from animal food. Bread was his chief Plato or from Dacier, Shelley learned the food, to which he sometimes added raisins. doctrine of pre-existence, and it was a faHe had a school-boy's taste for fruit, gin-vourite topic with him. One day he and gerbread, and sugar. Honey was a deli- Hogg met a young gipsy girl, a child of six cacy he relished. This abstemiousness in-years of age-slight, bareheaded, barefootcreased in after life, but was probably un-ed, and in rags. She was gathering snailwise, as his friends appear to have observed shells. "How much intellect is here!" an improvement in his health whenever ac- said Shelley," and what an occupation for cident led him to adopt for a few days a one who once knew the whole circle of the more generous diet. sciences; who has forgotten them all, it is true, but who could certainly recollect them-though it is most probable she never will!" A brother of the child's was near, and Shelley wanted Hogg to propose to him some mathematical questions: "Your geometry, you know, is so plain and certain, that if it be once thoroughly understood, it can never be forgotten.' Shelley's detestation of the plans of life proposed for him by his family was almost unbounded. The Duke of Norfolk had recommended the study of politics to him as his business in life-that to which he was naturally called by the circumstances and position of his family, and that in which he would have to expect less competition than in any other occupation of his The young gipsies did not return any talents. The Duke failed to persuade him. answers to Shelley's questions. They un"How often," said Shelley, "have I gone derstood him better when he drew an with my father to the House of Commons, orange from his pocket, and rolled it along and what creatures did I see there! What the grass before the retreating children. faces! what an expression of countenance!" Every true Platonist," he said, "must what wretched beings! And what men be fond of children; for they are our masdid we meet about the House-in the lob-ters in philosophy. The mind of a newbies and passages! and my father was so born child is not, as Locke says, a sheet of civil to all of them-to animals that I re- blank paper-on the contrary, it is an Elgarded with unmitigated disgust!" zevir Plato-say rather an Encyclopædia, comprising all that ever was or all that ever will be discovered." Shelley had brought with him from Eton the habit of composition in Latin verse; and Mr. Hogg tells us that he took great On Magdalen Bridge, one day, Shelley pains in the study of everything connected met a woman with a child in her arms. He with metre. There is evidence in his Eng-caught the child; the mother, not knowing lish poetry of the mysteries of versifica- whether the young maniac-for such she tion having been more the subject of study thought him-might not throw the child with him than we have any right to infer into the river, held it fast. "Will your from the statements of his friends. They baby tell us anything about pre-existence, seem anxious to represent his power as if it madam ?" In spite of the strange screamwere purely a gift, and owing nothing to ing voice in which the question was asked assiduous cultivation. -in spite of its being repeated with more Shelley, we have said, was disputative. torturing distinctness-the poor woman saw Logic-the Aristotelic logic-is one of the that the inquirer was very harmless, and great studies of Oxford, and the poet was a she replied, "He cannot speak, sir.". logician, according to mode and figure. He "Worse and worse," cried Shelley; "but seems to have teased his friends by his dis- surely the babe can speak if he will, for he putativeness. His text-book for a while is only a few weeks old. He may perhaps was Hume's Essays. He had reasoned fancy that he cannot; but that is a silly himself into all the conclusions of the scep- whim. He cannot have entirely forgotten tical philosophy. Hogg indoctrinated him the use of speech in so short a time. The with Plato, and Shelley appears to have thing is impossible!" believed both systems-however irreconcila- Never was there a student who could ble they may seem. Of Plato, the know- have lived with more entire happiness in ledge of our young philosophers was then the seclusion of his College than Shelley; derived from an English translation of but to live at all in England, implies, in the Dacier's French translation; but this did case of the higher classes, living in the vaits business, when the business after all was pour of politics. Politics made their way little more than exercising the opening to Shelley's quiet chambers in University faculties of young men's minds. From College, almost as soon as he had found himself fixed there. tion as Chancellor took place just at the time. The unsuccessful candidate was unluckily a member of Shelley's Collegeand one whom the Heads of the House supported by every means in their power. Shelley was enthusiastic for Lord Grenville. This was what might be expected from him, Its success stimulated Shelley to a more as participating in the feeling of all the dangerous adventure. He was, we have younger men in the University; but, in said, fond of practical jokes-jokes the addition to this, Liberal politics were entire humour of which consisted in imposing in the shape of aristocratic Whiggery-on grave and well-intentioned people. It the line in which his father and his grand- seems, that some balf-century ago it was father traded so that there was in reality not thought improper for a person engaged little cause of offence with the boy of six-in any particular pursuit to write to men teen, when he declaimed everywhere against