strange and exciting adventures, in difficulties and dangers, passing rapidly from opulence to poverty, from poverty again to opulence; losing the affections of some friends; creating others as if by magic; wasting vast sums of money; flying precipitately from place to place, in search of health or happiness, which, alas! it seemed destined he should never enjoy, and dying at length on a strange shore amidst tempests, thunder, and infuriated waves.

Such was his career, such his end; the moral of both will be evolved as we proceed with the narrative. The effect upon the reader's mind will depend much upon his own idiosyncrasies; upon the character of his poetical taste; upon the measure of his critical powers. For myself, I admire Shelley's writings, and love the man in spite of all that may be objected to him; yet I do not love him for his faults, but for the many virtues by which, in my opinion, he redeemed them.

Whether the judgment of others will prove equally favourable it is impossible I should know, but I will place before them fairly all the events and circumstances connected with Shelley's life, and leave them to decide for themselves.

Shelley's misfortunes commenced with his birth, since his parents were no way calculated to strengthen the virtues, or remove the defects that lurked in his constitution, mental and physical. Had Sir Timothy been an ordinary person, it might have been well; but he was distinguished from the majority by the hardness of his heart, and the vindictiveness of his disposition. His ruling passion appears to have been the love of money-the most odious, perhaps, of all the vices which degrade humanity.

He nestled snugly among rich country gentlemen in Parliament, where he made no figure; he associated with such members of the territorial aristocracy as chance threw in his way, and he married a wife exactly suited to him. The Baronet and his lady led the ordinary life of such individuals. They ate, they drank, they dressed, they flaunted in fashionable circles; but when they died, would have passed into oblivion as completely as any Saxon Thane and his wife who ate and drank during the Heptarchy, had it not been for the genius of their son, whose childhood they neglected, and whose after-years they conspired to render unhappy by their cruelty.

It is unnecessary, and would be altogether useless, to enlarge upon their proceedings. It was, however, an incalculable misfortune to Shelley, that he was not, like most other distinguished men, watched over by a mother of tender heart and superior understanding.

In emerging into being, he was literally, as Lucretius expresses it, "shipwrecked on the world," forlorn and desolate-for he who is deprived of a mother's love, can find no substitute for it in wealth or friends, or in anything that society can supply. It is to the awakening soul the one thing needful. He who possesses it, is opulent in a garret, while he who wants it is poor upon a throne.

During the first eight or ten years of his life he remained at Horsham, in the society of his parents and sisters, who were older than himself. Here he acquired the first rudiments of knowledge, under the kindly teaching of the pastor of the parish, and amused himself, as other children do, in wandering about the beautiful grounds of his father's mansion, and doing mischief.

His sisters, who appear to have been very fond of him, probably assisted his studies, and made

up, as well as they could, for the want of maternal affection. It is to be regretted that so little is known of them; as they were kind to their brother, it is probable they grew up to be estimable women; though it does not appear that even when the choice rested with him, Shelley ever sought their society. At the age of ten he was removed from the companionship of his sisters, from the benevolent charge of the Christian divine of Horsham, the Reverend Mr. Edwards, and was sent to extend his knowledge at the boarding school of Sion House, near Brentford.

CHAPTER II.

The Brentford schoolmaster

Shelley's treatment at school-His personal appearance—Introduction to his schoolfellows-Spleen of the schoolmaster-Shelley's inattention-Medwin's anecdote-Harshness of Shelley's schoolmaster-Shelley's dreamy abstraction— Walks in his sleep-Removed from Brentford.

Boys who have been brought up from their infancy exclusively in the society of girls, generally find the transition from home to a large school extremely painful. Plato observes, with great justice, that "there is no wild beast like a boy" —that is, I suppose, when all his vices have been properly developed by school training. Shelley very soon had an opportunity of speaking to the truth of this at Brentford; for his new associates at Sion House no sooner beheld his