Homeless for the moment, the minor deferred the happiness of seeing his London friends until he had found a home in which to receive them. From this light and airy announcement of his sudden and enforced withdrawal from Nantgwillt House, Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy is inclined to infer that the farmer told the trio to leave his homestead, because he questioned their ability to pay for their entertainment. ‘Shelley,’ says the author, whose abuse of Hogg determined some of the Shelleyan enthusiasts to declare him a high authority on the poet’s ‘Early Life,’ ‘resided at Nantgwillt for seven weeks. He changed his residence, not through any restlessness of disposition, for it is evident he was reluctant to leave it, _but, perhaps_, owing to the doubts of the “farmer” as to the security of his rent. Such is the interpretation I put on the following passage in a letter to Godwin, dated “Cwm-Rhayader, June 11th, 1812:--“We are unexpectedly compelled to quit Nantgwillt. I hope, however, before long time has elapsed, to find a home. These accidents are unavoidable to a minor.”’ Shelley’s letter to Mr. Medwin disposes of the suspicion which should not have been entertained by the authoritative writer on Shelleyan evidences, though it may well have occurred to Godwin in June, 1812, as a reasonable way of accounting for the unexpected change of residence. Coming to Nantgwillt House at the very moment when the bankrupt farmer was about to leave the holding, and his assignees were looking out for some one to take the remainder of his lease, Shelley may be assumed to have retired from the house at the request of an incoming tenant, who required all the rooms for his own use. In the failure of his attempt to take the farm, there is enough to account for Shelley’s way of speaking of his change of abode as unexpected and involuntary. The incoming tenant’s conceivable reluctance to entertain lodgers would be another disappointment of the poet’s expectations. There is no direct evidence that Shelley was just then suffering from financial distress in a degree to make the Nantgwillt farmer suspect his solvency. On the contrary, his ability to continue his southward journey within a few days of his retirement from the farmhouse points to the opposite conclusion. CHAPTER V. NORTH DEVON.