Shelley at Oxford Part 6

But to speak of this, his signal and truly admirable bounty, save only in the most distant manner and the most general terms, would be a flagrant violation of that unequalled delicacy with which it was extended to undeserved indigence, accompanied by well-founded and most commendable pride. To allude to any particular instance, however obscurely and indistinctly, would be unpardonable; but it would be scarcely less blameable to dismiss the consideration of the character of the benevolent young poet without some imperfect testimony of this rare excellence.

That he gave freely, when the needy scholar asked or in silent, hopeless poverty seemed to ask his aid, will be demonstrated most clearly by relating shortly one example of his generosity, where the applicant had no pretensions to literary renown, and no claim whatever, except perhaps honest penury. It is delightful to attempt to delineate from various points of view a creature of infinite moral beauty, but one instance must suffice; an ample volume might be composed of such tales, but one may be selected because it contains a large admixture of that ingredient which is essential to the conversion of almsgiving into the genuine virtue of charity--self-denial.

On returning to town after the long vacation at the end of October, I found Sh.e.l.ley at one of the hotels in Covent Garden. Having some business in hand he was pa.s.sing a few days there alone. We had taken some mutton chops hastily at a dark place in one of the minute courts of the city at an early hour, and we went forth to walk; for to walk at all times, and especially in the evening, was his supreme delight.

The aspect of the fields to the north of Somers Town, between that beggarly suburb and Kentish Town, has been totally changed of late.

Although this district could never be accounted pretty, nor deserving a high place even amongst suburban scenes, yet the air, or often the wind, seemed pure and fresh to captives emerging from the smoke of London. There were certain old elms, much very green gra.s.s, quiet cattle feeding and groups of noisy children playing with something of the freedom of the village green. There was, oh blessed thing! an entire absence of carriages and of blood-horses; of the dust and dress and affectation and fas.h.i.+on of the parks; there were, moreover, old and quaint edifices and objects which gave character to the scene.

Whenever Sh.e.l.ley was imprisoned in London--for to a poet a close and crowded city must be a dreary gaol--his steps would take that direction, unless his residence was too remote, or he was accompanied by one who chose to guide his walk. On this occasion I was led thither, as indeed I had antic.i.p.ated. The weather was fine, but the autumn was already advanced; we had not sauntered long in these fields when the dusky evening closed in, and the darkness gradually thickened.

"How black those trees are," said Sh.e.l.ley, stopping short and pointing to a row of elms. "It is so dark the trees might well be houses and the turf pavement--the eye would sustain no loss. It is useless, therefore, to remain here; let us return." He proposed tea at his hotel, I a.s.sented; and hastily b.u.t.toning his coat he seized my arm and set off at his great pace, striding with bent knees over the fields and through the narrow streets.

We were crossing the New Road, when he said shortly, "I must call for a moment, but it will not be out of the way at all," and then dragged me suddenly towards the left. I inquired whither we were bound, and, I believe, I suggested the postponement of the intended call till the morrow. He answered, it was not at all out of our way.

I was hurried along rapidly towards the left. We soon fell into an animated discussion respecting the nature of the virtue of the Romans, which in some measure beguiled the weary way. Whilst he was talking with much vehemence and a total disregard of the people who thronged the streets, he suddenly wheeled about and pushed me through a narrow door; to my infinite surprise I found myself in a p.a.w.nbroker's shop. It was in the neighbourhood of Newgate Street, for he had no idea whatever, in practice, either of time or s.p.a.ce, nor did he in any degree regard method in the conduct of business.

There were several women in the shop in brown and grey cloaks, with squalling children. Some of them were attempting to persuade the children to be quiet, or at least to scream with moderation; the others were enlarging upon and pointing out the beauties of certain coa.r.s.e and dirty sheets that lay before them to a man on the other side of the counter.

I bore this subst.i.tute for our proposed tea some minutes with tolerable patience, but as the call did not promise to terminate speedily, I said to Sh.e.l.ley, in a whisper, "Is not this almost as bad as the Roman virtue?"

Upon this he approached the p.a.w.nbroker; it was long before he could obtain a hearing, and he did not find civility. The man was unwilling to part with a valuable pledge so soon, or perhaps he hoped to retain it eventually; or it might be that the obliquity of his nature disqualified him for respectful behaviour.

A p.a.w.nbroker is frequently an important witness in criminal proceedings.

