The sympathies of Shelley were instantaneous and powerful with those who
evinced in any degree the qualities, for which he was himself so
remarkable--simplicity of character, unaffected manners, genuine modesty
and an honest willingness to acquire knowledge, and he sprang to meet
their advances with an ingenuous eagerness which was peculiar to him; but
he was suddenly and violently repelled, like the needle from the negative
pole of the magnet, by any indication of pedantry, presumption or
affectation. So much was he disposed to take offence at such defects, and
so acutely was he sensible of them, that he was sometimes unjust, through
an excessive sensitiveness, in his estimate of those who had shocked him
by sins, of which he was himself utterly incapable.
Whatever might be the attainments, and however solid the merits of the
persons filling at that time the important office of instructors in the
University, they were entirely destitute of the attractions of manner;
their address was sometimes repulsive, and the formal, priggish tutor was
too often intent upon the ordinary academical course alone to the entire
exclusion of every other department of knowledge: his thoughts were wholly
engrossed by it, and so narrow were his views, that he overlooked the
claims of all merit, however exalted, except success in the public
examinations.
"They are very dull people here," Shelley said to me one evening, soon
after his arrival, with a long-drawn sigh, after musing a while. "A little
man sent for me this morning and told me in an almost inaudible whisper
that I must read. 'You must read,' he said many times in his small voice.
I answered that I had no objection. He persisted; so, to satisfy him, for
he did not appear to believe me, I told him I had some books in my
pocket, and I began to take them out. He stared at me and said that was
not exactly what he meant. 'You must read _Prometheus Vinctus_, and
Demosthenes _De Corona_ and Euclid.' 'Must I read Euclid?' I asked
sorrowfully. 'Yes, certainly; and when you have read the Greek I have
mentioned, you must begin Aristotle's _Ethics_, and then you may go on his
other treatises. It is of the utmost importance to be well acquainted with
Aristotle.' This he repeated so often that I was quite tired, and at last
I said, 'Must I care about Aristotle? What if I do not mind Aristotle?' I
then left him, for he seemed to be in great perplexity."
Notwithstanding the slight he had thus cast upon the great master of the
science that has so long been the staple of Oxford, he was not blind to
the value of the science itself. He took the scholastic logic very kindly,
seized its distinctions with his accustomed quickness, felt a keen
interest in the study and patiently endured the exposition of those minute
discriminations, which the tyro is apt to contemn as vain and trifling.
It should seem that the ancient method of communicating the art of
syllogising has been preserved, in part at least, by tradition in this
university. I have sometimes met with learned foreigners, who understood
the end and object of the scholastic logic, having received the
traditional instruction in some of the old universities on the Continent;
but I never found even one of my countrymen, except Oxonians, who rightly
comprehended the nature of the science. I may, perhaps, add that, in
proportion as the self-taught logicians had laboured in the pursuit, they
had gone far astray. It is possible, nevertheless, that those who have
drunk at the fountain head and have read the _Organon_ of Aristotle in the
original, may have attained to a just comprehension by their unassisted
energies; but in this age and in this country, I apprehend the number of
such adventurous readers is very considerable.
Shelley frequently exercised his ingenuity in long discussions respecting
various questions in logic, and more frequently indulged in metaphysical
inquiries. We read several metaphysical works together, in whole or in
part, for the first time, or after a previous perusal by one or by both of
us.
The examination of a chapter of Locke's _Essay Concerning 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--all with assiduous and friendly
altercations, and the latter writers, at least, with small profit, unless
some sparks of knowledge were struck out in the collision of debate. 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 favourite book with Shelley, and he was always ready to
put forward in argument the doctrines they uphold.
It may seem strange that he should ever have accepted the sceptical
philosophy, a system so uncongenial with a fervid and imaginative genius,
which can allure the cool, cautious, abstinent reasoner alone, and would
deter the enthusiastic, the fanciful and the speculative. We must bear in
mind, however, that he was an eager, bold, unwearied disputant; and
although the position, in which the sceptic and the materialist love to
entrench themselves, offers no picturesque attractions to the eye of the
poet, it is well adapted for defensive warfare, and it is not easy for an
ordinary enemy to dislodge him, who occupies a post that derives strength
from the weakness of the assailant. It has been insinuated that, whenever
a man of real talent and generous feelings condescends to fight under
these colours, he is guilty of a dissimulation, which he deems harmless,
perhaps even praiseworthy, for the sake of victory in argument.
