Newton. The Godwins, of great importance to Shelley himself, exercised
their influence at a distance from the rest. Frequent change from
Bracknell to London and back again, varied by the flying journey to
Edinburgh, and a last visit paid in strictest secrecy to his mother and
sisters, at Field Place, of which a very interesting record is left in
the narrative of Mr. Kennedy, occupied the interval between July, 1813,
and March, 1814. The period was not productive of literary masterpieces.
We only hear of a "Refutation of Deism", a dialogue between Eusebes and
Theosophus, which attacked all forms of Theistic belief.

Since we are now approaching the gravest crisis in Shelley's life, it
behoves us to be more than usually careful in considering his
circumstances at this epoch. His home had become cold and dull. Harriet
did not love her child, and spent her time in a great measure with her
Mount Street relations. Eliza was a source of continual irritation, and
the Westbrook family did its best, by interference and suggestion, to
refrigerate the poet's feelings for his wife. On the other hand he found
among the Boinville set exactly that high-flown, enthusiastic,
sentimental atmosphere which suited his idealizing temper. Two extracts
from a letter written to Hogg upon the 16th of March, 1814, speak more
eloquently than any analysis, and will place before the reader the
antagonism which had sprung up in Shelley's mind between his own home
and the circle of his new friends:--"I have been staying with Mrs. B--
for the last month; I have escaped, in the society of all that
philosophy and friendship combine, from the dismaying solitude of
myself. They have revived in my heart the expiring flame of life. I have
felt myself translated to a paradise, which has nothing of mortality but
its transitoriness; my heart sickens at the view of that necessity,
which will quickly divide me from the delightful tranquillity of this
happy home,--for it has become my home. The trees, the bridge, the