ignorance of his abode, and with a very insufficient sum of money at her
disposal. She placed herself under the protection of her father, retired
to Bath, and about the beginning of July received a letter from Shelley,
who was thenceforth solicitous for her welfare, keeping up a
correspondence with her, supplying her with funds, and by no means
shrinking from personal communications.

That Shelley must bear the responsibility of this separation seems to me
quite clear. His justification is to be found in his avowed opinions on
the subject of love and marriage--opinions which Harriet knew well and
professed to share, and of which he had recently made ample confession
in the notes to "Queen Mab". The world will still agree with Lord Eldon
in regarding those opinions as dangerous to society, and a blot upon the
poet's character; but it would be unfair, while condemning them as
frankly as he professed them, to blame him also because he did not
conform to the opposite code of morals, for which he frequently
expressed extreme abhorrence, and which he stigmatized, however wrongly,
as the source of the worst social vices. It must be added that the
Shelley family in their memorials of the poet, and through their friend,
Mr. Richard Garnett, inform us, without casting any slur on Harriet,
that documents are extant which will completely vindicate the poet's
conduct in this matter. It is therefore but just to await their
publication before pronouncing a decided judgment. Meanwhile there
remains no doubt about the fact that forty days after leaving Harriet,
Shelley departed from London with Mary Godwin, who had consented to
share his fortunes. How he plighted his new troth, and won the hand of
her who was destined to be his companion for life, may best be told in
Lady Shelley's words:--

"His anguish, his isolation, his difference from other men, his gifts of