Excepting Mary Shelley, the best-informed spoke too soon after the
event. Shelley's own letters are slightly misleading, from a very
intelligible cause. After he had encouraged, if he did not suggest,
the enterprise of "The Liberal,"--and I believe it would be nearly
impossible for any one of the three men interested in that venture to
ascertain exactly who was its author,--his mind misgave him. He knew
my father's necessities and his childish capacities for business. With
a keen sense of the power displayed in "Don Juan," and even in more
melodramatic works, Shelley had acquired a full knowledge of the
singularly licentious training from which Byron had then scarcely
emerged, and of the vacillating caprice which enfeebled all his
actions. His own ability to grapple with practical affairs was very
great; but he himself had scarcely formed a sufficient estimate of it.
Determined to maintain a thorough equality and freedom with the noble
bard in their social relations, he shrank from any position which
might raise in Byron's jealous and unstable mind the idea that he was
under pressure; yet he was anxious to prevent disappointment for Leigh
Hunt. He dreaded failure, and resolved that he would do his best to
prevent it; and yet again he scarcely anticipated success.
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