The life of the poet is, not unnaturally, one long warfare with his dons. He cannot conform himself to pedantic rules, which demand his return to college before midnight. Though often the possessor of a sweet vein of clerical and Kebleian verse, the poet does not willingly attend chapel; for indeed, as he sits up all night, it is cruel to expect him to arise before noon. About the poet’s late habits a story is told, which seems authentic. A remarkable and famous contemporary singer was known to his fellow-undergraduates only by this circumstance, that his melodious voice was heard declaiming anapaests all through the ambrosial night. When the voice of the singer was lulled, three sharp taps were heard in the silence. This noise was produced by the bard’s Scotch friend and critic in knocking the ashes out of his pipe. These feasts of reason are almost incompatible with the early devotion which, strangely enough, Shelley found time and inclination to attend. Now it is (or was) the belief of undergraduates that you might break the decalogue and the laws of man in every direction with safety and the approval of the dons, if you only went regularly to chapel. As the poet cannot do this (unless he is a ‘sleepless man’), his existence is a long struggle with the fellows and tutors of his college. The manners of poets vary, of course, with the tastes of succeeding generations. I have heard of two (Thyrsis and Corydon) ‘who lived in Oxford as if it were a large country-house.’ Of other singers, the latest of the heavenly quire, it is invidiously said that they build shrines to Blue China and other ceramic abominations of the Philistine, and worship the same in their rooms. Of this sort it is not the moment to speak. Time has not proved them. But the old poets of ten years ago lived a militant life; they rarely took good classes (though they competed industriously for the Newdigate, writing in the metre of _Dolores_), and it not uncommonly happened that they left Oxford without degrees. They were often very agreeable fellows, as long as one was in no way responsible for them; but it was almost impossible—human nature being what it is—that they should be much appreciated by tutors, proctors, and heads of houses. How could these worthy, learned, and often kind and courteous persons know when they were dealing with a lad of genius, and when they had to do with an affected and pretentious donkey?