How, then, did Mr. Timothy Shelley deal with his son on his expulsion from Oxford, when the eighteen-years-old boy was lodging in Poland Street? Did he denounce and discard him? On the contrary, he invited him and his friend in trouble to dinner. Did this hard-hearted, unnatural father at once forbid the boy to come into his presence, and order him to keep away from the home of his infantile years? On the contrary, he bade him go quickly to his mother and sisters, and resolve to be a better boy under the private tutor, who would soon be found to take charge of him, than he had been under his masters at Eton and his tutors at Oxford. Did he speak of the boy as hopelessly bad and unreasonable? By no means. Taking a cheery view of the case, he thought the boy could be brought out of his spiritual disease and mental disorder by a course of 'Palley.' And believing that the course of 'Palley' would operate more quickly and efficaciously if the reasonings of the divine were enforced by the luminous comments of an equally sagacious and affectionate father, the honest gentleman got down his copy of Paley's _Natural Theology_ and worked away at it so that he might be ready to be his boy's preceptor. The absurdity of his proceedings and purpose must be admitted. No doubt, he went on strangely at Miller's Hotel. His notion that with Paley's help he could recover his son from infidelity, and bring him back safe and sound to orthodoxy, is exquisitely droll. But one looks in vain to discover unnatural harshness and cruelty in his measures for his son's benefit. Urging that this troubled father should not be utterly condemned for his action to his son, and speaking of 'some excuse' that may be fairly made for his conduct, Lady Shelley (writing from those 'authentic sources' which afford her so little information) says:--'Still, it is to be regretted that a milder course was not pursued towards one who was peculiarly open to the teachings of love.' If Mr. Shelley did and said a few unreasonable things, when his conciliatory action was answered with unqualified rebellion, it cannot be denied that the line of action he proposed to take to his boy at the end of March and the beginning of April was reasonable, moderate, generous, and affectionate. What could be milder than his requirements, that the eighteen-years-old boy should go home to his mother and sisters, read with a tutor, and desist from intercourse with Hogg 'for some considerable time,'--_not for ever_; not for many years; but for _some considerable time_,--say, till he should come of age and be master of his own actions?