Two words are underlined in this extract; they were often on his lips till the day of his death, and frequently formed the subject of his sermons. If his character had its faults settled with it in his own estimation, it is pleasing to see the habit of resignation existing as a virtue in him even at this age. It was one that was confirmed in him afterwards, to an eminent degree.
CHAPTER VIII.
Second Year In Cambridge—Takes His Degree.
During the first term of his second year in Cambridge, his average hours of reading decreased; yet he had still a taste for study, and had not yet thrown aside what remained of his former ambition to distinguish himself. He and the Duke of Montrose declaim on the respective merits of Charles V. and Francis I.; they tossed up for sides, and Charles V. fell to Spencer. This keeps him at hard study for some time; meanwhile he hears Ollivant declaim, and thinks he will get both prizes. After the declamation, in which he comes off more creditably than he expected, he has half a hope of a prize, which he says he should be surprised though delighted to receive. He did get one, but not so high as he expected. Here and there in his journal at this time a few expressions of discontent escape from him about Cambridge; the cause being partially what has been related in the chapter before last. This had also, conjointly with another circumstance, the effect of cutting short his University career. He writes in the autobiography:—
"I made some good progress during this year, but I should have done much more had I been constantly regular. I must have suffered great loss by my interruptions, as I find by my journal that for about four weeks at the end of the long vacation, when I had come home and was taken up with shooting, I did not make one hour's study; and two more long intervals of cessation from reading took place in the Christmas and Easter vacations, when a little steady application, if it were but for three hours a-day, would have kept my mind attentive, and given me a great advantage. After my first examination, I entertained some thoughts of waiving my privilege of taking an honorary degree, and going through the Senate House examinations with a view to University honours; but I lost all wish to remain at Cambridge towards the end of the second autumn. I was at times quite disgusted with the place, for such reasons as I have stated; besides which, my father and mother had made a plan, which pleased me greatly, of going for a year on the Continent, in which I was to accompany them. My brother Frederick, who was come home about this time, was to be of the party likewise, and happy was I in the prospect of being again some time in his company; but as an opportunity occurred for him to go to South America, with Sir Thomas Hardy, with the hope of being made Commander, this professional advantage was justly preferred."
Some of the heads at Cambridge as well as Lady Spencer urged him at this time to stand for a fellowship, but he gave up the idea, and it ended in his joining a new club they had formed—the Eton club. These clubs at the Universities are looked upon with no great favour by proctors and others who have charge of the morals of the students. Their dinners entail great expenses on the members, and they end as the first meeting did in his case: "They all made an enormous row, and I too, by the bye." He came to spend the Christmas of 1818 at Althorp, and closes the year with a succession of parties, Pope Joan, and bookbinding. There is one little incident recorded in his journal at this time which gives us a perfect insight into his character. One might expect that at this age, nineteen, he would be very romantic and dreamy, and that we should find many allusions to those topics which engross so much of the time of novel-reading youths and maidens nowadays. Nothing of the sort. There is an affair of the heart, but his conduct in it, with his remarks on it, are worthy of a sexagenarian. At a party, which took place at his father's, he dances with various young ladies, among the rest a certain Miss A., who, he says, "was a great flame of mine two years ago; she is not so pretty as I thought her then, but she is a delightful partner. I was again in love, but not violently to-night." Two or three days after this, he is at another party, and dances with a new set of partners to the extent of three quadrilles. Of one of these he thus speaks—"I was delighted with Miss B., who is a pleasant unaffected girl, and I am doomed to think of her I suppose for two or three days instead of Miss A. I was provoked that she would not give me her fan at parting." Was it not cool and thoughtful of him to mark out the time such a change of sentiment was likely to last? The next page of the journal brings the subject before us still more clearly. His mother took him for a walk around Althorp, and told him that she was planning a house for the parsonage at Brington:
"Which they say is to be mine when I am old enough; it might be made a most comfortable and even a pretty place, and if I live to come to it I can figure to myself some happy years there with a fond partner of my joys, if I can meet with a good one. 'Here then, and with thee, my N.' [Footnote 2] would have been my language some time ago; but how my opinions even of such important things change with my increasing years. This thought often occurs to me, and will I hope prevent me from ever making any engagements which cannot be broken, in case my fancy should be altered during the time which must elapse before the completion of them."
