Mrs. Shelley Part 8

Soon after writing these letters, Sh.e.l.ley found with exultation that his work was done. As usual, he had carried ail before him, and secured Byron's "Vision of Judgment" for the first number of the _Liberal_, and by July 7 he was able to show his friends the ever-delightful sights of Pisa. Thus one day of rest and pleasure remained to Sh.e.l.ley after doing his utmost to a.s.sist his friend Hunt.

To the last Sh.e.l.ley was faithful to his aim--that of doing all he could for others. His interviews with Byron had secured a return of the friendly feeling which nought but death was henceforth to sever, and the two great names, which nothing can divide, are linked by the unbreakable chain of genius--genius, the fire of the universe, which at times may flicker low, but which, bursting into flame here and there, illumines the dark recesses of the soul of the universe--genius which has made the world we know, which, never absent, though dormant, has changed the stone to the flower, the flower to animal, and, gaining ever in degree through the various stages of life, is the divine attribute, the will, the idea. Genius manifest in the greatest and best of humanity, shown indeed, as the Word of G.o.d, or as he who holds the mirror up to nature, or by the great power which in colour or monotone can display the love and agony of a dying Christ; by the loving poet, who can soar beyond his age to uphold an unselfish aim of perfection to the world; by all those who, throwing off their mortal attributes at times, can live the true life free from the too absorbing pleasures of the flesh, which can only he enjoyed by dividing.

But now Sh.e.l.ley's mortal battle was nearly over; he who had not let his talent or myriad talents lie dormant was to rest, his work of life was nearly done. Not that the good is ever ended; verily, through thousands of generations, through eternity, it endures; while the bad--perhaps not useless--is the chaff which is dispersed, and which has no result unless to hurry on the divine will. Our life is double.

Sh.e.l.ley's atoms were to return to their primal elements. The unknown atoms or attributes of them were undoubtedly to carry on their work; he had added to the eternal intellect.

The last facts of Sh.e.l.ley's life are related by Trelawny and by Mrs.

Sh.e.l.ley. On the morning of July 8, having finished his arrangements for the Hunts and spent one day in showing the n.o.ble sights of Pisa, Sh.e.l.ley, after making purchases for their house and obtaining money from his banker, accompanied by Trelawny during the forenoon, was ready by noon to embark on the _Ariel_ with Edward Williams and the sailor-boy, Charles Vivian. Captain Roberts was not without apprehensions as to the weather, and urged Sh.e.l.ley to delay his departure for a day; but Williams was anxious to rejoin his wife, and Sh.e.l.ley not in a humour to frustrate his wishes. Trelawny, who desired to accompany them in the _Bolivar_ into the offing, was prevented, not having obtained his health order, and so could only reluctantly remain behind and watch his friends' small craft through a ship's gla.s.s.

Mistakes were noted, the ship's mate of the _Bolivar_ remarking they ought to have started at daybreak instead of after one o'clock; that they were too near sh.o.r.e; that there would soon be a land breeze; the gaff top-sail was foolish in a boat with no deck and no sailor on board; and then, pointing to the southwest, "Look at those black lines and dirty rags hanging on them out of the sky; look at the smoke on the water; the devil is brewing mischief."

The approaching storm was watched also by Captain Roberts from the light-house, whence he saw the topsail taken in; then the vessel freighted with such precious life was seen no more in the mist of the storm. For a time the sea seemed solidified and appeared as of lead, with an oily sc.u.m; the wind did not ruffle it. Then sounds of thunder, wind, and rain filled the air; these lasted with fury for twenty minutes; then a lull, and anxious looks among the boats which had rushed into the harbour for Sh.e.l.ley's hark. No gla.s.s could find it on the horizon. Trelawny landed at eight o'clock; inquiries were useless.

An oar was seen on a fishing boat: it might be English--it might be Sh.e.l.ley's; but this was denied. Nothing to do but wait, till the third day, when he returned to Pisa to tell his fears to Hunt and Byron, who could only listen with quivering lips and speak with faltering voice.

While these friends were agitated between hope and fear, the time was pa.s.sing wearily at San Terenzio. Jane Williams received a letter from her husband on that day (written on Sat.u.r.day from Leghorn), where he was waiting for Sh.e.l.ley. It stated that if they did not return on Monday, he certainly would be back at the latest on Thursday in a felucca by himself if necessary. The fatal Monday pa.s.sed amid storm and rain, and no idea was entertained by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley or Mrs. Williams that their husbands had started in such weather as they experienced.

