there was (to use a common phrase) “nothing particular in her.”
For nearly three years Shelley and she led a shifting sort of life
upon an income of £400 a year, one-half of which was allowed
(after his first severe indignation at the mésalliance was past)
by Mr Timothy Shelley, and the other half by Mr Westbrook.
The couple left Edinburgh for York and the society of Hogg;
broke with him upon a charge made by Harriet, and evidently
fully believed by Shelley at the time, that, during a temporary
absence of his upon business in Sussex, Hogg had tried to seduce
her (this quarrel was entirely made up at the end of about a year);
moved off to Keswick in Cumberland, where they received kind
attentions from Southey, and some hospitality from the duke
of Norfolk, who, as chief magnate in the Shoreham region of
Sussex, was at pains to reconcile the father and his too unfilial
heir; sailed thence to Dublin, where Shelley was eager, and
in some degree prominent, in the good cause of Catholic emancipation,
conjoined with repeal of the union; crossed to Wales,
and lived at Nant-Gwillt, near Rhayader, then at Lynmouth
in Devonshire, then at Tanyrallt in Carnarvonshire. All this
was between September 1811 and February 1813. At Lynmouth
an Irish servant of Shelley's was sentenced to six months' imprisonment
for distributing and posting up printed papers,
bearing no printer's name, of an inflammatory or seditious
tendency—being a Declaration of Rights composed by the
youthful reformer, and some verses of his named The Devil’s
Walk. At Tanyrallt Shelley was (according to his own and
Harriet's account, confirmed by the evidence of Miss Westbrook,
the elder sister, who continued an inmate in most of their homes)
attacked on the night of 26th February by an assassin who fired
three pistol-shots. It was either a human assassin or (as Shelley
once said) “ the devil.” The motive of the attack was undefined;
the fact of its occurrence was generally disbelieved, both at the
time and by subsequent inquirers. Shelley was full of wild
unpractical notions; he dosed himself occasionally with laudanum
as a palliative to spasmodic pains; he was given to strange
assertions and romancing narratives (several of which might
properly be specified here but for want of space), and was not
incapable of conscious fibbing. His mind no doubt oscillated at
times along the line which divides sanity from insane delusion.
It is now, however, at last proved that he did not invent such a
monstrous story to serve a purpose. The Century Magazine for
October 1905 contained an article entitled “A Strange Adventure
of Shelley's,” by Margaret L. Croft, which shows that a shepherd
close to Tanyrallt, named Robin Pant Evan, being irritated by
some well-meant acts of Shelley in terminating the lives of dying
or diseased sheep, did really combine with two other shepherds
to scare the poet, and Evan was the person who played the part
of “ assassin.” He himself avowed as much to members of a
family, Greaves, who were living at Tanyrallt between 1847 and
1865. This was the break-up of the residence of the Shelleys
at Tanyrallt; they revisited Ireland, and then settled for a while
in London. Here, in June 1813, Harriet gave birth to her
daughter Ianthe Eliza (she married a Mr Esdaile, and died in
1876). Here also Shelley brought out his first poem of any
importance, Queen Mab; it was privately printed, as its exceedingly
aggressive tone in matters of religion and morals would
not allow of publication. In July the Shelleys took a house at
Bracknell near Windsor Forest, where they had congenial
neighbours, Mrs Boinville and her family.
The speculative sage whom Shelley especially reverenced was William Godwin, the author of Political Justice and of the romance Caleb Williams; in 1796 he had married Mary Wollstonecraft, authoress of The Rights of Woman, who died shortly after giving birth, on the 30th of August 1797, to a daughter Mary. With Godwin Shelley had opened a volunteered correspondence late in 1811, and he had known him personally since the winter which closed 1812. Godwin was then a bookseller, living with his second wife, who had been a Mrs Clairmont; there were four other inmates of the household, two of whom call for some mention here—Fanny Wollstonecraft, the daughter of the authoress and Mr Imlay, and Claire (Clara Mary Jane), the daughter of Mrs Clairmont. Fanny committed suicide in October 1816, being, according to some accounts which remain unverified, hopelessly in love with Shelley; Claire was closely associated with all his subsequent career. It was towards May 1814 that Shelley first saw Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin as a grown-up girl (she was well on towards seventeen); he instantly fell in love with her, and she with him. lust before this, on the 24th of March, Shelley had remarried Harriet in London, apparently with a view to strengthening his position in his relations with his father as to the family property; but, on becoming enamoured of Mary, he seems to have rapidly made up his mind that Harriet should not stand in the way. She was at Bath while he was in London. They had, however, met again in London and come to some sort of understanding before the final crisis arrived-Harriet remonstrating and indignant, but incapable of effective resistance-Shelley sick of her companionship, and bent upon gratifying his own wishes, which as we have already seen were not at odds with his avowed principles of conduct. For some months past there had been bickering's and misunderstandings between him and Harriet, aggravated by the now detested presence of Miss Westbrook in the house; more than this cannot be said, and it seems dubious whether more will be hereafter known. Shelley, and not he alone, alleged grave misdoing on Harriet's part—perhaps mistakenly. The upshot came on the 28th of July, when Shelley aided Mary to elope from her father's house, Claire Clairmont deciding to accompany them. They crossed to Calais, and proceeded across France into Switzerland. Godwin and his wife were greatly incensed. Though he and Mary Wollstonecraft had entertained and avowed bold opinions regarding the marriage-bond, similar to Shelley's own, and had in their time acted upon these opinions, it is not clearly made out that Mary Godwin had ever been encouraged by paternal influence to think or do the like. Shelley and she chose to act upon their own likings and responsibility—he disregarding any claim which Harriet had upon him, and Mary setting at nought her father's authority. Both were prepared to ignore the law of the land and the rules of society. The three young people returned to London in September. In the following January 1815 Sir Bysshe Shelley died, and Percy, who had, lately been in great money-straits, became the immediate heir to the entailed property inherited by his father Sir Timothy. This entailed property seems to have been worth £6000 per annum, or little less. There was another very much larger property which Percy might shortly before have secured to himself, contingently upon his father's death, if he would have consented to put it upon the same footing of entail; but this he resolutely refused to do, on the professed ground of his being opposed upon principle to the system of entail; therefore, on his grandfather's death the larger property passed wholly away from any interest which Percy might have had in it, in use or in expectancy. He now came to an understanding with his father as to the remaining entailed property; and, giving up certain future advantages, he received henceforth a regular income of £1000 a year. Out of this he assigned £200 a year to Harriet, who had given birth in November to a son, Charles Bysshe (he died in 1826). Shelley, and Mary as well, were on moderately good terms with Harriet, seeing her from time to time. His peculiar views as to the relations of the sexes appear markedly again in his having (so it is alleged) invited Harriet to return to his and Mary's house as a domicile; a curious arrangement which of course did not take effect. He had, undoubtedly, while previously abroad with Mary, invited Harriet to stay in their immediate neighbourhood. Shelley and Mary (who was naturally always called Mrs Shelley) now settled at Bishopgate, near Windsor Forest; here he produced his first excellent poem, Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude, which was published soon afterwards With a few others. Thomas Love Peacock was one of his principal associates at Bishopgate.
In May 1816 the pair left England for Switzerland, together with Miss Clairmont, and their own infant son William. They went straight to Sécheron, near Geneva; Byron, whose separation from his wife had just then taken place, arrived there immediately afterwards. A great deal of controversy- has arisen as to the
