Yet at this time he was teaching in a Sunday School every Sunday—rather a rare thing for an undergraduate in those days.
Here occurs an allusion to one who was destined to occupy a warm share in his affection during years to come:—
“I met the other day Perry, who was Senior Wrangler and fifth on the Classical Tripos, and finding that he was going to take pupils I have engaged him for next term, provided my father intends to be so liberal as to let me have a tutor.”
For over sixty years the friendship was strong and deep, and after Bishop Perry’s resignation of the See of Melbourne their intercourse was frequent and loving up to the end. In the Lent Term of 1832 he writes:—
“I have been getting on this week tolerably in my reading, and intolerably in my rowing, having been bumped by the Johnians on Thursday for the first time in my life, and that too when we might have got away with the greatest ease if all our crew had exerted themselves.”
Half a century afterwards his curates were often exhorted to work together with a will, and the exhortation was enforced by allusions to the disasters experienced by a crew whose members were not absolutely one in “go” and sympathy.
The following letter from his father has reference to College events at this time:—
“London, March 19th, 1832.
“Dear Edward,—A hasty opinion is not always worth having, but you may safely take my advice and try the new boat, bump the first Trinity, and wait for further orders. Let your mother’s letter compel you to watch yourself, and if you find the effects of rowing at all prejudicial give it up, but if you find your health and strength on the wax go on, tempering your zeal with moderation, and I will do my best to make peace at home—a work which I shall accomplish with more ease and in less time than you will be at the head of the river. It came across me that, after having vanquished all Cambridge, you might wish to carry your victorious oars to Oxford!”
A fortnight after the last quoted letter from the young collegian, there was another which recounted that, although his boat, of which he was stroke, had gone down as low as fifth, yet on the last race-day it had recovered its old place of second. Then follows a groan concerning the difficulties that attended his post as captain over a discordant body of twenty men: “The crew, when successful, get all the credit, and in the time of misfortune make me their scapegoat.”
Fortunately he did not adhere to his original intention of resigning the captaincy, and ultimately his boat attained the proud position of head of the river. Edward Hoare’s success in rowing did not make him idle, however: nothing could do that; into whatever he undertook he threw his whole heart and soul, and the very next letter, a few weeks later, May 4th, 1832, begins thus:—