Knowing of my connection with Eton, Dr. Furnivall once came to me, in high spirits, with the news that in some researches at the British Museum he had by chance unearthed the fact that Nicholas Udall, a headmaster of Eton in the sixteenth century, and one of the recognized “worthies” of the school, had been convicted of a criminal offence--its nature I must leave my readers to surmise. I had heard this before, but I could not spoil the old man’s glee by saying so; I therefore congratulated him warmly, and asked him, in jest, whether he would not write to Dr. Warre and tell him of so interesting a discovery. “I _have_ written to him,” he cried; and then, with a shade of real surprise and disappointment on his face: “But he’s not answered me!” During the latter part of the Shelley Society’s career, when its fortunes were dimmed, and many of its fashionable members had dropped off, we still continued to hold our monthly meetings at University College, Gower Street, and very quaint little gatherings some of them were. The audience at times numbered no more than five or six, and the “proceedings” might have altogether failed had it not been for two or three devoted enthusiasts who never slackened in their attendance. One of these was Mrs. Simpson, an old lady who became to the Shelley Society what Miss Flite was to the Court of Chancery in _Bleak House_, an ever-present spectator and ally. We all liked and respected her--she was humanitarian as well as Shelleyan--but we were a little embarrassed when her filial piety prompted her to give us copies of her father’s writings, a bulky volume entitled _The Works of Henry Heavisides_. It was a sobering experience to become possessed of that book, the title of which conveyed a true indication of the contents. The Shelley Centenary (August 4, 1892) marked the climax of the cult which had had so great a vogue in the previous decade. The local meeting held at Horsham in the afternoon, when Sussex squires and literary gentlemen from London united in an attempt to whitewash Shelley’s character--those “shining garments” of his, “so little specked with mire,” as one speaker expressed it--was a very hollow affair which contrasted sharply with the London celebration held in the evening at the Hall of Science, when Mr. G. W. Foote presided, and Mr. Bernard Shaw convulsed the audience by his description of the Horsham apologetics. An account of both these meetings was written by “G.B.S.” in his best vein, and printed in the _Albemarle Review_: it was in this article that he made the suggestion that Shelley should be represented, at Horsham, on a bas-relief, “in a tall hat, Bible in hand, leading his children on Sunday morning to the church of his native parish.”