the dissuasion of Calvert and Godwin he started with his wife in the first days of Feb. ruary, 1812, and arrived in Dublin on the 12th.

Shelley sent his 'Address' to the printer, and within two weeks had fifteen hundred copies on hand, which he distributed freely, sending them to sixty coffee-houses, flinging them from his balcony, giving them away on the street, and sending out a man with them. He wrote also 'Proposals for an Association,' published March 2. He had presented a letter from Godwin to Curran, and made himself known to the leaders. On February 28, at a public meeting which O'Connell addressed, Shelley also spoke for an hour, and received mingled hisses and applause, applause for the wrongs of Ireland, hisses for his plea for religious toleration. He also became acquainted with Mr. Lawless, a follower of Curran, and wrote passages of Irish history for a proposed work by him. Meanwhile Godwin sent letters dissuading him from his course, and finally wound up, 'Shelley, you are preparing a scene of blood.' Shelley's Irish principles were but remotely connected with the practical politics of the hour, and consisted, in the main, of very general convictions in regard to equality, toleration, and the other elements of republican government. He did compose, out of French sources, a revolutionary Declaration of Rights.' He was soon discouraged by the character of the men and of the situation. His heart, too, was touched by the state of the people, for he engaged at once in that practical philanthropy which was always a large part of his personal life. 'A poor boy,' he writes, 'whom I found starving with his mother, in a hiding place of unutterable filth and misery, whom I rescued and was about to teach, has been snatched on a charge of false and villainous effrontery to a Magistrate of Hell, who gave him the alternative of the tender or of military servitude. I am sick of this city, and long to be with you and peace.' At last he gave up, sent forward a box filled with his books, which was inspected by the government and reported as seditious, and on April 4 left Ireland. He settled ten days later at Nantgwilt, near Cwm Elan, the seat of his cousins, the Groves, and there remained until June. In this period he appears to have met Peacock, through whom he was probably introduced to his London publisher, Hookham. In June he again migrated to Lynmouth in Devon. Here he wrote his 'Letter to Lord Ellenborough,' defending Eaton, who had been sentenced for publishing Paine's Age of Reason' in a periodical. He amused himself by putting copies of the Declaration of Rights' and a new satirical poem, 'The Devil's Walk,' in bottles and fire balloons, and setting them adrift by sea and air; but a more mundane attempt to circulate the 'Declaration of Rights' resulted unfortunately for his servant, Dan Healy, who had become attached to him and followed him from Ireland, and was punished in a fine of £200 or eight months' imprisonment for posting it on the walls of Barnstable. Shelley could not pay the fine, but he provided fifteen shillings a week to make the prisoner's confinement more comfortable. The government now put Shelley under surveillance, and he was watched by Leeson, a spy. At Lynmouth' Queen Mab' is first heard of. In September he removed to Tanyrallt, near Tremadoc, in Wales, where he became deeply interested in a scheme of Mr. Maddock's for reclaiming some waste land by an embankment. It was a large, practical enterprise, which engaged both Shelley's imagination and his spirit of philanthropy. He subscribed £100, and on October 4, went to London, seeking to interest others in this undertaking. Here he first met Godwin, through whom he became acquainted with the Newtons, of vegetarian fame, but before this, while in Dublin, he had himself adopted that way of life. It is uncertain whether at this time he saw Godwin's daughter Mary. He renewed his acquaintance with Hogg, in whose narratire scenes of Shelley's life at this period, presented with the same vigor and vivacity as in

the Oxford time, occur. None of them are more humorous than such as describe the ap< pearance of Miss Hitchener, who, yielding to Shelley's long expressed wish, had joined the family before they left Wales and was now an inmate of the household. Shelley had idealized her at a distance, but her near neighborhood was disenchantment. Hogg's description of his walk with the 'Brown Demon,' as he called her, on one arm, and the 'Black Diamond,' as he nicknamed Eliza, on the other, has given her an unenviable figure. She was finally got rid of, and a stipend paid her to make good the loss she had suffered by giving up her school-teaching; but in her after-life she was much respected by those with whom she lived; and she appears to have remained very loyal to the poet, whose correspondence for nearly two years was so large a part of her life.