Mary, who had then scarcely recovered from her dangerous illness, and was unable to join Claire and Jane Williams in their evening walks, could only pace up and down in the verandah and feel oppressed by the very beauty which surrounded her. So till Wednesday these days of storm and oppression and undefined fears pa.s.sed; then, some feluccas arriving from Leghorn, they were informed that their husbands had left on Monday; but that could not be believed. Thursday came and pa.s.sed, _the_ Thursday which should be the latest for Williams's arrival.

The wind had been fair, but midnight arrived, and still Mary and Jane were alone; then sad hope gave place to fearful anxiety preceding despair; but Friday was letter day--wait for that--and no boat could leave. Noon of Friday and letters came, but _to_, not _from_ Sh.e.l.ley. Hunt wrote to him: "Pray write to tell us how you got home, for they say that you had bad weather after you sailed on Monday, and we are anxious." Mary read so far when the paper fell from her hands and she trembled all over. Jane read it, and said, "It is all over."

Mary replied, "No, my dear Jane, it is not all over; but this suspense is dreadful. Come with me; we will go to _Leghorn_; we will post, to be swift and learn our fate."

Thus, as Mary Sh.e.l.ley herself describes, they crossed to Lerici, despair in their hearts, two poor, wild, aghast creatures driving, "like Matilda," towards the sea to know if they were to be for ever doomed to misery. The idea of seeing Hunt for the first time after four years, to ask "Where is he?" nearly drove Mary into convulsions.

On knocking at the door of the Casa Lanfranchi they found Lord Byron was in Pisa and. Hunt being in bed, their interview was to be with Byron, only to hear, "They knew nothing. He had left Pisa on Sunday; on Monday he had sailed. There had been bad weather Monday afternoon; more they knew not." Mary, who had risen from, a bed of sickness for the journey, and had travelled all day, had now at midnight to proceed to Leghorn in search of Trelawny; for what rest could there be with such a terrible doubt hanging over their lives? They could not despair, for that would have been death; they had to pa.s.s through longer hours and days of anguish to subdue their souls to bear the inevitable.

They reached Leghorn, and were driven to the wrong inn. Nothing to do but wait till the morning--but wait dressed till six o'clock--when they proceeded to other inns and found Captain Roberts. His face showed that the worst was true. They only heard how their husbands had set out. Still hope was not dead; might not their husbands be at Corsica or Elba? It was said they had been seen in the Gulf. They resolved to return; but now not alone, for Trelawny accompanied them.

Agony succeeded agony; the water they crossed told Mary it was his grave.

While crossing the bay they saw San Terenzio illuminated for a festa, while despair was in their hearts. The days pa.s.sed, a week ever counted as two by Mary, and then, when she was very ill, Trelawny, who had been long expected from his search, returned, and now they knew that all was over, for the bodies had been cast on sh.o.r.e. One was a tall, slight figure, with Sophocles in one pocket of the jacket, and Keats's last poems in the other; the poetry he loved remained; his body a mere mutilated corpse, which for a while had enshrined such divine intellect. Williams's corpse, also, was found some miles distant, still more unrecognisable, save for the black silk handkerchief tied sailor-fashion round his neck; and after some ten days a third body was found, a mere skeleton., supposed to be the sailor-boy, Charles Vivian.

"Is there no hope?" Mary asked, when Trelawny reappeared on July 19.

He could not answer, but left the room, and sent the servant to take the children to their widowed mothers. He then, on the 20th, took them from the sound of the cruel waves to the Hunts at Pisa.

Naught remained now but to perform the last funeral rites. Mary decided that Sh.e.l.ley should rest with his dearly-loved son in the English cemetery in Rome. With some little difficulty, Trelawny obtained permission, with the kind a.s.sistance of the English Charge d'Affaires at Florence, Mr. Dawkins, to have the bodies burned on the sh.o.r.e, according to the custom of bodies cast up from the sea, so that the ashes could be removed without fear of infection. The iron furnace was made at Leghorn, of the dimensions of a human body, according to Trelawny's orders; and on August 15 the body of Lieutenant Williams was disinterred from the sand where it had been buried when cast up.

