st pieces of
biography in the language.

Trelawny's Memorials are interesting, and contain the solemn and
memorable scene of the cremation of Shelley's remains--one of the most
vivid and impressive narratives I know. Then there are the chapters of
Leigh Hunt's Autobiography which deal with Shelley, a little
overwrought perhaps, but real biography for all that, and interesting
as bringing out the contrast between the simplicity and generosity of
Shelley and the affectation, bad breeding, and unscrupulous selfishness
of Byron. Medwin's Biography and Mrs. Shelley's Memorials are
worthless, because they attempt to idealise and deify the poet; and
then there is _The Real Shelley_, which is like a tedious legal
cross-examination of a highly imaginative and sensitive creature by a
shrewd and boisterous barrister.

It would be very difficult to compose a formal biography of Shelley,
because he was such a vague, imaginative, inconsistent creature. The
documentary evidence is often wholly contradictory, for the simple
reason that Shelley had no conception of accuracy. He did not, I am
sure, deliberately invent what was not true; but he had a very lively
imagination, and was capable of amplifying the smallest hints into
elaborate theories; his memory was very faulty, and he could construct
a whole series of mental pictures which were wholly inconsistent with
facts. It seems clear, too, that he was much under the influence of
opium at various times, and that his dreams and fancies, when he was
thus affected, presented themselves to him as objective facts. But, for
all that, it is not at all difficult to form a very real impression of
the man. He was one of those strange, unbalanced creatures that never
reach maturity; he was a child all his short life; he had the
generosity, the affection, the impulsiveness of a child, and he had,
too, the timidity, the waywardness, the excitability of a child. If a
project came into his mind, he flung himself into it with the whole
force of his nature; it was imperatively necessary that he should at
once execute his design. No considerations of prudence or common-sense
availed to check him; life became intolerable to him if he could not
gratify his whim. His abandonment of his first wife, his elopement with
Mary Godwin, are instances of this; what could be more amazing than his
deliberate invitation to his first wife, after his flight with Mary,
that she should come and join the party in a frien