female is called upon to make—­these arguments, which you have urged in a manner immediately irresistible, I cannot withstand.  Not that I suppose it to be likely that I shall directly be called upon to evince my attachment to either theory.  I am become a perfect convert to matrimony, not from temporizing, but from your arguments; nor, much as I wish to emulate your virtues and liken myself to you, do I regret the prejudices of anti-matrimonialism from your example or assertion.  No.  The one argument, which you have urged so often with so much energy; the sacrifice made by the woman, so disproportioned to any which the man can give—­this alone may exculpate me, were it a fault, from uninquiring submission to your superior intellect.”

Whether Shelley from his own peculiar point of view was morally justified in twice marrying, is a question of casuistry which has often haunted me.  The reasons he alleged in extenuation of his conduct with regard to Harriet prove the goodness of his heart, his openness to argument, and the delicacy of his unselfishness.  But they do not square with his expressed code of conduct; nor is it easy to understand how, having found it needful to submit to custom, for his partner’s sake, he should have gone on denouncing an institution which he recognized in his own practice.  The conclusion seems to be that, though he despised accepted usage, and would fain have fashioned the world afresh to suit his heart’s desire, the instincts of a loyal gentleman and his practical good sense were stronger than his theories.

A letter from Shelley’s cousin, Mr. C.H.  Grove, gives the details of Harriet’s elopement.  “When Bysshe finally came to town to elope with Miss Westbrook, he came as usual to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and I was his companion on his visits to her, and finally accompanied them early one morning—­I forget now the month, or the date, but it might have been September—­in a hackney coach to the Green Dragon, in Gracechurch Street, where we remained all day, till the hour when the mail-coaches start, when they departed in the northern mail for York.”  From York the young couple made their way at once to Edinburgh, where they were married according to the formalities of the Scotch law.

Shelley had now committed that greatest of social crimes in his father’s eyes—­a mesalliance.  Supplies and communications were at once cut off from the prodigal; and it appears that Harriet and he were mainly dependent upon the generosity of Captain Pilfold for subsistence.  Even Jew Westbrook, much as he may have rejoiced at seeing his daughter wedded to the heir of several thousands a year, buttoned up his pockets, either because he thought it well to play the part of an injured parent, or because he was not certain about Shelley’s expectations.  He afterwards made the Shelleys an allowance of 200 pounds a year, and early in 1812 Shelley says that he is in receipt of twice that income.  Whence we may conclude that both fathers before long relented to the extent of the sum above mentioned.