distinguished in kindred subjects of study, the candidate whom the Governors of Uni- without any formal introduction. An old versity College sought to have elected. Shelley was, however, after this regarded with some dislike by the governing part of the body; and their power in the Collegiate institutions of old foundation is all but unlimited. As to politics in the ordinary meaning of the word, they were regarded by Shelley with utter antipathy: a newspaper never found its way to his rooms; and if he opened one accidentally in a coffee-house his reading was confined to murders and storms. Lord Grenville's elec- | letters of admiration. Prudence was, however, recommended by some sager spirits, as the country was not yet ripe for the doctrines inculcated; but better times were fast approaching. Among the younger students at Oxford, the book was decidedly popular. physician, from whom Shelley had, before In Hogg was one day surprised by finding his friend correcting for the press the proofsheets of some poems. He looked at them, and dissuaded him from publication. "They will not do as serious poems," said Hogg archly; "but try them as burlesque," -and he read a few lines out with tome comic effect. Shelley was not without some fun in him, though it in general lay too deep for a hearty laugh. The forgeries. He and Hogg had been speaking of of Chatterton and Ireland had amused mathematics. "The mathematicians," said him ; and after some discussion it was ar- Hogg, 66 are mere dogmatists, who, when ranged to print the poems as the work of tired of talking in their positive strain, end Mrs. Margaret Nicholson, a lunatic, who the discussion by putting down the letters, had attempted to stab George the Third. Q. E. D." This dullish joke delighted A bookseller undertook to publish it at his Shelley; he would put the letters to eveown expense, and in a few days a cream-rything he wrote-say an invitation to coloured quarto appeared. It opened with dinner-to attain, as he said, to a mathea serious poem against war-the work of an matical certainty. acquaintance of Shelley's, for whose opinion the manuscript had been sent, and who made this strange use of it. It formed a curious contrast with the rest of the publication, in which was recommended in every mood and tense the plan of stabbing every one less enthusiastic in the cause of Liberty than the supposed authoress. The joke was successful-presentation copies were sent to poets and philosophers, and poets and philosophers replied with He drew up a syllabus of Hume's doctrines, with some inferences of his own, adding these potent characters. He printed it and circulated it in every direction, chiefly for the purpose of assisting him in his strange correspondences. "The syllabus," says Hogg, was a small pill, but it worked powerfully." The mode of operation was this: Shelley enclosed a copy, with a letter, saying that he had met this little tract accidentally-that it unhappily seemed The to him quite unanswerable. If an answer morning, Shelley and his friend proceeded was returned, Shelley would, in a fierce re- to London. ply, fall on the poor disputant unmercifully. This account, which we have abridged Shelley loved truth, but he loved disputa- from Mr. Hogg's own narrative, cannot tion for its own sake; and it is hard to state be otherwise than substantially accurate, the above facts so as to leave him wholly though, being written twenty years after free from the charge of disingeniousness. the events, it may contain some unimporThis syllabus was entitled "The Necessity tant mistakes. Mr. De Quincey gives a of Atheism." different account of the matter; and the Hogg went to Shelley's rooms" on Lady-two can only be reconciled by the improday, 1811, a fine spring morning," at an bable supposition of his being expelled not earlier hour than was his custom Shelley alone from his own College, but also from was absent, but soon rushed into the rooms. the University of Oxford, and by a proceedHe was greatly agitated;--"I am ex-ing entirely distinct from that which we pelled!" he said; "I was sent for a few have described. De Quincey says, "I beminutes ago to the Common Room; there I lieve, from the uniformity of such accounts found our Master and two or three of the as have reached myself, the following brief Fellows. The Master produced a copy of of the matter may be relied on ;" and he the syllabus, and asked me if I were the then proceeds with a narrative which we author."-Shelley refused to answer. The shall seek to sum up in a sentence. "Shelquestion was repeated. Shelley insisted on ley," he says (but in this he certainly the unfairness of such interrogation, and mistakes), "put his name, and the name asked to have witnesses produced, to prove of his College, to the pamphlet. any charge against him. The question Heads of Colleges felt a disagreeable sumwas repeated; and an answer again re- mons to an extra meeting. There are in fused. The Master then said, "You are Oxford five-and-twenty Colleges, to say expelled; and I desire that you will quit nothing of Halls. They met the greater the College early to-morrow morning, at part were for mercy. The pamphlet was latest." "One of the Fellows," added not addressed to them. They were not Shelley, "took up two papers, and handed bound officially to have any knowledge of one of them to me-here it is." He pro- it; and they determined not to proceed at duced a regular sentence of expulsion, all in the matter. Shelley, on this, deterdrawn up and under the Seal of the Col- mined to force the matter on them, and lege. The indignation and compassion of sent his pamphlet with five-and-twenty sea friend of Shelley's (we presume Mr. parate letters