It was not a little curious to observe one, whose sanguine temper led him
to believe implicitly every assertion, so that it was improbable and
incredible, exulting in the success of his philosophical doubts, when,
like the calmest and most suspicious of analysts, he refused to admit,
without strict proof, propositions that many, who are not deficient in
metaphysical prudence, account obvious and self-evident. The sceptical
philosophy had another charm; it partook of the new and the wonderful,
inasmuch as it called into doubt, and seemed to place in jeopardy during
the joyous hours of disputation, many important practical conclusions. To
a soul loving excitement and change, destruction, so that it be on a grand
scale, may sometimes prove hardly less inspiring than creation. The feat
of the magician, who, by the touch of his wand, could cause the Great
Pyramid to dissolve into the air and to vanish from the sight, would be as
surprising as the achievement of him, who, by the same rod, could
instantly raise a similar mass in any chosen spot. If the destruction of
the eternal monument was only apparent, the ocular sophism would be at
once harmless and ingenuous: so was it with the logomachy of the young and
strenuous logician, and his intellectual activity merited praise and
reward.
There was another reason, moreover, why the sceptical philosophy should be
welcome to Shelley at that time: he was young, and it is generally
acceptable to youth. It is adopted as the abiding rule of reason
throughout life, by those only who are distinguished by a sterility of
soul, a barrenness of invention, a total dearth of fancy and a scanty
stock of learning. Such, in truth, although the warmth of juvenile blood,
the light burthen of few years and the precipitation of inexperience may
sometimes seem to contradict the assertion, is the state of the mind at
the commencement of manhood, when the vessel has as yet received only a
small portion of the cargo of the accumulated wisdom of past ages, when
the amount of mental operations that have actually been performed is
small, and the materials upon which the imagination can work are
insignificant; consequently, the inventions of the young are crude and
frigid.
Hence the most fertile mind exactly resembles in early youth the hopeless
barrenness of those who have grown old in vain as to its actual condition,
and it differs only in the unseen capacity for future production. The
philosopher who declares that he knows nothing, and that nothing can be
known, will readily find followers among the young, for they are sensible
that they possess the requisite qualifications for entering his school,
and are as far advanced in the science of ignorance as their master.
A stranger who should have chanced to have been present at some of
Shelley's disputes, or who knew him only from having read some of the
short argumentative essays which he composed as voluntary exercises, would
have said, "Surely the soul of Hume passed by transmigration into the body
of that eloquent young man; or, rather, he represents one of the
enthusiastic and animated materialists of the French schools, whom
revolutionary violence lately intercepted at an early age in his
philosophical career."
There were times, however, when a visitor, who had listened to glowing
discourses delivered with a more intense ardour, would have hailed a young
Platonist, breathing forth the ideal philosophy, and in his pursuit of the
intellectual world entirely overlooking the material or noticing it only
to contemn it. The tall boy, who is permitted for the first season to
scare the partridges with his new fowling-piece, scorns to handle the top
or the hoop of his younger brother; thus the man, whose years and studies
are mature, slights the first feeble aspirations after the higher
departments of knowledge, that were deemed so important during his
residence at college. It seems laughable, but it is true, that our
knowledge of Plato was derived solely from Dacier's translation of a few
of the dialogues, and from an English version of the French translation:
we had never attempted a single sentence in the Greek. Since that time,
however, I believe, few of our countrymen have read the golden works of
that majestic philosopher in the original language more frequently and
more carefully than ourselves; and few, if any, with more profit than
Shelley. Although the source, whence flowed our earliest taste of the
divine philosophy, was scanty and turbid, the draught was not the less
grateful to our lips: our zeal in some measure atoned for our poverty.
