journey from the elder Medwin, and now, his quarterly allowance not being paid, he was kept from want only by a kindly remittance from his uncle Pilfold. Hogg had joined them at Edinburgh, but Shelley was anxious to make a settlement, and early in October the party went to York, where Shelley left Harriet in Hogg's charge while he went on to his uncle's to seek some communication with his father. Within a week he returned, unsuccessful, to York, whither Harriet's elder sister, Eliza, had preceded him. He found on his arrival that Hogg had undertaken to intrigue with Harriet. A month later, in a letter to Miss Hitchener he gave an account of the interview he had with him:

I desired I heard it All that I can

"We walked to the fields beyond York. to know fully the account of this affair. from him and I believe he was sincere. recollect of that terrible day is that I pardoned him, -fully, freely pardoned him; that I would still be a friend to him, and hoped soon to convince him how lovely virtue was; that his crime, not himself, was the object of my detestation; that I value a human being not for what it has been, but for what it is; that I hoped the time would come when he would regard this horrible error with as much disgust as I did. He said little. He was pale, terror-struck, remorseful."

After this incident Shelley remained in York but a few days, and in November left without giving Hogg any intimation of his intentions. "I leave him,' wrote Shelley, "to his fate. Would that I could

rescue him."

He took a cottage at Keswick. He had already written to the Duke of Norfolk, who had before been brought in as a peacemaker between father and son,

soliciting his intervention, and was invited to Greystoke by the duke, where he spent with his family a few days at the expense of almost his last guinea. He wrote to the elder Medwin: "We are now so poor as to be actually in danger of every day being deprived of the necessaries of life." In December Mr. Westbrook allowed Harriet £200 a year, and in January his father made an equal allowance to him, to prevent "his cheating strangers." At Greystoke he had met Calvert, who introduced him to Southey. "Here is a man at Keswick," wrote Southey, "who acts upon me as my own ghost would do; he is just what I was in 1794." Shelley had long regarded Southey with admiration, and "Thalaba" remained a favorite book with him. But, although Southey was kind to him, contributing to his domestic comfort in material ways, the acquaintance resulted in a diminution of Shelley's regard for him. On January 2 he introduced himself to Godwin by letter, according to his custom, having only then heard that the writer whom he really revered was still alive, and he interested the grave philosopher very earnestly in his welfare. Meanwhile he had not been idle. Through all these events, indeed, he must have kept busy with his pen. He designed a poem representing the perfect state of man, gathered his verses to make a volume, worked on his metaphysical essays, and, especially, composed a novel, "Hubert Cauvin," to illustrate the causes of the failure of the French Revolution. At Keswick, too, occurred the first of the personal assaults on Shelley, which tried the credibility of his friends. He had begun the use of laudanum, as a relief from pain, but he had recovered

from the illness which discloses this fact, before the incident occurred. On January 19, at seven o'clock at night, Shelley, hearing an unusual noise, went to the door and was struck to the ground and stunned by a blow. His landlord, alarmed by the noise, came to the scene, and the assailant fled. The affair was published in the local paper, and is spoken of by Harriet as well as Shelley. Some of the neighbors disbelieved in it, but his simple chemical experiments had excited their minds and made him an object of suspicion, and it is to be said that the country was in a disturbed state. Shelley's thoughts were already turned to Ireland as a field of practical action, and, his private affairs being now satisfactorily settled, he determined to go there and work for the cause of Catholic emancipation. At Keswick he wrote his "Address to the Irish People," and in spite of the dissuasion of Calvert and Godwin he started with his family in the first days of February, 1812, and arrived in Dublin on the 12th.

Shelley sent his "Address" to the printer, and within two weeks had fifteen hundred copies on hand, which he distributed freely, sending them to sixty coffee-houses, flinging them from his balcony, giving them away on the street, and sending out a man with them. He wrote also "Proposals for an Association," published March 2. He had presented a letter from Godwin to Curran, and made himself known to the leaders. On February 28, at a public meeting which O'Connell addressed, Shelley also spoke for an hour, and received mingled hisses and applause, — applause for the wrongs of Ireland, hisses for his plea for religious toleration. He also became acquainted

"Shelley, you

Shelley's Irish

with Mr. Lawless, a follower of Curran, and wrote passages of Irish history for a proposed work by him. Meanwhile Godwin sent letters dissuading him from his course, and finally wound up, are preparing a scene of blood." principles were but remotely connected with the practical politics of the hour, and consisted, in the main, of very general convictions in regard to equality, toleration, and the other elements of republican government. He did compose, out of French sources, a revolutionary "Declaration of Rights." He was soon discouraged by the character of the men and of the situation. His heart, too, was touched by the state of the people, for he engaged at once in that practical philanthropy which was always a large part of his personal life. "A poor boy," he writes, "whom I found starving with his mother, in a hiding place of unutterable filth and misery, and was about to teach, has been snatched on a charge of false and villainous effrontery to a Magistrate of Hell, who gave him the alternative of the tender or of military servitude. . . . I am sick of this city, and long to be with you and peace." At last he gave up, sent forward a box filled with his books, which was inspected by the government and reported as seditious, and on April 4 left Ireland. He settled ten days later at Nantgwillt, near Cwm Elan, the seat of his cousins, the Groves, and there remained until June. In this period he appears to have met Peacock, through whom he was probably introduced to his London publisher, Hookham. In June he again migrated to Lynmouth in Devon. Here he wrote his "Letter to Lord Ellenborough," defending Eaton,

whom I rescued