Shelley: The Pursuit (37 page)

After their long and uncertain travels, the Shelleys were delighted with the prospect of staying at Tan-yr-allt. The New Town and the Embankment project appealed to Shelley as a direct attempt to reform both man and his surroundings, and promised a wider and more practical view of how an ideal community might be developed. Moreover Madocks, who was at that time in London, brought
Shelley back into the orbit of the Whig ginger-group. When Shelley met Madocks’s manager on the spot, John Williams, they struck up an immediate rapport. Williams promised he would do all in his power to obtain the lease of Tan-yr-allt from Girdlestone, while Shelley in his turn promised his enthusiastic support for the Embankment and appointed himself as a sort of unofficial chief of fund-raising. He also made it clear to Williams that his own prospects, once he had come of age, would be a great asset to the fund. Shelley rapidly assimilated the history of Tremadoc. William Madocks’s scheme had been to reclaim and cultivate the whole estuary, by building a Grand Cob across the mile-long sea mouth. He intended to turn the new township into a centre of culture and entertainment in North Wales, with the Grand Cob as its living masterpiece, along which he hoped would run the main north-south road between Caernarvon and London. Tremadoc had been steadily built up during the Napoleonic Wars; the Grand Cob was started in 1808 and finished in September 1811, when a ‘Tremadoc Embankment Jubilee’, complete with roast ox, Eisteddfod and Horse Races was held. Much of the success was due to the steadiness of the local manager John Williams, who became Madocks’s aide-de-camp and bosom friend. Meanwhile Madocks, entering Parliament in 1802, allied himself with the reforming wing of the Whigs, forming a close alliance with the circle of Norfolk and Sir Francis Burdett, attacking the corrupt management of the Peninsular War, and finally, seconding Burdett in the dramatic impeachment of Spencer Percival and Castlereagh in 1809. Continuing his alliance with Burdett and Cartwright, and outside Parliament with Cobbett, Madocks became a founder member of that very Shelleyan kind of association, the Hampden Clubs, in 1810.
[3]

In February 1812 (when Shelley had been in Keswick) disaster struck when the Grand Cob’s central section collapsed in the high spring tides. Madocks and Williams summoned the whole county to their aid, and put pressure on the
North Wales Gazette
to play down the possibilities of bankruptcy and failure. (This ability to muzzle the local press is important in the light of later events.) No less than 892 men with 727 horses came in response. For the time being the dam was saved, but Madocks was now in severe financial straits, and much of his property, including Tan-yr-allt, had been sold or leased over to his main London debtor, Mr Girdlestone.

So rapidly and enthusiastically did Shelley identify himself with the Embankment
cause, that John Williams took him to an important public meeting with the Corporation of Beaumaris on Monday, 29 September, to drum up more money. Having listened to accounts of the Fishamble Street meeting, Williams presented Shelley as his main guest speaker to plead for the Embankment fund. Shelley’s speech, which glowingly reflected his new-found feelings for the Tremadoc community, caused considerable local excitement and was reported at great length in the
North Wales Gazette
of the following Wednesday. The reporter himself was so enchanted that he slipped into direct speech and the present tense without noticing it. In the next issue the editor of the
Gazette
had to apologize for giving disproportionate coverage to the meeting. As reported Shelley’s speech read in part:

Mr J. Williams, who had just sat down, would testify to them the sincerity and disinterestedness of his (Mr Shelley’s) intentions. That man he was proud to call his friend — he was proud that Mr Williams permitted him to place himself on an equality with him; inasmuch as one yet a novice in the great drama of life, whose integrity was untried, whose strength was unascertained, must consider himself honoured when admitted on an equal footing with one who had struggled for twelve years with incessant and unparallelled difficulties, in honesty, faithfulness, and fortitude. As to Mr Madocks, he had never seen him — but if unshaken public spirit and patriotism — if zeal to accomplish a work of national benefit, be a claim, then has
he
the strongest. The Embankment at Tremadoc, is one of the noblest works of human power — it is an exhibition of human nature as it appears in its noblest and most natural state — benevolence — it saves, it does not destroy. Yes! the unfruitful sea once rolled where human beings now live and earn their honest livelihood. Cast a look round these islands, through the perspective of these times, — behold famine driving millions even to madness; and own how excellent, how glorious, is the work which will give no less than three thousand souls the means of competence. How can anyone look upon that work and hesitate to join me, when I here publicly pledge myself to spend the last shilling of my fortune, and devote the last breath of my life to this great, this glorious cause.
²

