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.1

Very early in life Shelley cherished literary ambitions, and before leaving school he was an author. Already, in May, 1809, the greater part of a romance entitled Zastrozzi had been written. It was published in the following year. Zastrozzi exhibits in full measure the lack of originality, truth, and power which we expect in the writings of a boy. It is a slavish imitation of the absurdly mysterious and romantic fiction which enjoyed a temporary popularity about the beginning of the century. About the same time, probably in the winter 1809-10, Shelley and his cousin Medwin composed a poem on the Wandering Jew, under the influence of a translation of a German work on the same theme. It failed to find a publisher. In the autumn of 1810 Shelley and an unknown collaborateur issued a volume of Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire. The publisher discovered that it contained a piece plagiarized from the works of M. G. Lewis, and it was in consequence withdrawn from circulation almost as soon as published. It is quite likely that the plagiarist was Shelley's collaborateur, but it is extraordinary that a poem by Lewis should have escaped Shelley's notice. When his attention was drawn to the matter he expressed great indignation at the fraud.

In the autumn of 1810 Shelley went into residence at Oxford. The most important factor in his brief sojourn there was the friendship he formed with Thomas Jefferson Hogg, his future biographer. In many respects Hogg was

1 Dedication to The Revolt of Islam.

the antithesis of Shelley. He was gifted with much shrewdness and worldly wisdom, measured things by utilitarian and matter-of-fact standards, and had a tendency to cynicism. But he was intellectual and witty, and shared Shelley's love of reading and discussion. With a certain contempt for his friend's idealism, enthusiasm, and neglect of ordinary aims, there was mingled in Hogg a genuine admiration for his intellectual power, fine spirit, and unselfish practice. Hogg's biography can only be accepted with some qualifications; the author's desire to be lively, to make a good story, is often prejudicial to accuracy. His lack of sympathy may somewhat distort his portrait. But, when allowance is made for these things, the most vivid and, taken all together, the most accurate impression of the young Shelley is to be found in his pages.

Their acquaintance, accidentally made in the dining-hall at University College, of which they were both members, swiftly ripened into close intimacy. Hogg thus describes Shelley's personal appearance at the time: "It was a sum of many contradictions. His figure was slight and fragile, and yet his bones and joints were large and strong. He was tall, but he stooped so much that he seemed of low stature. His clothes were expensive and made according to the most approved mode of the day; but they were tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed. His gestures were abrupt and sometimes violent, occasionally even awkward, yet more frequently gentle and graceful. His complexion was delicate and almost feminine, of the purest red and white; yet he was tanned and freckled by exposure to the sun, having passed the autumn, as he said, in shooting. His features, his whole face, and particularly his head were, in fact, unusually small; yet the last appeared of a remarkable bulk, for his hair was long and bushy, and in fits of absence and in the agonies (if I may use the word) of anxious thought he often

rubbed it fiercely with his hands or passed his fingers quickly through his locks unconsciously, so that it was singularly wild and rough. . . . His features were not symmet rical (the mouth, perhaps, excepted), yet was the effect of the whole extremely powerful. They breathed an animation, a fire, an enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelligence that I never met with in any other countenance. Nor was the moral expression less beautiful than the intellectual; for there was a softness, a delicacy, a gentleness, and especially (though this will surprise many) that air of profound religious veneration that characterises the best works and chiefly the frescoes (and into these they infused their whole souls) of the great masters of Florence and Rome."

The appearance of his room was not less striking. "Books, boots, papers, shoes, philosophical instruments, clothes, pistols, linen, crockery, ammunition, and phials innumerable, with money, stockings, prints, crucibles, bags, and boxes were scattered on the floor and in every place; as if the young chemist, in order to analyse the mystery of creation, had endeavored first to reconstruct the primeval chaos. The tables, and especially the carpet, were already stained with large spots of various hues, which frequently proclaimed the agency of fire. An electrical machine, an air-pump, the galvanic trough, a solar microscope, and large glass jars and receivers were conspicuous amidst the mass of matter. Upon the table by his side were some books lying open, several letters, a bundle of new pens, and a bottle of Japan ink that served as an inkstand; a piece of deal, lately part of the lid of a box, with many chips, and a handsome razor that had been used as a knife. There were bottles of sodawater, sugar, pieces of lemon, and the traces of an effervescent beverage. Two piles of books supported the tongs, and these upheld a small glass retort above an argand lamp. I had not been seated many minutes before the liquor in the

vessel boiled over, adding fresh stains to the table and rising in fumes with a disagreeable odor. Shelley snatched the glass quickly, and, dashing it in pieces among the ashes of the grate, increased the unpleasant and penetrating effluvium."

The two friends had interminable talks about all sorts of subjects over the fire or during the long walks which they were accustomed to take every afternoon. The intellectual stimulus of Oxford in those days was not great; the university as a whole was sunk in indolence and pleasure-seeking. In the regular studies of the place Shelley took but little interest; but, as at Eton, he carried on his own development by reading those authors who commended themselves to his taste and by the discussion of those questions which he deemed most important. "The examination," says Hogg, "of a chapter of Locke's Essay Concerning the Human Understanding would induce him at any moment to quit every other pursuit. We read together Hume's Essays and some productions of Scotch metaphysicians of inferior ability. . . . We read also certain popular French works that treat of man, for the most part in a mixed method, metaphysically, morally, and politically. Hume's Essays were a favorite book with Shelley, and he was always ready to put forward in argument the doctrines they uphold." He was never weary of reading Plato (in translation in these earlier days), especially the Phaedo. "I never beheld eyes," continues Hogg, "that devoured the pages more voraciously than his; I am convinced that two-thirds of the period of day and night were often employed in reading. It is no exaggeration to affirm that out of the twenty-four hours he frequently read sixteen. At Oxford his diligence in this respect was exemplary, but it greatly increased afterwards." As to the impression which Shelley's moral character made upon Hogg, a few extracts will suffice. "As his love of

intellectual pursuits was vehement and the vigor of his genius almost celestial, so were the purity and sanctity of his life most conspicuous." "His speculations were as wild as the experience of twenty-one years has shown them to be; but the zealous earnestness for the augmentation of knowledge and the glowing philanthropy and boundless benevolence that marked them and beamed forth in the whole deportment of that extraordinary boy are not less astonishing than they would have been if the whole of his glorious anticipations had been prophetic; for these high qualities, at least, I have never found a parallel.” “I have had the happiness to associate with some of the best specimens of gentlemen; but, with all due deference for those admirable persons (may my candor and my preference be pardoned), I can affirm that Shelley was almost the only example I have yet found that was never wanting, even in the most minute particular, of the infinite and various observances of pure, entire, and perfect gentility." "Shelley was actually offended, and indeed more indignant than would appear to be consistent with the singular mildness of his nature, at a coarse and awkward jest, especially if it were immodest or uncleanly; in the latter case his anger was unbounded and his uneasiness preeminent." "I never could discern in him more than two fixed principles. The first was a strong, irrepressible love of liberty, of liberty in the abstract, and somewhat after the manner of ancient republics, without reference to the English constitution, respecting which he knew little and cared nothing, heeding it not at all. The second was an equally ardent love of toleration of all opinions, but more especially of religious opinions; of toleration complete, entire, universal, unlimited; and, as a deduction and corollary from which latter principle, he felt an intense abhorrence of persecution of every kind, public or private."