Byron recognised him by his clothes and his teeth. The funeral rites were performed by Trelawny by throwing incense, salt, and wine on the pyre, according to cla.s.sic custom; and when nothing remained but some black ashes and small pieces of white bone, these were placed by Trelawny in one of the oaken boxes he had provided for the purpose, and then consigned to Byron and Hunt. The next day another pyre was raised, and again the soldiers had to dig for the body, buried in lime. When placed in the furnace it was three hours before the consuming body showed the still unconsumed heart, which Trelawny saved from the furnace, s.n.a.t.c.hing it out with his hand; and there, amidst the Italian beauty, on the Italian sh.o.r.e, was consumed the body of the poet who held out immortal hope to his kind, who, in advance of the scientists, held it as a n.o.ble fact that humanity was progressive; who, more for this than for his unfortunate first marriage and its unhappy sequel, was banished by his countrymen, and held as nothing by his generation. But, as Claire wrote later in her diary, "It might be said of him, as Cicero said of Rome, 'Ungrateful England shall not possess my bones.'"

The ashes of the body were placed in the oaken box; those of the heart, handed by Trelawny to Hunt, were afterwards given into the possession of Mary, who jealously guarded them during her life, in a place where they were found at her death, in a silken case, in which was kept a Pisan copy of the _Adonais_. The ashes of Sh.e.l.ley's body were finally buried in the cemetery in Rome, where the grave of the English poet is now one of the strongest links between the present and the past world; and there beside him rest now the ashes of his faithful friend, Trelawny, who survived him nearly sixty years.

CHAPTER XIII.

WIDOWHOOD.

The last ceremony was over, hope, fear, despair, were past, and Mary Sh.e.l.ley had to recommence her life, or death in life, her one solace her little son, her one resource for many years her work. Fortunately for her, her education and her studious habits were a shield against the cold world which she had to encounter, and her accustomed personal economy, which had fitted her to be the worthy companion to her generous husband, whom she had encouraged rather than thwarted in his constantly recurring acts of philanthropy, would help her in her present struggle; and one friend was ready to a.s.sist with advice and out of his then slender means, Mr. Trelawny. But from England no help was forthcoming. G.o.dwin's affairs having reached the climax of bankruptcy already referred to, were not likely to settle down easily now that the ever-ready supply was suddenly cut short.

Sir Timothy Sh.e.l.ley was not inclined to continue the terms he made with his son, nor was anything to be arranged but on conditions which Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley could never consent to. Of her despondent state of misery we can judge in her letters of 1822 to Claire, as when she writes from Genoa, September 15, "This hateful Genoa"; and, describing her misery on her husband's death, she exclaims: "Well, I shall have his books and his MSS., and in these I shall live, and from the study of these I do expect some instants of content.... some seconds of exaltation that may render me both happier here, and more worthy of him hereafter."

Then, "There is nothing but unhappiness to me, if indeed I except Trelawny, who appears so truly generous and kind.... Nothing but the horror of being a burden to my family prevents my accompanying Jane (to England). If I had any fixed income, I should go at least to Paris, and I shall go the moment I have one." And again in December of the same year she writes to Claire, addressing her as Mdlle. de Clairmont, _chez_ Mdme. de Hennistein, Vienna. She mentions an approach to Sir Timothy, through lawyers, abortive as yet; how she detests Genoa; "Hunt does not like me." Her daily routine is copying Sh.e.l.ley's ma.n.u.scripts and reading Greek; in her despair, study is her only relief. She sees no one but Lord Byron, and the Guiccioli once a mouth, Trelawny seldom, and he is on the eve of his departure for Leghorn.

Thus we find Mary Sh.e.l.ley going on from day to day, too poor to travel so far as Paris, as yet her child and her work of love on her husband's MS. filling up her time, till in February she had to undergo the mortification of her father-in-law proposing that she should give her son up entirely to him, and in return receive a settled income.

But Mary was not of those who can be either bought or sold, and, having the means of subsistence in herself, she could be independent; a letter from her father shows how they were at one on this important subject, and it must have been a great encouragement to her in her loneliness, as she was always diffident of her own powers. However, now her work lay in arranging and copying her husband's MSS., and saving treasures which but for her loving care might have been lost.

In the spring of this year, 1823, Trelawny was in Rome arranging Sh.e.l.ley's grave, which he bought with the adjoining ground for himself, and he had the ma.s.sive slab of stone placed there which still tells of the "_Cor cordium_" In the autumn of the same year Mary found means for leaving the hated Genoa, and, travelling through France; she stayed for a time at Versailles with her father's old friends, the Kennys, and of this visit one of the daughters, now Mrs.

c.o.x, then a child of about six years, retains a lively and pleasing recollection. Brought up in France and imbued with the idea and pictures of the Madonna and child, the little girl, on seeing Mrs.