Shelley returned to Wales on November 13, going to Tanyrallt. There he worked very constantly at his essays, an unpublished collection of 'Biblical Extracts' for popular distribution, and Queen Mab.' There also occurred the second assault upon him, which has been received with more distrust than any other event in his life. On February 26, between ten and eleven o'clock, Shelley, after retiring, was alarmed by a noise in the parlor below. He went down with two loaded pistols to the billiard room, and followed the sound of retreating footsteps into a small office, where he saw a man passing, through a glass window. The man fired, and Shelley's pistol flashed, on which the man knocked Shelley down, and, while they struggled, Shelley fired his second pistol, which he thought took effect. The man arose with a cry and said, 'By God, I will be revenged! I will murder your wife! I will ravish your sister! By God, I will be revenged!' He then fled. The servants were still up, and the whole family assembled in the parlor and remained for two hours. Shelley and his servant, Dan, who had that day returned from prison, sat up. At four o'clock, Harriet heard a pistol shot, and on going down, found that Shelley's clothes and the window curtain had been shot through. Dan had left the room to see what time it was, when Shelley heard a noise at the window; as he approached it, a man thrust his arm through the glass and fired. Shelley's pistol again missed fire, and he struck at the man with an old sword; while they were still struggling, Dan came back, and the man escaped. Peacock was there the next summer, and heard that persons, who examined the premises in the morning, found the grass trampled and rolled on, but there were no footprints except toward the house, and the impression of the ball on the wainscot showed that the pistol had been fired toward the window and not from it. There are other accounts of what Shelley said. In after years he ascribed the spasms of pain, from which he suffered, to the pressure of the man's knee on his body. It is not unlikely, as Dowden remarks, that Dan Healy had been followed by a spy, and it is known that Shelley was dogged by Leeson, whom he feared long afterwards. If the affair is regarded as an illusion of the sort to which Shelley was said to be subject, the material circumstances show that the event was one of intense reality to Shelley, and it is not strange that he immediately left the neighborhood, finding life there insupportable. He made a short journey to Ireland, where he arrived March 9, visited the Lakes of Killarney, and returned to Dublin, March 21. Early in April he was back in London. On returning to London, Shelley entered again into negotiations with his father for a further settlement. He would soon be of age, and it was necessary to make some terms to prevent the loss the estate would suffer by raising money on post-obit bonds. He was much harassed by his creditors, and his father is said privately to have taken measures to relieve him from their persecutions without his knowledge. It is uncertain whether he lived in a hotel or in lodgings. His first child, Ianthe Eliza, was born in June. At the end of July he was settled at Bracknell, near the Boinvilles, who were connected

with the Newtons. Here Peacock visited him, and from this time became intimate. Peacock's cold judgment, notwithstanding his frequent skepticism and imperfect knowledge of Shelley's affairs, makes his impressions valuable. To him, more than to any other external influence, is to be attributed the devotion of Shelley, which now began, to Greek studies. In the first week of October Peacock joined the family in a journey to Edinburgh, taken in a private carriage which Shelley had bought for Harriet. Nothing noteworthy occurred except that Shelley made a new convert, Baptista, a young Brazilian, who corresponded with him and partly translated 'Queen Mab,' which had been printed in the late spring, into Portuguese; but he died while young. Shelley returned to London in December.

Two years and a half had now passed since Shelley's marriage, and the union, in which love upon his part had not originally been an element, had become one of warm affection. Through all the vicissitudes of his wandering life it was a main source of Shelley's happiness. Time now began to disclose those limitations of character and temperament which were to be anticipated. The last pleasant scene in this early married life is Peacock's description of Shelley's pleasure in his child :

'He was extremely fond of it, and would walk up and down the room with it in his arms for a long time together, singing to it a monotonous melody of his own making, which ran on the repetition of a word of his own making. His song was, “Yáhmani, Yáhmani, Yáhmani, Yáhmani." It did not please me; but, what was more important, it pleased the child, and lulled it when it was fretful. Shelley was extremely fond of his children. He was preeminently an affectionate father. But to the firstborn there were accompaniments which did not please him. The child had a wet nurse, whom he did not like, and was much looked after by his wife's sister, whom he intensely disliked. I have often thought that if Harriet had nursed her own child, and if this sister had not lived with them, the link of their married love would not have been so readily broken.'

