ials_. We think this is likely to
be the case, as during that period Shelley does not seem to have
journeyed to London. The aforesaid friend says also that he possessed
a manuscript (unpublished) in which somebody who knows states that
Shelley first saw her in January, 1811, and that whenever this
manuscript is published it will be seen how very slight was Shelley's
acquaintance with Harriet before their marriage, and "what advantage
was taken of his chivalry of sentiment and her complacent disposition,
and the inexperience of both, and how little entitled or disposed she
felt herself to complain of his behavior." "Shelley and his girl-wife
visited Windermere," we think are the words of De Quincey in alluding
to their sudden apparition in the Lake district just after their
union. And two more discordant natures could hardly have been bound
together till death.

The last friendly communication which passed between Shelley and his
publisher was dated January 11, 1811, as we have seen; and he must
immediately afterward have discovered the treachery of Stockdale, for
only three days later he writes a vituperative letter against him to
Hogg, in that he had been traducing Hogg's character; and informs
him that he will, while on his way to Oxford, compel the publisher to
explain not only why he "dared to make so free with the character of a
gentleman about whom he knew nothing," but why he had been treacherous
enough to inform Sir Timothy that he (Shelley) had sent him "a work"
which had been submitted to him in the strictest confidence and honor.

This performance was probably the pamphlet which caused Shelley's
expulsion from Oxford; and Stockdale hoped to be regarded as a friend
of the family by telling Sir T. all about it, and thus preventing a
young aristocrat of such high birth and pretensions from falling into
the slough of the blackguard Free-thinkers. No doubt he was influenced
to do this good turn to the family by the fact that the bill for the
last romance was unpaid, and he knew that if Sir Timothy would not,
and Shelley, being a minor, could not, liquidate it, he would, between
the two unreliable stools, come to the ground. In order to apologize
for Shelley, and make it appear to his father that he was not to blame
for writing such wickedness, but that another had indoctrinated him
with all bad notions, he pitched upon Hogg as the scapegoat. This is,
at all events, the English writer's explanation; but it was a f