Sh.e.l.ley arrive with her small son, became impressed with the idea that the pale, sweet, oval-laced lady was the Madonna come to visit them; and this idea was not dispelled by the gentle manner and kind way that she had with the children, reminding one who had been punished by mistake that the next time she was naughty she would have had her punishment in advance. This visit was followed later by the intimacy and friendship of the two families. In London (as we learn from a letter to Miss Holcroft, Mrs. Kenny's daughter, by her previous marriage with Holcroft) Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley was settled at 14, Sheldhurst Street, Brunswick Square. She was then hoping that her father-in-law would make her an allowance sufficient for her to live comfortably in dear Italy; and, at all events, she had received "a present supply, so that much good at least has been accomplished by my journey." She felt quite lost in London, and Percy had not yet learnt English. She had seen Lamb, but he did not remark on her being altered. She would then have returned to Italy, but her father did not like the idea.

Among other work at this time Mary Sh.e.l.ley attempted a drama, but in this her father did not encourage her, as he writes to her in February 1824 that her personages are mere abstractions, not men and women.

G.o.dwin does not regret that she has not dramatic talent, as the want of it will save her much trouble and mortification.

This disappointment did not discourage Mary, for in the next year she published, with Henry Colburn of New Burlington Street, her novel _The Last Man_, of which a second edition appeared in the succeeding year. This must have been a great help to Mary's limited means: she had received four hundred pounds for her previous romance.

During this year we find Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley living in Kentish Town, as she writes from that address to Trelawny in July 1824. She is much cheered by finding her old friend still remembers her. She speaks of him as her warm-hearted friend, the remnant of the happy days of her vagabond life in beloved Italy, and now, shortly before writing, she had seen another link in her past life disappear; for the hea.r.s.e containing the body of Lord Byron had pa.s.sed her window going up Highgate Hill, on his last journey to the seat of his ancestors. Mary had been much interested in the account Trelawny had sent her of Byron's latest moments. She had been to see the poet's remains at the house where they lay in London. She saw his valet, Fletcher, and "from a few words he imprudently let fall, it would seem that his Lordship spoke of C----- in his last moments, and of his wish to do something for her, at a time when his mind, vacillating between consciousness and delirium, would not permit him to do anything." She describes how Fletcher found Lady Byron in great grief, but inexorable, and how Byron's memoirs had been destroyed by Mrs. Leigh and Hobhouse, but adds: "There was not much in them, I know, for I read them some years ago at Venice; but the world fancied that it was to have a confession of the hidden feelings of one concerning whom they were always pa.s.sionately curious." She says that Moore was much disgusted. He was writing a life of Byron, but it was considered that although he had had the MSS. so long in his hands, he had not found time to read them.

She asks Trelawny to help Moore with any facts or details. Mary thanks Trelawny for his wish that she and Jane Williams, who see each other and little else every day, should join him in Greece. That is impossible, but she looks for him to come in the winter to England.

She speaks of July as fatal to her for good and ill. "On this very very day"--she is writing July 28--"I went to France with my Sh.e.l.ley.

How young, heedless, and happy and poor we were then, and now my sleeping boy is all that is left to me of that time--my boy and a thousand recollections which never sleep." She describes the pretty country lanes round Kentish Town. If only there were cloudless skies and orange sunsets, she would not mind the scenery; but she can attach herself to no one. She and Jane live alone; her child is in excellent health, a tall, fine, handsome boy. She is still in hopes that she will get an income of three or four hundred a year from Sir Timothy in a few months; one of her chief wishes in being independent would be to help Claire, who is in Russia. Of this time Claire wrote a good account in her diary.

These letters to Trelawny give much insight into the present life of Mary Sh.e.l.ley, and refer to much of interest in her past. On February 25 she tells how she had been with Jane, her father, and Count Gamba to see Kean in Oth.e.l.lo, but she adds: "Yet, my dear friend, I wish we had seen it represented as was talked of at Pisa. Iago would never have found a better representative than that strange and wondrous creature whom one regrets daily more; for who can equal him?" Trelawny adds a note that in 1822 Byron had contemplated that he, Trelawny, Williams, Medwin, Mary Sh.e.l.ley, and Mrs. Williams were to take the several parts:--Byron, Iago; Trelawny, Oth.e.l.lo; Mary, Desdemona.