Shelley was never weary of reading, or of listening to me whilst I read,
passages from the dialogues contained in this collection, and especially
from the _Phaedo_; and he was vehemently excited by the striking doctrines
which Socrates unfolds, especially by that which teaches that all our
knowledge consists of reminiscences of what we had learned in a former
existence. He often rose, paced slowly about the room, shook his long,
wild locks and discoursed in a solemn tone and with a mysterious air,
speculating concerning our previous condition, and the nature of our life
and occupations in that world, where, according to Plato, we had attained
to erudition, and had advanced ourselves in knowledge so far that the most
studious and the most inventive, or, in other words, those who have the
best memory, are able to call back a part only, and with much pain and
extreme difficulty, of what was formerly familiar to us.
It is hazardous, however, to speak of his earliest efforts as a Platonist,
lest they should be confounded with his subsequent advancement; it is not
easy to describe his first introduction to the exalted wisdom of antiquity
without borrowing inadvertently from the knowledge which he afterwards
acquired. The cold, ungenial, foggy atmosphere of northern metaphysics was
less suited to the ardent temperament of his soul than the warm, bright,
vivifying climate of southern and eastern philosophy. His genius expanded
under the benign influence of the latter, and he derived copious
instruction from a luminous system, that is only dark through excess of
brightness, and seems obscure to vulgar vision through its extreme
radiance. Nevertheless, in argument--and to argue on all questions was his
dominant passion--he usually adopted the scheme of the sceptics, partly,
perhaps, because it was more popular and is more generally understood. The
disputant, who would use Plato as his text-book in this age, would reduce
his opponents to a small number indeed.
The study of that highest department of ethics, which includes all the
inferior branches and is directed towards the noblest and most important
ends of jurisprudence, was always next my heart; at an early age it
attracted my attention.
When I first endeavoured to turn the regards of Shelley towards this
engaging pursuit, he strongly expressed a very decided aversion to such
inquiries, deeming them worthless and illiberal. The beautiful theory of
the art of right, and the honourable office of administering distributive
justice, have been brought into general discredit, unhappily for the best
interests of humanity, and to the vast detriment of the state, into
unmerited disgrace in the modern world by the errors of practitioners. An
ingenuous mind instinctively shrinks from the contemplation of legal
topics, because the word law is associated with, and inevitably calls up
the idea of the low chicanery of a pettifogging attorney, of the vulgar
oppression and gross insolence of a bailiff, or at best, of the wearisome
and unmeaning tautology that distends an Act of Parliament, and the dull
dropsical compositions of the special pleader, the conveyancer or other
draughtsman.
In no country is this unhappy debasement of a most illustrious science
more remarkable than in our own; no other nation is so prone to, or so
patient of, abuses; in no other land are posts, in themselves honourable,
so accessible to the meanest. The spirit of trade favours the degradation,
and every commercial town is a well-spring of vulgarity, which sends
forth hosts of practitioners devoid of the solid and elegant attainments
which could sustain the credit of the science, but so strong in the
artifices that insure success, as not only to monopolise the rewards due
to merit, but sometimes even to climb the judgment-seat.
It is not wonderful, therefore, that generous minds, until they have been
taught to discriminate, and to distinguish a noble science from ignoble
practices, should usually confound them together, hastily condemning the
former with the latter. Shelley listened with much attention to questions
of natural law, and with the warm interest that he felt in all
metaphysical disquisitions, after he had conquered his first prejudice
against practical jurisprudence.
The science of right, like other profound and extensive sciences, can only
be acquired completely when the foundations have been laid at an early
age. Had the energies of Shelley's vigorous mind taken this direction at
that time, it is impossible to doubt that he would have become a
distinguished jurist. Besides that fondness for such inquiries which is
necessary to success in any liberal pursuit, he displayed the most acute
sensitiveness of injustice, however slight, and a vivid perception of
inconvenience. As soon as a wrong, arising from a proposed enactment or a
supposed decision, was suggested, he instantly rushed into the opposite
extreme; and when a greater evil was shown to result from the contrary
course which he had so hastily adopted, his intellect was roused, and he
endeavoured most earnestly to ascertain the true mean that would secure
the just by avoiding the unjust extremes.