[Footnote 2: A quotation, as the reader may remember, from Guy Mannering.]
It will be seen, further on in the biography, how this affair ended. There is a very good lesson in what he has left for young men of his age. If reason were allowed to direct the affections, many would be preserved from rash steps that embitter their whole lives. It seems amusing to a Catholic to find the prospects of a clergyman's happiness so very commonplace; but it will be a relief to learn by-and-by how very different were his ideas when he became a clergyman, and built and dwelt in that identical parsonage that now existed only in his own and his mother's mind. He gets a commission in the Northamptonshire Yeomanry before returning to Cambridge for Hilary term this year.
Studies seem to him a necessary evil now, and he writes with a kind of a sigh of relief when he notes, a few pages on, that he has taken his last compulsory lesson in Latin. Balls and parties of all kinds are his rage. George and a friend of his had notice of a ball coming off in Northampton in a few days, and he heard that his "ladye love" would be one of the company, so they determined to be there. He writes letters, gets an invitation for his friend, and makes all the preparation possible for a week previous. The day comes, it is rainy; but, no matter, they pack their best suits into trunks, bring the necessary apparatus for making a good appearance, they search the town for a conveyance, and at length procure a team for a tandem at Jordan's. Off they go, eighteen miles the first stage, then eight more; they bait their horses and dine; off again for full sixteen miles. He has also to run the risk of a cross-examination from whatever members of his family he may happen to meet at the ball, and to answer the difficult question, "What brought you here?" It is raining in torrents, it is a cold February day; but all difficulties appear trifles to the two young adventurers as they urge their team over the hills and plains of Northamptonshire. Even Spencer boasts in his journal that he is now a first-rate whip. They arrive in high glee, forgetting their hardships in the glow of anticipation, and are greeted with the bad news, as they jump from their conveyance, that the ball has been put off until next month. To make matters worse, the bearer of these unfavourable tidings assured them that he wrote to them to give this information, and they had an additional motive to chagrin in the fact of their having forgotten to ask for their letters in the hurry and anxiety to come off. He notes in the journal—"Feb. 10. We set off again in our tandem for Cambridge, truly dimissis auribus, but with a resolution to try again on the 5th March." On the 5th of March they faithfully carried out this resolution. The ball took place, but the ladies they were anxious to meet did not come, so they only half enjoyed the thing. Spencer took a hack and rode off to Althorp to make his appearance at his father's. He was very nervous about the prospect of a meeting with his parents, and having to give an account of himself. Fortunately the Earl was deep in some measure for furthering George's happiness, and looked upon his son's arrival as an auspicious visit. Everything thus passed off smoothly, and the youngsters arrived in Cambridge with their tandem "without accidents, but with two or three narrow escapes." His journal here has few incidents out of the ordinary line of his daily life; he learns to wrestle with success; so as to bring his antagonist to the ground with a dilapidation of the res vestiaria. He practises a good deal at jumping, and one day, in clearing a hedge, a bramble caught his foot, which brought him with violence to the ground; by this mishap his eye was ornamented with a scar which gave him some trouble afterwards. He also gets a shying horse to ride: this noble charger had a particular dislike to carts: he shied at one in the market-place in Cambridge, and soon left his rider on the flags. Spencer mounted again, but found on his return, after a good ride, that his toe was sprained, and it kept him indoors for five or six days. This chapter of accidents was amply counterbalanced by the agreeable fact that he had just attended his twenty-fifth divinity lecture, and had obtained the certificate which was to insure him the imposition of his bishop's hands, whenever he might think it convenient to put himself to the trouble of going through the ceremony. His course is now coming to an end; he becomes a freemason, and rises four degrees in the craft before the end of June. A bishop visits Trinity College, and standing in solemn grandeur, with a staff of college officers dressed out in their insignia encircling him, his lordship delivers a grave expression of his displeasure at the stupidity some twenty students gave evidence of during their examination. Spencer comes out in the first class once more; his brother Frederick is in Cambridge at the time, and as soon as the result is known they take coach for London. Here they spend their time agreeably between dining at home and abroad, going to Covent Garden, and taking sundry lessons from an Italian dancing-master, until July 5th, when George returns to Cambridge to take out his degree. We will hear himself now giving an account of this great event.