to the five-and-twenty Heads Hogg himself) were excited by what he of the Oxford hydra. The many-headed felt to be a dreadful injustice. He wrote a monster waxed wroth, and the philosopher note to the Master and Fellows, asking was expelled." The sentence was, accordthem to reconsider their decision. He was ing to this account, extorted from very reinstantly summoned to attend the Board, luctant judges by Shelley's own act. which was still sitting. The Master pro- In whatever way the proceeding took duced the note which had been just sent: place, we think it was scarcely possible to 66 Did you write this?" And then putting avoid some public notice and censure of the syllabus into the hand of the astonished such a work as this syllabus is stated to advocate--"Did you write this?" It was have been. Mr. Medwin tells us that it is in vain urged that the question was an un-preserved in the notes to Queen Mab; but fair one that it was one which, after Shel- we have not ourselves read it. The College ley's case, no gentleman in the College or in the University but must refuse to answer. "Then," said the Master, "you are expelled," and a formal sentence of expulsion was put into his hand. This must have been antecedently prepared, and Shelley's advocate must have been regarded as an accomplice in his crime before he sent his note to the Master. He looked over the sentence, and found that the alleged offence was a contumacious refusal to disavow the imputed publication. On the following authorities-for we think it probable that there is some mistake in the fact of there having been any University proceedingsmight perhaps, considering Shelley's extreme youth, have been satisfied with a less severe course; and, under any circumstances, the fact of having the formal sentence of expulsion engrossed and sealed before the accused was given any opportunity of repelling the charge-though we have no doubt of the perfect legality of the pro ceedings, the relation of students to the governing authorities of a College being considered-was one of those, which, like all the forms of procedure regulated by ecclesiastical law, seems more calculated to silence than to convince the culprit. We think it is not improbable, from Shelley's character, that gentleness and sympathy would have been likely to have dispelled much that was erroneous in his views, and, at all events, would at once have conquered whatever proceeded from mere obstinacy: for even from his own accounts, there was much of self-will in the course which he adopted. As it was, never did Reformer in the proudest days of the Church retire from a discussion with the champions of Rome in a state of mind more entirely satisfied that victory was on his side, than Shelley, when he found himself expelled from his college, and regarded as an alien by all his father's house. He was a martyr, or burning for the crown of martyrdom, and the truths which Oxford was unwilling or unworthy to hear, he was prepared, as he best could, to communicate to other recipients. He wrote, it is said, to Rowland Hill, offering to preach in his chapel. neighbourhood, the Duke of Norfolk having expressed some interest about them. Among others, the Southeys did what they could to render the place agreeable, and a friendship with Southey seemed to be almost the certain consequence of the intercourse that then existed between the families. We grieve to think on the worthless causes that in after life disturbed the feeling. Shelley too lightly believed that the reviews of his own and Keats' poems in the Quarterly Review were written by Southey. The solitude in which they both lived increased the echoes of the gossip which brought to Keswick the nonsense spoken at Geneva, and to Geneva the idle whispers of Keswick. Each believed that the other maligned him, and there seems to have been nothing like a foundation for the belief on either side. As to the reviewals, Southey had nothing to say to them. This is, perhaps, the most annoying circumstance connected with periodical literature, that mistakes as to the authorship of articles in periodical publications have been often the cause of life-long jealousies and dislikes. Shelley remained, however, at the lakes of Cumberland for too short a time to form any intiShelley's expulsion from Oxford is said macies there. The place was far from cheap; to have spoiled a dream of true love for and Shelley, in a letter dated November, some fair cousin, who would hear no more 1811, says, that after paying some debts, he of him, and who afterwards married some- had to expend nearly his last guinea on a visit body else. Was it revenge for his slight set to the Duke of Norfolk, through whom Shelley a marrying? or did he marry, as some negotiation with his father was going they say in Ireland, to displease his father, on. Shelley left Keswick for Ireland. He thinking that they are thus suggesting a sailed for Cork, and after visiting the Lakes reasonable motive for a very rash act? The of Killarney-wbich, says Medwin, he elder Shelleys seem to have had but an in- thought more beautiful than those of Switdifferent taste in schools for either sons or zerland or Italy-went to Dublin. While daughters. A sister of Shelley's was at in Dublin he attended some political meetschool in the neighbourhood of London, and ings, at which he spoke. Medwin says, Shelley, while walking with her in the gar-"He displayed great eloquence, for which den of the seminary, was attracted by a fair he was remarkable." We have conversed face of sixteen. The Shelleys, had they with an Irish gentleman-himself a man of been consulted, would have been little great eloquence, the late Chief Baron pleased with