ver, actually
offered for sale.

A copy of this syllabus reached a Fellow of another college, who made
the Master of the University acquainted with the fact. On the morning of
March 25, 1811, Shelley was sent for to the Senior Common Room, and
asked whether he acknowledged himself to be the author of the obnoxious
pamphlet. On his refusal to answer this question, he was served with a
formal sentence of expulsion duly drawn up and sealed. The college
authorities have been blamed for unfair dealing in this matter. It is
urged that they ought to have proceeded by the legal method of calling
witnesses; and that the sentence was not only out of all proportion to
the offence, but that it ought not to have been executed till persuasion
had been tried. With regard to the former indictment, I do not think
that a young man still in statu pupillari, who refused to purge himself
of what he must have known to be a serious charge, had any reason to
expect from his tutors the formalities of an English court of law. There
is no doubt that the Fellows were satisfied of his being the real
author; else they could not have ventured on so summary a measure as
expulsion. Their question was probably intended to give the culprit an
occasion for apology, of which they foresaw he would not avail himself.
With regard to the second, it is true that Shelley was amenable to
kindness, and that gentle and wise treatment from men whom he respected
might possibly have brought him to retract his syllabus. But it must be
remembered that he despised the Oxford dons with all his heart; and they
were probably aware of this. He was a dexterous, impassioned reasoner,
whom they little cared to encounter in argument on such a topic. During
his short period of residence, moreover, he had not shown himself so
tractable as to secure the good wishes of superiors, who prefer
conformity to incommensurable genius. It is likely that they were not
averse to getting rid of him as a man dangerous to the peace of their
society; and now they had a good occasion. Nor was it to be expected
that the champion and apostle of Atheism--and Shelley was certainly
both, in spite of Hogg's attempts to tone down the purpose of his
document--should be unmolested in his propaganda by the aspirants to fat
livings and ecclesiastical dignities. Real blame, however, attaches to
these men: first, for their dulness to discern Shelley's amiable
qualities; and, secondly, for the prejudgment of th