conviction that he had drawn Harriet into a sphere of thought and feeling for which she was not qualified, and that had it not been for him and his opinions, she might have lived a happy woman in some common walk of life.  One of his biographers asserts that “he continued to be haunted by certain recollections, partly real and partly imaginative, which pursued him like an Orestes,” and even Trelawny, who knew him only in the last months of his life, said that the impression of that dreadful moment was still vivid.  We may trace the echo of his feelings in some painfully pathetic verses written in 1817 (Forman, 3 148.); and though he did not often speak of Harriet, Peacock has recorded one memorable occasion on which he disclosed the anguish of his spirit to a friend. (Fraser, January, 1860, page 102.)

Shelley hurried at once to London, and found some consolation in the society of Leigh Hunt.  The friendship extended to him by that excellent man at this season of his trouble may perhaps count for something with those who are inclined to judge him harshly.  Two important events followed immediately upon the tragedy.  The first was Shelley’s marriage with Mary Godwin on the 30th of December, 1816.  Whether Shelley would have taken this step except under strong pressure from without, appears to me very doubtful.  Of all men who ever lived, he was the most resolutely bent on confirming his theories by his practice; and in this instance there was no valid reason why he should not act up to principles professed in common by himself and the partner of his fortunes, no less than by her father and mother.  It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that he yielded to arguments; and these arguments must have been urged by Godwin, who had never treated him with cordiality since he left England in 1816.  Godwin, though overrated in his generation, and almost ludicrously idealized by Shelley, was a man whose talents verged on genius.  But he was by no means consistent.  His conduct in money-matters shows that he could not live the life of a self-sufficing philosopher; while the irritation he expressed when Shelley omitted to address him as Esquire, stood in comic contradiction with his published doctrines.  We are therefore perhaps justified in concluding that he worried Shelley, the one enthusiastic and thorough-going follower he had, into marrying his daughter in spite of his disciple’s protestations; nor shall we be far wrong if we surmise that Godwin congratulated himself on Mary’s having won the right to bear the name of a future baronet.

The second event was the refusal of Mr. Westbrook to deliver up the custody of his grandchildren.  A chancery suit was instituted; at the conclusion of which, in August, 1817, Lord Eldon deprived Shelley of his son and daughter on the double ground of his opinions expressed in “Queen Mab”, and of his conduct toward his first wife.  The children were placed in the hands of a clergyman, to be educated in accordance with principles diametrically opposed