self-possession or apathy during the operation, are three facts, to justify a suspicion that the young mother was deficient in parental tenderness. But to prove that her nature was defective in this respect, would raise no presumption that she was characterized by similar coldness towards her husband. The presumption would, indeed, be in the contrary direction; for instances are afforded at every turn to the social observer, of women who, whilst cold to their offspring, are passionately devoted to their husbands. There is no evidence that Harriett ever evinced any extraordinary devotion to her husband, or any love of him surpassing a girl’s ordinary liking for a youthful husband. Having regard to all the circumstances of her married life,--circumstances peculiarly unfavourable to the development of the domestic affections,--most readers of this page will concur with me in holding, that it would have been very strange, had Harriett loved her husband in the highest conceivable degree, or indeed with any fervour surpassing the warmth of ordinary conjugal attachment. Still, in justice to her, it should be borne in mind that a young woman may be at the same time a coldly amiable mother and a passionately loving wife. It would be more important to ascertain, in what degree Shelley was animated by parental affectionateness. On this point the authorities are in conflict. Whilst Hogg thought his friend singularly wanting in parental tenderness and emotionality, so far as Ianthe was concerned, Peacock declares Shelley to have been ‘extremely fond’ of Ianthe when she was an infant-in-arms. To put implicit confidence in Hogg is to believe that Ianthe’s arrival neither ‘afforded’ her father ‘any gratification,’ nor ‘created an interest’ in him. Never _speaking_ to Hogg of the infant, Shelley never _wrote_ to him about her, except in the single letter, dated from Bracknell on 16th March, 1814, where he rails against his sister-in-law as ‘a blind and loathsome worm,’ even as he had formerly in an epistle to the same correspondent railed against the Brown Demon, who, after being worshipt by him for her angelic excellencies, became in a few months ‘the hermaphroditical beast of a woman.’