[In the following excerpt, originally published in 1820, the critic condemns The Cenci, describing the play as “the production of a fiend, and calculated for the entertainment of devils in hell.”]

Of all the abominations which intellectual perversion, and poetical atheism, have produced in our times, this tragedy appears to us to be the most abominable. We have much doubted whether we ought to notice it; but, as watchmen place a light over the common sewer which has been opened in a way dangerous to passengers, so have we concluded it to be our duty to set up a beacon on this noisome and noxious publication. We have heard of Mr. Shelley's genius; and were it exercised upon any subject not utterly revolting to human nature, we might acknowledge it. But there are topics so disgusting … and this is one of them; there are themes so vile … as this is; there are descriptions so abhorrent to mankind … and this drama is full of them; there are crimes so beastly and demoniac … in which The Cenci riots and luxuriates, that no feelings can be excited by their obtrusion but those of detestation at the choice, and horror at the elaboration. We protest most solemnly, that when we reached the last page of this play, our minds were so impressed with its odious and infernal character, that we could not believe it to be written by a mortal being for the gratification of his fellow-creatures on this earth: it seemed to be the production of a fiend, and calculated for the entertainment of devils in hell.

That monsters of wickedness have been seen in the world, is too true; but not to speak of the diseased appetite which would delight to revel in their deeds, we will affirm that depravity so damnable as that of Count Cenci, in the minute portraiture of which Mr. S. takes so much pains, and guilt so atrocious as that which he paints in every one of his dramatic personages, never had either individual or aggregate existence. No; the whole design, and every part of it, is a libel upon humanity; the conception of a brain not only distempered, but familiar with infamous images, and accursed contemplations. What adds to the shocking effect is the perpetual use of the sacred name of God, and incessant appeals to the Saviour of the universe. The foul mixture of religion and blasphemy, and the dreadful association of virtuous principles with incest, parricide, and every deadly sin, form a picture which, ‘Too look upon we dare not.’

Having said, and unwillingly said, this much on a composition which we cannot view without inexpressible dislike, it will not be expected from us to go into particulars farther than is merely sufficient to enforce our warning. If we quote a passage of poetic power, it must be to bring tenfold condemnation on the head of the author—for awful is the responsibility where the head condemns the heart, and the gift of talent is so great, as to remind us of Satanic knowledge and lusts, and of ‘archangel fallen.’

The story, we are told, in a preface where the writer classes himself with Shakespeare and Sophocles, although two centuries old, cannot be ‘mentioned in Italian society without awakening a deep and breathless interest.’ We have no high opinion of the morality of Italy; but we can well believe, that even in that country, such a story must, if hinted at, be repressed by general indignation, which Mr. Shelley may, if he pleases, call breathless interest. It is indeed, as he himself confesses, ‘Eminently fearful and monstrous; any thing like a dry exhibition of it upon the stage would be insupportable’ (Preface, p. ix). And yet he presumes to think that that of which even a dry exhibition upon the stage could not be endured, may be relished when arrayed in all the most forcible colouring which his pencil can supply, in all the minute details of his graphic art, in all the congenial embellishments of his inflamed imagination. Wretched delusion! and worthy of the person who ventures to tell us that, ‘Religion in Italy is not, as in Protestant countries, a cloak to be worn on particular days; or a passport which those who do not wish to be railed at carry with them to exhibit; or a gloomy passion for penetrating the impenetrable mysteries of our being, which terrifies its possessor at the darkness of the abyss to which it has conducted him:’ worthy of the person who, treating of dramatic imagery, blasphemously and senselessly says, that ‘imagination is as the immortal God, which should assume flesh for the redemption of mortal passion.’