This was certainly a valiant performance, and Shelley’s health was drunk by the assembled company. To give weight to his words, Shelley’s name appeared heading the list with that of William Madocks, and the local Solicitor-General David Ellis-Nanney, pledging £100 each to boost a new public subscription advertised in the same number of the
Gazette
. John Williams and Ellis-Nanney must have been delighted at the prospect of a substantial Sussex fortune being transfused into the Embankment so unexpectedly. But Shelley’s financial promises were not altogether substantial. Even on the way back from
this meeting, Shelley was arrested for sixty or seventy pounds of debts by the authorities in Caernarvon, and would have been immediately committed to prison if John Williams and a certain Dr William Roberts had not volunteered bail to exculpate their new found champion.
[4]

When Shelley returned from Beaumaris a second difficulty awaited him. Mr Girdlestone had been making inquiries about his prospective tenants, and concluded that they were most unsuitable: ‘you must take especial care not to let Mr Shelley into possession of the House or Furniture’, he wrote to John Williams from London, ‘for if he gets in, we may have great difficulties in getting him out again’.
³
Girdlestone had had an unsatisfactory interview with old Westbrook — who would underwrite nothing — and he had discovered all about Shelley being ‘at variance with his own family’, and having offended them by marrying, as he suspected, ‘much beneath him’. Girdlestone summarized: ‘with a confined & dependent income, [Mr Shelley] wd. most probably be ill able to pay his rent, & wd. besides incur debts with all the tradesmen in the town which he wd. be unable to pay’. In all this, he was proved perfectly correct.

John Williams, now equally determined that Shelley live at Tan-yr-allt and organize the fund, asked Madocks to intercede with Girdlestone. Shelley explained, with doubtful veracity, that there was a ‘deed in doctors’ commons’ stating that he should come into a large property automatically on attaining his majority. This changed Girdlestone’s tune, and by 28 September he was temporizing and trying to trace the deed.
[5]
Madocks, having heard of Shelley through Williams and perhaps Burdett, was now keen for him to join the project. Williams and Shelley decided that he must at once go to London, to press his case with Madocks, to clinch the lease and to settle the Caernarvon debt. The whole party took the coach road south again.

The Shelleys put up at Lewis’s Hotel, St James’ Street, and remained in London for some five-and-a-half weeks, between 4 October and 13 November. On that first evening, a longed-for meeting took place, and the Shelleys dined at Godwin’s in Skinner Street. It was a great success. The Godwins were pleased and intrigued by Shelley, and enchanted with Harriet. Godwin himself was immediately confirmed in the role of mentor. He approved of Tremadoc as a much safer and more solid project than Irish campaigning; but he advised Shelley to set his finances in order, especially if he wanted to contribute to the fund himself. There is some evidence that Godwin was instrumental in having
Shelley consult the lawyer John Bedwell to advise him on his affairs and negotiate a loan of cash. Shelley applied to the Vicar of Warnham for his birth certificate, so that a loan until his majority could be formally drawn up. At the same time Shelley wrote to Field Place for his galvanic generator and solar microscope, so he could set up a proper study at Tan-yr-allt.
⁴

Godwin explained at some length to Shelley his own hopes for the bookshop which Mrs Godwin was running. It was intended to supply liberal and rational textbooks and encyclopaedias for children’s education. The great problem, as Godwin said, was an acute lack of capital financing to put the business on a solid footing. Even Harriet understood that ‘they are sometimes very much pressed for enough ready money. They require such an immense capital . . . .’
⁵
It had already occurred to Godwin that his young disciple might eventually be of great use to him in this department. Godwin borrowed on principle, for he believed his work had a
right
to financing and was valuable to the community, justifying his belief with the egalitarian arguments of
Political Justice
. Shelley, in his turn, forced his acts of generosity upon others, strangely like Godwin in his disregard for practical consequences, and insisted on the virtue of the generous acc in itself. This was, perhaps, another kind of blindness. Ironically, both men subscribed to the doctrine stated in Book III of
Political Justice
that ‘morality as has been frequently observed, consists entirely in an estimate of consequences’.
⁶
The one thing that neither Shelley nor Godwin ever managed to do with any consistency was to estimate consequences.

