Though no critic has hitherto called attention to the general inaccuracy of her misleading book, Lady Shelley had scarcely published her _Shelley Memorials: From Authentic Sources_, when she was assailed with unusual severity for the utter wrongness of a particular statement which, had it not been for the context, would have deserved no reprehension. On coming to speak of Shelley’s severance from Harriett, Lady Shelley gives these words in a separate paragraph:-- ‘Towards the close of 1813 estrangements, which for some time had been slowly growing between Mr. and Mrs. Shelley, came to a crisis. Separation ensued; and Mrs. Shelley returned to her father’s house. Here she gave birth to her second child--a son, who died in 1826.’ Had Mr. Peacock objected to this curious specimen of close writing that, by omitting all reference to the graver estrangements of the earlier months of 1814, Lady Shelley gave her readers the erroneous impression that the estrangements and crisis of 1813 were the immediate and only cause of the separation that took place towards the middle of the ensuing year, he would have had the general concurrence of discreet and critical readers of the Shelleyan story. But Peacock contended that no estrangements had occurred in 1813 between Shelley and Harriett, and that therefore no estrangements between them could have come to a crisis towards the close of that year. ‘Thus,’ says Mr. Peacock, ‘there had been no estrangement to the end of 1812. My own memory sufficiently attests that there was none in 1813,’--strong and notable language from the eminent man of letters, who, accompanying the Shelleys to the Cumberland lakes, Edinburgh, and other places (including Matlock), in October and November, was their close companion till the end of the year; very notable language from the man who was the daily companion of the youthful husband and wife in the northern capital, whence Shelley dated the letter to Hogg containing those six words, ‘I shall return to London alone.’