Shelley’s final chapter applied these considerations to the immediate political situation in the spring of 1820. It is entitled ‘Probable Means’. He was thinking in terms of a working political strategy for radicals in England over the period of perhaps the next four or five years: ‘our present business is with the difficulties and unbending realities of actual life’. The fundamental principle of the strategy is what may be called the principle of graduated response.
His first point was simply that parliamentary reform was necessary at once: ‘That representative assembly called the House of Commons ought questionless to be immediately nominated by the great mass of the people.’ But he was by no means certain that this immediate reform should attempt to make the franchise universal at a single stroke. He felt that the Benthamites ‘might seem somewhat immature’ in their call for immediate female suffrage. Perhaps this hesitation is surprising. But Shelley was now quite literally considering the case for universal male and female suffrage in the year 1820, and considering the lack of general education in England, it is understandable.[2] However: ‘should my opinion be the result of despondency, the writer of these pages would be the last to withhold his vote from any system which might tend to an equal and full development of the capacities of all living beings’. If the government of the day should yield to even part of these demands, they should be accepted as strategically the quickest way to achieve the full reform: ‘let us be contented with a limited beginning . . . it is no matter how slow, gradual, and cautious be the change; we shall demand more and more with firmness and moderation, never anticipating but never deferring the moment of successful opposition . . .’.47 Shelley knew, as in his disagreements with Hunt, that this could be confused with a mere liberal outlook in point of day-to-day tactics. But the strategy behind it was both severely realistic and intensely radical. ‘. . . Nothing is more idle than to reject a limited benefit because we cannot Without great sacrifice obtain an unlimited one.’ Once the government could be moved, they would never be able to stop again. This was the first level of Shelley’s principle of graduated response.
However, in reality Shelley believed that after the failure of the 1817 and 1819 agitations, the likelihood of the government moving forward was already past, and that the two parties were already too polarized. This had been grimly illustrated by Peterloo, and by Cato Street. Such a consideration brought the second level of graduated response. It was quite clear: ‘If the House of Parliament obstinately and perpetually refuse to concede any reform, my vote is for universal suffrage and equal representation.’ This should be achieved by a strategy of constant legal and parliamentary confrontation, ceaseless intellectual attack and a programme of public meetings and civil disobedience. Shelley’s outline of this campaign is a most remarkable description of precisely the methods which afterwards succeeded in changing the political face of England in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
For this purpose government ought to be defied, in cases of questionable result, to prosecute for political libel. All questions relating to the jurisdiction of magistrates and courts of law respecting which any doubt could be raised ought to be agitated with indefatigable pertinacity. Some two or three of the popular leaders have shown the best spirit in this respect;[3] they only want system and cooperation. The tax-gatherer ought to be compelled in every practicable instance to distrain, while the right to impose taxes . . . is formally contested by an overwhelming multitude of defendants before the common law . . . .48
While this campaign advanced, petitions ‘couched in the actual language of the petitioners’ should load the tables of the House of Commons. Poets, philosophers and artists should remonstrate directly with the government, and also by writing ‘memorials’ showing the ‘inevitable connection between national prosperity and freedom, and the cultivation of imagination and the cultivation of scientific truth’. Shelley specifically named Godwin, Hazlitt, Bentham and Leigh Hunt as obvious candidates for this task; and the very book he was writing fitted into such a category.49
Finally the radical patriots and working-class leaders should help to organize the mass contribution to such a campaign:
He will urge the necessity of exciting the people frequently to exercise their right of assembling in such limited numbers as that all present may be actual parties to the proceedings of the day. Lastly, if circumstances had collected a more considerable number as at Manchester on the memorable 16th of August, if the tyrants command their troops to fire upon them or cut them down unless they disperse, he will exhort them peacably to risk the danger, and to expect without resistance the onset of the cavalry, and wait with folded arms the event of the fire of the artillery. . . . The soldier is a man and an Englishman. This unexpected reception would probably throw him back upon a recollection of the true nature of the measures of which he was made the instrument, and the enemy might be converted into the ally.50
Here, once again, was the passive resistance doctrine of The Mask of Anarchy, though with the shrewd addition that given all the other agitation surrounding the circumstances of such a confrontation, the common soldier was highly likely to join such a demonstration himself. This has always proved the crucial shift of power which has triggered every successful city revolution in Western and Eastern Europe since 1792.
Shelley was writing with his eye on the actualities of English politics, and he knew that other confrontations such as Peterloo could not be indefinitely sustained by passive resistance. Such acts of physical repression brought a nation to the very brink of violent revolution.
