very palatable to boys, and which, doubtless, the promising youth fulfilled to the letter, with filial obedience.

But if Shelley's expulsion rudely severed all domestic ties-alienated the hearts of his parents from him—it was a blight to all his hopes, the rock on which all the prospects of wedded happiness split. Further communication with Miss Grove was prohibited; and he had the heartrending agony of soon knowing that she was lost to him for ever. Byron's whole life is said to have received its bias from love-from his blighted affection for Miss Chaworth. There was a similarity in the fates of the two poets; but the effects were different: Byron sought for refuge in dissipation, and gave vent to his feelings in satire. He looked upon the world as his enemy, and visited what he deemed the wrong of one, on his species at large. Shelley, on the contrary, with the goodness of a noble mind, sought by a more enlarged philosophy to dull the edge of his own miseries, and in the sympa

thy of a generous and amiable nature for the sufferings of his kind, to find relief and solace for a disappointment which in Byron had only led to wilful exaggeration of its own despair. Shelley, on this trying occasion, had the courage to live, in order that he might labour for one great object, the advancement of the human race, and the amelioration of society, and strengthened himself in a resolution to devote his energies to this ultimate end, being prepared to endure every obloquy, to make any sacrifice for its accomplishment; and would, if necessary, have died for the cause He had the ambition, thus early manifested, of becoming a reformer; for one Sunday, after we had been to Rowland Hill's chapel, and were dining together in the city, he wrote to him under an assumed name, proposing to preach to his congregation. Of course he received no answer. Had he applied to Carlisle or Owen, perhaps the reply would have been affirmative. But he had perhaps scarcely heard

of their names or doctrines, even if they had commenced their career.

It is possible that Shelley wrongly classified that excellent and worthy man, Rowland Hill, who had renounced the advantages of birth and position for the good of his species, with the ranting Methodists, or violent demagogues of the time; in all probability, he had never even heard of him before that day, when he stood amid the crowd that overflowed the chapel through the open door. It was at best a foolish and inconsiderate act—and can only be excused from his total ignorance of the character of Rowland Hill, and the nature of his preaching.

That Shelley's disappointment in love affected him acutely, may be seen by some lines inscribed erroneously, "On F. G.," instead of "H. G.," and doubtless of a much earlier date than assigned by Mrs. Shelley to the fragment :

Her voice did quiver as we parted,

Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From which it came, and I departed,
Heeding not the words then spoken-
Misery! O misery!

This world is all too wide for thee!

Shelley's residence with his family was become, for the reasons I have stated, so irksome to him, that he soon took refuge in London, from

"His cold fireside and alienated home."

I have found a clue, to develope the mystery of how he became acquainted with Miss Westbrook. The father, who was in easy circumstances, kept an hotel in London, and sent his daughter to a school at Balam Hill, where Shelley's second sister made one of the boarders. It so happened, that as Shelley was walking in the garden of this seminary, Miss Westbrook past them. She was a handsome blonde, not then sixteen. Shelley was so struck with her beauty, that after his habit of writing, as in the case of Felicia Browne and others, to ladies who interested him, he contrived, through the intermediation of his sister, to carry on a correspondence with her. The intimacy was not long in ripening. The young lady was nothing loth to be wooed, and after a period of only a few weeks,

it was by a sort of knight-errantry that Shelley carried her off from Chapel-street, Grosvenorsquare, where she sorely complained of being subject to great oppression from her sister and father. Whether this was well or ill-founded, is little to the purpose to enquire. Probably, Shelley and Miss Harriett Westbrook-there might have been some magic in the name of Harriett had not met half a dozen times at all before the elopement; they were totally unacquainted with each other's dispositions, habits, or pursuits; and took a rash step, that none but a mere boy and girl would have taken. Well might it be termed an ill-judged and ill-assorted union,--bitter were destined to be its fruits.

All the circumstances relative to the progress of this affair, he kept a profound secret, nor in any way alluded to it in any correspondence, nor was it even guessed at by Dr. Grove, in whose house he was lodging; nor on parting with Shelley at Horsham, the day before his departure, when he borrowed some money of my father,