The characters are Count Cenci, an old grey haired man, a horrible fiendish incarnation, who invites an illustrious company to a jubilee entertainment on the occasion of the violent death of two of his sons; who delights in nothing but the wretchedness of all the human race, and causes all the misery in his power; who, out of sheer malignity, forcibly destroys the innocency of his only daughter; and is, in short, such a miracle of atrocity, as only this author, we think, could have conceived. Lucretia, the second wife of the Count, a most virtuous and amiable lady, who joins in a plot to murder her husband; Giacomo, his son, who because his parent has cheated him of his wife's dowry, plots his assassination; Beatrice the daughter, a pattern of beauty, integrity, grace, and sensibility, who takes the lead in all the schemes to murder her father; Orsino, a prelate, sworn of course to celibacy, and in love with Beatrice, who enters with gusto into the conspiracy, for the sound reason, that the fair one will not dare to refuse to marry an accomplice in such a transaction; Cardinal Camillo, a vacillating demi-profligate; two bravos, who strangle the Count in his sleep; executioners, torturers, and other delectable under-parts. The action consists simply of the rout in honour of the loss of two children, of the incest, of the murderous plot, of its commission, and of its punishment by the torture and execution of the wife, son, and daughter. This is the dish of carrion, seasoned with sulphur as spice, which Mr. Shelley serves up to his friend Mr. Leigh Hunt, with a dedication, by way of grace, in which he eulogizes his ‘gentle, tolerant, brave, honourable, innocent, simple, pure,’ &c. &c. &c. disposition. What food for a humane, sypathizing creature, like Mr. Hunt! if, indeed, his tender-heartedness be not of a peculiar kind, prone to feast on ‘gruel thick and slab,’ which ‘like a hell-broth boils and bubbles.’¹

We will now transcribe a portion of the entertainment scene, to show how far the writer out herods Herod, and outrages possibility in his personation of villany, by making Count Cenci a character which transforms a Richard III. an Iago, a Sir Giles Overreach, comparatively into angels of light.

[quotes Act I, Scene iii, lines 1-99]

This single example, which is far from being the most obnoxious, unnatural, and infernal in the play, would fully justify the reprobation we have pronounced. Mr. Shelley, nor no man, can pretend that any good effect can be produced by the delineation of such diabolism; the bare suggestions are a heinous offence; and whoever may be the author of such a piece, we will assert, that Beelzebub alone is fit to be the prompter. The obscenity too becomes more refinedly vicious when Beatrice, whose ‘crimes and miseries,’ forsooth, are as ‘the mask and the mantle in which circumstances clothed her for her impersonation on the scenes of world’² is brought prominently forward. But we cannot dwell on this. We pass to a quotation which will prove that Mr. Shelley is capable of powerful writing: the description of sylvan scenery would be grand, and Salvator-like, were it not put into the mouth of a child pointing out the site for the murder of the author of her being, ‘unfit to live, but more unfit to die.’

[quotes Act III, Scene i, lines 245-74]

It will readily be felt by our readers why we do not multiply our extracts. In truth there are very few passages which will bear transplanting to a page emulous of being read in decent and social life. The lamentable obliquity of the writer's mind pervades every sentiment, and ‘corruption mining all within,’ renders his florid tints and imitations of beauty only the more loathsome. Are loveliness and wisdom incompatible? Mr. Shelley makes one say of Beatrice, that

Men wondered how such loveliness and wisdom
Did not destroy each other!

Cenci's imprecation on his daughter, though an imitation of Lear, and one of a multitude of direct plagiarisms, is absolutely too shocking for perusal; and the dying infidelity of that paragon of parricides, is all we dare to venture to lay before the public.

Whatever comes, my heart shall sink no more.
And yet, I know not why, your words strike chill:
How tedious, false and cold seem all things. I
Have met with much injustice in this world;
No difference has been made by God or man,
Or any power moulding my wretched lot,
'Twixt good or evil as regarded me.
I am cut off from the only world I know,
From light, and life, and love, in youth's sweet prime.
You do well telling me to trust in God,
I hope I do trust in him. In whom else
Can any trust? And yet my heart is cold.

We now most gladly take leave of this work; and sincerely hope, that should we continue our literary pursuits for fifty years, we shall never need again to look into one so stamped with pollution, impiousness, and infamy.

Notes

1. We are led to this remark by having accidentally read in one of Mr. Hunt's late political essays, an ardent prayer that Buonaparte might be released from St. Helena, were it only to fight another Waterloo against Wellington, on more equal terms. A strange wish for a Briton, and stranger still for a pseudo philanthropist, whether arising from a desire to have his countrymen defeated, or a slaughter productive of so much woe and desolation repeated. (Reviewer's footnote)

2. Preface, p. xiii, and a sentence, which, if not nonsense, is a most pernicious sophistry. There is some foundation for the story, as the Cenci family were devoured by a terrible catastrophe; and a picture of the daughter by Guido, is still in the Colonna Palace. (Reviewer's footnote)