The Real Shelley. New Views of the Poet's Life. Vol. 1 (of 2)Jeaffreson, John Cordy
History
The Real Shelley. New Views of the Poet's Life. Vol. 1 (of 2)
Jeaffreson, John Cordy
Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822
If he ever hoped for happiness in his later time, the hope was
disappointed. After he had married his daughters, and sent his sons into
life, the passion for money, which had long overpowered the other forces
of his nature, developed even to miserly madness. In other respects the
strain of insanity, that had given him a lunatic for an uncle, displayed
itself in his manifold eccentricities. Living at Horsham, in a little
house, and finding his most congenial associates in the tap-rooms of the
Horsham taverns, whilst his grandson went to school at Brentford and Eton,
the founder of the Castle Goring Shelleys disliked his son so cordially,
that he is said to have seldom greeted him without an outbreak of
passionate malevolence. Percy, the future poet, used to entertain his
comrades at Eton by cursing his absent sire; and at Oxford, he assured
Hogg, that he had acquired this singular taste for cursing his father
behind his back, from hearing old Sir Bysshe curse him to his face. It was
thus that this chief of the Castle Goring Shelleys lived from the creation
of his baronetcy in 1806 to his death in 1815, when he left vast wealth in
money and lands, _In Trust_, for the creation of the big entailed estate,
that should perpetuate the grandeur of 'the House' he had laboured so
resolutely to found. Medwin (no safe authority on details) says the old
man left to his descendants 300,000_l._ in the English funds, and landed
estates yielding a yearly revenue of 20,000_l._, besides the banknotes to
the amount of 10,000_l._ that were hidden in the books and other furniture
of the room, where he drew and yielded his last breath.
Another thing to be noticed in the evidences of this family is the
testimony to the newness of its grandeur, that may be gathered from the
records of its territorial possessions. Fen Place came to these Shelleys,
through the wedding-ring, so recently as the last decade of the
seventeenth century. They acquired Field Place by purchase in the earlier
half of the following (the eighteenth) century. For their place 'among the
large landholders of Sussex,' they are mainly indebted to the Newark
apothecary's younger son, who flourished in George the Third's time, and
died only a few months before the battle of Waterloo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account