period met
his second wife, a woman of the highest powers of mind and charm of
body, Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin, the authoress of _Frankenstein_ and
other works, daughter of William Godwin, the novelist, and author of
_Political Justice_ and Mary Wolstonecraft, the gifted writer of _The
Rights of Women_. We are told by Lady Shelley that, "To her, as they
met one eventful day in St. Pancras churchyard, by her mother's grave,
Bysshe, in burning words, poured forth the tale of his wild past, how
he had suffered, how he had been misled, and how, if supported by her
love, he hoped, in future years, to enroll his name with the wise and
good, who had done battle for their fellow-men and been true through
all adverse storms to the cause of humanity. Unhesitatingly she placed
her hand in his, and linked her fortune with his own."

After the death of his first wife, on the solicitation of Godwin, who
was anxious for the landed interests of his grandchildren, a _legal_
union was performed. After looking on this episode, in the most
charitable manner, I am confident the sternest moralist cannot but
"acknowledge that the passionate love of a boy should not be held a
serious blemish, in a man whose subsequent life was exceptional in
virtue and beneficence."

Believing, as I have explained, in the divinity of love, Shelley
regarded everything in the relation of the sexes with the most intense
horror, which was not consistent with "freedom;" and by which he most
certainly did not signify the license attributed by many. When he
looked around and saw the withering blast of forced marriages,
conjugal hatred and prostitution, can we be astonished at his
passionately exclaiming:

"Even love is sold; the solace of all woe
Is turned to deadliest agony, old age
Shivers in selfish beauty's loathing arms,
And youth's corrupted impulses prepare
A life of horror from the blighting bane
Of commerce, whilst the pestilence that springs
From unenjoying sensualism, has filled
All human life with hydra-headed woes?"

In a most important essay bearing on this passage, which should be
widely studied, he observes:

"Love is inevitably consequent upon the perception of
loveliness. Love withers under constraint; its very essence
is liberty; it is compatible neither with obedience,
jealousy, nor fear; it is then most pure, perfect, and
unlimited, where its votaries live in confidence, equ