THE

Medals is declared very soon after that of the Tripos. The two old competitors had a hard fight for it again, and again the Pembroke man came out first by a neck. It now wanted but a month of the College Scholarship, and I was in the agony of Newton and Statics, as before stated. The only diversions I had were the Plato Lectures, which I could not lose, happen what would, and occasionally attending a talk at the Union (where the Debates were beginning to look up), or at our little Historical. The latter was beautifully arranged as regarded different sets of opinions for keeping up lively discussions; it had been founded chiefly by Liberals, but there were Tories and Conservatives enough in it to defend their side vigorously in a political question. The Union was very one-sided. Its majority professed a species of mixture of old Toryism and Young Englandism, a fusion more bigoted than either of its bigoted elements. Will it be believed that they actually passed, and by a considerable majority, a vote affirming that it would be expedient to re-establish monasteries in England! Such Liberals of us as there were, however, did not by any means let this or any other question go by default. We lifted up our voices pretty

loudly, nor indeed did we confine ourselves to the ordinary course of debate. A queer friend of mine wrote a ballad ludicrously showing up the would-be monks; two of us had it printed, sent it round as a circular to the whole University, and wound up the joke by getting it attributed to Travis, to his utter disgust, both because he was just at that time dubitating whether he might not go into the Church after all, and because the doggerel was not quite equal to Ingoldsby, and popular prejudice pronounced it even worse than it really was.

And now, somewhere about the end of March or the beginning of April (for it was just after Easter, and according to the old saw—

"Let Easter happen when it will,

It's always in March or April,”)

the important time for us Senior Sophs of Trinity drew nigh. There are three or four different sets of men among the Third Year Candidates, with different interests and aspirations. First, those who are looking forward to Fellowships. It might be supposed that, as the Fellows are only in the proportion of one to three of the Scholars, any man with a reasonable prospect of a Fellowship ahead would be sure of the Scholarship introductory without much trouble. Yet it sometimes. happens that men who have ultimately come out as high as second or third in the Classical Tripos, or among the first eight Wranglers in the Mathematical, and who, therefore, it is reasonable to suppose, might have stood. a good chance for Fellowships, miss their Scholarships from some accident, perhaps a feeling of security. This has even befallen men who afterwards took good double degrees Senior Optimés in Mathematics, and First Class Men in Classics. It is not, therefore, prudent in

any man to take his Scholarship for granted, and the best men of the Third Year are generally the most nervous from the recollection of their disappointment the year before.

Next to these come another class whose final expectations are less lofty. They may be decent Wranglers, or high Second Class men, or Double Seconds; that is the limit of their University views, and the Scholarship the limit of their college ones. If they stay up at all as Bachelors, it will be only to enjoy the full benefit of their income from the Scholarship, and for greater convenience in taking pupils: or to attend Divinity Lectures. Others, again, are Classical men not yet decided whether they will go out in Honors, being doubtful if their probable place on the Classical Tripos can warrant the exertion and drudgery of getting through in Mathematics, and their success or failure in this examination will go far towards determining them. And yet others, Classical men also, are not anxious to go out in Honors at all, but would like to get a Scholarship as a sort of compensation to their friends and themselves, and a handsome way of retiring from the other contest with flying colors.

We had a large opening this year—seventeen vacancies. To counterbalance this advantage, the lower year was a very strong one; it contained a Mathematician of great pace and endurance, who was afterwards Senior Wrangler, and several capital Classics. Hallam was one of these, and so was the future Senior Medalist, who was of a family of several brothers that all wrote Greek Iambics by instinct. Our year was weak enough. After taking out the five men who gained their Scholarships at the first trial, we had only one very good Mathematician left, and no very good Classic. The one

in most repute was a son of the late Sir R. Peel, now M.P. for Leominster, and his father's political successor. All these little personal matters, and many more, were as thoroughly canvassed as the history, merits, and chances of horses before a race, or office-seekers before an election.

Finally arrived the Wednesday. The Hall was opened at nine, and seventy or eighty men rushed in to scribble. Our first paper was Greek translation, and, to my surprise and joy, contained a long bit of Plato and a hard bit of Theocritus-authors not usually set in the Scholarship, and therefore likely not only utterly to confound the Mathematical men, but to trouble some of the Classical ones, particularly of the Second year. The extra length of the paper, there being five selections instead of the usual four, was also of considerable benefit to me, for my pace, though not very good, was such as to leave a comfortable margin in four hours, and some of the others might be crowded by the additional extract. But in spite of these advantages, a morbid feeling of disgust came over me soon after I sat down, and I was on the point of throwing up my papers and walking off. Luckily I thought better of it, and on gradually reflecting how favorable to me this first morning's examination was, I felt a fresh stimulus, and worked diligently the whole four hours, taking care not to throw away any chance by going out before the time, as I had done the previous year.

The bit of Plato set us was from the Tenth Book of the Laws. An American Professor's edition of this Book contains by his own confession two mistakes of construction in the notes to this very passage. I translated the whole extract, which I had never seen before (nor had any of us, for the Laws is seldom read even

by Bachelors, on account of its many corruptions and the want of proper editors), correctly throughout, and as some of the Junior Sophs were marked higher than myself upon it, they must have done so too. I mention this because it illustrates what will be more fully treated of hereafter, the difference between the English and American way of learning things. No doubt the Professor in question had read three times as much Plato as any of us three or four men who were best on this extract; perhaps it might be said, that in a rough and imperfect way he had more general knowledge of the Platonic philosophy; but it is long odds that any of us would have translated an ordinary selection from Plato -one where knowledge of language as well as matter came into play—much more correctly than he could.

The examination lasts but three days and a half, the number of papers being seven, two translation, two Latin composition, two Mathematics, and one general questions in Classical history and philology, etc.,-a paper which of late years had become somewhat unjustly slighted--we were therefore through our toils by Saturday noon. I had done quite as much Mathematics as I expected, but my performances on the Latin verse paper were very shady.

The candidates were now left to a week of suspense. This week I filled up with writing, not for, but rather at or against the University Latin Essay, for which as a sort of twice Third year man, I had a right to compete a second time. It has been mentionel that there prevailed in the University at this time a feeling of the most awful bigotry, combining all the worst parts of Young England Puseyism and old "high and dry" Toryism. This feeling was not confined to the Undergraduates, but was aided and abetted by many of those in author