CHAPTER IV.
OXFORD.
My brother went up to Oxford full of good resolves as to reading, which he carried out far better than most men do, although undoubtedly after his first year, his popularity, by enlarging the circle of his acquaintance to an inconvenient extent, somewhat interfered with his studies. Your grandfather was delighted at having a son likely to distinguish himself actually resident in his own old College. In his time it had occupied the place in the University now held by Balliol. Copleston and Whately had been his tutors; and, as he had resided a good deal after taking his degree, he had seen several generations of distinguished men in the common room, including Arnold, Blanco White, Keble, Pusey, and Hampden. Moreover, there was a tradition of University distinction in his family; his father had been Setonian Prizeman and Chancellor’s Medallist at Cambridge, and he himself had carried off the Latin verse prize, and one of the English Odes recited before the United Sovereigns, when they paid a visit to the Oxford Commemoration in 1814, with Wellington, Blücher, and a host of the great soldiers of that day.
His anxiety as to George’s start at Oxford manifested itself in many ways, and particularly as to the want of punctuality, and accuracy in small matters, which he had already noticed. As a delicate lesson on this subject, I find him taking advantage of the fact that George’s watch was in the hands of the maker for repairs, to send him his own chronometer, adding: “As your sense of trustworthiness in little and great things is a considerably multiplied multiple of your care for your own private property (which doubtless will grow to its right proportion when you have been cheated a little), I have no doubt old Trusty will return to me in as good order as when he left me. Furthermore, it is possible you may take a fancy to him when you have learnt the value of an unfailing guide to punctuality. In which case, if you can tell me at the end of term that you have, to the best of your belief, made the most of your time, I will with great pleasure swap with you. As to what is making the best of your time, you would of course like to have my ideas. Thus, then”—and your grandfather proceeds to give a number of rules, founded on his own old Oxford experience, as to reading, and goes on:—
“All this, you will say, cuts out a tolerably full employment for the term. But when you can call this in your recollections, ‘terminus alba cretâ notandus,’ it will be worth trouble. I believe the intentions of most freshmen are good, and the first term generally well spent: the second and third are often the trial, when one gets confidence in oneself; and the sense of what is right and honourable must come in place of that deference for one’s superior officers, which is at first instinctive. I am glad you find you can do as you please, and choose your own society without making yourself at all remarkable. So I found, for the same reasons that facilitate the matter to you. Domestic or private education, I believe, throws more difficulties in the way of saying ‘No’ when it is your pleasure so to do, and the poor wight only gets laughed at instead of cultivated. After all, one may have too many acquaintance, unexceptionable though they be. But I do not know that much loss of time can occur to a person of perfectly sober habits, as you are, if he leaves wine parties with a clear head at chapel time, and eschews supping and lounging, and lunching and gossiping, and tooling in High Street, and such matters, which belong more to particular cliques than to a generally extended acquaintance in College. In all these things, going not as a raw lad, but as a man of nineteen, with my father’s entire confidence, I found I could settle the thing to my satisfaction in no time: your circumstances are precisely the same, and the result will probably be the same. I applaud, and κυδίζε, and clap you on the back for rowing: row, box, fence, and walk with all possible sturdiness. Another thing: I believe an idea prevails that it is necessary to ride sometimes, to show yourself of equestrian rank. If you have any mind this way, write to Franklin to send Stevens with your horse; keep him a few weeks, and I will allow you a £5 note to assert your equestrian dignity, now or at any other time. This is a better style of thing than piaffing about on hired Oxford cocky-horses, like Jacky Popkin, and all such half-measures. The only objection to such doings is, that you certainly do see a style of men always across a horse who are fit for nothing else, and non constat that they always know a hock from a stifle-joint. But this is only per accidens. And if you have a fancy for an occasional freak this way, remember I was bred in the saddle, and, whatever my present opinions may be from longer experience, can fully enter into your ideas.”
You will see by his answer how readily George entered into some of his father’s ideas, though I don’t think he ever sent for his horse. A few weeks later, in 1841, he writes:—
“Now to answer your last letters. I shall be delighted to accept you as my prime minister for the next two years. Any plan of reading which you chalk out for me I think I shall be able to pursue—at least I am sure I will try to do so. Men reading for honours now generally employ ‘a coach.’ If you will condescend to be my coach, I will try to answer to the whip to the best of my power.”
Your grandfather accepted the post with great pleasure; and there are a number of his letters, full of hints and directions as to study, which I hope you may all read some day, but which would make this memoir too long. You will see later on how well satisfied he was with the general result, though in one or two instances he had sad disappointments to bear, as most fathers have who are anxious about their sons’ work. The first of these happened this year. He was specially anxious that George should write for the Latin Verse, which prize he himself had won. Accordingly George wrote in his first year, but, instead of taking his poem himself to the Proctor’s when he had finished it, left it with his College tutor to send in. The consequence was, it was forgotten till after the last day for delivery, and so could not be received. This was a sad trial to your grandfather, both because he had been very sanguine as to the result, and because here was another instance of George’s carelessness about his own affairs, and want of punctuality in small things. However, he wrote so kindly about it, that George was more annoyed than if he had been very angry, and set to work on the poem for the next year as soon as the subject was announced, which I remember was “Noachi Diluvium.” You may be sure that now the poem went in in good time, but in due course the Examiners announced that no prize would be given for the year. I do not know that any reason was ever given for this unusual course, which surprised everyone, as it was known that several very good scholars, including, I believe, the late Head-master of Marlborough, had been amongst the competitors. Your grandfather was very much vexed. He submitted George’s poem to two of his old college friends, Dean Milman and Bishop Lonsdale, both of whom had been Latin prizemen; and, when they expressed an opinion that, in default of better copies of verses, these should have been entitled to the prize, he had them printed, with the following heading:—
“The refusal of the Official Committee of Examiners to award any prize for the Oxford Latin verse of 1842, has naturally led to a supposition that the scholarship and intelligence of the competitors has fallen short of the usual standard. Having, however, perused the following copy of verses, which are probably a fair specimen of those sent in, I am inclined to think, as a graduate and somewhat conversant with such subjects, that this discouraging inference is unfounded, and that the committee have been influenced in their discretion by some unexplained reason, involving no reflection on the candidates for the prize, as compared with those of former years.”
The real fact I believe to have been, so far as George was concerned, that there were two false quantities in his verses; and though these were so palpable, as your grandfather remarked, “as to be obvious to any fifth-form boy, and plainly due to carelessness in transcription, and want of revision by a second person,” the Examiners were clearly not bound to make allowances for such carelessness.