tyrant or a slave of Shelley succeeded only in making a rebel; his
inquiring mind was not to be easily satisfied, and must assuredly have
been a difficulty in his way with a conservative master; already, at
Eton, we find him styled Mad Shelley and Shelley the Atheist.

In 1810 Shelley removed to University College, Oxford, after an
enjoyable holiday with his family, during which he found time for an
experiment in authorship, his father authorising a stationer to print
for him. If only, instead of this, his father had checked for a time
these immature productions of Shelley's pen, the youth might have been
spared banishment from Oxford and his own father's house, and all the
misfortune and tragedy which ensued. Shelley also found time for a
first love with his cousin, Harriet Grove. This also the unfortunate
printing facilities apparently quashed. There is some discussion as to
whether he left Eton in disgrace, but any way the matter must have
been a slight affair, as no one appears to have kept any record of it;
and should one of the masters have recommended the removal of Shelley
from such uncongenial surroundings, it would surely have been very
sensible advice.

Oxford was, in many respects, much to Shelley's taste. The freedom of
the student life there suited him, as he was able to follow the
studies most to his liking.

The professional lectures chiefly in vogue, on divinity, geometry, and
history, were not the most to his liking--history in particular seemed
ever to him a terrible record of misery and crime--but in his own
chambers he could study poetry, natural philosophy, and metaphysics.
The outcome of these studies, advanced speculative thought, was not,
however, to be tolerated within the University precincts, and,