given you, and she complied. Blame me if thou wilt, dearest friend, for still thou art dearest to me; yet pity even this error if thou blamest me. If Harriet be not, at sixteen, all that you are at a more advanced age, assist me to mould a really noble soul into all that can make its nobleness useful and lovely. Lovely it is now, or I am the weakest slave to error.

On hearing of his son's marriage, Mr. Timothy Shelley stopped his allowance, and Mr. Westbrook also refused supplies. Hence great pecuniary embarrassments for the young couple; but, apart from these, the weeks in Edinburgh passed pleasantly enough. Hogg took advantage of a holiday to join them, and the pleasant intercourse of the two friends was renewed. Harriet, with the pliancy of youth, adapted herself to her surroundings; read much, especially aloud; adopted her husband's language, and, so far as she understood them, his ideas, also; and talked much of virtue and perfectibility. When, of necessity, Hogg's visit terminated, the Shelleys accompanied him to York, and were there presently joined by Eliza Westbrook. Eliza, who had naturally great influence over her younger sister, and who did not altogether approve of the ways of the household, took the reins into her own hands, and effected a revolution in the habits of the little circle. An event even more revolutionary was a sudden rupture with Hogg. During a brief absence of her husband and before the arrival of her sister, Hogg, as we gather from Shelley's letters, was guilty of gross misconduct towards Harriet. Shelley writes to Miss Hitchener in reference to Hogg: "We walked to the fields beyond York. I desired to know fully the account of this affair. I heard it from him, and I believe he was sincere. All that I can recollect of that terrible day was that I pardoned him,fully, freely pardoned him; that I would still be a friend to him, and hoped soon to convince him how lovely virtue was; that his crime, not himself, was the object of my detestation;

that I value a human being, not for what it has been, but for what it is; that I hoped the time would come when he would regard this horrible error with as much disgust as I did. He said little; he was pale, terror-struck, remorseful." It is extraordinary that twelve months after an offence of so signal a character as that indicated in this letter, Shelley re sumed his friendly relations with Hogg; that the latter was received, apparently on the old footing, not merely by Shelley, but by Harriet and Eliza; and that he was set down for a legacy of £2000 in Shelley's will.

His companionship with Hogg thus suddenly interrupted, his relations to Harriet being rather those of a protector and teacher than of an intellectual equal, Shelley turned with renewed enthusiasm to Miss Hitchener, in whom he seemed to find the possibilities of friendship of the truest and highest character. He writes to her: "I could have borne to die, to die eternally with my once-loved friend [Hogg]. I could coolly have reasoned to the conclusions of reason; I could have unhesitatingly submitted. Earth seemed to be enough for our intercourse; on earth its bounds appeared to be stated, as the event hath dreadfully proved. But with you your friendship seems to have generated a passion to which fifty such fleeting, inadequate existences as these appear to be but a drop in the bucket, too trivial for account. With you, I cannot submit to perish with the flower of the field; I cannot consent that the same shroud which shall moulder around these perishing frames shall enwrap the vital spirit which hath produced, sanctified may I say eternized? a friendship such as ours." Again: "I look upon you as a mighty mind. I anticipate the era of reform with more eagerness as I picture to myself you the barrier between violence and renovation." He is eager that she should become a member of his household. "How Harriet and her sister long to see you! and how I long to see you,

I

never to part with you again." "The union of our minds will be more efficacious than a state of separate endeavor. shall excite you to action, you will excite me to just speculation. . . . I should possibly gain the advantage in the exchange of qualities; but my powers are such as would augment yours. I perceive in you the embryon of a mighty intellect which may one day enlighten thousands. How desirous ought I not to be, if I conceive that the one spark which glimmers through mine should kindle a blaze by which nations may rejoice! . . . Come, come, and share with us the noblest success or the most glorious martyrdom." The breach with Hogg was speedily followed by removal from York to Keswick. Thither Shelley was attracted by the presence of Southey, whose poetry he admired. But Southey was, at this date, as conservative as Shelley was radical, and between the two there was little community of sentiment. At first, when they met, Shelley, whilst strenuously protesting against Southey's views and considering him "far from being a man of great reasoning powers," yet regarded him with sincere admiration : "He is a man of virtue. He will never belie what he thinks; his professions are in compatibility with his practice." But in a month or two Shelley writes: "He is a man who may be amiable in his private character, stained and false as is his public one. He may be amiable, but, if he is, my feelings are liars." Money affairs continued to harass the poet. father, Sir Bysshe Shelley, was anxious to entail his large accumulated property; but to effect this, it was needful that his grandson should consent. Through his uncle, Captain Pilfold, Shelley heard that an income of £2000 a year would be settled on him, provided he would consent to the entail. The spirit in which this suggestion was received-a suggestion to do something which society regarded as eminently proper- is very characteristic. "I have since heard from