The Shelleys, for their part, were jubilant with their conquest. Godwin at this time was aged 56, small, balding, well rounded, and comfortable looking, but with narrow piercing eyes, sometimes encircled with fine round gold spectacles, looking steadily out from a deep brow. The peak of his career had been reached nearly twenty years previously, with the publication of
Political Justice
and his novel of pursuit,
Caleb Williams
, in 1793–4. His daring defence of Home Tooke at the Pittite treason trials long afterwards endeared him to the radical cause. Another minor peak of creative and intellectual output still awaited him, for between 1817 and 1820, in the midst of personal and financial crises, he published
Mandeville
and his excellent polemic,
Answer to Malthus
. At the moment the prophet had become, as Harriet noted, ‘quite a family man’. Though somewhat brooding and imperious with his own children, and frequently strained in the company of his second wife, Mrs Clairmont, Godwin was yet a charming and hospitable host. He enjoyed the way his own slow and oracular manner was complemented by the rapid volleys and ascending monologues of Shelley’s conversation. Again, Harriet’s immediate reaction was indicative: ‘We have seen the Godwins. Need I tell you that we love them all? . . . His manners are so soft and pleasing that I defy even an enemy to be displeased
with him. We have the pleasure of seeing him daily, and upon his account we determine to settle near London . . . . G. is very much taken up with Percy. He seems to delight so much in his society. He has given up everything for the sake of our society. It gives me so much pleasure to sit and look at him. Have you ever seen a bust of Socrates, for his head is very much like that?’
⁷
It must have given Godwin great pleasure to have Harriet sitting looking at him, and thinking how like Socrates he was.

Hazlitt, whose little biographical essay is by far the most vivid and just contemporary portrait of Godwin in old age, observed the same gentleness as Harriet, though with more acidity. ‘In private, the author of Political Justice, at one time reminded those who knew him of the Metaphysician engrafted on the Dissenting Minister. There was a dictatorial, captious, quibbling pettiness of manner. He lost this with the first blush and awkwardness of popularity, which surprised him in the retirement of his study; and he has since, with the wear and tear of society, from being too pragmatical, become somewhat too careless. He is, at present, as easy as an old glove. Perhaps there is a little attention to effect in this, and he wishes to appear a foil to himself.’
⁸
The remark on Godwin’s clerical dissenting background is shrewd; Godwin had been educated at the seminary at Hoxton, and as a young man was a fervent disciple of the Sandemanian, John Glas.
[6]
The missionary touch of the dissenting minister never entirely left Godwin’s cast of mind and personality. Equally his philosophical work always has the piercing single-mindedness of the inspired campaigning journalist, writing for a small circulation newspaper. Hazlitt wrote his essay in 1824; but at the time the Shelleys first met Godwin he was just entering his old glove period.

The menage at Skinner Street was somewhat complicated by Godwin’s two marriages. The first had been in 1797 to Mary Wollstonecraft, after her desertion by the American Imlay and her return from Scandinavia. The relationship had been intensely happy and tragically brief; Mary was dead a few months later after giving birth to Godwin’s first child, named after her mother. Godwin also found himself responsible for Mary Wollstonecraft’s earlier child by Imlay, another girl, named Fanny. His daughter Mary and his stepdaughter Fanny were in 1812 aged 15 and 19 respectively. Mary was in Scotland, staying with relatives for most of Shelley’s visit, but Fanny was at home, ‘very plain, but very sensible’, observed Harriet. She quickly made friends with Shelley, though strangely she seems to have been rather in awe of Harriet, almost jealous, thinking her rather a
‘fine lady’. She was shy, slightly bullied by her father’s second wife, and full of her own inferiority; Shelley’s interest dazzled her, he talked to her, teased her, explained things to her, and gave her glimpses of the poet and iconoclast. Shelley spoke freely of himself, and his ‘dreadful sardonic grins’.
⁹
It was the sort of relationship in which he was at his most gentle, most frank and most winning. The results were to be tragic.