Trelawny adds that Byron recited a great portion of his part with great gusto, and looked it too. Byron said that all Pisa were to be the audience. Letters from Trelawny from Zante in 1826, carry on the correspondence. He regrets that poverty keeps them apart; speaks of the difficulty of travelling without money; he rejoices that he still holds a place in her affections, and says, "You know, Mary, that I always loved you impetuously and sincerely." In 1827, still writing from Kentish Town, on Easter Sunday, but saying that in future her address will be at her father's, 44, Gower Place, Bedford Square, we have another of her charming letters to her friend, full of good reflections. In this letter she tells how Jane Williams has united her life with that of Sh.e.l.ley's early friend, Mr. Jefferson Hogg. He had loved her devotedly since her arrival in England five years earlier, but till now she had been too constant to Williams's memory to accept him. Claire was still in Russia. Mary writes:--"I wrote to you last while I entertained the hope that my money cares were diminishing, but shabby as the best of these shabby people was, I am not to arrive at that best without due waiting and anxiety. Nor do I yet see the end of this worse than tedious uncertainty." Mary was to see Sh.e.l.ley's younger brother, who was just married, but she had small hope of reaping any good from his visit. She adds, "Adieu, my ever dear friend; while hearts such as yours beat, I will not wholly despond."

Mary refers with great kindness to Hunt, and is most anxious as to his future. She also notices with high satisfaction that the Whigs with Canning are in the ascendant, and that they may be favourable to Greece. While Mary Sh.e.l.ley was residing in Kentish Town, before she joined her father in Gower Place after the winding up of his affairs, a letter from G.o.dwin to his wife at the sea-side shows that the latter considered he did not need her society as Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley was with him; he explains that he sees her about twice a week, but is feeling lonely every day.

After Mary removed to Gower Place in 1827, among other work, she was occupied by her _Lives of Eminent Literary Men_, for _Lardner's Cyclopaedia_. About the same year G.o.dwin writes to his daughter who is evidently in very low spirits, wishing that she resembled him in temperament rather than the Wollstonecrafts, but explains that his present good spirits may be owing to his work on Cromwell. A little later we find G.o.dwin writing to Mary, himself in depression. He is troubled by publishers who will not decide to take a novel. "Three, four, or five hundred pounds, and to be subsisted by them while I write it," is what he hoped to get. Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley was at Southend for change of air, and wishing her father to join her; but this he could not decide on. Every day lost is taking away from his means of subsistence; for he is writing now, not for marble to be placed over his remains, but for bread to be put into his mouth.

In April 1829, Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, writing still from her father's address, 44, Grower Street, complains to Trelawny in a truly English way, as she says, of the weather. She rejoices that her friend has taken to work, and hopes that his friends will keep him to recording his own adventures; but she strongly dissuades him from writing a life of Sh.e.l.ley, for how could that be done without bringing her into publicity? which she shrinks from fearfully, though she is forced by her hard situation to meet it in a thousand ways; or as she expresses it, "I will tell you what I am, a silly goose, who, far from wishing to stand forward to a.s.sert myself in any way, now that I am alone in the world have but the desire to wrap night and the obscurity of insignificance around me. This is weakness, but I cannot help it."

Neither does Mary consider that the time has come to write Sh.e.l.ley's life, though she her-self hopes to do so some day.

Towards the end of 1830 we find Mary in Somerset Street, Portman Square, from which place she writes to Trelawny on the subject of his MS. of _The Adventures of a Younger Son,_ which he had consigned to her hands to place with a publisher, make the best terms for that she could, and see through the press; a task distasteful to Trelawny to the last. Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley much admired the work, considering it full of pa.s.sion and interest. But she does not hesitate to point out the blemishes, certain coa.r.s.enesses, which she begs him to allow her to deal with, as she would have dealt with parts of Lord Byron's _Don Juan_. She is sure that without this she will have great difficulty in disposing of the book.

Mary finds the absorbing politics of the day a great hindrance to publishing, and says: "G.o.d knows how it will all end, but it looks as if the aristocrats would have the good sense to make the necessary sacrifices to a starving population."

The worry of awaiting the decision of the publisher was felt by Mrs.

