n dreaming, now watching the clouds as
they sailed across the school-room window, and now scribbling sketches
of fir-trees and cedars in memory of Field Place. At this time he was
subject to sleep-walking, and, if we may credit this biographer, he
often lost himself in reveries not far removed from trance. His
favourite amusement was novel-reading; and to the many "blue books" from
the Minerva press devoured by him in his boyhood, we may ascribe the
style and tone of his first compositions. For physical sports he showed
no inclination. "He passed among his school-fellows as a strange and
unsocial being; for when a holiday relieved us from our tasks, and the
other boys were engaged in such sports as the narrow limits of our
prison-court allowed, Shelley, who entered into none of them, would pace
backwards and forwards--I think I see him now--along the southern wall,
indulging in various vague and undefined ideas, the chaotic elements, if
I may say so, of what afterwards produced so beautiful a world."

Two of Shelley's most important biographical compositions undoubtedly
refer to this period of his boyhood. The first is the passage in the
Prelude to "Laon and Cythna" which describes his suffering among the
unsympathetic inmates of a school:--

Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first
The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.
I do remember well the hour which burst
My spirit's sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was,
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
And wept, I knew not why; until there rose
From the near school-room, voices, that, alas!
Were but one echo from a world of woes--
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

And then I clasped my hands and looked around--
--But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,
Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground--
So without shame I spake:--"I will be wise,
And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies
Such power, for I grow weary to behold
The selfish and the strong still tyrannize
Without reproach or check." I then controlled
My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.

And from that hour did I with earnest thought
Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore,
Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught
I cared to learn, but from that secret store
Wrought linked armour for my soul, before
It might walk forth to war