That Shelley was not wholly friendless or unhappy at Eton may be gathered from numerous small circumstances.  Hogg says that his Oxford rooms were full of handsome leaving books, and that he was frequently visited by old Etonian acquaintances.  We are also told that he spend the 40 pounds gained by his first novel, “Zastrozzi,” on a farewell supper to eight school-boy friends.  A few lines, too, might be quoted from his own poem, the “Boat on the Serchio,” to prove that he did not entertain a merely disagreeable memory of his school life. (Forman’s edition, volume 4 page 115.) Yet the general experience of Eton must have been painful; and it is sad to read of this gentle and pure spirit being goaded by his coarser comrades into fury, or coaxed to curse his father and the king for their amusement.  It may be worth mentioning that he was called “the Atheist” at Eton; and though Hogg explains this by saying that “the Atheist” was an official character among the boys, selected from time to time for his defiance of authority, yet it is not improbable that Shelley’s avowed opinions may even then have won for him a title which he proudly claimed in after-life.  To allude to his boyish incantations and nocturnal commerce with fiends and phantoms would scarcely be needful, were it not that they seem to have deeply tinged his imagination.  While describing the growth of his own genius in the “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” he makes the following reference to circumstances which might otherwise be trivial:—­

    While yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and sped
    Thro’ many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin,
    And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
    Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
    I call’d on poisonous names with which our youth is fed,
    I was not heard, I saw them not—­
    When, musing deeply on the lot
    Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
    All vital things that wake to bring
    News of birds and blossoming,—­
    Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
    I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

Among the Eton tutors was one whose name will always be revered by Shelley’s worshippers; for he alone discerned the rare gifts of the strange and solitary boy, and Shelley loved him.  Dr. Lind was an old man, a physician, and a student of chemistry.  Shelley spent long hours at his house, conversing with him, and receiving such instruction in philosophy and science as the grey-haired scholar could impart.  The affection which united them must have been of no common strength or quality; for when Shelley lay ill of a fever at Field Place, and had conceived the probably ill-founded notion that his father intended to place him in a mad-house, he managed to convey a message to his friend at Eton, on the receipt of which Dr. Lind travelled to Horsham, and by his sympathy and skill restored the sick boy’s confidence.  It may incidentally be pointed out that this story,