wards I think I see him now along the southern wall, indulging in various vague and undefined ideas, the chaotic elements, if I may say so, of what afterwards produced so beautiful a world." His life among other boys could scarcely have been very happy, but at school he found at least one kindred spirit. Shelley's description of this friend, though written in later life, reveals something of the boyish Percy himself.

There was a delicacy and a simplicity in his manners inexpressibly attractive. . . The tones of his voice were so soft and winning that every word pierced into my heart, and their pathos was so deep that in listening to him the tears have involuntarily gushed from my eyes. . . I remember in my simplicity writing to my mother a long account of his admirable qualities and my own devoted attachment. I suppose she thought me out of my wits, for she returned no answer to my letter. I remember we used to walk the whole play hours up and down by some moss-covered palings, pouring out our hearts in youthful talk. We used to speak of the ladies with whom we were in love, and I remember our usual practice was to confirm each other in the everlasting fidelity in which we had bound ourselves towards them and towards each other. I recollect thinking my friend exquisitely beautiful. Every night when we parted to go to bed we kissed each other like children, as we still were.

In 1804 Shelley went to Eton, where he was even less in harmony with his environment than at Brentford. His gentleness and oddity exposed him to teasing and bullying. “I have seen him," writes a school fellow, "surrounded, hooted, baited like a maddened bull, and at this distance of time I seem to hear ringing in my ears the cry which Shelley was wont to utter in the paroxysms of revengeful anger." "His name," says Dowden, "would suddenly be sounded through the cloisters, in an instant to be taken up by another and another voice, until hundreds joined in the clamor, and the

roof would echo and reëcho with Shelley! Shelley! Shelley!' Then a space would be opened in which, as in a ring or alley, the victim must stand and exhibit his torture; or some urchin would dart in behind and by one dexterous push scatter at Shelley's feet the books which he held under his arm; or mischievous hands would pluck at his garments; or a hundred fingers would point at him from every side, while still the outcry Shelley! Shelley!' rang against the walls. An access of passion the desired result — would follow, which, declares a witness of these persecutions, 'made his eyes flash like a tiger's, his cheeks grow pale as death, his limbs quiver.'" He was a rebel against the fagging system, and thus, doubtless, deprived himself of the protection of elder and better disposed boys. Yet he, too, had pleasures and friends at Eton; he was fond of rambling with a chosen companion among the beautiful scenes of the neighborhood, such as the churchyard of Stoke Pogis, which is said to have inspired Gray's Elegy. In his studies he was not unsuccessful, though he never distinguished himself as an accurate scholar. His intellectual precocity was manifested in his reading of classical authors outside his school work and of Godwin and Franklin among English writers. It may have been through his studies of Godwin and Lucretius that he acquired the name of "Atheist," by which he was known. among his contemporaries at school. He was certainly a propagandist of revolutionary ideas at Eton, and, at least during the earlier years of his residence there, was on no very good terms either with teachers or taught. In scientific studies, which, of course, were not included in the school curriculum of those days, he was also interested; he made chemical experiments, and possessed an electric battery. But from his general character, as well as from references to these pursuits in his writings, we gather that he was not inspired by a genuinely scientific spirit, but was attracted by

the stimulus which such pursuits afforded to his imagination, by his love of mystery, and by the vague possibilities of some tremendous discovery. His scientific interests led to the forming of a friendship with a certain Doctor Lind, of Windsor, whose idealized portrait appears in the Hermit of The Revolt of Islam and in Zonaras of Prince Athanase. There is a story told by Shelley that once during the holidays he had an attack of fever, and during convalescence heard remarks of the servants which showed that his father designed to send him to a private madhouse; in great terror the boy despatched a messenger to Doctor Lind, who responded to the appeal, saw Mr. Timothy Shelley, and induced him to abandon the design. Whatever the basis for this story, the idea of malevolent plot against himself must have arisen from that tendency to illusions and that deeprooted suspicion of his father which haunted the poet throughout his life.

The isolation and persecutions of Shelley's boyhood were the prelude of similar trials in mature life; and, if we are to take literally some of his later poetic utterances, he had already embraced those lofty principles of justice, kindness, and forbearance which he proclaimed and sought to practice in later days:

Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.

I do remember well the hour which burst

My spirit's sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was,
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
And wept, I know not why; until there rose
From the near schoolroom voices that, alas!
Were but one echo from a world of woes
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

And then I clasped my hands and looked around
But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,

Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground

So, without shame, I spake: "I will be wise,

And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies

Such power, for I grow weary to behold

The selfish and the strong still tyrannize

Without reproach or check." I then controlled

My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.1

Very early in life Shelley cherished literary ambitions, and before leaving school he was an author. Already, in May, 1809, the greater part of a romance entitled Zastrozzi had been written. It was published in the following year. Zastrozzi exhibits in full measure the lack of originality, truth, and power which we expect in the writings of a boy It is a slavish imitation of the absurdly mysterious and romantic fiction which enjoyed a temporary popularity about the beginning of the century. About the same time, probably in the winter 1809-10, Shelley and his cousin Medwin composed a poem on the Wandering Jew, under the influence of a translation of a German work on the same theme. It failed to find a publisher. In the autumn of 1810 Shelley and an unknown collaborateur issued a volume of Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire. The publisher discovered that it contained a piece plagiarized from the works of M. G. Lewis, and it was in consequence withdrawn from circulation almost as soon as published. It is quite likely that the plagiarist was Shelley's collaborateur, but it is extraordinary that a poem by Lewis should have escaped Shelley's notice. When his attention was drawn to the matter he expressed great indignation at the fraud.

In the autumn of 1810 Shelley went into residence at Oxford. The most important factor in his brief sojourn there was the friendship he formed with Thomas Jefferson Hogg, his future biographer. In many respects Hogg was

1 Dedication to The Revolt of Islam.

the antithesis of Shelley. He was gifted with much shrewdness and worldly wisdom, measured things by utilitarian and matter-of-fact standards, and had a tendency to cynicism. But he was intellectual and witty, and shared Shelley's love of reading and discussion. With a certain contempt for his friend's idealism, enthusiasm, and neglect of ordinary aims, there was mingled in Hogg a genuine admiration for his intellectual power, fine spirit, and unselfish practice. Hogg's biography can only be accepted with some qualifications; the author's desire to be lively, to make a good story, is often prejudicial to accuracy. His lack of sympathy may somewhat distort his portrait. But, when allowance is made for these things, the most vivid and, taken all together, the most accurate impression of the young Shelley is to be found in his pages.

Their acquaintance, accidentally made in the dining-hall at University College, of which they were both members, swiftly ripened into close intimacy. Hogg thus describes Shelley's personal appearance at the time: "It was a sum of many contradictions. His figure was slight and fragile, and yet his bones and joints were large and strong. He was tall, but he stooped so much that he seemed of low stature. His clothes were expensive and made according to the most approved mode of the day; but they were tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed. His gestures were abrupt and sometimes violent, occasionally even awkward, yet more frequently gentle and graceful. His complexion was delicate and almost feminine, of the purest red and white; yet he was tanned and freckled by exposure to the sun, having passed the autumn, as he said, in shooting. His features, his whole face, and particularly his head were, in fact, unusually small; yet the last appeared of a remarkable bulk, for his hair was long and bushy, and in fits of absence and in the agonies (if I may use the word) of anxious thought he often