That Shelley found the dark-eyed and charming, though sometimes exasperatingly freakish, girl, upon the whole an agreeable inmate, and was, in some degree, rewarded for his hospitality by the delight coming to him from her faculty of song, may be inferred from Shelley’s poem ‘To Constantia Singing’ (1817), opening with the stanza,-- ‘TO CONSTANTIA SINGING. Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die, Perchance were death indeed!--Constantia, turn! In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie, Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn Between thy lips, are laid to sleep; Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it is yet, And from thy touch like fire doth leap. Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet; Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!’ Shelley left behind him fragments of two other poems, addressed to Claire under the name of Constantia. But why Constantia? Always sagacious in his suggestions respecting the poet, whose story he told with such admirable tenderness and fairness, Mr. Rossetti suggests that Constantia was a fancy-name, taken from Constantia Dudley, the heroine of Brockden Brown’s _Ormond_,--one of the several novels by a forgotten writer, which Shelley admired so greatly. None the less certain, however, is it, that the heroine of the poem was the Claire in whose singing Shelley delighted in later time, no less than in 1817, and for whose progress in the most effective of her several accomplishments he was thoughtful during their stay at Marlow. Of course, Claire was vastly delighted by her brother-in-law’s approval of her singing, and by the great compliment he rendered her, in giving poetical expression to the approval. The second Mrs. William Godwin’s daughter took strange liberties with her name. Christened Mary Jane (a homely name enough), she usually signed her letters ‘Claire,’ after inventing that agreeable designation for her bright and fascinating individuality; and she also caused herself sometimes to be described, as Clara Mary Constantia Jane Clairmont;--‘Constantia,’ in commemoration of her association with Shelley’s poetical achievements; and ‘Clara’ in commemoration of the fact, that Shelley’s daughter (born at Marlow on 3rd September, 1817) was named after her mother’s sister-by-affinity,--even as Byron’s Ada was in her other Christian name styled after her father’s half-sister. Described as Clara Mary Constantia Jane in a legal instrument, dated long after Shelley’s death, Claire figures as Mary Jane Clairmont in Shelley’s last will and testament.