I have observed in young men that the propensity to plunge headlong into a
net of difficulty, on being startled at an apparent want of equity in any
rule that was propounded, although at first it might seem to imply a lack
of caution and foresight--which are eminently the virtues of legislators
and of judges--was an unerring prognostic of a natural aptitude for
pursuits, wherein eminence is inconsistent with an inertness of the moral
sense, and a recklessness of the violation of rights, however remote and
trifling. Various instances of such aptitude in Shelley might be
furnished, but these studies are interesting to a limited number of
persons only.
As the mind of Shelley was apt to acquire many of the most valuable
branches of liberal knowledge, so there were other portions comprised
within the circle of science, for the reception of which, however active
and acute, it was entirely unfit. He rejected with marvellous impatience
every mathematical discipline that was offered; no problem could awaken
the slightest curiosity, nor could he be made sensible of the beauty of
any theorem. The method of demonstration had no charm for him. He
complained of the insufferable prolixity and the vast tautology of Euclid
and the other ancient geometricians; and when the discoveries or modern
analysts were presented, he was immediately distracted, and fell into
endless musings.
With respect to the Oriental tongues, he coldly observed that the
appearance of the characters was curious. Although he perused with more
than ordinary eagerness the relations of travellers in the East and the
translations of the marvellous tales of Oriental fancy, he was not
attracted by the desire to penetrate the languages which veil these
treasures. He would never deign to lend an ear or an eye for a moment to
my Hebrew studies, in which I had made at that time some small progress;
nor could he be tempted to inquire into the value of the singular lore of
the Rabbins.
He was able, like the many, to distinguish a violet from a sunflower and a
cauliflower from a peony, but his botanical knowledge was more limited
than that of the least skilful of common observers, for he was neglectful
of flowers. He was incapable of apprehending the delicate distinctions of
structure which form the basis of the beautiful classification of modern
botanists. I was never able to impart even a glimpse of the merits of Ray
or Linnaeus, or to encourage a hope that he would ever be competent to see
the visible analogies that constitute the marked, yet mutually approaching
_genera_, into which the productions of nature, and especially vegetables,
are divided.
It may seem invidious to notice imperfections in a mind of the highest
order, but the exercise of a due candour, however unwelcome, is required
to satisfy those who were not acquainted with Shelley, that the admiration
excited by his marvellous talents and manifold virtues in all who were so
fortunate as to enjoy the opportunity of examining his merits by frequent
intercourse, was not the result of the blind partiality that amiable and
innocent dispositions, attractive manners and a noble and generous bearing
sometimes create.
Shelley was always unwilling to visit the remarkable specimens of
architecture, the objects of art, and the various antiquities that adorn
Oxford; although, if he encountered them by accident, and they were
pointed out to him, he admired them more sincerely and heartily than the
generality of strangers, who, through compliance with fashion,
ostentatiously sought them out. His favourite recreation, as I have
already stated, was a free, unrestrained ramble into the country.
After quitting the city and its environs by walking briskly along the
highway for several miles, it was his delight to strike boldly into the
fields, to cross the country daringly on foot, as is usual with sportsmen
when shooting; to perform, as it were, a pedestrian steeplechase. He was
strong, light and active, and in all respects well suited for such
exploits, and we used frequently to traverse a considerable tract in this
manner, especially when the frost had dried the land, had given complete
solidity to the most treacherous paths, and had thrown a natural bridge
over spots that in open weather during the winter would have been nearly
impassable.
By resolutely piercing through a district in this manner we often stumbled
upon objects in our humble travels that created a certain surprise and
interest; some of them are still fresh in my recollection. My susceptible
companion was occasionally much delighted and strongly excited by
incidents that would, perhaps, have seemed unimportant trifles to others.
One day we had penetrated somewhat farther than usual, for the ground was
in excellent order, and as the day was intensely cold, although bright and
sunny, we had pushed on with uncommon speed. I do not remember the
direction we took; nor can I even determine on which side of the Thames
our course lay. We had crossed roads and lanes, and had traversed open
fields and inclosures; some tall and ancient trees were on our right hand;
we skirted a little wood, and presently came to a small copse. It was
guarded by an old hedge, or thicket; we were deflected, therefore, from
our onward course towards the left, and we were winding round it, when the
quick eye of my companion perceived a gap. He instantly dashed in with as
much alacrity as if he had suddenly caught a glimpse of a pheasant that
he had lately wounded in a district where such game was scarce, and he
disappeared in a moment.
