With this epistle the negotiations appear to have come to an end. To those who concur with Mr. Buxton Forman in thinking, that the author of _Queen Mab_ and _Laon and Cythna_ might under favourable circumstances have been ‘the Saviour of the World,’ the Squire of Field Place of course appears guilty of egregious impudence and irreverence in presuming to address his sacred son so familiarly; and it must be confessed that ‘my dear Boy’ appears a most inappropriate description of a young gentleman, worthy of being worshipt with the Deity. To persons, who concur with Mr. Froude, in thinking any extravagances and indiscretions should have been pardoned in Shelley, because he was young and enthusiastic, it must of course appear that, on receiving his son’s assurance that he had changed for the better, the Squire of Field Place should have hastened to Cooke’s Hotel, thrown his arms about the dear boy’s neck, and settled two thousand a-year upon him. To those of the Shelleyan enthusiasts who, because he lived to write incomparably fine poetry, think Shelley must always have been as faultless as his best verse, should never have been birched by the profane Keate, should never have been called to order by his father, it naturally seems insufferable insolence for a mere Member of Parliament, capable of writing nothing loftier than a barely intelligible letter, to venture to lecture so sublime a son on ‘the most unfavourable traits of his character.’ But to sober persons, who can enjoy fine poetry without thinking its producers demigods, it is not obvious why the poetic faculty should be held to exempt its possessor from any of the obligations of morality, or why a father should hesitate to reprove his son’s misconduct, because the youngster gives promise of developing into a man of genius. Even by those who recognize in Shelley’s character and career the resemblance which Mr. Buxton Forman was the first to detect in them, it will be conceded that the historic parallel would be closer, had the poet in his nonage shown more consideration for the feelings of his parents, and greater readiness to ‘be subject unto them.’