The prince of Roman eloquence affirms that the good man alone can be a
perfect orator, and truly; for without the weight of a spotless reputation
it is certain that the most artful and elaborate discourse must want
authority--the main ingredient in persuasion.
The position is, at least, equally true of the poet, whose grand strength
always lies in the ethical force of his compositions, and these are great
in proportion to the efficient greatness of their moral purpose. If,
therefore, we would criticise poetry correctly, and from the foundation,
it behoves us to examine the morality of the bard.
In no individual, perhaps, was the moral sense ever more completely
developed than in Shelley; in no being was the perception of right and of
wrong more acute. The biographer who takes upon himself the pleasing and
instructive, but difficult and delicate task of composing a faithful
history of his whole life, will frequently be compelled to discuss the
important questions, whether his conduct, at certain periods, was
altogether such as ought to be proposed for imitation; whether he was ever
misled by an ardent imagination, a glowing temperament, something of
hastiness in choice and a certain constitutional impatience; whether, like
less gifted mortals, he ever shared in the common portion of
mortality--repentance, and to what extent?
Such inquiries, however, do not fall within the compass of a brief
narrative of his career at the University. The unmatured mind of a boy is
capable of good intentions only and of generous and kindly feelings, and
these were pre-eminent in him. It will be proper to unfold the excellence
of his dispositions, not for the sake of vain and empty praise, but simply
to show his aptitude to receive the sweet fury of the Muses.
His inextinguishable thirst for knowledge, his boundless philanthropy, his
fearless, it may be his almost imprudent pursuit of truth have been
already exhibited. If mercy to beasts be a criterion of a good man,
numerous instances of extreme tenderness would demonstrate his worth. I
will mention one only.
We were walking one afternoon in Bagley wood; on turning a corner we
suddenly came upon a boy who was driving an ass. It was very young and
very weak, and was staggering beneath a most disproportionate load of
faggots, and he was belabouring its lean ribs angrily and violently with a
short, thick, heavy cudgel.
At the sight of cruelty Shelley was instantly transported far beyond the
usual measure of excitement. He sprang forward and was about to interpose
with energetic and indignant vehemence. I caught him by the arm and to his
present annoyance held him back, and with much difficulty persuaded him to
allow me to be the advocate of the dumb animal. His cheeks glowed with
displeasure and his lips murmured his impatience during my brief dialogue
with the young tyrant.
"That is a sorry little ass, boy," I said; "it seems to have scarcely any
strength."
"None at all; it is good for nothing."
"It cannot get on; it can hardly stand. If anybody could make it go, you
would; you have taken great pains with it."
"Yes, I have; but it is to no purpose!"
"It is of little use striking it, I think."
"It is not worth beating. The stupid beast has got more wood now than it
can carry; it can hardly stand, you see!"
"I suppose it put it upon its back itself?"
The boy was silent; I repeated the question.
"No; it has not sense enough for that," he replied, with an incredulous
leer.
By dint of repeated blows he had split his cudgel, and the sound caused by
the divided portion had alarmed Shelley's humanity. I pointed to it and
said, "You have split your stick; it is not good for much now."
He turned it, and held the divided end in his hand.
"The other end is whole, I see, but I suppose you could split that too on
the ass's back, if you chose; it is not so thick."
"It is not so thick, but it is full of knots. It would take a great deal
of trouble to split it, and the beast is not worth that; it would do no
good!"
"It would do no good, certainly; and if anybody saw you, he might say that
you were a savage young ruffian and that you ought to be served in the
same manner yourself."
The fellow looked at me in some surprise, and sank into sullen silence.
He presently threw his cudgel into the wood as far as he was able, and
began to amuse himself by pelting the birds with pebbles, leaving my
long-eared client to proceed at its own pace, having made up his mind,
perhaps, to be beaten himself, when he reached home, by a tyrant still
more unreasonable than himself, on account of the inevitable default of
his ass.
Shelley was satisfied with the result of our conversation, and I repeated
to him the history of the injudicious and unfortunate interference of Don
Quixote between the peasant, John Haldudo, and his servant, Andrew.
Although he reluctantly admitted that the acrimony of humanity might often
aggravate the sufferings of the oppressed by provoking the oppressor, I
always observed that the impulse of generous indignation, on witnessing
the infliction of pain, was too vivid to allow him to pause and consider
the probable consequences of the abrupt interposition of the
knight-errantry, which would at once redress all grievances. Such
exquisite sensibility and a sympathy with suffering so acute and so
uncontrolled may possibly be inconsistent with the calmness and
forethought of the philosopher, but they accord well with the high
temperature of a poet's blood.
