man, and Russian are becoming numerous. Selections have been issued by, among others, Mathilde Blind (with memoir, Tauchnitz, 1872), the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke (1880), and by the present writer (Parchment Library, 1880). The bulk of Shelley's manuscripts has been deposited by his daughter-in-law, Lady Shelley, in the Bodleian Library.

Shelley's eldest son, Charles Bysshe, the offspring of his union with Harriet Westbrook, did not long survive him, and upon the death of Sir Timothy Shelley in 1844 the baronetcy passed to the poet's only surviving son by Mary Godwin, Sir Percy Florence Shelley (1819-1889). This most gentle and lovable man, the inheritor of most of his father's fine qualities and of many of his tastes and accomplishments, died in December 1889. He married, 22 June 1848, Jane, daughter of Thomas Gibson, and widow of the Hon. Charles Robert St. John, who survives him; but, the marriage having proved childless, the baronetcy devolved upon Edward, son of Shelley's younger brother John, and is now enjoyed by Sir Edward's brother Charles.

The excessive vehemence which hurried Shelley into many hasty and unjustifiable steps, was, from a moral point of view, a serious infirmity, but failure to control impulse seems to have been a condition of his greatness and of his influence on mankind. He took Parnassus by storm. His poetical productiveness would have been admirable as the result of a long life; as the work in the main of little more than five years, it is one of the greatest marvels in the history of the human mind. Had it been as unequal in matter as Dryden, in manner as Wordsworth, it would still have been wonderful; but, apart from occasional obscurities in meaning and lapses in grammar, it is as perfect in form as in substance, and equable in merit to a degree unapproached by any of his contemporaries. The lucidity and symmetry of the minor lyrics, in particular, rival anything in antiquity, and surpass the best modern examples by their greater apparent spontaneity, the result in fact of the most strenuous revision.

In 1835 Stuart Mill ably compared and contrasted him with Wordsworth; and the finest passage in his 'Pauline' (1833) is the outburst of Browning's passionate admiration. After many vicissitudes, opinion seems to be agreeing to recognise Shelley

as the supreme lyrist, all of whose poems, whatever their outward form, should be viewed from the lyrical standpoint. This is a just judgment, for even the apparently austere and methodical 'Cenci' is as truly born of a passionate lyrical impulse as any of his songs. Despite his limitations, no modern poet, unless it be Wordsworth, has so deeply influenced English poetry.

The splendour of his prose style, while exalting his character for imagination, has seemed incompatible with homely wisdom. In reality his essays and correspondence are not more distinguished by fine insight into high matters than by sound common-sense in ordinary things. No contemporary, perhaps, so habitually conveys the impression of a man in advance of his time. His capacity for calm discussion appears to advantage under the most provoking circumstances, as in his correspondence with Godwin, Booth, and Southey. As a critic, Shelley does not possess Coleridge's subtlety and penetration, but has a gift for the intuitive recognition of excellence which occasionally carries him too far in enthusiasm, but at all events insures him against the petty and selfinterested jealousies from which none of his contemporaries, except Scott and Keats, can be considered exempt. This delight in the work of others, even more than his own poetical power, renders him matchless as a translator. Of his lyrics, those which have been most frequently set to music are: 'I arise from dreams of thee,' 'The Cloud,' 'The fountains mingle with the river,' 'One word is too often profaned,' and 'Music when soft voices die.'

Only two genuine portraits of Shelley are extant, and neither is satisfactory. The earlier, a miniature, was taken when he was only thirteen or fourteen, and is authenticated by its strong and undesigned resemblance to miniatures of the Pilfold family. The later portrait, painted by Miss Curran at Rome in 1819, was left in a flat and unfinished state. 'I was on the point of burning it before I left Italy,' the artist told Mrs. Shelley; 'I luckily saved it just as the fire was scorching.' There is a general agreement among the descriptions of personal acquaintance; all agree as to the slight but tall and sinewy frame, the abundant brown hair, the fair but somewhat tanned and freckled complexion, the dark blue eyes, with their habitual expression of rapt wonder, and the general appearance of extreme youth. Resemblances, by no

means merely fanciful, have been found with the portraits of Novalis, of Sir Robert Dudley, styled duke of Northumberland and earl of Warwick [q. v.], and of Antonio Leisman in the Florentine Ritratti de' Pittori. The preternatural keenness of his senses is well attested, and contributed to the illusions which play so large a part in his history. Of late years two splendid monuments have been erected to Shelley by the piety of his son and daughter-in-law; one is in Christchurch minster, Hampshire; the other, designed by Mr. Onslow Ford, R.A., is at University College, Oxford.

THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS

SIR LESLIE STEPHEN

[From the Dictionary of National Biography.]

