Various strange adventures befell; the oddest of
all being an alleged attempt at assassination at Tanyrallt. Shelley
asserted it, others disbelieved it: after much disputation the
biographer supposes that, if not an imposture, it was a romance, and, if
not a romance, at least a hallucination,--Shelley, besides being wild in
talk and wild in fancy, being by this time much addicted to
laudanum-dosing. In June 1813 Harriet gave birth, in London, to her
first child, Ianthe Eliza (she married a Mr. Esdaile, and died in 1876).
About the same time Shelley brought out his earliest work of importance,
the poem of _Queen Mab_: its speculative audacities were too extreme for
publication, so it was only privately printed.
Amiable and accommodating at first, and neither ill-educated nor stupid,
Harriet did not improve in tone as she advanced in womanhood. Her
sympathy or tolerance for her husband's ideals and vagaries flagged;
when they differed she gave him the cold shoulder; she wanted
luxuries--such as a carriage of her own--which he neither cared for nor
could properly afford. He even said--and one can hardly accuse him of
saying it insincerely--that she had been unfaithful to him: this however
remains quite unproved, and may have been a delusion.
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