ch "an alchemist, old and grey, with
a long beard," who was supposed to abide mysteriously in the garret of
Field Place, played a prominent part. "Another favourite theme was the
'Great Tortoise,' that lived in Warnham Pond; and any unwonted noise was
accounted for by the presence of this great beast, which was made into
the fanciful proportions most adapted to excite awe and wonder." To his
friend Hogg, in after-years, Shelley often spoke about another reptile,
no mere creature of myth or fable, the "Old Snake," who had inhabited
the gardens of Field Place for several generations. This venerable
serpent was accidentally killed by the gardener's scythe; but he lived
long in the poet's memory, and it may reasonably be conjectured that
Shelley's peculiar sympathy for snakes was due to the dim recollection
of his childhood's favourite. Some of the games he invented to please
his sisters were grotesque, and some both perilous and terrifying. "We
dressed ourselves in strange costumes to personate spirits or fiends,
and Bysshe would take a fire-stove and fill it with some inflammable
liquid, and carry it flaming into the kitchen and to the back door."
Shelley often took his sisters for long country rambles over hedge and
fence, carrying them when the difficulties of the ground or their
fatigue required it. At this time "his figure was slight and
beautiful,--his hands were models, and his feet are treading the earth
again in one of his race; his eyes too have descended in their wild
fixed beauty to the same person. As a child, I have heard that his skin
was like snow, and bright ringlets covered his head." Here is a little
picture which brings the boy vividly before our eyes: "Bysshe ordered
clothes according to his own fancy at Eton, and the beautifully fitting
silk pantaloons, as he stood as almost all men and boys do, with their
coat-tails near the fire, excited my silent though excessive
admiration."

When he was ten years of age, Shelley went to school at Sion house,
Brentford, an academy kept by Dr. Greenlaw, and frequented by the sons
of London tradesmen, who proved but uncongenial companions to his gentle
spirit. It is fortunate for posterity that one of his biographers, his
second cousin Captain Medwin, was his schoolfellow at Sion House; for to
his recollections we owe some details of great value. Medwin tells us
that Shelley learned the classic languages almost by intuition, while he
seemed to be spending his time i