Sh.e.l.ley more for Trelawny than for herself; she finds it difficult to make the terms she wishes for him, and, writing to her friend on March 22 of the next year, she regrets that she cannot make Colburn, the best publisher she knows of, give five hundred pounds as she wishes, but trusts to get three hundred pounds for first edition and two hundred pounds for second; but times have changed since she first returned to England, neither she nor her father can command the same prices which they did then. At that time "publishers came to seek me,"

she writes; "now money is scarcer and readers fewer than ever."

Three days later she is able to add the news that she has received "the ultimatum of these great people," three hundred pounds down and one hundred pounds on second edition, she thinks, for 1,000 copies.

She advises acceptance, but will try other publishers if he wish it.

Mary again regrets that it is impossible for her to go to Italy. She expresses herself as wretched in England, and in spite of her sanguine disposition and capacity to endure, which have borne her up hitherto, she feels sinking at last; situated as she is, it is impossible for her not to be wretched.

Mary does not give way long to despondency, she goes on to tell news as to Medwin, Hogg, Jane, &c.; she can even tease Trelawny about the different ladies who believe themselves the sole object of his affection, and tells him she is having a certain letter of his about "Caroline" lithographed, and thinks of dispensing 100 copies among "the many hapless fair."

A third letter on the subject of the hook, on June 14, 1831, tells Trelawny how his work is in progress, and Horace Smith, who much admires it, has promised to revise it. Again, in July of the same year, she writes that the third volume is in print, and his book will soon be published; but that as his mother talks openly of his memoirs in society, he must not hope for secrecy. In this letter, also, we have a fact which redounds to the credit of both Mary Sh.e.l.ley and Trelawny, as she clearly tells him she cannot marry him; but remains in "all grat.i.tude and friendship" his M. S. Trelawny had evidently made her an offer of marriage, moved perhaps by grat.i.tude for her help, as well as probably, in his case, a pa.s.sing love; for she writes to him: "My name will never be Trelawny. I am not so young as I was when you first knew me, but I am as proud. I must have the entire affection, devotion, and, above all, the solicitous protection of any one who would win me. You belong to womenkind in general, and Mary S.

will _never_ be yours. I write in haste," &c. &c.

Trelawny would never have offered his name thus to a woman he could not respect, and perhaps few know better than those of his reckless cla.s.s who are most worthy of respect. Mary Sh.e.l.ley, who dreaded men's looks or words, by her own knowledge and her intimate friends'

accounts had no fear of him; he had the instincts of a gentleman for a true lady, who may be found in any cla.s.s.

Four years later, we have Mary again writing to Mr. Trelawny with regard to his book, a second edition being called for, when, to her confusion, she finds that through her not having read over the agreement, and having taken for granted that the proposal of three hundred pounds on first edition with one hundred pounds more on second was inserted, she had signed the contract; but now it turned out that what was proposed by letter was not inserted by Oilier in the agreement, and she knew not what to do. In a second letter a few days later from Harrow, where she lived for a while to be near her son at school, she wrote in answer to Trelawny, proposing Peac.o.c.k as umpire, because, she writes, "he would not lean to the strongest side, which Jefferson, as a lawyer, is inclined, I think, to do." Oilier, she writes, devoutly wished she had read the agreement, as the clause ought to have been in it.

Again, a few months later, on April 7, 1836, there is another letter asking Trelawny if he would like to attend her father's funeral, and if he would go with the undertaker to choose the spot nearest to her mother's, in St. Pancras Churchyard, and, if he could do this, to write to Mrs. G.o.dwin, at the Exchequer, to tell her so. The last few years of G.o.dwin's life had not ended, as he had so bitterly apprehended, in penury; as his friends in power had obtained for him the post of Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer, with residence in New Palace Yard, in 1833. The office was in fact a sinecure, and was soon abolished; but it was arranged that no change should be made in the old philosopher's position. His old friends had died, but his work had its reward for him, as well as its place in the thought of the world, for such people as the Duke of Wellington and Lord Melbourne had used their influence for him. Mary had been his constant devoted daughter to the last. In 1834 he writes to his wife of Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, as he always called his daughter to Mrs. G.o.dwin, of various meetings and dinners with each other, though he cannot attend her evenings as he would wish, since the walk across the park to reach Somerset Street, where she then lived, was by no means pleasant after dark: and now we find Mary honouring Trelawny with the last service for her father, apologising, but adding, "Are you not the best and most constant of friends?"

G.o.dwin's last grief was the loss of his son. William in 1832; he had been settled in a literary career and left a widow. One of Mary's first acts of generosity later on was to settle a pension on her.