Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/183

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

ginary Conversations.’ By August 1830 the first part, forming the book now known as ‘The Adventures of a Younger Son,’ was nearly completed. The manuscript reached Mary Shelley in December, and, notwithstanding the perusal of Brown and Landor, the revision of diction and orthography gave her enough to do. Trelawny's spelling, though by no means so bad as stated by Fanny Kemble, was at no time of his life immaculate. Mrs. Shelley also had to persuade him to omit some passages deemed objectionable on the ground of coarseness, in which, backed by Horace Smith, she ultimately succeeded. The book was published anonymously in the autumn of 1831, and, although the first edition did not bring back the 400l. which Colburn had given for the copyright, it speedily reappeared in a cheaper form, and took rank as a recognised classic (London, 3 vols. 8vo, and in 1 vol. among Bentley's Standard Novels, 1835; New York, 2 vols. 12mo, 1834; German translation, Leipzig, 1832). The American and German issues were followed by a translation by or for Dumas (‘Le Cadet de Famille’) in his journal ‘Le Mousquetaire.’ The book was to have been called ‘A Man's Life,’ and owes its actual and more attractive title to the publisher.

Trelawny came to England in 1832. In January 1833 he went to America, and remained there until June 1835. Among his achievements there were his holding Fanny Kemble in his arms to give her a view of Niagara; his swimming across the river between the rapid and the falls; and his buying the freedom of a man slave, a circumstance which remained unknown until after his death. After 1837 the principal authority for his life ceases with the discontinuance of his affectionate correspondence with Mary Shelley. He had half made her an offer of marriage in 1831; her refusal made no difference in their friendship, but she seems to have bitterly felt his strictures on the omission of portions of ‘Queen Mab’ from her edition of her husband's works.

Trelawny was at this time a conspicuous figure in English society. Handsome and picturesque, of great physical strength with the prestige of known achievements and the fascination of dimly conjectured mystery, nor wholly indisposed to maintain his reputation for romance by romancing, he combined all the qualifications of a London lion. His closest connection appears to have been with Leader, the popular member for Westminster; but Brougham, Landor, Bulwer, D'Orsay, Mrs. Norton, and Mrs. Jameson were also among his intimate friends; nor do any of them appear to have become estranged from him. A few years later, however, an unfortunate affair which resulted in his contracting a third marriage induced him to lead a more secluded life than heretofore. A letter from Seymour Kirkup generously declining an unsolicited offer from Trelawny to advance him money shows that in 1846 Trelawny was living at Putney, and was thinking of buying landed property. It must have been very shortly afterwards that he settled at Usk in Monmouthshire (at first in a house now called Twyn Bell, and afterwards at Cefn Ila), where he abode for ten or eleven years, a great benefactor to the neighbourhood by his judicious employment of labour, and only relinquishing his own property when by building, planting, and good husbandry he had greatly increased its value. Unfortunately his domestic life was irregular, and resulted in a hopeless breach with his wife, who appears to have been a lady of distinguished qualities, in addition to her special claim upon him. He was nevertheless attentive to his children, sending his two sons to Germany for the sake of a thoroughly practical education, but he outlived them both. His youngest daughter Lætitia married in 1882 Lieutenant-colonel Call, R.E.

While at Usk, probably under the impulse of an invitation from Sir Percy Shelley to talk over old times prior to the appearance of Hogg's biography of Shelley (which Trelawny read for the first time nearly twenty years after its publication), he began to write the second part of his autobiography, which appeared in 1858 under the title of ‘Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron,’ subsequently altered to ‘Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author’ (London, 8vo; Boston, 1858, 8vo; with the altered title and other changes, London, 1878, 8vo, and 1887, 8vo). By this book Trelawny has indissolubly linked his name with those of the two great poets he has depicted. In his portrait of Shelley we have the real Shelley as we have it nowhere else; his portrait of Byron is not only less agreeable, but less truthful, but the fault is not so much in the artist as in the sitter, who pays the penalty of his incessant pose and perpetual mystification, ‘le fanfaron des vices qu'il n'avait pas.’ When Byron is natural, Trelawny is appreciative. His account of his own adventures in Greece is simple and modest.

Trelawny lived in London for the next few years. After a while he bought a town house, No. 7 Pelham Crescent, Brompton, and a country house at Sompting, near Worthing. In the country he devoted himself zealously to horticulture. ‘Hard work in the open