Shelley's Suspicion of Hogg--His Conviction of Hogg's Guilt-- Did Hogg make the Attempt?--The Manipulated Letter--Hogg's Object in publishing it--His Purpose in altering it--The Great Discovery--Evidence of Hogg's Guilt--Sources of the Evidence--Shelley's Correspondence with Miss Hitchener--His Letters from Keswick to Hogg--Their vehement Affectionateness--Eliza Westbrook in Office--Shelley under Training--Sisters in Council--Shelley's Conferences with Harriett--Proofs of Hogg's Innocence--_Primâ Facie_ Improbability--Why Hogg was not charged at York--His Arraignment at Keswick--Condemned in his Absence--The Reconciliation--Divine Forgiveness--Hogg's Restoration to Intimacy with Harriett--Shelley's subsequent Intimacy with Hogg--Hogg's Intimacy with Mary Godwin--Shelley's Acknowledgment of Delusion--He begs Pardon of Hogg--Hogg's Denials of the Charge--Hypothetical Letters--Concluding Estimate of Harriett's Evidence--If Hogg should be proved Guilty--Consequences to Shelley's Reputation. THE REAL SHELLEY. CHAPTER I. THE SHELLEY OF ROMANTIC BIOGRAPHY. Creators of The Romantic Shelley--Clint's Fanciful Composition--The Poet's Personal Appearance--His Little Turn-up Nose--His Ancestral Quality--Sussexisms of his Speech and Poetry--His Phenomenal Untruthfulness--His Temperance and Intemperance--A Victim of Domestic Persecution--Was _The Necessity of Atheism_ a mere Squib?--Lord Eldon's Decree--The Slaughter of Reputations--The Poet's Character--His Treatment of his familiar Friend--Biographic Fictions--Extravagances of Shelleyan Enthusiasm. From a time considerably anterior to the day on which Hogg undertook to write the _Life_ of his college friend, three separate forces, (_a_) Field Place, (_b_) The Shelleyan Enthusiasts, (_c_) The Shelleyan Socialists, have been steadily working to withdraw the Real Shelley from the world's view, and to replace him with a Shelley, altogether unlike the poet, who carried Mary Godwin off to the Continent, and wrote _Laon and Cythna_. By 'Field Place,' I mean those members of the poet's family (living or dead), who in their pious devotion to his memory, and laudable concern for the honour of their house, have busied themselves in creating this fanciful and romantic Shelley, and substituting him for the Real Shelley. By designating these members of the Shelley family by the name of the house that is Shelley's shrine, even as the Stratford birthplace is Shakespeare's shrine, and Newstead Abbey is Byron's shrine, I shall be able to refer with the least possible offensiveness to excellent individuals, from whom I am constrained to differ on a large number of Shelleyan questions.