; publicly he is the passionless,
disinterested, impartial judge on the bench. He holds up his judicial
scales before the world, that all may see; and it all tries to look so
fair that a blind person would sometimes fail to see him slip the false
weights in.

Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost to
death, first, because Harriet had persuaded him to set up a carriage. I
cannot discover that any evidence is offered that she asked him to set
up a carriage. Still, if she did, was it a heavy offence? Was it unique?
Other young wives had committed it before, others have committed it
since. Shelley had dearly loved her in those London days; possibly he
set up the carriage gladly to please her; affectionate young husbands
do such things. When Shelley ran away with another girl, by-and-by, this
girl persuaded him to pour the price of many carriages and many horses
down the bottomless well of her father's debts, but this impartial
judge finds no fault with that. Once she appeals to Shelley to raise
money--necessarily by borrowing, there was no other way--to pay her
father's debts with at a time when Shelley was in danger of being
arrested and imprisoned for his own debts; yet the good judge finds no
fault with her even for this.

First and last, Shelley emptied into that rapacious mendicant's lap a
sum which cost him--for he borrowed it at ruinous rates--from eighty
to one hundred thousand dollars. But it was Mary Godwin's papa, the
supplications were often sent through Mary, the good judge is Mary's
strenuous friend, so Mary gets no censures. On the Continent Mary rode
in her private carriage, built, as Shelley boasts, "by one of the best
makers in Bond Street," yet the good judge makes not even a passing
comment on this iniquity. Let us throw out Count No. 1 against Harriet
Shelley as being far-fetched, and frivolous.

Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost
to death, secondly, because Harriet's studies "had dwindled away to
nothing, Bysshe had ceased to express any interest in them." At what
time was this? It was when Harriet "had fully recovered from the fatigue
of her first effort of maternity... and was now in full force, vigor,
and effect." Very well, the baby was born two days before the close of
June. It took the mother a month to get back her full force, vigor, and
effect; this brings us to July 27th and the deadly Cornelia. If a
wife of eighteen is studying