Recollections from the days of Shelley and Byron.
Trelawny, E.J. Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1858. 8vo.; light foxing to preliminaries; brown cloth, stamped in blind and gilt; extremities worn; spine frayed, First American edition. Signed in pencil on the half-title: “Elizabeth M. Hawthorne”, with a clipping affixed to the first blank-a note by William Swift, the late Lord Byron's cobbler, discussing his boots and his infirmities of foot, ankle, and leg-beneath which is Elizabeth's transcription of a Browning verse: “And did you once see Shelley plain? And did he stop and speak to you? And did you speak to him again?—How strange it seems—and new!” / Browning. / 1841.
FROM THE LIBRARY OF HAWTHORNE'S SISTER
Vernon Loggins refers to Elizabeth's use of this book in The Hawthornes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), pp. 301-302:
“When she read Harriet Beecher Stowe's claim that Lord Byron was guilty of incest with his half sister Augusta Leigh, she studied the charge with a lawyer's precision. Having arrived at a conclusion, she wrote,
‘In Trelawny's Recollections of Byron and Shelley, there is an unfinished letter to Mrs. Leigh which Trelawney found in Byron's papers after his death. The letter is entirely inconsistent with Mrs. Stowe's story. I think it could not possibly have been written if what Mrs. Stowe says had been true. Mrs. Leigh seems to have been the medium of communication between Byron and his wife. Mrs. Stowe is an author by profession, therefore the plain truth is not to be looked for from her. She must write what people will read, and in her mind she habitually mixes up fact and fiction. I dare say she does not know them apart. All the time she was in England she was thinking of making a book, or as many books as she could. Then she never followed Dr. Johnson's advice, perhaps never heard of it, 'Clear your mind of cant.' Her Byron article is full of cant, and, besides all the rest, she is a Beecher. And what Beecher can live without excitement-without creating a sensation? As to Lady Byron, she appears to be one of those people who cannot discriminate between sins, but think one as likely to be committed as another-or rather, who think every departure from their own particular rule of right is a sin so enormous that the person guilty of it would hesitate at nothing.’”
Trelawny was closely acquainted with both Shelley and Byron and was one of the witnesses at Shelley's cremation. However, many of the “recollections" recorded in this book have since been proven false by other Shelley and Byron biographers.
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