Whilst holding this office, not content with deriding the masters and disobeying their orders at every turn, the boy also distinguished himself by the fervour and blasphemous ingenuity with which he used to curse the King (George the Third), and used also to curse his own father. It speaks ill for the tone of Etonian manners during the poet's time at the public school, that the boys used to gather round the Lord High Atheist on a hint that he meant forthwith to curse his own father. The willing listeners never seem to have expressed disgust at the comminatory performance. On the contrary, the frequently repeated entertainment was thought so droll and piquant that, during his short stay at Oxford, Shelley was entreated, at least on one occasion, to curse his father yet again for the gratification of two or three of his former schoolfellows. Hogg, who was present on this occasion, records that Shelley yielded reluctantly to the entreaty; but he _did_ consent to the importunity of the old Etonians, and 'delivered with vehemence and animation a string of execrations, greatly resembling in its absurdity a papal anathema.' Though he joined in the 'hearty laugh,' that rewarded the performer, Hogg, on the departure of the two or three Etonians, exclaimed, 'Why, you young reprobate, who in the world taught you to curse your father,--your own father?'--an inquiry to which Shelley replied:-- 'My grandfather, Sir Bysshe, partly; but principally my friend, Dr. Lind, at Eton. When anything goes wrong at Field Place, my father does nothing but swear all day long afterwards. Whenever I have gone with my father to visit Sir Bysshe, he always received him with a tremendous oath, and continued to heap curses upon his head so long as he remained in the room.' Ever ready, though he was, to give evidence to his father's discredit, the undergraduate did not venture to charge his father with retorting Sir Bysshe's maledictions. Whilst Mr. Timothy Shelley appears only to have sworn after a bad fashion of the period, the first baronet of Castle Goring exceeded the licence of blasphemy accorded to gentlemen by a custom, more honoured in the breach than the observance.