Thus much they could say of him. Living almost entirely with a single friend (even as Byron in his earliest time at Cambridge lived in shy seclusion almost entirely with a young chorister and a single friend of gentle degree), he kept morning chapels with fair regularity, attended a sufficient number of the college lectures, 'pricked _æger_' (when he was quite well) no oftener than usage permitted, gave no noisy wine-parties, had no noisy acquaintances, never 'knocked' into college after the appointed hours for 'knocking in,' showed no propensity to any kind of dissipation. It was true that he appeared 'in hall' less often than so quiet a young gentleman might be expected to appear at the freshmen's dinner-table; but attendance 'at hall' was not insisted on. True, also, that he was understood to have written an extremely silly novel and a very absurd book of poems; but it was well and needful young men should amuse themselves, and better that they should amuse themselves with pen and ink than with dice and cards. Throughout the term, Shelley was more occupied with his literary diversions than with the serious studies recommended by his tutor. Whilst correcting the proofs of the _Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson_ (published _on_ or a little before 17th November, 1810, by J. Munday, of the firm of Munday and Slatter, Printers and Booksellers, _Herald_ Office, High Street, Oxford), he was in correspondence with Mr. John Joseph Stockdale, of Pall Mall, about _The Wandering Jew_, and writing verses that were shown to Hogg, and probably sent without delay to his sister Elizabeth and Miss Harriett Grove, to each of whom he wrote frequently. Before there was laughter in the colleges over the _Posthumous Fragments_ (a performance that, doubtless, found more readers than admirers in the University), he had returned the amended manuscript of _St. Irvyne_ to the Pall Mall publisher; and before he had done with the proofs of that singular tale, or, at the latest, before the story was offered to the circulating libraries, he was at work upon another novel (which never saw the light, and probably was never finished),--the work of which he wrote to Mr. Stockdale on 18th December, 1810:-- 'I have in preparation a novel; it is principally constructed to convey metaphysical and political opinions by way of conversation, it shall be sent to you as soon as completed, but it shall receive more correction than I trouble myself to give to wild Romance and Poetry.' In the same term (probably during the second month of it) he found time to make, with Hogg's assistance, 'the very careful analysis' (mentioned in Hogg's _Life_) of Hume's _Essays_, to which he was chiefly indebted for the theological views of _The Necessity of Atheism_, and for the other arguments, with which he troubled the minds of the several indiscreet persons, whom he lured with delusive letters into confidential controversy on matters pertaining to religion.