It would not surprise me to come upon letters, written by Shelley to induce some of his friends to think he suffered from the fear, but they would not affect my strong opinion that he was never troubled by the apprehension between the delivery of the Lord Chancellor’s decree and the departure for Italy, whither he went in 1818 from several motives, any one of which would have been sufficient to account for his action,--(_a_) from restlessness; (_b_) from a desire to get away from his creditors, who were troubling him; (_c_) from a desire to get away from friends who were sponging upon him and draining his resources extortionately; (_d_) from a desire to be nearer Byron, a strong attraction to him from 1818 to a few months before his death; (_e_) from a notion that by going out to Italy with Clara and little Allegra, instead of sending the child (just a year and two months old) thither under the charge of a servant, he might render his wife’s ‘sister’ good service; (_f_) from a notion that his health required a southern climate. These are the motives that caused him to go abroad. In a letter (_vide_ _Shelley Memorials_) to William Godwin (dated from Marlow, 7th December, 1817) Shelley rested his determination altogether on the state of his health, in these words:-- ‘I have experienced a decisive pulmonary attack; and, although at present it has passed away without any considerable vestige of its existence, yet this symptom sufficiently shows the true nature of my disease to be consumption.... In the event of its assuming any decided shape, it would be my _duty_ to go to Italy without delay; and it is only when that measure becomes an indispensable _duty_ that, _contrary to both Mary’s feelings_ and mine, as they regard you, I shall go to Italy.’ Had Shelley at this time been under the particular fear of the Lord Chancellor, he would not have failed to name it as a ground for wishing to go abroad; as a reason even stronger than his desire to preserve his health and life, for Mary’s sake and for the sake of her father and her children. From this letter it is manifest that Shelley’s disposition to go to Italy was, up to 7th December, 1817, opposed by his wife, and also by her father, with whom he was again on friendly, though of course far from cordial terms. It is noteworthy that in this epistle to Godwin he does not venture to suggest that he was thinking of taking his children out of England, in order to keep them under his eye, and at the same time put them beyond the Lord Chancellor’s grip. At the time of writing in these terms to his father-in-law Shelley had already written (_vide_ _Shelley Memorials_) from Hunt’s house thus to his wife:--