“Piper erat fattus, qui brownum tegmen habebat.” Though his rare faculties were proudly appreciated by the learned Quaker, who foretold they would ultimately conduct their possessor to fame and fortune, it is worthy of remark that Burke’s gay, witty, and vivacious brother, Richard, was generally regarded as the more brilliantly endowed of the active attorney’s sons. The keen and anxious eye of their father, however, perceived the superior wisdom and energy that, even at that date, animated the glowing breast of the youth who was to stand forward as the terror of Indian oppressors, the champion of injured ladies, and the marvel of Christendom. Indeed, sparks of the peculiar sympathy for the poor and desolate, which breathes through his political discourses, already began to flash forth with promising brightness and warmth. A humble cottager having been compelled to pull down his little tenement at the mandate of an imperious road-surveyor, the young spirit of Burke, who indignantly witnessed the operation, broke out with vehement scorn, and he emphatically declared that, if ever he had authority in the realm, no man should, with impunity, so treat the obscure and defenseless. The boy is father to the man, and in after years, when his renown was at its height, he said that his object was not more to save the high from the blights and spoliations of envy and rapacity, than the lowly from the iron hand of oppression and the insolent spurn of contempt. In the spring of 1744 Burke was entered as a pensioner at Trinity College, Dublin. Two years later he was elected a scholar of the house. To obtain the latter distinction a candidate had to go through a successful examination in the classics, before the provost and senior fellows, after which he was entitled to a small annuity, a vote for the representatives of the University, and free chambers and commons for a certain period. But it does not appear that Burke generally sought opportunities of proving the might of that genius which he must have felt to be in him. On the contrary, he silently hoarded up that universal information, which, in other days and in very different circumstances, he exhibited in forms so grand and magnificent. Thus, when the proper time arrived, he was able to speak or converse with eloquence and correctness on almost any subject that presented itself. He gave much attention to rhetoric, and improved his mind by perpetual and sagacious reflection. While at college his habits were quiet, his character unpretending, and his conduct marked by regularity.