hereafter give by any Codicil or Codicils thereto) unto and to the use of my wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley her heirs executors administrators and assigns for her and their own absolute use and benefit for ever Provided always and my will is and I do hereby expressly declare that the several legacies hereinbefore by me given shall not be paid or payable until my said wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley her heirs or assigns shall be in the possession of my real estate under the devise to her and them hereinbefore contained and in that case if my said wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley shall regularly pay the interest of the several legacies after she obtains possession of my said real estate such legacies may remain unpaid for any time not exceeding the term of four years at the option of my said wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.’ Shelley assigned 6000_l._ to each of his three children, living at the time when he made the will; he bequeathed the same sum (6000_l._) to Claire, to be paid into her hands for her to deal with according to her pleasure. Had he done nothing more for her by his will, he would have dealt with her in the testament precisely as he dealt with his own children;--a sufficient proof that he felt more than an ordinary brother’s love for her. But in addition to this large legacy, he left her another 6000_l._, to be invested in an annuity for the term of her natural life, or for the lives of herself and ‘such other person’ as she should name. There is small room for doubt that, in making this direction, Shelley had Allegra in his mind, as the person whom Claire would name as her co-parcener in the annuity. I have no doubt that he wished to provide for her child even as he provided for each of his own children, and saw that to do so directly and openly, with mention of the child’s name, he must use language that would publish to the world one side of the child’s parentage, and, whilst exposing the mother to discredit, would raise a suspicion that he was the child’s father. Anyhow, he left Claire 12,000_l._ (say, a sixth or seventh of all he had to will away). A father and husband with three living children, and the prospect of having more children, he bequeathed this large sum to his wife’s ‘sister’; and yet we have been asked to believe that, at the time of making this bequest, he disliked Claire!