The same characteristic of Shelley’s temperament produced also most marked effects on his speculative opinions. The peculiarity of his creed early brought him into opposition to the world. His education seems to have been principally directed by his father, of whom the only description which has reached us is not favourable. Sir Timothy Shelley, according to Captain Medwin, was an illiterate country gentleman of an extinct race; he had been at Oxford, where he learned nothing, had made the grand tour, from which he brought back ‘a smattering of bad French and a bad picture of an eruption at Vesuvius.’ He had the air of the old school, and the habit of throwing it off which distinguished that school. Lord Chesterfield himself was not easier on matters of morality. He used to tell his son that he would provide for natural children _ad infinitum_, but would never forgive his making a _mésalliance_. On religion his opinions were very lax. He, indeed, ‘required his servants,’ we are told, ‘to attend church,’ and even on rare occasions, with superhuman virtue, attended himself; but there, as with others of that generation, his religion ended. He doubtless did not feel that any more could be required of him. He was not consciously insincere; but he did not in the least realise the opposition between the religion which he professed and the conduct which he pursued. Such a person was not likely to influence a morbidly sincere imaginative nature in favour of the doctrines of the Church of England. Shelley went from Eton, where he had been singular, to Oxford, where he was more so. He was a fair classical scholar. But his real mind was given to out-of-school knowledge. He had written a novel; he had studied chemistry; when pressed in argument, he used to ask, ‘What, then, does Condorcet say upon the subject?’ This was not exactly the youth for the University of Oxford in the year 1810. A distinguished pupil of that University once observed to us, ‘The use of the University of Oxford is, that no one can over-read themselves there. The appetite for knowledge is repressed. A blight is thrown over the ingenuous mind, &c.’ And possibly it may be so; considering how small a space literary knowledge fills in the busy English world, it may not be without its advantages that any mind prone to bookish enthusiasm should be taught by the dryness of its appointed studies, the want of sympathy of its teachers, and a rough contact with average English youth, that studious enthusiasm must be its own reward; that in this country it will meet with little other; that it will not be encouraged in high places. Such discipline may, however, be carried too far. A very enthusiastic mind may possibly by it be turned in upon itself. This was the case with Shelley. When he first came up to Oxford physics were his favourite pursuit. On chemistry, especially, he used to be eloquent. ‘The galvanic battery,’ said he, ‘is a new engine. It