anella, he
distinguished between Christ, who sealed the gospel of charity with his
blood, and those Christians, who would be the first to crucify their
Lord if he returned to earth.

That Shelley lived up to his religious creed is amply proved. To help
the needy and to relieve the sick, seemed to him a simple duty, which he
cheerfully discharged. "His charity, though liberal, was not weak. He
inquired personally into the circumstances of his petitioners, visited
the sick in their beds,....and kept a regular list of industrious poor,
whom he assisted with small sums to make up their accounts." At Marlow,
the miserable condition of the lace-makers called forth all his
energies; and Mrs. Shelley tells us that an acute ophthalmia, from which
he twice suffered, was contracted in a visit to their cottages. A story
told by Leigh Hunt about his finding a woman ill on Hampstead Heath, and
carrying her from door to door in the vain hopes of meeting with a man
as charitable as himself, until he had to house the poor creature with
his friends the Hunts, reads like a practical illustration of Christ's
parable about the Good Samaritan. Nor was it merely to the so-called
poor that Shelley showed his generosity. His purse was always open to
his friends. Peacock received from him an annual allowance of 100
pounds. He gave Leigh Hunt, on one occasion, 1400 pounds; and he
discharged debts of Godwin, amounting, it is said, to about 6000 pounds.
In his pamphlet on "Putting Reform to the Vote", he offered to subscribe
100 pounds for the purpose of founding an association; and we have
already seen that he headed the Tremadoc subscription with a sum of 500
pounds. These instances of his generosity might be easily multiplied;
and when we remember that his present income was 1000 pounds, out of
which 200 pounds went to the support of his children, it will be
understood not only that he could not live luxuriously, but also that he
was in frequent money difficulties through the necessity of raising
funds upon his expectations. His self-denial in all minor matters of
expenditure was conspicuous. Without a murmur, without ostentation, this
heir of the richest baronet in Sussex illustrated by his own conduct
those principles of democratic simplicity and of fraternal charity which
formed his political and social creed.

A glimpse into the cottage at Great Marlow is afforded by a careless
sentence of Leigh Hunt's. "He used to sit in a study adorned wi