‘Dear Mr. Jeaffreson,
‘The College Register of University College, Oxford, gives the date of the matriculation of
‘Percy Bysshe Shelley, 10th April, 1810.
‘Thomas Jefferson Hogg, 2nd February, 1810.
‘I have this direct from the Master. This testimony, I suppose, will be sufficient; so I return your stamps. I applied to the College first, and not to the Registrar of the University.
‘Ever yours truly,
‘H. B. Dixon.’
In assuming that, because they were both first-year’s men on making one another’s acquaintance in the dining-hall of their College, Hogg and Shelley matriculated and went into residence on or about the same day, and that, as they met one another for the first time in October, 1810, at the same dinner-table, they both entered Oxford in the Michaelmas term of that year, Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy followed half-a-score Shelleyan specialists in assuming as matters of course, what no old Oxford man would have thought of assuming, even as mere primâ facie probabilities. Shelley’s academic senior by more than two months, Hogg was his superior in respect to ‘residence’ by a much longer time. After matriculating on 10th April, 1810, and passing a few days in the University, during which time he visited the Bodleian Library, Shelley returned to Field Place, kept ‘grace-terms’ in the country, and went ‘into residence’ in the following October. Hogg, on the contrary, went into residence on the day of his matriculation, and from that day till the next Long Vacation remained at Oxford, with the exception of the brief break of the Easter holidays, which he spent with friends who lived in counties more accessible to the undergraduate, than his own home in the northern shire. In Shelley’s time, no less than in the present writer’s time at Oxford, it was usual for freshmen, coming to the University from homes or schools at no great distance from Alma Mater, to ‘go down’ after matriculating, and keep ‘grace-terms’ in the country, before coming into residence. On the other hand, it was usual in pre-railway times for the academic freshman, who could not return to his people without a long and expensive journey, to matriculate and go ‘into residence’ at the same time.
For the information of those, who have been induced to regard Mr. MacCarthy’s book of blunders as an authoritative performance, it may be well to add that the duly matriculated undergraduate, keeping ‘grace-terms’ in the country, was just as much a member of the University, as the freshman staying at his College. Both alike had entered the University, and become members of it. In respect to Hogg’s time at Oxford, it is also well to remark that, though he did not matriculate till 2nd February, 1810, he came to Oxford from the north country in the previous autumn. Everyone, who has read his delightful ‘two volumes,’ remembers Hogg’s account of his first arrival at Oxford, one ‘fine autumnal afternoon.’ He may have come to Oxford to read with a tutor before matriculation. Or on taking his first view of the University, he may only have been passing through the seat of learning, on his way to friends in some not remote county. Anyhow, it is certain that the youngster from the north country visited Oxford, and took something more than a mere tourist’s interest in the place, at a time when the University was already, or was soon to be, agitated by the fierce conflict of parties, that resulted-in the election of Lord Grenville to be Chancellor, in the place of the late Duke of Portland,—a fact to be remembered in connection with certain of the charges made against the biographer by Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy.
The Duke of Portland died on 30th October, 1809; his successor in the Chancellorship (Lord Grenville) was elected after an unusually vehement contest on 14th December, 1809, by only thirteen votes over the number of votes given for Lord Eldon. If he was not at Oxford during the election, or during the canvass, Hogg was there shortly before the conflict of closely-matched parties, and was a member of the University when the new Chancellor had been chosen only seven weeks and one day. Let us now see the way in which Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy presses charges of inaccuracy against Hogg, in respect to what the latter says about this election. After accusing Hogg of serious and suspicious misstatements on other matters, the author of Shelley’s Early Life writes thus:—
‘But even on questions which apparently he could have no motive in misrepresenting, he is just as inexact as Captain Medwin. The following is an instance of this.... “During the whole period of our residence there,”—that is, at Oxford, says Mr. Hogg, in one of those unguarded moments when he enables us to test his statements by reference to a fixed date,—“the University was cruelly disfigured by bitter feuds arising out of the late election of its Chancellor; in an especial manner was our most venerable college deformed by them, and by angry and senseless disappointment, Lord Grenville had just been chosen.”... A few words will show how utterly irreconcilable these statements are with the date of Shelley’s entrance at University College.... The candidateship of Lord Grenville, therefore, extended from the 30th of October to 14th of December, 1809. But in 1809, as we have seen, Shelley was at Eton and Field Place, and did not go to Oxford until the end of October, 1810—that is, exactly a year after the candidateship of Lord Grenville commenced, and ten months after he had been elected. Even the installation of Lord Grenville as Chancellor preceded the entrance of Shelley into the University by four months. That event took place on June 30, 1810.... As Shelley did not enter the University of Oxford until the end of October, 1810, ... that nobleman (i.e. Lord Grenville) had not “just been chosen” as Mr. Hogg writes; he had been elected ten months before.’