emental and primeval creature, as little subject
to the laws of custom in his habits as in his modes of thought, living
literally as the spirit moved him, with a natural nonchalance that has
perhaps been never surpassed. To time and place he was equally
indifferent, and could not be got to remember his engagements. "He took
strange caprices, unfounded frights and dislikes, vain apprehensions and
panic terrors, and therefore he absented himself from formal and sacred
engagements. He was unconscious and oblivious of times, places, persons
and seasons; and falling into some poetic vision, some day-dream, he
quickly and completely forgot all that he had repeatedly and solemnly
promised; or he ran away after some object of imaginary urgency and
importance, which suddenly came into his head, setting off in vain
pursuit of it, he knew not whither. When he was caught, brought up in
custody, and turned over to the ladies, with, Behold, your King! to be
caressed, courted, admired, and flattered, the king of beauty and fancy
would too commonly bolt; slip away, steal out, creep off; unobserved and
almost magically he vanished; thus mysteriously depriving his fair
subjects of his much-coveted, long looked-for company." If he had been
fairly caged and found himself in congenial company, he let time pass
unheeded, sitting up all night to talk, and chaining his audience by the
spell of his unrivalled eloquence; for wonderful as was his poetry,
those who enjoyed the privilege of converse with him, judged it even
more attractive. "He was commonly most communicative, unreserved, and
eloquent, and enthusiastic, when those around him were inclining to
yield to the influence of sleep, or rather at the hour when they would
have been disposed to seek their chambers, but for the bewitching charms
of his discourse."

From Half Moon Street the Shelleys moved into a house in Pimlico; and it
was here, according to Hogg, or at Cooke's Hotel in Dover Street
according to other accounts, that Shelley's first child, Ianthe Eliza,
was born about the end of June, 1813. Harriet did not take much to her
little girl, and gave her over to a wet-nurse, for whom Shelley
conceived a great dislike. That a mother should not nurse her own baby
was no doubt contrary to his principles; and the double presence of the
servant and Eliza, whom he now most cordially detested, made his home
uncomfortable. We have it on excellent authority, that of Mr. Peacock,
that he "was