of their qualities, and that fraction in its negative aspect; while, on the other hand, rivulets of blood which have gained for themselves no name upon earth may combine to form a river illustrious to the whole world.  In the latter case, not an unusual effect is that those who are charged with the infancy of the new type in the family are incompetent to their duty; and accordingly Shelley was regarded merely as “a strange boy,” wayward, mutinous, and to be severely chastised into obedience.  It has been said that he attracted no particular notice at school; but this is not true.  At Eton his resentment of tyrannical authority displayed itself not only against the masters, but against the privileges of young patricians.  He refused to be “fag”; and on one occasion he so braved the youthful public-opinion, that, on being dared to the act by the surrounding boys, he pinned a companion’s hand to the table with a fork.  According to my recollection, the immediate provocative was that he was dared to do it; but the incident arose out of his resistance to the seniors amongst the scholars and to the customs of the school.  It was evident that the masters had their eye upon him.  Such a youth, with a command of language that was a born faculty and not simply acquired, must have attracted very positive attention on the part of the teachers; but it was certain, that, with the tendencies of those days, they would have thought it discreet to say as little as possible about the slender mutineer.  It is equally well known, that, notwithstanding his youth, religious opinions caused his expulsion from college; and when we turn to the earliest of his writings which assumed anything like a complete shape, we discover at once the nature of those powers which could not have been overlooked,—­we detect the genius, the revolutionary ideas, and the extraordinary command which he had acquired over the subject-matter of much that is taught in schools and colleges.  Amid the orthodox reaction that followed upon the French Revolution, he was struck with the excesses to which despotic power could be carried.  He read history with sympathies for the natural impulses and aspirations of the race, as opposed to the small circles which comprise established authorities.  He looked upon knowledge as the means of serving, not enslaving the race.  And therefore, while he excused the crimes of the Revolution, on the score of the ignorance in which the people had been kept, their sufferings, and the natural revulsion against such painful down-treading, he regarded the counter acts of authority as a treachery to wisdom itself.  He says,—­

“Hath Nature’s soul,
That formed this world so beautiful.... 
And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dust
With spirit, thought, and love, on Man alone,
Partial in causeless malice, wantonly
Heaped ruin, vice, and slavery? 
Nature?—­no! 
Kings, priests, and statesmen blast the human flower
Even in its tender bud; their influence darts
Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins
Of desolate society.”