I followed him, but with less ardour, and, passing through a narrow belt
of wood and thicket, I presently found him standing motionless in one of
his picturesque attitudes, riveted to the earth in speechless
astonishment. He had thrown himself thus precipitately into a trim
flower-garden of small dimensions, encompassed by a narrow, but close
girdle of trees and underwood; it was apparently remote from all
habitations, and it contrasted strongly with the bleak and bare country
through which we had recently passed.
Had the secluded scene been bright with the gay flowers of spring, with
hyacinths and tulips; had it been powdered with mealy auriculas or
conspicuous for a gaudy show of all anemones and of every ranuculus; had
it been profusely decorated by the innumerable roses of summer, it would
be easy to understand why it was so cheerful. But we were now in the very
heart of winter, and after much frost scarcely a single wretched brumal
flower lingered and languished. There was no foliage save the dark leaves
of evergreens, and of them there were many, especially around and on the
edges of the magic circle, on which account, possibly, but chiefly perhaps
through the symmetry of the numerous small _parterres_, the scrupulous
neatness of the corresponding walks, the just ordonnance and disposition
of certain benches, the integrity and freshness of the green trellises,
and of the skeletons of some arbours, and through every leafless
excellence which the dried anatomy of a flower-garden can exhibit, its
past and its future wealth seemed to shine forth in its present poverty,
and its potential glories adorned its actual disgrace.
The sudden transition from the rugged fields to this garnished and
decorated retreat was striking, and held my imagination captive a few
moments. The impression, however, would probably have soon faded from my
memory, had it not been fixed there by the recollection of the beings who
gave animation and a permanent interest to the polished nook.
We admired the trim and retired garden for some minutes in silence, and
afterwards each answered in monosyllables the other's brief expressions of
wonder. Neither of us had advanced a single step beyond the edge of the
thicket which we had entered; but I was about to precede, and to walk
round the magic circle, in order fully to survey the place, when Shelley
startled me by turning with astonishing rapidity, and dashing through the
bushes and the gap in the fence with the mysterious and whimsical agility
of a kangaroo. Had he caught a glimpse of a tiger crouching behind the
laurels, and preparing to spring upon him, he could not have vanished more
promptly or more silently. I was habituated to his abrupt movements,
nevertheless his alacrity surprised me, and I tried in vain to discover
what object had scared him away. I retired, therefore, to the gap, and
when I reached it, I saw him already at some distance, proceeding with
gigantic strides nearly in the same route by which we came. I ran after
him, and when I rejoined him, he had halted upon a turnpike-road and was
hesitating as to the course he ought to pursue. It was our custom to
advance across the country as far as the utmost limits of our time would
permit, and to go back to Oxford by the first public road we found, after
attaining the extreme distance to which we could venture to wander.
Having ascertained the route homeward, we pursued it quickly, as we were
wont, but less rapidly than Shelley had commenced his hasty retreat. He
had perceived that the garden was attached to a gentleman's house, and he
had consequently quitted it thus precipitately. I had already observed on
the right a winding path that led through a plantation to certain offices,
which showed that a house was about a quarter of a mile from the spot
where I then stood.
Had I been aware that the garden was connected with a residence, I
certainly should not have trespassed upon it; but, having entered
unconsciously, and since the owner was too far removed to be annoyed by
observing the intrusion, I was tempted to remain a short time to examine a
spot which, during my brief visit, seemed so singular. The superior and
highly sensitive delicacy of my companion instantly took the alarm on
discovering indications of a neighbouring mansion; hence his marvellous
precipitancy in withdrawing himself from the garnished retirement he had
unwittingly penetrated, and we advanced some distance along the road
before he had entirely overcome his modest confusion.
Shelley had looked on the ornate inclosure with a poet's eye, and as we
hastily pursued our course towards Oxford by the frozen and sounding way,
whilst the day rapidly declined, he discoursed of it fancifully, and with
a more glowing animation than ordinary, like one agitated by a divine
fury, and by the impulse of inspiring deity. He continued, indeed, so
long to enlarge upon the marvels of the enchanted grove, that I hinted the
enchantress might possibly be at hand, and since he was so eloquent
concerning the nest, what would have been his astonishment had he been
permitted to see the bird herself.
