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 flushing, 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 noble 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 classes 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 class—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 passed 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 Shelley. 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 appetite 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.
Shelley 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.”