The end to Shelley's Oxford career came suddenly. From the day of his return to College after the Christmas vacation, things had gone pleasantly with the undergraduate. When Medwin, on passing through Oxford, spent a day with his cousin, he found him agreeably diverted with the incidents of his controversial correspondence with learned divines, including the Bishop who thought him a woman. He was exchanging letters with charming little Harriett Westbrook. His efforts for the benefit of Miss Janetta Phillips had been successful. He was on friendly, if not affectionate, terms with his father, and was at work on the poem for the Newdigate Prize. In spite of all Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy says to the contrary, he delighted as much as heretofore in the society of Hogg. The term was drawing to an end, and in a week or two the young men hoped to be at Field Place, in the society of the young lady, whose assent to their wishes would make them brothers-in-law. Nothing had occurred to forewarn him of the storm so soon to break in fury upon him, when, one fine, bright, cheery morning, Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley received a summons to appear before the Master and some of the Fellows of his College in their common-room. It does not appear that, together with the summons, Shelley received an intimation of the business that made the Master and 'dons' wish to see him. It is more than probable that the messenger who brought the summons left the undergraduate to conjecture, why he was required to meet the magnates of the College in their common-room soon after the usual hour for breakfast. He can scarcely be supposed, however, to have gone to the common-room without an apprehension that _The Necessity of Atheism_ had something to do with the summons. His suspense was of no long duration. The Master and two or three Fellows were awaiting his arrival when he entered the room, and, on his appearance, the Master produced a copy of _the Little Syllabus_.