My brother went up to Oxford full of good resolves as to reading,
which he carried out far better than most men do, although undoubtedly
after his first year, his popularity, by enlarging the circle of his
acquaintance to an inconvenient extent, somewhat interfered with his
studies. Your grandfather was delighted at having a son likely to
distinguish himself actually resident in his own old College. In his
time it had occupied the place in the University now held by Balliol.
Copleston and Whately had been his tutors; and, as he had resided a
good deal after taking his degree, he had seen several generations of
distinguished men in the common room, including Arnold, Blanco White,
Keble, Pusey, and Hampden. Moreover, there was a tradition of University
distinction in his family; his father had been Setonian Prizeman and
Chancellor’s Medallist at Cambridge, and he himself had carried off the
Latin verse prize, and one of the English Odes recited before the United
Sovereigns, when they paid a visit to the Oxford Commemoration in 1814,
with Wellington, Blücher, and a host of the great soldiers of that day.
His anxiety as to George’s start at Oxford manifested itself in many
ways, and particularly as to the want of punctuality, and accuracy in
small matters, which he had already noticed. As a delicate lesson on this
subject, I find him taking advantage of the fact that George’s watch was
in the hands of the maker for repairs, to send him his own chronometer,
adding: “As your sense of trustworthiness in little and great things is
a considerably multiplied multiple of your care for your own private
property (which doubtless will grow to its right proportion when you have
been cheated a little), I have no doubt old Trusty will return to me in
as good order as when he left me. Furthermore, it is possible you may
take a fancy to him when you have learnt the value of an unfailing guide
to punctuality. In which case, if you can tell me at the end of term that
you have, to the best of your belief, made the most of your time, I will
with great pleasure swap with you. As to what is making the best of your
time, you would of course like to have my ideas. Thus, then”—and your
grandfather proceeds to give a number of rules, founded on his own old
Oxford experience, as to reading, and goes on:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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