That Shelley must bear the responsibility of this separation seems to me quite clear.  His justification is to be found in his avowed opinions on the subject of love and marriage—­opinions which Harriet knew well and professed to share, and of which he had recently made ample confession in the notes to “Queen Mab”.  The world will still agree with Lord Eldon in regarding those opinions as dangerous to society, and a blot upon the poet’s character; but it would be unfair, while condemning them as frankly as he professed them, to blame him also because he did not conform to the opposite code of morals, for which he frequently expressed extreme abhorrence, and which he stigmatized, however wrongly, as the source of the worst social vices.  It must be added that the Shelley family in their memorials of the poet, and through their friend, Mr. Richard Garnett, inform us, without casting any slur on Harriet, that documents are extant which will completely vindicate the poet’s conduct in this matter.  It is therefore but just to await their publication before pronouncing a decided judgment.  Meanwhile there remains no doubt about the fact that forty days after leaving Harriet, Shelley departed from London with Mary Godwin, who had consented to share his fortunes.  How he plighted his new troth, and won the hand of her who was destined to be his companion for life, may best be told in Lady Shelley’s words:—­

“His anguish, his isolation, his difference from other men, his gifts of genius and eloquent enthusiasm, made a deep impression on Godwin’s daughter Mary, now a girl of sixteen, who had been accustomed to hear Shelley spoken of as something rare and strange.  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 enrol his name with the wise and good who had done battle for the 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; and most truthfully, as the remaining portions of these Memorials will prove, was the pledge of both redeemed.  The theories in which the daughter of the authors of “Political Justice”, and of the “Rights of Woman”, had been educated, spared her from any conflict between her duty and her affection.  For she was the child of parents whose writings had had for their object to prove that marriage was one among the many institutions which a new era in the history of mankind was about to sweep away.  By her father, whom she loved—­by the writings of her mother, whom she had been taught to venerate—­these doctrines had been rendered familiar to her mind.  It was therefore natural that she should listen to the dictates of her own heart, and willingly unite her fate with one who was so worthy of her love.”