From Winchester he removed to Oxford in 1811, where he became a scholar at Corpus Christi College; in 1815 he was elected fellow of Oriel College, and there he continued to reside until 1819. This interval was diligently devoted to the pursuit of classical and historical studies, to preparing himself for ordination, and to searching investigations, under the stimulus of continued discussion with a band of talented and congenial associates, of the profoundest questions in theology, ecclesiastical polity and social philosophy. The authors he most carefully studied at this period were Thucydides and Aristotle, and for their writings he formed an attachment which remained to the close of his life, and exerted a powerful influence upon his mode of thought and opinions, as well as upon his literary occupations in subsequent years. Herodotus also came in for a considerable share of his regard, but more, apparently, for recreation than for work. Accustomed freely and fearlessly to investigate whatever came before him, and swayed by a scrupulous dread of insincerity, he was doomed to long and anxious hesitation concerning some of the fundamental points of theology before arriving at a firm conviction of the truth of Christianity. Once satisfied, however, his faith remained clear and firm; and thenceforward his life became that of a supremely _religious_ man. To the name of Christ he was prepared to "surrender his whole soul," and to render before it "obedience, reverence without measure, intense humility, most unreserved adoration" (_Serm. ns._ vol. iv. p. 210). He did not often talk about religion; he had not much of the accredited phraseology of piety even when he discoursed on spiritual topics; but more than most men he was directed by religious principle and feeling in all his conduct. He left Oxford in 1819, and settled at Laleham, near Staines, where he took pupils for the university. His spare time was devoted to the prosecution of studies in philology and history, more particularly to the study of Thucydides, and of the new light which had been cast upon Roman history and upon historical method in general by the researches of Niebuhr. He was also occasionally engaged in preaching, and it was whilst here that he published the first volume of his sermons. Shortly after he settled at Laleham, he married Mary, youngest daughter of the Rev. John Penrose, rector of Fledborough, Nottinghamshire. After nine years spent at Laleham he was induced to offer himself as a candidate for the vacant head-mastership of Rugby; and though he entered somewhat late upon the contest, and though none of the electors was personally known to him, he was elected in December 1827. In June 1828 he received priest's orders; in April end November of the same year he took his degrees of B.D. and D.D., and in August entered on his new office.