In the autumn of 1813, on coming to London, Harriet began to vary from that description of her which Shelley had written to Fanny Godwin in December, 1812: 'How is Harriet a fine lady? You indirectly accuse her of this offence, to me the most unpardonable of all. The ease and simplicity of her habits, the unassuming plainness of her address, the uncalculated connection of her thought and speech, have ever formed in my eyes her greatest charm; and none of these are compatible with fashionable ite, or the attempted assumption of its vulgar and noisy éclat.'

It was to please her that he then bought a carriage and a quantity of plate, and she displayed a taste for expensive things. On the birth of the child her intellectual sympatny with him seems to have ended. Afterwards she neither read nor studied. She was disenchanted of his views, which, Peacock mentions, she joined with him in not taking seriously; she was disenchanted, too, of the wandering life and recurring poverty to which they led.

Her sister's presence in the household became a cause of difference between her and her husband. The first expressed sign of domestic unhappiness occurs in Shelley's melancholy letter to Hogg, March 22, 1814. He had then been staying for a month with Mrs. Boinville, and looked forward with regret to ending his visit. He thus refers to Eliza:

Eliza is still with us, not here, but will be with me when the infinite malice of destiny forces me to depart. I am now but little inclined to contest this point. I certainly hate her with all my heart and soul. It is a sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of disgust and horror to see her caress my poor little Ianthe, in whom I may hereafter

find the consolation of sympathy. I sometimes feel faint with the fatigue of checking the overflowing of my unbounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But she is no more than a blind and loathsome worm that cannot see to sting.'

Shelley felt keenly the contrast of the peaceful home in which he was staying with his Some years afterwards, in 1819, he wrote to Peacock:

own.

'I could not help considering Mrs. B. when I knew her as the most admirable specimen of a human being I had ever seen. Nothing earthly ever appeared to me more perfect than her character and manners. It is improbable that I shall ever meet again the person whom I so much esteem and still admire. I wish, however, that when you see her you would tell her that I have not forgotten her, nor any of the amiable circle once assembled around her; and that I desired such remembrances to her as an exile and a Pariah may be permitted to address to an acknowledged member of the community of mankind.'

With Mrs. Boinville and her daughter, Mrs. Turner, he now made his first acquaintance with Italian. On March 26 he remarried Harriet, who had not been with him for the previous month, in St. George's Church, London, in order to place beyond doubt the validity of the Scotch marriage and the rights of his children. Shortly afterwards, in April, Harriet again left him, and to this month belongs the poem, 'Stanza, April, 1814,’ the most melancholy verses he had yet written, in which he speaks of his 'sad and silent home,' and 'its desolated hearth.' During the next month Harriet was still away; and, at some time in it, he addressed to her the stanzas, 'To Harriet, May, 1814,' in which he appeals to her to return to him and restore his happiness, tells her that her feeling is remorseless,' that it is 'malice,' 'revenge,'' pride,' and begs her to 'pity if thou canst not love.' There is no evidence that Harriet rejoined Shelley, and, when her residence is next discovered, in July, she was living at Bath apparently with her sister. The story of Harriet's voluntarily leaving Shelley may have sprung from this protracted absence. Meanwhile Shelley had met Godwin's daughter, Mary, a girl of sixteen, who is described as golden-haired, with a pale, pure face, hazel eyes, a somewhat grave manner, and strength both of mind and will. Early in June he was feeling a strong attraction toward her. He confided in her, and out of their intimacy, through her sympathy, sprang that mutual love which soon became passion. The stanzas To Mary, June, 1814,' show deep feeling and a sense of doubtfulness in their position, but do not disclose any thought or suggestion of a relation other than friendship. But to Shelley, who was suffering deeply and was indeed wretched, it was not unnatural that he should reflect whether this was not one of those occasions justifying separation, which he had always held should be met by putting an end to a relation which had become false. This was his view of marriage, well known to Harriet at the time that he married her, when he had observed the ceremony for her sake, and openly repeated in his writings dedicated to her within a year. Shelley would not violate his principles by such an action; nor could it be pleaded that he had taken up with this view after obligations already incurred or subsequent to the incidents which made him desire a change. Harriet probably did not realize what Shelley's convictions were, and may have been deceived by her experience of his disposition. The natural inference from the state of the facts, which, at best, are imperfectly known, is that, as Shelley had now come of age and was in a position to make his rights of property felt, Harriet, under the guidance of her sister, who had been the intriguer from the start, desired such a settlement as would put her in possession of the social position and privileges which were at Shelley's command; that differences arose in the home, possibly on the comparatively slight question whether Eliza should continue to live with

