f the Platonic or
Pythagorean order, always soaring above the atmosphere of common men.
To call a man of genius an inspired idiot or an inspired oddity is an
easy, but false way of interpreting him. The truth of Shelley's
character may be found by a more matter-of-fact investigation. He was
naturally of a feeble constitution from childhood, and not addicted
to the amusements of stronger boys; hence he became shy, and, when
bullied or flouted by the others, sensitive and irritable, and given
to secret reading and study, instead of play with those "little
fiends that scoffed incessantly." These habits gave him the name of
an oddity, and what is called a "Miss Molly," and the persecution
that followed only made him more recluse and speculative, and
disgusted with the ways and feelings of others. He began to have
thoughts beyond his years, and was happy to think he had, in these, a
compensation for what he suffered from his schoolfellows. With his
hermit habits grew naturally a strong egotistical vanity, which he
could as little repress as the other youths could repress their
muscular propensities to exercise; and hence his eagerness to set
forth the threadbare heretical theories he had found among his books.
For supporting these with an insolent show of importunity, he was
turned away from college, and soon left his father's home, with his
father's curse to bear him company. Had the baronet been in the way
of a _lettre de cachet_, like Mirabeau's father, he would certainly
have had Percy put into Newgate and kept there.

The malediction of the old man seems to have clung to Shelley's mind
to the end, and made him rebellious against everything bearing the
paternal name. He assailed the Father of the Hebrew theocracy with
amazing bitterness, and joined Prometheus in cursing and dethroning
Zeus, the Olympian usurper. With him, tyrant and father were
synonymous, and he has drawn the old Cenci, in the play of that name,
with the same fierce, unfilial pencil, dipped in blood and wormwood.
Shelley was by nature, self-instruction, and inexperience of life,
impatient and full of impulse; and the sharp and violent measures by
which they attempted to reclaim him only exasperated him the more
against everything respected by his opponents and persecutors. Genius
is by nature aggressive or retaliatory; and the young poet, writhing
and laughing hysterically, like Demogorgon, returned the scorn of
society with a scorn, the deeper and lof