As his port had the meekness of a maiden, so the heart of the young virgin
who had never crossed her father's threshold to encounter the rude world,
could not be more susceptible of all the sweet domestic charities than
his: in this respect Shelley's disposition would happily illustrate the
innocence and virginity of the Muses.
In most men, and especially in very young men, an excessive addiction to
study tends to chill the heart and to blunt the feelings, by engrossing
the attention. Notwithstanding his extreme devotion to literature, and
amidst his various and ardent speculations, he retained a most
affectionate regard for his relations, and particularly for the females of
his family; it was not without manifest joy that he received a letter from
his mother or his sisters.
A child of genius is seldom duly appreciated by the world during his life,
least of all by his own kindred. The parents of a man of talent may claim
the honour of having given him birth, yet they commonly enjoy but little
of his society. Whilst we hang with delight over the immortal pages, we
are apt to suppose that the gifted author was fondly cherished; that a
possession so uncommon and so precious was highly prized; that his
contemporaries anxiously watched his going out and eagerly looked for his
coming in; for we should ourselves have borne him tenderly in our hands,
that he might not dash his foot against a stone. Surely such an one was
given in charge to angels, we cry. On the contrary, Nature appears most
unaccountably to slight a gift that she gave grudgingly, as if it were of
small value, and easily replaced.
An unusual number of books, Greek or Latin classics, each inscribed with
the name of the donor, which had been presented to him, according to
custom, on quitting Eton, attested that Shelley had been popular among his
schoolfellows. Many of them were then at Oxford, and they frequently
called at his rooms. Although he spoke of them with regard, he generally
avoided their society, for it interfered with his beloved study, and
interrupted the pursuits to which he ardently and entirely devoted
himself.
In the nine centuries that elapsed from the time of our great founder,
Alfred, to our days, there never was a student who more richly merited the
favour and assistance of a learned body, or whose fruitful mind would have
repaid with a larger harvest the labour of careful and judicious
cultivation. And such cultivation he was well entitled to receive. Nor did
his scholar-like virtues merit neglect, still less to be betrayed, like
the young nobles of Falisci, by a traitorous schoolmaster to an enemy less
generous than Camillus. No student ever read more assiduously. He was to
be found book in hand at all hours, reading in season and out of season,
at table, in bed and especially during a walk; not only in the quiet
country and in retired paths; not only at Oxford in the public walks and
High Street, but in the most crowded thoroughfares of London. Nor was he
less absorbed by the volume that was open before him in Cheapside, in
Cranbourne Alley or in Bond Street, than in a lonely lane, or a secluded
library.
Sometimes a vulgar fellow would attempt to insult or annoy the eccentric
student in passing. Shelley always avoided the malignant interruption by
stepping aside with his vast and quiet agility.
Sometimes I have observed, as an agreeable contrast to these wretched men,
that persons of the humblest station have paused and gazed with respectful
wonder as he advanced, almost unconscious of the throng, stooping low,
with bent knees and outstretched neck, poring earnestly over the volume,
which he extended before him; for they knew this, although the simple
people knew but little, that an ardent scholar is worthy of deference, and
that the man of learning is necessarily the friend of humanity, and
especially of the many. I never beheld eyes that devoured the pages more
voraciously than his. I am convinced that two-thirds of the period of the
day and night were often employed in reading. It is no exaggeration to
affirm, that out of the twenty-four hours he frequently read sixteen. At
Oxford his diligence in this respect was exemplary, but it greatly
increased afterwards, and I sometimes thought that he carried it to a
pernicious excess. I am sure, at least, that I was unable to keep pace
with him.
On the evening of a wet day, when we had read with scarcely any
intermission from an early hour in the morning, I have urged him to lay
aside his book. It required some extravagance to rouse him to join
heartily in conversation; to tempt him to avoid the chimney-piece on which
commonly he had laid the open volume.
"If I were to read as long as you read, Shelley, my hair and my teeth
would be strewed about on the floor, and my eyes would slip down my cheeks
into my waistcoat pockets, or, at least, I should become so weary and
nervous that I should not know whether it were so or not."
He began to scrape the carpet with his feet, as if teeth were actually
lying upon it, and he looked fixedly at my face, and his lively fancy
represented the empty sockets. His imagination was excited, and the spell
that bound him to his books was broken, and, creeping close to the fire,
and, as it were, under the fireplace, he commenced a most animated
discourse.
