[In the essay that follows, the reviewer comments on the most striking impressions of Trelawny's letters: that his character was “full of strange contradiction” and that the relationship that dominated his life was his friendship with Shelley.]

Of all the men who did “once see Shelley plain,” none survived him longer or loved to talk about him more than Edward John Trelawney [sic]. Byron, also, Trelawney knew well; and, though loving him less, followed him to Greece where they worked together for a common cause. Surviving these friends of his youth for more than half a century, Trelawney wrote his well-known Recollections of them, and was always ready to talk on the same interesting subjects. Naturally, the octogenarian who had been honored by the friendship of two such great poets would be much sought after in England, where he spent his last days. Notes of his conversations were made and some of them published; and now we have the long-promised collection, edited by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, of the Letters of Edward John Trelawney (Henry Frowde). There are a hundred and thirty-seven of the letters, and they make a handsome volume of nearly three hundred pages. The first letter is dated February, 1822, and is peculiarly interesting as containing the instructions to the boat-builder for the construction of the “Ariel”—the “fatal and perfidious bark” that capsized and caused the drowning of Shelley a few months later. The last letter bears a date nearly sixty years after, and also connects itself with Shelley; it is addressed to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, and contains a suggestion that Swinburne should write a tragedy on Charles the First—a task begun by Shelley, but never finished. Twenty-six of the letters are addressed to Mary Shelley, including one which proposes marriage to her, and another written after her rejection of his suit; also letters to others, in which he alludes to this same lady as “the blab of blabs,” “a conventional slave,” “the weakest of her sex,” etc. On the whole, the never-ending Trelawney-Mary discussion seems in nearly the same puzzling position as before. The largest number of letters written to any one person is sixty-seven—to the lady who insisted upon being called Claire, but whose real name was Clara Mary Jane Clairmont. Few persons have wrought more havoc and misery in their immediate circle than this remarkable but undisciplined woman, who lived to be eighty-one years old without losing her powers of fascination over both men and women. The photogravure of her shown in this volume, made from a portrait painted while still in young womanhood, partially explains this fascinating quality. Not only is the face very beautiful, but it conveys an impression of that subtle something known as “charm.” Unrestrained by conscience or mastery of self, as Claire appears to have been, such a quality becomes fatal not only to a woman's own happiness, but to the happiness of others. Trelawney's own character reveals itself as full of strange contradictions. Wayward, impulsive, overbearing, and intolerant of opposition, as he often appears, there is yet revealed an inner strain of considerateness and generosity. Resentful of all forms of oppression, bigotry, cant, and frivolity, he was capable of a splendid devotion to a cause and of devout attachment to an individual. That his strongest and most enduring attachment was manifested toward the personality, political attitude, and poetic genius of Shelley, is something for which we must always be grateful, since Trelawney was among the few to give Shelley his due while living, and to make him known in the light in which he appeared to those who knew him best, after he had “awakened from the dream of life.”