The boy, with his half-indolent, half-clairvoyant way of studying, and his high spirits in and out-of-doors, got on fairly well at Eton,[11] though his years there seem to have made no great impress on his mind and character. He developed, perhaps, too slowly, and too much by instinct and intuition, to be much harmed or helped by a Public School. Winthrop Mackworth Praed was one of his memorable contemporaries there; Edward Bouverie Pusey, though in an upper Form, was another.[12] Like Pusey, Hurrell had a talisman and a safeguard in the love of a pious mother. The extreme natural sympathy between them was heightened by the boy’s fickle health, and his unconscious appeal for continued care. One experience of early invalidism and its results, lasting for some time, drew from Margaret Froude an oblique comment or protest which is enough to make one love and admire her womanliness. She drew up a letter to an imaginary correspondent, which was really intended for her tall son himself. It sounds wholly like a page from the _Spectator_, in Steele’s tenderest whimsical vein; and it would be an ungenerous lad (her Hurrell certainly knew not how to be ungenerous) who would not be touched by the genuine foreboding sorrow breathing through it. Whether it was ever actually left in his way is doubtful; a passage in his Journal may imply that he knew nothing of it until after her death. Its date lies early in 1820. ‘SIR,――I have a son who is giving me a good deal of uneasiness at this time, from causes which I persuade myself are not altogether common; and having used my best judgment about him for seventeen years, I at last begin to think it incompetent to the case, and apply to you for advice. From his very birth his temper has been peculiar: pleasing, intelligent, and attaching, when his mind was undisturbed, and he was in the company of people who treated him reasonably and kindly; but exceedingly impatient under vexatious circumstances; very much disposed to find his own amusement in teasing and vexing others; and almost entirely incorrigible when it was necessary to reprove him. I never could find a successful mode of treating him. Harshness made him obstinate and gloomy; calm and long displeasure made him stupid and sullen; and kind patience had not sufficient power over his feelings to force him to govern himself. His disposition to worry made his appearance the perpetual signal for noise and disturbance among his brothers and sisters; and this it was impossible to stop, though a taste for quiet, and constant weak health, made it to me almost insupportable. After a statement of such great faults, it may seem an inconsistency to say that he nevertheless still bore about him strong marks of a promising character. In all points of substantial principle his feelings were just and high. He had (for his age) an unusually deep feeling of admiration for everything which was good and noble; his relish was lively, and his taste good, for all the pleasures of