It has happened to me, therefore, afterwards to see many specimens of this kind of banker. They sometimes appeared not less respectable than other tradesmen, and sometimes I have been forcibly reminded of the first I ever met with, by an equally ill-conditioned fellow. I was so little pleased with the introduction that I stood aloof in the shop, and did not hear what pa.s.sed between him and Sh.e.l.ley.

On our way to Covent Garden I expressed my surprise and dissatisfaction at our strange visit, and I learned that when he came to London before, in the course of the summer, some old man had related to him a tale of distress--of a calamity which could only be alleviated by the timely application of ten pounds; five of them he drew at once from his pocket, and to raise the other five he had p.a.w.ned his beautiful solar microscope!

He related this act of beneficence simply and briefly, as if it were a matter of course, and such indeed it was to him. I was ashamed at my impatience, and we strode along in silence.

It was past ten when we reached the hotel. Some excellent tea and a liberal supply of hot m.u.f.fins in the coffee-room, now quiet and solitary, were the more grateful after the wearisome delay and vast deviation.

Sh.e.l.ley often turned his head and cast eager glances towards the door, and whenever the waiter replenished our tea-pot or approached our box he was interrogated whether anyone had yet called.

At last the desired summons was brought. Sh.e.l.ley drew forth some banknotes, hurried to the bar, and returned as hastily, bearing in triumph under his arm a mahogany box, followed by the officious waiter, with whose a.s.sistance he placed it upon the bench by his side. He viewed it often with evident satisfaction, and sometimes patted it affectionately in the course of calm conversation. The solar microscope was always a favourite plaything or instrument of scientific inquiry. Whenever he entered a house his first care was to choose some window of a southern aspect, and, if permission could be obtained by prayer or by purchase, straightway to cut a hole through the shutter to receive it.

His regard for his solar microscope was as lasting as it was strong; for he retained it several years after this adventure, and long after he had parted with all the rest of his philosophical apparatus.

Such is the story of the microscope, and no rightly judging person who hears it will require the further acc.u.mulation of proofs of a benevolent heart; nor can I, perhaps, better close this sketch than with that impression of the pure and genial beauty of Sh.e.l.ley's nature which this simple anecdote will bequeath.

CHAPTER VII

The theory of civil liberty has ever seemed lovely to the eyes of a young man enamoured of moral and intellectual beauty. Sh.e.l.ley's devotion to freedom, therefore, was ardent and sincere. He would have submitted with cheerful alacrity to the greatest sacrifices, had they been demanded of him, to advance the sacred cause of liberty; and he would have gallantly encountered every peril in the fearless resistance to active oppression.

Nevertheless, in ordinary times, although a generous and unhesitating patriot, he was little inclined to consume the pleasant season of youth amidst the intrigues and clamours of elections, and in the dull and selfish cabals of parties. His fancy viewed from a lofty eminence the grand scheme of an ideal republic; and he could not descend to the humble task of setting out the boundaries of neighbouring rights, and to the uninviting duties of actual administration. He was still less disposed to interest himself in the politics of the day because he observed the pernicious effects of party zeal in a field where it ought not to enter.

It is no slight evil, but a heavy price paid for popular inst.i.tutions, that society should be divided into hostile clans to serve the selfish purposes of a few political adventurers; and surely to introduce politics within the calm precincts of a University ought to be deemed a capital offence--a felony without benefit of clergy. The undue admission (to borrow the language of Universities for a moment) is not less fatal to its existence as an inst.i.tution designed for the advancement of learning, than the reception of the wooden horse within the walls of Troy was to the safety of that renowned city.

What does it import the interpreters of Pindar and Thucydides, the expositors of Plato and Aristotle, if a few interested persons, for the sake of some lucrative posts, affect to believe that it is a matter of vital importance to the state to concede certain privileges to the Roman Catholics; whilst others, for the same reason, pretend with tears in their eyes that the concessions would be dangerous and indeed destructive, and shudder with feigned horror at the harmless proposal? Such pretexts may be advantageous and perhaps even honourable to the ingenious persons who use them for the purposes of immediate advancement; but of what concernment are they to Apollo and the Muses? How could the Catholic question augment the calamities of Priam, or diminish the misfortunes of the ill-fated house of Labdacus? or which of the doubts of the ancient philosophers would the most satisfactory solution of it remove? Why must the modest student come forth and dance upon the tightrope, with the mountebanks, since he is to receive no part of the reward, and would not emulate the glory of those meritorious artists? Yet did this most inapplicable question mainly contribute to poison the harmless and studious felicity which we enjoyed at Oxford.

