Shelley at Oxford

by Thomas Jefferson Hogg

There is much in the poetry of Shelley that seems to encourage the belief, that the inspiration of the Muses was seldom duly hailed by the pious diligence of the recipient. It is true that his compositions were too often unfinished, but his example cannot encourage indolence in the youthful writer, for his carelessness is usually apparent only. He had really applied himself as strenuously to conquer all the other difficulties of his art, as he patiently laboured to penetrate the mysteries of metre in the state wherein it exists entire and can alone be attained—in one of the classical languages.

The poet takes his name from the highest effort of his art—creation; and, being himself a maker, he must, of necessity, feel a strong sympathy with the exercise of the creative energies. Shelley was exceedingly deficient in mechanical ingenuity; and he was also wanting in spontaneous curiosity respecting the operations of artificers. The wonderful dexterity of well-practised hands, the long tradition of innumerable ages, and the vast accumulation of technical wisdom that are manifested in the various handicrafts, have always been interesting to me, and I have ever loved to watch the artist at his work. I have often induced Shelley to take part in such observations, and although he never threw himself in the way of professors of the manual erudition of the workshop, his vivid delight in witnessing the marvels of the plastic hand, whenever they were brought before his eyes, was very striking; and the rude workman was often gratified to find that his merit in one narrow field was, at once and intuitively, so fully appreciated by the young scholar. The instances are innumerable that would attest an unusual sympathy with the arts of construction even in their most simple stages.

I led him one summer’s evening into a brickfield. It had never occurred to him to ask himself how a brick is formed; the secret was revealed in a moment. He was charmed with the simple contrivance, and astonished at the rapidity, facility and exactness with which it was put in use by so many busy hands. An ordinary observer would have smiled and passed on, but the son of fancy confessed his delight with an energy which roused the attention even of the ragged throng, that seemed to exist only that they might pass successive lumps of clay through a wooden frame.

I was surprised at the contrast between the general indifference of Shelley for the mechanical arts and his intense admiration of a particular application of one of them the first time I noticed the latter peculiarity. During our residence at Oxford I repaired to his rooms one morning at the accustomed hour, and I found a tailor with him. He had expected to receive a new coat on the preceding evening; it was not sent home and he was mortified. I know not why, for he was commonly altogether indifferent about dress, and scarcely appeared to distinguish one coat from another. He was now standing erect in the middle of the room in his new blue coat, with all its glittering buttons, and, to atone for the delay, the tailor was loudly extolling the beauty of the cloth and the felicity of the fit; his eloquence had not been thrown away upon his customer, for never was man more easily persuaded than the master of persuasion. The man of thimbles applied to me to vouch his eulogies. I briefly assented to them. He withdrew, after some bows, and Shelley, snatching his hat, cried with shrill impatience,—

“Let us go!”

“Do you mean to walk in the fields in your new coat?” I asked.

“Yes, certainly,” he answered, and we sallied forth.

We sauntered for a moderate space through lanes and by-ways, until we reached a spot near to a farmhouse, where the frequent trampling of much cattle had rendered the road almost impassable, and deep with black mud; but by crossing the corner of a stack-yard, from one gate to another, we could tread upon clean straw, and could wholly avoid the impure and impracticable slough.

We had nearly effected the brief and commodious transit—I was stretching forth my hand to open the gate that led us back into the lane—when a lean, brindled and most ill-favoured mastiff, that had stolen upon us softly over the straw unheard and without barking, seized Shelley suddenly by the skirts. I instantly kicked the animal in the ribs with so much force that I felt for some days after the influence of his gaunt bones on my toe. The blow caused him to flinch towards the left, and Shelley, turning round quickly, planted a kick in his throat, which sent him sprawling, and made him retire hastily among the stacks, and we then entered the lane. The fury of the mastiff, and the rapid turn, had torn the skirts of the new blue coat across the back, just about that part of the human loins which our tailors, for some wise but inscrutable purpose, are wont to adorn with two buttons. They were entirely severed from the body, except a narrow strip of cloth on the left side, and this Shelley presently rent asunder.

I never saw him so angry either before or since. He vowed that he would bring his pistols and shoot the dog, and that he would proceed at law against the owner. The fidelity of the dog towards his master is very beautiful in theory, and there is much to admire and to revere in this ancient and venerable alliance; but, in practice, the most unexceptionable dog is a nuisance to all mankind, except his master, at all times, and very often to him also, and a fierce surly dog is the enemy of the whole human race. The farmyards in many parts of England are happily free from a pest that is formidable to everybody but thieves by profession; in other districts savage dogs abound, and in none so much, according to my experience, as in the vicinity of Oxford. The neighbourhood of a still more famous city—of Rome—is likewise infested by dogs, more lowering, more ferocious and incomparably more powerful.