874 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[2nd s. V. 123., May 8. '58. 



fully conducted establishment, that the poet be- 

 came acquainted with his first wife. Whatever 

 may have been the position of her father at that 

 period, he was both willing and al)le to allow his 

 daughter 200Z. per annum ; without which, indeed, 

 she and her husband would in all probability have 

 starved. We are told by Miss Shelley, that in 

 marrying Harriet Westbrook after her elope- 

 ment with him, her brother "had sacrificed him- 

 self to a point of honour!" And although Mr. 

 Hogg informs his readers that Mr. Godwin " con- 

 sidered marriage hateful and detestable" he omits 

 to add, that it was not until after the melancholy 

 death of Shelley's first wife, that the author of 

 Political Justice managed to conquer his repug- 

 nance to so "unnecessary" a ceremony: when a 

 large inheritance being at stake, he was induced 

 to declare that, although marriage was superero- 

 gatory, so far as the man and woman were con- 

 cerned, children should have fathers duly recog- 

 nised by the law ! 



In 1814 Shelley quitted "England, accompanied 

 by Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin ; the sole pretext 

 of the poet for his repudiation of his wretched wife 

 being that he had seen some one else whom he 

 liked better ! The poor deserted girl (her father 

 having died insolvent in the interim), after suf- 

 fering great privations, and sinking into the lowest 

 grade of misery, committed suicide by throwing 

 herself into the basin in the Green Park on the 

 10th November, 1816. Will Mr. Hogg inform 

 the readers of his next volume what the con- 

 dition of this unhappy woman (hardly more than 

 a child) was at the time of her death ; and pub- 

 lish the letter addressed by her husband to the 

 solicitor who appealed to his sense of common 

 humanity in her behalf? When the obstacle to 

 this second marriage was removed, Mr. Godwin 

 not only withdrew his objections, general and 

 particular, to hymeneal ceremonies, but pressed 

 on his daughter's marriage with a precipitancy 

 which might have revolted the feelings of his 

 friends, had the notions of decency which had 

 countenanced their previous connexion been ac- 

 cessible to any such shock. Mr. Godwin's primary 

 object, however, that of securing for his daughter's 

 child the undisputed succession to a large entailed 

 estate, was thus fully achieved; and the rapidity 

 of the progress in morals of its parents, after so 

 long a halt, whatever the fastidious, unpoetical, and 

 uiiphilosophical world may have thought of it, 

 was, in all probability, an indispensable condition 

 of the arrangement. 



Mr. Hogg complains of the " cruel," the " tre- 

 mendous calumnies " by which his friend, whose 

 life was, he tells us, " more golden than gold," 

 was beset wheresoever he went; but surely the 

 conduct which had led to the depravation and 

 suicide of a wife, whose beauty is described as 

 that of "a poet's dream," and as having been "the 



peculiar admiration of her husband;" whose faults 

 were for the most part the result of her devotion 

 to his own extravagant theories in ethics and 

 polemics; and which eventuated in his marriage 

 with the person who had not only supplanted her 

 in his affections, but usurped her place in his bed ; 

 was not susceptible of very favourable inferences 

 from that portion of the community with whom 

 honour, conjugal fidelity, or even common hu- 

 manity, is anything but a name. C. K. S. 



Codex Vaticanus. — Disappointed in the pro- 

 mised edition of Cardinal Mai, I would urge on 

 the authorities of the Vatican the importance of a 

 facsimile edition, to be taken by means of photo- 

 graphy. Age and use and abuse must have been 

 long in operation on this MS., injuries destined 

 still to continue till time will finally obliterate 

 every trace of this precious document. Three 

 hands in succession can be traced in it as refresh- 

 ing the characters with new ink. The faithfulness 

 of photographic impressions would give immor- 

 tality to this MS., and the multiplication of copies 

 without the slightest injury (which it has hitherto 

 sustained from collation real or pretended) would 

 in effect make the MS. itself visible to the micro- 

 scopic eye of every critic and student. The au- 

 thorities now in charge of thi.s treasure would be 

 thereby relieved from the dread of injury by per- 

 sons wishing to consult it, or of its possible loss by 

 fire. The public would also feel secure from 

 further mutilation of the MS. and corruption of 

 the text. The despatch and cheapness of such 

 photographic likeness, requiring no aid of scholar- 

 ship real or pretended, would ensure an extended 

 circulation of this the most important of MSS., 

 and obviate any necessity for recurring to the 

 original, which might be kept in a fire-proof vault, 

 secure from all accidents, except the corroding 

 hand of time. T. J. Bucktok. 



Lichfield. 



Picture of Ancient London. — < In the entrance- 

 room to the banking house of MM. Vischer et 

 fls, at Basle, there Is an old painting giving a 

 view of London, taken from the water. Old St. 

 Paul's is there, and the old houses upon London 

 Bridge. This carries the view back to a date 

 earlier than the great fire. Meletes. 



Drinking Healths. — The following extracts may 

 be interesting to some of your readers : — 



" We have tliose in our times that are 'mad on Maj'- 

 Poles, Morrice-dancing, Drinking Healths on their knees, 

 yea, in their hats (as in the University by Scholars, &c.) 

 Yea, in some places Maids drink healths upon their 

 knees ; 'tis vile in men, but abominable in women. There 

 were two persons of quality, that some years since drank 



