sioned by the impression that all the sympathy was on his side.*

The deep sympathy which the poet ever evinced with poverty and suffering might lose in our estimation were it not for ever allied to unequivocal proofs of its sincerity. The liberality with which he gave to all who needed retained all the freshness of his early youth, and we learn with emotion that it was no uncommon occurrence with him to leave Hampstead with the intention of coming to town by the coach in the depth of winter, and to give away all the money he possessed to the poor people he met, before reaching the coach office, and thereby be compelled to walk.

The following anecdote will best serve to illustrate the kind of sympathy he exhibited with poverty at Hampstead.

One terrible winter night, when the snow was on the ground, Shelley in going to the house of Leigh Hunt, found a poor woman lying in fits on the hill at the top of the Heath; he immediately applied to the nearest houses to get the

* Leigh Hunt.

woman taken in, but always without success. He asked for an out-house to put her in, while he went for a doctor, assuring the people she was no impostor; but all in vain; doors were closed, windows were shut against him. All the time the poor creature was lying in strong convulsions, with her son, a very young man, lamenting over her.

At length Shelley saw a carriage drive up to a house at a little distance, and putting on his best address, which, says Hunt, anybody might recognize for that of the highest gentleman, as well as an interesting individual, he met an elderly gentleman stepping out of the carriage with his family. He told his story, but they only pressed by him the faster.

"Will you go and see her?" exclaimed Shelley.

"No, sir; there's no necessity for that sort of thing, depend on it, impostors swarm everywhere: the thing cannot be done; sir, your conduct is extraordinary."

"Sir," at last cried Shelley, assuming a very different appearance, and forcing the flourishing

householder to stop out of astonishment, "I am sorry to say that your conduct is not extraordinary and if my own seems to amaze you, I may tell you something that may amaze you a little more, and I hope will frighten you. It is such people as you who madden the spirits and the patience of the poor and wretched; and if ever a convulsion comes in this country, (which is very probable,) recollect what I tell you ;-you will have your house, that you refuse to put the miserable woman into, burnt over your head."

"God bless me, sir! Dear me, sir!" exclaimed the frightened wretch, and fluttered into his mansion.

Shelley and the woman's son then carried her, as best they could, to the house of Leigh Hunt, where a doctor soon arrived to attend her.

"It appeared," says Leigh Hunt, in relating this anecdote, "that the poor woman had been attending her son in London, on some criminal charge made against him, the agitation of which had thrown her into fits on her return. The doctor said she would inevitably have perished had she lain there a short time longer."

The next day mother and son were sent comfortably home to Hendon, where they were well known, and the poet was overwhelmed with thanks, full of gratitude. *

* Leigh Hunt's Autobiography.

CHAPTER VII.

Shelley meets John Keats-Sensitiveness of Keats-Shelley meets James and Horace Smith-Character of Horace Smith-Chancery suit against Shelley-He is deprived of his children.

AMONG the few congenial natures Shelley met under Leigh Hunt's roof, not the least conspicuous was the young poet to whose genius he has paid such a noble tribute in his "Adonais."

John Keats had been introduced to Leigh Hunt by Charles Cowden Clarke, soon after he came to reside at Hampstead, and though not then much more than nineteen, he held in his hand such things as "Sleep and Poetry," and the well-known sonnet "On first looking into