Shelley’s second letter contains an extraordinary mixture of truth willingly communicated, and of curious romance, illustrating his tendency to colour facts with the hallucinations of an ardent fancy.  Of his sincerity there is, I think, no doubt.  He really meant what he wrote; and yet we have no reason to believe the statement that he was twice expelled from Eton for disseminating the doctrines of “Political Justice”, or that his father wished to drive him by poverty to accept a commission in some distant regiment, in order that he might prosecute the “Necessity of Atheism” in his absence, procure a sentence of outlawry, and so convey the family estates to his younger brother.  The embroidery of bare fact with a tissue of imagination was a peculiarity of Shelley’s mind; and this letter may be used as a key for the explanation of many strange occurrences in his biography.  What he tells Godwin about his want of love for his father, and his inability to learn from the tutors imposed upon him at Eton and Oxford, represents the simple truth.  Only from teachers chosen by himself, and recognized as his superiors by his own deliberate judgment, can he receive instruction.  To Godwin he resigns himself with the implicit confidence of admiration.  Godwin was greatly struck with this letter.  Indeed, he must have been “or God or beast,” like the insensible man in Aristotle’s “Ethics”, if he could have resisted the devotion of so splendid and high-spirited a nature, poured forth in language at once so vehement and so convincingly sincere.  He accepted the responsible post of Shelley’s Mentor; and thus began a connexion which proved not only a source of moral support and intellectual guidance to the poet, but was also destined to end in a closer personal tie between the two illustrious men.

In his second letter Shelley told Godwin that he was then engaged in writing “An inquiry into the causes of the failure of the French Revolution to benefit mankind,” adding, “My plan is that of resolving to lose no opportunity to disseminate truth and happiness.”  Godwin sensibly replied that Shelley was too young to set himself up as a teacher and apostle:  but his pupil did not take the hint.  A third letter (January 16, 1812) contains this startling announcement:  “In a few days we set off to Dublin.  I do not know exactly where, but a letter addressed to Keswick will find me.  Our journey has been settled some time.  We go principally to forward as much as we can the Catholic Emancipation.”  In a fourth letter (January 28, 1812) he informs Godwin that he has already prepared an address to the Catholics of Ireland, and combats the dissuasions of his counsellor with ingenious arguments to prove that his contemplated expedition can do no harm, and may be fruitful of great good.