THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 29 



Broughton and the Duke of Cumberland, had 

 come down from Westminster to instruct the 

 youth of Oxford in the then popular art of 

 self-defence. 



Jack, now standing just six feet in his shoes, 

 furnished with big limbs, a long reach, and 

 withal a stalwart frame, required little persua- 

 sion from his friend Denne to attend and take 

 part in the course of muscular lectures delivered 

 by Rowlands in that gentleman's rooms. Nor 

 was it long ere the professor was able to pro- 

 nounce him one of his most promising pupils — 

 a compliment duly appreciated by Russell, who, 

 although far from being either a quarrelsome or 

 a pugnacious character, possessed the ambition 

 of Caesar, if attacked, to prove himself a man 

 to the backbone. 



In those days Exeter College teemed with 

 gentlemen-commoners, who, as a rule, were 

 either the eldest sons of large landed proprie- 

 tors in the West of England, or men already 

 in possession of their paternal acres, to whom 

 the payment of double fees was a matter of less 

 consideration than the distinction conferred by 

 the silk gown and velvet cap, which the Univer- 

 sity permitted them to wear. The}^ dined, too, 

 at a separate table from the commoners, namely, 

 at the first below the dai's ; and, exalted by these 

 and other privileges, here and there a fool would 

 give himself airs and affect to consider the 



