 Southey, who had himself been expelled from the Westminster School for opposing flogging, was taken with Shelley and predicted great things for him as a poet.He also informed Shelley that William Godwin, author of "Political Justice", which had greatly influenced him in his youth, and which Shelley also admired, was still alive.Shelley wrote to Godwin, offering himself as his devoted disciple and informing Godwin that he was "the son of a man of fortune in Sussex" and "heir by entail to an estate of £6,000."