1 



Lehrjahre and Waiulerjahre 141 



attractiveness of manner, with a love of harmless banter and paradox " ; 

 F. Campbell', who set for himself " an ideal of public life too high lor 

 his powers "yet who had a disposition unalloyed by pettiness, and when 

 consulted about difficulties " put things in fresh lights, and always with 

 noble intent " ; Johnson" of King's, the active member of the Epigram 

 Club — of which more anon ; Maine' of Pembroke, one of the few men 

 as thoroughly at home in Trinity as in his own college ; Kay, the idler 

 of the staircase, but the effective man in later life ; Charles Buxton, 

 with none of the exceptional brilliancy of the others but with " manly 

 virtues and as much common sense as was consistent with a charming 

 dash of originality " ; W. G. Clark^ — who like many men gave promise 

 of high achievement, but failed to fulfil, and could but sing : 



"Truly there's something wanting in the world"; 



Mathew Boulton, the boy known from the old school and from home 

 (see p. 77), and the relative, Cousin Theodore', to complete the circle. 

 Galton tells us of these friends" in his Memories (pp. 65 — 70) with a 

 few brief lines of characterisation. Surely they are not more his friends 

 than our own? Are they not types that we ourselves have known 

 tliirty to forty years after Galton 1 types which, under other names, 

 yet haunt to-day, thirty and more years later still, the old staircases, 

 and even now assemble to express in new language the old dreams and 

 ever new ambitions round the ancient fireplaces, where they seem to 

 our generation intruders, and where we seem to them shadows of a 

 profitless past, which they dismiss as mid-Victorian ! 



Galton knew and loved his Cambridge right well ; it gave him friends 

 and some mental training. He appreciated the thoroughness of its 



' Afterward Lord Campbell ; he was son of the Chancellor. 



- William Johnson Cory, the Eton master. 



^ Afterwards Sir Henry Maine. Among (lalton's personalia I have come across 

 Maine's undergraduate visiting card. 



* Public Orator of the University and Vice-Master of Trinity College. 



' Theodore Howard Galton, see Pedigree Plate A. 



' They were, apart from degree standard, in many respects a brilliant group. Maine 

 ill l!^42, Johnson in 1843, won the Chancellor's English Medal ; Clark got the Porson in 

 1843, and the Greek Ode in 1842 and 1843, and the Epigrams in 1842 ; Maine the Latin 

 Ode in 1842 and 1843 and the Epigrams in 1843, and the Camden in 1842 ; M. Boulton 

 the Epigrams in 1841 ; Johnson the Camden in 1844. Maine got the Craven in 1843, 

 Johnson in 1844, Maine and Clark the Cliancellor's Classical Medals in 1844 and Hallam 

 "ot them in 1846. 



