When he wrote to Hogg on the 20th of December, 1810, Shelley had endured and was still enduring several sharp annoyances. Angry words had escaped 'the Fiery Hun,' who scolded his son for writing ridiculous books when he should be reading learned ones at Oxford; scolded him for running into debt with a publisher and printer, whom he had no means of paying; scolded him for adopting the damnable opinions of Hume, Paine, and the other infidels; scolded him royally for his most ungentlemanlike behaviour, in trying to lure his cousin Harriett from the sound Christian principles in which she had been educated by her most virtuous and exemplary parents. It was the way of fathers to scold their sons thus royally at the beginning of the present century; and it being part of the paternal style of George the Third's time, no sound-hearted and loyal-hearted son ever resented so wholesome, though somewhat turbulent, an exercise of paternal authority. Now-a-days, fathers bring, or try to bring, their disorderly sons to meet contrition, with less noise and more dignity, but with speech quite as galling at the time, and more likely to rankle in the memory. To argue that Mr. Timothy Shelley was brutal and wanting in natural affection, because he scolded his naughty boy in this manner, is wild nonsense. However roundly he was spoken to, Mr. Bysshe Shelley received nothing more than he deserved. For awhile the father threatened to take his son from Oxford at once, but the threat was not carried out. It would have been better for Shelley had his father held to the threat. Mr. Bysshe Shelley's grand averment that the menace was withdrawn, because he 'would not consent to it,' is a delicious piece of puerile 'bounce.'