Six days after the date of this last-mentioned letter, Harriett gave birth to her first-born child, who was named Ianthe Eliza, the second of the two names indicating that Miss Westbrook continued to hold her sister’s affection, and to have an influence in her brother-in-law’s home, after he had come to regard her with a dislike, that developed rapidly into unqualified aversion. That Hogg was right in thinking the child was born in Pimlico, instead of Dover Street, I have little doubt, though immediately before and after the birth Shelley was dating letters from Cooke’s Hotel. The question has been raised whether Shelley ever felt any strong affection for Harriett’s daughter, though he spoke and wrote passionately of the barbarous decree of the Court of Chancery, that declared him unfit to have any part in the child’s education. It has also been questioned whether Harriett ever delighted in the little girl, who suffered from a congenital defect of one of her eyes, that was at least in some degree removed by the surgical operation, which afforded Mrs. Shelley an opportunity of displaying her self-control or insensibility, less to the admiration than to the astonishment of the surgeon who, after vainly endeavouring to persuade her to be absent whilst the patient was under the knife, was surprised at the apparent indifference with which she heard the cries and regarded the sufferings of the infant. It would, however, be unjust to draw conclusions unfavourable to Harriett from her demeanour on this occasion; for she may have been moved by maternal solicitude to remain in the room during the operation, and having decided to remain there, she was bound by care for her child’s welfare and the surgeon’s convenience, to keep her feelings under command. Nor should any positive inference to Harriett’s disadvantage be drawn from the fact, that, instead of being suckled by her mother, little Ianthe took her first nourishment from a wet-nurse; for though her _accouchement_ was an easy affair, from which she recovered quickly, Harriett may have been compelled to employ a nurse to discharge a duty, which she would have been only too glad to perform personally. Again, though Hogg attributed the weakness to her shame at knowing ‘that one so nearly connected with herself was not perfectly beautiful,’ Harriett’s sensitiveness in respect to her infant’s slight facial deformity,--a sensitiveness that caused her to shrink from showing the child even to so intimate a friend as her husband’s future biographer, may have originated in maternal tenderness, quite as much as in wounded maternal vanity. Still, though no one of them would warrant an unhesitating inference to her disadvantage, and all of them are susceptible of explanation that would relieve her maternal character of the imputation resulting from them, it must be admitted that the morbid sensitiveness, the employment of the wet-nurse, and the extraordinary