, and was indeed one of the best parts of his character, that he always considered that principles were to be carried out at any cost. That the Allies were guided by immediate and pressing political needs to do all that in them lay to prevent the possibility of another Buonapartist rule, would have seemed to him no reason at all. To destroy individualism in the name of liberty seems to him the great and inexpiable crime against liberty. Individualism was to be asserted at whatever

immediate cost.

In political matters, the only document of interest is the following letter:

William Godwin to the Editor of

Paper.

66

"April 18, 1815.

SIR, I observe in your paper of yesterday a statement that the Allied Sovereigns are to issue from Frankfort a declaration 'that the people of France are at perfect liberty to judge for themselves, that their territory shall be unviolated, and their public institutions held sacred, and hostilities only to ensue if they shall determine to submit to the authority of one individual.' (Buonaparte, whom these sovereigns think proper to proscribe.) And this seems to be regarded as a safe and happy expedient, by

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SHELLEYS AT BINFIELD.

231

of Buonaparte? His return among them has re-animated them as a nation; they fear no longer those principles of counter-revolution and disturbance of the established system of property which they saw secretly at work among them; they have restored him to the throne on the most auspicious conditions for general benefit; they have obtained for themselves a sovereign whose energy of character is capable of rendering them suspected among foreign powers. But the Allies are regardless of all this. They say, We come to confer on you the blessings of a civil war; form yourselves into knots and cabals, try secretly to gather a strength that shall over come the power that now reigns over you, and amidst plots and cabals, and conspiracies and treasons, every man arming himself against his neighbour, we will come with our Uhlans and Cossacks and freebooters, and bless you with our presence."

To return to Godwin's home-life. After the Shelleys returned from France, bringing Miss Clairmont with them, the latter was after a time received in Skinner Street as an occasional visitor, and in March 1816, the Shelleys being then at Binfield, Godwin paid a visit to Bracknell, and thence walked over to see his daughter. From that time there was fairly frequent intercourse established between himself and Shelley, both by letter and by visits from Shelley when in town.

On April 7, 1816, Godwin started on a tour to Scotland; his business relations with Fairley and Constable had become somewhat complicated, and the hope of making personally some satisfactory arrangement led him to undertake this long journey. The diary will give in his own words a condensed but interesting account of his fellow travellers, associates, and reading during this time.

“April 7, Su. Call on Lambert. Mail for York; Adey from

Ware.

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