UNIVERSITY CAREER. 73 



not to relish the operation, so that his name is a name of terror, 

 but nothing could be luckier for John than his strict, close style of 

 examination. 



" The mere riddance of that burden, which had sat so long on his 

 thoughts, was enough to make him dance ; but he was also elated 

 with success and applause, and was in very high spirits after it. I 

 left him last night." 



The examination was truly, to use his private tutor's expression, 

 a " glorious" one. " It marked the scholar" is the measured but 

 emphatic phrase of the formidable Mr. Shepherd, in referring to it. 

 "I can never forget," said another of the examiners, the Rev. 

 Richard Dixon, Fellow and Tutor of Queen's, "the very splendid 

 examination which you passed in this University; an examination 

 which afforded the strongest proofs of very great application, and 

 genius, and scholarship, and which produced such an impression on 

 the minds of the Examiners, as to call forth (a distinction very 

 rarely conferred) the public expression of our approbation and 

 thanks."* 



♦From subsequent testimonies regarding his Oxford studies and reputation, a few may in this 

 place be inserted. The Eev. Benjamin Cheese, who was his private tutor during the last two 

 years of his University course, thus referred to that period : — " Among all my pupils I never met 

 with one who read with greater zest the sublime pages of the Greek tragedians, or penetrated 

 with the same rapid acuteness into the abstruse difficulties of Aristotle. The analyses which you 

 then made for me of the Ethics, Rhetoric, and Poetics of that great philosopher, I still preserve as 

 a memorial of you. I never refer to them without regretting that your Oxford examination for a 

 degree took place previously to the introduction of the new system, under which men are now 

 arranged in distinct classes, according to their real merits, as I am well assured that the public 

 appearance which you then made (for I was myself present on the glorious occasion) would now 

 fully entitle you to the very highest honors which our University can bestow." 



"He was always considered by me," writes the Eev. William Russell, Fellow of Magdalen 

 College, "and by other members of the College in which we were educated, to be a man of strong 

 powers of mind, great industry and zeal for learning, and no ordinary degree of taste. His college 

 exercises and compositions invariably displayed much genius and skill in argument; and the 

 small poem on Sculpture, Architecture, and Painting, which gained the University Prize, given 

 by the late Sir Roger Newdigate, on the first year of its establishment, was esteemed on all hands 

 to be a superior specimen of talent. And I can truly say, that the reputation he acquired during 

 his residence in Oxford, not only in our own Society, but in the University at large, remains 

 fresh amongst us, though many years have elapsed since he left us, and many others of high talent 

 have arisen during that period to attract our admiration." 



The venerable President of his College, Dr. Routh, bore similar testimony: — "I can safely say, 

 that amongst the non-foundationers of Magdalen College, who are generally about twelve in num- 

 ber, I do not recollect any one, during my long residence in it, who has had an equal share of 

 reputation with yourself for great natural abilities, united with extensive literary acquirements. 

 I remember the satisfaction I generally felt at the appearance yon made at the examinations in 

 classical authors, held thrice in the year within the College, and have often perused with delight 

 that elegant composition which obtained a University prize, and whose only fault seemed to be 

 that it was too short." 



The Rev. Charles Thorp, formerly a Fellow of University College, Oxford, Bays, " Your char- 