them; and that Harriet, swayed by her sister, was endeavoring to subdue Shelley to her way by a certain hardness in her conduct, and by if not refusing to live with him, refraining from doing so. But Shelley, on his part, in Harriet's absence, had come to love Mary, and to see in following that love the way of escape from his troubles. The time was one of intense mental excitement to him, especially when the crisis came early in July. He secured Mary's consent. She was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and of Godwin, and derived from both parents the same principles of marriage, both by practice and precept, that Shelley held. In their own eyes neither of them was committing a wrong. Shelley sent for Harriet. She came to London, and he told her his determination. She was greatly shocked and made ill by the disclosure. Shelley acted with a certain deliberation as well as with openness. He directed settlements to be made for Harriet's maintenance, and saw that she was supplied with money for the present. At the same time his state of mind was one of conflict and distress. Peacock describes his appearance:

'Nothing that I ever read in tale or history could present a more striking image of a sudden, violent, irresistible, uncontrollable passion, than that under which I found him laboring, when, at his request, I went up from the country to call on him in London. Between his old feelings toward Harriet, from whom he was not then separated, and his new passion for Mary, he showed in his looks, in his gestures, in his speech, the state of a mind "suffering like a little kingdom the nature of an insurrection." His eyes were bloodshot, his hair and dress disordered. He caught up a bottle of laudanum and said, "I never part from this." He added, "I am always repeating to myself your lines from Sophocles :

"Man's happiest lot is not to be:

And when we tread life's thorny steep

Most blest are they who earliest free
Descend to death's eternal sleep.'"'

Mary appears to have been determined at last by fears for Shelley's life, and on July 28 she left England with him.

It is unfortunately necessary to notice another element in the situation. It is the testimony of the common friends of Harriet and Shelley-Hogg, Peacock, and Hookham that, up to the period of their parting, she was pure. It is said, indeed, on what must be regarded as the very doubtful authority of Miss Clairmont, that Shelley persuaded Mary to go by asserting Harriet's unfaithfulness. What is certain is that, after Harriet's death, he wrote to Mary, January 11, 1817, 'I learned just now from Godwin that he has evidence that Harriet was unfaithful to me four months before I left England with you.' That Godwin had such a story is known by his own evidence. The name of an obscure person, Ryan, who was acquainted with the family as early as the summer of 1813, was brought into connection with the affair. Shelley at one time doubted the paternity of his second child, Charles Bysshe, born in November, 1814, but he was afterwards satisfied that he was in error. I do not find any reliable evidence that Shelley ever maintained that he was convinced in July, 1814, of Harriet's infidelity. He afterwards believed that she had been in fault, as is shown by his letter to Southey in 1820, in which he maintains the rightfulness of his conduct: I take God to witness, if such a being is now regarding both you and me ; and I pledge myself, if we meet, as perhaps you expect, before Him after death, to repeat the same in his presence that you accuse me wrongfully. I am innocent of ill, either done or intended. The consequence you allude to flowed in no respect from me.' At the time of the event itself, it was not necessary