In the introduction to the _Revolt of Islam_, he recalls "the hour which burst his spirit's sleep":--
"A fresh May-dawn it was, When I walked forth upon the glittering grass, And wept, I knew not why: until there rose From the near schoolroom voices that, alas! Were but one echo from a world of woes-- The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.
And then I clasped my hands, and looked around: But none was near to mock my streaming eyes, Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground. So, without shame, I spake: 'I will be wise, And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power; for I grow weary to behold The selfish and the strong still tyrannise Without reproach or check.' I then controlled My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold."
The generation which was born at the same time and under the same planet as the first French Republic was precocious in its criticism of all traditional beliefs and conventions. Shelley, who at school saw tyranny and feigned piety attendant on one another, and who became acquainted at a very early age with the writings of the French Encyclopædists and of Hume, Godwin, and other English freethinkers, brooded deeply, long before he was grown up, on the history, the destiny, and the errors of the human race. His thoughts were the thoughts of an immature youth, but their spirit was the spirit of liberty, as understood by the eighteenth century.
What his comrades remembered about him in later years was his defiant attitude towards authority, more particularly a habit he had of "cursing his father and the king." He went among the boys by the name of "mad Shelley," and "Shelley the atheist." Thus early was the opprobrious word applied to him which was to be coupled with his name all his life, and serve as a pretext for abuse and defamation.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon those events in Shelley's life of which every one who has heard his name has at least a superficial knowledge. We need merely recall to mind the fact that, as the undergraduate of eighteen, he had the curious habit of writing down his heresies on such subjects as God, government, and society, in the form of letters, which he sent to people personally unknown to him, with the request that they would refute his theories and provide him with the proofs against his arguments which he himself was unable to find; that, out of these letters, which consisted chiefly of extracts from the works of Hume and the French materialists, grew a little anonymous pamphlet (no longer in existence) which was entitled _The Necessity of Atheism_ and ended with a Q.E.D.; and that Shelley, in the childish hope of exercising a reforming influence on the spirit of his age, sent a copy of this pamphlet to the Bench of Bishops. What followed is equally well known. Shelley, denounced as the author, was not only expelled from the University, but from his father's house.