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man of the neighborhood, the reclaiming of a large tract of land from the sea. This appealed to Shelley as a noble and beneficent undertaking; it was suffering from lack of funds; he subscribed £100, and threw himself with ardor into the work of interesting others. In pursuance of this object he went to London in October, 1812, accompanied by the other members of the family. This visit was notable because the poet, for the first time, met Godwin; henceforward there was frequent intercourse between them. Mary Godwin, now a girl of fifteen, was absent during the greater part of Shelley's stay in London, and he may not have seen her. Friendly relations were renewed with Hogg, who was now studying law in London. Here, too, Miss Hitchener received her congé. This lady, whom he had idealized as the pattern of all that is highest in woman, had been resident with the Shelleys since July. At first all had gone well; but it was inevitable that misunderstandings should grow up between a person so situated and one or all of the group, Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza. By and by, we find them speaking of her as an unendurable incubus. To be rid of her, Shelley, in consideration of the fact that she had been induced to give up her school in order to join their circle, promised her an annuity of £100; we do not know for how long. He writes to Hogg in December of this year: "I pay it with a heavy heart and an unwilling hand; but it must be so. She was deprived by our misjudging haste of a situation where she was going on smoothly; and now she says that her reputation is gone, her health ruined, her peace of mind destroyed by my barbarity; a complete victim to all the woes, mental and bodily, that heroine ever suffered! This is not all fact; but certainly she is embarrassed and poor, and we being in some degree the cause, we ought to obviate it." It is characteristic that, from idealizing the lady and ascribing to her all imaginable graces and

powers, he passes to the other extreme, and writes: "She is a woman of desperate views and dreadful passions, but of cool and undeviating revenge."

About the middle of November Shelley returned to Tremadoc, and there exhausted himself in efforts on behalf of the embankment. He was saddened by the condition of the neighboring poor. It was a winter of much distress among the working people, and Shelley was indefatigable in his efforts on their behalf, - visiting them and spending his income relieving their wants. He was busy, as always, with writing and reading. He studied with avidity French philosophy, especially Holbach's Système de la Nature; he read history, to which he had an innate aversion, because Godwin urged it. Among his own writings the most important was a long narrative and philosophical poem, Queen Mab, which was not, however, printed until the spring of 1813, and then privately.

The residence of the Shelleys at Tremadoc was brought to an end by an extraordinary occurrence, which is described in the following extract from one of Mrs. Shelley's letters.

On Friday night, the 26th of February, we retired to bed between ten and eleven o'clock. We had been in bed about half an hour when Mr. S. heard a noise proceeding from one of the parlours. He immediately went downstairs with two pistols, which he had loaded that night, expecting to have occasion for them. He went into the billiard room, when he heard footsteps retreating; he followed into another little room, which was called an office. He there saw a man in the act of quitting the room through a glass window which opens into the shrubbery. The man fired at Mr. S., which he avoided. Bysshe then fired, but it flashed in the pan. The man then knocked Bysshe down, and they struggled on the ground. Bysshe then fired his second pistol, which he thought wounded him in the shoulder, as he uttered a shriek and got up, when he said these words: "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 - as we hoped for

the night. Our servants were not gone to bed, but were just going, when the horrible affair happened. This was about eleven o'clock. We all assembled in the parlour, where we remained for two hours. Mr. S. then advised us to retire, thinking it impossible that he should make a second attack. We left Bysshe and our manservant, who had only arrived that day, and who knew nothing of the house, to sit up. I had been in bed three hours when I heard a pistol go off. I immediately ran downstairs, when I perceived that Bysshe's flannel gown had been shot through, and the window-curtain. Bysshe had sent Daniel to see what hour it was, when he heard a noise at the window. He went there, and a man thrust his arm through the glass and fired at him. Thank Heaven! the ball went through his gown and he remained unhurt. Mr. S. happened to stand sideways; had he stood fronting, the ball must have killed him. Bysshe fired his pistol, but it would not go off; he then aimed a blow at him with an old sword which we found in the house. The assassin attempted to get the sword from him, and just as he was pulling it away, Dan rushed into the room, when he made his escape.

