INTRODUCTION 



undergraduate, his public life may be said to 

 have begun. His very appearance was suffi- 

 cient to distinguish him from his fellows. His 

 physical prowess manifested itself in an ath- 

 letic figure, and his singularity was further 

 heightened by his head shaggy with hair, 

 always described in later life as leonine, and 

 by enormous whiskers unusual then among 

 university youth, as, indeed, among all classes 

 at the time. He had a perfect passion for 

 declamation and debate, which led him to 

 espouse either side of an argument or both 

 sides in turn with equal vigor and impartial- 

 ity, and to seek out strange companies at 

 coaching taverns to charm with his discourse. 

 This last satisfied his whimsical turn for ad- 

 venture, otherwise indulged by summer walk- 

 ing tours and sojourns among the gypsies, in 

 which respect he reminds us of that later 

 lover of the Romanies, George Borrow. He 

 had strong sporting proclivities, not alone 

 now for those pastimes pursued on hill and 



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