Pendulous Stockdale--"long and lank and brown"--comes from the reek and sin and filth of _Harriet Wilson's Memoirs_, his pet publication, and actually trembles with godly fear for the safety of a human soul, and that soul the interior, eternal esse of the son of a baronet; which baronet he hopes to make a good money-friend of by betraying his son's secrets to him. Love, of a sort, for Shelley may also have been a constituent of his motive to this treachery, as the poet called it, for there can be no doubt that he did love him in his way, as all the rough fellows--his Comus crew of the _Budget_ office--loved him. Old Sir Timothy is grateful to the bookseller for abusing the trust put in him by his son, and he thanks him for what he calls the "liberal and handsome manner" in which Stockdale has imparted to him his sentiments toward Shelley, and says he shall ever esteem it and hold it in remembrance. The publication of the letters before us sets at rest the disputed point as to the date of Shelley's first acquaintance with Harriet Westbrook, whom he subsequently married. Writing to Stockdale December 18, 1810, he requests him to send copies of the new romance to Miss Marshall, Horsham, Sussex, T. Medwin, Esq., Horsham, Sussex, T.J. Hogg, Esq., Rev. Dayrells Lynnington, Dayrell, Bucks; and Jan. 11, 1811, writing to the same person, he asks him to send a copy of _St. Irvyne_ to Miss Harriet Westbrook, 10 Chapel street, Grosvenor Square. It is pretty certain, therefore, that the acquaintance began between the dates of these two letters, for if he had known Harriet when he ordered his book to be sent to Miss Marshall, he would certainly have coupled the two names together and added them to the little list of his friends already given. Our English friend suggests here that Shelley may not have known Harriet personally at this time, but merely through the reports of his sisters, who were always talking about her, as reported in the _Shelley Memorials_. 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 The aforesaid friend says also that he possessed a manuscript (unpublished) in which somebody who knows states that Shelley first saw her in January, 1811, and that whenever this manuscript is published it will be seen how very slight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.