Dipped in grey Oxford mixture (lest _that_ prove a fixture), The poor lad’s to be plunged in less orthodox Cam., Where dynamics and statics, and pure mathematics, Will be piled on his brain’s awful cargo of cram. But the Prince seems to have borne his course of study very well, and after his son had been in Edinburgh some three months the Prince Consort wrote to Baron Stockmar:-- “In Edinburgh I had an Educational Conference with all the persons who were taking part in the education of the Prince of Wales. They all speak highly of him, and he seems to have shown zeal and goodwill. Dr. Lyon Playfair is giving him lectures on chemistry in relation to manufactures, and at the close of each special course he visits the appropriate manufactory with him, so as to explain its practical application. Dr. Schmitz (the Director of the High School of Edinburgh, a German) gives him lectures on Roman history. Italian, German, and French are advanced at the same time; and three times a week the Prince exercises with the 16th Hussars, who are stationed in the city. Mr. Fisher, who is to be the tutor for Oxford, was also in Holyrood. Law and history are to be the subjects on which he is to prepare the Prince.” [Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD] The young Prince spent a delightful holiday in the Highlands, and made an expedition up Ben Muichdhui, one of the highest mountains in Scotland. Then, on 9th November, his nineteenth birthday was celebrated with the whole of his family, for the Princess Royal had arrived from Berlin in order to spend the day with her brother. The King was at that time very fond of the writings of Sir Walter Scott. He has always been a reader of fiction, French, English, and German, and as a youth he was studious and eager to learn. On leaving Scotland he went up to Oxford, being admitted a member of Christ Church. The Prince seems to have thoroughly enjoyed his life as an undergraduate. He joined freely in the social life of the University, and took part in all the sports, frequently hunting with the South Oxfordshire Hounds. Nor did he neglect his books, for we find the Prince Consort writing to Baron Stockmar on 8th December 1859 to say that, “The Prince of Wales is working hard at Oxford.” [Illustration: TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE] It seems more convenient here to abandon the strictly chronological arrangement, and to leave the Prince’s visit to Canada and the United States, which followed immediately, to be described in a separate chapter, passing on at once to his life at Cambridge.