way in which he rolled away from any object that screened him from the fire, and placed his little head so that it felt more sensibly the ardour of the burning coals. Occasionally he talked in his sleep, more often his rest was not less silent than long. Whilst the youngster slept, the reading-man worked steadily at his books and papers. Recovering consciousness as suddenly as he lost it, Shelley was no sooner awake than he was restored to perfect mental alertness. Rising to his feet with startling alacrity, he was ready for talk as soon as he had rubbed his eyes and passed his long fingers through his long hair. At the same instant, the north-countryman looked up from his books and turned away from his papers. On different evenings, the talk ran on poetry and science, logic and history, morals and religion, man's relation to the universe, the soul's immortality, the errors of the creeds, and the reasons why a reasonable man should not believe in anything. Sometimes the talk resulted in reference to books, and the reference to books for particular passages led sometimes to larger reading of them. If it was not begun and perfected, the 'very careful analysis' of Hume's _Essays_ was often referred to, reconsidered and amended at these nocturnal conferences. At other times, when the youthful philosophers were weary of high and exhausting themes, the talk turned on their domestic interests, their kindred and prospects, their respective homes and counties, the humours of Durham and Yorkshire, and the manners of Sussex. When the gossip played about these homely topics, the freshman was even more entertaining to his delightful and incomparable friend, than when they discoursed on loftier matters. Lying back in his chair, and laughing in his sleeve as he tried to discriminate between the fact and fiction of his companion's marvellous communications, Mr. Hogg, of University College, learnt many things that were not altogether true of Field Place, its inmates, and its traditions. From the commencement of their friendship, it was obvious to the young gentleman from the neighbourhood of Stockton-on-Tees, that his friend's statements were to be taken with allowance for the vigour of a fertile fancy, and the speaker's propensity for drawing the colloquial long-bow. When the scientific enthusiast described with needless emphasis and much extravagant gesticulation how nearly he had killed himself at Eton, by inadvertently swallowing some mineral poison, the interested but scarcely sympathetic listener suspected that a lively imagination was in some degree accountable for the thrilling tale. The stories about the 'Old Snake' were received in the same sceptical spirit by the auditor, who regarded the staggering legends as signally wanting in 'the commonplace truth of ordinary matters of fact,' though doubtless rich in 'the far higher truth of poetical verity and mythological necessity.' The