wards, "Why, George, we all thought the two first days you were going to get it; but you dropped in your Greek verse." I worked at Greek verse, and tried again, 1827, but could not make up lee way, and was beat again by the present Dean of Wells.

1828, I got an Oriel Fellowship. Charles Neate, afterwards my very dear friend, and the late Bishop Trower were elected the same time.

Questions in "science" were part of the examination. Luckily for me, the answers didn't go for much. I never had any turn that way. But I read up Bonnycastle and Mrs. Marcet, &c.; arming myself, as I vainly imagined, with the necessary "knowledge," i.e. I set about “cramming" myself. I had never been "crammed" by anybody, and I made a nice mess of it, as the “crammed" always do, whether they "succeed" or not.

There came a paper of twelve questions. I proposed to myself to answer them all, out of the stores of my "knowledge." I richly deserved to suffer for this folly. Having had a good deal to do with "examining" myself, I always have warred against the specific thing of which I was guilty here, answering by guess. In matters of science, it is of all things specially ludicrous, and meriting punishment. When I had done, I thought the answers had a suspicious appearance; and so I did another Then I said to Trower, who was sitting next me, "Now, Trower, look here, I have got two sets of answers to this paper. Will you just run your eye over them? Whatever you may tell me will make no difference. I have made up my mind to send in No. 2; but knowing nothing about it myself, I have a fancy for hearing a little from you who do know a good deal what both are like."

set.

He read both. I saw him laughing, not loud but deep. "Well," he said, in set I there is one answer out of twelve tolerably correct; in set 2 no answer anything like correct."

I sent in No. 2; but I got my Fellowship, minus "Science."

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1828, I got the Chancellor's Prize for Latin Essay; 1829, for English Essay.

The Oriel Common-room was a curious place at that time, Whately, Arnold, Blanco White, Senior, Keble, Newman, R. Wilberforce, R. H. Froude, Hampden, Dornford; Hawkins had just succeeded Copleston, Bishop of Llandaff, as Provost; Pusey had gone that year to Ch. Ch., as Hebrew Professor.

It was as dull a place socially as I can remember anywhere: men were stiff, and starched, and afraid of one another; there was no freedom of intercourse. Whether the restraint of the old Common-room in Oxford, or the free thinking and licence of the new, is to be preferred, I am not going to discuss here. I have, of course, my settled opinion about it.

The summer of 1829 I went abroad for a year; the first part of the time with Mr. Drury.

At Cologne he said to me, "George, we shall be at S. Bernard in six weeks."

"Well," I said.

"Well, you stupid boy, we shall want an impromptu. We had better begin at once."

So we invented and polished away for six weeks, up the Rhine, Switzerland, St. Gothard, Milan.

It used often to make me laugh, though at times it was severe, that, many years after his recognised despotism had ceased, I was still to him his boy, subject to freest criticism and absolute dominion. He weighed a good many stone then: some years after, when I got him to let himself be weighed in S. James'-street, he was very angry with me because he came out of the scale over twenty stone; he held me responsible for the enormity. I used always when we travelled together to pack his portmanteau, tie his shoes, and pick up his stick. The day we got to Milan, we were dining at the table d'hôte, a large, mixed society of many nations besides our own. I suffered severely that day; it was well-merited punishment. There was some general talk about cameo: in worse than childish ignorance I rushed upon my fate,

remarking complacently that the best cameos mosaiques.

were

Mr. Drury was on the other side of the table, some little way up. Down he came upon me: Why, you great fool, they are all shells."

I shrunk into my shell.

It had been the same sort of thing all along, in my brothers' case, and in my own; a curious mixture of the freest familiarity and the most absolute and unresisting subjection. Instance after instance crowds upon my memory, full of wonderful amusement, never interfering with respect and love. He died in 1868, at the age of eighty, bound up with all our interests and affections for nearly sixty years.

The rebuke at Milan did for me what the flogging at Ossington had done ten years before; it made me mind what I was about. It was to be sure publicly administered, and to the young of our time may seem somewhat harsh; just like the flogging appears unbearable to silly people, of perverted understanding and diseased feelings. A young man of twenty-four who talks like an idiot, is a greater offender than a boy of fourteen who makes grammatical mistakes; and requires even sharper correction; differently administered, indeed, but in proportion to the offence. Boys are not commonly conceited; young men commonly. If you disliked your tutor at school, you called him a beast; at College, you called him a fool. Young men especially want "taking down;" and it is to be noted that this was, and may be is, the phrase applied at Eton to the denuding of the boy preparatory to flogging. So beautiful is the harmony of just correction, physical and moral.

We came to S. Bernard towards the close of our six weeks. Going away the next morning, I waited to see what he would do. It was almost too much for me. Nothing came up to the moment of actual departure,

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when, as if suddenly awakened to a sense of duty, he said aloud, “But we have forgotten to record our best thanks to our good, kind hosts." (All this in his own particular French; a kind I have never heard the like of before or since; the most daring outrage upon language and pronunciation I have ever come across :) "Have the goodness to bring me the book."

A monk brought the book: he took the pen, looked to the sky, and the mountains, and the snow, with pauses here and there for renewed inspiration, and dashed off 'our impromptu, currente calamo, as well he might. I contained myself with extreme difficulty, and much bodily pain.

The late Sir R. Wilmot Horton, who was there at the time, told us afterwards that when we were gone there was much talk over us and the verses. Their great

beauty was on all hands admitted: some envious body suggested previous preparation; he was soon put down! Upon one point all agreed, viz. That I could not have produced so fine a thing; I was much too young.

Years after, I asked a friend who was going to S. Bernard to look into the book of 1829 for our impromptu. The leaf had been cut out. Evidently our six weeks labour had not been for nothing; the impromptu was a gem.

We parted at Geneva: Mr. Drury to return to England; I for Italy, by the Rhone, the Corniche, to Genoa, Florence, Rome, Naples, returning to England in May, 1830. Evelyn had, with his constant considerate kindness, supplied me with the means of going further; but I wanted to get home, and did not use them. I was silly enough to leave Italy without seeing Venice; and have not been able to go there since.

• The night before, he was talking freely with a Frenchman at dinner. "Monsieur, quelle grande quantité d'ecrevisses vous avez ici partout sur les montagnes." "Pardon, monsieur, vous avez dit d'ecrevisses?" "Oui, mon. sieur, d'ecrevisses partout enormes, d'une grande profondeur, pleines de glace et de neige.' "Mais oui, les crevasses comme vous dites, monsieur, sont terribles, vastes, et profondes." Truly a Frenchman is a polite man.

January, 1830, I became Tutor at Oriel. 1832, retaining my Tutorship, I succeeded my dear friend the present Dean of Peterborough, who had been made Head Master of Charter-house, as Curate of Cuddesdon, under Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford, 1829; Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1845. I was ordained Deacon, Trinity Sunday, 1832; Priest, Christmas, 1832.