'Prince Athanase had one belovèd friend, An old, old man, with hair of silver white, And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend With his wise words; * * * * * Such was Zonoras; and as daylight finds One amaranth glittering on the path of frost, When autumn nights have nipt all weaker kinds, Thus through his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tost, Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he filled From fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost, The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child, With soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild. And sweet and subtle talk now evermore, The pupil and the master shared; until, Sharing that undiminishable store, The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran His teacher, and did teach with native skill Strange truths and new to that experienced man; Still they were friends, as few have ever been Who mark the extremes of life's discordant span.' It was to this amiable and wise physician that Shelley was indebted for another practice, scarcely less hurtful to his moral character, and far more fruitful to him of disaster at the outset of life, than his revolting habit of cursing his own father. Not content with teaching him to curse his parent, Dr. Lind taught the boy it was good fun to inveigle unwary people into scientific controversies, to trip them up with catch-questions, and then to laugh at them for being fools. By this mild-natured and benevolent physician (who is usually described as satisfying the boy's hunger for wholesome knowledge, and ministering to his spiritual needs) Shelley, whilst at Eton, was taught to write letters under assumed names to persons interested in, but only slightly acquainted with, chemistry,--in order to discover their ignorance, and then have the pleasure of laughing insolently at it. The letters written for this amiable purpose (under Dr. Lind's instruction) were for the most part written deceitfully,--_i.e._ with a false show of being written by a young and ingenuous inquirer after truth, and with a false name and address. Can any diversion be imagined more likely to infuse a boy with self-conceit and arrogance, to inspire him with the temper most foreign to genuine love of knowledge, and giving him a taste for underhand trickery, to train him how to indulge it habitually? Yet the good and wise Dr. Lind taught the boy to amuse himself in this ungenerous and deceitful way. By-and-bye, the disastrous consequences of this practice on the boy's career at Oxford will be seen. That Shelley on coming to Oxford was so disputatious, so overflowing with scorn for minds he deemed weaker than his own, so ungenerously eager to prove himself wiser than his teachers, so ungenerously quick to show people they were fools, and mock them for being fools, must be attributed in a great degree to his premature introduction (by the humane and judicious Dr.