young, riotous community, and to a certain extent the Proctors of the
University and the Deans of the different colleges did see that no
very open scandal was committed. There were rules that had in a
general way to be obeyed, and lectures that had to be attended, but as
for care to give high aims, provide refining amusements, give a worthy
tone to the character of responsible beings, there was none ever even
thought of. The very meaning of the word 'education' did not appear to
be understood. The college was a fit sequel to the school. The young
men herded together; they lived in their rooms, and they lived out of
them, in the neighbouring villages, where many had comfortable
establishments.... All sorts of contrivances were resorted to to
enable the dissipated to remain out all night, to shield a culprit, to
deceive the dignitaries." This was in 1809, and even later.

And yet with all this, and while we are told that those who attended
lectures were laughed at, it seems strange that the best divines, and
lawyers, and politicians of the first half of our century, some of
whom we may have known ourselves, must have been formed under that
system. We can hardly believe that it was as bad as here described,
and we must remember that much of the _Memoirs_ of this Scotch lady
can have been written from memory only, and long after the time when
she and her sister lived at University College. Life there, no doubt,
may have been very dull, as there were no other young ladies at
Oxford, and it cannot have been very amusing for these young girls to
dine with sixteen Heads of Houses, all in wide silk cassocks, scarves
and bands, one or two in powdered wigs, so that, as we are told, they
often went home crying. All intercourse with the young men was
strictly forbidden, though it seems to have been not altogether
impossible to communicate, from the garden of the Master's Lodge, with
the young men bending out of the college windows, or climbing down to
the gardens.

One of these young men, who was at University College at the same
time, might certainly not have been considered a very desirable
companion for these two Scotch girls. It was no other than Shelley.
What they say of him does not tell us much that is new, yet it
deserves to be repeated. "Mr. Shelley," we read, "afterwards so
celebrated, was half crazy. He began his career with every kind of
wild prank at Eton. At University he was very insubordinate, always
infringing som