which almost inevitably results from an attempt to bend an entire social system out of the way of the passions of a single man. However the brain may philosophize, the heart remains loyal to its traditions, and though Mrs. Shelley may have been captivated with the doctrine of attractions while it drew her husband to her, she was not prepared for the more liberal application of it which drew him away. No theorizing can sweeten desertion; and the unhappy woman, disenchanted of the dream, and forsaken by the substance, sought shelter in death.

The lovers of Shelley as a man and a poet have done what they could to palliate his conduct in this matter. But a question of morals, as between man and society, cannot be reduced to any individual standard however exalted. Our partiality for the man only heightens our detestation of the error. The greater Shelley's genius, the nobler his character and impulses, so much the more startling is the warning. If we make our own inclinations the measure of what is right, we must be the sterner in curbing them. A woman's heart is too delicate a thing to serve as a fulcrum for the lever with which a man would overturn any system, however conventional. The misery of the elective-affinity scheme is that men are not chemical substances, and that in nine cases in ten the force of the attraction works more constantly and lastingly upon the woman than the man.

There is no stronger argument against it than the Memoirs of Mary Wolstonecraft. The Mormon polygamy is nothing more than a plant from the same evil seed sown in a baser soil, and is an attempt to compromise between the higher in stincts of mankind, organized in their institutions, and the bestial propensities of sensualized individuals.

The suicide of Shelley's wife took place on the 10th of November, 1816, and shortly afterward he married Miss Godwin, at her father's solicitation, and took up his abode at Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire. His means of support were ample, as he had succeeded to some property in his own right which yielded a yearly income of one thousand pounds. During his residence here the custody of his two children by his first wife was taken away from him by a decision of the Lord Chancellor Eldon, on the ground of atheistical principles attributed to their father. Shelley felt this deeply, and all his life. His poem of

We are unable to see that Shelley suffered any great amount of hardship or injustice in this matter. He had first deserted the children himself,- one of them yet unborn,— and then left them in the keeping and under the influence of a woman whom he did not think a fit companion for himself. One would rather be inclined to say that his patent in them was void for non-user. The depth and ardor of his attachment to them may be questioned under the circumstances. At least, it is natural that their maternal relatives should not wish to have them brought up under the influence of principles that had resulted so disastrously.

"Queen Mab," a juvenile production, published without his consent, was made the ground of this decision. His opinions upon marriage were also brought up against him. The children were put under the care of a clergyman of the church of England. Leigh Hunt says, "Shelley's manner of life suffered greatly in its repute from this circumstance. He was said to be keeping a seraglio at Marlow; and his friends partook of the scandal. This keeper of a seraglio, who, in fact, was extremely difficult to please in such matters, and who had no idea of love unconnected with sentiment, passed his days like a hermit. He rose early in the morning, walked and read before breakfast, took that meal sparingly, wrote and studied the greater part of the morning, walked and read again, dined on vegetables, (for he took neither meat nor wine,) conversed with his friends, (to whom his house was ever open,) again walked out, and usually finished with reading to his wife till ten o'clock, when he went to bed. This was his daily existence. His book was generally Plato or Homer, or one of the Greek tragedians, or the Bible, in which last he took a great, though peculiar, and often admiring interest."

At Great Marlow, Hunt says, "he was a bless ing to the poor. His charity, though liberal, was not weak. He inquired personally into the circumstances of his petitioners; visited the sick in their beds, (for he had gone the rounds of the

hospitals on purpose to be able to practise on occasion,*) and kept a regular list of industrious poor, whom he assisted with small sums to make up their accounts."

It was here he published "A Proposal for putting Reform to the Vote throughout the Country," and offered to give a tenth part of his income for a year toward the advancement of the project. His generosity was always remarkable and unostentatious. Out of his thousand pounds a year, he bestowed a pension of one hundred upon a needy literary man, and at one time raised by great effort fourteen hundred pounds to extricate Leigh Hunt from debt.

The following characteristic anecdotes, relating to this part of his life are told by Hunt, in his autobiography.

"To return to Hampstead. Shelley often came there to see me, sometimes to stop for several days. He delighted in the natural broken ground, and in the fresh air of the place, especially when the wind set in from the northwest, which used to give him an intoxication of animal spirits. Here also he swam his paper boats on the ponds, and delighted to play with my children, particularly with my eldest boy, the seriousness of whose imagination, and his susceptibility of a "grim" impression, (a favorite epithet of Shelley's,)

* Medwin says that he began the study of medicine with a view to earning his support by the practise of that profes sion.

highly interested him. He would play at 'frightful creatures' with him, from which the other would snatch a fearful joy,' only begging him occasionally "not to do the horn," which was a way that Shelley had of screwing up his hair in front, to imitate a weapon of that sort. This was the boy (now a man of forty, and himself a fine writer) to whom Lamb took such a liking on similar accounts, and addressed some charming verses as his 'favorite child.' I have already mentioned him during my imprisonment.

"As an instance of Shelley's playfulness when he was in good spirits, he was once going to town with me in the Hampstead stage, when our only companion was an old lady, who sat silent and still after the English fashion. Shelley was fond of quoting a passage from "Richard the Second," in the commencement of which the king, in the indulgence of his misery, exclaims,

'For Heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.'

Shelley, who had been moved into the ebullition by something objectionable which he thought he saw in the face of our companion, startled her into a look of the most ludicrous astonishment, by suddenly calling this passage to mind, and, in his enthusiastic tone of voice, addressing me by name with the first two lines. 'Hunt! he exclaimed.

'For Heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.'

The old lady looked on the coach-floor, as if expecting to see us take our seats accordingly.

"But here follows a graver and more characteristic anecdote. Shelley was not only anxious for the good