Few were aware of the extent, and still fewer, I apprehend, of the
profundity of his reading. In his short life and without ostentation he
had in truth read more Greek than many an aged pedant, who with pompous
parade prides himself upon this study alone. Although he had not entered
critically into the minute niceties of the noblest of languages, he was
thoroughly conversant with the valuable matter it contains. A pocket
edition of Plato, of Plutarch, of Euripides, without interpretation or
notes, or of the Septuagint, was his ordinary companion; and he read the
text straightforward for hours, if not as readily as an English author,
at least with as much facility as French, Italian or Spanish.
"Upon my soul, Shelley, your style of going through a Greek book is
something quite beautiful!" was the wondering exclamation of one who was
himself no mean student.
As his love of intellectual pursuits was vehement, and the vigour of his
genius almost celestial, so were the purity and sanctity of his life most
conspicuous.
His food was plain and simple as that of a hermit, with a certain
anticipation, even at this time, of a vegetable diet, respecting which he
afterwards became an enthusiast in theory, and in practice an irregular
votary.
With his usual fondness for moving the abstruse and difficult questions of
the highest theology, he loved to inquire whether man can justify, on the
ground of reason alone, the practice of taking the life of the inferior
animals, except in the necessary defence of his life and of his means of
life, the fruits of that field which he has tilled, from violence and
spoliation.
"Not only have considerable sects," he would say, "denied the right
altogether, but those among the tender-hearted and imaginative people of
antiquity, who accounted it lawful to kill and eat, appear to have doubted
whether they might take away life merely for the use of man alone. They
slew their cattle, not simply for human guests, like the less scrupulous
butchers of modern times, but only as a sacrifice, for the honour and in
the name of the Deity; or, rather, of those subordinate divinities, to
whom, as they believed, the Supreme Being had assigned the creation and
conservation of the visible material world. As an incident to these pious
offerings, they partook of the residue of the victims, of which, without
such sanction and sanctification, they would not have presumed to taste.
So reverent was the caution of humane and prudent antiquity!"
Bread became his chief sustenance when his regimen attained to that
austerity which afterwards distinguished it. He could have lived on bread
alone without repining. When he was walking in London with an
acquaintance, he would suddenly run into a baker's shop, purchase a
supply, and breaking a loaf he would offer half of it to his companion.
"Do you know," he said to me one day, with much surprise, "that such an
one does not like bread? Did you ever know a person who disliked bread?"
And he told me that a friend had refused such an offer.
I explained to him that the individual in question probably had no
objection to bread in a moderate quantity at a proper time and with the
usual adjuncts, and was only unwilling to devour two or three pounds of
dry bread in the streets, and at an early hour.
Shelley had no such scruple; his pockets were generally well-stored with
bread. A circle upon the carpet, clearly defined by an ample verge of
crumbs, often marked the place where he had long sat at his studies, his
face nearly in contact with his book, greedily devouring bread at
intervals amidst his profound abstractions. For the most part he took no
condiments; sometimes, however, he ate with his bread the common raisins
which are used in making puddings, and these he would buy at little mean
shops.
He was walking one day in London with a respectable solicitor who
occasionally transacted business for him. With his accustomed
precipitation he suddenly vanished and as suddenly reappeared: he had
entered the shop of a little grocer in an obscure quarter, and had
returned with some plums, which he held close under the attorney's nose,
and the man of fact was as much astonished at the offer as his client, the
man of fancy, at the refusal.
The common fruit of stalls, and oranges and apples were always welcome to
Shelley; he would crunch the latter as heartily as a schoolboy.
Vegetables, and especially salads, and pies and puddings were acceptable.
His beverage consisted of copious and frequent draughts of cold water, but
tea was ever grateful, cup after cup, and coffee. Wine was taken with
singular moderation, commonly diluted largely with water, and for a long
period he would abstain from it altogether. He avoided the use of spirits
almost invariably, and even in the most minute portions.
Like all persons of simple tastes, he retained his sweet tooth. He would
greedily eat cakes, gingerbread and sugar; honey, preserved or stewed
fruit with bread, were his favourite delicacies. These he thankfully and
joyfully received from others, but he rarely sought for them or provided
them for himself. The restraint and protracted duration of a convivial
meal were intolerable; he was seldom able to keep his seat during the
brief period assigned to an ordinary family dinner.
