Edward Trelawny

“ Along the West Looe water is the lovely inlet of Trelawne Mill, just above the bridge, with dense woods clothing the hillsides and mirrored in the still waters. Here is Trelawne, seat of the Trelawny family since the time of Sir Jonathan Trelawny, Bishop of Bristol, and afterwards successively of Exeter and Winchester, one of the Seven Bishops sent to imprisonment in the Tower of London by James the Second in 1688. The "Song of the Western Men," written by Hawker, using the old refrain, "And shall Trelawny die?" refers to that occasion:—
"A good sword and a trusty hand! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her only daughter by Bonville brought Trelawn, and other estates, to Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset. On the attainder of his grandson Henry Duke of Suffolk, they were seized by the Crown. Queen Elizabeth, in the 42d year of her reign, sold the manor of Trelawn and the lands of Hendersich and Portello, in Talland prrish, to Sir Jonathan Trelawny. The old and famous family of Trelawny take their name from the barton of Trelawny, in the parish of Alternun. The arms of this 295 family are Argent, a chevron Sable, sometimes charged with three oak-leaves Proper. ”

“ He was in England again in 1835, went into society, and married for the third time, to make another woman miserable. For a number of years he lived at Putney Hill, and then took a farm at Usk, in Monmouthshire, and amused himself with farming.
In or about 1870, Trelawny, then seventy-eight years old, bought a house and a small plot of land at Sompting, near Wortham, and occupied himself with gardening. ”

“ To the active loyalty inherited from his ancestors and from his cavalier father, Trelawny united as bishop the passive obedience of his order. He accepted the papistry of the king until it became aggressive. While at Dorchester, on his first visitation, he severely reprimanded a preacher who made insinuations in a sermon against the king's good faith. By 1 June 1686 Trelawny had finished his visitation, and laid before the archbishop the results which pointed to gross neglect by the clergy of their duties (Tanner MSS. xxx. 50) . ”

“ With the return from Greece, the great days of adventure are at an end, the rest of Trelawny’s long life is the story of the kind of man the world calls a “character.”
The pause in England was brief, and in 1829 he returned to Italy, took a house in Florence, and busied himself bringing up his little daughter Zela, born to him of his Greek wife, and writing his autobiographical romance. It seems reasonably sure that sometime during these Italian years he proposed to Mary Shelley, but without success; the lady was not exactly a person to be an incident in anybody’s life. ”

“ What Trelawny cared for in literature was Imagination, the more sublime the better, while in life he had a taste for Truth and Freedom. He was always something of an oddity. He loathed superstition, cant and snobbery and said so in a way that gave much pain to the nicest people. He was of that disconcerting sort which, excelling in all that ordinary people admire, admires, for its part, what they hate—the abnormal and distinguished. He was a man of action who mistrusted common sense, a good fellow on the side of cranks: the race has never been common and is now almost extinct. ”

“ The following extract may help us to a conclusion:
"I say! the poet [Shelley] was a thorough mormon—why did he not declare himself and anticipate the sect? I would have joined him and found him a settlement—it would not hold together without a superstition—for man all over the world are [sic] superstitious—it's the nature of the animal—your mother was a simpleton to have never heard of a man being in love with two women; when we are young we are in love with all women—the bible would call it by its proper name, lust."
So wrote Trelawny in 1869 (he had recovered his style) to Claire Clairmont. ”

“ Rose.
[Snatching up Sir William's snuff-box, which he has left upon the table.] His snuff-box! I wish I could poison his snuff, as Lucrezia Borgia would have done. She would have removed him within two hours of my arrival—I mean, her arrival. [Opening the snuff-box and mimicing Sir William.] And here he sits and lectures me, and dictates to me! to Miss Trelawny! "I venture to put a question to my grandson, Miss Trelawny!" Ha, ha! [Talcing a pinch of snuffy thoughtlessly but vigorously.] "Yah—h—h—h! pish! Have we no cheers? do we lack cheers here, Trafalgar?" [Suddenly.] Oh!
Arthur. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Miss Gower.
Yes, yes—our disagreeable duty; let us discharge it. [Sir William takes snuff.] Rose, dear, be seated. [To everybody.] The Vice Chancellor has something to say to us. Let us all be seated.
[There is consternation among the young people. All sit.]
Sir William.
[Peering about him.] Are ye seated?
Everybody.
Yes.
Sir William.
What I desire to say is this. When Miss Trelawny took up her residence here, it was thought proper, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, that you, Arthur— [pointing a finger at Arthur] you——
Arthur. ”

“ Educated at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford, Trelawny took holy orders in 1673, and in 1685, his elder brother having died in 1680, became third baronet in succession to his father. Having rendered good service to James II. during Monmouth’s rebellion, Trelawny was consecrated bishop of Bristol on the 8th of November 1685. He was loyal to King James until the first declaration of indulgence in April 1687, when, as a bishop, he used his influence with his clergy against the king, and, as a Cornish landowner, resisted the attempt to assemble a packed parliament. ”

“ Why, whenever I find that I am recognized by people, and pointed out—people in the pit of a theatre, in the street, no matter where; and when I can fancy they're saying to each other, "Look! that was Miss Trelawny! you remember—Trelawny! Trelawny of the 'Wells!'"——
[They cry "Trelawny!" and "Trelawny of the 'Wells!'" and again "Trelawny!" wildly. Then there is the sound of a sharp rat-tat at the front door. Imogen leaves the piano and looks out of the window.]
Imogen.
[To somebody below.] What is it?
A Voice.
Miss Trelawny, ma'am. We can't wait.
Rose. ”

