he would doubtless be as little desirous that his zeal should now be remembered as those bigots who had been most active in burning Archbishop Cranmer could have been to publish their officiousness, during the reign of Elizabeth.” *

Thus not only were we driven rudely and lawlessly from a common table, spread for us by the provident bounty of our pious and prudent forefathers, where we had an undoubted right to be fed and nurtured; but my incomparable friend and myself were hunted hastily out of Oxford. The precipitate violence and indecent outrage was the act of our college, not of the University; the evil-doers seemed to fear that, if we remained among them but a little while, the wrong might be redressed. It is true that I was told, but as it were at the moment of departure, that if it was inconvenient to us to quit the place so suddenly, we might remain for a time; and that, if Shelley would ask permission of the master to stay for a short period, it would most probably be granted. I immediately informed him of this proposal, but he was far too indignant at the insult which he had received, and at the brutal indignity with which he had been treated, to apply for any favor whatever, even if his life had depended on the concession. The delicacy of a young high-bred gentleman makes him ever most

*His expulsion from Oxford brought to a summary conclusion his boyish passion for Miss Harriet Grove. She would have no more to say to him: but I cannot see from his own letters, and those of Miss Hellen Shelley, that there had ever been much love on her side; neither can I find any reason to believe that it continued long on his. Mr. Middleton follows Captain Medwin, who was determined that on Shelley's part it should be an enduring passion, and pressed into its service as testimonies some matters which had nothing to do with it. He says Queen Mab was dedicated to Harriet Grove, whereas it was certainly dedicated to Harriet Shelley; he even prints the dedication with the title, 'To Harriet G.,' whereas in the original the name of Harriet is only followed by asterisks; and of another little poem, he says, that Shelley's disappointment in love affected him acutely, may be seen by some lines inscribed erroneously On F. G.,' instead of 'H. G.,' and doubtless of a much earlier date than the one assigned by Mrs. Shelley to the fragment. Now I know the circumstances to which the fragment refers. The initials of the lady's name were F. G., and the date assigned to the fragment, 1817, was strictly correct. The intrinsic evidence of both poems will show their utter inapplicability to Miss Harriet Grove.”—Peacock. [I hazard the conjecture that F. G. was Mary Godwin's half-sister, Fanny Godwin, as she was called, the daughter of Gilbert Imlay and Mary Wollstoncroft, who committed suicide at Swansea, not in 1817, but on the night of Oct. 9th, 1816. R. H. S.]

unwilling to intrude, and more especially to remain in any society, where his presence is not acceptable. Nevertheless, I have sometimes regretted, and more particularly for the sake of my gifted friend, to whom the residence at Oxford was exceedingly delightful, and, on all accounts, most beneficial, that we yielded so readily to these modest, retiring feelings. For if license to remain for some days would have been formally given upon a specific application, no doubt it would have been tacitly allowed; although no request had been made, permission would have been implied. At any rate it is perfectly certain that force-brute force-would not have been resorted to; that the police of the University would never have been directed to turn us out of our rooms, and to drive us beyond the gates of our college, roughly casting the poor students' books into the street. The young martyr had never been told-he never received any admonition, not even the slightest hint, that his speculations were improper, or unpleasing to any one; those persons alone had taken notice of, or a part in, them to whom they were agreeable; persons, who, like himself, relish them, and had a taste for abstruse and, perhaps, unprofitable discussions.

IN LODGINGS IN LONDON.

We had determined to quit Oxford immediately (this probably was a mistake), being under the ban of an absurd and illegal sentence. Having breakfasted together, the next morning, March 26, 1811, we took our places on the outside of a coach, and proceeded to London.

We put up for the night at some coffee-house near Piccadilly, and dined; and then we went to take tea in Lincoln's Inn Fields with Shelley's cousins. Here we passed a very silent evening; the cousins were taciturn people—the maxim of the family appeared to be, that a man should hold his tongue and save his money. I was a stranger; Bysshe (I heard him called by that name then for the first time; he was always called so by his family, probably to propitiate the old baronet)-Bysshe attempted to talk, but the cousins held their peace, and so con

versation remained cousin-bound. At a coffee-house one can read nothing but a newspaper; this did not suit us; we went out after breakfast to look for lodgings.

We found several sets which seemed to me sufficiently comfortable, but in this matter Bysshe was rather fanciful. We entered a pleasant parlor,- -a man in the street vociferated, "Mackarel, fresh mackarel!" or "Muscles! lilywhite muscles!" Shelley was convulsed with horror, and, clapping his hands on his ears, rushed wildly out of doors. At the next house we were introduced to a cheerful little first floor, the window was open, a cart was grinding leisurely along, the driver suddenly cracked his whip, and Shelley started; so that would not do. At one place he fell in dudgeon with the maid's nose; at another he took umbrage at the voice of the mistress. Never was a young beauty so hard to please, so capricious! I began to grow tired of the vain pursuit. However, we came to Poland Street; it reminded him of Thaddeus of Warsaw and of freedom. We must lodge there, should we sleep even on the step of a door. A paper in a window announced lodgings; Shelley took some objection to the exterior of the house, but we went in, and this time auspiciously.

