But one hesitates to trust in this matter to the biographer who seems to have erred in recording that Shelley acquired a taste for boating, even at a time considerably prior to the period in which this secret and lawless trip to the Richmond Theatre is said to have been made. Peacock, who can scarcely have been mistaken, was certain the poet's 'affection for boating began at a much later date' than his time at Eton. Walter S. Halliday (Shelley's friend at the public school) was no less certain, in February, 1857, that at Eton Shelley 'never joined in the usual sports of the boys, and, what is remarkable, never went out in a boat on the river.' Had Shelley enjoyed boating at Sion House, it is inconceivable that he (so passionately fond of the water in later time) would have avoided the river, or could have been kept from it at Eton. As Halliday was no such reliable authority as successive writers have thought, I should have hesitated to prefer his evidence to Medwin's testimony on this point, had not the Etonian witness been so emphatically sustained by Love Peacock. In regard to what he says of Shelley's boating at Brentford, Mr. Medwin professes to speak from his own knowledge. On the other hand, he acknowledges that, with respect to the poet's alleged love of boating at Eton, he speaks on the worst possible authority--the poet's own equally delusive and retentive memory. 'He told me,' says Medwin, _vide_ _The Life_, v. I., p. 52, 'the greatest delight he experienced at Eton was from boating, for which he had, as I have already mentioned, early acquired a taste.' Such unsupported evidence from Shelley is scarcely anything better than no evidence at all, on being opposed by such witnesses as Halliday and Peacock.