Ch. II.] CAMBRIDGE. 19 



rarer plants and animals which were observed. These 

 excursions were delightful. 



Although, as we shall presently see, there were some 

 redeeming features in my life at Cambridge, my time was sadly 

 wasted there, and worse than wasted. From my passion for 

 shooting and for hunting, and, when this failed, for riding 

 across country, I got into a sporting set, including some dissi- 

 pated low-minded young men. We used often to dine together 

 in the evening, though these dinners often included men of a 

 higher stamp, and wo sometimes drank too much, with jolly 

 singing and playing at cards afterwards. I know that I ought 

 to feel ashamed of days and evenings thus spent, but as some of 

 my friends were very pleasant, and we were all in the highest 

 spirits, I cannot help looking back to these times with much 

 pleasure.* 



But I am glad to think that I had many other friends of a 

 widely different nature. I was very intimate with Whitley,f 

 who was afterwards Senior Wrangler, and we used continually 

 to take long walks together. He inoculated mo with a taste for 

 pictures and good engravings, of which I bought some. I fre- 

 quently went to the Fitzwilliam Gallery, and my taste must 

 have been fairly good, for I certainly admired the best pictures, 

 which I discussed with the old curator. I read also with 

 much interest Sir Joshua Reynolds' book. This taste, though 

 not natural to me, lasted for several years, and many of tho 

 pictures in the National Gallery in London gave mo much 

 pleasure ; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense 

 of sublimity. 



I also got into a musical set, I believe by means of my warm- 

 hearted friend, Herbert,! who took a high wrangler's degree. 

 From associating with these men, and hearing them play, I ac- 

 quired a strong taste for music, and used very often to time my 

 walks so as to hear on week days the anthem in King's College 

 Chapel. This gave me intense pleasure, so that my backbone 

 would sometimes shiver. I am sure that there w r as no affecta- 

 tion or mere imitation in this taste, for I used generally to 

 go by myself to King's College, and I sometimes hired the 

 chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so 

 utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or 



* I gather from some of my father's contemporaries that he has 

 exaggerated the Bacchanalian nature of these parties. — F. D. 



t Rev. C. Whitley, Hon. Canon of Durham, formerly Reader in Natural 

 Philosophy in Durham University. 



X The late John Maurice Herbert, County Court Judge of Cardiff and 

 the Monmouth Circuit. 



c 2 