There was a back sitting-room on the first-floor, somewhat dark, but quiet; yet quietness was not the principal attraction. The walls of the room had lately been covered with trellised paper; in those days it was not common. There were trellises, vine-leaves with their tendrils, and huge clusters of grapes, green and purple, all represented in lively colors. This was delightful; he went close up to the wall, and touched it: "We must stay here; stay for ever!" There was some debate about a second bed-room, and the authorities were consulted below; he was quite uneasy, and eyed the cheerful paper wistfully during the consultation. We might have another bed-room ; it was upstairs. That room, of course, was to be mine. Shelley had the bed-room opening out of the sitting-room; this also was overspread with the trellised paper. He touched the wall and admired it.

"Do grapes really grow in that manner anywhere?"

"Yes, I believe they do!"

"We will go and see them then, soon; we will go together!" "Then we shall not stay here for ever!"

When could we have the lodgings? Now, immediately. We brought our luggage in a hackney-coach. I had ordered a fire; to this he rather objected in a plaintive voice, staring piteously at the ripe clusters, and seeming actually to feel the genial warmth of the sweet South; but we were still in March, and had the grapes been real grapes, a cheerful fire was indispensable. The weather was fine; we took long walks together, as before, and we dined at some coffee-house, wherever we might chance to find ourselves at dinner-time, and returned to the trellised room to tea.

We walked one day to Wandsworth,* where some of his younger sisters were at school. At that time Bysshe had a warm affection for his mother, and was passionately fond of his sisters. I remained outside, whilst he went into the house for a little while. When we stopped at the gate, a little girl, eight or ten years old, with long, light locks streaming over her shoulders, was scampering about. "Oh! there is little Hellen!" the young poet screamed out with rapturous delight. On our return he informed me, that the pretty child was his third sister, and he then first told me the object of our walk; for he took a pocketful of cakes to a school-girl with as much mystery as Pierre and Jaffier plotted against the government of Venice. We read much together, and often read aloud to each other, leading a quiet, happy life. But Shelley was not so comfortable as he had been at Oxford; a college-life, with its manifold conveniences and all its appliances and aptitudes for study, exactly suited him.

at

At that time "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers tracted much attention. We had not yet seen it. Shelley bought the poem one morning-a pretty little volume-at a bookseller's shop in Oxford Street. He put it under his arm, and we walked into the country; when we were sufficiently re* [Mr. Hogg's memory was at fault. It was not at Wandsworth, but at Clapham, that Shelley's sisters were at school, and it was here that he met Harriet Westbrook.--S.]

moved from observation, he began to read it aloud. He read the whole poem aloud to me with fervid and exulting energy, and all the notes. He was greatly delighted with the bitter, wrathful satire. There are good things in it-some strong and striking passages--but it did not much please me; it is full of pride, of hot, weak, impatient indignation. I never read it myself, I only heard it read once during this country walk, and I never saw the volume again. When he had finished it, he put it into his pocket hastily, or perhaps rather intended to do so, and missed his pocket, or-and it was no uncommon case with him-his pocket had been torn out, or there was a hole at the bottom, for, when he got home, the book had disappeared. The poem afterwards became exceedingly scarce, so that a large price was often given for a copy, and some curious persons even took the trouble to transcribe it. I have met with such MSS. Such was his first introduction to Byron; such his first acquaintance with his brother poet, for he had never read those early attempts which were the moving cause of the furious onslaught.

Notwithstanding his admiration of the poem, he did not express, as was his course, whenever he was pleased with any work, a desire or determination to become personally acquainted with the author. He did not foresee that their lives would be blended and bound up together, as they were subsequently; still less did he anticipate that the irate satirist would be his executor, and as such, at the expiration of a few short years, would preside at obsequies, so strange, so mournful! To us, blind mortals, ignorant of the future, this present life is hardly to be borne. If we knew what is to come, it would be abso

lutely intolerable!

We occasionally visited the cousins in Lincoln's Inn Fields again, to tea, or to dinner. They were mute, as before, and we met other cousins, not less reserved and retiring.

John G― took us one Sunday morning into Kensington Gardens. We had never been there before. Bysshe was charmed with the sylvan-and in those days somewhat neglected-aspect of the place. It soon became, and always con