whether, as he himself surmised, the crime was instigated by an
unfriendly neighbour, it is impossible to say. Strange adventures of
this kind, blending fact and fancy in a now inextricable tangle, are of
no unfrequent occurrence in Shelley's biography. In estimating the
relative proportions of the two factors in this case, it must be borne
in mind, on the one hand, that no one but Shelley, who was alone in the
parlour, and who for some unexplained reason had loaded his pistols on
the evening before the alleged assault, professed to have seen the
villain; and, on the other, that the details furnished by Harriet, and
confirmed at a subsequent period by so hostile a witness as Eliza, are
too circumstantial to be lightly set aside.

On the whole it appears most probable that Shelley on this night was the
subject of a powerful hallucination. The theory of his enemies at
Tanyrallt, that the story had been invented to facilitate his escape
from the neighbourhood without paying his bills, may be dismissed. But
no investigation on the spot could throw any clear light on the
circumstance, and Shelley's friends, Hogg, Peacock, and Mr. Madocks,
concurred in regarding the affair as a delusion.

There was no money in the common purse of the Shelleys at this moment.
In their distress they applied to Mr. T. Hookham, a London publisher,
who sent them enough to carry them across the Irish channel. After a
short residence in 35, Cuffe Street, Dublin, and a flying visit to
Killarney, they returned to London. Eliza, for some reason as
unexplained as the whole episode of this second visit to Ireland, was
left behind for a short season. The flight from Tanyrallt closes the
first important period of Shelley's life; and his settlement in London
marks the beginning of another, fruitful of the gravest consequences and
decisive of his future.