During the whole period of our residence there the University was cruelly disfigured by bitter feuds, arising out of the late election of its Chancellor; in an especial manner was our own most venerable college deformed by them, and by angry and senseless disappointment.

Lord Grenville had just been chosen. There could be no more comparison between his scholars.h.i.+p and his various qualifications for the honourable and useless office, and the claims of his unsuccessful opponent, than between the attainments of the best man of the year and those of the huge porter, who with a stern and solemn civility kept the gates of University College--the arts of mulled-wine and egg-hot being, in the latter case, alone excepted.

The vanquished compet.i.tor, however, most unfortunately for its honour and character, was a member of our college; and in proportion as the intrinsic merits of our rulers were small, had the vehemence and violence of electioneering been great, that, through the abuse of the patronage of the church, they might attain to those dignities as the rewards of the activity of partisans, which they could never hope to reach through the legitimate road of superior learning and talents.

Their vexation at failing was the more sharp and abiding, because the only objection that vulgar bigotry could urge against the victor was his disposition to make concessions to the Roman Catholics; and every dull lampoon about popes and cardinals and the scarlet lady had accordingly been worn threadbare in vain. Since the learned and liberal had conquered, learning and liberality were peculiarly odious with us at that epoch. The studious scholar, particularly if he were of an inquiring disposition, and of a bold and free temper, was suspected and disliked; he was one of the enemy's troops. The inert and the subservient were the loyal soldiers of the legitimate army of the faith. The despised and scattered nation of scholars is commonly unfortunate; but a more severe calamity has seldom befallen the remnant of true Israelites than to be led captive by such a generation! Youth is happy, because it is blithe and healthful and exempt from care; but it is doubly and trebly happy, since it is honest and fearless, honourable and disinterested.

In the whole body of undergraduates, scarcely one was friendly to the holder of the loaves and the promiser of the fishes--Lord Eldon. All were eager--all, one and all--in behalf of the scholar and the Liberal statesman; and plain and loud was the avowal of their sentiments. A sullen demeanour towards the young rebels displayed the annoyance arising from the want of success and from our lack of sympathy, and it would have demonstrated to the least observant that, where the Muses dwell, the quarrels and intrigues of political parties ought not to come.

By his family and his connections, as well as by disposition, Sh.e.l.ley was attached to the successful side; and although it was manifest that he was a youth of an admirable temper, of rare talents and unwearied industry, and likely, therefore, to shed a l.u.s.tre upon his college and the University itself, yet, as he was eminently delighted at that wherewith his superiors were offended, he was regarded from the beginning with a jealous eye. A young man of spirit will despise the mean spite of sordid minds; nevertheless the persecution which a generous soul can contemn, through frequent repet.i.tion too often becomes a severe annoyance in the long course of life, and Sh.e.l.ley frequently and most pathetically lamented the political divisions which then hara.s.sed the University, and were a more fertile source of manifold ills in the wider field of active life.

For this reason did he appear to cling more closely to our sweet, studious seclusion; and from this cause, perhaps, princ.i.p.ally arose his disinclination--I may say, indeed, his intense antipathy--for the political career that had been proposed to him. A lurking suspicion would sometimes betray itself that he was to be forced into that path, and impressed into the civil service of the state, to become, as it were, a conscript legislator.

A newspaper never found its way to his rooms the whole period of his residence at Oxford; but when waiting in a bookseller's shop or at an inn he would sometimes, although rarely, permit his eye to be attracted by a murder or a storm. Having perused the tale of wonder or of horror, if it chanced to stray to a political article, after reading a few lines he invariably threw it aside to a great distance; and he started from his seat his face flus.h.i.+ng, and strode about muttering broken sentences, the purport of which was always the same: his extreme dissatisfaction at the want of candour and fairness, and the monstrous disingenuousness which politicians manifest in speaking of the characters and measures of their rivals. Strangers, who caught imperfectly the sense of his indistinct murmurs, were often astonished at the vehemence of his mysterious displeasure.