These particulars may seem trifling, if indeed anything can be little that
has reference to a character truly great; but they prove how much he was
ashamed that his soul was in body, and illustrate the virgin abstinence of
a mind equally favoured by the Muses, the Graces and Philosophy. It is
true, however, that his application at Oxford, although exemplary, was not
so unremitting as it afterwards became; nor was his diet, although
singularly temperate, so meagre. However, his mode of living already
offered a foretaste of the studious seclusion and absolute renunciation of
every luxurious indulgence which ennobled him a few years later.
Had a parent desired that his children should be exactly trained to an
ascetic life and should be taught by an eminent example to scorn delights
and to live laborious days, that they should behold a pattern of native
innocence and genuine simplicity of manners, he would have consigned them
to his house as to a temple or to some primitive and still unsophisticated
monastery.
It is an invidious thing to compose a perpetual panegyric, yet it is
difficult to speak of Shelley, and impossible to speak justly, without
often praising him. It is difficult also to divest myself of later
recollections; to forget for a while what he became in days subsequent,
and to remember only what he then was, when we were fellow-collegians. It
is difficult, moreover, to view him with the mind which I then bore--with
a young mind, to lay aside the seriousness of old age; for twenty years of
assiduous study have induced, if not in the body, at least within,
something of premature old age.
It now seems an incredible thing, and altogether inconceivable, when I
consider the gravity of Shelley and his invincible repugnance to the
comic, that the monkey tricks of the schoolboy could have still lingered,
but it is certain that some slight vestiges still remained. The
metaphysician of eighteen actually attempted once or twice to electrify
the son of his scout, a boy like a sheep, by name James, who roared aloud
with ludicrous and stupid terror, whenever Shelley affected to bring by
stealth any part of his philosophical apparatus near to him.
As Shelley's health and strength were visibly augmented, if by accident he
was obliged to accept a more generous diet than ordinary, and as his mind
sometimes appeared to be exhausted by never-ending toil, I often blamed
his abstinence and his perpetual application. It is the office of a
University, of a public institution for education, not only to apply the
spur to the sluggish, but also to rein in the young steed, that, being too
mettlesome, hastens with undue speed towards the goal.
"It is a very odd thing, but every woman can live with my lord and do just
what she pleases with him, except my lady!" Such was the shrewd remark,
which a long familiarity taught an old and attached servant to utter
respecting his master, a noble poet.
We may wonder in like manner, and deeply lament, that the most docile, the
most facile, the most pliant, the most confident creature that ever was
led through any of the various paths on earth, that a tractable youth, who
was conducted at pleasure by anybody that approached him--it might be
occasionally by persons delegated by no legitimate authority--was never
guided for a moment by those upon whom, fully and without reservation,
that most solemn and sacred obligation had been imposed, strengthened,
morever, by every public and private, official and personal, moral,
political and religious tie, which the civil polity of a long succession
of ages could accumulate. Had the University been in fact, as in name, a
kind nursing-mother to the most gifted of her sons, to one, who seemed, to
those that knew him best,--
Heaven's exile straying from the orb of light;
had that most awful responsibility, the right institution of those, to
whom are to be consigned the government of the country and the
conservation of whatever good human society has elaborated and
excogitated, duly weighed upon the consciences of his instructors, they
would have gained his entire confidence by frank kindness, they would have
repressed his too eager impatience to master the sum of knowledge, they
would have mitigated the rigorous austerity of his course of living, and
they would have remitted the extreme tension of his soul by reconciling
him to liberal mirth; convincing him that, if life be not wholly a jest,
there are at least many comic scenes occasionally interspersed in the
great drama. Nor is the last benefit of trifling importance, for, as an
unseemly and excessive gravity is usually the sign of a dull fellow, so is
the prevalence of this defect the characteristic of an unlearned and
illiberal age.
Shelley was actually offended, and indeed more indignant than would appear
to be consistent with the singular mildness of his nature, at a coarse and
awkward jest, especially if it were immodest or uncleanly; in the latter
case his anger was unbounded, and his uneasiness pre-eminent. He was,
however, sometimes vehemently delighted by exquisite and delicate sallies,
particularly with a fanciful, and perhaps somewhat fantastical
facetiousness--possibly the more because he was himself utterly incapable
of pleasantry.
In every free state, in all countries that enjoy republican institutions,
the view which each citizen takes of politics is an essential ingredient
in the estimate of his ethical character. The wisdom of a very young man
is but foolishness. Nevertheless, if we would rightly comprehend the moral
and intellectual constitution of the youthful poet, it will be expedient
to take into account the manner in which he was affected towards the grand
political questions, at a period when the whole of the civilised world was
agitated by a fierce storm of excitement, that, happily for the peace and
well-being of society, is of rare occurrence.