The travellers got back to England in September, and at the end of the Long Vacation Lyell returned to Oxford. There he remained till December, 1819, when he proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, obtaining a second class in Classical Honours. Considering that he had never been a "hard reader," and that he appears to have spent much of his "longs" in travel--a practice which, though good for general education, counts for little in the schools--the position indicates that he possessed rather exceptional abilities and a good amount of scholarship. Though Oxford had been unable to bestow upon him a systematic training in science, she had given a definite bias to his inclination, and had fostered and cultivated a taste for literature which in the future brought forth a rich fruitage. FOOTNOTES: [4] Probably they were fossil sponges. [5] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 43. [6] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 69. [7] Now generally called Parnassius Apollo; but very likely he captured more than one species of the genus. [8] Probably it was a bituminous shale which had become ignited, as was the case at Ringstead Bay, Dorset, with the Kimeridge clay. The same often happens with the "banks" of coal-pits. CHAPTER III. THE GROWTH OF A PURPOSE. Shortly after he had donned the bachelor's hood Lyell came to London, was entered at Lincoln's Inn, and studied law in the office of a special pleader. Science was not forsaken, for in March, 1819, he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society, and about the same time joined the Linnean Society. Before very long his legal studies were interrupted. His eyes became so weak that a complete rest was prescribed; accordingly, in the autumn of 1820, he accompanied his father on a journey to Rome. During this but little was done in geology, for the travellers spent almost all their time in towns.