Once I remember a bookseller, the master of a very small shop in a little country town, but apparently a sufficiently intelligent man, could not refrain from expressing his surprise that anyone should be offended with proceedings that seemed to him as much in the ordinary course of trade, and as necessary to its due exercise, as the red ligature of the bundle of quills, or the thin and pale brown wrapper which enclosed the quire of letter paper we had just purchased of him.

A man of talents and learning, who refused to enlist under the banners of any party and did not deign to inform himself of the politics of the day, or to take the least part or interest in them, would be a n.o.ble and a novel spectacle; but so many persons hope to profit by dissensions, that the merits of such a steady lover of peace would not be duly appreciated, either by the little provincial bookseller or the other inhabitants of our turbulent country.

The ordinary lectures in our college were of much shorter duration, and decidedly less difficult and less instructive than the lessons we had received in the higher cla.s.ses of a public school; nor were our written exercises more stimulating than the oral. Certain compositions were required at stated periods; but, however excellent they might be, they were never commended; however deficient, they were never censured; and, being altogether unnoticed, there was no reason to suppose that they were ever read.

The University at large was not less remiss than each college in particular; the only incitement proposed was an examination at the end of four years. The young collegian might study in private, as diligently as he would, at Oxford as in every other place; and if he chose to submit his pretensions to the examiners, his name was set down in the first, the second or the third cla.s.s--if I mistake not, there were three divisions--according to his advancement. This list was printed precisely at the moment when he quitted the University for ever; a new generation of strangers might read the names of the unknown proficients, if they would.

It was notorious, moreover, that, merely to obtain the academical degrees, every new-comer, who had pa.s.sed through a tolerable grammar-school, brought with him a stock of learning, of which the residuum that had not evaporated during four years of dissipation and idleness, would be more than sufficient.

The languid course of chartered laziness was ill suited to the ardent activity and glowing zeal of Sh.e.l.ley. Since those persons, who were hired at an enormous charge by his own family and by the State to find due and beneficial employment for him, thought fit to neglect this, their most sacred duty, he began forthwith to set himself to work. He read diligently--I should rather say he devoured greedily, with the voracious appet.i.te of a famished man--the authors that roused his curiosity; he discoursed and discussed with energy; he wrote, he began to print and he designed soon to publish various works.

He begins betimes who begins to instruct mankind at eighteen. The judicious will probably be of opinion that in eighteen years man can scarcely learn how to learn; and that for eighteen more years he ought to be content to learn; and if, at the end of the second period, he still thinks that he can impart anything worthy of attention, it is, at least, early enough to begin to teach. The fault, however, if it were a fault, was to be imputed to the times, and not to the individual, as the numerous precocious effusions of the day attest.

Sh.e.l.ley was quick to conceive, and not less quick to execute. When I called one morning at one, I found him busily occupied with some proofs, which he continued to correct and re-correct with anxious care. As he was wholly absorbed in this occupation, I selected a book from the floor, where there was always a good store, and read in silence for at least an hour.

My thoughts being as completely abstracted as those of my companion, he startled me by suddenly throwing a paper with some force on the middle of the table, and saying, in a penetrating whisper, as he sprang eagerly from his chair, "I am going to publish some poems."

In answer to my inquiries, he put the proofs into my hands. I read them twice attentively, for the poems were very short; and I told him there were some good lines, some bright thoughts, but there were likewise many irregularities and incongruities. I added that correctness was important in all compositions, but it const.i.tuted the essence of short ones; and that it surely would be imprudent to bring his little book out so hastily; and then I pointed out the errors and defects.

He listened in silence with much attention, and did not dispute what I said, except that he remarked faintly that it would not be known that he was the author, and therefore the publication could not do him any harm.

I answered that, although it might not be disadvantageous to be the unknown author of an unread work, it certainly could not be beneficial.

He made no reply; and we immediately went out, and strolled about the public walks.

We dined and returned to his rooms, where we conversed on different subjects. He did not mention his poems, but they occupied his thoughts; for he did not fall asleep as usual. Whilst we were at tea, he said abruptly, "I think you disparage my poems. Tell me what you dislike in them, for I have forgotten."

I took the proofs from the place where I had left them, and looking over them, repeated the former objections, and suggested others. He acquiesced; and, after a pause, asked, might they be altered? I a.s.sented.

"I will alter them."

"It will be better to re-write them; a short poem should be of the first impression."

Some time afterwards he anxiously inquired, "But in their present form you do not think they ought to be published?"