Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/143

Rh it. The next point is that Shelley was "surrounded by friends who feed upon him, and draw upon him as their banker." This probably glances at Godwin, and perhaps also at Charles Clairmont, the brother of Clare. Thomas Love Peacock may likewise be in question: not Leigh Hunt, for, though the cap might have fitted him in and after the year 1817, it did not so in the present year 1816, since Hunt was as yet all but unknown to our poet. Last comes the funny statement about a hectoring landlord who twice knocked down the non-duelling author of Queen Mab. It is difficult to guess what this allegation may refer to. Shelley had by this time had several landlords in different parts of the United Kingdom; and quite possibly some of them thought his rent unduly low, or more especially his quarterly or other instalments irregularly paid, but who can have been the landlord who took the law so decisively into his own hands, and found so meekly unresisting a tenant, I have no idea. There was an odd incident on January 19, 1812, when Shelley, then living at Keswick, was (or was said to have been) struck down senseless on the threshold of his door—seemingly by a couple of robbers. On that occasion, however, his landlord, Mr. Dare, appeared in the character of a guardian angel: so we must dismiss any notion that this incident, the one which in some of its features