This recognition led him irresistibly to the third stage of his strategy of graduated response, which concludes Chapter III. The prospect of bloodshed and violence appalled Shelley, and the horrors of civil war and military reaction so vividly described in The Revolt of Islam remained with him in painful clarity, and he enumerated them once more at length. But he had always recognized that there were two chariots, and if one could not be taken, then the other was demanded by necessity. He faced and stated the conclusion with simplicity and great intellectual integrity. ‘The last resort of resistance is undoubtedly insurrection. The right of insurrection is derived from the employment of armed force to counteract the will of the nation.’51 The essay ended on a note of muted but determined hope and triumph. ‘When the people shall have obtained, by whatever means, the victory over their oppressors, and when persons appointed by them shall have taken their seats in the Representative Assembly of the nation and assumed the control of public affairs according to constitutional rules, there will remain the great task . . . .’52
Shelley’s A Philosophical View of Reform is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable political documents written by any poet of the Romantic period.[4] It offers not only the broad ground-plan of a coherent philosophy of political change and evolution but a particularized, humane and intelligent description of conditions in England at the end of the first crucial phase of the Industrial Revolution. It combines a clear-headed and determined commitment to radical and egalitarian principles with a vivid and practical grasp of political realities. Even more than this, in its first and its third chapters it proposes two highly original and important arguments. The first is an attempt to define the relationship between imaginative literature and social and political change. The second is in effect a blueprint for a political programme designed to achieve radical change against varying degrees of opposition and repression. In this sense the work is not merely ‘A Philosophical View of Reform’, but an actual philosophy of revolution, and specifically a philosophy of English revolution. This ‘Octavo on Reform’ which Shelley was completing at Casa Frassi in mid-May of 1820 is one of the great examples of his powers of self-education and intellectual resilience, and of the unusually broad range of his imaginative gifts.
During the first week of May he had written to Peacock that he had little current news of immediate events except through the Galignani’s Messenger, a Paris paper which printed extracts from the Co
urier. ‘From those accounts it appears probable that there is but little unanimity in the mass of the people; and that a civil war impends from the success of ministers and the exasperation of the poor. I wait anxiously for your Cobbetts. . . . Cobbett persuaded you, you persuaded me, and I have persuaded the Gisbornes that the British funds are very insecure. They come to England accordingly to sell out their property.’53 After their departure, Shelley adopted a large folio encyclopedia which Reveley had left for his use, and Claire observed him wandering abstractedly through Pisa deep in one of the huge volumes, with another somehow tucked away under his arm. He was probably gathering population statistics.54
On 26 May, after a brief visit with Tatty to the baths at Casciano, hidden in the mountains among its sprouting chestnut trees, Shelley returned to Pisa with his finished manuscript and Mary transcribed it. He announced it carefully to Hunt: ‘One thing I want to ask you — Do you know any bookseller who would publish for me an octavo volume entitled “A Philosophical View of Reform”. It is boldly but temperately written — & I think readable. — It is intended for a kind of standard book for the philosophical reformers politically considered, like Jeremy Bentham’s something, but different and perhaps more systematic. — I would send it sheet by sheet. Will you ask & think for me?’55 But Hunt did nothing, and the book was not published until one hundred years later. As far as Shelley’s later reputation as a radical poet and writer was concerned, it was perhaps the most damaging suppression of all his works, and one of the very few that Mary herself later connived at.56
Shelley also wrote to Hunt along the same lines about a book of poems. ‘I wish to ask you if you know of any bookseller who would like to publish a little volume of popular songs wholly political, & destined to awaken & direct the imagination of the reformers. I see you smile — but answer my question.’57 Again Hunt did not answer and like the octavo on reform, with which it was intended to form a pair, this anthology never appeared during Shelley’s life. Indeed these political poems were never published, as he intended, in a single collection. From Shelley’s notebooks of the period September 1819 to May 1820 it is possible to reconstruct fairly confidently what the contents of the lost volume Popular Songs (1820) by P.B. Shelley, would have been if it ever reached the willing hands of Carlile, or Sherwin, or even J. Johnson of St Paul’s Churchyard. The contents page would have read something like as follows (the dates of actual first publication are appended in parentheses):
‘The Mask of Anarchy’ (1832)
‘Lines Written During the Castlereagh Administration’ (1832)
‘Song to the Men of England’ (1839)
‘Similes for 2 Political Characters’ (1832)
‘What Men Gain Fairly’ (1839)
‘A New National Anthem’ (1839)
‘Sonnet: England 1819’ (1839)
‘Ballad of the Starving Mother’ (1926/1970)58
It also seems possible that Shelley might have considered putting two other more formal pieces in this collection, as they were written from the same source of inspiration and directed to the same ends. But these two more rapidly found their way into print elsewhere:
‘Ode to Liberty’ (1820)
‘Ode to the West Wind’ (1820)
Even without these last two poems, the collection would have been a substantial one of more than 500 lines of verse. It was a very great loss to contemporary poetry, and perhaps to contemporary politics.
Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear? . . .
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robe ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears . . . .
