Soon after her withdrawal to Bath, Harriet gave birth to Shelley’s second child, Charles Bysshe, who died in 1826.  She subsequently formed another connexion which proved unhappy; and on the 10th of November, 1816, she committed suicide by drowning herself in the Serpentine.  The distance of time between June, 1814, and November, 1816, and the new ties formed by Harriet in this interval, prove that there was no immediate connexion between Shelley’s abandonment of his wife and her suicide.  She had always entertained the thought of self-destruction, as Hogg, who is no adverse witness in her case, has amply recorded; and it may be permitted us to suppose that, finding herself for the second time unhappy in her love, she reverted to a long-since cherished scheme, and cut the knot of life and all its troubles.

So far as this is possible, I have attempted to narrate the most painful period in Shelley’s life as it occurred, without extenuation and without condemnation.  Until the papers, mentioned with such insistence by Lady Shelley and Mr. Garnett, are given to the world, it is impossible that the poet should not bear the reproach of heartlessness and inconstancy in this the gravest of all human relations.  Such, however, is my belief in the essential goodness of his character, after allowing, as we must do, for the operation of his peculiar principles upon his conduct, that I for my own part am willing to suspend my judgment till the time arrives for his vindication.  The language used by Lady Shelley and Mr. Garnett justify us in expecting that that vindication will be as startling as complete.  If it is not, they, as pleading for him, will have overshot the mark of prudence.

On the 28th of July Shelley left London with Mary Godwin, who up to this date had remained beneath her father’s roof.  There was some secrecy in their departure, because they were accompanied by Miss Clairmont, whose mother disapproved of her forming a third in the party.  Having made their way to Dover, they crossed the Channel in an open boat, and went at once to Paris.  Here they hired a donkey for their luggage, intending to perform the journey across France on foot.  Shelley, however, sprained his ancle, and a mule-carriage was provided for the party.  In this conveyance they reached the Jura, and entered Switzerland at Neufchatel.  Brunnen, on the Lake of Lucerne, was chosen for their residence; and here Shelley began his romantic tale of “The Assassins”, a portion of which is printed in his prose works.  Want of money compelled them soon to think of turning their steps homeward; and the back journey was performed upon the Reuss and Rhine.  They reached Gravesend, after a bad passage, on the 13th of September.  Mrs. Shelley’s “History of a Six Week’s Tour” relates the details of this trip, which was of great importance in forming Shelley’s taste, and in supplying him with the scenery of river, rock, and mountain, so splendidly utilized in “Alastor”.