er. That Shelley
did not feel he had done anything inconsiderate is shown by the fact that,
within three weeks of his elopement with Mary Godwin, he was writing to
Harriet, describing the scenery through which Mary and he had travelled,
and urging her to come and live near them in Switzerland. "I write," his
letter runs--

to urge you to come to Switzerland, where you will at least
find one firm and constant friend, to whom your interests will be
always dear--by whom your feelings will never wilfully be injured.
From none can you expect this but me--all else are unfeeling, or
selfish, or have beloved friends of their own, as Mrs. B[oinville],
to whom their attention and affection is confined.

He signed this letter (the Ianthe of whom he speaks was his daughter):

With love to my sweet little Ianthe, ever most affectionately
yours, S.

This letter, if it had been written by an amorist, would seem either
base or priggish. Coming from Shelley, it is a miracle of what can only be
called innocence.

The most interesting of the "new facts and letters" in Mr. Ingpen's book
relate to Shelley's expulsion from Oxford and his runaway match with
Harriet, and to his father's attitude on both these occasions. Shelley's
father, backed by the family solicitor, cuts a commonplace figure in the
story. He is simply the conventional grieved parent. He made no effort to
understand his son. The most he did was to try to save his respectability.
He objected to Shelley's studying for the Bar, but was anxious to make him
a member of Parliament; and Shelley and he dined with the Duke of Norfolk
to discuss the matter, the result being that the younger man was highly
indignant "at what he considered an effort to shackle his mind, and
introduce him into life as a mere follower of the Duke." How unpromising
as a party politician Shelley was may be gathered from the fact that in
1811, the same year in which he dined with the Duke, he not only wrote a
satire on the Regent _a propos_ of a Carlton House fete, but "amused
himself with throwing copies into the carriages of persons going to
Carlton House after the fete." Shelley's methods of propaganda were on
other occasions also more eccentric than is usual with followers of dukes.
His journey to Dublin to preach Catholic Emancipation and repeal of the
Union was, the beginning of a brief but extraordinary period of propaganda
by pamphlet. Having written a fivepenny p