He sometimes described, with a curious fastidiousness, the qualities which
a female must possess to kindle the fire of love in his bosom. The
imaginative youth supposed that he was to be moved by the most absolute
perfection alone. It is equally impossible to doubt the exquisite
refinement of his taste, or the boundless power of the most mighty of
divinities; to refuse to believe that he was a just and skilful critic of
feminine beauty and grace, and of whatever is attractive, or that he was
never practically as blind, at the least, as men of ordinary talent. How
sadly should we disparage the triumphs of Love were we to maintain that he
is able to lead astray the senses of the vulgar alone!
In the theory of love, however, a poet will rarely err. Shelley's lively
fancy had painted a goodly portraiture of the mistress of the fair garden,
nor were apt words wanting to convey to me a faithful copy of the bright
original. It would be a cruel injustice to an orator should a plain man
attempt, after a silence of more than twenty years, to revive his glowing
harangue from faded recollections. I will not seek, therefore, to pourtray
the likeness of the ideal nymph of the flower-garden.
"Since your fairy gardener," I said, "has so completely taken possession
of your imagination," and he was wonderfully excited by the unexpected
scene and his own splendid decorations, "it is a pity we did not notice
the situation, for I am quite sure I should not be able to return thither,
to recover your Eden and the Eve, whom you created to till it, and I doubt
whether you could guide me."
He acknowledged that he was as incapable of finding it again as of leading
me to that paradise to which I had compared it.
"You may laugh at my enthusiasm," he continued, "but you must allow that
you were not less struck by the singularity of that mysterious corner of
the earth than myself. You are equally entitled, therefore, to dwell
there, at least, in fancy, and to find a partner whose character will
harmonise with the genius of the place."
He then declared, that thenceforth it should be deemed the possession of
two tutelary nymphs, not of one; and he proceeded with unabated fervour to
delineate the second patroness, and to distinguish her from the first.
"No!" he exclaimed, pausing in the rapid career of words, and for a while
he was somewhat troubled, "the seclusion is too sweet, too holy, to be the
theatre of ordinary love; the love of the sexes, however pure, still
retains some taint of earthly grossness; we must not admit it within the
sanctuary."
He was silent for several minutes, and his anxiety visibly increased.
"The love of a mother for a child is more refined; it is more
disinterested, more spiritual; but," he added, after some reflection,
"the very existence of the child still connects it with the passion which
we have discarded," and he relapsed into his former musings.
"The love a sister bears towards a sister," he exclaimed abruptly, and
with an air of triumph, "is unexceptionable."
This idea pleased him, and as he strode along he assigned the trim garden
to two sisters, affirming, with the confidence of an inventor, that it
owed its neatness to the assiduous culture of their neat hands; that it
was their constant haunt; the care of it their favourite pastime, and its
prosperity, next after the welfare of each other, the chief wish of both.
He described their appearance, their habits, their feelings, and drew a
lovely picture of their amiable and innocent attachment; of the meek and
dutiful regard of the younger, which partook, in some degree, of filial
reverence, but was more facile and familiar; and of the protecting,
instructing, hoping fondness of the elder, that resembled maternal
tenderness, but had less of reserve and more of sympathy. In no other
relation could the intimacy be equally perfect; not even between brothers,
for their life is less domestic: there is a separation in their pursuits,
and an independence in the masculine character. The occupations of all
females of the same age and rank are the same, and by night sisters
cherish each other in the same quiet nest. Their union wears not only the
grace of delicacy, but of fragility also; for it is always liable to be
suddenly destroyed by the marriage of either party, or, at least, to be
interrupted and suspended for an indefinite period.
He depicted so eloquently the excellence of sisterly affection, and he
drew so distinctly and so minutely the image of two sisters, to whom he
chose to ascribe the unusual comeliness of the spot into which we had
unintentionally intruded, that the trifling incident has been impressed
upon my memory, and has been intimately associated in my mind, through his
creations, with his poetic character.