One would not linger here
over the absurd injustice of his expulsion from the University. It
is pleasant to know, on Mr. Hogg's testimony, that "residence at
Oxford was exceedingly delightful to Shelley, and on all accounts
most beneficial." At Oxford, at least, he seems to have been happy,
he who so rarely knew happiness, and who, if he made another suffer,
himself suffered so much for others. The memory of Shelley has
deeply entered into the sentiment of Oxford. Thinking of him in his
glorious youth, and of his residence here, may we not say, with the
shepherd in Theocritus, of the divine singer:
[Greek verse which cannot be reproduced]
"Ah, would that in my days thou hadst been numbered with the living,
how gladly on the hills would I have herded thy pretty she-goats, and
listened to thy voice, whilst thou, under oaks and pine-trees lying,
didst sweetly sing, divine Comatas!"
CHAPTER IX--A GENERAL VIEW
We have looked at Oxford life in so many different periods, that now,
perhaps, we may regard it, like our artist, as a whole, and take a
bird's-eye view of its present condition. We may ask St. Bernard's
question, WHITHER HAST THOU COME? a question to which there are so
many answers readily given, from within and without the University.
It is not probable that the place will vary, in essential character,
from that which has all along been its own. We shall have considered
Oxford to very little purpose, if it is not plain that the University
has been less a home of learning, on the whole, than a microcosm of
English intellectual life.
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