The autumn was a period of more than usual money difficulty; but on the 6th of January, 1815, Sir Bysshe died, Percy became the next heir to the baronetcy and the family estates, and an arrangement was made with his father by right of which he received an allowance of 1000 pounds a year.  A portion of his income was immediately set apart for Harriet.  The winter was passed in London, where Shelley walked a hospital, in order, it is said, to acquire some medical knowledge that might be of service to the poor he visited.  His own health at this period was very bad.  A physician whom he consulted pronounced that he was rapidly sinking under pulmonary disease, and he suffered frequent attacks of acute pain.  The consumptive symptoms seem to have been so marked that for the next three years he had no doubt that he was destined to an early death.  In 1818, however, all danger of phthisis passed away; and during the rest of his short life he only suffered from spasms and violent pains in the side, which baffled the physicians, but, though they caused him extreme anguish, did not menace any vital organ.  To the subject of his health it will be necessary to return at a later period of this biography.  For the present it is enough to remember that his physical condition was such as to justify his own expectation of death at no distant time. (See Letter to Godwin in Shelley’s Memorials, page 78.)

Fond as ever of wandering, Shelley set out in the early summer for a tour with Mary.  They visited Devonshire and Clifton, and then settled in a house on Bishopsgate Heath, near Windsor Forest.  The summer was further broken by a water excursion up the Thames to its source, in the company of Mr. Peacock and Charles Clairmont.  Peacock traces the poet’s taste for boating, which afterwards became a passion with him, to this excursion.  About this there is, however, some doubt.  Medwin tells us that Shelley while a boy delighted in being on the water, and that he enjoyed the pastime at Eton.  On the other hand, Mr. W.S.  Halliday, a far better authority than Medwin, asserts positively that he never saw Shelley on the river at Eton, and Hogg relates nothing to prove that he practised rowing at Oxford.  It is certain that, though inordinately fond of boats and every kind of water—­river, sea, lake, or canal—­he never learned to swim.  Peacock also notices his habit of floating paper boats, and gives an amusing description of the boredom suffered by Hogg on occasions when Shelley would stop by the side of a pond or mere to float a mimic navy.  The not altogether apocryphal story of his having once constructed a boat out of a bank-post-bill, and launched it on the lake in Kensington Gardens, deserves to be alluded to in this connexion.