188 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



merely by consenting to entail the estate upon his eldest son, or, in 

 default of issue, upon his brother. 



But Shelley had already drunk deep of the Godwinian philosophy. 

 To allow the ties of relationship to prevail above the considerations of 

 reason seemed to him a proposition little short of criminal. " I, like 

 the God of the Jews," he wrote, " set myself up as no respecter of 

 persons; and relationship is considered by me as bearing that relation 

 to reason which a band of straw does to fire. . . I am led to love 

 a being not because it stands in the physical relation of blood to me, 

 but because I discern an intellectual relationship." 



With the utmost indignation he heard of the terms of the proposal. 

 In a letter to Miss Hitchener he pours out his wrath without stint. " I 

 have since heard from Captain Pilfold. His letter contains the account 

 of a meditated proposal, on the part of my father and grandfather, to 

 make my income immediately larger than the former's in case I will 

 entail the estate on my eldest son, and, in default of issue, on my brother. 

 Silly dotards, do they think that I can be thus bribed and ground into 

 an act of such contemptible injustice and inutility ; that I will forswear 

 my principles in consideration of £2,000 a year; that the good- will I 

 could thus purchase, or the ill-will I could thus overbear, would recom- 

 pense me for the loss of self esteem, of conscious rectitude? And with 

 what face can they make a proposal so insultingly hateful " (a pro- 

 posal, it will be observed, that would raise him at once from penury 

 to wealth, on condition that he should accommodate himself to a time- 

 honoured custom). "Dare one of them," he continues, "propose 

 such a condition to my face — to the face of any virtuous man — and not 

 sink into nothing at his disdain? That I should entail £120,000 of 

 command over labour, of power to remit this, to employ it for beneficent 

 purposes, on one whom I know not — who might, instead of being the 

 benefactor of mankind, be its bane, or use this for the worst purposes, 

 which the real delegates of my chance-given property might convert 

 into a most useful instrument of benevolence! No! This you will 

 not suspect me of." 



Without compromising his conscience, Shelley accepted an allow- 

 ance of £200 a year, which by a re-arrangement of the estate was 

 subsequently increased to £1,000. 



It is needless to dwell upon any further details of Shelle/s brief 

 life. His desertion of Harriet and his elopement with Mary Godwin 

 are indefensible from the standpoint of ordinary human morals. It 

 is not my purpose to be his apologist here, nor do I desire to range 

 myself upon the side of his hostile critics. But there is a subtle 



