Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/311

 "THE LIFE OF SHELLEY' '295 off supplies, and after the mesalliance with Harriet Westbrook (a sort of compromise having been patched up in the meantime) he did the same. Afterwards (p. 53), " Mr. Timothy Shelley was anxious to bind his erratic son down to a settlement of the estates, which, on his own death, would pass into the poet's absolute control. . . . He proposed to make him an immediate allowance of ^2000 [per annum] if Shelley would but consent to entail the land on his heirs male. This offer was indignantly refused. Shelley recognised the truth that property is a trust far more than a possession, and would do nothing to tie up so much command over labour, such incalculable potentialities of social good or evil, for an unborn being of whose opinions he knew nothing." Finally, we learn from Lady Shelley's " Memorials," that Sir Timothy proposed to relieve Shelley's widow from her poverty if she would resign her infant son, the heir to the title and estates, the present Sir Percy Florence Shelley, into his absolute charge ; which offer also was indignantly refused, she preferring to earn a hard livelihood with her pen. 3. The separation from Harriet, his first wife. Mr. S. says, p. 81 : "That Shelley must bear the responsi- bility of this separation seems to me quite clear." Yet in the note, previous page, he states : " Leigh Hunt, 'Autob.,' p. 236, and Medwin, however, both assert that it was by mutual assent." And on this same p. 81 : "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