It is easier to discover laxity and indifference than the vexatious indiscretions of an excessive zeal in the measures employed by those authorities for the maintenance and preservation of religious uniformity. Acting too much rather than too little like men of the world, too little rather than too much like cloistered enthusiasts, they allowed their undergraduates as far as possible to go their own way, reading whatever they pleased, saying whatever they liked amongst themselves. When he remarked approvingly of the authorities of his college, 'They are very civil to us here: they never interfere with us,' Shelley described precisely the method of academic government, that, according to Mr. Garnett, would have preserved Shelley to the University. In respect to affairs of religion no less than other matters, the undergraduates were treated civilly; put as gentlemen upon their honour, taken as gentlemen at their word, allowed the largest possible liberty, interfered with as little as possible. At matriculation the undergraduate was subjected to no searching examination, for the discovery of the weak points of his orthodoxy. It was enough that he made the usual declaration and subscription with the simple honesty and good faith to be looked for in young Englishmen. After matriculation he was allowed an almost perilous freedom. He did not live, like the students of some religious seminaries, under constant surveillance and espionage. He had no fear that, during his absence from his rooms, strange eyes would inspect his private books and search his private papers. He was not harassed with divinity lectures, attended with questions nicely devised for entrapping him into revelations of theological unsoundness. Heterodoxy was not sniffed, scented, hunted down and punished in him and his companions, as heresy was detected and denounced in the colleges of the sixteenth century by spies and eavesdroppers. It was enough for the 'dons' of his particular college and the other authorities of the University, that he attended chapel with sufficient frequency, and took the Sacrament in accordance with the rules of 'the house.' Just as he was credited with sincerity at matriculation, when he subscribed the Articles, it was assumed that he attended chapel as a sincere member of the Church of England. If he asked for exemption from attendance at the next celebration of the Lord's Supper, the request was not regarded as an indication of heterodoxy. Throughout his terms, in the absence of clear and unlooked-for evidence to the contrary, it was inferred from his fair observance of religious forms, that he was an honest Churchman. To what further point could _laisser-faire_ indulgence be carried with safety? In this manner Shelley was treated in respect to matters of religion by the rulers of his college, who are said to have worried him with vexatious interference and insulting requirements. The boy of eighteen years was dealt with in this fashion.