CHAPTER VII
The theory of civil liberty has ever seemed lovely to the eyes of a young man enamoured of moral and intellectual beauty. Shelley’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 institutions, 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 institution 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 scholarship 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 competitor, 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, Shelley 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 lustre 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 repetition too often becomes a severe annoyance in the long course of life, and Shelley frequently and most pathetically lamented the political divisions which then harassed 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, principally 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.