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candidly allows to Hunt "that the truthfulness of his viewy account of Shelley's manner of living at Marlow is placed beyond question by the evidence of contemporary letters and the more precise statements of witnesses in no degree open to suspicion. Without adhering rigidly to the diet, which writers imperfectly acquainted with the philosopher's doctrine and discipline are wont to style Pythagorean, Shelley refrained from meat and wine during the greater part of his Marlow time. Once and again he lapsed suddenly or by degrees from the rules of the Vegetarians, but only to return to them with a stronger opinion that his health required him to abstain from flesh and fermented drinks. It was not possible for a man so sympathetic and observant of human life about him to live anywhere without compassionating the unfortunate of his own species; and there is a superabundance of evidence that, living at Marlow during a season of insufficient employment and keen distress for struggling people, he did all, and more than all, he could afford for the relief of the poor of his immediate neighbourhood."—("Real Shelley," Vol. ii., pp. 357-358.)
Of this period Prof. Dowden has given a very charming picture: "The scale of beneficence which began with the philosopher Godwin descended to the humblest cottager in Marlow; but it went far lower. If any priest or Levite desire to expatiate on the folly of the Samaritan who showed mercy on his neighbour that lay stripped and half dead, he may know for his behoof that Shelley cherished as his kindred even the humblest living creatures, injuring
No bright bird, insect, or gentle beast.
In divine folly, like that of St. Francis, he claimed a brotherhood with all beings that could thrill with pain or joy. It was his own Lady of the Sensitive Plant who cared tenderly for insects, whose intent, 'although they did ill, was innocent.'
And all killing insects and gnawing worms,
And things of obscene and unlovely forms,
She bore in a basket of Indian woof
Into the rough woods far aloof.
At Marlow the manservant, Harry, played the part of the Lady of the Garden, when his Vegetarian master would purchase crayfish of the men
