Mr. Eton’s Cottage near Tintern Abbey--Shelley’s reason for not taking the Cottage--His Letter to Mr. Eton--Godwin’s expostulatory Epistle--His Grounds for thinking Shelley prodigal--Reasonableness of Godwin’s admonitions--Hogg and MacCarthy at fault--Shelley’s Letters from Lynton to Godwin--Miss Hitchener at Lynton--Porcia _alias_ Portia--_Letter_ to Lord Ellenborough--Printed at Barnstaple--Mr. Chanter’s _Sketches of the Literary History of Barnstaple_--Fifty copies of the _Letter_ sent to London--Shelley’s Measures for the political Enlightenment of North Devon Peasants--His Irish Servant, Daniel Hill--Commotion at Barnstaple--Daniel Hill’s Arrest and Imprisonment--Mr. Syle’s Alarm--Shelley’s humiliating and perilous Position--His Flight from North Devon to Wales--William Godwin’s Trip from London to Lynton--His Surprise and Disappointment--His ‘Good News’ of the Fugitives. (3.)--LYNTON, NEAR LYNMOUTH, NORTH DEVON. Hogg having erroneously inferred from certain letters of the Shelley-Godwin correspondence, which he failed to read with lawyer-like care, that Shelley went from the neighbourhood of Rhayader to Lynmouth, in North Devon, in order to settle himself in a cottage belonging to a certain Mr. Eton, at the last-named place, he has been followed in one of the several errors of his book by Mr. MacCarthy, and other biographers, who are scarcely more clever in discovering mistakes in those pages of the lawyer’s narrative, that are altogether accurate, than ready to rely on those of his statements that are seriously inexact. Instead of lying in Lynmouth, Mr. Eton’s cottage lay in the neighbourhood of Tintern Abbey, as Hogg might have discovered from the letter in which William Godwin expressed his surprise and regret to Shelley that, after looking at the little house, he should have declined to take it on account of its smallness. Mrs. William Godwin had suggested that the Shelleys should settle for a time in Mr. Eton’s cottage near Tintern Abbey, and ‘all the females’ (to use Godwin’s expression) of the Skinner-Street household ‘were on the tiptoe to know,’ whether the Shelleys would act on the suggestion, when the postman laid on William Godwin’s shop-counter a letter, addressed by Shelley’s hand to Mr. Eton. As there could be no secrets from them, between Shelley and their friend, the curious and excited people in Skinner Street opened the epistle and read it, before passing it on to Mr. Eton. To Godwin’s slight surprise, and to his wife’s slight disappointment, the epistle announced that Shelley declined to take the cottage, because it was too small for his purpose. The consequence was that Godwin, whilst stating how the letter’s purport came to his knowledge sooner than to Mr. Eton’s cognizance, wrote to Shelley these words:--