r school-boy pieces of those days.

The betrayal of confidence of which Shelley complained as proceeding
from Stockdale arose from a letter of the poet's, in which (November
12, 1810) he asks his friend the publisher to send him a "Hebrew essay
demonstrating the falsehood of the Christian religion," and which the
_Christian Observer_, he says, calls "an unanswerable but sophistical
argument." Have it he must, be it translated into "Greek, Latin or any
of the European languages."

Pendulous Stockdale--"long and lank and brown"--comes from the reek
and sin and filth of _Harriet Wilson's Memoirs_, his pet publication,
and actually trembles with godly fear for the safety of a human soul,
and that soul the interior, eternal esse of the son of a baronet;
which baronet he hopes to make a good money-friend of by betraying his
son's secrets to him. Love, of a sort, for Shelley may also have been
a constituent of his motive to this treachery, as the poet called it,
for there can be no doubt that he did love him in his way, as all the
rough fellows--his Comus crew of the _Budget_ office--loved him.

Old Sir Timothy is grateful to the bookseller for abusing the trust
put in him by his son, and he thanks him for what he calls the
"liberal and handsome manner" in which Stockdale has imparted to him
his sentiments toward Shelley, and says he shall ever esteem it and
hold it in remembrance.

The publication of the letters before us sets at rest the disputed
point as to the date of Shelley's first acquaintance with Harriet
Westbrook, whom he subsequently married. Writing to Stockdale December
18, 1810, he requests him to send copies of the new romance to Miss
Marshall, Horsham, Sussex, T. Medwin, Esq., Horsham, Sussex, T.J.
Hogg, Esq., Rev. Dayrells Lynnington, Dayrell, Bucks; and Jan. 11,
1811, writing to the same person, he asks him to send a copy of _St.
Irvyne_ to Miss Harriet Westbrook, 10 Chapel street, Grosvenor Square.
It is pretty certain, therefore, that the acquaintance began between
the dates of these two letters, for if he had known Harriet when he
ordered his book to be sent to Miss Marshall, he would certainly have
coupled the two names together and added them to the little list
of his friends already given. Our English friend suggests here that
Shelley may not have known Harriet personally at this time, but merely
through the reports of his sisters, who were always talking about her,
as reported in the _Shelley Memor