His grand

Captain P. His letter contains the account of a meditated proposal, on the part of my father and grandfather, to make my income immediately larger than the former's, in case I will consent to entail the estate on my eldest son, and in default of issue on my brother. Silly dotards! that I will forswear my principles in consideration of £2000 a year? that the good will I could thus purchase or the ill will I could thus overbear, would recompense me for the loss of selfesteem, of conscious rectitude? And with what face can they make me a proposal so insultingly hateful? Dare one of them propose such a condition to my face to the face of any virtuous man - and not sink into nothing at his disdain? That I should entail £120,000 of command over labour, of power to remit this, to employ it for beneficent purposes, on one whom I know not, who might, instead of being the benefactor of mankind, be its bane, or use this for the worst purposes, which the real delegates of my chancegiven property might convert into a most useful instrument of benevolence! No! this you will not suspect me of." After many delays and much worry, Mr. Westbrook agreed to give the young people an allowance of £200, and Timothy Shelley bestowed the same sum, taking, in his usual fashion, all graciousness from the gift by telling his son that it was given to prevent him from cheating strangers.

In the beginning of the year 1812 Shelley introduced himself by letter to the philosopher Godwin, whose writings exercised a profound influence on the poet's thought, and whose daughter he was one day to marry. In answer to Godwin's request for specific details, Shelley, in a second letter, sent the following account of himself:

The habits of
Passive obedi-

I am the son of a man of fortune in Sussex. thinking of my father and myself never coincided. ence was inculcated and enforced in my childhood. quired to love because it was my duty to love; it is scarcely

I was re

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necessary to remark that coercion obviated its own intention. was haunted with a passion for the wildest and most extravagant romances. Ancient books of chemistry and magic were perused with an enthusiasm of wonder almost amounting to belief. My sentiments were unrestrained by anything within me; external impediments were numerous and strongly applied; their effect was merely temporary.

From a reader, I became a writer of romances; before the age of seventeen I had published two, St. Irvyne and Zastrozzi, each of which, though quite uncharacteristic of me as I am now, yet serves to mark the state of my mind at the period of their composition. I shall desire them to be sent to you; do not, however, consider this as any obligation to yourself to misapply your valuable time.

It is now a period of more than two years since first I saw your inestimable book of Political Justice; it opened to my mind fresh and more extensive views; it materially influenced my character, and I rose from its perusal a wiser and a better man. I was no longer the votary of romance; till then I had existed in an ideal world now I found that in this universe of ours was enough to excite the interest of the heart, enough to employ the discussions of reason; I beheld, in short, that I had duties to perform. Conceive the effect which the Political Justice would have upon a mind before zealous of its independence and participating somewhat singularly in a peculiar susceptibility.

My age is now nineteen; at the period to which I allude I was at Eton. No sooner had I formed the principles which I now profess than I was anxious to disseminate their benefits. This was

done without the slightest caution. I was twice expelled, but recalled by the interference of my father. I went to Oxford. Oxonian society was insipid to me, uncongenial to my habits of thinking. I could not descend to common life; the sublime interests of poetry, lofty and exalted achievements, the proselytism of the world, the equalization of its inhabitants were to me the soul of my soul. You can probably form an idea of the contrast exhibited to my character by those with whom I was surrounded. Classical reading and poetical writing employed me during my residence at Oxford.