language certainly implying that the sick boy's fancy was erroneous. Hogg says:-- 'It appeared to myself and to others also, that his, _i.e._ Shelley's recollections, were those of a person not quite recovered from a fever, which had attacked his brain, and still disturbed by the horrors of the disease. Truth and justice demand that no event of his life should be kept back, but that all materials for the formation of a correct judgment should be freely given.' Other particulars of the story may have been no less baseless. That a servant told him of his father's purpose, that he gave this servant orders and means to despatch a messenger to Dr. Lind, may have been mere fancies of the delirious brain. On the other hand, Lady Shelley may have had better authority than the poet's words for attributing the painful conviction to a servant's gossip. It can also be readily imagined that the sufferer from the distressing fancy gave his pocket-money to a servant, and bade him be off to Windsor for the doctor. These are points on which the reader may be left to form his own opinion, but he must altogether acquit Mr. Timothy Shelley of intending to send his boy to a madhouse. The indisputable facts of the story are these:--The boy had a febrile illness attended with delirium; whilst ill he suffered from a fancy that his father meant to send him to a lunatic asylum; after this notion had fastened on the disordered brain, Dr. Lind was sent for; in compliance with the summons Dr. Lind came from Windsor to Field Place, and attended the boy till he was better. A reasonable view of these facts is that during his delirious sickness the patient expressed a strong desire to see Dr. Lind, and that, in their natural desire to do the best for their child's comfort and recovery, Mr. and Mrs. Shelley invited the doctor to come to Field Place. Even Dr. Lind with all his eccentricity would not have presumed to visit Field Place without an invitation from the master of the house. Still less would he have ventured to force his way into the sick chamber against Mr. Timothy Shelley's wish. The statement that he dared Mr. Shelley 'to execute his purpose,' and brought him to a sense of decency by 'menaces,' is simply ridiculous. Ever reluctant though she is to discredit any of the poet's statements, Lady Shelley shows her opinion of the wildest extravagances of his marvellous story by being silent about them.