DICKENS, CHARLES (1812-1870), novelist, was born 7 Feb. 1812 at 387 Mile End Terrace, Commercial Road, Landport, Portsea. His father, John Dickens, a clerk in the navy pay office, with a salary of 80l. a year, was then stationed in the Portsmouth dockyard. The wife of the first Lord Houghton told Mr. Wemyss Reid that Mrs. Dickens, mother of John, was housekeeper at Crewe, and famous for her powers of story-telling (WEMYSS REID, in Daily News, 8 Oct. 1887). John Dickens had eight children by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Barrow, a lieutenant in the navy. The eldest, Fanny, was born in 1810. Charles, the second, was christened Charles John Huffam (erroneously entered Huffham in the register), but dropped the last two names. Charles Dickens remembered the little garden of the house at Portsea, though his father was recalled to London when he was only two years old. In 1816 (probably) the family moved to Chatham. Dickens was small and sickly; he amused himself by reading and by watching the games of other boys. His mother taught him his letters, and he pored over a small collection of books belonging to his father. Among them were 'Tom Jones,' the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' 'Don Quixote,' 'Gil Blas,' and especially Smollett's novels, by which he was deeply impressed. He wrote an infantine tragedy called 'Misnar,' founded on the 'Tales of the

Genii.' James Lamert, the stepson of his mother's eldest sister Mary (whose second husband was Dr. Lamert, an army surgeon at Chatham), had a taste for private theatricals. Lamert took Dickens to the theatre, in which the child greatly delighted. John Dickens's salary was raised to 200l. in 1819, and to 350l. in 1820, at which amount it remained until he left the service, 9 March 1825. It was, however, made insufficient by his careless habits, and in 1821 he left his first house, 2 (now 11) Ordnance Terrace, for a smaller house, 18 St. Mary's Place, next to a baptist chapel. Dickens was then sent to school with the minister, Mr. Giles (see LANGTON, Childhood of Dickens). In the winter of 1822-3 his father was recalled to Somerset House, and settled in Bayham Street, Camden Town, whither his son followed in the spring. John Dickens, whose character is more or less represented by Micawber, was now in difficulties, and had to make a composition with his creditors. He was (as Dickens emphatically stated) a very affectionate father, and took a pride in his son's precocious talents. Yet at this time (according to the same statement) he was entirely forgetful to the son's claims to a decent education. In spite of the family difficulties, the eldest child, Fanny, was sent as a pupil to the Royal Academy of Music, but Charles was left to black his father's boots, look after the younger children, and do small errands. Lamert made a little theatre for the child's amusement. His mother's elder brother, Thomas Barrow, and a godfather took notice of him occasionally. The uncle lodged in the upper floor of a house in which a bookselling business was carried on, and the proprietress lent the child some books. His literary tastes were kept alive, and he tried his hand at writing a description of the uncle's barber. His mother now made an attempt to retrieve the family fortunes by taking a house, 4 Gower Street North, where a brass plate announced 'Mrs. Dickens's establishment,' but failed to attract any pupils. The father was at last arrested and carried to the Marshalsea, long afterwards described in 'Little Dorrit.' (Mr. Langton thinks that the prison was the king's bench, where, as he says, there was a prisoner named Dorrett in 1824.) All the books and furniture went gradually to the pawnbroker's. James Lamert had become manager of a blacking warehouse, and obtained a

place for Dickens at 6s. or 7s. a week in the office at Hungerford Stairs. Dickens was treated as a mere drudge, and employed in making up parcels. He came home at night to the dismantled house in Gower Street till the family followed the father to the Marshalsea, and then lodged in Camden Town with a reduced old lady, a Mrs. Roylance, the original of Mrs. Pipchin in 'Dombey and Son.' Another lodging was found for him near the prison with a family which is represented by the Garlands in his 'Old Curiosity Shop.' The Dickenses were rather better off in prison than they had been previously. The maid-of-all-work who followed them from Bayham Street became the Marchioness of the 'Old Curiosity Shop.' The elder Dickens at last took the benefit of the Insolvent Debtors Act, and moved first to Mrs. Roylance's house, and then to a house in Somers Town. Dickens's amazing faculty of observation is proved by the use made in his novels of all that he now saw, especially in the prison scenes of 'Pickwick' and in the earlier part of 'David Copperfield.' That he suffered acutely is proved by the singular bitterness shown in his own narrative printed by Forster. He felt himself degraded by his occupation. When his sister won a prize at the Royal Academy, he was deeply humiliated by the contrast of his own position, though incapable of envying her success. This was about April 1824.

The family circumstances improved. The elder Dickens had received a legacy which helped to clear off his debts; he had a pension and after some time he obtained employment as reporter to the 'Morning Chronicle.' About 1824 Dickens was sent to a school kept by a Mr. Jones in the Hampstead Road, and called the Wellington House Academy. His health improved. His schoolfellows remembered him as a handsome lad, overflowing with animal spirits, writing stories, getting up little theatrical performances, and fond of harmless practical jokes, but not distinguishing himself as a scholar. After two years at this school, Dickens went to another kept by a Mr. Dawson in Henrietta Street, Brunswick Square. He then became clerk in the office of Mr. Molloy in New Square, Lincoln's Inn, and soon afterwards (from May 1827 to November 1828) clerk in the office of Mr. Edward Blackmore, attorney, of Gray's Inn. His salary with Mr. Blackmore rose from 13s. 6d. to 15s. a week. Dickens's energy had only been stimulated