This was at four in the morning. It had been a most dreadful night; the wind was as loud as thunder, and the rain descended in torrents. Nothing has been heard of him; and we have every reason to believe it was no stranger, as there is a man of the name of Leeson, who the next morning that it happened went and told the shopkeepers of Tremadoc that it was a tale of Mr. Shelley's to impose upon them, that he might leave the country without paying his bills. This they believed, and none of them attempted to do anything towards his discovery.

On the day after this Shelley addressed the following letter to his friend Hookham, the publisher:

MY DEAR SIR,

I have just escaped an atrocious assassination. Oh! send me the £20 if you have it. You will perhaps hear of me no more.

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1 Referring to £20 which he had sent, a little before, as a subscription for the benefit of Leigh Hunt.

[Postcript by Harriet Shelley.]

Mr. Shelley is so dreadfully nervous to-day from having been up all night that I am afraid what he has written will alarm you very much. We intend to leave this place as soon as possible, as our lives are not safe so long as we remain. It is no common robber we dread, but a person who is actuated by revenge, and who threatens my life and my sister's as well. us the money, it will greatly add to our comfort. Sir, I remain your sincere friend,

If you can send

H. SHELLEY.

A person who was a neighbor of the Shelleys at this time, writing in 1860, states that Shelley further asserted that he saw a ghost or devil when he looked from the window on this occasion, and that Shelley set fire to the wood to destroy the apparition. Hogg states that "persons acquainted with the localities and with the circumstances, and who carefully investigated the matter, were unanimously of opinion that no such attack was ever made." On the other hand, there are sufficient indications that there was no intentional fraud on Shelley's part. It should be remembered that, in addition to possessing a peculiar temperament, Shelley was at times in the habit of taking laudanum Many of the details mentioned in Harriet's letter must have had their origin in the poet's excited imagination; but it is just possible that there was some substratum of fact. Peacock, who knew Shelley well, considers that this was one of the cases of semi-delusion to which, in his opinion, his friend was subject. In his Memoirs of Shelley, he illustrates this tendency by the following narrative: "In the early summer of 1816 the spirit of restlessness again came over him, and resulted in a second visit to the Continent. The change of scene was preceded, as more than once before, by a mysterious communication from a person seen only by himself,

to excess.

warning him of immediate personal perils to be incurred by him if he did not instantly depart. I was alone at Bishopsgate with him and Mrs. Shelley when the visitation alluded to occurred." Peacock was sceptical as to the visit; whereupon Shelley said, "You know Williams of Tremadoc? It was he who was here to-day. He came to tell me of a plot laid by my father and uncle to entrap me and lock me up. He was in great haste and could not stop a minute, and I walked with him to Egham." Peacock remained unconvinced, and adduced some facts which showed that it was highly improbable that Shelley had walked to Egham. To this the latter replied, "It is very hard on a man who has devoted his life to the pursuit of truth, who has made great sacrifices and incurred great sufferings for it, to be treated as a visionary. If I do not know that I saw Williams, how do I know that I see you?" Finally, Shelley stated that Williams was staying at the Turk's Head Coffee-house in London; and if Peacock would walk thither on the following day he would find that things were as Shelley asserted. They started out the next morning; but before going far Shelley, suddenly turning round, exclaimed, "I do not think we shall find Williams at the Turk's Head;" and proposed a walk in another direction. Peacock heard nothing more of the mysterious visit for some days, when Shelley said to him, "I have some news from Williams, a letter and an enclosure; I cannot show you the letter; I will show you the enclosure. It is a diamond necklace." Peacock objected that the necklace would prove nothing as to Williams's alleged visit. "Then," answered Shelley, "if you will not believe me, I must submit to your incredulity." "I had," continues Peacock, "on one or two previous occasions, argued with him against similar semi-delusions, and I believe if they had always been received with similar scepticism they would not have been so often repeated. . . . I call them semi-delusions

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