(1) Mr. MacCarthy's sole reason for attributing the _Ode to the Death of Summer_ to Shelley's pen, is that it possesses the 'peculiar Shelleyan flavour by which we can so easily recognise his later poems,' the qualities of feeling and expression, which justify the author of _Shelley's Early Life_ for saying,-- 'As Pope said of Chapman's translation of the _Iliad_, that it was "something like what one would imagine Homer himself would have writ before he arrived at years of discretion;" so this little poem may be offered as something like what Shelley would have sung before he attained the full faculty of lyrical expression.' But whilst there is no positive testimony that the Oxonian Shelley could give his verses the peculiar flavour for which Mr. MacCarthy commends the 'Ode,' which appears in the _Oxford Herald_ of 22nd September, 1810, the poems of _St. Irvyne_, published three months later, may well dispose critical readers to question, whether the author of the novel was capable of producing verses, having any resemblance to the poetry of his later time. It may, of course, be urged that the verses, put into the ridiculous romance, were the nerveless efforts of a considerably earlier period; but it is difficult to believe that, could he have produced the _Ode to the Death of Summer_ in September, 1810, the Oxonian Shelley could a few weeks later have offered the public such feeble effusions as the _St. Irvyne_ verses. (2) Whilst Shelley's title to be regarded as the author of _The Ode_ rests on the 'Shelleyan flavour' of the poem, which in that respect differs from all the poetry known to have proceeded from his pen before the end of 1810, his claim to be regarded as one of the producers of the 'prose essays on some of the older English poets' (which appeared in the _Oxford Herald_ during his residence at the University) rests on the fact that one of these essays is signed, 'P. S.' 'One of the papers, signed "P. S."' says Mr. MacCarthy, 'appeared during the period of Shelley's residence, and may possibly have been written by him.' It is quite as probable that some Peter Smith, or other person with P. S. for his initials, wrote the verses.