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Dean Butler, relates that on one occasion his translation, in class, 
of part of the eighth Aeneid of Virgil was so exquisite that 
“there was a rush of admiring sympathy, which seemed to extend 
“to the Head Master also. He was not pulled up till he had 
“finished the whole of the lesson, probably some sixty or seventy 
“lines.” Blayds also won fame as an athlete. 
At Oxford, where he entered Balliol College in 1850, Blayds 
maintained his reputation of being one of the best Latin verse 
writers of his time, and in 1851 won the Chancellor’s Prize with 
his beautiful poem ‘Parthenonis Ruine.” His high spirits, 
however, got him into trouble with the authorities, and he had to 
leave Oxford in 1852. 
Taking advantage of his father’s change of name, Blayds went 
to Cambridge as Charles Stuart Calverley, and in October, 1852, 
was admitted as a Freshman at Christ’s College. Here he seems, 
profiting by experience, to have shown no inclination to defy 
rules or authority ; on the contrary, his contemporaries hold 
that the taste for reading among the undergraduates at this period 
was largely due to the example of Calverley and Seeley (afterwards 
Regius Professor of History and author of ‘Ecce Homo”). 
Calverley won the University Prize Poem for Latin verse in 
1853 and 1855. Of his efforts in lighter vein, perhaps the 
examination paper on “ Pickwick” was one of the best things 
that Calverley ever did. The examination was held in his rooms, 
and the prize was taken by the late Sir Walter Besant, Professor 
Skeat being second. ‘There was a good deal of talk about the 
“examination,” says Sir W. Besant in his Autobiography, “ copies 
“of the paper were in request all over the University, and for a 
“whole day Skeat and I were famous.” 
Calverley had a remarkable ear, and possessed a voice of great 
purity and sweétness. He would frequently compose his own 
songs, and the musical evenings at his rooms were among the 
most pleasant memories of his contemporaries. 
After taking numerous honours, Calverley was in 1858 elected 
