No one has managed to discover in the parents
of Percy Bysshe any qualities furnishing the prototype or the nucleus of
his poetical genius, or of the very exceptional cast of mind and
character which he developed in other directions. The parents were
commonplace: if we go back to the grandfather, Sir Bysshe, we encounter
a man who was certainly not commonplace, but who seems to have been
devoid of either poetical or humanitarian fervour. He figures as intent
upon his worldly interests, accumulating a massive fortune, and spending
lavishly upon the building of Castle Goring; in his old age, penurious,
unsocial, and almost churlish in his habits. His passion was to domineer
and carry his point; of this the poet may have inherited something. His
ideal of success was wealth and worldly position, things to which the
poet was, on the contrary, abnormally indifferent.
Shelley's schooling began at six years of age, when he was placed under
the Rev. Mr. Edwards, at Warnham. At ten he went to Sion House School,
Brentford, of which the Principal was Dr. Greenlaw, the pupils being
mostly sons of local tradesmen.
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