There was an inquest, with the verdict ‘Found dead.’ This was the end of Fanny, who, after leaving London on the 7th instant, for a visit to her aunts, Mrs. Bishop and Everina Wollstonecraft, perished by her own act at the Swansea tavern. A good, gentle, interesting girl, Fanny inherited all her mother’s early affectionateness and generosity, without acquiring from the same source the vehemence and asperity that were amongst the chief faults of her mother’s temper. But, together with exemption from the fervour and fierceness of her mother’s nature, Fanny was not so fortunate as to enjoy exemption from its morbid sensibility. Together with a full share of the Wollstonecraft sensitiveness, she derived from the Wollstonecrafts the disposition to melancholy, that qualified her to do in mild resoluteness what her mother essayed in tempestuous rage. To account for this desperate act, the reviewer of the poor girl’s career is not driven to adopt Claire’s explanation of the tragedy. Several circumstances, distinct from her regard for Shelley, had combined to trouble her profoundly during the closing term of her existence. It was natural for her to brood over the melancholy facts of her mother’s story, which came to her knowledge, directly or indirectly, through the same channel that made them known to Mary and Claire. Her half-sister’s flight with Shelley would, under any circumstances, have caused her the keenest mental torture; but the anguish it caused her heart and soul was the sharper to so loving and sympathetic a creature, because of the grief, coming in different ways and degrees, to William Godwin (whom she loved) and his wife (with whom she lived harmoniously) from the date of the event which, violently wrenching asunder so many domestic ties, had broken up the home in Skinner Street,--though the mere shell of the old home, from which familiar joy had been driven for ever, was still maintained under conditions of deepening gloom and anxiety. No wonder the poor girl found the sorrows of her existence too heavy for endurance. Let it not, however, be imagined that she yielded to despair without brave efforts to conquer it. Whilst so many writers have used their ingenuity and skill in colouring Mary Godwin into a heroine, and varnishing her submission to Shelley’s suit into a romantic love-story, how little has been said in honour of poor Fanny--the true heroine!--who, hiding her sorrow as she best could from the old man (who had been a good father to her), and from the woman (who had been a good mother to her) strove to comfort their grief and shame, whilst the heart in her own breast was slowly breaking.