From a course of tuition divided between his father and the parish schoolmaster, Brown went, at fifteen or over, to King William's College, and became its show scholar; thence, by the efforts of well-meaning friends (but at the cost of much subsequent pain), to Christ Church, Oxford, as a servitor. He won his double first; but he has left on record an account of a servitor's position at Christ Church in the early fifties, and to Brown the spiritual humiliation can have been little less than one long dragging anguish. He had, of course, his intervals of high spirits; but (says Mr. Irwin, his friend and biographer) "there is no doubt he did not exaggerate what the position was to him. I have heard him refer to it over and over again with a dispassionate bitterness there was no mistaking." Dean Gaisford absolutely refused to nominate him, after his two first classes, to a fellowship, though all the resident dons wished it. "A servitor never has been elected student--_ergo_, he never shall be." Brown admired Gaisford, and always spoke kindly of him "in all his dealings with me." Yet the night after he won his double first was "one of the most intensely miserable I was ever called to endure." Relief, and of the right kind, came with his election as Fellow of Oriel in April, 1854. In those days an Oriel Fellowship still kept and conveyed its peculiar distinction, and the brilliant young scholar had at length the ball at his feet. "This is none of your empty honours," he wrote to his mother; "it gives me an income of about 300 pounds per annum as long as I choose to reside at Oxford, and about 220 pounds in cash if I reside elsewhere. In addition to this it puts me in a highly commanding position for pupils, so that on the whole I have every reason to expect that (except perhaps the first year) I shall make between 500 and 600 pounds altogether per annum. So you see, my dear mother, that your prayers have not been unanswered, and that God will bless the generation of those who humbly strive to serve Him. . . I have not omitted to remark that the election took place on April 21st, the anniversary of your birth and marriage." How did he use his opportunity? "He never took kindly to the life of an Oxford fellow," thought the late Dr. Fowler (an old schoolfellow of Brown's, afterwards President of Corpus and Vice-Chancellor of the University). Mr. Irwin quotes another old friend, Archdeacon Moore, to much the same effect. Their explanations lack something of definiteness. After a few terms of private pupils Brown returned to the Island, and there accepted the office of Vice-principal of his old school. We can only be sure that his reasons were honourable, and sufficed for him; we may include among them, if we choose, that _nostalgia_ which haunted him all his days, until fate finally granted his wish and sent him back to his beloved Argos "for good."