commence with selections from the works of
Chaucer, Spenser, and the Elizabethan
dramatists, and we were to read in turns, aloud,
each taking a certain number of lines. I
frequented them for some time, but the
history and literature of the period and
country were as strange to me (and I think
to several of the others) as if we had been
reading about China. I therefore—principally
upon the advice of my tutor—discontinued
my attendance, 'You have been sent here,'
said my tutor to me, 'solely with the view of
learning Latin, Greek, and Mathematics. Of
what use will it be to you, at present, to
know about Edward the Third, or Henry the
Eighth? You will not be asked these things
when you go into your examination. There
will be plenty of time for all this, when you
leave College.' His remarks carried the
more weight from his not being one of those
who give advice without following it, and I
conscientiously acquit him of all knowledge
either of Edward the Third, or Henry the
Eighth.

"I almost wish, now, that I had been a wild
young fellow, not only on other accounts, but
that I might entertain you with a recital of
the steeple-chases that I rode and the hearts
that I broke. The life of the student is
usually destitute of incident, of intrigue, of
duelling, of seductions, of debauchery, of
delightful and interesting topics, in a word.
It is a smooth unruffled surface, rising up into
a waterspout, or roaring down in a cataract,
only at the epoch of a Prize Ode, or a
Scholarship examination. I dined with
Horace, and supped with Homer; I pored
over the historians, and kindled with
enthusiasm at the speeches of Pericles, whenever
he happened to make one that did not contain
a very large admixture of particles and
irregular verbs. I could have conducted an
Athenian law-suit long before I knew the
ordinary forms of an English one, and should
perhaps have invested any money that might
have been left me with greater prudence, and
better knowledge of the rate of interest, at
Corinth than at Manchester.

"Not to be tedious, at the end of my twelve
terms I took an excellent degree; not,
perhaps, quite so high as I might have wished,
but still sufficiently good to entitle me to look
forward to a fellowship at the end of three
years. I confess, that the idea of spending
three more whole years secluded, as it were,
from the world, and knee-deep in the ruins of
Rome and Athens, would have proved
insupportable to me had it not been for my
father, who on this point was inexorable.
My disgust was heightened by the situation
in which I now found myself, and which I
must explain in a few words.

"About this time, I fell in love. It was a
very simple affair, without any romance about
it. My classical tutor, Mr. Smith, had three
daughters, Hecla, Phyllis, and Astarté. I met
them for the first time at the ball which my
tutor gave at the end of every term, when
more than two hundred persons were called
upon to enjoy themselves and to perspire, in
three little rooms, each about twelve feet by
six. I did not dance—no more did Astarté;
we sat upon an ottoman together, and talked
about the Brown Medal. She was very
talented, and the favourite of her father.
'That girl,' he used to say, 'can construe the
Lysistrata' of Aristophanes as well as I can.
And as for her Greek Odes—Stop! here are
half-a-dozen; sit down, and I'll read them to
you.' On this evening commenced an
acquaintance, which, through the kind offices
of Mrs. Smith, ripened into a closer connection.
Perhaps, instead of saying that I fell
over head and ears in love, it would be more
correct to state that I was gently pushed in
by Mrs. Smith, who kept watch on the bank
to see that I did not struggle out again. She
thought it prudent that the affair should be
concealed from my father at present; it was,
however, tolerably well known to my few
undergraduate acquaintance. 'What!' cried
out one of them to me one day, 'so you are
hooked in, are you?' 'No!' I replied,
smiling at what I thought his ignorance,
'pierced with a dart, you mean. You have
mistaken your metaphor—Cupid is never
represented to us by the ancients as armed
with anything but a bow and arrow.' But at
this he only laughed the more.

"We had not been engaged long, when Mr.
Smith obtained a living at some distance from
the University. Astarté and I bade each other
farewell at a little hot supper, and wept very
much. We were to love each other like
Hero and Leander, and to correspond by the
twopenny post. I was to go down and visit
them as often as I possibly could. She had
not been gone more than a few days when I
received from her an Amoebaean Ode, in Latin,
with a great quantity in the way of affection,
and—if I remember right—a false quantity in
the way of metre.

"Meanwhile, I was living my three years of
undergraduate life over again, undertaking
exploring expeditions into Aristotle, and
travelling no further than from one book to
another amongst those that constituted my
little world. I attempted, at one time, to
take pupils, which resident Bachelors of Arts
very often do, but I found that it was a
different thing to possess knowledge and to
be able to impart it, and no sooner did I
become aware of my unfitliess in this respect,
than I refused to accept my pupils' money,
and sent them off to some one else. At the
close of the third year I passed a good
examination, my name being announced as one of
the half-dozen successful candidates for a
fellowship. I was now twenty-six years of
age, and had passed six years at college, and
—counting from the time that I was put into
my Latin Grammar—nineteen years and
five months studying exclusively the dead
languages.