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who brought them through the streets, and would order his servant to bear them back to their lurkiug places in the Thames. Miss Rose, who tells this singular illustration of Shelley's faith that love should be the law of life, was, as a child, for some time an inmate of Shelley's home at Marlow. One day in early summer the strange gentleman, bare headed, with eyes like a deer's, and with the pale green leaves of wild clematis wound about him, had glanced at her as he came out of the wood; by and by he returned with a lady, fair and very young, who asked her name, and begged to know if they might see her mother. They had taken a fancy to little brown-eyed Polly, and if her mother could spare her, and had no objection, they would like to educate her. Next morning Polly went to their house, where she spent part of almost every day until they left Marlow. Shelley's manner, she says, to all about him was playful and affectionate. At five they dined, Shelley's dinner consisting often of bread and raisins, always eaten off one particular plate. After dinner he would read or write until ten o'clock, at which hour Polly, if sleeping at the house, retired to bed. Before she slept Mrs. Shelley would see her, and talk to her of what she and her husband had been reading or discussing, always winding up with 'And now, Polly, what do you think of this?' On Christmas eve Shelley related the ghostly tale of Burger's Ballad of Leonore, a copy of which, in Spenser's translation, with Lady Diana Beauclerc's designs, he possessed, working up the horror to such a height of fearful interest that Polly 'quite expected to see Wilhelm walk into the drawing-room.' A favourite game with Shelley was to put Polly on a table, and tilt it up, letting the little girl slide its full length; or she and Miss Clairmont would sit together on the table, while Shelley ran it from one end of the room to the other. On the day on which he left Marlow for ever, Shelley filled his favourite plate with raisins and almonds, and gave it to Polly—a relic which she treasured for almost half a century, when, by her desire, it was placed among the objects belonging to his father, which remain the possession of Shelley's son."—(Dowden's "Life," Vol. ii., p. 123.)
It cannot be said that the poet's life was really hygienic. "A Vegetarian diet," observes Prof. Dowden, "and abundance of cold water,
