I have ventured to print certain words of the above extract in italics.
(1) As Mr. Kegan Paul ought to have known that Shelley was in London from an early time of April till after the middle of July, 1813, he should not have written, ‘In 1813 Shelley was again in London for a short time during the summer;’—words implying that the poet was in London only for a short time.
(2) Nor should Mr. Kegan Paul have written in continuation of the same sentence, ‘but Mary was absent in Scotland;’—words implying that she was in Scotland during the whole time Shelley was in London, i.e. from about the end of the first week of April, 1813, till after the middle of July, 1813.
(3) Can Mr. Kegan Paul produce any sufficient evidence that Mary Godwin was in Scotland for a single day of that period? On the 8th June, 1814, the day when Hogg saw her for the first time, in the parlour over her father’s shop in Skinner Street, Mary Godwin had recently returned from her sojourn in Scotland, and was wearing ‘a frock of tartan, an unusual dress in London at that time.’ We have Mr. Kegan Paul’s assurance, made on the evidence of the Field Place papers, that Mary Godwin’s stay in Scotland was for six months; and there is other evidence that she stayed there for about that time. Mary Godwin was certainly back in London on the 8th June, 1814. Mr. Kegan Paul’s words imply that she had returned very much before the 18th May, 1814; but there are grounds for thinking that she did not return much earlier. Let us suppose she returned at the beginning of the month. In that case she went to Scotland, for her six months’ visit, at the end of October or the beginning of November 1813, when Shelley was either at or approaching Edinburgh,—more than three months after Shelley’s stay in London (from the first week of April to the middle of July, 1813) came to an end.
(4) Shelley returned from Scotland to London shortly before Christmas 1813, and made a brief stay in town. But it will not clear Mr. Kegan Paul from this charge of serious inaccuracy for him to say his printed words refer to this brief visit at the end of the year. Mr. Kegan Paul speaks of Shelley’s stay in London in the summer of 1813.
(5) As Mary Godwin was in London during the time Shelley lived in Half-Moon Street and Pimlico, and as Shelley saw her during that time, i.e. between the end of the first week of April and the middle of July, 1813, Mr. Kegan Paul should not have written, ‘It was not until the summer of 1814 that Shelley and Mary Godwin became really acquainted, when he found the child whom he had scarcely noticed two years before had grown into the woman of nearly seventeen summers;’—words implying that on seeing Mary Godwin in May, 1814, he had not seen her for two years.
(6) Mr. Kegan Paul should not have written that, two years before seeing her in May, 1814, Shelley had seen Mary Godwin and scarcely noticed the child, for in May, 1812, Shelley had never set eyes on the child. At the beginning of May, 1812, five months had still to elapse before Shelley saw Mary for the first time. In May, 1814, he had known her for only one year and seven months. He cannot from personal observation have regarded Mary as a child, five months before he ever saw her.
(7) Mr. Kegan Paul should not have suggested that, after returning from London to Tanyrallt in November 1812, Shelley had no opportunity of holding personal intercourse with Mary Godwin, till the 18th May, in 1814, when he ought to have known that, during the season of 1813, Shelley was a frequent visitor at the Skinner-Street house.
(8) Mr. Kegan Paul would not have written of Mary Godwin as a ‘woman of nearly seventeen summers’ in May 1814 when on the 1st morning of that month she was only sixteen years and eight months of age, had he not wished to make her seem as old as possible.
(9) As Mr. Kegan Paul’s book affords evidence that Mary and Claire were of about the same age he should not have suggested (what elsewhere in his book he says outright) that Jane Clairmont was considerably Mary’s senior, and should therefore be held accountable for her sister’s misconduct.