“ One day two men with guns in their hands requested permission to enter his grounds after a bird that had taken refuge there. He answered fiercely, "All the leave I will accord you is to shoot one another."
At Sompting, Trelawny died on August 13th, 1881, at the age of eighty-six. In accordance with his wish to be laid beside Shelley, his body was embalmed in England, cremated at Gotha, and the ashes taken to the Protestant burial-ground in Rome, and laid in the tomb he had bought fifty-eight years before, next to those of his friend. ”

“ It was true Ethel had her mother's eyes, but she lacked her mother's submissive gentleness; never a meek woman, she had yet to learn the softness that disarms wrath. Her open-eyed youth found flaws in everything that was not intrinsically excellent. She canvassed men and manners with the warm injudiciousness of undeveloped wisdom; acts were nothing, motives everything, and no cleanness available that had a stain on its whiteness.
In place of the plastic girlhood he expected, Mr. Trelawny found himself confronted by this daring and youthful Argus. ”

“ We agree heartily; but, of course, there is more to be said—for instance, that Trelawny sometimes reminds us of an extraordinarily intelligent schoolboy, at others of a rather morbid minor poet. Only, the vitality of few schoolboys amounts almost to genius, and minor poets are not always blest with feelings fundamentally sound. Most of his vices were the defects of good qualities. A powerful imagination may be fairly held accountable for his habit of romancing, and a brave vocabulary for some of his exaggeration. ”

“ Of course, we were done, because only half of us were fighters, the rest being kids; and Trelawny himself being just fifteen and Bradwell fourteen and Ashby major twelve and a half, and I only eleven and a half, it was no good.
45“We surrender,” said Trelawny.
“Surrender, you little brute, I should think you did yield!” said Mannering, who had cut his hand getting the slates off the roof, and was in a rare bate.
“You needn’t insult a defeated force, sir,” said Trelawny, keeping his nerve jolly well. “We are prepared to pay the penalty of failure, and having meant well we--we don’t care.” ”

“ After returning from Salona, Trelawny was with Odysseus in Eastern Greece, carrying on the war in guerilla fashion without any great results.
In the autumn he was at Argos, whence a letter (certainly his, though unsigned) was sent to his brother Lieutenant Harry Trelawny, r.n.
"... To give you an idea of the misery existing here is beyond all expression. The town is nothing more or less than a chaos of ruins; not a house inhabitable. The fever making great havoc, people actually falling down in the streets. ”

“ Trelawny to living with Miss Jobson. To Miss Jobson, I had a decided aversion; for Mr. Trelawny, I felt neither love or hatred. My mind was not made up on the subject, when my father came to me: he had seen Trelawny, and expressed himself greatly pleased with the prudence and propriety of my answer.
[Pg 212]
'"My Adelina knows," continued he, "that the happiness of my children is the only wish I have on earth; and I may tell her, too, that my solicitude for her exceeds all my other cares—solicitude, which will be at an end if I can see her in the protection of a man of honour and fortune. ”

“ Some fellows thought that Thompson would be sent away at once, to avoid the affair becoming serious; others fancied we should be starved out or expelled to a man. Trelawny never hazarded any guess at what would be the end of it. “We are doing our duty in the interests of the school,” he said, “and whatever happens we mean well; and if it gets into print the sympathy of all chaps in public schools will be on our side.”
30 II When the gas was turned out at the meter on the night preceding the siege, Trelawny made a short speech. First he lighted two candles and made us sign the protest ”

“ Nothing could surpass his devotion to his dead friends and their widowed survivors; he promoted the recovery of the bodies, superintended their cremation on shore, snatched Shelley's heart from the flames, prepared the tomb in the protestant cemetery at Rome, purchased the ground, added the proverbial lines from the ‘Tempest’ to Leigh Hunt's ‘Cor Cordium,’ and crowned his services by providing Mary Shelley with funds for her journey to England.
On 23 July 1823 Trelawny put to sea from Leghorn with Byron in the Hercules, bound for Greece, to aid in the Hellenic struggle for independence. ”

“ Ethel spoke with such mournful candour, that Mildred's first feeling of astonishment changed into pity—so young and yet so cynical—and with such marginal wastes of unfulfilled purpose.
'When there is so much trouble and faultiness in the world,' she answered, 'there must be surely work enough to satisfy the most hungry nature. Have you not heard it asserted, Miss Trelawny, that nature abhors a vacuum?'
To her surprise, a shade crossed Miss Trelawny's face. ”

“ He appears to have been a jovial sportsman, much addicted to hawking and cock-fighting. He married in 1620 Ann, daughter of Sir Jonathan Trelawny of Trelawne, and, when the stress of the civil war in 1643 passed into Cornwall, was busily engaged in the western part of Cornwall in raising money and drilling forces for the king. ”

“ Trelawny made everybody get out of earshot except Bradwell; but he didn’t happen to see me, being rolled up in bed near the window, so I heard.
First Thompson said:
41“Look ’ere, you Cornish boy, I’m sorry to find we ’aven’t ’it it off by any means, and you want me to go, and you’ve locked yourself and friends up ’ere as a protest. Now, ’ow ’ave I ’urt your feelings, and what have I done?”
Which was a bit difficult for Trelawny; but he fell back on the manifesto to the Doctor.
“It’s no personal matter, sir. We wish it to be understood that the action is abstract.” ”

“ In our present gross material state our faculties are clouded; when Death removes our clay coverings, the mystery will be solved." How constantly the thought of death as the revealer was present to his mind, may be gathered from an incident related by Trelawny. They were bathing in the Arno, when Shelley, who could not swim, plunged into deep water, and "lay stretched out at the bottom like a conger eel, not making the least effort or struggle to save himself." Trelawny fished him out, and when he had taken breath he said: "I always find the bottom of the well, and they say Truth lies there. ”