their son's marrying, at the Woulfe-who remembered Shelley's going age of nineteen, a girl very young, and to a meeting of the Catholic Board, and whom he scarcely knew; and there is little making a speech there. Of the details of reason to think, that with all the English the speech, at an interval of more than veneration for rank and family, that the twenty years after it was delivered, our young lady's father would have consented friend remembered nothing. He did, howto the union. However this be, the young ever, remember one strange peculiarity of people do not seem to have asked any manner. The speaker would utter a senquestions. In August, 1811, they were mar-tence; then pause, as if he were taking ried at Gretna-Green. A maternal uncle time to frame another, which was slowly of Shelley's supplied them with some money, enunciated, the whole speech having the and they went-thinking it a cheap place effect of unconnected aphorisms. His voice to Keswick. There they were favourably was, as described by Mr. Hogg, a dissonant received by the principal people of the scream. In Dr. Drummond's life of Hamil 12 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. "Although an Englishman, I feel for Ireland; and I have left the country in which the accident of birth placed me, for the sole purpose of adding my little stock of usefulness to the fund which I hope Ireland possesses, to aid her in the unequal yet sacred combat in which she is engaged. In the course of a few days more I shall print another small pamphlet, which shall be sent to you. I have intentionally vulgarized the language of the enclosed. I have printed 1500 copies, and am now distributing them throughout Dublin." ton Rowan we are told, in language which | what he could for them-at all events to he quotes as Shelley's, that the poet "se-distribute them. Inquiry was made at lected Ireland as a theatre the widest and Shelley's lodgings to ascertain the truth of fairest for the operations of the determined the vender's story. He was not at home; friends of religious and political freedom." but when he heard of it he went to return "In pursuance of this design," adds Dr. the visit, and kindly acquaintanceship thus The Shelleys-husband and wifeDrummond, "he published a pamphlet, arose. entitled, Án Address to the Irish People,' were then Pythagoreans. Shelley spoke as with an advertisement on the title-page, a man believing in the metempsychosisdeclaring it to be the author's intention to and they did not eat animal food. They awaken in the minds of the Irish poor a seem, however, to have tolerated it; for on knowledge of their real state, summarily one occasion a fowl was murdered for our pointing out the evils of that state, and friend's dinner. Of the first Mrs. Shelley, He the recollection of our friend is faint, but suggesting rational means of remedy." sent Hamilton Rowan some copies of the is of an amiable and unaffected personThis afpamphlet, with a letter, from which we very young and very pleasing and she and Shelley seemed much attached. quote a few words:fection seems to have preserved a doubtful life for some little while after they left Ireland, for we find a letter dated August, 1812, in which he says-" I am a young man, not of age, and have been married for a year to than myself. Love seems a woman younger inclined to stay in the prison, and my only reason for putting him in chains, whilst convinced of the unholiness of the act, was a knowledge that in the present state of society, if love is not thus villanously treated, In a letter written a month or two after, he she who is most loved will be treated speaks of being engaged in writing a his- worst by a misjudging world." His theotory of Ireland, in conjunction with some retical objections to marriage existed even friend, and says, that "two hundred and before he had contracted that engagement fifty pages of it were printed." Who with his first wife. It had been preached could his friend have been? we think it by him in Queen Mab. He had learned not improbable that it may have been Law- the doctrine, he says, before, but it was less at that time, we believe, an active coufirmed by a work of Sir James Lawrence, member of the Political Associations in entitled "The Empire of the Nairs." Dublin. Captain Medwin quotes from Shelley's Irish pamphlet was not very likely Shelley language which, in 1812, he was to be popular among the Irish. He said to their religion--the Roman more likely to have taught O'Connell than them that to have learned from him. Like the Catholic-had been a bad thing in long and in the course of one year "Hereditary Bondsmen," and the First ago times. The Inquisition, he writes, was set up, Flower of the Earth, O'Connell made it his own by adoption. "My principles incite thirty thousand people were burnt in Ita me to take all the good I can get in poli-ly and Spain, for entertaining different opintics-for ever aspiring to something more. ions from those of the Pope and the priests. I am one of those whom nothing will fully The bigoted monks of France in one night satisfy, but who are ready to be partially massacred 80,000 Protestants. This was satisfied with whatever is practicable." done under the authority of the Pope. The Med-vices of the monks and the nuns in their convents were in those times shameful; people thought that they might commit any sin, however monstrous, if they had money enough to prevail on the priests to absolve them." Such was the opening of Shelley's pacific discourse-to a people not likely to admit any of his facts. The Irish are a credulous and yet an unbelieving people. Like better educated people, and in a more Shelley's pamphlet is before us. |