The laurels he had planted gave the energetic Archdeacon some trouble. In his old age he had them all swept away, and made a needed if unromantic improvement in the outlook of the beautiful old house. Hurrell’s implicit differences with his ‘knowing, quick, and handy’ father, so many of whose best qualities he shared, hinged laughably often on such things as the culture of trees and the make and management of boats. In all, he did his best to become what the epitaphs of the time call ‘an humble obsequious son.’ Hurrell took only a second class in Classics and Mathematics (disappointing and astonishing everyone who knew him) during 1824. But he had exactly the sort of mind which, sooner or later, would come to grief with any curriculum. To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, March 29, 1825. ‘… Be so good as to write a sermon on “_flumina amem sylvasque inglorius_,” for the benefit of my father, who objects to our having a four-oar given us, as infallibly tending to debilitate and torpify the mental faculties! I am afraid it is not in my stars to be ever contented; for I confess I do not feel that serene felicity which I pictured to myself last October as my destiny; though my delight is not impaired as to the misery I have escaped. I am sure the ghosts of those who have taken a degree at Oxford will require a double portion of Lethe before they begin “_in corpora velle reverti_.” ‘_March 31. P.S._――I wrote enclosed the day before yesterday, but, as you will perceive, incapacitated it for going by the post without a cover; so I waited for a frank. And, as I am become so prudent as not to like wasting paper, you are indebted to this circumstance for an elongation of my epistle. I don’t recollect whether I told you that I have been reading Clarendon, for which, though I skipped over some parts, I feel much veneration. I am glad I know something of the Puritans, as it gives me a better right to hate Milton,[27] and accounts for many of the things which most disgusted me in his not-in-my-sense-of-the-word poetry. Also, I adore King Charles and Bishop Laud!… You prosed me once for not sending regards, remembrances, compliments, etc., so let everyone choose which they like best, as I commit to you an assortment of each kind for distribution. ‘“Tuque vale, sedesque juvet meminisse meorum, Heu, nunquam rediture.”’ To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, May 13, 1825.