From this chapter on Shelley's school-days at Brentford, one should not omit a pleasant glimpse that is afforded of the boy (in the company of his cousins, the Groves, sons of Thomas Grove, of Fern House, Wiltshire, who married Charlotte Pilford, sister of the poet's mother) by a letter, dated to Hogg, February 16th, 1857, by Charles Henry Grove. At that date it was in the memory of Charles Henry Grove how, when a tender Harrovian, _ætat._ nine, he saw his cousin Bysshe for the first time. On this occasion the nine-year old Harrovian, attended by his brother George, _ætat._ ten, and protected by a sufficient body-servant, picked Bysshe up at Brentford and carried him off, on the roof of the stage-coach to Wiltshire, for the Easter holidays. It lived in Charles Grove's memory, how, during these holidays he and his brother joined Shelley in a feat of mischief that no doubt made the Squire of Fern wish them back at school. Acting on Bysshe's suggestion, the three took the carpenter's axes, and set to work cutting down some of the young fir-trees of Fern Park. As Charles Grove, _ætat._ nine at the time of this occurrence, was born in 1794 (_vide_ Burke's _Landed Gentry_), and Shelley was born in August, 1792, this pretty 'piece of boys' mischief' may be assigned to the Easter holidays of Bysshe's twelfth year,--_i.e._ Easter, 1804; about the middle of his whole time at Sion House. It seems to have been towards the end of his time at Brentford, that Shelley experienced the delights of his tender attachment to the gentle schoolmate of his own age, with whom he used to hold romantic converse in the playground, and exchange 'good-night kisses' at the time for going to bed--the childish attachment so sweetly commemorated in the _Essay on Friendship_. What is the biographical value of that charming story, which one could believe no less readily than gladly, were it not told _of_ Shelley _by_ Shelley?