CHAPTER 4.

SECOND RESIDENCE IN LONDON, AND SEPARATION FROM HARRIET.

Early in May the Shelleys arrived in London, where they were soon joined
by Eliza, from whose increasingly irksome companionship the poet had
recently enjoyed a few weeks' respite. After living for a short while in
hotels, they took lodgings in Half Moon Street. The house had a
projecting window, where the poet loved to sit with book in hand, and
catch, according to his custom, the maximum of sunlight granted by a
chary English summer. "He wanted," said one of his female admirers,
"only a pan of clear water and a fresh turf to look like some young
lady's lark, hanging outside for air and song." According to Hogg, this
period of London life was a pleasant and tranquil episode in Shelley's
troubled career. His room was full of books, among which works of German
metaphysics occupied a prominent place, though they were not deeply
studied. He was now learning Italian, and made his first acquaintance
with Tasso, Ariosto, and Petrarch.

The habits of the household were, to say the least, irregular; for
Shelley took no thought of sublunary matters, and Harriet was an
indifferent housekeeper. Dinner seems to have come to them less by
forethought than by the operation of divine chance; and when there was
no meat provided for the entertainment of casual guests, the table was
supplied with buns, procured by Shelley from the nearest pastry-cook. He
had already abjured animal food and alcohol; and his favourite diet
consisted of pulse or bread, which he ate dry with water, or made into