How the pamphlet came to the Master's hands is unknown to the present writer. There is reason to think the work had not been on sale in Oxford for many days, though its speedy publication had been advertised in the _Oxford Herald_ on the 9th of the previous month. There is reason for thinking that 25th March, 1811, the day of Shelley's expulsion, was also the day on which the tract was first offered for sale in Oxford. After the author's disgrace, no tradesman of the city would have ventured to offer the work to customers in the ordinary way of business. As the University police were doubtless on the look-out for the publication, it is not to be supposed that the tract had been long on sale before it came to the Master's hands. I should not be surprised to learn that the first copy displayed in Mr. Munday's shop-window was snapped up by an officer of the University within a few minutes of its appearance there, and that the policeman's act was speedily followed by the delivery of a notice, that determined Mr. Munday to lose no time in destroying all the copies of the work remaining in his possession. In fact, I should not be surprised to learn that Mr. Buxton Forman had good authority for the precise number of minutes which he represents (figuratively or literally) as covering the time during which the tract was on sale at Oxford. To imagine all this is, of course, also to conceive that the authorities of University College had already completed their inquiries respecting the work, had discovered the author, and at the break of the 25th day of March, were only waiting for an act of formal publication, to take promptly a course of action on which they had previously decided.