With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre.59
After months of prevarication and guarded refusals to publish on the part of Ollier and Hunt, there was evidence of Shelley’s growing anger, and by the summer of 1820 the thought of finishing with Ollier altogether had more than once crossed his mind. Hunt he would not break with, for Hunt was also a close personal friend, perhaps his closest in England, and he appreciated the difficulties of a literary editor who had his whole paper to consider in questions of prosecution. Instead, he used Hunt to vent his feelings about Ollier. ‘As to Ollier — I am afraid his demerits are very heavy — they must have been so before you could have perceived them . . . . I am afraid that I to a certain degree am in his power; there being no other bookseller, upon whom I can depend for publishing any of my works; though if by any chance they should become popular, he would be as tame as a lamb. And in fact they are all rogues.’ But even in his irritation and frustration, Shelley could not forget the political régime under which English publishers had to work. ‘It is less the character of the individual than the situation in which he is placed which determines him to be honest or dishonest, perhaps we ought to regard an honest bookseller, or an honest seller of anything else in the present state of human affairs as a kind of Jesus Christ. The system of society as it exists at present must be overthrown from the foundations with all its superstructure of maxims & of forms before we shall find anything but disappointment in our intercourse with any but a few select spirits.’60 Hunt, although no doubt counting himself as a select spirit, may well have winced a little at this short blast of Shelley’s radicalism. As Shelley, no doubt, intended.
However, by the beginning of June a number of factors had combined to make Shelley more philosophical about his publications. In the first place, news had arrived that Ollier had after all brought out an edition of The Cenci. What is more, it was selling really quite well. It was reviewed widely through the spring and summer, and although there was a certain amount of talk about ‘a dish of carrion’, the reviews were lengthy and had a good deal of enthusiasm for the ‘power’ and ‘shocking character’ of the drama, while there were no personal attacks. Articles appeared at the end of April in the Monthly Magazine, the Literary Gazette, the London Monthly Critical and Dramatic Review and the Theatrical Inquisitor. This last was especially significant, because it catered for a broad theatre-going London audience and its reviewer wrote as one who had no previous knowledge of Shelley’s work as a poet. Moreover the review was radiant: ‘As a first dramatic effort “The Cenci” is unparalleled for the beauty of every attribute with which drama can be endowed.’61 In May reviews followed from the New Monthly Magazine, the Edinburgh Monthly Review, the London Magazine, and a further panegyric from Hunt’s pen in the Indicator.62 Of all Shelley’s publications, this was undoubtedly proving the most popular, and there was immediate talk of a second edition. Indeed, for several weeks Shelley was under the impression that Galignani had published a pirate edition in Paris for eager continental readers; but in fact he had only advertised the London edition in his paper.63 Yet a second edition of The Cenci did eventually appear in 1821. Shelley had never judged his market better.
In the second place, Ollier was — as Shelley had suspected — considerably mollified by these signs of popular approval. He contracted definitely with Shelley to bring out a really handsome edition of Prometheus Unbound in the late summer of 1820, and he also agreed to print a small collection of short poems with it. These were to include the ‘Ode to the West Wind’, ‘The Sensitive Plant’, ‘A Vision of the Sea’ and ‘Ode to Liberty’. Shelley continued to send other short poems for inclusion during June and July.[5] John Gisborne agreed to act as Shelley’s proof-reader in London, and eventually became his de facto literary agent.64 On top of this, Ollier had apparently intimated to Hunt that he was after all considering an anonymous publication of Peter Bell the Third.65 Only by the autumn was it clear that nothing could be expected in this quarter, though Mary herself wrote asking the Gisbornes secretly to find a
n alternative publisher.66
The loss of The Mask of Anarchy, A Philosophical View of Reform and the Popular Songs (and the actual loss of Peter Bell) now seemed a subject for regret, but for acquiescence. Shelley had already yielded in principle at the end of May, though with a shrug. ‘It seems that I have no other alternative but to keep in with [Ollier], he having so many of my writings in his possession. . . . So I had better make the best of a bad business . . . . I must say that he has not cheated me in the commission, — but on the contrary I offered him 20 per cent, & he will accept only 10 — . So much for Ollier.’67 Not Jesus Christ perhaps, but at least an honest Pharisee.
But there was another more personal reason for Shelley’s acquiescence. For in June, after the quiet spring months at Casa Frassi, a private crisis broke over the Shelley household which required his full attention. They had intended to move for the summer to the Bagni di Lucca at about this time, but events dictated otherwise. On 9 June, according to her certificate, little Elena Adelaide Shelley died at Naples. So far as appears from Shelley’s correspondence with the Gisbornes, this news did not reach him until some time between 2 and 7 July, although he knew of a ‘severe fever’ by 30 June. But it appears to have reached Paolo Foggi within a matter of a very few days. The affair that had previously been settled by an arrangement to administer 150 ducats now escalated into one of direct blackmail. On Monday, 12 June, the Shelleys were packing up to depart for Lucca when, by method unknown, news reached them of Paolo Foggi’s threats and demands. Both Claire and Mary were now au fait. Claire entered in her diary: ‘Bother & Confusion Packing up. — We sleep in Casa Silva. Oh Bother.’ Mary entered simply ‘Paolo’ followed by a small drawing of a crescent moon.68 The next day they returned to Casa Frassi while Shelley hastened over to consult Frederico del Rosso at Livorno. Claire entered: ‘The king of England with all his merry men / Marched up a hill & then marched down again.’69 Shelley returned the same evening. The next day Tatty came back from the baths at Casciano, probably to give advice at this difficult moment.[6]
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