It is true that the abandonment was of no long duration; but the period during which Shelley forbore to communicate with his wife was so long, that his silence may be fairly described as persistent cruelty to a woman who, whatever her misconduct may have been, had far stronger claims to his consideration than greatly offending wives usually have to the consideration of their offended husbands. Mr. Rossetti speaks of a letter, written by Harriett ‘on or about the 5th of July,’ which shows her to have heard from Shelley ‘about the 1st of the same month.’ If she heard so soon from Shelley, the epistle seems to have afforded her information neither of his place of residence nor of his intention never to return to her; for Peacock declares that, on 7th July, 1814, she wrote to one of his friends a letter in which ‘she expressed a confident belief that he must know where Shelley was, and entreated his assistance to induce him to return home.’ Peacock adds, ‘She was not even then aware that Shelley had finally left her.’ Still, let us suppose that Shelley’s silence to Harriett ceased on the earlier date, and ceased in such a way as to make her feel she was an object of his affection and that he would return to her ere long. Even in that case, the period of abandonment, in its most cruel form,--of abandonment attended with silence and concealment--covered full six weeks: a long period for a woman to be held in sharp anxiety. The period of abandonment, in its most cruel form, certainly ended before the middle of July, 1814. On the 14th of that month Harriett arrived in London; on the two following days she was in personal communication with Shelley and William Godwin. By this time, though still ignorant of her husband’s purpose to fly with Mary Godwin, Harriett was assured of his purpose to keep away from her. In vain Godwin strove to bring about the reconcilement of the youthful husband and wife. Finding that Shelley was bent on separation, insisted on separation would for the moment be satisfied with nothing less than separation, Harriett yielded to the fate she could not resist, accepted the position she could not avoid, and _assented_, by acts as well as by tacit submission, to the arrangement that was forced upon her. She assented, by forbearing to resist her husband’s will; she assented, by holding sullen, but in some degree friendly, communication with him, whilst he lived with Mary Godwin; she assented to the arrangement by corresponding with him, receiving his visits, taking money from him, as gifts coming from his bounty--not as payment exacted by process of law, whilst Mary Godwin was living under his protection. This is a series of facts provable by superabundant evidence, that may be fairly said to justify the most precise and scrupulous writer in saying that the separation became, after some brief while, ‘a separation by mutual consent,’ and passed from an affair of conjugal